Harlan Coben - Hold Tight

“Well, we better try.”

“Why, what’s up?”

“The guy who let Adam in,” Anthony said. “He was pulling a gun.”

CARSON kept the gun hidden behind his back.

“Is my father here?” Adam asked.

“He’s in Rosemary’s office.”

Adam started past him. There was a sudden commotion from down the hall.

“Adam?”

The voice belonged to Mike Baye.

“Dad?”

Baye turned the corner right as Adam was arriving. Father and son met up near the corridor and embraced.

Aw, Carson thought, isn’t that sweet.

Carson gripped the gun and raised it in front of him.

He did not call out. He did not warn them. There was no reason to. He had no choice here. There was no time to negotiate or make requests. He needed to end this.

He needed to kill them.

Rosemary shouted, “Carson, don’t!”

But there was no way he was listening to that bitch. Carson aimed the gun toward Adam, got him in his sights, and prepared to fire.

EVEN as Mike hugged his son-even as he felt the wonderful substance of his boy and nearly collapsed in relief that he was okay- Mike saw it out of the corner of his eye.

Carson had a gun.

There weren’t seconds to consider his next move. There was no conscious thought in what he did next-just a primitive, base response. He saw Carson aiming the gun at Adam and he reacted.

Mike pushed his son.

He pushed him very hard. Adam’s feet actually left the ground. He flew through the air, his eyes widening in surprise. The gun exploded, the bullet shattering the glass behind him, right where Adam had been standing less than a second earlier. Mike felt the shards rain down on him.

But the push had not only surprised Adam-it had surprised Carson. He had clearly figured that they would either not see him or react as most people do when faced with a gun-freeze or put their hands up.

Carson recovered quickly. He was already swinging his gun to the right, toward where Adam had landed. But that was why the push had been so hard. Even in that reactionary state, there had been a method to Mike’s madness. He needed not only to get his son out of the way of the incoming bullet, but he needed to give him distance. And he got it.

Adam landed down the corridor, behind a wall.

Carson aimed but he had no angle to shoot Adam. That left him with one other alternative-shooting the father first.

Mike felt a strange sense of peace then. He knew what had to be done here. There was no choice. He needed to protect his son. As Carson began to swing the gun back in the father’s direction, Mike knew what that meant.

He would need to make a sacrifice.

He didn’t think this out. It just was. A father saves his son. That was the way it should be. Carson was going to be able to shoot one of them. There seemed no way around that. So Mike did the only thing he could.

He made sure that it was him.

Working on instinct, Mike charged Carson.

He flashed back to hockey games, to going for the puck, and realized that even if Carson shot him, he might still have enough. He might still have enough to reach Carson and stop him from doing more harm.

He would save his son.

But as he got closer, Mike realized that the heart was one thing, reality another. The distance was too great. Carson already had the gun raised. Mike wouldn’t be able to make it before taking at least one bullet, maybe two. There was very little chance of survival or even doing much good.

Still there was no choice. So Mike closed his eyes and lowered his head and churned his legs.

THEY were still a good fifteen feet away, but if Carson let him get just a little closer, he couldn’t miss.

He lowered his aim a little, pointed the gun at Mike’s head and watched the target grow bigger and bigger.

ANTHONY pushed his shoulder against the door, but it wouldn’t budge.

Mo said, “All those complicated calculations-and that’s it?”

“What are you mumbling about?”

“Eight-one-one-five.”

“Come again?”

There was no time to explain. Mo pressed 8115 into the alarm pad. The red light turned green, signaling that the door was now unlocked.

Anthony pulled open the door and both men dived inside.

CARSON had him in his sights now.

The gun was aimed at the top of Mike’s charging head. Carson was surprised by how calm he felt. He thought that he might panic, but his hand was steady. Firing the first time had felt good. This would feel even better. He was in the zone now. He wouldn’t miss. No way.

Carson started to pull the trigger.

And then the gun was gone.

A giant hand came from behind him and snatched the gun away. Just like that. One second it was there, the next gone. Carson turned and saw the big black bouncer from down the street. The bouncer was holding the gun and smiling.

But there was no time to even register much surprise. Something powerful-another guy-hit Carson low and hard in the back. Carson felt pain in his entire body. He cried out and jerked forward where he ran into Mike Baye’s shoulder coming in the other direction. Car- son’s body nearly snapped in half from the impact. He landed as if someone had dropped him from a great height. His wind was gone. His ribs felt like they’d caved in.

Standing over him, Mike said, “It’s over.” Then turning back to where Rosemary now stood, he added, “No deals.”

NASH kept his hold on either side of the girls’ necks.

His grip was light, but these were pressure-point-sensitive areas. He could see Yasmin, the one who had started all the trouble by being rude in Joe’s class, grimacing. The other girl-the daughter of the lady who had stumbled in on all this-quaked like a leaf.

The woman said, “Let them go.”

Nash shook his head. He felt giddy now. The crazy was running through him like a live wire. Every neuron had been switched into high gear. One of the girls started crying. He knew that should have an effect on him, that as a human being their tears should move him in some way.

But they just heightened the sensation.

Is it still crazy when you know it’s crazy?

“Please,” the woman said. “They’re just children.”

She stopped talking then. So maybe she saw it. Her words were not reaching him. Worse, they seemed to give him pleasure. He admired the woman. He wondered again if she was always this way, brave and feisty, or had she turned into the mother bear protecting her cub?

He would have to kill the mother first.

She would be the most trouble. He was sure of it. There was no way she would stand idly by while he hurt the girls.

But then a new thought aroused him. If this was going to be it, if this was going to be his final stand, would there be any greater high than making the parents watch?

Oh, he knew that was sick. But once the thought was voiced in his head, Nash couldn’t let it go. You can’t help who you are. Nash had met a few pedophiles in prison and they always tried so hard to convince themselves that what they did was not depraved. They talked about history and ancient civilizations and earlier eras where girls were married when they were twelve and all the while Nash wondered why they bothered. It was simpler. This was how you’re hardwired. You have an itch. You have a need to do what others find reprehensible.

This was how God made you. So who was really to blame?

All those pious freaks should understand that if you really thought about it, you were criticizing God’s work when you condemned such men. Oh, sure they would counter about temptation, but this was more than that. They knew that too. Because everybody has some itch. It isn’t discipline that keeps it in check. It is circumstances. That was what Pietra didn’t understand about the soldiers. The circumstances didn’t force them to relish in the brutality.