Middle Of Nowhere

   "He needs it nice and clean. Needs it to look like I shot you after you shot me. Only it's Pendegrass who shoots us both." He looked back to Pendegrass. "Isn't that right, Chuck?" He spoke again to the dark porch. "You sure you want to be aiming at me? I'm not armed. But he is. And look at his ankle. He's carrying a drop as well. What's with that?"

   "Shut up!"

   "Because otherwise . . . if I get shot, if there's an officer down with no one to blame . . . there's gonna be one hell of a manhunt. If you'd hit me the other night . . . it might have been blamed on Flek. But Matthews interviewed him before he died. Did you know that? Now you boys have made a mess of it. And Chuck here intends to clean it up and keep himself in the clear."

   "That's bullshit, Rod," Pendegrass called out.

   Boldt reminded him, "He had me inside his house, tape in hand. Why'd he let me go? Why'd he let me come back here?"

   "My wife!" Pendegrass answered quickly. He ordered, "The tape, Boldt. Now! No more of this! I want that tape."

   "It's in the car," Boldt said.

   "No fucking way," Pendegrass barked.

   "Search me. Ask him," he said motioning to the porch. "He was here waiting for me. He saw me get out of the car." He turned slightly. "Did I have a videotape on me?"

   For a moment there was only the drone of an airplane far off, and the low constant hum of traffic.

   "I didn't see it on him," Smythe confirmed.

"Untuck your shirt," Pendegrass ordered.

   Boldt did as he was told. No tape fell out. "I'm telling you, it's in the car." He added, "But then again, I wouldn't shoot me just yet, if I were you. What if I dropped it off at a friend's on the way over?"

   From Boldt's right, a third voice. "Then I'd have seen you," Riorden said. Also wearing a balaclava, he stepped around the corner of the house, there to block any attempt at an exit to the street. To Pendegrass he said, "He didn't stop anywhere."

   The third part of the puzzle. No more surprises.

   "No one's going to shoot you, Boldt," Pendegrass stated. "All we want is that videotape."

   "We were going to trade," Boldt reminded.

   "Change of plans. You ever get any idea to breathe a word of any of this, and Matthews ends up like Sanchez or worse. That's my leverage on you. That, and the tape. That's my promise."

   Boldt felt another chill race down his spine. Pendegrass had made the wrong threat. He had also just made an admission of guilt by mentioning Sanchez. Boldt had much of what he wanted. "Front seat of the car," Boldt said. "Take the tape and get out of here before I lose my temper."

   Pendegrass chuckled, amused. "I'm quaking all over." He moved toward the Crown Vic, though never taking his eyes off Boldt. He tried the passenger door, but found it locked. "Keys," he called out to Boldt.

   Boldt let the keys dangle from his right hand, thinking that if Pendegrass or the others had half a brain they would wonder why he'd opted to have his keys out and ready in his right hand. Smythe might think he'd intended to open the back door of the house, but then why not switch hands with the gun when Pendegrass had walked out of the shrubs? But they weren't thinking: That was just the point. They hadn't been thinking when they'd stolen the guns off Krishevski's tip about the strike; they hadn't been thinking when they'd broken Sanchez's neck in an attempt to rough her up and get her off the I.I. investigation; they hadn't been thinking when they'd tried to cover it up by making it look like Flek. Guys like this didn't think—they reacted. It was all they were capable of. "Thing's got a remote," Boldt informed him, letting the keys hang from his hand. "I'll do it for you."

   He lifted his right hand, pointing the small remote device toward the car the way people aim clickers at their televisions. Straight-armed and determined. Again that eerie silence, punctuated only by the keys ringing together like tiny bells. Boldt pushed the button. The doors to the car clicked open. Pendegrass pulled on the door handle and opened the passenger door. He leaned inside.

   Boldt pushed the remote's other button. As the car's trunk popped open, Boldt shut his eyes, collapsed to the steps and rolled down them.

   LaMoia came up out of the car's trunk lobbing a phosphorus grenade, a police issue semi-automatic clutched tightly and ready to fire. Boldt heard one shot; he wasn't sure from where. He caught hold of his fallen handgun on the roll, and opened his eyes to the devastating pure white glare of Pendegrass coming out the passenger door, burning brightly in that light like an angel. He had let go of the videotape, and it floated through the air in an eerie slow-motion arc. One hand shielding his eyes, casting a triangle of black across his brow, he raised the tip of that silencer toward Boldt, who saw no choice but to fire. He aimed low, tracking his shots as two holes appeared in the side of the Crown Vic, and a third found the man's knee, bludgeoning it into a bloody pulp.