Chris Mooney - The Missing

It's over, Danny. You can't escape.

'No.'

They're going to lock you up on death row, in a place darker than the cellar.

'Shut up.'

They'll probably extradite you to a place where they have the death penalty. They'll strap you down to a table and give you the needle and the last voice you'll ever hear before you suffocate to death will be mine, Danny. You're going to die alone, just like I did.

He wouldn't let them take him in. He wasn't going to die alone in some goddamn cage. He had to get to his car or the surveillance van. He knew a spot where he could dump it, run and then hide out for awhile until he could figure out a plan to disappear again.

The driver stepped out of the van. Banville had drawn his sidearm.

Boyle threaded four Super Magnum shells into the shotgun. He dumped the rest of the shells in his pocket and headed for the stairs.

Darby watched the front of the house through the periscope.

On the way here, she had imagined finding a rundown house, some brooding structure with a sunken-in porch and broken windows. The house she was looking at resembled the ones she saw in upscale Weston, Massachusetts – a sprawling antique Colonial of massive rooms full of expensive furniture and the latest in electronic trinkets. Landscape lights lit up a nice brick walkway, the shrubs surrounding it neatly manicured.

An Aston Martin Lagonda, the front hood and sides marred with pockets of rust, was parked in the garage. Banville had radioed the news over her earpiece. Darby was rigged with the same surveillance kit used by the Secret Service – an earpiece and lapel mike attached to a small black box clipped to her belt.

Darby wanted to call for backup, but Banville didn't want to wait. Boxes were stacked next to the car; Boyle was about to move. Mobilizing the New Hampshire SWAT unit would take too long, and he had to consider the possibility that Carol and the other women might be somewhere in the house, alive. They needed to take Boyle down now.

Someone was home. A single light was on downstairs, coming from the foyer, and Darby was sure she had spotted movement in the upstairs bedroom before the light turned off.

Glen Washington, the detective dressed in the brown coat and pants, rang the doorbell.

A phone was ringing. Not one of the wall phones. It was Coop's cell. She answered it.

'We've found Traveler,' Evan Manning said. 'He was living in New Hampshire. Hostage Rescue had to take him down. That's all I can tell you.'

'You're sure it's him?'

'I'm positive. The man HRT took down is the man who attacked me at the garage. He's got the same tattoo on his forearm as John Smith. Do you remember what I told you about the mailer? The one with Carol Cranmore's clothes?'

Darby went back to watching the house. 'You said they didn't make those mailers anymore. The company went bankrupt.'

'I'm looking at a whole shelf-full of those mailers right now. They're a match. This person also has an old IBM electric typewriter, a computer, a photo printer and paper. I won't know for sure about the paper and the printer until I get them back to the lab. We also found several different types of listening devices.'

'Where's Carol?'

Washington rang the doorbell again.

'We're searching for her right now,' Evan said. 'I'm sorry about what happened earlier. I didn't want it to go down that way, but it wasn't my decision.'

The door to the front house opened.

Washington's voice came over her earpiece: 'Good evening, sir. I'm with the telephone -'

A shotgun blast blew him off the front steps.

Darby dropped the phone and watched as Banville brought up his handgun and fired two shots inside the doorway – BOOM and the shotgun blast splintered apart the door frame, chunks of wood raining down on Banville's back.

Darby scooped the cell phone from the floor. Evan was saying 'Darby? What's going on? You there?' She hung up and dialed 911 to request medical assistance and backup.

Looking back through the periscope, she caught a fast glimpse of Banville heading inside the front door. Washington lay on his back, his hand scrabbling at his chest.

Darby opened the van's back doors and ran to the driver's side door, legs rubbery as she got behind the wheel, relieved to find the keys dangling in the ignition. She started the van and hit the gas hard, bouncing in her seat as she drove across the front lawn – BOOM over the earpiece. Banville fired back in a tight pattern, two shots each.

Darby stopped the van between Washington and the front door of the house and, using the van as a shield, got out and ran for the downed officer.

The fabric of his jacket was torn open from the shotgun blast. No blood. Darby unzipped his jacket. Through the torn fabric she saw body armor with a trauma plate.

Washington's eyes, wild and glassy, looked up at her, his throat working, making wet, gurgling sounds.

Darby gripped him under the armpits. 'Hold on, you're going to be fine,' she said, repeating the words over and over as she dragged him across the lawn, the fierce wind blowing leaves everywhere.

Over the earpiece, new sounds between the gunfire: shouting and glass shattering.

Darby managed to hoist the upper half of the man's torso into the back of the van. Jumping back outside, she lifted the man's legs and pushed him back across the carpet.

Kneeling beside him, Darby removed the SIG Sauer pistol from his shoulder holster. She ripped open his shirt, buttons popping off, and undid the Velcro straps from the vest to relieve the pressure.

Glass breaking – not coming from the earpiece but from outside.

SIG gripped in her hand, she slammed the van doors shut.

Boyle was standing on the garage roof with a shotgun.

Darby dove to the ground – BOOM, the blast hit the back doors. Rolling to her side, she scrambled to her feet and ran to the driver's side door – BOOM, the blast ricocheting off the van's bulletproof plating.

Ears ringing, she brought the gun up over the front hood and aimed at the roof -

Boyle jumped onto the driveway.

He's going for the car, she thought and fired two shots.

Too wide. Both shots hit the side of the garage. Boyle stumbled and fired again – inside the garage. Banville must be in there.

Boyle turned and headed into the woods.

Darby followed, catching a glimpse of Banville inside the garage. She ran into the woods, chasing the sound of branches snapping ahead of her, running hard and fast like she did in her nightmares, branches and leaves whisking past her face and arms and hands.

A shotgun blast hit a tree close by. Her legs froze and she tripped and fell, tumbling hard against the ground full of rocks and downed branches. Darby got back up and heard Boyle running her way, coming closer, coming fast.

More footsteps crashing through the woods behind her – Banville. No sounds in front of her.

Where was Boyle?

Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and she could see the ground in front of her, how it dipped and fell and leveled off. Darby headed up a hill, pushing her way through a thick brush of trees, the handgun big and awkward inside her clenched fist.

The ground leveled off. Left or right, make a decision, hurry.

She turned left and came face-to-face with Daniel Boyle.

Darby brought the handgun up. Boyle swung the butt of the shotgun hard against the side of her head. Bright sparks of pain danced in front of her eyes as she fell backward and hit the ground. Boyle stepped on her hand, crushing her fingers against the pistol, and pressed the hot muzzle of the shotgun against her throat.

BOOM and Boyle staggered backward against a tree. Banville came around and shot Boyle in the chest and still the shotgun came up and Banville shot him again and again, Boyle's face collapsing, deflating like a balloon as he slid down the tree in a wet, red trail.