There was a series of prefab shacks lined up in a row, and the fourth one of those had the FATS logo hanging over its railing.
I scooped up a handful of empty cartridges from the ground as Pete jogged toward us. "Don't get too attached to those," he said. "I've got my lead poisoning test next week."
I opened my fingers and watched them drop.
"Takes a lot more than that. But we were losing police dogs at a terrifying rate. Turns out they were absorbing the lead through their paws."
I winced as he opened the door to the small cabin. The overhead lights were on when we entered. Pete turned them off so that the three of us stood in complete darkness.
"Private enough for the princess?" Mike asked.
"It might not make any difference in my shooting skills that I can't see, but I think some light would be helpful."
Pete stepped over to a computer monitor and played with the controls. The entire far wall became an enormous screen, and the first frame of a movie was frozen against it.
"Move over behind here, Alex." He guided me to a large, empty oil barrel standing on its end in front of the screen. "This is all you've got in case you need to take cover. Mike, take the one next to her."
On top of each was a semiautomatic. "They're real guns," he said, "but they've got soap cartridges inside. They're connected to the computer. You seen these yet, Mike?"
"Nope."
"I'm going to run these films. Each one is three or four minutes long. You and Mike have answered a call to come to this apartment. Shots fired. Reports of a drug deal gone bad. Try aiming your gun, Alex. It should be a lot lighter than the one you just used."
I lifted the gun and pointed it at the screen, lining it up with the sight. Not only was it dark, but I thought the quiet should make it easier to concentrate.
"Ready?"
"Yes."
The clip began with the closing of the door of the patrol car behind me. I was viewing everything from the vantage point of the first officer on the scene. Voices in the tenement building I virtually entered were shouting that the cops had arrived. A man in a bright-colored shirt was racing up steps-several flights-as I tried to overtake him, and from behind me, Pete was barking out commands.
"Police! Drop your weapons! Stop! Police!" he shouted as though he were actually at the scene. "C'mon, Alex, you're chasing the guy up the stairs. He's taking them two at a time. He's got you beat." The camera lens bounced up and down as I was turning corners after the fleeing suspect. An apartment door slammed shut somewhere above me and the camera lurched upward, toward the high-pitched sound of a child screaming for help.
"It's that one, Alex," Pete yelled. "You're going to kick on that door. You'd better tell them you're a cop."
My virtual foot shoved the door and it opened onto a frenetic scene. A man whose Hawaiian print shirt resembled the clothing of the guy who had run up the stairs leaped over the back of a sofa. He was holding something but he moved so quickly I couldn't tell if the object in his hand was a gun or not.
"Is that your man in there? Are you sure? You better tell them to freeze, Alex. Let me hear you shout at him, okay? Where's your partner? Has he got you covered?"
It was all happening too fast. The slender woman seated on the edge of her chair had drug paraphernalia in front of her. I could make out the white powder and pipe, and as I looked to my right to see whether Mike had his gun poised to back me up, I caught a handlettered sign over the picture of a uniformed cop that said "Kill the pigs."
The man behind the sofa stuck his head up above the top of the cushion and called something out to his companion. I couldn't understand what he said. A baby started crying on the left side of the screen. As my eyes darted in that direction, the woman lifted the lid on the shoebox next to the cocaine and pulled a gun from it.
Before I could aim, she had fired at me. Mike squeezed off a round that nailed her in the throat, although in real time I couldn't have seen him do it. I would have been dead.
"Saved your skinny ass again, Coop."
"I give up. I don't know how you guys do it, day in and day out."
"Ready for another one, Alex?" Pete asked.
"I'm telling you this should be mandatory training for every prosecutor your office hires. Most of them have no idea what we're up against till they're chauffeured to a crime scene in an RMP at three o'clock in the morning," Mike said, referring to the department's blue and white radio motor patrol cars, "and they get an up close and personal sense of what the job is like."
"I don't think I can do it, Pete. I need a nice still target like the thug-nobody shooting back at me-in a quiet room like this. Nothing interactive."
The second tape started to play. It appeared to be a routine traffic accident. A dark green Toyota truck smashed into a silver Honda and spun the car around. The driver of the Honda was slumped against the steering wheel and the wailing siren announced the approach of a police car.
Mike moved into place behind one of the barrels. He didn't need instructions from Pete. I watched as the driver of the truck stepped out of its cab. A passenger in the Honda got out and opened the rear door, coming up with a tire iron.
"Stop right there! Put it down," Mike said.
Instead of obeying Mike's command, the passenger continued walking toward the Toyota, cursing at the other driver, who was reaching into his rear pocket to remove his wallet. The second man returned the expletives with some ethnic slurs, as Mike yelled at them both to back off.
The Honda's passenger began to charge the truck, banging on the hood with the tire iron. As the camera sped in-representing Mike's dash toward the Toyota-the driver turned around and pulled a gun from his waistband, shooting at Mike before pivoting to kill the civilian.
Mike had been quick enough to duck behind the barrel but the shot he fired off was neither timely nor accurate.
"That's why you need a partner you can trust, Coop. There's barely time to think when things heat up on the street. It's like a combat zone."
"I guess what you need, Alex, is the old-fashioned, basic indoor range. It's much calmer, and you'll be able to concentrate," Pete said. "Want to give that a try?"
"One more chance. Then it's back to the law library for me."
Pete shut off the equipment and we walked out of the building, down the steps, in the direction of the huge visitors' parking lot. "We've got to go past the gatehouse," he said, "beyond all the shooting ranges and bomb squad."
The heat was escalating as the late-morning sun climbed higher. The three of us were sweating as we crossed behind the equipment trailers on the edge of the property to get to the new indoor range. There was no shade on the path, just ten feet from the border of scrubby brush that separated the facility from its nearest neighbors. And ever present was the sound of dozens of automatic weapons being fired by cop after cop, eager to plug the thug on the target.
Pete squared the corner at the entry checkpoint, just past the last RESTRICTED sign. Mike stopped short behind him and leaned over to massage a kink in the calf of his left leg. He was still recovering from a stress fracture he had suffered earlier in the year.
I kneeled to retie the laces on my sneakers. Just as I did, I heard the sharp repeat of a semiautomatic weapon fired from within the stand of trees closest to the entrance where dozens of police officers had parked their cars.
I fell to the ground as bullets dimpled the side of the gray shingled gatehouse. Mike thrust himself onto the dirt and crawled over to me, shielding my body with his own, screaming at me to stay down. I could barely breathe, between the fright of the close call and the pressure of his body on my chest.
SIXTEEN
Pete Acosta called for backup and ran off in the direction of the shooter. The uniformed cops at the checkpoint-at least four of them-took up chase with him. I lost sight of them in the dense shrubbery that edged the roadway near the entrance.