Джеймс Паттерсон - Cross the Line

They got Lincoln inside, and O’Donnell was almost there when Le or one of his men opened up with an automatic weapon. Bullets blew out the windows of the Explorer and pinged and cracked off the cement stairs while Sampson, Bree, and I emptied our weapons at the house.

O’Donnell sprinted and dove inside. Fuller slammed shut the heavy oak door as bullets strafed the side of the house and then stopped.

“Fuck!” O’Donnell screamed, crawling and clutching at his shoe. “He shot me through the foot!”

“Get this man medical attention!” Bree yelled back into the house.

Two EMTs came running from the kitchen.

While they started to work, I reloaded. Over our headsets, a voice said, “Cap, this is Maxwell.”

“Go, Maxwell,” Fuller said.

“I’ve got the shooter. Full chest exposed.”

“Identity?”

“Unclear, but subject is armed with an AK.”

“Take him,” Fuller said without a moment’s hesitation.

“What? Wait!” Bree said.

There was a rifle crack overhead, followed by a death scream across the street.

“Slow down, Captain!” I shouted.

“You’re not giving them any options!” Bree said.

“Options?” Fuller looked at us like we were addled. “That shooter, Le or not, just tried to kill four — count them, four — of my fellow officers. In my mind, that makes that person a potential cop killer with active intent, so I ordered him shot. End of story.”

Bree started to argue but her phone buzzed. Angry, she looked at the screen, rocked her head back, and said, “Oh Jesus.”

“What?”

“It’s Michele Bui. She says we just shot and killed one of the female hostages.”

Fuller didn’t hear. He was barking orders into his radio while EMTs rolled a morphine-happy Detective O’Donnell through the kitchen toward the back door. The siren of the ambulance bearing Lincoln was already wailing away.

“Captain!” I shouted at Fuller.

The SWAT commander put his radio on his shoulder, peered at me angrily. “Detective Cross, stand down.”

“I won’t stand down, Captain,” I said.

“Nor will I,” Bree said. “One of your men upstairs, Officer Maxwell, just shot an innocent hostage on your orders.”

Fuller lost color. “No.”

“Le’s girlfriend, who is in there, says yes.”

The captain pulled himself together and clicked his radio. “Maxwell?”

“Right here, Cap.”

“How did you identify the shooter?”

“White T-shirt and weapon.”

“No head?”

“Negative.”

“How long did you have the shooter in your scope?”

“From right before he started shooting at O’Donnell,” Maxwell replied. “When he stopped, he ducked out of sight for maybe three seconds and then returned, like he’d reloaded.”

“That was not a reload,” Bree said into her radio. “Officer Maxwell, you shot a hostage.”

There was a long, terrible silence before Maxwell said, “Cap?”

“Maxwell?”

“Permission to stand down, sir.”

Fuller glared at Bree, said, “Permission denied. I need you up there.”

Bree said, “Captain, for the time being, you are going to stand down and let me try to save Officer Parks and avoid more bloodshed. Or do I call Chief Michaels to have you relieved of command?”

Fuller blinked slowly at Bree, said, “I guess it’s your show, Chief.”

“No, it’s Dr. Cross’s show,” she said, looking at me. “I’ve got Le’s phone number. Try to talk to him.”

I took a moment to mentally adjust, to become less a police detective and more a criminal psychologist. Then I entered the phone number and hit Send.

The phone rang three times before Le answered in a jittery, cocaine-fueled voice. “Who the hell’s this?”

“The only chance you have of not dying today, Mr. Le,” I said. “My name is Alex Cross.”

Le’s breathing was rapid and shallow in my ear.

“Do you understand, Mr. Le?” I asked. “There are SWAT officers preparing to storm in and kill you. I’m offering you a way out.”

After a long, long pause, he said, “How’s that?”

“Start by not making it worse for yourself,” I said. “Two police officers have been wounded and a hostage killed.”

“That’s not on me,” Le said. “Some cop shot her.”

I wasn’t going to quibble and point out that he’d shoved her into the line of fire with a weapon in her hand; I needed to keep him talking, establish rapport.

“You’re a hell of a motorcycle rider,” I said. “Saw you in action at Eden Center a while back.”

Le chuckled. “You never saw anyone pull that kind of shit before.”

“Never,” I said. “You are a rare talent. Now, how are we going to keep you, and your talent, from dying today?”

During a long pause I heard him snorting meth or coke or both. Then he said, “I dunno, Alex. You tell me.”

“How about you show me you can be trusted?” I said. “Let us retrieve our wounded officer.”

“What’s in that for me?” Le said.

I said, “We’re in this together.”

“Give me a fucking break,” he said. “We’re not together. We’re traveling different roads.”

“Different roads that are at an intersection. I’m trying to prevent a crash that you would not survive. Is that what you want too?”

He didn’t say anything for almost a minute.

“Mr. Le?” I said.

When Le spoke, his voice was softer, more thoughtful. “I figured things would turn out different for me.”

“What was your dream? Everyone’s got one.”

Le laughed. “X Games, man.”

“On the motorcycle?”

“That’s it,” Le said. “All I thought about. All I did.”

“When did you let the dream die?”

“I crashed too much and needed something strong enough to get through the pain,” he said. “Going into the business of killing pain just made sense.”

Le was smart, articulate, and self-aware. No wonder he’d been able to build a small empire.

“Can we come for Officer Parks? Things will go worse for you if he dies.”

Le thought about that and then said, “Do it. We won’t shoot.”

“Thank you, Mr. Le,” I said. “We appreciate it.”

I muted my phone and said to Bree and Fuller, “Get me EMTs. I’m going across with them. I’ll keep him talking until Parks is clear.”

“I don’t like it,” Fuller said.

“Neither do I,” Bree said.

“Le needs to see me. It will change things.”

I didn’t wait for a reply. I cut the mute and said, “Mr. Le? You there?”

I heard him snort something again. “I’m here. You coming?”

“I am,” I said. “I’ll be the tall unarmed man with the ambulance workers.”

The EMTs came in pushing a gurney. I hit the mute button again.

“He says he won’t shoot,” I said. “But it’s your call. I’ll go alone if I have to.”

The male EMT, Bill Hawkins, said, “He mentally stable?”

“Surprisingly so, at the moment,” I said. “But an hour ago he evidently thought Officer Parks and the others were part of a vigilante gang and opened up on them. So there’s got to be some delusion there.”

“You trust him?” said Emma Jean Lord, the other EMT.

“Enough to lead the way,” I said.

They looked at each other and nodded.

“Be quick about this,” Bree told them. “Let Alex talk. You go straight to Parks, everything crisp and businesslike, no different than if he’d had a heart attack on his front lawn.”

“Okay,” Hawkins said. “Let’s go.”

Looking to Captain Fuller, Bree said, “You’ll cover them?”