Chapter 21

"What happened to Lenny and Tom?" Canin asked, without much interest.

A quick investigation turned up both the men he'd sent to fetch Steve at the bottom of the basement stairs, one shot and the other with a broken neck from the fall down the steps.

Despite the loss of his two men, Canin seemed more amused than anything about the whole incident, perhaps because the sheer desperation behind Steve's attempt was reassuring to his suspicious mind.

"Why don't we return to more comfortable surroundings and discuss this like gentlemen," he suggested amiably, but with an implacable core of steel.

Mark assisted Steve as best he could, but after watching their laboured progress impatiently, the gunman Mark had replaced stepped in, clearly meaning to drag Steve at a far less leisurely pace than the one Mark was maintaining.

Mark fended him off. "Leave him alone."

With the obvious intention of reminding Mark that he was a prisoner and in no position to give orders, the man raised his fist, but before the blow could land, Steve had slipped his arm from around Mark's shoulders and followed through with a credible left hook, though he measured his length alongside that of the thug after it had landed.

Mark was instantly kneeling beside him, blocking the attempt at reprisals from the furious and embarrassed gunman. Fortunately, he was aided in this by Canin. "Malloy! These are our guests. Let us treat them as such." He still appeared highly entertained, relieved that he wasn't the only one who'd come to grief at Steve's hands.

"Now you decide to take objection to people hitting me," Mark teased his son, the humour hiding the depths of concern he felt at the heat radiating from Steve's feverish body. He was rewarded with a faint smile.

Their progress to the other room was halting, but Canin was in no rush and cracked jokes with his men as he waited in the lounge for his prisoners' arrival.

Mark lowered Steve onto the couch and sat down abruptly beside him. The trembling was more pronounced, but he was surprised Steve was even conscious, and he pressed his shoulder firmly against his son's, offering both concrete and moral support.

Canin was happy to play the gracious host, believing he held both his adversaries at his mercy and reveling in the exercise of his power. Mark ignored his jibes and triumphant taunting, splitting his attention between monitoring his precariously unsteady son and listening hopefully for sounds of imminent rescue. The silence from outside was starting to worry him, and he prayed that nothing had gone wrong with his plan. He knew the considerable security around the building would probably prove a difficult obstacle and cost them the element of surprise.

Mark's attention was brought back to Canin as he caught the word 'notebook'. Before he could respond, his son's hoarse voice cut in firmly.

"I hid it. If you want it, you're going to have to deal with me."

This was news to Mark, who could feel the warmth of the paper snugly against his skin under the leg cast, but he tried to school his expression not to betray his surprise, although he felt considerable unease in backing his son's play. He knew Steve was attempting to distract Canin's attention from him, and he contemplated launching his own counterclaim as to who was responsible for the location of Latiere's 'insurance', but feared that such a diversion would only result in physical retribution that his son might not survive.

Steve was breathing in shallow, panting breaths, and although he sounded coolly confident, it was clear he was at the end of his endurance. With a surreal sense of shock, Mark noticed that his son, while in the guise of cradling his injured arm in his other hand, was squeezing his left thumb against an embedded splinter. A fresh trickle of blood ran down his arm, and pride battled with anguish in Mark's heart as he realised that his son was using the pain as an aid to maintain consciousness, employing the only bargaining tool he had to ensure his father's safety, an impossible task if he passed out.

Canin's certainty faltered for a moment, and he scowled at Mark accusingly. "Your father said he had it."

"He was lying to protect me," Steve bluffed smoothly, but his teeth were clenched hard enough to make his jaw muscles quiver. "I'll take you to it, but my father goes free first."

Canin regarded him for a long moment, chewing his gum thoughtfully, then shrugged easily. "I've got no reason to kill you. Your father will tell you that I've made sure you'll never have a place on the force again. Give me the notebook and I'll call it even."

Mark let his hand rest on his son's arm, feeling the skin dry and hot against his palm, trying to convey purely by touch the complex warning not to trust Canin, but also not to push the issue.

"Then we'll both be happy," Steve rasped out sardonically.

"Then if you'll just..." Canin broke off as the popping echo of semi-automatic fire reached them, a sound innocuous in volume yet ominous in portent. An alarm blared gratingly outside the room, and Canin strode to his desk to pick up the phone, glaring suspiciously at the Sloans as he did so.

The voice on the other end was unintelligible but the panicked tone it contained was unmistakable, and Canin slammed the receiver down with a savage imprecation. Black fury filled his face as, with jerky, convulsive motions, he spun back from the desk.

"The cops! You brought them here, you son-of-a bitch!" This tirade was aimed at Mark, and the doctor could feel his son tense beside him but, at a signal from Canin, Steve was seized by two large bodyguards, his arms immobilised behind him.

The cavalry had arrived, but would Canin allow them to survive long enough to greet their liberators? Mark had hoped when devising his strategy that, faced with overwhelming forces, Canin would surrender to the inevitable, but, seeing the uncontrolled rage engendered as much at the humiliation of being bested as the ruination of his grandiose plans, he now had his doubts.

Gunshots spat closer to the house, and the shouting of commands grew more clearly distinguishable. For a moment, Canin stood irresolute, anger an opaque cloud around him through which it was impossible to reason clearly. Then, as a megaphone-enhanced voice from outside the house demanded surrender, vindictiveness won out.

Recognising that his downfall was imminent and placing the blame squarely on Mark's shoulders, he strode forward, seizing Mark by the jacket and jerking him to his feet, ignoring Steve's warning cry of "Canin, don't!" But Canin had nothing so crude as a blow in mind for his revenge.

"Kill the cop, now!" With savage satisfaction, he watched the impact of his words as alarm in the blue eyes inches from his own deepened into agonised panic and an automatic plea and horrified denial was wrenched from Mark's throat.

"NO!"

There was no mercy in the vindictive pale eyes, and desperation broke the paralysis that momentarily gripped Mark's limbs. His medical training allowed him to act with deliberation despite his terror. He reached behind him, finding the glass of malt whiskey Canin had pressed on him earlier, and flung it, container and all, at the taunting face. With a howl of pain and rage, Canin turned away, swiping at the burning liquid in his eyes. Mark followed up his advantage, grabbing his crutch and swinging it. He landed one punishing blow, then turned to attack the two men holding Steve, braving the guns with only a glorified stick in order to protect his son. Steve's struggles had kept them too occupied to interfere so far, but the odds were not promising, and their attempts at defense were almost certainly doomed.

However, at that moment, the lights went out as the electricity was cut to the building. Almost simultaneously, there was a crash as something broke through the window behind him. Mark wasn't expecting the assault on his senses that followed, an overwhelming explosion of light and sound that left him temporarily blinded and deafened and thus oblivious both to Steve's warning shout, "Get down, Dad," and the next shattering of glass that heralded the arrival of a tear-gas canister.

Steve was familiar with SWAT tactics and knew the softening weapons that presaged an assault. He could quote the 175 decibel output of the flashbang grenade and its 2.5 million candela yield, although it was the first time he'd experienced its effects firsthand, but he was familiar with the effects of the tear-gas he knew would follow, and buried his face in the plush carpet, covering his head with his good arm for further protection.

Mark had no warning and could not even see the gas pouring out and engulfing them in a stinging, blinding cloud. The effect was immediate and horrendous. His eyes began to tear and burn, his nose and throat felt raw, and within seconds, tears began running down his face, his breathing coming in ever- smaller gasps.

Mark had never been exposed to tear gas before, and the physical shock was enormous. However, he'd treated people in the emergency room who'd been exposed and knew that, in theory, the effects were only temporary. From the twirling mayhem in his mind he tried to recall the details. Both tear gas and pepper spray are skin irritants, causing burning pain and excess drainage from eyes, nose, mouth and breathing passages. The cold textbook facts bore little resemblance to the agony of the reality. It felt as if two red-hot pieces of steel were grinding into his eyes, as if someone was blowing a fiery cutting torch into his face. He staggered forward a few steps before falling to the ground, starting to rub his eyes even though he knew it was better not to. The heat from the pepper spray was overwhelming, and he couldn't resist trying to rub it off his face.

The worst effects of the flashbang grenade were starting to wear off, and he became aware of shadows moving blurrily in his vision and muffled screams and shouts clashing with eerily quiet shots. He crawled forward groping hopefully with his hands, trying to make sense of shapes with streaming eyes, desperate to find his son, horrified by the thought of the effect of the tear gas on his son's open wounds.

The room was neither dark not light but a disorienting mixture of both as pitch blackness alternated with vivid flashes of orange light as weapons were discharged. The gas was a fog through which people moved in slow, strange dances of shock and pain and resistance.

Something stuck him a sharp blow on the head, and even through his increasing disorientation he realised that he'd been hit by another tear-gas canister lobbed through the window. He could feel blood trickling down his scalp, oddly cool against the burning of the tear gas. He knelt upright, swaying dizzily, feeling horribly exposed, but he'd lost his bearings in the chaos and needed to know in which direction to move to find Steve. He could identify nothing around him and had to force down the panic that grew as he struggled for breath, the feeling of slow asphyxiation terrifying. Suddenly, through an oddly, quiescent clear patch of air he saw Canin, or at least his disembodied head, floating through the mist.

His pale eyes were red-rimmed and streaming, giving his appearance a maniacal fury that held Mark hypnotised even as the gun appeared beside the seemingly incorporeal head. Mark knew he was going to die, although the nightmarish atmosphere touched that knowledge with unreality.

He was conscious only of a deep sadness and a final prayer that his son had escaped the slaughter. As if summoned by the thought, a shadow detached itself from the swirling mist, like a vengeful demon rising from the sulfurous depths of hell. It bore Canin backwards, and they both disappeared into the voracious vapor, which swallowed them up so totally they might have been figments of Mark's imagination. However, in that brief second he had recognised the form as his son, and his straining ears heard the sound of a gun retort from the direction he'd disappeared.

"NO!" The scream of anguish was louder in his heart than in his ears, and his universe narrowed down to the few feet separating him from his worse nightmare.

He crawled forward again, blinking rapidly to clear his blurred vision, unsure how much of the obscurity was the effect of the tear gas and the grenade and how much was the natural darkness.

His hand discovered his son just before a flash of light revealed him, and Mark's heart literally stopped for a moment, then restarted with a fury that left him lightheaded. Steve was in shock, twitching and shivering uncontrollably from being tear-gassed then shot at close range. His burned eyes were tightly closed, and he was panting irregularly, a dark patch spreading rapidly across his chest.

Trying to control the tremor in his hands, Mark eased him to one side, checking for an exit wound more by feel than by sight. The bullet had exited high up, indicating the angle of entry, and Mark tried to visualise the path it must have torn through his son's body. Automatically, he stemmed the blood flow as best he could, too shaken for lucid thought.

He murmured reassurances that neither of them could hear, impatiently wiping away the discharge that still ran from his eyes and nose. His focus was so all-encompassing that he had entirely forgotten Canin. This lapse was sharply rectified as he was brutally yanked to his feet. In dazed resistance, he tried he pull his arm free, uncomprehendingly watching the sharp movements of Canin's mouth, the excess saliva produced by the tear gas spat towards him in emphatic punctuation. The words may have been lost on Mark, but the message conveyed by the gesticulations of his weapon towards Steve were only too clear. Canin was more than willing to finish what he'd started and administer the coup de grace to Steve if Mark did not comply with his wishes. Every fibre of his being ached with reluctance to leave his injured son, each step he retreated from his prone body was a mental rending as painful as the ripping of flesh from bone. His relief at sparing Steve the brutality of Canin's further attentions was easily eclipsed by the knowledge that his son could bleed to death without his assistance.

He didn't believe that Canin would get very far, and he was correct in that assumption. They hadn't cleared the doorway before the lights came back on. The fierce illumination after the general darkness initially exacerbated the watering of Mark's vision, but his eyes darted round the chaotic scene.The room now seemed as filled with smoke as tear gas; fires were burning, bodies littered the room and, menacing them from a dozen places were as many weapons in the hands of hideously masked SWAT agents, but the only thing that mattered to Mark was that, in the midst of it all, Steve was lying vulnerable and alone, silent and still.

Canin was cornered, his men disarmed or dead, but his natural pragmatism was extinguished by the awareness of how he would fare at the hands of his ex-colleagues and as a dirty cop in prison, and he faced his captors defiantly, holding Mark close as a shield, his gun barrel jammed into the soft flesh under his captive's chin. Mark made no demur; his limbs were heavy and every jarring movement reverberated up his spine, causing his brain to rattle around his aching skull like a sonorous clapper in a bell.

"It doesn't have to end this way. No one else needs to die." Mark attempted to defuse the situation without further bloodshed, although he suspected his efforts were futile, his reasonable words falling literally on deaf ears if Canin had been as affected as himself by the flashbang grenade.

The macabre waltz continued with Canin advancing a few steps and the SWAT team melting back then reforming around him in a menacing circle. Mark ached to speed up the proceedings to ensure Steve got the help he so urgently needed, but realised that haste would precipitate a tragic conclusion.

Canin's increasing desperation communicated itself to Mark through the quivering tautness of the muscles holding him, and the slickness of the skin. The rank odor of fear permeated the air they both breathed, and Mark could almost feel the frantic pounding of his captor's pulse running a turbulent counterpoint to his own. Canin had successfully negotiated their exit from the room, and Mark's most immediate anxiety for Steve's welfare ceased with his son out of range, though his hopes for his own survival dimmed.

The circle tightened almost imperceptibly, but it was enough to snap Canin's fragile control. Mark couldn't repress a wince as the barrel of the gun was jammed repeatedly into already bruised flesh as a furious accompaniment to the shouting in his ears.

Even Mark's dulled hearing could pick up the frenzied threats to blow his head off if the team didn't give Canin immediate passage, but he refused to resign himself to imminent death, waiting for the gun to waver sufficiently to make a move. The SWAT team faded back as if choreographed, but remained implacably focused. The standoff may have continued indefinitely if not for a dramatic development.

One of the men pulled off the gas mask, revealing the stern features of Chief Masters who attracted Canin's attention with a stentorian bellow. Mark never knew whether Masters' intention was to reason with his former employee or whether he merely intended to offer a distraction. If it was the latter, he must have exceeded beyond his wildest expectations. The history between the two men was complex, with feelings of trust betrayed on both sides. Recognition and reaction were instantaneous, bypassing self-preservation. Two shots rang and Mark was aware of the Chief staggering back despite his attempt at grappling with Canin's gun arm. He felt rather than heard the bullet that hit Canin, a jerk succeeded by a convulsive constriction of muscles tightening in a final spasm of surprise and disbelief, then the body fell limply to the floor. Mark didn't turn, dazed by the abruptness of the resolution and watching Masters regain his footing, with the belated realisation that the Chief was wearing a bullet-proof vest. It was easy to overlook in the middle of a crisis.

Mark knew that a vest only stopped the penetration not the force of a bullet, but Masters showed no sign of the deep bruising he must have experienced as he approached.

"Dr. Sloan." He put a steadying hand on the older man's shoulder, taking in the blood matting his hair and his shocky white complexion. "How badly are you hurt?"

The question didn't even register with Mark. "Steve?" he asked shakily.

"He's being attended to," Masters answered somewhat evasively.

"I need to see him," Mark insisted, attempting to shrug off Masters' hand, eyes fastened in the direction of the room containing his son and his feet unsteadily moving forward.

"I'll go with you." The Chief's words were decisive, yet there was a hesitancy in his steps and Mark looked up, impatient at the delay. For a split second he caught an unguarded emotion on that usually impassive face - sorrow and remorse as Masters gazed on the body of his former officer, then it was gone. Mark, however, remembering the suffering inflicted on his son by Canin spared him neither time nor regret and left without a backwards glance.

His panic intensified at the discovery that the room next door was empty, but Masters guided him outside and he got a brief glimpse of Steve being loaded into an ambulance. His eye was caught by the profusion and intensity of blood staining his son's upper chest, the waxy, gray skin of his face stretched tightly over prominent bones just visible under a resuscitation mask.

"Oh, God," he breathed numbly, his mind grappling with the concept that, after all they'd been through, he could still lose his son. In that brief, faltering moment of hesitation, the doors of the ambulance closed and it moved off. Mark took a few hobbling steps after it, then watched hopelessly as the vehicle moved down the drive, through the gates and out of his sight.