“I can’t stand to hear him suffer! You don’t know what you’re asking of me!”
Gabe leaned in until his face was inches from hers, his gaze hard. “Yes, I do.”
And Natalie remembered that he’d been forced to listen, drugged and bounded, while a murdering sociopath had brutalized Kat. Now she understood just how terrible that had been for him. She might have said something had he not turned away from her, whispering fiercely into his microphone, his fingertips against his earpiece.
“I’m giving you two minutes, then I move whether you’re here or not. Fuck you, Hunter! You’re not my boss. He is, and they’re fucking killing him! Stand by? Christ! Hurry the fuck up!”
From downstairs came another rending cry.
“I’VE GOT TWO officers up there who are injured, maybe even dead, and I’ve got another officer and an innocent woman who are in danger of becoming dead, and you refuse to fly? What the hell kind of pilot did DPD stick us with?”
“One who seriously needs to grow a pair,” Joaquin muttered under his breath, unable to hide his contempt. He shot a few frames as Marc moved in on the chopper pilot, towering over him with his six-foot-plus frame, the helicopter sitting idle in the sodden park grass behind them.
“I’m just the traffic guy. I help bust speeders on the open highway. With all the skyscrapers, those buildings all so close together, the wind.” The pilot backed up, crossed his arms over his chest, and tucked his hands into his armpits. “It’s not safe to fly.”
“I’m a helicopter pilot.” A SWAT officer who’d been standing nearby held out his hand. “Clifton from Boulder County SWAT. I can get us up there.”
Marc shook the man’s hand. “What kind of experience do you have?”
“I did six years with Army Airborne flying missions in Afghan—”
“Good.” Marc slapped him on the shoulder. “I want four volunteers ready to fly in two minutes. Let’s do some combat-style snipe-and-rappel with this bird.”
“You can’t take my chopper!” The pilot stood glaring, redfaced, at Marc. “I’m responsible for this machine.”
“Not any longer.” Marc pulled out his badge case, showed the ID, then flipped to the shiny star. “Special Deputy U.S. Marshal Marc Hunter. I’m commandeering the use of your helo.”
The pilot’s face grew even redder, then he turned and stomped away.
Joaquin met Marc’s gaze. “I think you enjoyed that.”
“You’re damned right I did.” Marc grinned.
But his smile couldn’t mask the worry in his eyes.
COLD SWEAT SPILLING down his temples, Zach fought to catch his breath, his heart beating erratically, flailing in his chest. Another blast like that and he was a goner.
Quintana shook his head as if his heart were no longer in his work. He turned to Wulfe, speaking in a heavy Spanish accent. “He’s not going to break. I’ve been through this with him. Kill him now and go—or bring him with us and let me find his weakness.”
“Sheis his weakness, and she isn’t here. I’m betting he put her on the roof, and that chopper we heard was SWAT retrieving her.” Wulfe drew a deep breath. “You’re right. There’s no further point in this. Finish him.”
Zach let his contempt for Wulfe show. “You don’t have the courage to kill me yourself? Can’t even pull a trigger. You’re pathetic.”
Wulfe looked down at him, seemed to hesitate, then gestured to Quintana, who stepped forward, a smile on his face, wires in his hand.
Zach watched Wulfe walk toward the door. “You’re a coward, Wulfe.”
Over thunder of his own pulse, he heard the whirring of an approaching helo. Everyone, including Quintana, turned to look. One of Wulfe’s men ran out onto the patio and looked skyward, making a full circle, eyes on the sky, before turning back to Wulfe and shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t see it!”
Quintana faced Zach again.
Zach looked into the eyes of the man who was going to kill him.
I love you, Natalie. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Forgive me.
It all happened in slow motion.
Quintana reaching out with the wires. Sunset breaking through the clouds. The hulking form of a helo rising up from below to hover just off the rooftop patio.