He wondered if Baxter was using the Glock, which had a seventeen-round, quick reload magazine. It didn't matter anyway, because, as Keith suspected, now that Baxter knew for sure it was Landry, the round-counting game was about to be cut short.
As if Baxter had read Keith's mind, Baxter called out, "Don't shoot, Landry. I'm standing right behind her. I got a gun to her head. So you just stand up where I can see you, hands high."
Keith figured that was coming, because he knew Baxter. He noticed that Baxter's voice was steady, but not altogether calm, even though he had everything going for him.
"I want to see empty hands first."
Keith had only one option left, and Baxter had given it to him by firing. Keith played dead.
A few seconds went by, and Baxter called out, "Hey, asshole. You want her to die? Stand up like a man, or I blow her fucking head off. I kid you not."
Keith heard Annie's voice say, "Don't do it, Keith..." followed by a loud slap and a cry of pain.
Baxter yelled out again, "Hey, hero, you got five seconds, then she's dead. One!"
Keith didn't think Baxter was going to kill her, and there were a lot of reasons for that, not the least of which was that Baxter didn't want to lose his human shield.
"Two!"
Keith knew if he stood, he couldn't expect a quick death. He held the revolver close to his body to muffle the sound, opened the cylinder, and extracted the five spent casings.
"Three!"
Keith began quietly slipping rounds into the empty chambers.
"Four! I swear to God, Landry, you stand up, or she's dead."
Annie called out, "No! Don't..."
Another slap and another cry of pain, during which Keith snapped the cylinder quickly back into the frame.
"Five! Okay, she gets it."
Keith held his breath and steadied himself. He wanted to stand, to shout, to shoot, to let Baxter take him, to do anything in that split second except what he knew he had to do, which was nothing.
There was a long silence in the room, then Baxter said, "Hey! You dead, or playin' dead?"
Keith exhaled and smiled. Come here and find out.
"I can wait all fucking night, Landry."
Me, too. Keith waited. One thing he thought he could count on was Annie telling him if Baxter moved toward him. Baxter's hostage, his shield, was also Baxter's problem. But apparently Baxter had also figured that out, because the light suddenly went off, and the room was black.
It was so still in the big room that Keith could hear the mantel clock ticking from thirty feet away. Then he heard Baxter say to him, "One of us got an infrared scope, and one of us don't. Guess who can see in the dark."
He heard the floor squeak across the room, then heard it again, this time closer, then the squeaking stopped.
He pictured Baxter standing in about the middle of the room now, scanning along the floor, the walls, around the furniture with his night scope mounted on his rifle. The game was almost done, and Keith had only two moves left stand and shoot into the dark, or play very dead.
He moved his right hand with the revolver under his buttocks as though he'd fallen dead on his forearm. With his left hand, he took his knife and sliced into his hairline, then smeared the blood over his face and left eye. He slid the knife into his pocket and kept both eyes open, staring dead at the unseen ceiling above him.
He heard Baxter move again, very close now, on the other side of the long sofa. Baxter said, "Well... so you ain't playin'."
Keith couldn't actually see him, but he felt his presence looming over him, and, by his voice, he knew that Baxter was about ten feet away and that, at this close distance, the infrared image would be too blurry to detect a sign of life. Nevertheless, Keith didn't draw a breath and kept his eyelids frozen and his eyeballs dead in their sockets. But he couldn't keep the sweat beads from forming on his upper lip. He had a sense, a feeling, of the infrared scope boring into his face, the muzzle of the rifle pointed at about his throat. Somewhere across the room, he heard Annie sobbing.
Baxter said, "Hey, Landry. You playin' possum on me?"
Keith knew he needed a head shot, but that wasn't possible in the dark. A hit in the body armor was the best he could hope for, and that would knock Baxter off his feet, then he'd use the knife.
"I hope to God you ain't dead, shithead. I want you to feel this."
Keith understood that the next thing to happen would be Baxter firing into his leg or his groin, and he knew he had to go for it now. He yanked his gun hand free and fired three times, up and to his right where he'd heard Baxter's voice, then rolled, fired three times again, then came to a stop tight against the wall near the shattered glass door. He stared into the dark and waited.
He never heard Baxter yell out in pain, never heard the rounds slap against the body armor, and never heard the sound of a man falling. He realized that Baxter must have moved or crouched low after he'd spoken and before Keith fired. Baxter had made a smart move. Keith had made a fatal move. He heard Baxter's voice, coming from a different place, saying, "So long, sucker..."
Instead of the explosion of Baxter's rifle firing into him, he heard a dull thud. He had no idea of what that was, but it meant he wasn't dead, and he jumped to his feet, lunging toward the sofa with his knife in his hand. He collided with the sofa and slashed out with his knife, then something hit his legs and fell to the floor, making another, softer thud.
There were no more sounds in the dark room, then he heard a groan, then a floor lamp came on beside the sofa.
It took him a second for his eyes to adjust to the light, and even then he wasn't completely processing what he saw.
Baxter was kneeling on the sofa in front of him, slumped over the back, his head and bare arms dangling toward Keith. Baxter was wearing a thick gray nylon vest, and Keith saw blood running from his left arm where Keith guessed one of his bullets had grazed him. Keith looked into Baxter's eyes, which were open and were focused on him.
Keith, the knife still in his hand, glanced down at his feet and saw the rifle with the night scope lying on the floor and realized that this is what had hit him in the legs. He knew he hadn't gotten Baxter with his knife, yet Baxter was bleeding now from the mouth.
Keith was aware of Annie standing to his left, and he looked at her. She was naked, standing very rigid, her eyes a million miles away, and her right hand still on the lamp switch. Then he noticed the poker in her left hand, hanging at her side. She wasn't looking at him, but was staring at the back of Cliff Baxter's head.
Baxter groaned, and his head lolled to the side, the blood still trickling from his mouth.
Keith looked back at Annie. He said nothing and made no move but kept looking at her until finally she turned toward him.
The sofa was between him and her, but he put out his arm, reaching past Baxter, and motioned for her to give him the poker. He noticed now that she had leg irons around her ankles. He made another motion for her to hand him the poker, but she shook her head.
Cliff Baxter groaned again, and Keith looked at him. Blood was running down the sides of his neck now, and Keith said to him, but for Annie's benefit, "You brought this on yourself. You know that."
Baxter raised his head, and, still conscious, looked at Keith and said, "Fuck you..." Then he tried to stand and turn around, his head and eyes moving around the room. "Annie, Annie, I..."
She swung the poker in a wide overhead arch and brought it down hard against the top of her husband's head, sending him sprawling back over the couch.
Keith could actually hear the skull crack and saw Baxter's eyes bulge out of his sockets and blood pour from his nose. Keith was not at all surprised by that second, fatal blow he was certain she knew far better than anyone else what she was doing and why.