“Right.”

The speedometer edged up to seventy miles an hour, which while not fast in itself was frightening enough on a mountain road with steep drop-offs and few guardrails. The tires gave a little protest of rubber at each curve.

“So what’s the plan of action?” Corrie asked. This wasn’t some pimply kid; this was real. This was her first active shooter call.

“They’ve called in a SWAT team and a CNU negotiator, and the FBI’s got the CIRG on alert. So what we do is, we take up defensive positions, announce, assess, and de-escalate. Basically, we keep the guy talking until the pros arrive.”

“What if he’s taken a hostage?”

“In that case, the key is to keep him talking, reassure him, and focus on getting him to release the hostage. Unless it’s a crisis, the less we do the better. The most dangerous moment is when we first arrive and the shooter sees us. So we go in nice and easy, no shouting, no confrontational stuff. Should be a cakewalk. Good experience for you.” He paused. “But if things go south … just follow my instructions.”

“Got it.”

“Remind me of your shooting qualification score?”

“Um, forty-nine.” Corrie reddened; that was barely above qualification, and followed weeks of practice at the range so intense her forearms had ached for days. Shooting just wasn’t her forte.

Morwood grunted a nonreply and pressed still harder on the accelerator, the truck flying up the meandering two-lane road that climbed through pi?on-and juniper-clad hillsides. Five minutes brought them to the turnoff for the Cedro Peak Group Campground in Cibola National Forest, and another five to a gravel road. Morwood eased back on his speed. In a few more minutes they arrived at the campground: a peaceful, grassy basin with picnic tables, a group shelter, and firepits set among pi?on trees, with the great mass of Sandia Crest rising behind.

At the far end of a loop road, she could see a lone camper attached to a white Ford pickup. The rest of the campground was empty of people, with a few tents scattered around.

Morwood turned his truck into the right side of the loop and gestured out the window for Khoury and Martinez to go around the other way and converge at the far end.

“Keep down in case he shoots at us,” said Morwood. “I’m going to drive in as close as I can.”

He pulled the truck to within twenty feet of the camper. No shots were fired. The camper was one of the kind that fold open, with sleeping compartments on either side of a central living space, screened in with mosquito netting and white nylon. The thing was practically see-through—and Corrie could, in fact, see a man standing in the living space, holding a little child in a hammerlock, gun pressed to her head. She was sobbing in terror.

“Oh shit,” breathed Morwood, crouching down in the seat and sliding out his weapon.

The man said nothing, did not move, keeping the weapon to the girl’s head.

Corrie also reached for her gun.

“Get out on the far side and use the truck as cover. Stay behind the engine block.”

“Right.”

They both crept out and crouched behind the front of the truck. Morwood had grabbed the vehicle’s mic cord and pulled it out with him. He now spoke into the mic, voice unhurried and neutral over the truck’s loudspeaker.

“We’re Agents Hale Morwood and Corinne Swanson, FBI,” he said. “Sir, I’m going to ask you to please release the girl. We’re here to talk to you, that’s all. No one’s going to get hurt.”

There was a long silence. The man was backlit through the netting, so she couldn’t see the expression on his face. But his chest was heaving and she heard the rasp of his breath. And then she noticed: blood was draining out the door and running in rivulets down the camper’s steps into the dirt below.

“You see the blood?” Morwood asked.

“Yes.” Her heart was in her throat. The guy had shot someone inside the camper already.

“Sir? We’re asking you to release the hostage. Let the child leave. As soon as you do that, we can talk. We’ll listen to what you have to say and work things out.”

The man pulled the gun from the girl’s head and fired twice at them. Both rounds missed the truck entirely.

I’ve been shot at before, Corrie thought. I can handle this. Besides, he can’t aim.

Morwood spoke again, his voice steady. “Please, let the child leave. If there’s anything you need from me in order to do that, tell me.”

“I don’t need shit from you!” the man suddenly screamed, so full of rage and gargling hysteria that the words were hardly intelligible. “I’m going to kill her! I’m fucking going to kill her right now!”

The child began to scream.

“Shut the fuck up!”

Morwood continued to speak, steady but firm. “Sir, you are not going to kill a child. Is she your daughter?”

“She’s the bitch’s daughter, and I’m going to kill her right now!”

Corrie saw him raise the gun and fire two more shots toward them, one of which slammed into the truck’s rear side. Then the man pressed the gun back to the child’s head.

“She’s gonna die, count of three!”

The girl’s tiny, terrified scream sounded like a metal blade cutting through tin. “No!” she choked out. “Please, Uncle, no!”