Power Play

He leaned over and unlocked the door, shoved it open hard and fast, and flattened his belly to the floor.

More bullets shattered a mirror on the hallway wall, blew out the lovely etched-glass panels on either side of the front door. He heard Perry move. “Perry, no, stay perfectly still. I know you’re thinking about your Kimber in the bedroom, but forget it. Stay put, face against the floor.”

He heard her fierce voice. “I’m calling nine-one-one. Stay put yourself, and be careful, you hear me?”

Davis didn’t answer; he was looking out into the darkness. It was now dead silent. Who was out there? It was time to push. He leaned up and turned on the porch light, and fired off his entire magazine at the bushes nearby, fanning back and forth low to the ground.

He heard it—across the yard maybe, forty feet away, a muffled hiss, like a snake. Had he hit the guy?

Davis shoved a new magazine in the Glock, elbow-crawled out the front door, jumped to his feet, and ran, firing his Glock toward where he’d heard the sound. He stopped behind an oak tree and listened. The gunfire had sounded battlefield heavy, loud, sharp, and he knew a dozen neighbors had called 911. The shooter knew it, too. He couldn’t stay around much longer. Davis leaned out from behind the tree, scanning for movement.

A single bullet clipped off the bark not three inches from his face. He fell belly flat to the ground, didn’t move.

“Davis?”

She didn’t sound scared, she sounded mad. Amazing. He called out, “Don’t come out, Perry. The guy’s still somewhere out here. The cops will be here in a couple of minutes.”

“More like a couple of seconds, I hope. You’re okay, right?”

“Yes, stay put.”

They heard sirens coming.

Lights were going on all over the neighborhood, but no one appeared in their doorways or their porches just yet. They were peeking out from behind curtains, around cracked-open doors, waiting for the cops. “The shooter’s got to run from those sirens, Perry. Keep down.”

“That idiot destroyed my beautiful Tiffany lamp. And the etched-glass panels beside the front door? Shattered, both of them. Do you know how much I paid for those? They were a gift to me from myself when Mike Ditka called me to thank me for a story I’d done on him and the Super Bowl Bears from long ago.

“I’d like to kick his tonsils into his brain. Who was it, did you see?” No, she thought, it couldn’t be William. He was wounded, hiding somewhere.

“I didn’t see him, but I may have hit him, I don’t know.”

Perry came running up to him, grabbed his arm. “What did you do? How could you let this happen?”

He couldn’t answer her because three cop cars screeched to a halt ten feet away, men and women were shouting as they bounded out, guns trained on him. Davis dropped his Glock and shot his hands over his head, waving his creds. He yelled, “FBI agent! Someone fired on us. FBI!”

Since the cops weren’t stupid, they kept their weapons trained on him and Perry, and came steadily closer. He called out, “This is Perry Black. I’m guarding her! The shooter’s getting away. Find him!”

At a nod from the sergeant, cops fanned out into the neighborhood, shouting to neighbors to get back inside and turn the lights out. Sergeant Woollcott, carrying twenty more pounds that he should, checked Davis’s creds and holstered his gun. He said in a cheery voice, “If the guy’s still out there, my people will find him. Both of you are still alive, and that’s got to be good, right, Agent Sullivan?”

Davis didn’t have a chance to agree with him because Perry had grabbed his arm and was shaking him. “You turkey! You absolute mutton brain, really, how could you let this happen?”

He frowned down at her. “I couldn’t prevent the guy from shooting at us, Perry.”

“No, not that, I mean your face. You’re bleeding.”

“She’s right, boy,” Sergeant Woollcott said. “Now I’ve got some light, I see you’re alive but you’re not looking pretty. The paramedics will fix you up.”

What with all the shooting, Davis knew the paramedics, two women and a man, were expecting to see a slaughter. But all they’d get was his bloody face.

One of the paramedics ushered him inside the condo. She stepped gingerly over a crashed lamp, sat him down, positioned him under the light of the small reading lamp that had escaped destruction, and got to work. The alcohol burned, but he kept his mouth shut, aware that Perry was standing close, her arms crossed over her chest, daring him, he imagined, to make a sound. “Hmmm, it really looked impressive, but fact is, there’s nothing much here. Looks like a bit of oak bark sliced you. A bit of iodine, some Steri-Strips, and you’ll be good to go. We heard there was a war on out here. Lucky nobody was really hurt.”