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wanted to, and that's what he was up to now.
Michael Sullivan was pulled out of his reverie by the sound of somebody
talking into a mike at the hostage scene. He looked up, and it was the
detective again Alex Cross. It almost seemed like fate to him, like ghosts
calling to the Butcher from the past.
Chapter 26
I FIGURED MY IDEA was a long shot, and definitely out of left field, but it
was worth it if it could save some lives. Plus, nobody had come up with
anything better.
So at midnight we set up microphones behind a solid row of police cars and
transport buses parked on the far side of Fifteenth. It looked impressive, if
nothing else, and the TV cameras were all over it, of course.
For the next hour, I led family members up to tell their stories into the
mikes, to reason and plead with the men inside to put down their weapons and
leave the building, or at the very least to let the lab workers out. The
speakers stressed that it was hopeless not to surrender and that many of those
inside would die if they didn't. Some of the stories told at the mikes were
heartbreaking, and I watched spectators tear up as they listened.
The best of the moments were anecdotes a Sunday soccer game a father was
supposed to referee; a wedding less than a week away; a pregnant girl who was
supposed to be on bed rest but who came to plead with her drug-runner
boyfriend. Both of them were eighteen.
Then we got an answer from inside.
It came while a twelve-year-old girl was talking about her father, one of the
dealers. Gunshots erupted in the building!
The gunfire lasted for about five minutes, then stopped. We had no way of
telling what had happened. We knew only one thing the words of their loved
ones had failed to move the men inside.
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No one had come out; no one had surrendered.
"It's all right, Alex." Ned took me aside. "Maybe it bought us a little more
time." But that wasn't the result either of us was looking for. Not even
close.
At one thirty, Captain Moran turned off the mikes outside. It looked like
nobody was coming out. They had made their decision.
A little after two o'clock, it was decided by the higher-ups that the FBI's
Hostage Rescue Team would go into the building first. They would be followed
by a wave of DC police but no one from SWAT. It was a tough-minded decision,
but that's the way it was these days in Washington maybe because of the
terrorist activity over the past few years. People didn't seem to want to try
to negotiate their way out of crisis situations anymore. I wasn't sure what
side of the argument I was on, but I understood both.
Ned Mahoney and I would be part of the first assault team to go inside. We
were assembled out on Fourteenth Street, directly behind the building under
siege.
Most of our guys were pacing, restless, talking among themselves, trying to
stay focused.
"This is a bad one," Ned said. "SWAT guys know how we think. Probably even
that we're coming in tonight."
"You know any of them? The SWAT team inside?" I asked.
Ned shook his head. "We don't usually get invited to the same parties."
Chapter 27
WE DRESSED UP in dark flight suits with full armor, and both Ned and I had
MP5s. You could never predict too much about a night assault, but especially
this one, with SWAT types on the inside and HRT as the force coming to get
them.
Ned got a message on his headset, and he turned to me. "Here we go, Alex.
Keep your head down, buddy. These guys are as good as we are."
"You do the same."
But then the unexpected happened. And this time, it wasn't such a bad thing.
The front door to the building opened. For a few seconds, there was no
activity at the door. What was going on in there?
Then an elderly woman dressed in a lab smock wandered out into the bright
lights aimed at the building. She held her hands up high and kept saying,
"Don't shoot me."
She was followed by more women in lab coats, young and old, as well as two
boys who looked to be twelve or thirteen at the most.
People behind the barricades were screaming out names. They were weeping for
joy, clapping wildly.
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Then the front door slammed shut again.
The exodus was over.
Chapter 28
THE RELEASE OF ELEVEN lab workers stopped the full Hostage Rescue Team assault
and opened up communications again. The police commissioner and the chief of
detectives appeared on the scene and talked with Captain Moran. So did a
couple of ministers from the community. Late as it was, the TV crews were
still here shooting film.
At around three, we got word that we were going inside after all. Then there
was another delay.Hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait .
At half past, we got the go. We were told it was final.
A few minutes past three thirty, Ned Mahoney and I were up and racing toward
a side entrance into the building; so were a dozen other guys from HRT. The
good thing about protective gear is that it might stop a fatal or damaging
bullet; the bad thing is that it slows you down, makes it harder to run as
fast as you need or want to, and forces your breath to come in gulps and
gasps.
Snipers were taking out windows, trying to keep resistance from inside as low
as possible.
Mahoney liked to call this drill "five minutes of panic and thrills," but I
always dreaded it. To me, it was more like "five minutes closer to heaven or
hell." I didn't need to be here, but Ned and I had done a couple of assaults
together and I couldn't stay away.
A booming, earsplitting explosion took out the back door.
Suddenly, there were swirling clouds of black smoke and debris everywhere;
then we were both running through it. I was hoping not to catch a bullet to
the head or some other exposed body part in the next couple of minutes. I was
hoping nobody had to die tonight.
Ned and I took fire right away, and we couldn't even tell who the hell was
shooting at us. Drug dealers or the SWAT guys. Maybe both.
The sound of submachine guns and then grenades was deafening in the hallways
and as we inched up a set of winding stairs. There was a whole lot of
firepower inside the building now, maybe too much for it to hold together. The
noise level made it hard to think straight or keep any focus.
"Hey! Assholes!" I heard somebody shout from above us. A volley of gunshots
followed. Flashes of blinding light in the darkness.
Then Ned grunted and went down hard on the stairway.
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