Nonetheless, they’d come a long way together over the years, and together, they had a long way to go on this particular case. Whatever transpired, he felt a need to be there with his partner. God knew that no one else would get within fifty feet of her. This screwup was that enormous.

So he waited. For going on a half hour now. He wondered if maybe he shouldn’t just peek inside and see what was going on. Thus far, no one else had arrived, and certainly, no one had left. Even with his partially obstructed view of the door he could see that.

He climbed out of the car at 4:37, according to the digital clock on the dash. Years of surveillance assignments had taught him always to mark the time. His back screamed from all the sitting, and a long stretch felt good. The autumn air felt good, too. What he missed most about living in the Deep South was the change of seasons. Sure, the leaves turned in the fall, but without the cold air to go along with it, the colors somehow meant less. Of course, come February, when the rest of the world was buried under a foot of snow, he’d feel damned smug about his southern digs.

He was in the middle of a huge yawn when he heard the first gunshot. His mind processed the sound in an instant, evaluating and rejecting a hundred alternatives. That was no bursting balloon or backfire or firecracker. And it was coming from inside the building!

He drew his weapon and charged up the front steps three at a time. Once on the stoop, he turned the knob and pushed. Nothing moved. He pounded on the heavy door with his fist.

“Federal officer!” he yelled. “Open up!”

He heard a second shot, and then a third right away.

Holy shit! Why hadn’t they informed the Washington office? At least then, they’d have had an official vehicle and a radio channel. Shit! He rammed his shoulder into the heavy wood panels, but the door wouldn’t budge.

He heard yelling from the inside now. And another shot.

“Shit!” He yelled it aloud this time. Stepping off to the hinge side of the door, he took aim at the lock.

Jake yelled at the sudden explosion of Eddie Bartholomew’s head. An instant later he saw the gun in Frankel’s hand, and the heat of the man’s anger filled the room as he swung the weapon up to finish what he’d started.

Jake’s body reacted before his brain could tell him to stop. Even as Irene and the senator dove for cover, he charged at Frankel and hit him with all his driving force, propelling him backward toward Eddie’s lectern. Despite the impact, Frankel wouldn’t go down. He backpedaled quickly, little staccato steps that kept him from losing his balance, as Jake focused every ounce of his strength on the attacker’s gun hand. For just an instant, the muzzle crossed in front of his face, but Frankel missed his opportunity for a sure kill.

Jake shoved his adversary hard into the corner molding of the archway to the dining room, and the impact triggered a grunt. He thought for sure that he heard something break in Frankel’s back, but the man still stayed on his feet. The gun discharged just inches from Jake’s face; a deafening blast that punched a hole in the plaster ceiling. Half a second later it went off again, disintegrating a crystal globe on the chandelier. Jake winced as grains of burning gunpowder bit into the flesh of his cheeks.

He had both hands on the gun now, struggling to loosen Frankel’s grip, and as he reached across the other man’s face, he howled in pain as Frankel’s teeth burrowed into the flesh of his upper arm. The pain was unspeakable as an incisor found a nerve, but he still hung on. To let go now was to die.

In his peripheral vision, Jake thought he saw Irene dash past. She’s running away! he thought. Then he knew better. The gun drawers!

Irene knew she needed to do something. Jake was losing his fight, but she worried that if she interfered, Frankel might somehow work his hand free. If that happened, they were all dead. If only she had her weapon!

Leaving the senator to fend for himself, she dashed through the dining room and out into the hallway, praying the whole time that Eddie hadn’t locked the drawers. There were eight of them altogether, and she pulled on the one she thought housed her black S amp;W. Sure enough, the drawer opened, and there it was.

Snatching the weapon into both hands, she drew down on the second most powerful man in American law enforcement. “I got him, Jake!” she yelled. “Break away!”

Frankel was a vampire! Once he got his teeth locked onto Jake’s arm, he just wouldn’t let go. The pain was exquisite, shooting lightning bolts into Jake’s fingertips. As he lost the feeling in his hand, his grip started to slip.

The instant he heard Irene’s command to get down, he just let his legs fold, collapsing onto the floor and leaving Frankel suddenly exposed.

Irene saw Jake drop and knew she had her shot. “Don’t move, goddammit!” she yelled, and in that instant, the world exploded in gunfire, as Paul blasted the door lock from the outside. Irene whirled instinctively at the sound, breaking her aim on Frankel, then instantly realized her mistake. She dropped to one knee and tried to bring her weapon back around on target, but she was too late.

The first bullet hit her high on her right arm, knocking the air out of her lungs and sending her pistol airborne. The second shot, fired less than a second later, caught her just above her left ear, but she never felt a thing.

Paul looked away as he fired, shielding his eyes from the flying bits of splintered wood and steel. Five slugs pulverized the doorjamb, where the dead bolt joined the keeper, and with a single powerful kick, he sent the solid- core door exploding inward.

All he saw were muzzle flashes as a man in a suit threw an arsenal of lead at him. Paul dropped to the concrete and scrambled for cover as a plate-glass window on the opposite side of Connecticut Avenue shattered and collapsed into itself.

He randomly returned fire, scrambling to find shelter behind the brick wall of the town house. He never aimed a shot; to expose himself would have been suicide. Instead, he exposed only his hand and his weapon as he fired over and over, hoping that the random spray of bullets would keep the shooter at bay.

He felt the slide lock open as the last round exited his weapon, and the instant he withdrew his gun to reload, the brick facade began to pulsate behind his back. The gunman had found his aim, but the bullets couldn’t penetrate the masonry shield. Just as he’d been trained through endless hours at the FBI range, he dropped the spent magazine out of his weapon as he fished for a spare from his belt and slapped it in place. The slide jammed the next round home, and he was ready to go again. Total elapsed time: less than five seconds.

Out on the street, the panic had just begun. He heard the heavy impact of colliding vehicles behind him, but he ignored it. As rush-hour commuters dashed for cover, he swung his arm back into harm’s way and started pulling the trigger.

Jake never saw Irene fall. He just saw the pistol on the floor, amid a wild, unfocused cacophony of gunfire, and he scrambled for it. He lost track of the number of shots Frankel had fired, but each trigger pull seemed to drive an ice pick into Jake’s eardrums. It wasn’t until he cleared the archway into the center hall that he heard the return fire coming from the front door. Just random gunplay, really. A hand extended through the open door, spraying bullets through the center of the house as fast as its owner could pull the trigger.

Who the hell is that?

That explained why Frankel hadn’t turned back to fire at Jake. He had a far more threatening target to eliminate. Pressing himself as flat against the floor as possible, Jake made his final lunge for Irene’s weapon. He brought it around just as Frankel stole a spare magazine from Eddie Bartholomew’s corpse and jammed it home.

“Don’t do it, Frankel,” Jake shrieked, but he couldn’t even hear himself.

Frankel didn’t hesitate in bringing his weapon to bear.

Neither did Jake. He felt the big S amp;W buck in his hand before he realized he’d pulled the trigger. Frankel hesitated but didn’t fall. Jake’s gun bucked again. And again. And one by one, each round found its mark. Belly. Belly. Right arm. Chest. The chest shot dropped him. Frankel sagged to his knees, his face a mask of terror. He knew he was dead, and he knew who’d killed him.

A final shot, this one coming from the cowboy behind the door, ripped Frankel’s lower jaw clean off his body. The impact spun him a quarter-turn, then dropped him like a tree onto the carpet.

“Freeze, goddammit!” The gun at the door had a voice now, and Jake knew instantly, just from the tone, that it belonged to yet another FBI agent.

Jake froze, just as he was instructed, as the man at the door scampered quickly up the hallway and jammed Jake face-first onto the fioor, kicking the pistol free from his hand.

“Jesus Christ, what did you do?” the man panted.

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