KnockOut

pain you’re going to feel when our brothers from Washington show up. Ah, speaking of brothers, here he is right now. And we’ve got one sister.”
    Galen stood up as Savich and Sherlock came into the room. “You might have lucked out, Cawley,” he said over his shoulder. “Look who it is.”
    Cawley brightened when he saw Sherlock. He didn’t know the woman, had never seen her before, but she was something. His brain swam happily in the morphine, and he hummed looking at her.
    Savich said, “No, he hasn’t lucked out. Hello, Galen.” He turned to Cawley. “Are you the brain-dead yahoo who let them get away?” Cawley moaned.
    Galen said, “Yep, in all his wounded glory.”
    Sherlock only nodded to Galen Markey, walked up to Cawley, and got right in his face. “You jackass!. I’m the one you should be afraid of, the one who’s going to kick your butt into your backbone when you’re back on your feet, not Dillon. Do you hear me? I am royally pissed. You could be stretched out on the autopsy table, like that”— she snapped her fingers—”with all of us standing over you, shaking our heads. How could you let this happen? Uncontrolled testoster-one? Because you didn’t wait for backup, those two young psycho-paths are in the wind again and you’ve got a bum arm.” And she jabbed him hard in his good arm.
    Her punch didn’t hurt him because morphine was still the main ingredient in his bloodstream. He looked up at her, gave her a dopey grin. “I don’t know who you are, but I love your hair and all those soft, wild curls around your face. Would you go to dinner with me when I’m able to cut my meat again?”
    “Go out with a birdbrain like you?” She nodded toward Savich. “Don’t you know who he is?”
    “Well, yeah, that’s Agent Dillon Savich. I aced one of his computer refreshers courses at Quantico last year. He likes me, he thinks I’m smart.”
    Savich said, “I have revised my opinion of you, Agent James. I’m beginning to see you in a new light, one that doesn’t have that many watts.”
    Sherlock said, “No, I won’t go out to dinner with you. I happen to be married to that guy, who, at this moment, would probably enjoy throwing you out the window. What floor are we on?”
    Cawley said, “The ground floor.”
    Sherlock knuckle-tapped him on the head. “Your lucky day, bozo. You will now begin at the beginning and tell us everything. Please, feel free not to spare yourself. Trust me, self-mortification is the way to go here.”
    Cawley cleared his throat, one eye on Savich. It was difficult for him to reconcile that he was in deep trouble, since he felt so very nice. He cleared his throat again. “The sun was just coming up. Tommy was checking the other side of the house, Ben was inside making coffee, and I was making rounds through the woods and all around the cul-de-sac.
    “I couldn’t believe it when I practically walked over the two of them leaning against a big oak tree, snoozing away. They looked so innocent, so young—well, until she opened her eyes and my nerve endings started screaming. She brought up a gun real fast, a big old whopper Bren Ten, probably a ten-millimeter auto. I kicked the gun out of her hand.”
    Sherlock said to him, “Good thing you did. If she’d shot you in the arm with that sucker, you’d probably have bled to death, or at least lost your arm and have to learn to tie your shoes with your teeth. Lucky for you Victor shot you with a twenty-two.”
    Galen said, “I wonder where Lissy Smiley got hold of a Bren Ten?”
    Sherlock said, “Maybe a granddad in World War Two? You may continue now, Cawley.”
    Cawley shuddered. “The other one, the young blond guy—Victor Nesser—he didn’t move, like he was asleep. I wasn’t about to shoot him in mid-snore but then the little creep came up with that gun so fast I—”
    “Mortification of the self, Agent James,” Sherlock repeated. “It’s best in this situation, trust me.”
    When he finished, Savich had to admit he hadn’t spared himself— very difficult, since all of them knew he felt very fine, what with the morphine on board. When he finished, Savich said, “Okay, they dumped the Corolla and stole an ancient black Trailblazer. I’m betting they dumped it once they got maybe fifty miles from Fort Pessel.”
    Galen said, “I’ve got state and local law enforcement out looking for them. They didn’t get much of a head start, but if Savich is right and the Trailblazer’s