Third Degree

by Greg Iles

Danny reached into an Igloo on the ground and pulled out a can of Dr Pepper. “Something on your mind, Carl?”

  Sims held the rifle at a right angle to his body and looked down the length of the barrel, checking something Danny couldn’t even begin to guess at.

  “That guy at the bank,” Carl said. “The one whose hand I shot?”

  The one the sheriff’s hung up on. “Yeah.”

  “I recognized him from grade school. Soon as I saw him in my scope.”

  “I thought it might be something like that.”

  Carl lowered the rifle and began working at it again. “Wasn’t just that, though.” He looked around to make sure they were alone, then spoke in a softer voice. “I killed a lot of people in Iraq, Major. More than the twenty-seven they credited me with.”

  Danny waited for whatever was coming.

  “I knew why I was killing those people, you know? Most of ’em, anyhow. But this stuff here . . . I don’t know. In a few minutes, I’m going to have my mama’s doctor in my crosshairs. And it just don’t feel right.”

  “I know.”

  Carl looked confused. “But inside the trailer . . . you were talking like you want me to shoot the man.”

  Danny sighed heavily. “I’m not in command here, Carl. If it were up to me, the FBI would be running this scene, and you and me would be waiting for word somewhere dry. But that’s not going to happen. Not with these boys.”

  The sniper nodded dejectedly. “I heard that.”

  “There’s exactly two professional soldiers here tonight,” Danny said with quiet conviction, “and they’re both under this tent. If the sheriff reaches the point of ordering an explosive entry, you are the best hope that Mrs. Shields and her daughter have of surviving this night. You alone. Do you understand?”

  Carl stopped wiping the gun. “You’re saying I should knock down the doctor before Ray and them screw things up.”

  Danny moved closer to the sniper, then squatted so that their eyes were level. “You want my opinion? If we’re within two minutes of an assault, and you have a clean shot . . . take it.”

  Carl’s eyes widened. “Without waiting for authorization?”

  “Sheriff Ellis thinks you’re slow on the trigger, right?”

  The sniper nodded resentfully.

  “Prove him wrong.”

  The trailer door popped open behind them. Danny looked around and saw Sheriff Ellis walking toward them.

  “Danny,” Ellis said, “I think you need to talk to Dr. Shields. We’re losing our light. If we have to go in, I don’t want to wait till dark to do it.”

  Danny took a swig of Dr Pepper and held it in his mouth till it burned. If he was going to talk to Warren Shields, he needed to be awake and alert.

  “Sheriff!” someone called. “Sheriff Ellis! I got somebody you need to talk to!”

  Danny swallowed and turned. Willie Jones was hurrying up with a pretty, young woman beside him. As they drew closer, Danny saw terror in the woman’s face.

  “Who’s this?” asked the sheriff.

  “Nell Roberts,” Willie said. “She works for Dr. Shields. She was at the fire today. She’s been trying to avoid that Biegler dude. He tried to arrest her earlier today.”

  Ellis motioned Nell under the pavilion tent. “What are you doing out here, miss?”

  “I didn’t know where else to go! I’m worried about Dr. Shields.”

  “Worried about Dr. Shields?” Sheriff Ellis gave Danny a look that said, What did I tell you? “Are you and Dr. Shields personally involved, miss?”

  Nell’s cheeks reddened. “No! He wouldn’t do anything like that. And I wouldn’t either. He’s not like Dr. Auster.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “That’s what I came out here to tell you. Dr. Auster is a liar—a liar and a crook. He’s gotten Dr. Shields in trouble, but it’s not Dr. Shields’s fault. Dr. Shields is a good man. Ask anybody. I don’t know what’s going on out here, but I can promise you Kyle Auster is behind it.”

  Sheriff Ellis took a long breath, then slowly expelled it. “So, if I told you that Dr. Shields is holding his family hostage in his house, and he maybe killed Dr. Auster, what would you say?”

  Nell shook her head as though this were an impossibility. “I’d say Dr. Auster asked for it somehow. He probably tried to kill Dr. Shields.”

  Danny recalled Laurel’s text message: KA dead by W. Self-defense. Nell Roberts apparently knew her bosses well.

  The sheriff turned to Danny. “What are we going to do with this young lady? I don’t want Biegler to get ahold of her.”

  “Why don’t you put Willie with her, and keep her close to the trailer? If I’m going to talk to Shields, I may want to ask her some questions. Psychological stuff.”

  Ellis nodded. “You heard the Major, Willie. You’re Miss Roberts’s babysitter from now on. Stay right outside the trailer.”

  “Yes, sir,” Willie said with a grin.

  “You ready, Danny?” Ellis asked. “This may be our only chance to end this thing without casualties.”

  “Ready.”

  “Oh, shit,” said Carl. “Sheriff?”

  Danny and Ellis turned together. Flanked by two subordinates, Paul Biegler was marching toward the pavilion, and he was marching like a man in charge. He brought the rain with him. Before he reached the edge of the tent, a staccato rattle of heavy drops sounded on the nylon overhead.

  “I don’t need this,” said Ellis.

  “Bad omen for sure,” Carl muttered, a note of superstition in his voice.

  Biegler stopped outside the pavilion and stood in the rain like a visiting captain awaiting permission to come aboard a ship.

  Sheriff Ellis offered the opposite of hospitality. “I thought I told you not to come back here unless you had information that would improve our tactical situation.”

  Biegler nodded. “That’s exactly why I’m here. Mind if we get out of the rain?”

  As Ellis took a slow step back, Danny sensed a subtle shift in the balance of power at the scene. From the moment Biegler and his men stepped under the protection of the tent, everything changed.

  “What have you got?” the sheriff asked. “We don’t have much time for talk.”

  “Warren Shields is dying,” Biegler said.

  Ellis’s mouth went slack. “Say what?”

  “He’s got an inoperable brain tumor.”

  “Lord have mercy,” Carl breathed.

  “How do you know that?” Ellis asked. He turned to Nell Roberts. “Did you know that?”

  Nell shook her head, clearly in shock. “I knew something was wrong, though. He’s been acting different for a while now. Oh my God . . . oh, no.”

  Biegler’s voice gained authority as he spoke. “Shields was diagnosed eleven months ago at the office of a neurologist at the Stanford Medical School. One month later, he applied for a life insurance policy in the amount of two million dollars. He was approved.”

  “How?” asked Danny.

  “The neurologist at Stanford recorded Shields’s office visit and tests as something else. The two of them went to medical school together. Roommates.”

  “Jesus,” said Danny, realizing that he and Laurel had begun their affair at about the same time her husband was diagnosed.

  “How did you find this out?” Ellis asked.

  Biegler drew himself to his full height. “Unlike some people, I cultivate contacts outside my own agency. I’ve had everybody I know running Dr. Shields through national computer databases. When the neurologist’s name came up, I called him. It didn’t take much pressure to get the truth out of him.”

  “How could Dr. Shields keep something like that secret?” asked Carl.

  “He’s essentially treating himself,” Biegler explained. “With steroids mostly. Every three weeks or so he flies out to Stanford, under cover of going to a bicycle race.”

  Ellis shook his head in disbelief. “Are you saying his wife doesn’t even know?”

  “Nobo
dy knows. Nobody but Shields and his neurologist. The guy said Shields has only one mission in life now: providing for his wife and kids before he dies. Nothing else matters to him.”

  In the silence that followed this remark, Nell Roberts began to sob, but the sound was mostly covered by the rain.

  “Well, hell,” said Sheriff Ellis. “That’s a shocker, and no mistake. But I’m not sure how it changes anything.”

  Biegler’s eyes went wide in wonder. “Are you kidding? It changes everything.”

  The trailer door banged open again, and this time Trace Breen jumped out, shielding his eyes with his hand. “It’s him again, Sheriff! Dr. Shields. He’s still asking for Major McDavitt!”

  Biegler gave Danny a long look. “Why is he asking for you?”

  “Let’s go find out,” said the sheriff.

  CHAPTER

  18

  Danny sat at the Formica-topped table in the command trailer, waiting to speak to Warren Shields. The odors of sweat and mildew had mingled into an unpleasant soup in the cramped space. To Danny’s surprise, Sheriff Ellis had allowed Paul Biegler to follow them into the trailer; he stood two steps behind Danny, his posture tense. Trace Breen was present to work the comm gear, and his brother stood by the door with Carl Sims at his shoulder. Danny figured Ellis would kick Carl out when he saw him, but the sheriff’s attention was on weightier matters.

  “Put those on,” said Trace, pointing at a headset on the table.

  Danny picked up the headset, which was connected to a small gray box that read HELLO DIRECT on the top. Wires ran from this to a rack of audio gear against the trailer wall. A portable DAT recorder and three small speakers sat atop the rack.

  “If those speakers are going to be on,” Danny said, “turn them way down. I want Shields to think it’s just him and me on the phone.”

  Sheriff Ellis nodded to Trace, who made an adjustment in the rack.

  Danny tried to remember all he knew about Warren Shields. Danny had thought he was under stress from the effort of hiding his cell phone link to Laurel. But hearing that Shields was suffering from terminal cancer had blasted his perception of the past year to smithereens. Every assessment he had ever made of his and Laurel’s relationship had been missing a critical factor. Moreover, it seemed impossible that Laurel would not notice an illness that serious. Had she known about the cancer and kept it from him? If so, she wasn’t the person he’d thought she was. What have I done to that poor man? he thought. What have I done to that family? When Danny first began falling in love with Laurel, he had struggled hard against his feelings. Laurel had done the same, or so it had seemed. Even after they lost that battle, guilt had shadowed their relationship for a while. But eventually it faded, in the growing certainty that they were meant to be together for the rest of their lives. Now that old guilt had broken up through the dark soil at the bottom of Danny’s heart, where he’d buried it, like some poisoned flower after a heavy rain—

  “Danny?” prompted Sheriff Ellis. “You still with us?”

  “I need a pen and paper. To make notes.”

  “I don’t think we got any here,” Trace said.

  “In a command post?”

  “Here,” said a deep, even voice.

  Bodies moved behind Danny, and then Carl handed him a small notebook he’d been holding, along with a waterproof pencil. “Logbook,” Carl explained. “All snipers carry them.”

  “Thanks, Sergeant,” Danny said, using Sims’s former military rank instead of deputy.

  Carl melted into the back wall again.

  Danny picked up the headset, thinking that if Warren knew he was Laurel’s lover, this would be the shortest hostage negotiation in history. He made eye contact with the sheriff and Agent Biegler in turn. “Anybody has any suggestions, tell me now. When I start talking, I’m going to face the wall so I’m not distracted. I’m not a trained negotiator. I’ll be flying by the seat of my pants. You don’t want me doing this, I’m happy to step aside. But once I start, please stay out of it. No second-guessing on the fly.”

  Sheriff Ellis nodded, but Biegler stepped forward and looked down at Danny. “Don’t mention his illness, if you can help it. For some reason, this man trusts you. You want to keep him on an even keel and get him out of there peacefully. Stay away from anything that aggravates the emotional component.”

  “What am I supposed to talk about? The weather?”

  “You won’t know that until Shields starts talking. But keep him cool. And don’t offer him anything without getting something in return. No food, no medicine, absolutely no reduction in criminal charges. Only I can grant that, through the attorney general. Anything Shields requests gives us leverage, and we have to gain a concession for it.”

  Danny had a feeling that Biegler had flown up to Quantico for a weekend course in hostage negotiation. “I don’t think he’s concerned with criminal charges, Agent Biegler. And I don’t think we have anything he wants.” Unless he wants me. “But I’ll keep your advice in mind.”

  “I need to know if Auster is dead or alive,” Biegler added.

  He’s dead as a hammer, Danny thought. “Understood.”

  “Just get the little girl out of there,” Sheriff Ellis said. “We don’t want her in the line of fire if we have to assault the house.”

  “I think I’ve got the gist,” Danny said. “Let’s get to it.”

  “Dialing now,” said Trace.

  Danny put on the headset and waited. After three rings, he heard a click. Then Warren Shields, sounding not at all like himself, said, “Dr. Shields.”

  “Warren?” Danny said, feeling more than a little awkward. “This is Danny McDavitt.”

  “Finally,” Shields said, with obvious relief. “It’s good to hear your voice, Major.”

  “Yours, too.” Danny wasn’t sure how to begin, so he just went with his gut. “Doc, we’ve got a lot of confusion out here today. You want to tell me what’s going on?”

  Shields sighed heavily. “Laurel betrayed me, Danny. She’s been having an affair with somebody. Worse than that . . . she’s in love with him.”

  He doesn’t know it’s me, Danny realized. Elation almost lifted him out of his chair. “That doesn’t sound like your wife to me. How do you know?”

  “I found a letter from the guy.”

  God. He must have found a handwritten letter. If he’d gotten into her e-mail account, he’d know everything. Danny had always signed his handwritten letters “Me,” just in case someone saw them. “That’s what all this is about?” he asked. “An affair?”

  “Afraid so. Pretty pathetic, huh?”

  “Not really. That’s a big blow, finding out a person isn’t who you thought they were. That the world isn’t the way you thought it was.”

  “You got it, Major. That’s exactly it. You’re living your life under certain assumptions, and then you find out they’re all wrong. You thought you were walking on firm ground, but you’re really walking through a swamp of shit.”

  Danny wrote Depressed/Wronged man in Carl’s logbook. He’d known plenty of guys who got Dear John letters while serving overseas. A few had shown their letters to Danny in the hope that he could read something between the lines that they couldn’t. He’d never found a way to lessen the pain for any of them.

  “You must be pretty angry,” Danny said. “I know I would be. The thing is, though, I don’t get what you’re trying to do in there. You’re talking about a man-and-wife kind of problem. But you’ve got a lot of trouble stirred up out here. A lot of firepower. Can you help me out on your thinking?”

  “It’s simple, really,” Shields said, as if it really might be.

  “Is it?”

  “Absolutely. I just need to know who the guy is.”

  Danny’s gut clenched. “The guy she’s having an affair with?”

  “Yep. That’s it in a nutshell.”

  “And Laurel won’t tell you?”

  “Nope. She’s protecting the guy. I mean, the asshole dumpe
d her—it’s right there in the letter—but she’s still protecting him. Do you believe that?”

  Danny had forgotten to turn toward the wall. He did so now and tried to block out all the eyes staring at the back of his head. “Maybe she figures it could only make things worse, since it’s over. You know?”

  “How could things be worse than they are now?”

  Danny realized that both their voices had the cavernous sound created by cheap speakerphones. He wondered if Laurel was hearing his voice as he spoke. “Maybe she figures that if you have a face to put to your negative thoughts, it’s going to hurt a lot worse. Which could be true, you know?”

  “No way. It’s not having a face that’s so bad. If I knew who the guy was, I’d probably laugh. I’d probably think he’s a total loser.”

  Maybe he is, Danny thought wretchedly.

  “I thought for a while that it was Kyle. My partner. But it wasn’t.”

  As Danny wrote PAST TENSE in the logbook, he realized that someone had turned up the speakers in the trailer.

  “I hear an echo,” Warren said suspiciously. “Who else is listening to this?”

  Danny gestured angrily for Trace to turn down the speakers. “Nobody. They’ve got me on some kind of headset. Sheriff Ellis wanted to eavesdrop, but I told him I wouldn’t talk to you unless it was just the two of us.”

  “Good man. Good old Danny.”

  Someone grabbed the pencil out of his hand and wrote AUSTER?! in Carl’s logbook. It was Biegler. Danny snatched the pencil back and waved him away. He knew Auster was dead, but he had to play out the charade to protect his link with Laurel.

  “About your partner,” he said. “I should tell you that you’ve got a lot of people worried about him out here.”

  Warren laughed softly. “That’s kind of hard to believe.”

  “I wouldn’t kid you, Doc. The folks out here would feel a whole lot better if Dr. Auster would come to the phone and say a few words. Just a quick hello would be enough.”

  “I told Ray Breen,” Shields said with obvious irritation. “Kyle’s busy going over our tax documents. There’s a Medicaid investigator in town trying to put us in jail.”

  “Is that right?” Danny glanced back at Biegler.