J.M.J.

A/N: Thank you all so much for continuing to read this story! Thank you if you have favorited and/or followed this story! Thank you especially to AllTrekkedUp for your review on chapter 9! We're almost to the end of the story now.

Chapter X

A Hazardous Deal

Detective Sergeant Lennox nodded as he listened to Jim Reed explain what he had learned from Mrs. Sandberg. Pete Malloy was also in the room, listening to the story.

"Do you think Wording could be our boy, Sarge?" Pete asked.

"It's a good lead," Lennox said, "and it's the only lead we have right now. I'll get some of my boys on tracking down this Lester Wording right away." He was about to pick up his phone to make a call, but before he could, it began to ring. "Lennox here," he said into it as he answered it. A strange expression crossed his face as he listened. "Okay. Put him on." He listened for a minute or two longer, and then he said, "All right. I see. I'll put one of them on, but it'll take just a minute. Can you hold on?" He took the receiver away from his mouth and covered it with his hand.

"What's going on?" Pete asked.

"Reed, get someone to trace this call," Lennox requested. As Jim went to do as he was told, Lennox explained to Pete in a low voice, "There's a man on the phone. He won't give his name. He says he's holding Gage and DeSoto, and he'll kill them if we don't let him talk to Arthurs or Liesel."

"Who are Arthurs and Liesel?" Pete inquired.

Lennox shrugged. "I have no idea, but he seems to think they're cops. Just from talking on the phone, he seems a little unbalanced to me. I suspect he might not know what he's talking about. How would you like to play either Arthurs or Liesel? We just need someone to talk to him and keep him busy while we trace this call."

"Sure, I'll give it a try," Pete agreed. Lennox handed the phone to him, and Pete said into it, "Arthurs. What can I do for you?"

"Are you one of the cops who was there when old Roger Winfall got what was coming to him?" a man's voice asked.

"Do you mean the accident?" Pete countered.

"Don't give me that," the caller retorted. "You know as well as I do that it wasn't any accident. Were you there?"

"Yes," Pete said in all honesty.

"Good. And the other cop – Liesel – is he around?" the caller asked next.

"My partner's here," Pete replied, again honestly.

"Okay, then here's the deal," the caller said. "I'm tired of waiting around. I want you and your partner to meet me someplace so we can talk about that so-called accident. If you wanna see those two firemen alive, you'd better do it."

"Can't we talk about it now?" Pete asked.

"No," the caller told him abruptly. "I want to talk about it in person – you, me, and your partner. Okay? No tricks."

"Right. No tricks," Pete agreed. "Where do you want to meet? And when?"

"There's a place up in the hills," the man said. "I want you to meet me there. No other cops. You got it?"

"Where exactly is this place?" Pete inquired.

The man gave directions and then asked again, "You got it?"

"I've got it," Pete told him.

"Be there in two hours." The man hung up the phone as soon as he said it. Pete relayed the information to Lennox. As he was talking, Jim came back into the room, and Pete filled him in as well.

"There wasn't enough time to trace the call," Lennox commented in disappointment. "At least we've got a place where we can find him, as long as we don't spook him too much. We'll have to send two officers while the rest of us hang back and stay hidden. Do you think he'd recognize you?"

"I don't see how," Pete said. "We were too far away, and in the car. He couldn't have gotten any kind of a look at us."

"There's no point in taking chances, though," Jim argued. "I don't know where his wrong information about the names came from, but what if he somehow found out what Pete and I look like?"

"That doesn't seem like a very good possibility to me," Lennox said, "but if you two want to pose as Arthurs and Liesel anyway, It's fine with me. We'll have to clear it with Mac is all."

Sergeant MacDonald agreed to the plan willingly, and Lennox set out right away to outline the plan. Pete and Jim would take a patrol unit to the address that the man had given them. Lennox and a dozen other officers would follow them at a discreet distance and park out of sight of the address. Then they would continue on foot to surround the suspect. Meanwhile, Pete and Jim would try to find out what the situation was with the hostages. If the hostages were safe, they'd go ahead and capture the man.

The plan worked like clockwork – at first. Pete and Jim arrived just on time, waiting around a bend to give the other officers time to get into place. Then they drove the rest of the way to meet the mysterious caller. He wasn't in sight at first, but there was a rundown shack at the place. A couple of minutes later, the door of the shack opened and a man came out.

"You Arthurs and Liesel?" he asked.

Pete and Jim, who weren't wearing their name tags, nodded.

"What's your name?" Jim asked.

The man looked around as if he suspected this was a trap. "Wording," he said finally, not noticing anything definite amiss. "Are you armed? I want you to put your guns on the ground."

Lennox had anticipated this, so he had had Pete and Jim take the precaution of putting their guns in their belts in back instead of in their holsters.

"Our holsters are empty. See?" Pete tipped the empty holster toward Wording.

"Where are the two firemen?" Jim asked.

"Where do you think they are?" Wording countered vaguely.

"We don't want to play games, Wording," Pete said. "We made a deal. We'd come and meet you here, and you'd let the two firemen go."

Wording laughed sardonically. "I didn't say that. I said you'd 'see them alive.' And you will, you will. For a minute or two."

Pete and Jim exchanged glances. This was not going the way it was supposed to. Jim was tempted to look around to see if he could spot Lennox and the other officers who were hiding nearby, but he knew that would be a foolish move.

Pete was trying to stay in control of the situation. "Where are the firemen?"

"In the shack," Wording finally said. "Come on. I'll show you."

"Is there anyone else in there?" Pete asked.

"Maybe, maybe not," Wording replied. "What do you care?"

It was a dilemma. If Wording was alone, they could take him now easily, and there would probably be no danger or difficulty involved. On the other hand, if he had an accomplice, the accomplice could harm the hostages. If only they knew the whole situation…

Then, without warning and practically out of nowhere, there was a sudden shot. Pete and Jim made a dash for cover as a sudden shower of bullets began.