The SWAT commander was quiet for several moments and then said, “We’re going to handle this one at a time. Easiest first, which means Lincoln.”
Fuller looked at his two other men. “How fast can you get out the door, go down those steps, grab Lincoln, and get your asses back inside?”
“Twenty seconds,” Sergeant Daniel Kiniry said.
“Maybe less,” Officer Brent Remer said. “Unless we come under fire.”
“O’Donnell? How long since the last shots?” Fuller asked.
“Ten, maybe twelve minutes,” the detective came back.
The captain thought a moment and then spoke into his radio. “Wilkerson?”
“Go ahead, Captain.”
“Break me out a couple of grenades.”
CHAPTER
41
BREE AND I looked at Captain Fuller like he’d lost his mind.
“Grenades?” Bree said. “Isn’t that a little extreme?”
“No,” Fuller said, and then he explained what he wanted to do.
I considered it, decided once again that Captain Fuller was good at his job, and admitted, “That could work.”
“It could,” Bree said. “Your move, Captain.”
Three minutes later, on Fuller’s command, two flash-bang grenades went off behind the row house where Le and his fellow gangbangers were holed up.
I had my binoculars trained on the windows across the street and saw movement inside, figures running to investigate the explosions. Then Bree threw up the window sash, and we stuck our service weapons out the window.
“Go,” Fuller said, and he yanked open the front door to the old lady’s home.
Kiniry and Remer bolted across the porch, leaped off the stairs, and landed beside Lincoln. O’Donnell let go of his partner.
The SWAT guys got their hands under Lincoln and came up fast. O’Donnell jumped up, his gun, like ours, aimed at the row house as he backed up, covering Kiniry, Remer, and Lincoln.
They got Lincoln inside, and O’Donnell was almost there when Le or one of his men opened up with an automatic weapon. Bullets blew out the windows of the Explorer and pinged and cracked off the cement stairs while Sampson, Bree, and I emptied our weapons at the house.
O’Donnell sprinted and dove inside. Fuller slammed shut the heavy oak door as bullets strafed the side of the house and then stopped.
“Fuck!” O’Donnell screamed, crawling and clutching at his shoe. “He shot me through the foot!”
“Get this man medical attention!” Bree yelled back into the house.
Two EMTs came running from the kitchen.
While they started to work, I reloaded. Over our headsets, a voice said, “Cap, this is Maxwell.”
“Go, Maxwell,” Fuller said.
“I’ve got the shooter. Full chest exposed.”
“Identity?”
“Unclear, but subject is armed with an AK.”
“Take him,” Fuller said without a moment’s hesitation.
“What? Wait!” Bree said.
There was a rifle crack overhead, followed by a death scream across the street.
“Slow down, Captain!” I shouted.
“You’re not giving them any options!” Bree said.
“Options?” Fuller looked at us like we were addled. “That shooter, Le or not, just tried to kill four—count them, four— of my fellow officers. In my mind, that makes that person a potential cop killer with active intent, so I ordered him shot. End of story.”
Bree started to argue but her phone buzzed. Angry, she looked at the screen, rocked her head back, and said, “Oh Jesus.”
“What?”
“It’s Michele Bui. She says we just shot and killed one of the female hostages.”
CHAPTER
42
FULLER DIDN’T HEAR. He was barking orders into his radio while EMTs rolled a morphine-happy Detective O’Donnell through the kitchen toward the back door. The siren of the ambulance bearing Lincoln was already wailing away.
“Captain!” I shouted at Fuller.
The SWAT commander put his radio on his shoulder, peered at me angrily. “Detective Cross, stand down.”
“I won’t stand down, Captain,” I said.
“Nor will I,” Bree said. “One of your men upstairs, Officer Maxwell, just shot an innocent hostage on your orders.”
Fuller lost color. “No.”
“Le’s girlfriend, who is in there, says yes.”
The captain pulled himself together and clicked his radio. “Maxwell?”
“Right here, Cap.”
“How did you identify the shooter?”
“White T-shirt and weapon.”
“No head?”
“Negative.”
“How long did you have the shooter in your scope?”
“From right before he started shooting at O’Donnell,” Maxwell replied. “When he stopped, he ducked out of sight for maybe three seconds and then returned, like he’d reloaded.”
“That was not a reload,” Bree said into her radio. “Officer Maxwell, you shot a hostage.”
There was a long, terrible silence before Maxwell said, “Cap?”
“Maxwell?”
“Permission to stand down, sir.”
Fuller glared at Bree, said, “Permission denied. I need you up there.”