J. Konrath - Fuzzy Navel

Swanson takes it. Of course Pessolano has night-vision scopes. If everyone in the house turned into vampires, Swanson would bet that Pessolano also came equipped with stakes and garlic. “Did you give one of these to Munchel?”

“I went to his spot. He wasn’t there.”

Swanson frowns. “Munchel is gone?”

“Said he wasn’t there, didn’t I?”

“I heard shots coming from his direction a minute ago.”

“That was me. I put a few into that refrigerator. That’s a seriously heavy-duty appliance. I may pick one up for myself.”

Swanson feels like a kite in a high wind, his string unraveled to the end and ready to break.

“Maybe we should go too,” Swanson says.

Pessolano hawks up a big one, spits it in the grass where Swanson had been lying.

“I got the cop,” Pessolano says. “Head shot.”

Another cop dead. Swanson feels like cringing, but doesn’t. Pessolano is wearing those stupid yellow sunglasses, and Swanson doesn’t know if he can see his expression in the dark. So he forces himself to say, “Good work. Then we can get out of here. I bet Munchel got bored and went back to the bar.”

“We’re staying,” Pessolano says.

“Why? The cop is dead.”

“There are witnesses.”

“How can there be witnesses? They can’t see us. We’re two hundred yards away.”

“Munchel said the cop had an infrared scope.”

“Munchel’s gone!” Swanson yells. “How do we know he was telling the truth?”

“Vehicle approaching,” Pessolano says.

They both drop to their bellies. A dark sedan rolls into the cop’s driveway and parks behind the other three cars.

Pessolano begins unfolding his bipod, setting his rifle up.

“What are you doing?” Swanson hisses.

Pessolano pulls back the bolt and loads a round. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

“We don’t even know who it is!”

“Who cares?”

Swanson stares, overcome with impotence, as Pessolano shoots out a tire on the sedan. The car shifts into reverse, but Pessolano puts two quick shots into the engine, forcing a stall. The driver parks the car, kills the headlights. Swanson uses the night-vision scope, sees a portly man get out on the passenger side, opposite the rifle fire. The man has a badge hanging around his neck.

Another police officer.

“It’s a cop,” Swanson hisses. “He might have called for backup.”

Pessolano slaps another magazine into his Alpine.

“He didn’t. I’ve been watching.”

“But he still can. I’m sure he has a radio in the car.”

Pessolano squeezes off another shot, and the sedan’s window shatters.

“Not anymore,” Pessolano says.

Swanson looks behind him, in the direction of their truck. He can still run for it. He’s only killed the one pervert. He’s still one of the good guys.

“I don’t have a shot on the fatty,” Pessolano says. “I’m changing position. Cover me.”

Swanson continues to stare off into the darkness, away from the mayhem going on around him.

Pessolano’s voice is soft, menacing. “During Desert Storm, we executed deserters.”

Swanson turns back, locks eyes with Pessolano. Though Swanson knows diddly-squat about the military, he’s pretty sure that they don’t kill the people who run away. They get court-martialed, or arrested, or something less serious. He wonders, not for the first time, if Pessolano has been lying about his war record. Or if the man has even served at all.

“Are you threatening me?” Swanson asks.

“We started this war,” Pessolano says. “We have to end it.”

Jen leaps into Swanson’s mind. His sweet, innocent, damaged wife. She isn’t aware of Swanson’s plan, has no clue he just killed the man who attacked her. It’s supposed to be a surprise for her birthday. He’s pictured the scene in his mind a thousand times: He shows her the newspaper, she sees that it’s finally over, that she can finally go back to the way she used to be, then he admits that he’s the one who pulled the trigger, and she embraces him, calls him her hero, and everything goes back to the way it used to be.

Will Jen still think he’s a hero if he kills a bunch of cops? Will she understand that the only way to see this thing through is if some innocent people die?

No. Jen will never understand that. She will never forgive him.

“Are you going to cover me or not?” Pessolano asks.

Swanson makes his decision. A decision Jen can never know.

“I’ll cover you,” he tells Pessolano. “Just show me how to change scopes.”

SQUATTING IS NOT A POSITION that Sergeant Herb Benedict enjoys, and he enjoys being shot at even less. He doesn’t even have a gun to return fire, thanks to Internal Affairs. Not that it would do much good. The sniper is at least two hundred yards away, well out of range for a handgun. Herb can’t even pinpoint his location. The darkness, and the woods, make him invisible.

Though he realizes how dire this situation is, years of experience prevent Herb from panicking. Though his heart rate is up – more from surprise than fear – he keeps a clear head and is able to focus on survival.

He’s hiding behind the front wheel, on the passenger side, opposite of the shooter. Hubcaps and axles offer more protection than aluminum and upholstery, but he doesn’t know how much more. He needs to find better cover.

Herb tugs out his cell, can’t get a signal. He plays the hold up the phone and wave it around game without success, then tucks it back into his jacket pocket and fingers the plastic zipper bag full of high-fiber sugar-free weight loss shake – his allotted mid-afternoon snack and what he should have consumed earlier instead of all those power bars. He briefly considers cracking it open – he’s suddenly very thirsty – but he holds off. Being a career cop, Herb has contemplated his own death many times. He’s watched his own funeral in his mind’s eye, and doesn’t want the mourners’ chatter to revolve around: “Did you hear he died with a diet drink in his hand?”

Plus, the sugar-free weight loss shake tastes a lot like mud, with grit in it. His wife mixes one for him every morning, adding extra fiber per the doctor’s orders.

If she added something better, like grated cheese, then he’d drink the damn things.

Herb squints. There’s no light anywhere around. Jack’s house is roughly forty feet away, completely dark. Though hefty, and getting up there in years, Herb can move fast when he has to. But if the door happens to be locked, he’ll be stuck out in the open. And he knows he isn’t a terribly difficult target to hit.

He shifts his attention to Jack’s large bay window. If he got up enough speed, perhaps he could crash through it, though the possibility of being cut to hamburger doesn’t please Herb, even though he really likes hamburger. Besides, it’s likely Jack is just as pinned down inside as he is outside.

Herb is operating under the assumption that his partner is still alive, still okay. Why else would a sniper still be in the area?

He considers his options. The car is trashed, as is the radio. Jack’s car is ahead of his in the driveway, along with two others – a Corvette and a sedan – but he doesn’t have keys for them. There are no neighbors in sight, though Herb passed a house maybe a quarter mile up the road. Plus, there’s always the run away screaming possibility.

Herb guesses the sniper has night vision, and also guesses, from the previous angle of fire, that he will change positions to get a better shot. There’s also a good possibility that more than one sniper is on the premises. They could have followed Jack home from the Ravenswood crime scene. They may be lining up their shots right now, as he squats here, knees aching, wondering what to do next.