The Stone Monkey (Lincoln Rhyme 4)

"You going to shoot?" Deng asked uncertainly.

"Just back out."

She took a step behind her. Another. The young cop, sweat gleaming between the thorns of his hair, didn't move. Sachs stopped. He was muttering something, maybe a prayer.

"Eddie, you with me?" she whispered. After a pause: "Eddie, goddamn it!"

He shook his head. "Sorry. Sure."

"Come on, slow." To the man gripping the teenage girl Sachs spoke in a cooing voice and very slowly: "Put the gun down. Let's not anybody get hurt. Do you speak English?"

They backed away. The man followed.

"English?" she tried again.

Nothing.

"Eddie, tell him we'll work something out."

"He's not Han," Deng said. "He won't speak Chinese."

"Try it anyway."

A burst of sounds from Deng's mouth. The staccato words were startling.

The man didn't respond.

The two officers backed toward the front of the alleyway. Not a single goddamn cop or agent noticed them. Sachs thought, Where the hell are all of our people?

The assailant and the terrified girl, the gun tucked against her neck, moved forward and stepped outside too.

"You," the man barked to Sachs in crude English, "on ground. Both on ground."

"No," Sachs said, "we're not lying down. I'm asking you to put your gun down. You can't get away. Hundreds of police. You understand?" As she spoke she adjusted her target--his cheek--in the slightly better light here. But it was a very narrow bull's-eye. And the girl's temple was a scant inch to the right of it. He was of very slim build and Sachs had no body shot at all.

The man glanced behind him, up the dark alley.

"He's going to fire and then make a run for it," Deng said in a quavering voice.

"Listen," Sachs called calmly. "We're not going to hurt you. We--"

"No!" The man shoved the gun harder against the girl's neck. She screamed.

Then Deng reached for his sidearm.

"Eddie, don't!" Sachs cried.

"Bu!" the assailant called and thrust his gun forward, firing into Deng's chest. The detective grunted violently from the impact and fell backward, against Sachs, knocking her to the ground. Deng rolled onto his belly, retching--or coughing blood; she couldn't tell. The round might've pierced the body armor at this range. Stunned, Sachs struggled to her knees. The gunman aimed at her before she could raise her weapon.

But he hesitated. There was some distraction behind him. The shooter looked back. In the darkness of the alleyway Sachs could make out a man speeding forward, a small figure, holding something in his hand.

The perp released the girl and spun around, lifting the gun, but before he could shoot, the running figure clocked him in the side of the head with what he was carrying--a brick.

"Hongse!" Sonny Li called to Sachs, dropping the brick and pulling the girl away from the stunned assailant. Li pushed her to the ground and turned back to the dark man, who clutched his bleeding head. But suddenly he jumped back and lifted his pistol toward Li, who stumbled back against the wall.

Three fast shots from Sachs's gun dropped the attacker like a doll onto the cobblestones and he lay motionless.

"Judges of hell," Sonny Li gasped, staring at the body. He stepped forward, checked the man's pulse then lifted the gun out of his lifeless hand. "Dead, Hongse," he called. Then Li turned back to the girl, helping her up. Sobbing, she ran down the alley, past Sachs, and into the arms of a Chinese officer from the Fifth Precinct, who began comforting her in their common language.