Jonathan let the comment hang in the air.
The point man leveled his rifle at Tristan’s face. “Step out here,” he said. The soldier motioned for Tristan to step out into the roadway.
The boy was only one notch away from panic. His eyes darted from left to right, looking for reinforcements as he stepped free of the undergrowth and into the clearing of the road cut.
“What’s your name?” the solider asked in Spanish.
“Tristan Wagner,” he answered. His eyes never touched his questioner. Instead, they were all about finding Jonathan and Boxers.
“Why are you hiding here?” the soldier asked.
Tristan hesitated. Clearly, he wasn’t sure how to answer or what to do. “I was kidnapped by terrorists,” he said. “My friends and I.”
“Your friends?” the soldier said. “Where are these friends now?”
“Dead,” Tristan said.
The leader stepped forward, moving away from Jonathan’s location and closer to the boy’s. “You killed them,” he said.
Jonathan shifted his aim from the point man to the leader, whose back was now turned to him. He settled the sight on the base of his skull, right where the spinal cord joined the brain.
“I didn’t kill anybody,” Tristan said. “The terrorists killed them.”
“Are you one of the Yankee missionaries?” the leader asked.
An invisible hand pulled Jonathan’s spine.
Tristan hesitated. He was close to breaking. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re American,” the leader said.
“Yes, sir.”
“And you are here from Scottsdale, Arizona.”
This time, Tristan’s hesitation was the loudest confession Jonathan had ever heard.
“I thought so,” the leader said. He raised his pistol.
Jonathan squeezed his trigger, and the MP7 roared. His first two bullets shredded the leader’s head, and his second two did the same for the point man. Ahead and to his left, Boxers’ rifle discharged what sounded to be a half-mag of 7.62-millimeter bullets. Three more dropped, and Jonathan took out a guy who just looked confused.
The gunfight lasted less than a second and a half. When it was done, Jonathan and Boxers had fired twenty-five rounds between them, and all six soldiers were dead, their bodies dropped like so many sacks of manure.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
One day, Gail would learn that people’s names rarely matched the pictures those names evoked in her mind. She’d expected Harriett Burke to be a mousy sixty-something in a print dress and gray hair pulled back in a bun. She’d smile sweetly and say God-loving things.
Instead, she was a sturdy thirty-something with shoulders that were broader than most men’s. Smart money said her resume included time on a roller derby team. Where the sweet smile should have been, there was instead a set jaw and firmly pressed lips. Clearly, her buddy Volpe from downstairs had called upstairs.
As the elevator doors opened on the opulent fourteenth floor, she was right there, doing her best to block the path down the hallway. “Reverend Mitchell doesn’t have time to meet with you,” she said.
Gail stepped into the elevator lobby. “And I don’t have the inclination to put you in handcuffs,” she said, and she skirted the human roadblock.
Tried to, anyway. Harriett grabbed Gail’s sleeve. “You may not go in there.”
Gail drew her badge as if it were a gun and pointed it at Harriett’s forehead. “This is your moment to make careful choices,” she said, startling herself by the ease with which she slid back into her old role.
“Do you have a warrant?” Harriett said. The badge and the speed with which it appeared had startled her.
“I’ll get one for your arrest if you don’t let go of my sleeve.”
Harriett pulled her had away as if it had touched a hot stove. “Sorry,” she said.
“Good for you. Where will I find Reverend Mitchell?”
“I’m sorry, Officer…”
“It’s sheriff. Sheriff McLain.”
“Sheriff McLain, Dr. Mitchell left very specific orders not to be disturbed today.”
“I’m guessing she didn’t anticipate my visit when she said that.”
“I could get fired.”
Now they were squarely in territory where Gail had stopped caring. “If she fired you for this, then you probably should consider working somewhere else.”
The elevator dinged, and Volpe joined them. Harriett looked genuinely relieved until the guard rested his hand on the revolver he wore on his hip.
Gail hated rent-a-cops. She pulled back her suit jacket to reveal the grip of her Glock. “I’ve got one, too,” she said. “And I’ll bet you a million dollars that I’m better with mine than you are with yours.”
Volpe lifted his hand from his weapon and ostentatiously splayed his fingers. “I wasn’t threatening you,” he said. His voice cracked a little.
“That’s exactly what you were doing,” Gail countered. “And I guarantee that I am threatening you. Will I find Dr. Mitchell’s office down this hallway?”
Volpe looked to Harriett, who said, “Yes. I’ll take you there.”
Something clicked in Gail’s head. That was a big change of heart in a very short time. Was Harriett looking for a reason to be alone with Gail? If so, was that good news or bad news? The most dangerous threats are the ones you don’t anticipate.
“She’s not going to be happy,” Volpe said.
Gail was about to say that she’d be a lot happier than these two would be if she arrested them, but she caught a look from Harriett that made her swallow the words. Besides, she didn’t have the power to arrest anyone.
“I’ve got this, Paul,” Harriett said. “You can go back downstairs.”
Volpe didn’t like it. “You sure?”
“You almost started a gunfight,” Harriett said. “Nobody needs this to escalate. It’s between Sheriff McLain and Dr. Mitchell now. I’m stepping out of the middle.”
Volpe actually looked to Gail for support-an effort that lasted only a second.
“It’s not a security issue, Paul,” Harriett said, sealing the deal. “Let me do my job. You go back downstairs and do yours.”
That final comment felt to Gail like a throw-down, leading her to believe that these two had a past.
No one said anything for about ten seconds as the situation evolved into an uncomfortable standoff. Harriett wouldn’t even give Volpe the tiny victory of walking away from him. Instead, she waited while he rang for the elevator and disappeared behind the closing doors. At least the car came quickly.
When they were alone in the lobby, Harriett turned to Gail. “Okay, what’s going on around here?” Her tone was more plea than demand. “Why is everyone so crazy?”
Gail’s stomach flipped, but she covered it. “What do you mean?”
“You’re a cop,” Harriett said. “And you’re here. Please don’t play games. I’m scared.”
Jonathan Grave often said that life was one big poker game. Now, Gail had to play her hand carefully. “I’m here to help, Ms. Burke. But you must understand that my business is with Reverend Mitchell. I’m happy to listen to you and answer the questions I’m able to, but I can only be but so forthcoming.”
“Something terrible has happened in Dr. Mitchell’s life,” Harriett said. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s affecting everything. She looks terrible. She’s stopped taking any visitors. She’s positively gray.”
“Perhaps it’s the sex scandal,” Gail offered. Cops were all about advocating for the devil.
“No. That was an embarrassment and a distraction. I was here for that. That was never as big a deal as the
