I had the capacity to kill. I’d done it before.
I blew my breath out through pursed lips and emptied my lungs completely. I was as still as I could be. My heart was the only thing in my body moving. I applied pressure to the trigger of my gun. Twice.
That was all it took.
A double tap.
Faldon went down.
For a second the outright violence of my shot was stunning—the two small holes between his eyes. A spray of blood from the back of his head that scattered onto the car and stinking bags.
And then it was over. He was on the floor, arms underneath him and legs jutted out to the sides in the uncomfortable way dead people fall.
“Fuck!” Patrick staggered to the right.
Ricardo was there in an instant, gun aimed at Faldon as he wrapped his free arm around his colleague.
“Everyone okay?” I stood, gun also aimed at Faldon, though I knew full well the life had gone from him.
“Yeah,” Patrick said, rubbing his neck. “Head still on.”
Ricardo swung his gun around the grimy alley, pausing on each window.
There was no movement. Not a flicker of a grubby curtain or the whisper of a face at a dirty pane of glass.
“Job done,” I said, walking their way, my boots quiet on the pot-holed ground. “Another asshole bites the dust.”
Patrick looked at me. He was paler than usual, his pupils wide and the whites of his eyes visible.
I bent and reached for his weapon. Faldon still had one finger curled around it. “Here you go, buddy.” I passed it to Patrick.
It took him a moment to take it. I guessed he was in some kind of shock. A near-death experience could do that to a person.
But not usually a member of a SWAT team. This was our job. Our daily lives.
“You okay?” I asked.
He nodded and extracted himself from Ricardo.
“Maybe you should go get some coffee,” I said.
“Coffee,” he repeated and glanced at the fence we’d all come over. “Yeah. Coffee.”
I frowned. “You in shock?”
“No. No, I’m fine.” He used his gun to point at the fence. “I’ll go fill Jonathan and Carl in. Get that coffee. Wait for backup.”
“They’ll be five minutes yet,” Ricardo said, finally lowering his weapon. “This place is empty. Well, apart from the two dead guys, but we won’t count them.”
I squeezed Patrick’s arm through his black clothing. “You want me to come with you?”
“No, you stay here.” He swallowed and nodded at Faldon. “And Freya… thanks.”
“For what?” I laughed. I knew full well why he was thanking me.
He didn’t return my humour. “You saved my life. That guy wasn’t messing around. I could hear it in his voice.”
My smile dropped. “So could I. It’s why he now has two bullets on his mind for all of time.”