Third Degree Part 34

"f.u.c.k this," Ellis said, abandoning his deacon's rect.i.tude. "Take us up, Danny!"

Danny pulled pitch and the Bell leaped into the night sky. In seconds he was looking down at the glowing yellow windows of the s.h.i.+elds home in miniature, an aerial shot of the perfect suburban home. A Steven Spielberg movie.

"This is Black Leader," Ellis said. "TRU will carry out explosive entry on my command. Acknowledge by turns."

Danny gripped the controls with too much force, trying in vain to bleed off his anxiety.

"Black One, in position."

"Two, in position."

Ellis pointed down toward the front yard. "I want you to flare out there and hit your light, pull him to a window. He might come alone, and I'll blow the doors then."

Danny shook his head as though to clear it. "You can't send Ray in there, Sheriff. You've got to let Carl take the shot."

"There's no more time! And Carl's still on the back side of the house."

"Move him!"

"It's too late! We're going in. s.h.i.+elds has left us no choice."

"Six, in position."

Danny descended to 150 feet and flew left turns as he waited for the acknowledgments to come in. From this alt.i.tude, the beating of the rotor blades would sound to someone in the house like a giant robot pounding on the roof. Maybe that baby is Warren's, he thought. But the sheriff was right; s.h.i.+elds was a doctor and he'd sounded certain about his inability to father a child. Danny flashed back to the morning's school conference, when Laurel had started to tell him something, then pulled back at the last moment, when the next parent showed up at the door- "This is Black Six," crackled the headset. "I've got movement on the front thermal cam. It's real faint, but it looks like a large figure moving from the pantry toward the central hall. The foyer area."

"What's he doing?"

"I don't know. It's just a green blob, Sheriff. Like a ghost."

"Keep me posted. Carl, stay ready. If s.h.i.+elds moves back into the great room, we may blow those back windows yet."

"Understood. I'm gla.s.sing the windows, and my spotter's on his thermal. I'm ready to fire."

Danny looked down at the house, praying for the X-ray vision promised in the comic books of his youth. Where was Laurel? What was Warren doing? Would he really execute her? Yes, answered a voice in his head. Not to kill her, but to murder the child she's carrying. It's his only chance at revenge against an invisible enemy. He'll shoot her in the stomach....

Danny thought about the cell phone in his pocket. He should already have used it to try to find out what was happening inside. But with Warren moving around the house, what good were texted answers? Every pa.s.sing second could change the reality in there. Maybe it's time to call her, he thought. But would that give the TRU the edge they needed, or get Laurel killed before they could even blow the doors?

For once in his life, Danny had no idea what to do.

Grant sat huddled in the pantry with the lights off, just as his father had told him to do. He had one job: pull the big breaker switch if he heard shooting. He knew all about the breaker switch, because his dad had told him about it when they lost power during Hurricane Katrina. It wasn't hard or anything. He'd seen twenty different cartoon characters pull the same kind of switch to make the lights go out.

Grant was confused about what was happening with his parents, but he was glad to have a job to do, and he didn't want to disappoint his father again. No matter how crazy it might seem that his dad was acting, Grant knew there was a reason for it, because his dad always did the right thing. His mom had told him that. Plenty of times. And now wasn't the time to start doubting it. He was only a kid, after all.

As he stared up at the big switch lever, his back pressed into a corner, someone slid open the pantry window. Grant jumped because he was startled, but after that he stayed absolutely still. He'd been hunting enough times to know what to do when you didn't want to be seen. No movement. No sound. Not even a breath.

It didn't surprise him that the alarm system didn't chime. The same silence had greeted him when he sneaked back through the window upstairs. He figured the cops had turned off the system somehow.

A dark head came through the window, and with it the smell of cigarettes. Then the head vanished, and a leg with a boot on the end of it came through. Four fingers curled under the window frame. Then the head returned, followed by shoulders and the rest of a body. Grant tensed, preparing to spring to his feet and tear out of the pantry, but his father's instructions held him back. He could not abandon his post.

He heard a grunt, followed by creaks and stretchy sounds like those his grandmother's knees made when she got up from her easy chair. The intruder stood tall in the darkness. He was wearing a uniform, Grant realized, just like the one Deputy Sandra had been wearing. Grant thanked G.o.d there was a shelf above his head, or the guy would probably have seen him already.

When the man took a step forward, Grant's eyes bulged. This man had coached the baseball team Grant played against in the city champions.h.i.+p last year. His son was a pitcher on the team, a boy who cussed all the time and tried to pick fights after he lost. The referees had threatened to throw the coach out of the game for yelling cuss words.

Trace...that's what the kids called him. Coach Trace. Like the Natchez Trace.

Grant watched Coach Trace move quietly to the pantry door, then open it slowly. When light from the kitchen fell across him, Grant saw a gun in his hand. Then Coach Trace vanished.

A fist closed around Grant's heart.

He gritted his teeth and tried to figure out what to do. His dad had told him to stay put, that he wouldn't be safe roaming around the house. He'd also said that switching off the lights was an important job. A critical job. And Grant was supposed to wait until he heard shooting to do it. Coach Trace clearly meant to shoot somebody-maybe even his dad-but was that when Grant was supposed to switch off the lights? He didn't think so. Because that would be too late. He pulled off his shoes, walked barefoot to the door, and followed Coach Trace into the kitchen.

Danny was hovering a hundred feet over the front yard when when a panicked voice filled their headsets.

"Sheriff, this is Gene on the front thermal! I think somebody may have gone into the house!"

"What?"

"I had a figure in the shrubs near the pantry window. I thought it was Dave, but then it suddenly faded to half intensity. Now it's gone. I think maybe the guy went into the house."

"d.a.m.n it!" Ellis cursed. "This is Black Leader, have any of you entered the house?"

No one replied.

"Acknowledge proper position by turns!" Ellis demanded. "Come on, d.a.m.n it!"

"Black One, in position."

"Two, in position."

"Three, in position."

The transmissions came in like a military roll call, all the way to fifteen without pause. Sheriff Ellis breathed a sigh of relief after the last. "Must have been a mistake. For a minute I thought we had a rogue on our hands."

"Let's get this show on the road," Ray Breen said.

Ellis motioned for Danny to start descending.

Laurel stood motionless in the foyer, recalling her attempted escape from the safe room, when Warren had threatened to kill both her and himself. That was the turning point, she thought. My last chance to get out. But it had been no chance at all, really. Because Warren would have carried through with his threat. She was certain of it now. It would have saved the children, she thought with a stab of guilt. But who could have made that choice? Surely she'd had reason to hope for some other outcome at that point.

She stared at the door that concealed the entrance to the safe room, recalling stories she'd read about gas station clerks ordered by robbers to go into a restroom and lie on the floor. I won't go in, she told herself. I'll fight here rather than die pa.s.sively in there. Maybe Grant will help me.

She turned toward the front door. Police waited on the other side of it, but Warren had bolted all the doors and hidden the keys. She stepped backward and looked down the hall toward the kitchen, which was dark now. Warren was escorting Beth up the hallway. The scene looked completely normal, father and daughter walking toward the stairs to go up and read a bedtime story-except for the pistol hanging from Daddy's hand.

Something's different, she thought, her pulse quickening.

She looked at her husband's face, haggard and swollen, only the eyes vital, alive with a zealot's conviction. He's going to kill us, she realized. This is the end.

Panic of unimaginable power surged through her, infusing her with the strength to try anything. Her hands quivered with energy, as though they knew that any moment they might be employed to choke the life out of a stronger enemy.

My cell phone, she thought suddenly. Should I call Danny and tell them to come in shooting? Warren won't let me do that. But I could just open the line- Something moved behind Warren, blanking Laurel's mind of everything but what was in front of her. Was it only a shadow? No...it had substance- There! A darker outline in the darkness of the kitchen- She forced her eyes to focus on Warren's, trying to protect the newcomer. In the dark blur behind her husband, the shadow floated swiftly up the hallway, thin and fluid and somehow more dangerous than Warren's gun. She felt an instant of guilt for not warning Warren, but then Grant's voice shattered the silence- "Coach Trace! Coach Trace!"

The shadow whirled toward the piercing scream, and Warren spun also. His gun went up as he turned, and Laurel saw then that the shadow had made a fatal mistake, one that Grant must have known it would. By spinning toward the sound, the stranger had turned his back on Warren, and by the time he tried to correct his error, Warren had already fired. Grown-up stuff indeed...

Warren's bullet struck the shadow somewhere vital, because she heard the heavy thud of dead weight dropping onto wood, a sack of feed hitting a barn floor. Then Grant charged out of the dark and s.n.a.t.c.hed a pistol from the fallen man's hand.

"You got him, Dad! You got him!"

Grant leaped into his father's arms and hugged him tight.

"What the f.u.c.k was that?" Sheriff Ellis shouted into his headset mike.

"Gunshot," said Danny, terrified that Warren had just executed Laurel. "Sounded like a pistol, but what was that the boy screamed?"

"We gotta go now!" Ray Breen yelled. "Give the order, Sheriff!"

"Negative!" Ellis shouted. "Somebody yelled Trace. Trace, was that you? What are we hearing down there? Did anybody fire?"

The communications officer didn't respond.

Danny tilted the chopper to get a better view of the house. Rain still peppered the winds.h.i.+eld, making it hard to see clearly.

"Trace!" Ellis yelled. "Get me Dr. s.h.i.+elds on my radio!"

"We can't wait!" Ray shouted. "We gotta go!"

"Shut up, Ray! Keep this channel clear!"

The radio hummed and crackled, and then a woman's voice filled Danny's headset. "Sheriff, we've got a problem."

"Who's this?"

"Sandra Souther. I'm in the command trailer."

"Where's Trace?"

"Um...I think he's in the house."

Ellis blanched. "What?"

"Dr. s.h.i.+elds just called the phone in here. n.o.body was answering, so I came in and picked up. Dr. s.h.i.+elds said Trace just tried to shoot him in the back, and he had to kill him."

Sheriff Ellis looked at Danny with dawning horror.

"You'd better put a rope around Ray Breen," Danny said. "Fast."

"Ray, this is Billy Ray," the sheriff said in a voice Danny had never heard from him before. "I know you heard that, brother. You're to stand down and let me handle this, copy? Get a grip on yourself for sixty seconds and let me handle it."

"f.u.c.k that," Ray muttered. "I lead the TRU. We're going in."

"Ray!" Ellis balled his right hand into a fist and spoke harshly. "If you enter that house without authorization, you're out of a job."

"I don't give a s.h.i.+t! Black Team, prepare to go on my command. Five seconds-"

"I'll arrest you for murder, Ray. As G.o.d is my witness, you'll go to death row in Parchman. And you've put too many men there to want to see it from the inside."

Danny listened in dread for Breen's go order, but it didn't come.

"Sandra, this is Sheriff Ellis. Can you hook me up to Dr. s.h.i.+elds?"

"Maybe. Hang on."

"Why in G.o.d's name would Trace do that?" Ellis murmured, seemingly lost.

"He had a personal grudge against s.h.i.+elds," Danny said. "I don't know what it was. I just found out myself. I should have told you." Danny touched the sheriff's arm. "You can't let Ray into that house. Now or later, you can't do it."

"He's the TRU leader," Ellis said. "Those boys down there trained under him, and I'm not changing horses in midstream."

Danny looked hopelessly down at the house glowing in the dark.

"He'll kill s.h.i.+elds, no matter what you tell him."

"s.h.i.+elds put us all here. That's the bottom line. If it ends ugly, it's on his head. Trace Breen didn't start this nightmare. Warren s.h.i.+elds did it all by himself."

No, I helped, Danny thought. With a little hands-on a.s.sistance from the man's wife- "I've got Dr. s.h.i.+elds for you, Sheriff," Sandra said. "Go ahead."

"Dr. s.h.i.+elds, this is Sheriff Ellis. Can you hear me?"

"It's faint, but I hear you."

"Did you just shoot one of my deputies?"

"Yes, sir. Trace Breen snuck in here and tried to shoot me in the back. If my son hadn't warned me, I'd be dead now."

"You're a G.o.dd.a.m.n liar!" screamed Ray.

"Keep this channel clear!" Ellis ordered. "Doctor, no matter how justified you may feel, you just shot a duly appointed officer of the law. You have only one option. You must surrender. I'm giving you three minutes to walk out of your house with your hands held high in the air. You must walk out alone, unarmed, without any member of your family. Do you understand?"

s.h.i.+elds didn't reply.

"Dr. s.h.i.+elds? Did you hear me?"

"Yes."

"The clock starts now. I beg you to come out peacefully."

s.h.i.+elds said nothing else.

"Hang up, Sandra," Ellis said.