Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #2: Books 5-8 (A Dead Cold Box Set) Blake Banner (read out loud books txt) 📖

strides to the entrance to the hallway and waited in the shadows. Dehan came up behind me.

I was about to move into the hall when I heard movement and froze. There were two heavy steps and a large body came into view. It paused a moment and kicked the living room door in. I heard Mary and Sylvie scream and next thing, there was a hysterical, male voice screaming over the top of them. I recognized the voice as Ahmed’s.

I didn’t wait. I ran. Dehan was close on my heels. I burst through the door. Ahmed was standing over Sylvie. She was cowering, screaming hysterically, and Mary was lying over her, trying to protect her with her own body. For a moment, everything seemed to happen in slow motion. I saw Ahmed holding a Heckler and Koch assault rifle at his shoulder, painting the muzzle down at Sylvie. I saw Humberto gaping up at him, and I saw Paul staring in disbelief. I had my automatic aimed at the back of Ahmed’s head and I was yelling at him to drop his weapon and get on the floor. He was so hysterical I am not sure he even heard me.

I knew that if I shot him in the back of the neck, it would sever his spinal cord and paralyze him, so he would not be able to pull the trigger. I had given him fair warning and I was about to shoot. But before I could do it, Humberto was bellowing like a bull and charging. He collided with Ahmed, knocking the rifle up and away from Sylvie, screaming “Diavolo! Diavolo Incarnato!”

Ahmed staggered back and collided with me. I fell against the door and smacked my head. Humberto and Ahmed were prancing back and forth, struggling in a crazy kind of dance in the middle of the floor. Sylvie had gone into the fetal position with her fists over her ears and she was still screaming a high-pitched shriek.

Then Paul was on his feet, grabbing at Humberto, trying to pull him away, shouting at him in Portuguese. I wondered, for a fraction of a second, at some people’s enduring, incurable stupidity. I lunged forward, intending to ram my pistol into Ahmed’s kidneys and drop him. At the same moment, Humberto wrenched the barrel of the rifle from Ahmed’s left hand. Two shots in rapid succession hit the ceiling, showering the room with plaster. Ahmed staggered away from me. Humberto grabbed the rifle in both hands. Ahmed’s left hand flashed. I shouted, “Paul! No!” But it was too late. Ahmed had plunged his hunting knife into Paul’s gut. Paul staggered back, a look of shock on his face, and fell to the floor with the knife still stuck in the side of his belly.

I couldn’t shoot. I had no clear line of fire and the risk of hitting Sylvie or Mary, or Humberto, was too high. I thrust the automatic into my waistband, grabbed Ahmed by the scruff of his neck with my left hand and pounded two powerful punches into his kidneys. He staggered, but as he did so, Humberto saw his father lying, bleeding out on the floor, and hurled himself at him, wailing in pain. I lunged again at Ahmed, but he swung the butt of the rifle and caught me a glancing blow across my temple that sent me staggering back into Dehan.

She shouted, “Freeze!”

The whole thing had happened in maybe four or five seconds.

Ahmed and Dehan stared at each other. In retrospect, in that moment, she should have shot him. But I guess that’s what separates good people from people like Ahmed. Instead of shooting him, she waited to see if he would drop his weapon. And he, instead of dropping his weapon, aimed it at me.

I said, “Shoot the bastard. I’ll take my chances.”

Maybe she was about to, but that was when we heard the sirens outside. They had taken their sweet time, but the 7th Cavalry had arrived. Humberto was still wailing and shaking his motionless father. I knew when the cops got to the door, they’d hear it.

“Give it up, Ahmed. The show is over. You’re surrounded, back and front. You got two ways out of here, in cuffs or in a body bag. You choose.”

He started screaming again. “You shut up! You shut up! You talk I kill you! Be silent!”

Dehan spoke quietly. “You kill him, I drop you where you stand.”

I glanced at the French windows. “Have a look, Ahmed.”

He backed up a couple of paces so he could see. The red and blue lights of the patrol cars were pulsing over the garden hedge.

“Tell them to go! You tell them to go or I kill somebody.”

Dehan snorted. “You move that rifle away from my partner and I’ll blow your miserable head off your damned shoulders, you piece of shit.”

He was panicking and that was all to the good. He screamed at Dehan. “Drop your weapon or I kill him!”

She smiled like she meant it. “Go ahead, make my day.”

Sylvie had gone quiet. Now she sat up and got to her feet. Ahmed started screaming at her.

“What you are doing? Get down! Get down on your knees, whore!”

He was moving around like crazy while he spoke, trying to keep us both covered and stay out of Dehan’s line of fire. Outside, I heard a bullhorn.

“Ahmed Abadi! We know you are in there! Put down your weapons and come outside with your hands in the air!”

The words had a strange echo, and seemed to come from the back of the building as well as the front. Sylvie got on her knees beside Paul, where Humberto was sobbing with his head on his father’s chest. She stroked Paul’s face. Her cheeks were wet and her eyes swollen from crying. She looked up at me.

“You were right,