The 19th Christmas - James Patterson Page 0,8

his men stood on either side of Dietz’s doorway.

As I was lead investigator on this case, my job was to knock, announce, then step away. When the door opened, SWAT would toss in a flashbang grenade and pull the door closed. A moment later they would open the door again and immobilize Dietz, who would be sprawled out on the floor, temporarily deaf and blind and wishing he were dead.

I knocked, called out, “Mr. Dietz? SFPD,” and stepped to the side of the door. I listened for the sound of footsteps.

Instead I heard metallic clicks coming from behind us, down the hall and at the front of the building. It sounded like locks being thrown open.

Was a neighbor coming out to see what was happening?

Or was a child coming out to play?

I turned toward the sound and a heavy weight fell on me, covering me and dropping me to the floor. I heard shocking reports of gunfire and the reverberation of hundreds of rounds hitting the walls. The sixth floor of the Anthony Hotel had become a war zone.

Chapter 10

A moment later, the deafening fusillade of gunfire at close range just stopped cold.

There was an echoing silence, then I heard the clattering of boots on tile and men cursing: “Shit.” “Jake. Speak to me.” “God damn it to hell.”

I said to Conklin, “Rich. Let me up. Please.”

He scrambled off me, got to his feet, and peered down into my face. “You okay, Boxer?”

“I think so. Yes. How about you?”

“I’m good,” he said.

“You’re great. A human shield,” I said to my partner, who might have saved my life.

“Pure reflex. Let’s get you up.”

He reached down and I grabbed his hand. He pulled me to my feet.

My ears were ringing and I was on adrenaline overload as I stared along the narrow hallway. Most of the ceiling lights had been shot out. Five feet away, an FBI agent with what looked like a fatal head wound sat propped against a wall. The other agent had taken a bullet to his shoulder. Blood spurted as he tried to coax his partner back to life.

I called for backup and an ambulance, stat. I wasn’t sure how the shit had hit the fan, but I gathered what I could from the chaotic scene and tried to piece together what had just happened. I’d been standing to the side of room 6R, waiting for SWAT to kick in the door, when the hallway had exploded in gunfire—the first shots coming from behind us—and Conklin had thrown himself on top of me.

We’d been told by the desk clerk that Chris Dietz, the professional hitter, was in 6R, rear. But apparently he’d been in 6F, front.

Had Dietz been so paranoid that he’d kept two rooms? Had he heard us running up the stairs and taken defensive action by busting into someone else’s space? Or—the simplest explanation—had the terrified desk clerk given us the wrong room number?

The door to 6F had nearly been shot off its hinges. The dead man inside, cut down by our return, and more intense, gunfire, blocked the threshold. Even in the dim light I could see his blood pooling on the tiles. Me, Conklin, Commander Covington, and two of his people went to 6F and the body.

A SWAT officer kicked the dead man’s gun aside, and he and Conklin rolled him. I pulled a wallet from his back pocket. His driver license told me he was Christopher Dietz, Caucasian male, no corrected vision. Height, five ten; eyes, hazel; born in 1985. An address in Boise. If there had been a place for occupation, I suppose it would have said freelance hitter.

I was glad he was dead but very, very sorry I wouldn’t get a chance to interrogate him.

Covington shouted through 6F’s open doorway for any people inside to show themselves, put their hands above their heads. When no one answered, he and his team stormed the small room, clearing it to the corners.

Conklin and I stepped around the dead man and peered into 6F, which was lit by the sporadic flashing of red neon coming from the liquor store next door.

Covington hit the light switch and the room lit up.

I saw a coffee table made of two milk crates and a plank, and a bare mattress in the corner. A rag of a shirt hung in the open closet. There were empty beer and liquor bottles everywhere, and the smell of excrement permeated the air.

We touched nothing, corrupted nothing, just looked for something that