Michael Connelly - Chasing the Dime

He slowly stood up, his ears primed for the sound of any close movement. There was only silence and then a metallic snapping sound from the other side of the room. Pierce identified it as the sound of a bullet clip being ejected from a gun. He did not have a lot of experience with guns but the sound seemed to fit with what he was imagining in his head: Wentz reloading or checking the number of bullets he had left in his clip.

"Hey, Bright Boy," Wentz called out then, his voice splitting the darkness like lightning.

"It's just you and me now. Better get ready because I'm coming for you. And I'm gonna do more than make you put the lights back on."

Wentz cackled loudly in the darkness.

Pierce slowly turned the handle on the imaging lab door and opened it without a sound.

He stepped in and closed the door. He worked from memory. He took two steps toward the back of the room and then three to his right. He put his hand out and in another step touched the wall. With fingers spread wide on each hand he swept the wall -his hands making figure eight motions -until his left hand hit the hook on which hung the heat resonance goggles he had used during the presentation to Goddard that morning.

Pierce turned on the goggles, pulled the top piece over his head and adjusted the eyepieces. The room came up blue-black except for the yellow and red glow of the electron microscope's computer terminal and monitor. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the gun. He looked down at it. It too showed blue in the vision field. He put a red finger through the guard and pulled it in close to the trigger.

As he quietly pulled the lab door open Pierce saw a variety of colors in the central lab. To his left he saw the large body of Six-Eight sprawled near the mantrap door. His torso was a collage of reds and yellows tapering in his extremities to blue. He was dead and turning cold.

There was a bright red and yellow image of a man huddled against the wall to the right of the main computer station. Pierce raised the gun and aimed but then stopped himself when he remembered Rudolpho Gonsalves. The huddled man was the security guard Wentz had used to gain entrance to the lab.

He swept right and saw two more still figures, one slumped over the probe station and turning blue in the extremities. Cody Zeller. The other body was on the floor. It was red and yellow in the vision field. Renner. Alive. It looked like he had turtled backward into the kneehole of a desk. Pierce noted a high-heat demarcation on the detective's left shoulder. It was a drip pattern. The purple was warm blood leaking from a wound.

He swept left and then right. There were no other readings, save for yellow reactions off the screens of the monitors in the room and the overhead lights.

Wentz was gone.

But that was impossible. Pierce realized that Wentz must have moved into one of the side labs. Perhaps looking for a window or some sort of illumination or a place from which he could attack in ambush.

He took one step through the doorway and then suddenly hands were upon him, grabbing his throat. He was slammed backward into the wall and held there.

The vision field filled with the blaring red forehead and otherworldly eyes of Billy Wentz. The warm barrel of a gun was pressed harshly into the softness under Pierce's chin.

"Okay, Bright Boy, this is it."

Pierce closed his eyes and prepared for the bullet the best he could.

But it didn't come.

"Turn the fucking lights on and open the door."

Pierce didn't move. He realized Wentz needed his help before he could kill him. In that moment he also realized that Wentz probably wasn't expecting that he would have a gun in his hand.

The hand that gripped his shirt and throat shook him violently.

"The lights, I said."

"Okay, okay. Lights."

As he said the words he brought the gun up to Wentz's temple and pulled the trigger twice. There was no other way, no other choice. The blasts were almost simultaneous and came instantaneously to the lights in the lab suite coming on. The vision field went black and Pierce reached his other hand up and shoved the goggles off. They fell to the ground ahead of Wentz, who somehow maintained his balance for a few seconds, despite his left eye and temple having been torn away by the bullets Pierce had fired. Wentz still held the gun pointed up but it was no longer under Pierce's chin. Pierce reached out and pushed the gun back, until its aim was no longer a danger. The push also sent Wentz on his way.

He fell backwards onto the floor and lay still, dead.

Pierce looked down at him for ten seconds before taking his first breath. He then collected himself and looked around. Gonsalves was getting up slowly, using the far wall to hold himself steady.

"Rudolpho, okay?"

"Yes, sir."

Pierce swung his view to the desk beneath which Renner had crawled. He could see the cop's eyes, open and alert. He was breathing heavily, the left shoulder and chest of his shirt soaked in blood.

"Rudolpho, get upstairs to a phone. Call paramedics and tell them we have a cop down.

Gunshot wound."

"Yes, sir."

"Then call the police and tell them the same thing. Then call Clyde Vernon and get him in here."

The guard hustled to the mantrap door. He had to lean over Six-Eight's body to reach the combo lock. He then had to step widely over the big man's body to go through the door.

Pierce saw a bullet hole in the center of the monster's throat. Renner had hit him squarely and he had gone down right in his tracks. Pierce realized he had never heard the big man speak a single word.

He moved to Renner and helped the injured detective crawl out from beneath the desk.

His breathing was raspy but Pierce saw no blood on his lips. This meant his lungs were likely still intact.

"Where are you hit?"

"Shoulder."

He groaned with the movement.

"Don't move. Just wait. Help is coming."

"Hit my shooting arm. And I'm useless at distance with a gun in my right hand. I figured the best I could do was hide."

He pulled himself into a sitting position and leaned back against the desk. He gestured with his right hand toward Cody Zeller, handcuffed and slumped forward over the probe table.

"That's not going to look too good."

Pierce studied his former friend's body for a long moment. He then broke away and looked back at Renner.

"Don't worry. Ballistics will show it came from Wentz."

"Hope so. Help me up. I want to walk."

"No, man, you shouldn't. You're hurt."

"Help me up."

Pierce did as he was instructed. As he lifted Renner by the right arm he could tell the smell of carbon had permeated the man's clothes.

"What are you smiling at?" Renner asked.

"I think our plan ruined your clothes, even before the bullet. I didn't think you'd be stuck in there with the furnace so long."

"I'm not worried about it. Zeller was right, though. It does give you a headache."

"I know."

Renner pushed him away with his right hand and then walked by himself over to where Wentz's body was lying. He looked down silently for a long moment.

"Doesn't look so tough right now, does he?"

"No," Pierce said.

"You did good, Pierce. Real good. Nice trick with the lights."

"I'll have to thank my partner, Charlie. The lights were his idea."

Pierce silently promised never to complain about the gadgetry again. It reminded him of how he had held things back from Charlie, how he had been suspicious. He knew he would have to make up for it in some way.

"Speaking of partners, mine's going to shit himself when he finds out what he missed,"

Renner said. "And I guess I'll be headed to the shitter myself for doing this on my own."

He sat down on the edge of one of the desks and looked glumly at the bodies. Pierce realized that the detective had possibly jeopardized his career.