Hamilton said nothing.
“Did Coburn, I don’t know, recruit her for some reason? That’s what it looks like to me. What are they on to that’s got people wanting them dead?”
Hamilton didn’t answer that one either.
The deputy sighed. Hamilton could imagine him running his fingers through his hair. If he had hair. “They’ve successfully stayed under the radar for three days, Mr. Hamilton. I don’t know what else I can do, especially since, as you say, other forces always seem to be several steps ahead of me. But if I get lucky and manage to flush them out, what then?”
Hamilton said tersely, “I’m the first person you call.”
Chapter 42
When Coburn pulled the car to a stop at the curb in front of Stan Gillette’s house, Honor said, “I envisioned us sneaking in like we did this afternoon.”
“I’m tired of dicking around. It’s time he and I had a face-to-face.”
As they moved up the front walkway, she looked at him nervously. “What are you going to do?”
“You ring the doorbell. I’ll take it from there.”
He could tell she was conflicted about what they had to do, but she resolutely stepped onto the porch and rang the doorbell. They heard it chiming inside the house. Coburn pressed his back to the wall adjacent to the door.
Honor saw him slip the pistol from his waistband, and that alarmed her. “What are you doing with that?”
“He may not welcome our company.”
“Don’t hurt him.”
“Not unless he forces me to.”
“He takes medication for high blood pressure.”
“Then I hope he thinks twice before doing something stupid.”
Hearing approaching footsteps, he sliced the air with his free hand. The door was opened, then several things happened in rapid succession.
The alarm system began chirping its warning.
Stan exclaimed his surprise upon seeing Honor, seized her arm, and drew her across the threshold.
Coburn sprang into the entryway behind her and kicked the front door shut.
He ordered Honor to disarm the security system.
Then he pushed her out of harm’s way when Gillette lunged forward and swiped at his midsection with a knife.
“No!” Honor shouted.
Coburn bowed his back, making his gut concave, but the tip of the blade cut through the oversized T-shirt and found skin.
Coburn was more astonished by the ferocity of the attack than he was hurt, and immediately realized that Gillette had planned on that. He took advantage of Coburn’s astonishment by kicking the pistol out of his hand.
Coburn hissed a curse and tried to grab Gillette’s knife hand. He missed, and Gillette drew another vicious arc with the blade, this time catching skin on Coburn’s shoulder.
“Stop it, old man,” Coburn shouted as he dodged another stabbing motion. “We need to talk to you.”
Gillette was having none of it. He continued to attack Coburn with a vengeance.
Honor, who’d silenced the incessant warning beep of the alarm system, was practically weeping. “Stan, please! Stop!”
Either the older man was maddened to the point of deafness, or he chose to ignore her plea. He seemed determined to kill or seriously maim Coburn, giving Coburn no choice except to be equally aggressive. He had expected resistance, harsh arguments, maybe some chest-thumping from the former Marine. But he hadn’t expected a full-out assault.
Each man fought to win. They fell over furniture, toppled lamps, knocked pictures off the walls. They gouged and kicked and slugged. Coburn couldn’t let up long enough to locate his pistol and aim without giving Gillette an open invitation to plunge the knife into him. So they fought hand to hand, as they’d both been trained to fight, as though it was a life-or-death contest.
And all the while Honor was begging for them to stop.
“Give it up,” Coburn growled as he deflected the knife yet again.
But Gillette didn’t relent. He was out for blood. Coburn’s blood. When the blade of his knife connected with Coburn’s forearm, cutting it clear to the bone, Coburn yelped an obscenity. He thought, to hell with the man’s age, his high blood pressure, and Semper Fi. He attacked with everything he had in him and kept at it until a well-placed blow to Gillette’s head caused him to lose his footing and stagger backward.
Coburn followed and seized his knife hand. Gillette didn’t let go of the knife voluntarily, nor would he ever have. But Coburn twisted his wrist until Gillette cried out in agony. His fingers went lifeless around the hilt of the knife and it fell from his hand.
Coburn got him facedown on the floor, planted a knee in his back, and jerked his hands up between his shoulder blades.
Honor was openly weeping.
Coburn said to her, “There’s a roll of duct tape on the work table in the garage. Bring it.”
She left to do as he asked, seeming to understand that arguing would only prolong both his and Gillette’s suffering. In any case, Coburn was glad he didn’t have to explain it to her because he’d barely had enough breath to say that much.
Lying with his cheek against the floor, Gillette snarled, “You’re a dead man.”
“Not yet.” But the cut on his arm was gushing blood.
Honor returned with the roll of tape. Coburn told her to tear off a strip and use it to bind her father-in-law’s hands. She looked down at the man who shared her name, then back at Coburn, and shook her head in refusal.
“Look,” Coburn said, panting from pain and exhaustion, “I may need him to testify, so the last thing I want to do is disable or kill him. But we can’t do what we came to do if I’m having to fight him, and he’s gonna keep fighting me if I don’t restrain him.”
He wasn’t certain he could stave off Gillette if he should happen to get his second wind and resume his attack. He needed to subdue the tough old bird while he had the strength to do so and before his injured arm became completely useless. He blinked sweat from his eyes and looked up at Honor.
“Tying him up is the only way I can guarantee that one of us won’t badly injure or kill the other. Don’t wimp out on me now, Honor. Tear off a strip of the goddamn tape.”
She hesitated but eventually pulled a strip of tape from the roll and bit it off with her teeth, then wound it around Gillette’s wrists. The two of them got him secured to a straight chair that Coburn had Honor bring from the kitchen.
The man’s face was a swelling, bleeding mess, but Honor got the full brunt of his animosity. “I thought I knew you.”
“You do, Stan.”
“How can you do this?”
“Me? You came at Coburn like you would kill him. You gave me—us—no choice.”
“There’s always a choice. You’ve been making very poor ones.”
Meanwhile, Coburn was tightly winding duct tape around the knife wound on his arm in an attempt to stanch the bleeding.
Honor knelt in front of her father-in-law and looked imploringly into his face. “Stan, please—”
“Even if you have no regard for Eddie’s memory, how dare you put my granddaughter’s life at risk.”
Coburn could tell that Gillette’s sneering tone pissed her off, but she replied in an even voice, “Actually, Stan, I’ve been protecting Emily and myself.”
“By teaming up with him?”
“He’s a government agent.”
“What kind of agent stages a kidnapping?”
“I knew that would make you frantic with worry. I wanted to call and tell you what had really happened, but I couldn’t without jeopardizing our safety. Mine. Emily’s. Coburn’s too. He’s been working undercover in a highly dangerous position, and—”
“And he’s flipped,” he said, giving Coburn a scornful once-over. “Wacked out. It happens all the time.”