Point of Impact

seat.

The sounds of fully automatic weapon fire and Lee screaming over the headset came simultaneously: “Return fire, return fire!”

Well. Looked like the bodyguards were earning their money.

More full-autos came on-line. The DEA assault team carried MP-5s, and the distinctive sound of those chattered, joining the other guns. All pistol-caliber stuff, Howard thought, nothing loud enough to be rifle. The suspect’s bodyguards must have MAC-10s, Uzis, something like that. Didn’t sound like H&Ks.

“… all available agents, they’re heading for the kitchen!”

The kitchen, Howard recalled from the maps, was just up a short hall from the garage.

Brown and Peterson took this as a sign they should go in. Peterson jerked the door open, Brown stepped in, pistol leading. They didn’t look for Howard but vanished into the house.

Howard, whose side arm was still in the holster, considered his options. If sixteen DEA agents couldn’t take out a pretty-boy movie star and his bodyguards, he wasn’t going to be able to add much firepower. He’d stay right here, just like he’d been assigned.

More shots echoed from the house. Somebody screamed, two or three different voices.

“Shit!”

“Fuck!”

“Ow, ow, I’m shot!”

Ten seconds later, a man emerged from the house into the garage. In one arm gathered to his chest, he held a young woman in a maid’s uniform. From her face, the girl was in mortal terror, and rightly so, since in his other hand, the guy held a short knife pressed against her neck. He was a handsome young man.

This would be the Zee-ster, Howard guessed.

He pulled his revolver, brought his other hand up, clasped the weapon in a two-handed grip, and pointed it at the knife man.

“Hold it right there, Zeigler,” he said.

The man froze.

Howard forced his hands to relax a hair. Holding the revolver tightly was necessary for the shot, but clenching the thing in a death grip for any length of time past a second or two would cramp his hands pretty quickly. And he might be here a while, you never could tell.

Zeigler, with the knife held at the hostage’s throat, tried to make himself smaller, but there was no way a five-foot-tall, hundred-pound woman was going to completely shield a six-foot-tall, two-hundred-pound man. Howard had all kinds of targets, including the only one that meant instant incapacitation, a head shot.

“Put the gun down! Put it down, or I’ll kill her!”

He had the shot. Sights square, lined up on the man’s left eye. At fifteen, maybe sixteen feet, he wasn’t going to miss. Unless the guy jerked at the last second and put the hostage where his head had been. Not much risk to the woman, but some. And he’d have to kill the movie star, a head shot would do that, right into the brain.

Well, maybe not on a movie star…

“Listen,” Howard said, “let’s discuss this.”

“No fucking discussion! Put the gun down, or I’ll cut her throat!”

The maid whimpered.

“You don’t want to do that. You kill her, you’re standing there unprotected with a knife in your hand. Think about that. She’s all that’s keeping you alive. She dies, you die, simple as that.”

“You can’t do that. Do you know who I am?”

“I’m not a cop, son, I’m a soldier. They trained me to kill, not capture. I see blood on that blade, it’s a done deal. I don’t care who you are. God doesn’t love men who murder innocent women, and I expect He sent me here to teach you this.”

The man was on the edge of panic. “Let me go, I let her go.”

“What, do I have the word stupid tattooed on my forehead? Put the knife down, you get to tell your story to a judge. Maybe a good lawyer can even get you off, it happens all the time. You’re a millionaire. Rich and famous men don’t go to the gas chamber. You cut that woman, I guarantee you’ll be dead before she is. Game over.”

“You might hit her if you shoot!”

Howard blew out a theatrical sigh. “Let me explain some things to you, son. This weapon I am holding in my hands is a Phillips & Rodgers.357 Model 47 Medusa. It’s about as well-made and accurate a double-action revolver as you can get, and with the hammer back in single-action mode like it is now, it’s extremely accurate. I can hit an apple at twenty-five meters all day long, and you are less than one-third that far away. You understand? You want to think about how much of you I can see that’s not behind your hostage?”

Zeigler didn’t say anything.

Howard continued. “There are six one-hundred-and-twenty-five-grain semijacketed hollow point rounds in this handgun. If I shoot and hit you solidly anywhere with only one shot — and I will hit you, son, you can bet the farm on that — the bullet will thump you at around twelve hundred feet per second. That means it gets there before you hear the sound of it going off. That hypersonic bullet will expand to maybe twice its size and it will put a big hole most if not all the way through you. Based on documented shootings with this caliber and particular brand of ammo, you will go to the floor ninety-six point four times out of a hundred, and no longer have any interest in anything but trying to breathe. And probably not that for long.”

Zeigler swallowed dryly.

“Now, here’s the deal. I don’t give a rat’s ass if you walk out of here or if the DEA drags your dead body out; it’s all the same to me. But if I have to shoot, this gun is going to make a terrible noise inside this garage, and probably my ears will ring for a couple of days, because I didn’t think to put my plugs in before I came through the door. I’d just as soon not damage my hearing any more than I have to.

“So if I have to shoot, I am going to be real pissed off. I might as well shoot again. You following me? You put the knife down right now, or I will punch a hole in you, and when you fall, I’ll pump a couple more in you for making my ears hurt. Your movie career might survive an arrest You don’t put that knife down, you won’t. Simple as that. Your choice. Either the knife hits the floor or you do.”

Somebody was listening on the radio, because Howard heard, “Don’t shoot him! Don’t shoot him! We’re on the way!”

Howard tongued the radio’s off switch. He couldn’t turn off his mike, but he silenced the earphones. He didn’t need the distraction.

He took a deep breath and let part of it out, held the rest, preparing for the shot. You never bluffed in a situation like this. He put his finger inside the guard and onto the trigger. Wouldn’t take much, just under three pounds, a nice, crisp pull, like breaking an icicle.

“Don’t! Don’t kill me! Please!”

Ziegler’s left hand came away from the maid, releasing her, and made a pushing motion toward Howard.

“Come on, we can make a deal here! I’ll… I’ll give you my supplier! That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

The knife moved away from the maid’s neck. Ziegler hadn’t dropped it yet, but he was about to. His knife hand had already relaxed, and he had taken a half step away from his hostage.

Howard let out another sigh, quieter this time. Thank you, Lord. That would have been all he needed, millions of teenage girls hating his guts for killing their screen idol. He’d dodged a bullet himself when that knife dropped—

Somebody ran around the comer from outside and into the garage and fired a handgun twice, hitting the suspect square in the chest.

Zeigler collapsed. The maid screamed and fell to the floor, onto her hands and knees, scrabbled for cover behind the muscle car.

Instinctively, Howard spun toward the shooter, gun leading.

It was Brett Lee.

Lee quickly pointed his gun toward the ceiling, his other hand open and raised. “Easy, easy!”