Blindside (Michael Bennett #12)(63)

He’d sent Ollie down to the bank to grab the girl. That meant he could keep his attention trained on Bennett.

Bennett had his hands raised and was walking toward him slowly. Christoph didn’t trust him. But this was falling in line with his own plan. He wanted to see the cop up close. Preferably, he’d use his knife. Instead of one jab to the throat, he’d take a few practice slashes, then take an ear or cut off his nose. Maybe make it last a little while. Then move on to cutting off something more delicate.

He knew Ollie would argue against that. He just wanted to take both of them to the area in Kopli Liinid with all the new houses. A lot of concrete was poured every day; there was always someplace convenient to leave a body or evidence they never wanted found. Having two people walk to the site would be much easier than carrying their bodies, and it would leave less blood everywhere they went. Christoph hated cleaning blood out of the car. And he’d done it more than most people.

All that ran through his brain as Bennett kept walking toward him slowly, his hands clearly empty and up over his head. He didn’t blame the cop for surrendering. The guy had been through a lot. Maybe he’d realized there was nowhere else to run. At least not in Estonia.

Christoph was about to warn him to freeze in place when the cop came to a stop on his own.

Now they were only about a meter and a half apart.





CHAPTER 88





AS WE FACED each other on the bridge, Christoph stared me down, then gave me a little grin. I’d seen it before. He was showing me he was in charge. He had won. I have no idea why these idiots think something is over before it’s even started.

I glanced over the side of the bridge into the lake. I heard or thought I could still hear Natalie, but I really couldn’t see anything in the darkness of the lake. I tried to gauge where the slovenly hit man, Ollie, was on the bank, but I had to deal with a younger, fit, armed killer right in front of me.

The first thing out of Christoph’s mouth surprised me.

He said, “Why did you throw the girl off the bridge?”

“She’s so light I thought she could fly.” Right now I was willing to say anything to buy a few more seconds for Natalie to escape. The problem was I had no idea where she or the other killer were. It had been quiet for too long.

I needed to do something. Fast. I also wanted to make Christoph scream. I was hoping that might bring his partner away from the lake and back to the bridge. It was a lot of speculation on my part.

I kept watching the Dutchman. He seemed pretty confident. Natalie’s blow across his face and my full-body block hadn’t seemed to slow him down too much. Sure, his nose still leaked a little blood. It was clearly broken and almost flat against his face, but that wasn’t affecting his reflexes. At least not that I could see.

Then I realized he was waiting just like me. He was waiting to hear Ollie call up and say he had caught the girl. That wasn’t going to fly with me. I’d taken all the abuse I wanted to take.

Christoph finally turned his head and looked toward the bank, hoping to see his partner. His gun was still in front of him, pointed right at my stomach, and the knife was gripped at the ready by his hip. It wasn’t a long look, but it was enough.

I made my move.

The situation was almost identical to what they put us in during training with the NYPD. It’s tough: a gun is extended toward you, the shooter’s reaction is slower than the captive’s action, and you have no other choice. Though there was the added complication of that knife.

My hands and feet moved at almost the same time. My hands came down, one arm swinging to knock the knife out of his left hand almost too easily, just as I stepped forward and closed the distance. My other arm swung toward Christoph’s gun hand a fraction of a second later.

Then the gun went off.





CHAPTER 89





I HEARD THE roar of the gun as soon as my body had cleared the path of Christoph’s pistol. It echoed along the dark banks of the lake. The heat from the blast penetrated my shirt. That’s how close it was. The smell of gunpowder crowded my nose. The bullet missed me on its way to God knew where.

As soon as he fired, the slide from the pistol automatically rocked back from the gases in the cartridge. It sliced the top of my left hand, which was holding Christoph’s wrist. That kept the slide from slamming forward again.

While the gun was useless, I used my right hand, which was closer to the pistol, to reach down and press the magazine release. I didn’t know the make of the pistol, but there are two main methods for dropping a pistol magazine. Thank God the button for the magazine was near the trigger. The other way would be on the butt of the pistol itself.

My index finger found the button and I heard the satisfying click followed by the thunk of the magazine bouncing off the bridge and dropping into the water below.

The fight was a little more even now.

I liked the way the Dutchman just gawked for a moment when I popped out the gun’s magazine. I guess no one had ever fought back against him. Or, like most people, he had seen just a tad too much TV. That wasn’t a move people saw very often. Honestly, I’d never done it before. But I wasn’t about to fight fairly.

Christoph stepped back and stared at his useless gun. I took the opportunity to throw a knee into his thigh. As he grunted and took another step back, I got a chance to throw a big punch at his face.