Step on a Crack (Michael Bennett 1)

Of all the sieges in all the cathedrals in all the world, she had to drive her meat wagon into mine.

The Neat Man smiled as he tilted his coffee at her.

Here’s looking at you, bitch. Six degrees of separation and all that crapola.

He watched her rush across the plaza, pushing a wheeled stretcher. The tactical team emerged from the revolving door just as she got to the entrance.

The Neat Man counted heads quickly. Thirteen had gone down. Now there were nine standing. His boys inside had taken care of business! Against Hostage Rescue, too! And Hostage Rescue was supposed to be the best of the best.

Thank God he’d been able to tip Jack off.

He winced a little when he saw asshole hotshot detective Mike Bennett was still among the living. Yolanda was pulling up his pant leg and wiping at a cut on his shin.

What happened, Mikey? Got a boo-boo?

He watched as Bennett shrugged her off and hobbled, shell-shocked, toward the trailer. Cops and FBI agents patted him on the shoulder as he passed.

“Not your fault,” the Neat Man called from the crowd at Bennett’s back as he passed. “It’s those bastards inside. This is all on them.”

Chapter 66

THIS WAS A TRAGEDY. The first one for the good guys, thought Jack as he looked down on a fallen pal.

The bleeding hijacker rested his head against the false stone casket and moaned as Jack violently slammed the concrete lid to the bomb shelter shut.

Learning of the existence of the secret escape tunnel from the cathedral’s crypt was one of the major factors that had swayed him and the Neat Man to finally go through with the hijacking. It was how most of them had snuck in, and the way they were thinking of getting out.

Jack rubbed at the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes as panic began to bulge in his chest.

Had to calm down. He wasn’t allowed to panic. He’d allowed for this, remember? Practically expected it. It would still work out.

He took a breath, and let it out.

Thank God he had come up with a plan B.

He opened his eyes as his dying comrade moaned again.

Fontaine, he thought. You unlucky son of a bitch.

“Calm down now,” Jack said as he unseamed the man’s brown robe with a Ka-Bar knife, then freed the Velcro straps of his bulletproof vest with a loud rip.

“You’re going to make it,” he lied without hesitation or request.

One of the return-fire rounds shot up from the bomb shelter had ricocheted off the lead-lined lid of the hatch. Fontaine had caught the bullet in the back just above the collar of his Kevlar vest, to the left of his spine. That wasn’t even his worst problem, Jack thought. Because either he’d just spilled a couple of gallons of Benjamin Moore high-gloss red over the front of his pants, or he was rapidly bleeding to death from where the round had left his body.

When Jack peeled the heavy vest off Fontaine’s chest, he spotted the blood-gushing exit wound above his friend’s right nipple. Jack looked at the dying man with a wondrous respect. The fact that Fontaine was still breathing seemed to defy logic.

“Don’t lie to me,” Fontaine said. “I’m all sliced to shit inside. I can feel it. I can feel the blood.”

“We’ll put you outside,” Jack offered. “You’ll be caught, but at least you’ll be breathing.”

“Yeah, right,” Fontaine said. “They’ll patch me up so I can be good and healthy when they put the needle in me. Besides, they ID me, we’re all screwed. Just do me a favor, will you, when you get out?”

“Anything,” Jack said.

“Give my share to my girl, Emily. Hell, not even a full share. Just something.”

The hijacker sobbed suddenly.