Дэвид Балдаччи - Hell's Corner

“Look, you can be pissed at me, but leave my son—”

“I don’t play that game. I meant exactly what I said. You’re just doing your job. I don’t fault you. If I were in your shoes, I’d be upset too. I’d want to strike back too. And if you want to use me as a target that’s fine. There’s plenty of blame on my end. I won’t deny that.”

With this brutal self-judgment hanging out there the woman’s features softened.

“I’ve actually been going over things again, about what happened in Pennsylvania, I mean. That’s really why I came here to find you.”

“Why would you be going over things again? You already filed your report, as you said.”

“Look, I am pissed. Tom was a friend of mine. I do want a target. And you seemed like a very handy one.”

“All right,” Stone said evenly.

“The thing is, I’m not sure you actually did anything wrong. I interviewed the state cops. They said you probably saved their lives. Acted before they even knew what was happening. That you got shots off at the shooter and were after him while they were still wondering what was going on.”

“I’ve probably had a bit more experience than they have in those types of situations.”

“So I understand,” she said frankly. “And Tom could have called in backup when he contacted the LEOs. In fact he should have.”

“I honestly thought the dangerous part would be at Kravitz’s place, not the tree farm.”

Ashburn let out a resigned breath. “I believe you.”

“And I hope you believe me when I tell you I won’t rest until I find out who did it.”

She stared at him for a long moment. “I do.”

The two agents exchanged a firm handshake and then Ashburn disappeared into the darkness. A few moments later Stone gazed out at the red blinking light and then over at imagined points on the grass where he gauged that the “bullets” would be “hitting” based on his roughly estimated trajectory. He punched in the number for Chapman. “Go up one floor,” he said.

A few minutes later the lights commenced again.

He called her. “I think that’s it. Any evidence of the guns having been fired from there?”

“No casings, but I’ve got a patch of what looks like oil or grease. I’ll collect some of it for examination. And when I opened the window, there was no squeak or creak.”

“Like it had been opened recently.”

“Yes, but, Oliver, you didn’t tell me this place was a U.S. government building undergoing renovation.”

“I was hoping I was wrong.”

Stone and Chapman returned to his cottage. They had just settled in to talk over this latest discovery when Chapman hit the light on Stone’s desk, plunging the space into darkness.

“What is it?” hissed Stone.

She didn’t have time to answer.

The door burst open and Stone counted at least three men hurtling through it.

They were masked, dressed in black and carried MP-5s. They moved as one unit, an unstoppable force.

They were just about to meet the proverbial immovable object.

Chapman hit the first man with a crushing blow to his knee, pushing it in a direction no knee was designed to go. He went down screaming and grabbing at his destroyed limb. Stone grabbed his gun from his desk drawer, but he didn’t even have time to aim before Chapman cartwheeled across the space, dodging a wall of submachine-gun rounds launched from the last two men in the unit.

It was soon to be one left.

Her fist drove up and through the man’s throat at the same time that she cantilevered her body to a seemingly impossible angle, whipping around him like he was the pole and she was the dancer. She kicked his legs out from under him and delivered a crushing blow to the back of his neck. He coughed once and lay still.

Not missing a beat, Chapman launched herself at the remaining man, who was already halfway to the door, in full retreat.

When he saw what the man had thrown Stone screamed, “Look out.” He fired. His rounds ripped through wood, plaster, but unfortunately not flesh.

The mini-explosion ripped through the place. The flash-bang completed half its mission, the blinding flash. Stone had covered his eyes just in time.

Chapman caught it full in the face and yelled in pain.

Stone stuffed his shirt collar in his ears and then covered them with his arms. An instant later came the bang. Now they’ll regroup with reinforcements and come back to finish the job, thought Stone.

What they hadn’t counted on was Stone not being paralyzed. He rolled right, snagged Chapman’s Walther off her, and held it in his left hand. He grabbed Chapman by the arm and slid her behind his desk. He gripped his customized pistol in his right hand and waited.

The first man came through the door, his submachine gun on full auto. Stone ducked down, slid sideways, and fired through the opening under the desk. His rounds hit their target: the shooter’s knees. No Kevlar on legs. The man went down screaming. The second man started to hit the opening, but Stone fired three shots through the gap.

A few moments of silence. Then, a siren in the distance.

Stone called out: “I’ll make a deal before the police get here. I’ll let you take your wounded buddies out. You have five seconds. After that, we all take our chances. And from what I’ve seen, you’re good, but I’m better.”

The siren drew closer.

“All right,” a voice said.

The men were slid out. A few moments later Stone heard a vehicle start. Then silence again. The siren also faded away. Going somewhere, apparently.

He rolled Chapman over, checked her pulse. She was alive. He cradled her in his arms.

A minute later she opened her eyes, stared up at him. “Bloody hell,” she exclaimed. She looked around. “I know I got two of them. I think I killed one of them. Where the hell are they?”

“We came to an understanding.”

They both jumped up as something slammed against the remains of the front door.

Stone aimed his gun at the doorway and Chapman leapt to her feet as Stone tossed her the Walther.

“Oliver?”

“Annabelle?” he said, when she appeared in the doorway.

A second later Reuben fell into the room, landing on the wooden floor.

“Reuben,” exclaimed Stone.

Annabelle helped Stone get the big man up and over to a chair. Blood was seeping down his forearm and his face was pale.

“What happened?” said Stone.

“We were followed in Pennsylvania. Got into a gunfight. Reuben was shot. He needs a doctor.”

Reuben put a hand on Stone’s arm and pulled him downward.

“I’ll be okay,” Reuben said weakly. “One in the arm went clean through but it hurts like hell. Other one nicked my leg.”

Stone looked down at the hole in Reuben’s pants leg.

“You need to go to the hospital. Right now.” He looked angrily at Annabelle. “Why haven’t you already taken him?”

“He insisted on coming here. Reuben wanted me to run for help, but when I heard all the shooting I had to come back and make sure he was okay.”

Stone glanced at Chapman before looking back at Reuben. “Did you see anything that might identify the men?”

“They were good, Oliver,” he said. “Trained very well. That’s what I wanted to come and tell you. I don’t know how I got the jump on them. Better to be lucky than good. Got hold of one of their weapons, opened fire and they all took off.”

“Trained very well? Meaning?” said Stone.

He turned to Annabelle. “Go get it from the car.”

“But Reuben, we need to get you—”

“Get it and then I’ll go quietly.”

She ran out to the car and was back in a few seconds. She was holding something. She handed it over to Stone.