David Baldacci - Daylight

The lock was defeated, and the first man pushed the door open an inch at a time. A few moments later both men disappeared inside. Puller moved from his position, pulling something from his knapsack as he did so. He put on a pair of night-vision goggles right as he reached the door. He peered inside the front room and saw the backs of the men. He pulled the pin on the object he was holding, held it for two seconds, and then tossed it inside. He stepped away and placed his back flat against the outside wall.

The flashbang did exactly what it was designed to do. The blinding flash robbed both men of their vision. The simultaneous bang robbed them of their senses. Puller heard both men cry out and fall to the floor.

Puller waited two seconds and then stepped inside.

The men were writhing and moaning on the floor of the small kitchen. When one tried to get up, Puller tapped him rather hard on the back of the neck with his fist, and the man went down for the count. The other fellow tried to raise his gun, but Puller quickly disarmed him and then laid him out with an M11 slap to the head.

He was about to call the police when a burst of machine-gun fire from the front-door area made him dive for cover behind a couch. The guys he had already dealt with were apparently only the advance team.

Both M11s were out now and he fired back at the doorway. Another burst of bullets tore into the couch, and a second after it ended Puller sprinted to the right, kicked open his bedroom door, and slammed it shut behind him.

He dove to the floor right as more machine-gun rounds shredded the door and ripped into the far wall. He flipped on his back, and with both pistols he fired back through the torn-apart door. Next second he heard the sirens. Machine-gun fire that wasn’t happening as part of an exercise at Quantico drew the attention of the legion of military and FBI personnel who called this place home. Still, Puller was thinking:

What the hell took them so long?

He slammed in spare mags, moved to the left, listened to the sounds of slight movement, and then emptied one mag through the thin drywall connecting up with his front room. He was rewarded with a grunt and someone falling and hopefully dead.

He dove into the small attached bathroom as multiple bursts of gunfire tore through the wall and ripped his bedroom to shreds.

Then he heard feet stumbling from the front room, a door being banged open, and now running feet rushing away.

He got up, went back into his bedroom, and cautiously peered out.

There was no one in the room. He ran over to the window and saw men running toward the vehicle with its engine on and lights off. They were half-carrying another man, who might have been the one Puller had shot. They climbed into the SUV and the driver hit the gas.

Puller slid his window open, took aim, and fired his other M11 at the fleeing vehicle until his hammer clicked dry. At this range, he couldn’t have expected to stop it with a pistol shot.

In another few seconds the SUV had turned the corner and was gone.

As the sounds of the sirens drew closer, Puller went in search of and found AWOL. He was on the top shelf of the closet, behind a plastic bin where Puller had kept some of his winter clothing. There was a bullet hole right through the bin.

An unhurt AWOL meowed and jumped down onto Puller’s shoulder. Puller left the closet and sat on his destroyed bed while he tickled AWOL’s chin. The cat didn’t budge. He apparently didn’t want to be alone.

Puller couldn’t blame the feline.

He surveyed what was left of his apartment. The two guys he had laid out were gone. Their buddies must have revived them and they had fled in the SUV.

He glanced down at his twin empty M11s and let out a long, relieved breath.

I thought I left the Middle East behind.

CHAPTER

31

PINE COULD SMELL THE STINK of her own sweat as she sat, alone, in the holding cell handcuffed to a metal bench which, in turn, was bolted to the floor.

Never thought I’d see the world from this side of the bars.

She was still shoeless, still covered in blood, and she was freezing.

She looked up to see a man standing there. He was in his fifties, paunchy, balding, and holding a manila file folder. His expression alternated between grim and bored.

“You the one who keeps saying you’re an FBI agent?”

“I do because I am. And I’d like to make a phone call.”

“Absolutely. We just got a few people ahead of you in the line. Busy night tonight. Must be a full moon.”

“Who are you, anyway?”

He tapped the badge riding on his belt. “Detective Milton Barnes. Your case got dropped in my lap, lucky me. Who’s the dead girl they found you next to?”

“I told the cops that already. And also about the guy in there who tried his best to kill me.”

“We didn’t find any guy, but tell me about the woman.”

“Her name, at least I was told, was Sheila Weathers. I was also told she worked at the commissary at Fort Dix.”

“You were told ?”

“Can I get these cuffs off, clean up, and get a blanket? And what, did you not pay your heating bill? It’s like forty degrees in here.”

“Sure. I can pay for your lawyer, too. And you’ll get a free car and a trip to Antigua if you’re acquitted of murder. What, you think this is Wheel of Fortune or something?”

“I’m Special Agent Atlee Pine of the FBI. Take a picture of me and email it to the Bureau. They’ll confirm I am who I say I am.”

“Where are your badge and creds? That would move things along a lot faster than a picture.”

“I was undercover. Highly inconvenient if they’d found them on me. I didn’t even bring my phone.”

“Uh-huh. Turned out to be dangerous anyway. For the dead lady. Your prints are all over the murder weapon, by the way.”

“Then somebody squeezed my hand around it while I was out. Maybe the guy who was going to cut my throat. They were obviously going to frame me for her murder.”

“Cops got a call about a fight in that building. Screams and stuff getting knocked around.”

“Right, that was me and the guy. I broke the jerk’s arm in about six places. I gave a description of him to NYPD. Try going around to the emergency rooms. The asshole’s probably in one crying like a baby.”

The man continued. “They go there and out you pop all covered in blood and your prints on the knife. What do you think I’m thinking? That you’re undercover FBI like you say, or you’re a killer. This ain’t TV, lady. This ain’t a plot twist, okay?”

“Just take the picture and send it to the Bureau.” She had a sudden thought. “To Special Agent Eddie Laredo, of the New York Field Office.”

“Okay, while we’re waiting, you can come with me.”

He had a uniformed cop unlock the door and her cuff and led Pine to an interrogation room. The cop then pushed her down into a chair set at a table, locked her leg into a bolt in the floor, and left. Barnes sat down across from her and put the file down on the table.

“We haven’t identified the vic yet.”

“I told you who she was.”

“Who you were told she was. What were you doing in that building?”

“I was knocked out and taken there. I woke up next to the body.”

“Where were you taken from?”

She gave him the address of the building on Fifty-Seventh Street.

“Ritzy neighborhood,” he said.

“You might want to pay attention to it. You might find a lot of international crooks live pretty well there.”

“Tell me something I don’t know. And they got twenty lawyers for every one we got, so who’s gonna win that battle? So keep talking. What happened next?”

“I confirmed that she was dead and then kicked the crap out of the guy who’d been sent there to finish me off. And then I broke out of the room. That’s when the cops showed up and almost shot me.”