AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She pulled out her gun and her phone. She hit 911, relayed what had happened.
Someone was still firing out there. Pistol. She was pretty sure it was the reports of Eric Dobkin’s H&K .45. Then the shots stopped.
She phoned his cell. Four rings and she was thinking maybe something was wrong, or he was dead too, when he picked up.
“You okay?” Dobkin said immediately.
“I am. Murdock’s dead.”
“Thought so when I saw the round hit.”
“Did you see the shooter?”
“No, but I worked back the trajectory and fired that way. Eight shots and then I moved in. I called in backup.”
“So did I.”
“There’s no one around that I can see.”
“Escaped through the woods again. Enough with the damned trees already.”
“Is Murdock really dead? You’re sure?”
She looked down at the still body. “Yeah, he really is. No chance. Shooter knew what he was doing.”
“And you’re sure you’re okay?”
“Nothing that a Band-Aid won’t fix. If I were you I’d watch myself out there until help arrives. I know we were pretty exposed here, but it was still a fair shot. He could be far away and still nail you. Keep your head down.”
“Okay. Did he tell you anything?”
“Unfortunately nothing I didn’t already know. But he couldn’t have known that.” She hesitated, the words not forming the way she wanted. “He was trying to do the right thing.”
She clicked off and slumped next to the dead man. Counterintuitively, with a long-range rifle round the farther the bullet traveled the more damage it could actually do to the target when it hit. She took the fired round out of her pocket and studied it. Then she gauged the size of the hole in Murdock’s back. From that she reverse-engineered the flight length of the bullet.
The shot had come from over five hundred yards.
She hadn’t cared very much for Murdock, but he was a Fed. She had been a Fed. There was an unspoken bond there. When you killed a Fed you took a little bit of the soul from all other Feds. It could not be tolerated. It could not be left to pass without consequences, severe consequences.
She ripped off part of her shirtsleeve and wound it around her wound, neatly stopping the minimal blood flow. Her injury seemed grossly lame in the face of the mortal wound suffered by Murdock.
She opened her car door, snagged a bottle of water, and used it to wipe the blood off her face.
His blood.
She gargled, spit out more of it from her mouth, tried not to think how much of it she had inadvertently swallowed, how salty it tasted.
Finished, she looked down at Murdock again. She knew she shouldn’t do it, screwing with a crime scene, but she reached over and lifted out his wallet. Flipped it open.
Three kids. Three little tow-headed boys and a woman who looked like any mother with an overworked and always gone FBI agent husband and three little balls of energy: tired.
Michelle put the wallet back, leaned against the running board. She tried not to, but she just couldn’t help it.
She covered her eyes but the tears still trickled out.
CHAPTER
49
