“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Malick asked and Sarah paused a moment before nodding once very slowly. “You think it’s someone in the police force?” Malick said, seeming almost shocked.
“I know how it sounds but it just feels right to me,” Sarah said, shrugging for emphasis.
“You got anything to go on?” Malick asked and Sarah wasn't sure but she felt there was a slight tinge of ice in his tone.
“I wish,” she said as they left the interstate to head for town.
The streets were dead at this hour, barely a person around save the odd insomniac jogger or homeless drifter.
“Where are we meeting this guy?” Sarah asked, turning to look Malick in the face.
“Just up here,” he said nodding ahead. Sarah looked and saw an opening to a car lot outside a long abandoned supermarket. Nothing had replaced it yet and it looked like the kind of place kids would play dangerously during the day and drug addicts would make their home at night.
“You couldn't have picked a bar or something, even a bowling alley would have been better than this dump,” she said mocking him. He didn’t smile back and this was the first crack in his facade. They pulled into the lot and as Sarah turned off the engine she heard the click of her partner’s gun cocking.
“Don’t move,” he said. Sarah turned her head slowly to face him, he was sweating and he looked pale and it was almost possible to feel sorry for him. Almost.
“What is this Malick?” she asked as she placed her two hands firmly on the steering wheel where he could see them.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he said though she felt he wasn’t really replying to her question. “This wasn’t part of the plan.”
“Whose plan?” Sarah asked calmly and his reaction, his widening eyes and mouth falling slightly open told her she was right. “Spalding left you out to dry.” His face hardened then and a cold gaze of finality came into his eyes,
“That doesn’t change your situation though does it?”
“I guess not,” Sarah said resignedly. “Why though?” she asked him.
“You don’t know him,” Malick said, “If he wants you to do something, you’re going to do it.”
“Even after all our years working together” she said and it was a terrible and sad thing to have to say.
“Nothing else matters” he said, “I can’t explain it any more than that.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Sarah coaxed him, “We can work through this together.”
“I’m sorry, Sarah, I really am, but this turn of events has changed everything on its head.”
“What turn of events/” Sarah asked.
“There was a message on your phone when I picked it up, you hadn’t seen it yet, I guess. Your friend Tyler Ford knew I was the ‘Agrarian’ and he was trying to warm you.”
“I did see that message,” Sarah said, “I just left it on the screen and dropped my phone for you to see it.” Malick looked at her perplexed.
“What? Why?” he asked dumbfounded.
“I wanted to see if it was true and your actions have proved it to me.” Malick suddenly looked panicked and he shot glances outside the car to the sky like he expected to see a helicopter drop down with a SWAT team or something Sarah took this moment to open her door and he turned back to her and pressed the gun against her ribs.
“Where do you think you're going?” he asked menacingly. Sarah kept on moving and got out of the car. Malick scrambled out his own door and rounded the car. “Don’t make this worse for yourself!” he shouted at her.
“Do you want to know what I did after I saw Tyler’s message?” Sarah asked.
“What?”
“I called Bobrick and Anderson and told them what I knew.”
“You’re lying,” he said. She shook her head.
“I told them to track my movements and they would find you if we left the house alone together.”
“Now I know you’re lying,” Malick grinned, “you turned off the car tracker and I saw your phone had GPS disabled too.”
“One of my cell phones did,” Sarah shot back. At that moment there was the sound of approaching cars, and Sarah knew they were on the way to save her. Malick looked scared and hesitant but Sarah was calm. “There was one more thing I did this evening that you didn’t see,” she said. Malick stood there wondering how things could get any worse. “When we were putting on the forensics suits I switched our guns. The one you’re carrying has a clip of blanks in it.”
“Bullshit,” Malick said, glancing quickly at the gun in his hand. Sarah took a step back and shrugged,
“Only one way to find out,” she said. He looked at the gun again and Sarah suddenly panicked. Had she remembered to empty the round in the chamber earlier? Surely she had but no mental images of doing so were coming to her. If he fired from this distance one bullet was all it was going to take to kill her. He looked at the gun once more and Sarah could see now that his hand was trembling.
“It wasn’t supposed to go like this,” he said as the first of the cars rounded the corner and came screeching up to them. Sarah pulled her own gun in the confusion (Malick’s actually) and pointed it at him.
“Let me take you in and it will go easier on you,” she said, her tone pleading. Malick had a wild look in his eyes and Sarah was worried he was going to try suicide by cop.
“Drop it!” multiple voices started shouting towards Malick and Sarah put a hand in the air and shouted back,
“The gun he has is not loaded, don’t fire!” Malick turned the gun away from Sarah and with lightning speed put it under his chin and fired. There was a loud bang and a flash and he fell down hard on the ground. Officers rushed in and
