"Understood," said Danny. "But I've seen it done. I had a Delta sniper shoot p.r.o.ne from the belly of my ship. He didn't like doing it, but he hit his targets."

Carl looked around at the faces of the other men. "I'll give it a try. But add in the deflection of the gla.s.s, and that's a tricky shot. If my target's alone, okay. But if there's a hostage close, she could get hurt."

Ray was watching them incredulously. "What do you two experts think Dr. Shields is gonna be doing while Carl's hanging up there trying to shoot him? He's gonna blow your a.s.ses out of the sky, that's what! He could shoot down that helicopter with a deer rifle."

This was true, Danny knew. "I don't think he'll be expecting a shot from the chopper. If I turn on the searchlight, he'll think we're trying to get a look at him."

"And if Carl misses the first shot?"

"Then you guys would bust in like you want to."

Sheriff Ellis was the kind of man who talked to help himself think. "If Carl saw Shields holding a gun in his hands, especially in a threatening manner, we could definitely justify taking him out."

"What if we go in and we don't see a weapon?" asked Ray.

"Fire to disable?" said Ellis. "Don't you train for that?

Ray shook his head. "Double-tap. Two to the body, one to the head, makes you good and dead."

"Jesus. What happened to surgical strikes?"

"That's just not practical in close-quarters combat," said Carl. "Things happen too fast, once you go in. There may be a weapon you can't see. Body armor you can't see. Once things go that far, you have to shoot to kill."

Ellis nodded. "I'm glad to hear that from you, Carl. Ray seems a tad eager today."

Danny noted with some relief that the closer they got to the moment of truth, the less cavalier the sheriff was about ordering an a.s.sault.

A soft but persistent buzz drew several pairs of eyes to Danny. With hot blood flowing into his cheeks, he held up a hand in apology. Then he took out his cell phone and, after making sure no one else could read the screen, read the newest text message: Me lying on sofa n grt room. W n study atdesk. Bth lying on study sofa. Here was the very information that the TRU was using every available resource to try to discover. The best thermal imagers in the world couldn't give this kind of detail. Danny considered telling the sheriff that he'd simply tried to text Laurel Shields (whose cell number he might reasonably have, since she was Michael's teacher) and had gotten lucky. But sooner or later they would discover that the cell phone Laurel was using was not registered to her, but to a friend of Danny's. No, he decided. I've got to keep this ace up my sleeve until the last possible moment- "I thought we wasn't supposed to be talking to n.o.body on the outside," Trace said from behind Danny. "Who's he talking to?"

Sheriff Ellis said, "Major McDavitt has a family emergency. So how 'bout you shut up and focus on your job?"

Trace ducked his narrow head. "Yessir."

Thinking of Laurel's message, Danny moved closer to the blueprints and said, "I was actually in this house a couple of times, back when I coached soccer with Dr. Shields."

"Really?" said the sheriff.

"Yep. And if I remember right, Shields has a computer sitting on the desk in his study, which is right off the great room." He pointed. "Right there. If Shields was telling the truth about working at his computer, he might be sitting at that desk to do it. And if I'm not mistaken, the study windows are just like the ones in the great room."

Carl nodded. "They are."

Danny looked at the sheriff and let his voice take on its pilot's authority. "I think I see a surer way to end this thing. It was your idea to start with, Sheriff."

Ellis stood a little straighter.

"If the thermal imagers pinpoint Shields in that study-or in the great room-I should take the chopper up as a diversion, just like you suggested on the way here."

The sheriff nodded to confirm that this had, in fact, been his idea.

"We put Carl on the ground with his rifle scoped on those windows and the thermal imager beside him. When I turn on my searchlight, Shields will come to those windows like a moth to a candle. When he does, Ray can blow the windows out with plastique-all the back windows. Shields will be silhouetted like a duck in a shooting gallery. And that's when Carl takes his shot."

The sheriff's eyes narrowed. "Carl only?"

"There's your surgical strike. One shot, one kill. No collateral damage."

Ray Breen was winding up to argue, but Ellis silenced him with an upraised hand. The sheriff's eyes bored into those of his sniper. "Will you make that shot, Carl?"

Carl looked back steadily. "No problem, sir. There's a pecan tree forty-three meters from the back windows. I ranged it with my laser. I can set up behind that. The doctor won't even know I'm there."

"I didn't ask if you could make the shot," Ellis growled. "I asked if you would."

The sniper's face tightened as he realized exactly what was being questioned. "Understood, sir. I'll make the shot."

"No wounding, nothing like that."

Carl nodded once, his jaw set firm.

Sheriff Ellis didn't look convinced, but he finally turned away and gazed at the semicircle of faces pressed close around him. "All right, listen up. I like Major McDavitt's thinking on this. But my first plan is to talk Dr. Shields out of there."

Ray Breen snorted, but he tried to make it sound involuntary.

"I know Shields has stopped answering the phone, but that doesn't mean he won't answer the next time we call. If he won't answer, I'll go to the bullhorn. But-at the rate we're losing light, our options are going to shrink mighty quick."

"Storm's coming up fast," Burnette noted.

"And maybe the FBI, too," Ray intoned.

Ellis grimaced. "Ray, set up your directional mikes."

"They're being set up now."

"Good. The second those thermal imagers get here, I want 'em up and running. I want to know where every person in that house is and hear every word they're saying. Once I've got that intel, I'll make my tactical decision." Ellis dug into his pocket for something-chewing tobacco, Danny figured-but came up empty. "Anybody else got anything to say?"

n.o.body did. Except Danny, who throughout the meeting had been haunted by an image so vivid that it might be a premonition: Ray Breen charging into the great room with an MP5 submachine gun on full auto-and one solitary slug finding its way into Laurel's heart- "I'd like to say something," Danny said quietly. "What I'm about to tell you is only what I've heard Delta Force and SEAL commanders tell their men before an a.s.sault. Don't ask me what a.s.saults, because I can't tell you."

The room went silent as a prayer vigil, just as he'd intended. He looked Ray Breen in the eyes. "This is no training exercise. And it's d.a.m.n sure no movie set. If you men a.s.sault that house, you're as much a threat to the hostages-and to each other-as you are to Dr. Shields. You have no way of knowing how Mrs. Shields or her daughter will react to your intrusion. The little girl might bolt for her father the instant those windows go down. You've got to know what you're going to do in that event before you go in."

"What would you do, Ray?" asked the sheriff.

"Depends if he's holding his gun on the little girl, I guess."

"That's no time for guessing," Danny said. "You think he'd hold a gun on his own daughter?" asked Burnette.

"Who the f.u.c.k knows?" Ray snapped. "He's the nutjob taking people hostage."

Sheriff Ellis looked down at the blueprints, his eyes clouded with doubt. "If Dr. Shields is holding his little girl when the windows go down, Carl is the only man authorized to shoot."

Half of Danny's fear left him in a single sigh.

"Jesus!" cried Ray. "A million things could screw up Carl's shot. We need to be able to do whatever's required to get the job done."

"A sniper ain't no better than we are up close," Trace argued.

Carl looked at the younger Breen with barely disguised contempt. "You want to put a thousand dollars behind that mouth?"

"Any day, boy."

"You'd have to borrow it to pay me."

"Shut up!" bellowed the sheriff. "My order stands. All this is hypothetical right now anyway. Everything could change in five minutes. Danny? Anything else?"

"Only this. I never knew a real hero who wanted to be one. We've got one objective: the safety of those people inside. Keep your minds on that, and maybe we'll end this night without killing anybody."

"Which is exactly what we want," Ellis concluded.

A soft beeping sounded in the trailer.

"s.h.i.t fire!" Trace exclaimed, his eyes on the comm rack. "That's him!"

"Who?" asked the sheriff.

"Him. Dr. Shields! His house, anyway."

"Answer it!" snapped Ellis.

Trace picked up the phone and, after trying to swallow his bobbing Adam's apple, said, "h.e.l.lo? Deputy Breen speaking."

Everyone watched his rodent's face bunch in concentration. "No, that's my brother. Is that who you want to talk to?...Okay. Wait a minute, please."

Sheriff Ellis stepped forward, expecting to be handed the phone, but Trace put his hand over the mouthpiece and shook his head.

"He's asking for Danny, Sheriff."

Ellis looked nonplussed. "Danny?"

"Um, 'Major McDavitt' is what he said. Ain't that Danny?"

The sheriff turned and looked back at Danny.

Danny shrugged, unable to guess what Shields wanted with him. Unless he'd somehow forced Laurel to confess their involvement, that is- "Major, do you want to talk to Dr. Shields?" Sheriff Ellis asked stiffly.

"We'd better think it through before I try that." Danny looked at Trace. "Tell him you're going to find me, and I'll call him back."

Trace was about to do this when Ellis said, "Ask if he'll talk to me instead."

Trace followed his orders, then hung up, looking embarra.s.sed. "He said Danny or n.o.body, Sheriff. Then he hung up."

Ellis rubbed his strong chin. "Okay...everybody get into position. Stay on the secure radio net, but keep the chatter down."

The trailer emptied fast. Soon only Trace Breen remained with Danny and the sheriff.

"Where are you supposed to be?" Ellis asked Trace.

"Right here. This is my post."

"Well, clear out for a minute."

Trace looked happy to oblige.

After he'd gone, Ellis gave Danny a penetrating look. "What do you make of this development?"

"I don't know what to make of it."

"Are you and Shields pretty tight?"

"Not at all. We coached ball together, like I said. And I taught him to fly. But he's not the kind of guy who makes friends easy. There's always a distance there."

Ellis nodded. "That's my feeling, too. So what does he want with you? I don't get it."

Danny shrugged again. "Do you want me to talk to him?"

"Somebody needs to. Or the next thing that's gonna happen is him getting shot."

"I'd hate to see that happen. But I'd hate to see an a.s.sault even more."

"You've made your point." Ellis spat in the little sink against the wall, then grabbed a pot of coffee off the counter. After sniffing it, he poured some into a Styrofoam cup. "Take a short break, Danny. I need to think for a minute. There's something we're not seeing here."

"Seems like it," Danny said, wondering if Ellis was smarter than he was given credit for being.

"I need to pray about this, is what I need to do."

"I'll leave you alone, then."

"Don't stray far. I may call you any second."

Danny nodded. "I'll be right outside."

Grant Shields was sitting on the sofa in the Elfmans' TV room, trying and failing to focus on the first Harry Potter movie, which Mrs. Elfman claimed her grandkids loved best of all of them. Grant had seen all the Harry movies so many times that he could recite the lines with the characters. The bad thing was that Harry was always thinking about his dead parents. The lady deputy sitting beside Grant didn't seem to notice, but he could feel himself clenching his fists and bouncing his feet up and down. He had no idea what was happening at home. All he knew was that something very bad could happen, and soon. The way his dad had been acting worried him, but not nearly so much as all the cops and guns he'd seen outside.

"How's our little man doing?" Mrs. Elfman asked, poking her head into the room for the fifteenth time.

"He's doing fine," said Deputy Souther.

Mrs. Elfman walked in and set a big orange bowl beside Grant. It was filled with tortilla chips and bright green paste.

"Guacamole!" she announced. "I know you love it, because your mom told me so."

Grant nodded and mumbled thanks, but he didn't want any guacamole. He did like it, most of the time, but only his mom's. Mrs. Elfman's tasted funny. Too much lemon, or something.