"Just stand there and put your hands up."
"He'll shoot me," Jodie whimpered.
"No, he won't. You've got to trust me."
"But . . . " His eyes darted toward the door. He wiped his face.
Is this man going to buckle, Soldier?
That is a risk, sir, but I've considered the odds and I think he won't. This is a man who wants money badly.
"You'll have to trust me."
Jodie sighed. "Okay, okay . . . "
"Make sure your hands are up or he will shoot."
"Like this?" He lifted his arms.
"Step back so your face is in the shadows. Yeah, like that. I don't want him to see your face . . . Good. Perfect."
The footsteps were coming closer now. Walking softly. Hesitating.
Stephen touched his fingers to his lips and went prone, disappearing into the floor.
The footsteps grew soft and then paused. The figure appeared in the doorway. He was in body armor and wore an FBI windbreaker.
He pushed into the room, scanning with the flashlight attached to the end of his H&K. When the beam caught Jodie's midriff he did something that astonished Stephen.
He started to pull the trigger.
It was very subtle. But Stephen had shot so many animals and so many people that he knew the ripple of muscles, the tension of stance, just before you fired your weapon.
Stephen moved fast. He leapt up, lifting the machine gun away and breaking off the man's stalk microphone. Then he drove his k-bar knife up under the agent's triceps, paralyzing his right arm. The man cried out in pain.
They're green-lighted to kill! Stephen thought. No surrender pitch. They see me, they shoot. Armed or not.
Jodie cried, "Oh, my God!" He stepped forward uncertainly, hands still airborne--almost comically.
Stephen knocked the agent to his knees and pulled his Kevlar helmet over his eyes, gagged him with a rag.
"Oh, God, you stabbed him," Jodie said, lowering his arms and walking forward.
"Shut up," Stephen said. "What we talked about. The exit."
"But--"
"Now."
Jodie just stared.
"Now!" Stephen raged.
Jodie ran to the hole in the wall as Stephen pulled the agent to his feet and led him into the corridor.
Green-lighted to kill . . .
Lincoln the Worm had decided he'd die. Stephen was furious.