John Sandford - The Night Crew

'Goddamn you, Jake,' she hissed.

'What?'

'Keep your mouth shut. No matter what you hear, keep your mouth shut, and stay here. Don't move. Don't come to help me. Okay? Number two: You shoot the next thing that comes through the bathroom door. If I decide to come through, I'll tell you. Otherwise, just shoot it down.'

'What're you going to do?'

'I'm gonna kill this sonofabitch.'

'How?'

'I don't know,' she said, her voice deadly. 'But I'm going to.'

She moved out of the bathroom into the office, groping her way in the dark. She could hear the car engine running in the backgroundand then suddenly, it stopped.

And the voice: 'I killed the guy, didn't I?'

'Get the fuck away from here,' Anna screamed. 'Get away from me.'

He wasn't coming inhe was staying outside, and the next time he spoke, his voice came through a window in the back.

'I don't see anybody. I don't see anyone.' Then from another window, maybe the bathroom window: 'Where is everybody? Everybody else dead?'

Anna pushed further into the office room, found shelter behind a desk. Couldn't see much: when it came to it, she thought, it might be whoever saw the other person first. Fifty-fifty.

But he knewthe place, and she didn't.

And now he was around in front. 'Hey Anna, come on out.'

'Get away from here,' she screamed. 'The cops are coming.'

'You were trying to run away from me, weren't you? You went down and got the car and you were all gonna run out of here, but something happened. And I know what it was. I hit the guy. I killed him. He's dead, isn't he? This is a thirty-ought-six, makes a big hole.'

His voice was working around to the side, now coming through a shot-out window behind her.

She needed a set: a movie set. And a scene.

'I'm coming in, Anna. I'm coming in. Bet you can't guess where.'

She moved to a corner of the room, pulled her knees up to her chin. She called softly, 'Jake, can you hear me? Jake, can you hear me? Are you there?'

'He's not there,' the voice said. 'Jake's dead. He's a dead motherfucker, Anna.'

'What do you want from me? What do you want? Tell me,' she screamed.

'All I wanted was the goddamn time of day, but you couldn't even give me the time of day. You'd fuck all those other people, but you wouldn't even talk to me. And you were like, you were perfect. You and me would've been perfect, but you wouldn't even talk.'

'I didn't even know you,' Anna shouted.

His voice came from a different window, pitched lower. 'I wanted to talk at the raid: you saw me at the raid, I was leading the raid, but you wouldn't even talk to me then.'

Pause: then the voice from another window.

'You saw me lead it, you wouldn't even talk to the leader. I set the whole fucking thing upafter that night at the club when I first saw you, so you could judge me in action, and you wouldn't even talk. You just made fun of me with that pig. Which is dead, by the way. I cut that pig's throat, God, it bled, it bled about a gallon.'

He was circling the house, speaking from one window, then the next, then skipping a window.

From the back, now: 'I was really disappointed,' he said. 'And then at that golf place? When I'd set everything up, just you and me? And you did it again, you humiliated meyou humiliated me. What made you think you could get away with that? And now you're going to pay, Anna. Just like that Pig.'

Anna whispered harshly, 'Jake, you gotta help me. Jake, I lost my glasses. Jake, I can't see. where's the gun? Jake?'

She heard him coming. She took her glasses off and put them in her pocket, and the world around her went soft. She pulled her knees up tight to her face, hunched her shoulders, pulled herself further back into the darkest corner of the room.

Heard his footfalls.

'Go away,' she cried. 'Just go away. haven't you done enough?'

'No.'

Now he was inside. Close. But she still couldn't see him. She tried to pull back even further, pull her knees higher. 'Go away,' she moaned, 'Please, just let me alone.'

'Look at me, Anna. I've got a gun.'

'I can't see,' she cried, 'I can't see anything, my glasses.'

A brilliant light cut across her face, just for an instant, and was gone.

'Aw. Little girl can't see?'

'Go away.'

He was coming in now, like a rat to a cheese. She was holding her breath, waiting for a blow, the wait unbearable.

'Here I am, Anna.' He was right there, on his hands and knees, only six feet away. She could see his face in a fuzzy way, the blond hair, the square chin, the eyes a little too close together.

He had the pistol in one hand, the muzzle pointing roughly toward her face. The butt of the rifle was on the floor, and he was leaning on it. 'We're gonna have some fun. We could have had some fun for a long time, if you'd come away from your bodyguard in that parking lot, but you had to do this.'

The tip of the barrel touched one cheek, which seemed to be turning black.

'Do what?' she whimpered.

'Fuckin' bite me,' he said. He moved closer, his hand still at the cheek. 'So it's payback time, Anna. Steve is gonna have lots of fun.'

Close enough: 'Have fun with this,' Anna said. And the way she said it startled him. She could see well enough to identify the flinch, the sudden clutching fear, and then she opened her knees.

The pistol was there, of course, between her thighs, and pointing at the middle of his throat.

He had just enough time to say, 'Don't.'

Anna shot him.

And sat for three full seconds in dazed, blinded silence, Steve Judge slumped in front of her. He hadn't jerked back, or been thrown back: he'd simply gone straight down. She fumbled her glasses out of her pocket, pushed them back on her nose, tried to stand up.

'Jake?' she called weakly.

'Anna?' He was close. She took the flash from her pocket and shined it back toward the bathroom. Harper was propped in the doorway, the rifle in his hand, a long trail of blood behind him, his face as pale as parchment.

'I killed him,' Anna said.

At that moment, Judge stood up.

His eyes were crazy and half of his neck seemed to be missing. But he had one hand clasped to the wound and he pushed up and pivoted toward her, his eyes crazy, his mouth open, the white teeth straining at her.

Anna stepped back, thrust the pistol out, and fired into his chest from six inches: one, two, three, and Judge went down again. Harper, behind her, was shouting, 'No more, Anna,' but Anna stepped over Judge and fired two more shots into his head.

This time he didn't move.

'Asshole,' Anna snarled. She was still pulling the trigger, the clicks echoing in the suddenly silent shambles.

Anna carried Pam to Harper's car, brushed glass fragments off the seat and put her down. Harper was too heavy: he crawled, dazed, to the porch, and Anna turned the half-wrecked vehicle around until she could get him in the passenger side and wedge the door closed. Something was wrong with the door, but it seemed to hold.

Her scalp was bleeding badly; every time she put her right hand to her ear, it came away with a palm full of blood. She pointed the car down the drive, and took it out as easily as she could.

They'd come in and out the same way each time, and that was the way she knew: there might have been a faster way to get an ambulance out to them, but she didn't have time to look.

She tried the phone after five minutes. No connection. She tried again at seven or eight minutes, without luck. At ten minutes, she got 911.

'My God, everybody's shot,' she babbled as she guided the car to the side of the road. She knew about where she was, gave enough direction that an ambulance could find them.

She called Wyatt, told him.

He was still shouting questions when she dropped the phone.