Not more than a minute later the back door of the complex blew open again, and three of Claude’s finest squeezed through. Two guys holding up a fellow cop in the middle. Dude was unconscious or dead. Both supporting guys looked torn up. Blood-spattered, faces marked up. The door slammed shut and a second later blew open again and Claude was there. Wild-eyed, a pistol in each hand. Stomping down the back steps, yelling something to his guys.
Sirens now. A chopper circling overhead, maybe two. Frank couldn’t tell, so much commotion everywhere.
Sellers marched over to the car and flung open the door. Frank’s hands still pinned behind him, feet together. Same position.
“Sounds like your guys are making a hash of it.”
“Fuckers got away.”
“Slipped through your web. Why am I not surprised?”
“Makes you all the more important, Sheffield, taking down the boss.”
“Yeah, Sheffield the terrorist.”
“What’s that stink?” Claude sniffed at the air inside the car. “You shit yourself, Sheffield? Big, brave dude like you, you load up your shorts?”
“When you gotta go…”
“Some shithead’s going to pay for this. And that shithead’s going to be you, Sheffield. You’re going down.”
Claude was breathing hard, a Glock in each hand, a tremble in his arms.
“So it’s falling apart, huh, Claude?”
“Where’s Nicole?”
“Dead in a ditch out on the entrance road.”
“Yeah?”
“These ELF people, they aren’t the pussies you thought they were. She underestimated them, just like you’re doing.”
“Here’s what’s going to happen, agent fucking in charge of nothing. I’m going to cut you loose. Then I’m going to step back, give you a fighting chance to make an escape, and we’ll see how that plays out. See if you stand and fight or make a break. Either way’s fine by me.”
“You really think you can pin this on me?”
“Got you on tape riding into the plant, using your credentials to claim the drill was canceled, which it was not. We got a permanent record of that, Sheffield. You think I didn’t cover my ass? You’re the one’s underestimating.”
Claude holstered one of the Glocks and reached back to his utility belt and drew out a tactical knife and popped it open. Big-ass serrated edge.
“Now I’ll turn you around to face away from me, and I’ll cut your hands loose. Then I’ll step back and I’ll count to three. That’s fair. More of a chance than you fucking deserve.”
Claude leaned inside the door and stooped forward to slice through the cuffs, his stupid-ass bolo tie dangling down in front of Frank’s face.
Frank reached up with his right hand, grabbed hold, and yanked those strings hard and kneed Claude in the face. Broke his nose.
The weapons fell away. Sheffield repeated it, bolo yank, knee smash.
Blood flowing from Claude Sellers’s mouth. Blinded by blood, Sellers was clawing at Frank’s face, tearing the flesh on one cheek, nails digging into the wound Pauly Chee had given him. Frank did the bolo routine again. Getting a rhythm, putting more force behind it this time. Claude’s hands fell away from Frank’s face.
Sheffield pushed him back out the door, then held him straight up, a good strong grip on the strings.
“You did Bendell and you did Magnuson. You fried them. Tell me, Claude. It’s confession time.”
Sellers spit a bloody tooth into Frank’s face.
Sheffield hauled him down, bending him forward with the tie, dragging his head back inside the SUV, taking hold of the door handle and lining up Claude’s neck, then slamming that heavy-ass Suburban door on Sellers’s head.
Claude spit blood and more teeth onto Sheffield’s lap.
“You electrocuted Bendell and you tried to fry me, but got an NCIS agent instead, a good man. Tell me you did it and we can close up shop and go home.”
More blood and phlegm on Frank’s shirt.
Again, Sheffield slammed the door on Claude’s head, opened it and slammed it again, opened it one more time and said, “Right here, right now, Claude. This is how you want to go? Turn your brain to mush.”
He gurgled something.
“I can’t hear you.”
More nonsense bubbled from his broken face.
Frank dragged the bolo forward so Claude’s eyes were an inch from his.
“One more chance, Sellers. Enunciate this time, use your syllables. You did those two murders, didn’t you?”
Claude nodded, swallowing and swallowing, nodding one more time.
Frank pushed him backward out into the parking lot. “Good. Now let’s go upstairs and you can tell your boss and the NRC lady what you just told me.”