“You!” Jorgensen bleated.
The gun appeared from nowhere and the first shot hit Greene full in the chest, driving him back into Booth as the FBI agent tried to draw his own weapon.
The impact sent them both to the ground as Jorgensen raised his pistol to take a second shot.
Booth didn’t have time to call out and stop her.
Brennan simply leapt over the fallen pair and spun, her right foot connecting with the gun and driving it out of Jorgensen’s hand, sending it spinning across the porch as the old man retreated into the house, his hand catching Brennan’s sleeve…
… and dragging her inside with him!
Struggling, rolling a stunned Greene off him, Booth checked that the lieutenant didn’t appear seriously injured, then bounced to his feet, gun in hand.
Throwing the screen door open, he rocketed into the living room.
The living room had been a tidy place, he assumed, before Brennan and Jorgensen had made their way through it, tipping over a lamp, breaking a glass coffee table, and scattering magazines all over the hardwood floor.
Booth heard heavy breathing to his left. He passed the sofa, rounded a corner, and found himself in a dining room with a table and six chairs, three upended.
The fight had moved into the kitchen, and Booth moved with it, jumping over a chair, his pistol up, entering the room, where he discovered Jorgensen, holding a large butcher knife over his head.
Booth would have taken him then, if Brennan hadn’t been between him and the killer, her back to the agent.
“Mr. Jorgensen,” she said, her voice calm despite the ragged breaths between words. “We just came to talk.”
“I’ve got nothing to say to you,” he snarled, eyes wild, “or that asshole cop!”
“Bones,” Booth said, “take a step either way.”
Without turning to look at him, Brennan snapped, “Booth, shut up!.. No one else is getting shot today.”
The FBI agent scanned the kitchen, looking for another way to get to his target. It was a wide, open room full of stainless steel appliances and dark, hard counters.
“Maybe not shot,” Jorgensen said, his upper lip curling to reveal very white, very false teeth. “But how about stabbed?”
He lunged at Brennan, blade and teeth flashing, and she dropped to the linoleum.
Booth squeezed the trigger, but Brennan swept Jorgensen’s feet out from under him, so that Booth’s bullet struck the old man in the shoulder, the knife flying out of his hand, clunking against the refrigerator as Brennan delivered an elbow to the old man’s temple, knocking him cold.
The knife, meanwhile, had dropped to the floor.
No one moved.
The aroma of cordite singed the air. Booth’s ears were ringing from the shot, his eyes glued to the knife sticking out of the linoleum inches away from Brennan.
Then Brennan got up, screaming at him. “What, are you trying to kill me?”
Suddenly, Booth’s hearing didn’t seem so damaged, though he would just as soon it had not recovered so quickly.
“I told you not to shoot. What part of that didn’t you understand? Booth, that knife…”
He holstered his weapon, grabbed her by the arms, firm but not rough. “I was scared, too.”
She backed away from him, obviously uncomfortable. “I… I wasn’t scared, just… sizing him up. I had him, I…”
“Bones, you’re shouting,” he said.
“I know I’m shouting. A big lummox shot at me!”
“Not at you, near you. Save the rest for later — gotta get back to Greene.”
On cue, Greene wobbled into the kitchen doorway, his jacket off, his shirt ripped open to reveal a Kevlar vest, the bullet still protruding over his heart.
He gave them a lopsided grin. “God damn, that hurt….”
“You okay?” Booth asked.
Greene swayed. “I’ve been worse. Not much worse, but…”
Sirens called from the distance.
Greene gestured with a trembling thumb toward the sound. “Called for backup. Not that you needed any.”
The Chicago cop nodded down at the old man, the blood turning the red shirt maroon.
“That evil old fucker dead?” he asked.
“No,” Booth said. “Brennan just knocked him out. With an elbow.”
Greene looked at Brennan with wide, respectful eyes. “Whoa. Are you shittin’ me?”
Booth grinned at the anthropologist. “Bones has unexpected skills.”
Greene loomed over the suspect, having a closer look. “Remind me not to mess with you, lady. Regular Rambo in a dress.”
Brennan’s brow furrowed. “I’m not wearing a dress, and, anyway, I don’t know what that means.”
Greene gaped at Booth.
“She doesn’t get out much,” the FBI agent said.
Grabbing a towel off the counter, Brennan dropped to one knee and pressed it against the man’s wound.
Sizing up Greene, Booth said, “Maybe you ought to sit down for a minute, pal. You look a little pale.”
Greene leaned against the kitchen counter. “No matter how heroic it looks in the movies? Getting shot sucks.”
Sirens screamed outside. “Evidently, Mr. Jorgensen still holds a grudge,” Booth said.
Brennan looked up from the bandage. “Or Lieutenant Greene was right, and he’s got something to hide.”
Booth, eyes narrowed, said, “I’m with you, Bones…. Once the EMTs get here, we’ll have a look around.”
6
Temperance Brennan, arms folded, chin high, the picture of a professional woman, was trembling.
As she stood outside the nondescript house — policemen, crime scene analysts, and EMTs hustling in and out — she had finally succumbed to fear… or at least an unsettled sense that she could not shake.
She hadn’t lied to Booth: she really hadn’t been scared in that kitchen, all her focus had been on Jorgensen and that knife.
But when Booth’s bullet whizzed past her and struck Jorgensen, the knife heading in her direction, her grip on her self-control had vanished.
Flimsy thing, control.
One second you had it, next you didn’t. Oneminute you’re at the Jeffersonian studying an arrowhead in the chest of an eight-hundred-year-old Native American, next you’re in Algonquin, Illinois, stanching the wound of a seventy-year-old probable serial killer.
Nice thing about the lab, she had control — she was in charge.
Things occasionally went differently than expected, but the lab was strictly science, and the unexpected was part of that too.
Not that there wasn’t pressure at the Jeffersonian — a bone broke in the lab, it was generally hundreds if not thousands of years old… in a world where value was determined by whether bones were whole or not. But when things went wrong there, no bullets flew, no knives hurtled in your direction.
More Chicago cops were arriving, and the FBI had a large contingent on hand as well; the neighbors, few that there were, had turned out to watch. SAC Dillon was off to one side, giving Booth the third degree about the shooting, while Lieutenant Greene was being treated by EMTs in the yard.
An ambulance had already carted Jorgensen away to a hospital. The wound was not life-threatening, but the bullet would have to be removed, and the old boy needed to be stitched up.
Jorgensen would remain under police watch, and — at the very least — charged with attempted murder for shooting Lieutenant Greene and attempted assault on Brennan. If the Chicago and FBI CSIs found evidence of more crimes in the house, that list could grow.
Brennan — with no one yet questioning her, treating her, or for that matter bothering to ask if she was okay — stood off to one side, alone.