Page 114 of The Librarians
The CRV draws closer. The driver’s-side window rolls down; a dark muzzle sticks out.
Detective Jones and his hostage taker step into view, the tranquilizer gun held much too close to his neck. Jones also happens to stand between the Miata and the man, making it difficult for Conrad to take shots.
Jonathan exhales and squeezes the trigger. Dark blood blooms on the back of the man’s left hand. He screams and drops the pneumatic device.
The muzzle from the SUV sprays bullets—Jonathan’s silencer is good but in real life a shot is never soundless and now he has revealed his location. He scrambles back, sliding on his stomach, then rolls toward the edge of the porch. Shots erupt like dozens of champagne bottles popping, overlaid by the shattering of glass, grunts, more screams, and the sickening crunch of fist on bone. He drops down behind the second of the two brick pillars to the side of the entrance.
Conrad, firing from behind the Miata, has forced the driver of the getaway vehicle to scoot out the passenger-side door to use its bulk as a shield—only a few jagged bits of glass still cling to the cowl of the SUV’s windshield.
On the ground, Jones crawls, dragging one leg behind him. Maryam and the man grapple over a handgun in the man’s uninjured hand. Even though he has only one good hand, Maryam is barely holding even. Worse, she has her back to the Miata and Conrad would have to shoot through her to get to the man.
Jonathan is in a much better spot. But no sooner does he peek out than a barrage of fire forces him behind the safety of the brick pillar again. A few feet behind him the glass panels of the library’s sliding doors crack and crash in a shower of shards.
Jonathan tries again. The muzzle raises from behind the CRV. But this time, Hazel, who materializes from nowhere, slams the butt of a handgun into the driver’s temple. The driver cries out in pain—a woman!
Before the woman can react, Hazel pistol-whips her again, grips the assault weapon in her hands, and kicks her in the chest. The woman goes down with a grunt.
Jonathan, belatedly coming out of his astonishment, takes aim and lands a shot to the man’s arm. But his partner’s peril must have pumped the man full of adrenaline. He wrenches the handgun free from Maryam, shoves her in Jonathan’s direction, and uses the second he buys himself to run toward the back of the CRV.
If he rounds it, Hazel will be exposed!
“Watch out!” Jonathan screams.
But Conrad is already by Hazel’s side, firing at the man.
The man goes down. Jonathan is astonished. At that angle and with nearly the whole of the CRV between them, Conrad’s rounds shouldn’t have been able to do much beyond stalling the man’s approach.
Jonathan stares at the downed man. And only then does he see the tranquilizer dart sticking out from his calf—and the pneumatic device, now in Detective Jones’s hand.
The chaos isn’t over. Hazel holds the woman down on the ground, her knee on the latter’s spine; Conrad shouts for handcuffs. Maryam throws him a pair even as she cries out for bandaging for Jones. On rubbery legs, with the siren of oncoming police backup in his ears, Jonathan sprints into the library in the direction of the first aid kit, grabs it with trembling hands, and runs back out.
He pants hard, his heart pumps wildly, he can barely feel his fingers, and he worries that he might pass out. But what a wonderful rush of euphoria and relief—the worst of the danger is over.
They have made it.
Chapter Thirty-one
The image Hazel had screenshot from her grandmother’s home security video was not high-res enough for Madeleine’s beta-testing app to ID the platinum blonde woman. But the match Madeleine got with the man in the back of Perry’s picture pointed to Ahmed Khan, the husband of the South Asian couple who came to Game Night, to be the fake Tarik Ozbilgin in disguise.
Which made it likely that his “wife,” Ayesha Khan, who “rescued” Hazel from theFifty Shadespatron’s unwanted attention, might have been following Hazel and did not want her to see the video of the altercation, which showed her partner’s face, even if it’s not “Ahmed Khan’s” face.
The address the Khans gave to Detective Hagerty was an apartment in the complex nearest the library, the residents of which are heavily South Asian, many working for Austin’s numerous high-tech companies.
A young policewoman of South Asian descent ventured into the complex under the guise of an apartment seeker and found out that the Khans in fact lived in a different building, on a sublet that was against the apartment’s rental policy—though that was hardly anyone’s focus. Theoretically, at that point the police had enough evidence to search the Khans’ apartment and make arrests, but the higher-ups hesitated, as they were dealing with dangerous individuals and the apartment complex is dense with residents.
So the entrapment scheme was given the go-ahead.
Astrid spends the day after the entrapment giving evidence downtown.Then she and Sophie join Jonathan and Conrad in a visit to Detective Jones in his hospital room—thank goodness the officer is recovering well and in good spirits.
When Astrid finally reaches home and turns on her TV, she is assaulted by breathless local news coverage. “Our reporters are hard at work investigating the midnight shoot-out that resulted in one suspect dead and one APD officer injured—not to mention untold damages to one of the city’s most popular branch libraries!”
Astrid winces at the shot of the library, covered in black tarp and neon police tape.
Another channel seems to have slightly better sources. A reporter standing before the apartment complex announces, “It is my understanding that police discovered guns, cash, weaponized narcotics, and a veritable trove of wigs and silicone prosthetics for use in disguises, not to mention a stack of passports for each of the suspects.”
A third channel interviews Sophie. Sophie, looking dignified and authoritative, reassures the library’s patrons that work crews will be in place as soon as the police give the go-ahead and that the library will reopen at the earliest possible date.
The newspaper, thankfully, goes into some actual detail.
