Into the Fire(69)

It smashed the wall, the doorknob sticking through the drywall.

“Hurry up and—” Nu?ez cut off his words to his partner, his eyes lighting with alarm at Evan’s bandage-wrapped face, his hand already reaching for his sidearm.

At the center of the room, Brust stood facing Max over the table, one arm extended, his Glock aimed at Max’s head. An executioner’s pose.

Before Evan could move, Brust fired.





36



Deadweight





Evan filled the open doorway of the interrogation room, the echo of the gunshot ringing within the reinforced walls.

Max was gone, knocked clear out of his chair by the head shot, lost somewhere beneath the table, bleeding out.

Adrenaline surged at the reins, threatening to break free and bolt through Evan’s bloodstream, but he tightened his hold. If Max was dead, he’d still be dead three seconds from now.

Evan couldn’t waste a split second. He was in close quarters with two homicidal cops. They had Glock 22 Gen4s, each with fifteen .40s stacked in the magazine.

Evan had an ACE bandage wrapped around his head and a lingering concussion.

But he’d been trained to slow down time in a firefight, to assess the freeze-frame progression of movement and angles.

Brust remained in side profile, having just fired across the table at Max. A slow-motion ripple spread through the cheap cotton of his shirt behind the right shoulder, stirred into existence by the recoil. He was pivoting toward Evan, his head leading the turn.

At five feet away, Nu?ez was the closer threat. Forty pounds heavier, he was the larger one, too.

But Brust would have Evan in his sights first. Evan couldn’t reach him in time.

As he played through the extrapolation of the next three seconds, a pair of thoughts struck him. One: Given his concussion, he hadn’t run the simulated scenarios as quickly as he usually did. And two: That split-second delay meant that he could not cover both men.

There was no version that didn’t end with him getting shot.

That’s when the table scooted of its own accord, skittering forward two feet and slamming into Brust’s thigh. Brust staggered, buying Evan another instant to focus on Nu?ez.

The big detective’s hand had already reached the hip holster, the Glock rising, not yet clearing leather.

Evan drove into Nu?ez.

As the Glock rose, swinging to target Evan’s critical mass, Evan swept it to the side with a cupped hand, accelerating the momentum from the draw. Curling his fingers over the top of the slide, Evan steered Nu?ez’s arm along the trajectory it was already traveling, the weapon carried in a straight-armed swivel.

It whipped through another fifteen degrees, and then Evan jerked the weapon to a halt, the jolt causing Nu?ez’s hand to clench.

His finger constricted around the trigger.

Evan had halted the pistol with the front sights aligned on Brust’s head.

Droplets painted the rear wall.

Brust crumpled.

Nu?ez gasped, a screeching intake of air.

To his credit he did not release the Glock. He had a better grip on the weapon and was much stronger to begin with, so Evan released the barrel. His other hand was already grabbing for the pens in Nu?ez’s shirt pocket.

As Nu?ez took a clunky step to the side to regain his balance, Evan tore a pen free. He spun into Nu?ez, throwing his weight backward, slamming his shoulders into Nu?ez’s chest, tilting his head forward to protect it from colliding with Nu?ez’s chin.

As Nu?ez barked out a grunt, Evan tightened his fist around the pen and slammed it down past his own hip into the inside of Nu?ez’s thigh.

Now the big man dropped the Glock.

He lurched back stiffly, struck the wall, and slid down to a sitting position, his legs kicked out before him. With disbelief he looked down at the pen protruding from his thigh, the dark stain spreading through the fabric of his slacks. Then he curled his hand around the pen, holding it in place.

Evan looked past Brust’s fallen body and the knocked-askew table to where Max sprawled on the floor, tilted back on his ass. His foot was still raised from when he’d kicked the table into Brust.

Behind him there was a black hole where Brust’s round had buried itself in the wall; it must have missed his head by inches when Max hit the floor.

Evan unwound the Ace bandage from his head, enjoying his first clear breath of air since he’d entered the station. “Thanks.”

Max’s nod looked like a tremor.

Evan moved over to Brust and started tugging off the detective’s shoes. The big man’s legs hung from Evan’s grip, deadweight.

In the corner Nu?ez choked out a grunt of pain.

Evan finished with the loafers and got to work on Brust’s belt. “You’re gonna want to keep pressure on,” he said, not bothering to look over at Nu?ez. “The pen is buried in your femoral artery. If you let go, you’ll bleed out in seconds.”

Nu?ez grunted, eyeing his fallen service weapon a few feet past the tips of his shoes. So tempting.

Evan stripped off his own jeans and stepped into Brust’s pants. A bit loose, but they fit well enough. The button-up took a bit more doing. The collar was stained, but not terribly. Next Evan worked the badge lanyard carefully over the mess of Brust’s head and ducked into it.

He made for a passable detective.

Nu?ez watched the fashion show, his upper lip wrinkled back from his teeth like a dog’s.