Chapter 118
VETTER LAUGHED LOUDLY.
For a split second, all I could see were the beautiful, open-mouthed choppers of a kid who’d had the best dentistry in the world. He said to Conklin, “Can’t you just see Francis Ford Coppola directing this scene?”
I heard a faint click and then a thunderous KABOOM.
I’d never seen anything like it before.
One minute I was looking into Mrs. Vetter’s eyes, and in the next moment her head exploded, the top of her skull opening like a flower. The air darkened with a bloody mist that coated me and Conklin and Vetter with a red sheen.
I screamed, “No!”
And Vetter laughed again, his smile blinding white, his face a mask of blood. He used the barrel of his gun to shove his mother’s body out of the chair so that she tumbled and rolled, coming to a stop at my feet. Vetter aimed through the space between me and Conklin and fired again, the second horrific boom of double-aught buck sailing over the heads of cops and SWAT twenty yards away at the edge of the lawn.
I tried to wrap my mind around the horror of what I’d just seen. Instead of using his mother as a ticket to safety, Vetter had blown her up. And SWAT couldn’t get a bead on Vetter without hitting us.
Vetter thumbed the breech release, cracked the muzzle, and reloaded. He flipped his gun shut with a snap of his wrist and it clacked as it closed. It was a sharp and unmistakable sound.
Vetter was ready to shoot again.
There was no doubt in my mind. I was in the last moments of my life. Hans Vetter was going to kill us. I’d never reach my gun in time to stop him.
The air was heavy with smoke. The fire blazed. Flames leaped from the second floor up through the roof. The heat dried my sweat and the dead woman’s blood on my face.
“Step aside,” Vetter said to me and Conklin. “If you want to live, step aside.”
Chapter 119
FEELING CAME BACK into my fingertips, and hope rushed into the chambers of my heart. Now I understood. Vetter wanted SWAT to take him down in a superhero-style blaze of glory. He wanted to die, but I wanted him to pay.
As if my thoughts had caused it, Vetter suddenly screamed and jerked in the wheelchair like he was having a grand mal seizure.
I saw the wires and looked up at Conklin.
While Vetter’s attention had been focused on the SWAT team, Rich had unhooked his Taser from his belt and fired. The Taser’s electrified prongs had pierced Vetter’s right arm and thigh. Conklin kept the juice flowing as he shoved the wheelchair onto its side, kicked Vetter’s shotgun downhill.
While Vetter jerked in agony, SWAT swarmed up the slope to where we stood. I choked out to Rich, “You’re smart. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“Never.”
“Are you okay?”
He grunted. “Not yet.”
I fumbled in the grass for my Glock, then held the muzzle to Vetter’s forehead. Only then did Rich let up on the Taser. Still twitching, Vetter grinned up at me, said, “Am I in heaven?”
I was panting, my pulse beating a deafening tattoo against my eardrums, the smoke making my eyes stream with tears.
“You asshole,” I screamed.
Fire rigs drove up to the cur
b, and the SWAT team surrounded us. Captain Bailey saw the look of fury in Conklin’s eyes. He said slowly, deliberately, “I’ve got something in the van you can use to clean yourselves up.”
He turned his back and so did the rest of his team. With the rising blanket of smoke blocking out the news chopper’s view, Rich kicked Vetter in the ribs.
“This is for the Malones,” he said. He kicked Vetter again and again, until that psycho stopped grinning and started spitting teeth.