I, Michael Bennett

by James Patterson

  Please let this work.

  A second later, our blue and red lights started flashing and we were rolling along the country blacktop, sirens blaring. I held onto an overhead strap with my right hand and the strap of a borrowed M4 assault rifle with my left as the roaring, rumbling truck swung off the mountain road and onto the driveway of Perrine’s hideout.

  We saw it almost immediately. After we had gone up the steep driveway for about a minute, we didn’t see just smoke anymore. Not good, I thought, staring open-mouthed out the front passenger-side window.

  Tall orange flames were now engulfing the woods on both sides of the driveway. I stared out at the growing fire. On each side of the driveway, there had to be half an acre of forest already in flames as the fire climbed up the slope toward Perrine’s mountain retreat. Bits of burning black-and-orange embers were falling everywhere. Like confetti in a Halloween parade.

  Our fake forest fire had somehow just become a real one!

  Ginther halted the truck and lifted his radio.

  “Rabbit! Merlin! This was supposed to be a pretend fire. Are you effing kidding me? What’s going on?”

  “Those smoke rounds get hot, sir. Seems like too hot in this case,” replied Rabbit. “We didn’t realize how dry the forest floor was.”

  Ginther shook his head at the flames, his face grim. I could almost see visions of the FBI Waco standoff dancing through his head.

  The radio came alive with a metallic squawk.

  “Ground one, this is air one. Do I see real fire down there?” asked the already airborne assault team.

  “Man, is Smokey going to be pissed,” Ginther said, glancing at me. “Screw it. Accidents happen. Can’t worry about it now. We use it.

  “Full speed ahead,” Ginther called into his radio. “All forces assault now. We’re going in. I repeat. We’re going in.”

  “Through a forest fire?” I said.

  “Hey, you’re the one who wanted to run this flea-flicker. Besides, worst-case scenario, we’ll exfil on the choppers,” Ginther said.

  The crazy commando shrugged and gave me his all-American smile as he put the truck into gear and gunned it toward the flames.

  “Come on, Mike. Get into it,” Ginther said. “This is what it’s all about. Improvise. Overcome. And by the way, welcome to HRT.”

  CHAPTER 100

  TWENTY SECONDS LATER, as we passed through the massive wall of flames, a hand banged hard on the roof above Ginther.

  “Cap,” said one of the FBI commandos on top of the truck. “Twelve o’clock on the driveway ahead. We have a vehicle approaching.”

  “Follow my lead, but be ready for anything,” Ginther said to his guys.

  He didn’t need to tell them to lock and load, I knew. These elite commando types woke up locked and loaded. They probably couldn’t tell you where the safeties on their guns were.

  My gaze shifted from the flames we’d just passed to the vehicle coming down the road. It was a black Jeep Cherokee with four hard-looking Hispanic men in it. It stopped in front of us.

  “Private,” the driver said, waving his arms as he hopped out. “You need to turn around and go back. This is a private area.”

  “Private? Are you out of your cotton-picking mind?” Ginther yelled, thumbing back his fire helmet as he stepped out onto the driveway. “See that hot orange stuff heading our way? That’s a forest fire, son. Winds are coming up from the south. You don’t have a minute to spare. You need to get yourself and anyone else up at that house off this mountain now.”

  The Hispanic guys conferred quickly. One of them lifted a phone and started speaking rapidly into it.

  Ginther lifted his own phone.

  “Okay, Central. This is hook and ladder thirty-eight,” he screamed, loud enough for Perrine’s guards to hear. “We can’t get access to the fire site. You’re going to have to bring up the water chopper. I repeat. Bring in the water bird.”

  Water chopper? I thought, remembering the already hovering HRT helicopters.

  It’s going to rain in a minute around here, all right, I thought, glancing at Perrine’s thugs. It’s going to rain cops and lead.

  The head Hispanic tough was putting away his phone when the four HRT commandos with us rolled off the top of the truck and put assault rifles in the bad guys’ faces. In a fraction of a second, the bad guys were facedown by their Jeep, hog-tied, with white plastic zip ties around their wrists.

  “Oh, my God, Mike. Look at this,” Ginther said, showing me the back of the Jeep.

  It was filled to the brim with military hardware. AK-47s, sniper rifles, three pairs of night-vision goggles, fragmentation grenades. They even had claymore mines.

  “What did I tell you?” I said. “These jacks think it’s World War Three.”

  After Ginther told his men to transfer all the weaponry onto our truck, he lifted each of Perrine’s thugs one by one and kicked them in the ass to get them moving down the driveway, toward the main road.

  “Ándale, assholes,” Ginther said. “You have about five minutes before that driveway melts. Run, if you want to live.”

  CHAPTER 101

  GINTHER LEAPED ABOARD the rig and got on the radio to update the rest of the teams about the weapons cache. Then he hit the siren again and put the fire truck into gear. We could hear the buzz of helicopter blades as the truck stopped on the circular driveway next to the house.

  “Evacuation! This is an evacuation!” Ginther bellowed over the fire truck’s loudspeaker. “A forest fire is in the area! I repeat. A forest fire is on its way!”

  As we exited the fire truck, I was greeted by the glorious sight of the HRT Black Hawk hovering over the house, commandos fast-roping onto the deck. I was congratulating myself at getting this far in without resistance when the sound of gunfire erupted inside the house. Ginther told his men to watch the perimeter as we both shucked off our fire coats and raced over the driveway toward the house.

  The closest entrance we found was a sliding glass door under the enormous deck. The finished basement was extremely elaborate-a pool table, a wide-screen TV, a bar with wine bottles stacked within two huge glass coolers. In a split second, the door was shattered with Ginther’s rifle butt and we were inside.

  I turned to look back through the sliders when I heard a crackle. I paused, blinking. About thirty feet away, the woods below the house were completely on fire. There was so much smoke you could hardly see the sky. It was amazing how fast the forest fire had moved.

  I felt like running back and grabbing some fire gear, but instead, I quickly followed Ginther through a door near the back of the room. I was in for another shock. Beyond the doorway was a huge indoor lap pool and a glass wall running along the entire width of the house.

  Not only that, but there was someone in it. A pale form under the water.

  The water bulged, and Marietta herself appeared with a splash at the end of the pool closest to us. She wasn’t wearing a stitch, and for a moment, Ginther and I stood arrested in place, staring at the water sluicing off her curves, at the long, black, wet wave of hair that clung to her shoulders.

  Instead of being shocked, she was smiling, as though she’d been waiting there for us.

  Then we heard the sound of engines. There were lights in the trees beyond the window. Then three or four ATVs blew past, roaring up behind the house, up the mountain.

  “Freeze!” Ginther said.

  I looked away from the window to see Marietta moving along the pool’s edge.

  “No. My robe. I need to cover myself. I just want my robe,” Marietta said, reaching toward a white robe on a chaise longue beside the pool.

  Waiting for her, my eyes pinned on her hands, I saw black and shot just as she was bringing the machine pistol up. The triple burst of my M4 rifle was amplified by and reverberated violently off the pool-room tile. I hit her in the side of her neck, and her gun clattered onto the concrete deck. I watched her go stiff and fall straight back into the pool in a move we used to call the Ne
stea plunge when I was a kid. For a long dumbfounded second, I stared at the glow of the outside flames, their pink reflection on the tile, Marietta’s blood making a pink cloud in the water.

  “Where’s Perrine?” Ginther roared into his tactical microphone. “We heard ATVs going north. What the hell is going on? Tear this place apart!”

  “We can’t, Cap. We’re done. The deck just caught,” came back one of his men. “You need to get the hell out of there. We need to exfil now. Everyone needs to head to the LZ behind the house.”

  That’s what happened. We retraced our steps and went back outside. The heat was incredible; it felt like we were standing at the door of the world’s biggest convection oven.

  The Black Hawk was filled by the time we got there, so we had to leave on one of the puny Little Birds, which reminded me of those toys you see at the mall. Ginther strapped me in and we lifted up. When we swung around the front of the house, I saw that it was completely engulfed. The living room curtains, the rugs, the furniture. Everything was burning.

  The Devil’s Path, I thought, staring down as we sailed over the burning mountain through the smoke-dark sky.

  CHAPTER 102

  THE HRT RALLY point was the parking lot and field behind a rural post office in nearby Lexington, New York. When we landed between the tents, it was already chaos. About a hundred or so state troopers, local cops, and FBI agents were running around, coordinating a massive manhunt. I even spotted a few of the firemen we had borrowed the trucks from. It was going to be fun when we told them we left their new rigs behind in the inferno up on the mountain.

  And this was the calm before the shitstorm, I thought as Ginther unclipped me from the chopper. We’d lit the world on fire to get Perrine, and it was looking like he’d still gotten away.

  Ginther took me aside in one of the tents and handed me a baby wipe and a bottle of water. When I collapsed onto the bumper of their SWAT truck and wiped my face, it came back black. I poured the water over my head and watched it drip onto the beaten dirt between my boots.

  I’d definitely had better days at the office. I was tired, filthy, and smelled like a smoked chicken. And I’d just killed a beautiful naked woman. A completely insane, homicidal maniac of a beautiful woman, but still. Actually, I didn’t feel bad about it, considering that the witch had killed my good pal Hughie. It was pretty much the highlight of the raid, since Perrine was still on the run.

  “Mike, whatever happens, this was my plan,” Ginther said. “They want to transfer me to Alaska, I don’t give a shit. Because you were right about the night vision, about the weapons they had up there. We would have been sliced to ribbons if it wasn’t for you. We didn’t get this animal, but all my guys came back safe. That’s all I care about.”

  “Thanks, brother,” I said, looking up. “But I have a funny feeling the blame-layers aren’t going to be satisfied with just one crucifixion. And screw the pencil pushers anyway, Kyle. They’re like eunuchs in a harem. They know how it’s done. They’ve seen it done every day, but for some reason, they just can’t do it themselves. We gave it our best shot, and we’re going home alive. Tomorrow’s another day.”

  “For me, it’s looking like tomorrow’s going to be another day in the land of a thousand suns. We torched an entire mountain and got jack shit to show for it,” Ginther said. “I mean, I never even heard of that.”

  I started laughing a little then. He was right. I’d been involved in disasters before, but this took the cake.

  “But our heart was in the right place, Kyle,” I said. “Isn’t that what really counts?”

  My phone started vibrating then. I had a funny feeling it was going to be doing quite a bit of that in the next few hours.

  “Bennett,” I said.

  There was a pause, then a strange voice.

  “You killed her, Bennett, didn’t you? You killed Marietta.”

  CHAPTER 103

  I COULDN’T BELIEVE it. It was Perrine. I could tell by the stupid Pepé Le Pew accent. I jumped up and frantically waved at Ginther and pointed at my phone.

  “Hey, buddy. You’re the one who left her there,” I said. “I would have said ‘high and dry,’ but you actually cut out and left her doing the backstroke in the pool.”

  Ginther ran and grabbed an FBI phone tech, who whispered that she needed my cell number. I grabbed her offered pen and wrote it on the back of her hand.

  “She was my wife. Did you know that, Bennett?” Perrine continued. “We were married right after my escape. My child was inside of her. You set that fire to smoke me out, didn’t you? You killed my pregnant wife.”

  For a moment, I almost felt sorry for the drug-dealing, murdering son of a bitch. He sounded depressed. You could tell the pain in his voice was real. He sounded like he really did love that crazy chick.

  “Pregnant? Didn’t show, Manuel. Do you always let your wife swim in the buff?”

  The sound of pain and outrage that erupted from the phone a moment later was something I was unfamiliar with. There was something primal about it, something Jurassic. The cry of a pterodactyl caught in a lava flow.

  “Oh, I see how this works,” I said, hearing Perrine’s cries turn into sobs. “You can kill anybody in your path and that’s fine and dandy. But someone close to you takes a bullet to the back of the head and all of a sudden it’s Greek tragedy time? How does it feel, you piece of garbage? Choke on it. Boo-hoo, you fucking crybaby.”

  Was what I said cruel? You better believe it was. But then again, Perrine had taught me all about cruel. I’d never said anything as remotely hurtful to anyone in my entire life, but this monster had killed my friend Hughie, and had actually put a hit on my kids. It was safe to say the gloves were off. I’d stab him in his broken heart with the cheap Bic pen in my hand if I got the chance.

  “Do you know where I am right now, Bennett?” Perrine finally said with a sniffle. “Right this very minute? I’m in front of your house at the lake. I’m about to kill your family, Bennett. I’m going to tie everyone up and gather them around and make everyone watch as I carve out their little hearts one by one. Chrissy, Jane, Juliana, even the priest. All their heads will be on sticks by the time you get here. Just remember. You did this. You did this to yourself.”

  Then he hung up.

  CHAPTER 104

  AN HOUR LATER, I was racing south down the Thruway in a borrowed FBI SUV, lights and siren at full strength. I threw it onto the shoulder without touching the brake as traffic backed up. I was still tearing ass when I threw the vehicle up on a grass berm around both the state police car and the ambulance at a highway accident scene that was causing the backup.

  In my rearview mirror, in the red light of the road flares, I could see the trooper glaring at my taillights, as though he wanted to empty his service revolver at me, but that couldn’t be helped. I punched the SUV back off the berm onto the dark highway in a cloud of dust and continued south.

  I’d already spoken to Seamus, who assured me that everything was fine. I’d even contacted Ed Boyanoski, who had sent a Newburgh PD squad car to watch the house. And yet I frantically needed to get back to the lake house. Perrine’s words, his promise to hurt my family, wouldn’t stop replaying in my mind. Perrine was capable of absolutely anything.

  It was about twenty-five minutes later when I finally fish-tailed the truck into the lake house driveway. The first thing I noticed was Ed’s Toyota beside a Newburgh squad car out in front. All the lights were on in the house as I flew up the steps through the open door.

  Ed was in the hallway. He caught me as I almost ran through him.

  “It’s okay, Mike. Everybody’s okay.”

  I finally looked over his shoulder and felt like crying as I saw he was telling the truth. Everyone was sitting around the dining room table in front of several pizza boxes.

  “Is everybody here?” I said. “Is everyone here?”

  I scanned faces.

  Jane: check. Eddie, Ricky: check. Juliana, Brian, Trent: check. Little
Shawna, with Chrissy-thank you, dear God: check.

  “Fiona and Bridget,” I said. “Where are the twins?”

  “Right here, Daddy,” Fiona said, coming through the kitchen doorway with a bowl of salad, followed by Bridget, who was holding a two-liter bottle of Coke.

  “Why is Daddy’s face all black?” Bridget said.

  “Good question, Bridget,” Trent piped in over his slice. “What I want to know is, why is he acting nuts?”

  “You mean more nuts than usual?” Eddie said.

  I smiled at my motley crew as I let out a breath. What Perrine said was a bluff. Of course it was. Thank you, God.

  “Oh, we’re all here, Detective Bennett,” Seamus said from the foot of the table. “Everyone is present and accounted for. And I do mean everyone.”

  That’s when the kitchen door opened.

  And Mary Catherine came in with a bunch of napkins in her hand.

  CHAPTER 105

  WHEN SHE SPOTTED me standing there, she stopped in her tracks, the napkins in her hands fluttering to the floor. My jaw was already there waiting for them.

  It was one of those movie moments. I waited for a sappy eighties love ballad to start playing so I could lift her up where we belonged or something. All the kids started giggling. Actually, that was the girls. The boys were too busy rolling their eyes.

  “Okay, Bennetts. This is where I take my leave,” Ed Boyanoski said.

  “Hi, Mike,” Mary said.

  She bent down and started picking up napkins.

  “Here, let me help,” I said, just about hurdling over the table and grabbing some napkins off the floor. Then I grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the kitchen.

  I kicked the door shut behind me, and before I really knew what I was doing, I lifted her up off her feet as I bear-hugged her. My arms tingled where I held her to me.