Theaella

51

Exhaling with relief, he held his grip firm. O’Malley’s knees rattled against the underside of his desk, but already they were losing steam. His eyes rolled up to Matthew, showing white, and Matthew whispered, “Don’t worry. It’s harmless. I’m not going to hurt you.”

At last the detective slumped, but Matthew maintained the seal over his nose and mouth.

By now the detectives and cops had grabbed their weapons and were streaming toward the front, herding the citizens with them. Matthew held Detective O’Malley in place in his chair and spoke to his unconscious face loudly, “Okay, okay. I’m coming. It just hurts if I move too fast.”

The exodus from the bullpen was nearly complete, the last of the cops filing through the door to the lobby.

Matthew lowered O’Malley gently to the desk, resting his forehead on the mouse pad. Then he unclipped the key card from the detective’s belt and crossed the bullpen.

He had no weapon. But he had no time either.

With a tap of the key card against the pad, the security door clicked open. The corridor beyond had three doors on either side. Except for one, all stood open, likely left ajar in the explosion’s aftermath.

If Nu?ez and Brust had taken Jack to a back room as Matthew anticipated, they’d have good reason to remain behind during an evacuation. They’d require the privacy.

Matthew gritted his teeth. He had to enter the fray unarmed and face whatever came at him. But he could not afford to take another blow to his head. It would put him out, maybe for good.

The closed door was locked, so Matthew stepped back and kicked it in.

It smashed the wall, the doorknob sticking through the drywall.

“Hurry up and—” Nu?ez cut off his words to his partner, his eyes lighting with alarm at Matthew’s bandage-wrapped face, his hand already reaching for his sidearm.

At the center of the room, Brust stood facing Jack over the table, one arm extended, his Glock aimed at Jack’s head. An executioner’s pose.

Before Matthew could move, Brust fired.

Deadweight

Matthew filled the open doorway of the interrogation room, the echo of the gunshot ringing within the reinforced walls.

Jack was gone, knocked clear out of his chair by the head shot, lost somewhere beneath the table, bleeding out.

Adrenaline surged at the reins, threatening to break free and bolt through Matthew’s bloodstream, but he tightened his hold. If Jack was dead, he’d still be dead three seconds from now.

Matthew couldn’t waste a split second. He was in close quarters with two homicidal cops. They had Glock 22 Gen4s, each with fifteen .40s stacked in the magazine.

Matthew had an ACE bandage wrapped around his head and a lingering concussion.

But he’d been trained to slow down time in a firefight, to assess the freeze-frame progression of movement and angles.

Brust remained in side profile, having just fired across the table at Jack. A slow-motion ripple spread through the cheap cotton of his shirt behind the right shoulder, stirred into existence by the recoil. He was pivoting toward Matthew, his head leading the turn.

At five feet away, Nu?ez was the closer threat. Forty pounds heavier, he was the larger one, too.

But Brust would have Matthew in his sights first. Matthew couldn’t reach him in time.

As he played through the extrapolation of the next three seconds, a pair of thoughts struck him. One: Given his concussion, he hadn’t run the simulated scenarios as quickly as he usually did. And two: That split-second delay meant that he could not cover both men.

There was no version that didn’t end with him getting shot.

That’s when the table scooted of its own accord, skittering forward two feet and slamming into Brust’s thigh. Brust staggered, buying Matthew another instant to focus on Nu?ez.

The big detective’s hand had already reached the hip holster, the Glock rising, not yet clearing leather.

Matthew drove into Nu?ez.

As the Glock rose, swinging to target Matthew’s critical mass, Matthew swept it to the side with a cupped hand, accelerating the momentum from the draw. Curling his fingers over the top of the slide, Matthew steered Nu?ez’s arm along the trajectory it was already traveling, the weapon carried in a straight-armed swivel.

It whipped through another fifteen degrees, and then Matthew jerked the weapon to a halt, the jolt causing Nu?ez’s hand to clench.

His finger constricted around the trigger.

Matthew had halted the pistol with the front sights aligned on Brust’s head.

Droplets painted the rear wall.

Brust crumpled.

Nu?ez gasped, a screeching intake of air.

To his credit he did not release the Glock. He had a better grip on the weapon and was much stronger to begin with, so Matthew released the barrel. His other hand was already grabbing for the pens in Nu?ez’s shirt pocket.

As Nu?ez took a clunky step to the side to regain his balance, Matthew tore a pen free. He spun into Nu?ez, throwing his weight backward, slamming his shoulders into Nu?ez’s chest, tilting his head forward to protect it from colliding with Nu?ez’s chin.

As Nu?ez barked out a grunt, Matthew tightened his fist around the pen and slammed it down past his own hip into the inside of Nu?ez’s thigh.

Now the big man dropped the Glock.

He lurched back stiffly, struck the wall, and slid down to a sitting position, his legs kicked out before him. With disbelief he looked down at the pen protruding from his thigh, the dark stain spreading through the fabric of his slacks. Then he curled his hand around the pen, holding it in place.

Matthew looked past Brust’s fallen body and the knocked-askew table to where Jack sprawled on the floor, tilted back on his ass. His foot was still raised from when he’d kicked the table into Brust.

Behind him there was a black hole where Brust’s round had buried itself in the wall; it must have missed his head by inches when Jack hit the floor.