Heat popped her trunk and put on her Kevlar and, while she cinched the tabs, a sour melancholy spread within her, prompted by her memory of Rook, whom she always mocked for vesting up with armor that was stenciled “JOURNALIST” instead of “POLICE” and had two small gold medallions embroidered on it—one for each of his Pulitzers. She would give anything to have him suiting up with her now instead of donning hers to rescue him.
She stuffed the gloom in her back pocket. This was not only the day to do positive, this was the moment.
Heat and Feller crouched behind a small Dumpster, each with one knee down on a street where old rounded cobblestones had reappeared, exposed where the newer blacktop had been worn away. The worn stones—a sign of neglect or nostalgia, take your pick—continued under the front gate of Channel Maritime and out along its wharf, which stretched about two hundred yards toward the Erie Basin. The scene within the property was just as Randall had described from his water surveillance.
A pair of workhorse barges, scruffy boys, each a hundred and forty feet long, were lashed by long sides to the dock, where hawsers wrapped around giant cleats. Between them, a smaller line ran from underneath a stained tarp that took the shape of a skiff bobbing in the gentle tide. The boat itself wasn’t visible from Heat’s vantage point, but Feller had confirmed seeing a patch of sky blue peeking out from under its drab camouflage. Rotting timbers, the skeletons of old boats, formed a pile against the brick warehouse, a relic of the golden age of shipping in Red Hook, before the containers had taken the business to Perth Amboy. Nearer to them, a sagging modular office trailer with a buckled roof sat close enough to the sidewalk to have gotten tagged with ornate initials and devils’ faces right through the chain-link fence. At the trailer’s far end Heat could see the hood of the silver minivan nosing out, minus a license plate. She heard a flutter as a plastic shopping bag caught on the top of the fence, billowed in the spring breeze off the water. Then the BearCat roared to life and things started moving.
After a soft squelch, Nikki’s earpiece filled with the buttery, reassuring sound of Lieutenant Marr’s voice: “Good for green.” She and Feller drew their sidearms and fell in behind the armored vehicle, taking cover with the SWAT team. The BearCat never revved, never had to flex a muscle. Over its enveloping rumble came the sharp ping of metal and Heat saw the gate whip open ahead and to her left, smacking into the fence and rebounding, only to be bounced back once more, mere steel shrugged off as the black Cat pushed onward.
The incursion played out like the symphony the field lieutenant had composed: A second BearCat parallel-parked to the east fence deployed a dark-blue waterfall of Emergency Services pros over the razor wire and onto the property; two Harbor Unit Zodiacs cut rooster wakes up the channel, slowing at each barge and the skiff to offload officers; Heat’s group branched out, half going for the warehouse to the right, the others, including Heat and Feller, staying in the shelter of the vehicle across the vulnerable open terrain between the entrance and the long trailer. “Window,” said Feller.
Heat had already spotted the movement. Someone inside the modular had parted the blinds for a glimpse and closed them. They swung, bent and dirty against the cloudy glass. “Team Alpha, action in the trailer,” said Heat into her walkie.
To her relief, Marr came back on immediately. “Team Alpha, holding fire, repeat, holding fire. We don’t know who’s in there.”
The door burst open and a big man rushed out, hopping the pipe railing beside the three steps and racing for the yawning gate behind the team. Just as Heat recognized him as one of the men who had grabbed Rook, he drew a gun from behind his back. “Gun,” said Nikki. The man fired one round that smacked the armor plate in front of her.