Макс Коллинз - You Can’t Stop Me

Gibbons sighed. “I can understand you putting your teammate first. But you and I know, we’d be doing the world a favor to take this prick out with a head shot, and save a whole lot of money and a whole lot of grief.”

“Maybe not. Maybe we want him alive. There are fifty-some murders out there, with twenty-some families attached, that need closure. He could provide that. We owe those families more than we owe the taxpayers a savings.”

For a very long time, Gibbons just sat there staring out the windshield considering his options.

“All right,” the sheriff said at last. “But you wear a vest and, no matter what, you don’t go in that house. Otherwise, no deal.”

“Fine,” Harrow said, not willing to push the negotiation any further. “And I’m already wearing my Kevlar longjohns...”

They got out, careful not to slam the SUV’s doors, and moved to the back of the vehicle, where the sheriff got out a boldly labeled SHERIFF’S DEPT bulletproof vest, and put it on. As Gibbons was doing this, Laurene Chase and Billy Choi appeared at Harrow’s side.

Laurene said, “Deputy wouldn’t let the cameras any closer back there than the next block over.”

She gave Harrow a raised-brow look that told him Hathaway, Arroyo, and their audio teammates were moving in covertly.

“That’s good,” Harrow said. “You two hang right here.”

Gibbons said, “Your boss is right — no closer than this.”

“Sure about that?” Choi asked Harrow, ignoring the sheriff.

“You have your orders,” Harrow said ambiguously.

Together, Harrow and Gibbons crossed the street and moved up close to the first house. When they were safely into the shadows, Harrow looked back to see Laurene and Choi still beside the Tahoe, but with pistols drawn now, and obviously planning on following at a distance. They’d understood he intended them to ignore his instructions.

Gibbons withdrew his pistol and held it barrel down at his side. Harrow plucked the nine millimeter from his waistband, and the gun felt good in his grasp, an extension of his hand. He flipped the safety off and checked to make sure a bullet resided in the chamber.

The pair crept house-to-house like Kevlar-wearing, heavily armed kids playing ding-dong ditch. When they got to the corner of the cross street before Shelton’s block, they hesitated, Gibbons covering Harrow as he sprinted across and then cut through the yard of the corner house, to plaster himself against its wall, chest heaving.

Then Harrow returned the favor, as Gibbons crossed the street and pressed himself to the wall next to him.

Glancing back, Harrow could see Choi and Chase mimicking their moves half a block behind.

Harrow slipped the pistol in his waistband, but at the small of his back, safety off. If need be, he could get to it, easy.

Gibbons whispered, “Sure you want to do this, son?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Well, then — let’s go pay a call on a freakin’ maniac...”

Staying in the shadows close to the abandoned house, Harrow and Gibbons crossed the yard. Now that he was closing in on his target, Harrow could see the house where he’d been invited by the killer of his family.

The old two-story home had a long wooden unenclosed porch of the kind where a swing once had been, and had once been white, but even in the dark Harrow could see neglect had turned it dingy gray.

No lights.

That was no different from the other houses on the block, and Harrow hadn’t expected to see any. No curtains either, but blinds were pulled down over windows on the second floor.

As they drew closer, Gibbons — a few steps in the lead — stopped jerkily short, and Harrow pulled up even with him.

“ Sheriff’s just seen me, Mr. Harrow, ” said a voice from the porch.

Gibbons’s pistol was pointing at the darkness.

Then the killer stepped from the shadows and into the moonlight, his back to the house as he gripped his human shield with an arm looped round her waist, and held an automatic pistol to her temple.

Carmen Garcia wore boxer-style shorts and a Kansas Jayhawks sweatshirt that looked way too big, like a little girl playing dress-up in the oversized sweatshirt. Her hair was disheveled, but otherwise she appeared unharmed.

Her eyes revealed fear, but — at least with Harrow and Gibbons on the scene — she seemed to be keeping it under control.

Good, Harrow thought, his eyes on her. You’re doing good...

Shelton was in white short-sleeved shirt and black jeans, as best Harrow could tell.

Pressing the pistol’s snout to Carmen’s left temple, his voice oddly matter of fact, Shelton said, “The sheriff disappears, or it’s over right now.”

Gibbons stood firm, his pistol pointed at the killer’s head, only a splinter of which was visible behind Carmen.

“I can take him,” Gibbons said, his voice icy.

“No,” Harrow snapped. “Back off.”

“I can take him, I said.”

A head shot would mean all motor functions turned off like a switch — Harrow knew that damn well. But not much of Shelton’s head was showing.

And plenty of Carmen’s was.

Crouching down behind his hostage even more, Shelton yelled, “Gibbons needs to back off now !”

“You miss and kill my associate, Herm,” Harrow said softly, his tone just as frigid as the sheriff’s, “then you and I are going to have a real problem. You agreed that I could talk to this man — let me do it.”

Slowly, with obvious reluctance, Gibbons lowered his weapon, and his stance relaxed.

Gruffly he said, “Be right next door if you need me.”

As the sheriff backed away, Harrow eased to the left, putting himself between the man on the porch and the retreating lawman, halting the pissing contest between the two armed parties before it came to Carmen — or any, or all of them — getting killed.

Shelton was still trying to keep an eye on Gibbons as he receded into near-darkness.

“Look at me, Mr. Shelton,” Harrow said. “I’m the one you wanted to talk to — here I am. Look at me.”

Slowly, the killer’s attention shifted to Harrow.

“I’m here,” Harrow said. “You don’t need to send any more messages.”

From behind Carmen, who looked only slightly more relaxed by having the sheriff in the next yard, Shelton said, “You... you know I’ve been sending messages?”

“Sending messages, and creating a target. Yes.”

“Lebanon,” Shelton said, his head popping out just momentarily, revealing an extraordinarily awful smile in an ordinary face. His blue eyes didn’t seem to blink much. “The center point. Where it began. Where it ends.”

“Was there no easier way, Mr. Shelton? Did my family have to die to make up for the loss of yours? Did so many families have to die?”

Shelton was quiet for a long moment — night sounds, insects, birds, rustling trees, provided an eerie orchestration.

Finally, the man holding Carmen managed, “Sacrifices had to be made. Innocent blood is always part of a sacrifice. I’m sorry about your family, Mr. Harrow. I’m sorry about all of them. But they did not die in vain. You are here. And my message will be heard.”

“What is your message, Mr. Shelton?” His voice seemed calm, but within him, Harrow was waging a battle with his emotions, fighting the instinct to rush this sick bastard and blow his demented brains all over that porch, and if Carmen weren’t in harm’s way right now, that’s exactly what he’d do.

From behind the wide-eyed Carmen, Shelton blurted words like pus exploding from a squeezed boil: “They killed my wife and son!”

“Easy,” Harrow said, and patted the air, trying to calm both Shelton and his hostage. And himself.