James Patterson - The 9th Judgment

I turned to look at Conklin and shrugged. Then I reached out and pressed the doorbell.

I heard Conklin shout, “No, Lindsay, NO!” and at that moment there were two loud explosions, a nanosecond apart.

The air cracked open. The ground lurched, and I was knocked off my feet. It was as if I’d been hit by a truck. I fell hard to the ground and was lost in a dense cloud of black smoke. I inhaled the bitter taste of cordite, coughing until my guts spasmed. Men shouted from the street, and there was the loud static of car radios. I heard Conklin calling my name.

I peered through the smoke and saw my partner lying fifteen feet away. I screamed, “Richie,” scrambled up, and ran to him. He was bleeding from a gash on his forehead.

“You’re hit!”

He put a hand to his head and said, “I’m okay. Are you?”

“Fucking perfect.”

I helped Rich to his feet. He put a hand on my shoulder. “Jesus Christ, Linds, I thought he’d killed us.”

Fire was consuming an SUV at the curb. Injured men, bleeding from shrapnel wounds, leaned against their vehicles or slumped by the street. The intensity of the blast marks near the road told me that Gordon had planted a bomb on the sidewalk. Another bomb had gone off at the back of the house-and the home was starting to burn. Were these explosives meant to kill? Or to create chaos?

Where was Gordon now?

I heard the unmistakable grind of a garage door rolling up behind me. I turned to see Gordon at the wheel of a blue Honda station wagon, heading out of the garage and down the driveway toward the street.

Rich pulled his nine, and I knew his wasn’t the only weapon pointed toward that Honda. The house was covered, high and wide-and I was in the direct line of fire.

“Hold your fire,” I shouted toward the street.

I put up my hands and walked toward Gordon’s car. As I stared through the driver’s-side window, I found that I was looking into the face of a terrified child. Gordon was holding his son up to the glass, gun to the baby’s head, using him as a shield.

The window lowered an inch, and Gordon’s too-familiar voice came to me.

“Stink bomb,” he said, “say hello to Sergeant Boxer.”

I TORE MY eyes away from the terrified little boy, whipped around toward the street, and screamed again, “Hold your fire. For God’s sake, he’s got the child. Hold your fire.”

A blurred shape charged from behind a vehicle and continued in a line parallel to the street and toward the driveway. It was Brady. I watched in horror as he threw a spike strip down in front of Gordon’s car, then took a stance at the head of the vehicle and, holding his gun with both hands, leveled it at the windshield.

Brady yelled to Gordon, “Get out of the car. Get out of the car now.”

Gordon leaned on his horn, then called out to me, “Tell that bozo I have a gun to stinky’s head. At the count of three, I shoot. One.”

My voice was hoarse as I shouted, “Brady, put down your gun. He’ll shoot the boy. He’ll shoot! ”

Gordon was a serial killer with a hostage. Procedurally, Brady was in the right and would probably be considered a hero for bringing Gordon down, even if Steven died.

Then Benbow backed me up.

“Brady, lower your weapon.”

Brady hesitated, then did what he was told. I was moved by Benbow’s humanity, even as I prayed he was doing the right thing.

Gordon said, “Lindsay? No guns. No choppers. No one on my tail. Do you copy? Two. ”

I called out Gordon’s demands toward the street, and the chopper flew out of range. I heard the squeal of rubber on asphalt, and I turned back to see Gordon’s car shoot out of the driveway. He wheeled around the spike strip and rammed an SUV, knocking it out of the way, then jumped the curb and gunned the car down the street in the direction of the freeway.

Within seconds, this suburban block had been turned into what looked like a combat zone. The wails of sirens came from all directions: the bomb squad, ambulances, and fire rigs all rushed to the scene.

I made my way to the street, where Benbow was ordering air cover on the Honda.

Conklin put me on the phone with Jacobi, and I told him I was all right, but the truth was, I was dazed and breathless from the explosions, and my vision kept fading in and out.

As Conklin and I helped each other to our car, I kept seeing the red, terrified face of that small boy, screaming wordlessly through the car window.

Dizziness swamped me. I bent over and threw up in the grass.

I WOKE UP in the emergency room, lying in a railed bed inside a curtained-off stall. Joe got up from the chair next to me and put his hands on my shoulders.

“Hello, sweetie. Are you all right? Are you okay?”

“Never better.”

Joe laughed and kissed me.

I squeezed his hand. “How long was I out?”

“Two hours. You needed the sleep.” Joe sat back down, keeping my hand in his.

“How’s Conklin? How’s Brady?”

“Conklin’s got a line of stitches across his forehead. The scar’s going to look good on him. Brady’s a hundred percent okay but pissed off. Says he could’ve taken Gordon out.”

“Or he could’ve gotten me, himself, Conklin, and that baby all killed.”

“You did good, Linds. No one died. Jacobi’s in the waiting room. He hugged me.”

“He did, huh?”

“Bear hug.” Joe grinned and I laughed. I’m not sure that Jacobi has ever hugged me.

“Any news on Gordon?”

“By the time the air cover got up, his Honda was one of a million blue wagons just like it. They lost him.”

“And the boy?”

Joe shrugged. I felt sick all over again. All that highly trained manpower, and Gordon had made fools of us all. “He’s going to use Steven as a hostage until he doesn’t need him anymore.”

“I think he’s ditched the kid by now, honey. Once he got out of there, a screaming toddler could only get in his way.”

“He killed him, you mean?”

Joe shrugged. “Let’s say he just dropped him off somewhere.” Joe turned his eyes down.

A nurse came in and said the doctor would be back in a minute. “Can I get you anything, sweetheart? Juice?”

“No, thanks. I’m okay.”

When she’d gone, Joe said, “The whole deal was a diversion. The guy knows how to make a bomb.”

“Did I set off the charge?”

“The doorbell. When you pressed the button, signals went to two blasting caps, one in a cooler at the curb. The other blew up the back of the house-what used to be a house.”

“He asked for me, Joe. He demanded that I come to the door. He planned for me to detonate that bomb. Why me? Payback because he didn’t get the money?”

“I think so. He’s putting your face on his power struggle with the city-”

The doctor came in, and Joe stepped outside. Dr. Dweck asked me to follow his finger with my eyes. He hammered my knees and made me flex my wings. He told me that I had a gorgeous palm-sized contusion on my shoulder and that the cuts on my hands would heal just fine.

He listened to my breathing and my heart, both of which sped up as I thought about how Peter Gordon could be anywhere by now, with or without that little boy-and no one knew where in the hell he was.

I LEANED BACK in the passenger seat as Joe drove us home. Jacobi had told me to take a few days off and to call in on Monday to see if he was letting me work next week.

Joe said, “You’re taking the sleeping cure, you hear me, Blondie? Once you’re home, you’re under house arrest.”

“Okay.”