The Devils Teardrop

heard a door slam in the hallway here. He’s somewhere between us.”
    “Cover me,” Lukas called.
    Watching her back, Lukas ran to the guard station. Artie was unconscious but wasn’t bleeding badly. She picked up the phone but Cage was no longer on the line. She hit 911, identified herself as a Justice Department agent and called in a Code 42 at FBI headquarters.
    To her knowledge nobody’d ever done this, not in the entire history of the Bureau. It meant an assault on headquarters. It had become a joke over the years—when somebody 42’d, it meant they’d totally screwed up.
    “You armed?” Lukas called.
    “Service,” Ted called. “Both of us.”
    Meaning their Glocks or Sig-Sauer service pistols. Lukas thought about her MP-5 machine gun, sitting in her truck at the moment. She would have given anything for the weapon but didn’t have time to get it now.
    She studied the corridor, which was still empty.
    Eight doors in the hallway. Five on the right, three on the left.
    He’s behind one of them.
    Here’s a puzzle for you, Parker. Which door leads to our Judas?
    Three hawks have been killing a farmer’s chickens. . . .
    Holding the gun out in front of her, she eased forward, saw the silhouettes of the other agents at the far end of the corridor. Using hand signals, she motioned them aside, back around the corner. If Hardy burst from a doorway she’d have trouble acquiring a target with Ted and Nance in the background. They’d have the same trouble too and might hesitate to light up Hardy for fear of hitting her. Alone, she’d lose the cross-fire advantage but could shoot freely if he tried to make a run for it.
    Lukas moved down the corridor.
    Which door? she wondered.
    Think . . . Come on! Think!
    If Hardy had any sense of orientation he’d know that the five offices on her right were exterior ones; he wouldn’t’ve picked any on the left because he’d risk getting trapped inside the building.
    Okay, we’ll narrow it down to those on the right.
    Of these five, two were labeled reception—the euphemism for the interrogation rooms like the one in which they’d met with Czisman. Hardy might logically doubt that the FBI would have reception rooms and he might figure that they had something to do with security and would have no access to outside—which in fact they didn’t; they were windowless.
    The door in the middle was labeled maintenance. Lukas didn’t know exactly where that one led but she supposed it was a janitor’s closet with no other exit andconcluded that Hardy would have made the same deduction.
    That left two doors. Both unmarked and both, she happened to know, leading to small offices for temporary word-processor operators. Both rooms had windows facing the street. One was the office closest to the reception area. The other was closest to Ted and Nance.
    But what’s the hurry? she asked herself. Just wait for backup.
    Yet Hardy could be trying to break out one of the windows right now, close to escaping. Lukas wouldn’t risk that this man might get away.
    Which door, which one?
    She made her choice: The door nearest the lobby. It made sense. Hardy wouldn’t have run thirty or forty feet down the corridor with an armed agent behind him before taking cover.
    Once she made her decision she forgot all other options.
    Puzzles are always easy when you know the answer. Just like life, right?
    She tried the knob. But the door was locked.
    Were they always locked? she wondered. Or had he locked it from the inside?
    No, he’d locked it. He had to be in there. Where else could he have gone? She ran to the guard station, got the keys from Artie’s belt, returned. She slipped the key in the hole as quietly as she could.
    Turned the latch.
    It clicked with an alarming sound.
    Hell. May as well just shout out, Here I come!
    One, two . . .
    Breathe deep.
    She thought about her husband, about her son.
    I love you mommy!
    And pushed through the door fast.
    Crouching, weapon up, pressure on the sharp trigger of the Glock . . .
    Nothing . . .
    He wasn’t here.
    Wait . . . the desk . . . It was the only piece of furniture he could be hiding behind.
    She stepped around it, swinging her weapon in front of her.
    Nothing.
    Hell, she’d gotten it wrong. He’d gone through the other door, the far one.
    Then, from the corner of her eye, faint motion.
    The door directly across the hallway from this one—another door marked maintenance—had opened slightly. The muzzle of