Whiplash

"Yeah." Sherlock stood up slowly, glad her legs held her, and watched Bowie drop to his haunches beside Kesselring. He took his collar between his two hands and shook him hard, saw he wouldn't resist, and searched him for weapons.

"Bowie? Everything okay in here?" It was Agent Cliff.

He said over his shoulder, not looking away from Kesselring, "Yeah, we've got things under control. Call a couple of ambulances, would you, Dolores? Tell everyone outside it's over." He looked over at Mick Haggarty. "And call Dr. Franks, too."

Sherlock stared down at Kesselring's pale sweating face. His jaw was working. She knew he was in major pain. She saw his hand hover above his right hip, as if he was afraid to touch it. Kesselring was finally down and out.

It was a lovely sight.

She called out, "Jane A

"Yeah," came a faint whisper from behind the sofa. "But my brains feel upside down."

Now you know how I felt after Mick clocked me in the head. "Just lie still. Agent Cliff's getting an ambulance for you."

Bowie saw Kesselring had passed out. He said to Sherlock, "We found you all because of Erin. She saw an award on Mick Haggarty's wall for his performance in Hamlet, and she remembered coming here to see some plays. She remembered how isolated this place is." Bowie paused a moment. "So Haggarty is dead."

"Yes, Kesselring shot him when he tried to help Jane A

Erin stared down at Mick Haggarty. "They played him. He didn't have a chance."

"Mick Haggarty was old enough to know exactly what he was doing," Sherlock said. "Jane A

Jane A

Sherlock said, "Poor Mick was there when Kesselring shot Caskie, just as both of them were at the top of the stairs, firing at us, not to kill us but to make us Jane A

"Thank you, Erin, for finding me. I owe you a prayer every single night for the rest of my life."

Sherlock looked down at Kesselring. "If he'd gotten off one more shot, I think I'd be singing with the angels. Did you guys happen to bring my cell phone?"

"Sure did," Bowie said, reaching into his jacket pocket. For once, he came out with his own cell. He tried his pants pockets. Nothing.

"Just a moment," Erin said, reaching into her bag and pulling out Sherlock's cell phone, bowing slightly as she handed it to her.

"Thank you. It turns out Kesselring murdered Blauvelt, too, after you, Erin, copied the Culovort papers off Caskie's computer. There's more. I just hope Andy here will repeat it all again."

"Andy?" Erin repeated, eyebrow arched.

"I wanted to push him," Sherlock said, looking down again at Kesselring. "Jane A

The huge room was now filling with FBI agents and local cops. Sherlock heard sirens in the distance. She realized her heart was slowing, as her brain finally accepted that she'd survived. She wondered when her hands would stop shaking.

Kesselring moaned and opened his eyes to look up at Erin standing above him. She said, "You tried to blow me up. My Hummer's in the junkyard because of you." She kicked him in the knee.

He jerked and moaned again. He was panting as he said, "You are responsible for this, you interfering bitch, you're nothing more than a stupid girl."

"Yeah, right," Erin said. "What does that make you, Prince Charming?"

Kesselring was panting with the pain now. "I need a doctor, now."

Erin smiled down at him. "You didn't answer my question, Andy."

He said with pain-dulled eyes. "I'm a man, a man."

Sherlock went down on her knees next to him. "Look at me, Andy."

"Damn you, don't call me that!"

"Okay, Andreas," she said, her voice soothing, gentle. "Look, I know you're in terrible pain, but you've got to understand, you're headed for death row unless you cooperate. Tell me who's paying you."

He tried to spit in her face.

"There's an answer," Sherlock said.

Kesselring looked up at the two people who'd beaten him. He had failed. Through his roiling, unspeakable pain, his hatred of himself was nearly as great as his hatred of these American FBI agents. Odd how failure tasted sour in his mouth, how it made him want to vomit.

He suddenly saw himself as a little boy, his grandmother bending over him, bundling him up in the middle of winter so he could go build snow forts in the backyard. She was telling him over and over not to hurt his sister.

The pain was coming so hard and fast now it was hard to think, hard to even know what was happening to him. No matter what he said, no matter what he did, Kesselring knew there would be no deal that would ever allow him to walk free again.

He said to the faces above him, all of them blurred now into the haze where the god-awful pain pounded all the way to his soul, "My grandmother is in a nursing home outside of Frankfurt."

He saw his grandmother wrap two coats around his little sister Lisle so she could go outside and play with him. He was so excited, so impatient, and he really didn't want to play with her, she was too little, and she always tripped over everything, and whined-she still whined too much now and she was twenty-eight years old. "I'll never tell you anything," he said, and closed his eyes.