Branner whipped around in her chair. “Is one of them a female?”
Rogers blinked, focused on Branner, and then nodded yes. The commandant was standing up behind his desk. “Call the-” He began, then stopped. “Hell’s bells, who do we call? A hostage situation! What the hell’s our procedure for a hostage situation?”
Jim reached across the desk and snatched up Robbins’s phone. He called the chief’s direct number, got him, and told him to set up a police perimeter around the eighth wing, inside and out, to contain a hostage situation, and to get some help from the Annapolis police. To his immense credit, Bustamente said they’d get right on it. By now, the commandant was really spinning up, firing a hundred questions at Rogers, who had zero answers but began to take copious notes in a little green notebook. Branner was signaling Jim that they should get out of there.
“Sir, I’m going to take charge of the police operation,” Jim told Robbins. “I suggest you notify the FBI office in town right away, and that you clear all midshipmen and any contract personnel out of the eighth wing. The chief will call the Annapolis fire department, tell them what we have, and request an air bag and their big ladder truck.”
Robbins just gaped at him, but Jim moved quickly out the office door, with Branner right behind him. They jogged down the executive corridor to the wooden partition, through the rotunda, and into the fourth wing. Midshipmen were staring at them as they ran down the passageway and turned left into the line of buildings that led back to the eighth wing.
“Has to be Booth,” Branner said. “He’s got Markham.”
“That’s my guess,” replied Jim, who was puffing now, his back on fire from the jarring. “You ready for some stairs?”
“Anytime,” she said, and they turned left and up into a stairwell that led to the crossover breezeway between the sixth and eighth wings. They blasted through the double doors into the third deck on the eighth wing and stopped short. There were midshipmen everywhere being herded by upperclassmen toward the breezeway. A company officer was shouting orders, which were being relayed by several firsties. Jim and Branner let the crowd sweep past them until the corridor was empty except for the Navy lieutenant and two three-striper firsties. Jim told the company officer who they were, and asked for a situation report.
“We got a call about someone on the top deck with a gun. Big guy, shaved head, wearing sweats. He was waving the gun around and threatening to shoot people down on the terrace. Then he pulled a female up by the hair and threatened to throw her off the roof.”
One of the firsties interrupted. “Sir? That guy up there is Dyle Booth. He’s a firstie. We don’t know who the female is. She had tape across her face.”
“We do,” Branner said. “Is the top deck cleared out?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said the other firstie. “We got everyone down here to the crossover level.”
“How do you get to the roof?” Jim asked.
“There’s one maintenance access stairwell,” the officer said. A phone began to ring in the company office behind him. “I should get that,” he said.
“Sir?” the larger of the two firsties said once the lieutenant had stepped back into his office.
“Yes?” Jim answered.
“Sir, people going topside to the roof? They go out their windows on the fourth deck. Walk the ledge.”
“Wonderful,” Jim said. Dozens of ways up. And down. Branner was talking on her cell phone.
The elevator doors opened and Chief Bustamente got off along with four Yard officers in tactical gear, all carrying riot guns. Jim signaled him over.
“Put one on the crossover bridge,” he said. “No access into the eighth wing on this deck except for law enforcement. Have him tape the stairways, too. Nobody goes above this deck. The other three will go with us up to the fourth deck.”
While Branner was talking on her phone, Jim turned to the midshipmen. He knew there weren’t enough Yard cops available to set up a proper perimeter, so he’d use the mids. “Everybody’s down from the fourth deck, right?”
“Yes, sir,” one said. “I checked it myself. Fire procedures.”
“Good man. Go through on the crossover and set up a midshipman watch there-nobody goes across except law enforcement. Same deal down on the zero deck at all the exterior doors. Nobody comes into the eighth wing except law enforcement or the fire chief. Anyone who does come in comes here to the third deck. I want a CP set up right here in this company office, and I want all firsties running this thing.”
“Got it, sir,” they said in unison. One headed for the crossover; the other trotted to the nearest stairwell and headed down.
“Chief, check on that ladder truck and the air bag.” The chief got on his cell phone.
The company officer came back. “That was the dant’s office. Wanted a sitrep. I told them you’re here and taking over.”
Jim explained what he’d told the mids to do. The company officer listened and then left to supervise those arrangements. Bustamente, still talking on his cell phone, went into the company office and began moving chairs. Two more of the Yard police got off the elevator, and the chief motioned them into the office to give them instructions. Branner got off the phone.
“I told Chang’s office what we think we have. They’re going to alert the SecNav’s office. We going topside?”
“Right now,” Jim said. He motioned for the Yard cops to follow. “You guys come with us, please. One of you have a radio I can use?”
One cop pulled his off his tactical belt and handed it to Jim, who called the chief and told him that they were going up to the top floor.
“Do we know exactly where the hostage is being held?” Branner asked as they went up the final flight of stairs to the top floor of the eighth wing. The fourth floor was physically the fifth floor, as the ground floor was known as the zero deck.
“All we had was that he was yelling at people down in the inner courtyard. But he could be anywhere. This wing is H -shaped, with the inner leg overlooking the rear mess hall entrance. Right about where Dell went down, actually. Shit, we need a key to that maintenance stairway.”
He called the chief on the radio and asked him to locate the key. The highly polished fourth-deck hallway, with its rows of dorm rooms on either side, was silent when they got up there. Jim stationed the sergeant in a position from which he could oversee both the wing’s side leg and the cross corridor.
“This guy’s reported to have a weapon,” he said. “If he comes down, he’ll probably climb down through a window and come out of one of these rooms. Don’t let him shoot you, but don’t shoot him-you duck for cover into a room, close the door, and report. He comes after you into that room, deadly force authorized, but only in self-defense. Got it?”
“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said. He was in his forties and had several bars on his service pin. Jim didn’t need any more midshipmen killed, even in a hostage situation.
Branner had gone into one of the dorm rooms, and now she stepped back out. “I can’t see any part of the roof of this segment,” she reported. “I can see the cross building, and a part of the other wing’s roof. But they could be anywhere.”
“They said he’d been yelling at people going into the mess hall,” Jim said, starting to move down the corridor. “That’ll be over on the inner leg, if they’re still there.”
“Or they could be holed up in one of these rooms already,” one of the cops pointed out. Everybody stopped.
Of course they could, Jim thought. He kicked himself mentally for not thinking of that. He ordered the other cops to spread out and start checking rooms while he and Agent Branner made a quick check of the cross wing to see if they could spot anyone up on the roof. The chief called back to report that keys to the maintenance stairs were on the way, and that the city SWAT team had been made available. He also said that the Bureau people were inbound, and that one of their hostage negotiation teams had been activated from Quantico but couldn’t be on-site for another two hours. Jim asked if a perimeter had been established around the eighth wing, and the chief reported that it was in progress.