Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #2: Books 5-8 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [readnow TXT] 📗

The old guy with the long beard started babbling. “Please, sir! Please! We are not fundamentalist! We just want peace! Please no hurt! Ahmed is acting on his own! He been here talking crazy. We no support him!”

I growled, “I gave you your chance. You blew it!” I rammed the Glock against his right kneecap and he screamed like a girl.

“No! No! No!”

I gave him another backhander. “For the last time! Where?”

They all started shouting at the same time. And they all shouted the same thing.

“The whore! The whore and the priest! The whore and the priest!”

Twenty Four

Dehan called for further back up to meet us at the Martins’ while I burned rubber back down Rhinelander and Bronxdale. On the way, the captain called. I put him on speaker.

“What the hell is going on, Stone?”

“We have a situation, sir. The politics are up to you. I have a dangerous man armed with an assault rifle. He is headed for the Martins’ home and for St. George’s church. I am told he is on a jihad. We have every reason to believe he is going there with murderous intent. It is my intention to stop him before anybody else gets hurt.”

“Stone, the ramifications…”

“Sir, with all due respect, that is your department. I think you need to contact the local community leaders and make them understand that killing people and harboring murderers is against the law.”

“You don’t need to tell me my job, Stone. Listen to me. Isn’t Dehan… um… could there be a conflict of… um…”

“Breaking up, sir. We are at destination and facing imminent threat. Over.”

I pulled up outside St. George’s on Fowler Avenue, muted my cell and got out. It was deathly quiet and there was nobody visible in the street. We moved quickly to the side of the road, seeking the cover of the trees in the church garden, and the parked cars. We came to the gate and squatted down.

I peered in and the lights in the rectory all seemed to be turned off. I wondered if Paul and Humberto were still at the hospital. The church looked massive and strangely ominous in the dull, orange light from the street. I slipped in to the garden, indicating to Dehan I would take the left path between the rectory and the nave, and she should take the right path, by the old graveyard. We split up and sprinted for the church.

The narrow passage under the canopy of trees became a blind, claustrophobic tunnel of black shadows against even blacker depths. The only light came from a dim circle of moon-glow on the lawn up ahead. I could hear my own breath and my heartbeat, magnified in the darkness. I moved forward inch by inch, with my flesh expecting the plunge of a blade or the shattering shock of a bullet at any second.

I made it to the end of the nave and stepped into the moonlight, keeping close against the wall. Then, I slipped around the church tower, looking for Dehan. She wasn’t there. I cursed silently and slid a little farther around, to peer down toward the gravestones. That was when I felt the cold, hard pressure of a gun barrel between my shoulder blades, and a cool, steady voice in my ear, “Freeze, motherfucker… Oh, it’s you. All clear this side.”

I turned to look at her. She was giggling like a school kid. I told myself people deal with stress in different ways and we moved on across the lawn to the back of the house. I had left two patrolmen to guard the Martins’ house, but I guessed they were on the inside. We had back up coming, to cover the front and back of the house, but it hadn’t arrived yet. The 43rd was stretched at the best of times. Tonight they’d be stretched real thin.

Dehan moved up to the kitchen door and I slipped over to the French windows. They hadn’t pulled the drapes yet, and I could see Sylvie lying on the sofa, with her head on Mary’s lap. She had put on a heavy, woolen cardigan and was clutching it up to her mouth. Paul was in one of the armchairs, staring silently at Sylvie, and Humberto was in the other chair, looking really depressed. Obviously, they’d been given the all clear. I looked over at Dehan. She was squatting down by the step and signaled me to join her. As I approached, she pointed at the door. It was about an inch open.

I mouthed, “Cover me…”

She gave a single nod and trained her gun on the center of the doorway. I flattened myself against the wall and with the tips of my fingers gently pushed the door. It swung back a couple of feet and came to a stop. I inched closer and pushed again. It wouldn’t move. It had come up against something solid on the other side. I pushed harder. It gave a little, but softly sprang back when I let go. I knew what it was, and when I glanced at Dehan, her face told me she knew what it was, too.

I put my shoulder to the panel and heaved silently, then squeezed in through the gap. The cop on the floor had been with the department for just over a year. I knelt to feel his pulse. He didn’t have one, and the dark pool on the floor told me why. For a moment, I felt ashamed that I didn’t remember his name.

I stood and moved to the door that gave on to the dining room. It was open. The lights were off, but I had a clear view to the living room. I could hear the faint murmur of Paul’s voice. It had lost that bombastic, sermonizing sound I had heard before. It was more subdued. I took three silent