Forbidden (Southern Comfort) by O'Neill, Clark (free ebook reader txt) 📗

large, looming directly over the other agent.  “Sir, I really think this would go much more smoothly if we offer the exchange I suggested.”

“Duly noted,” Beall said dryly.  “Now why don’t you and Detective Murphy step behind that line over there, and I’ll let you know if I need your opinion again.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

INSIDE the farmhouse that had become her own personal hell, Casey listened to the sound of the bullhorn.  She couldn’t make out most of the words – something about deputies and fire – but what the man said didn’t really matter.

What mattered was that he was here.

Someone had finally come for her.

Or maybe he’d come for the little boy who was currently lying across her lap.

Whatever.  It didn’t matter.  As long as he – they, whoever the heck was out there – got her out.

She was so giddy that she started to weep.

Shifting the kid’s head off her thigh until it lay on the cool bathroom tile, she shimmied out from under him.  She couldn’t stand fully, because she was handcuffed to an old, rusty pipe under the sink, but she twisted and strained and almost wrenched her shoulder from its socket in an attempt to see through the narrow window.

There were trees – not up next to the house, but close enough to distinguish their leaves – and she knew from the time she’d stood on the edge of the tub that there was a roof almost directly beneath the window.  It wasn’t large, maybe five feet wide at most, and she guessed it covered some kind of stoop.

Very quietly, Casey pulled on the handcuff to test its hold.  The blond man had told her that if he heard her make one sound he’d shoot her in the head.  And she had no doubt that he would actually do it.  After all, he’d already…

No.  Don’t think about that now.  Right now she just had to think about getting out of there.  About sleeping in her own bed.  Playing Chutes and Ladders with her sister.

She even wanted to smell those stupid funnel cakes.

Shaking, tears streaming down her face from so much hope, Casey sat back down on the floor next to the boy.  He was a cute little guy – all freckles and shaggy dark hair – and she bet he had a mom and dad somewhere who were really worried.

She lifted his head again, settling his soft cheek against her lap.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered, stroking an unruly lock of hair off his forehead.  “The good guys are out there now, and they’re going to help us.”

CLAY was losing it.

Losing.  It.

In typical SNAFU fashion, someone had let it slip that he had a personal involvement with the child inside, and now Beall was even less inclined to listen to anything he had to say.  In the field, the behavioral side of the Bureau lacked the authority to dictate how tactical situations were handled, serving only in an advisory capacity.  They could suggest, and recommend, but in the end it was out of their hands.  And when they had a personal stake in the case that could be construed as clouding their judgment – well, they might as well not even bother.

And that was exactly how Agent Beall was acting toward Clay.  Like things would be so much easier if he and his psychobabble opinions weren’t around.

“I’m a damn agent with the damn Bureau, just like him – although on second thought, he doesn’t have a PhD – and yet he’s treating me like the village idiot.”

Kim reached out to grab Clay’s arm.  He was pacing so fast and furiously in one small patch of dirt that he’d worn a groove under his feet.

It had been over thirty minutes since Beall had dismissed his suggestion that he trade himself for the deputies and there was still no sign of communication from the house.

On the up side, the SWAT team had pulled the two Bentonville deputies out, without an exchange of gunfire, and miraculously, Josh Harding was still alive.  He’d lost a tremendous amount of blood, but none of the three bullet wounds were in themselves life threatening.  There was a strong chance that he would pull through his ordeal in one piece.

On the down side, Rob Johns was refusing to communicate, and they’d still been unable to determine whether or not Max was faring okay.  Patience was running low, nerves were running high, and Clay knew they were running out of time.

“We have to find out more about him,” he said to Kim when she finally managed to force him to stand still.  “I’m afraid someone’s going to have to wake Tate and show her that composite.  If she recognizes him, she might be able to offer us some insight as to his background.  There has to be something there – some personal connection – and if we find out what it is I might be able to reach him.”  He blew out a breath of frustration.  “This isn’t your run-of-the-mill child abduction, so I’m not sure what buttons to push.”

Kim nodded and squeezed the hard arm under her hand.  “I know you were holding that out as a kind of last resort because you wanted to spare her from having to go through this, but I think that’s a good idea.  Why don’t I fax a copy of the composite over to the hospital? Maybe get her uncle or her cousin to look at it first.  If they recognize him, Tate sleeps through this.  If not, they can wake her up.”

“Okay.”  Clay scrubbed a hand down his sweat-streaked face, watching Beall and a handful of others confer over how long to wait before they breached the interior.  He knew that unless Johns opened up a dialogue, or unless one of the snipers got a chance to take him out through a window, that eventually that’s what would happen.  The reactive stage of the situation would give way to a proactive operational strategy.

But something in Clay’s gut