"A what?"
"School deal. Parents, teachers. What kind of terrorists are they?"
"Ordinary people," Eve said. "That's what makes them so dangerous. Most are just regular Joes looking for a way to clean up the streets. I watched this vid with Roarke. This Old West thing. Bad guys kicking ass in this town. Law can't stop them 'cause they kick the law's ass, too. So the people get together, pool some bucks and hire this band of gunslingers-that's a great word, isn't it? Gunslinger."
She savored it for just a moment, snagged a few of Feeney's candied nuts. "Anyway, they hired these guys to get rid of the other guys. And they do. But then the gunslingers decide, hey, we like it here, so we're going to hang and run things our way. What are you gonna do about that? So the town ends up under their thumb."
"Just trade one gun for another."
"Yeah, plus you lose the bucks, a lot of people who were minding their own get hurt. Ends up this U.S. Marshall type comes in-which should've been done in the first place-and after a lot of shooting, people taking dives off roofs, getting dragged around by horses and shit, he cleans up the place."
"We don't have the horses, but we'll clean up the place tonight."
"Damn right."
They waited. Dull conversation, long silences, quick updates from other units stationed around the perimeter. Cop work, Eve thought, as she sipped black coffee and monitored, was hours of waiting, mountains of paperwork, stretches of unbelievable boredom. And moments, extreme moments where it came down to life and death.
She glanced over at Peabody. Instants, she thought, and inches. And fate.
"They're starting," Feeney said quietly. "Must be all they're expecting tonight. Bastards are starting their death meeting with The Lord's Prayer."
"They're about to have plenty to pray for." Eve got to her feet. "Let's round them up, and take them down."
She ran checks with each unit captain, ordered all positions held while she and Feeney moved in to join Baxter and Trueheart.
Her unit would hit the basement door first.
She gave Baxter's chest a quick poke to make sure he was wearing his riot gear. Grinning, he poked her back. "Damn stuff's heavy, isn't it?"
"Irritates the hell out of me," she admitted. She circled her finger. He turned so she could yank down the concealing flap and reveal the NYPSD emblem on the back of his jacket.
"Meeting's under way," McNab reported through her earpiece. "Judge Lincoln's presiding. They're reading fucking minutes from the last meeting."
"Let's give them a couple minutes," Eve ordered. "Get more on record. The more we have, the deeper we put them under."
"Lieutenant?" Trueheart whispered, as if already in church. "I want to thank you for allowing me to be a part of this op."
"You're going to suck up," Baxter told him. "You suck up to me now.I suck up to Dallas. That's the food chain."
"Opening to new business," McNab reported. "Discussion on Greene termination. Wade termination called unfortunate systemic by-product. Jesus. Single objection from membership."
"Sir?" Peabody's voice came through. "Word just came in. Geller didn't make it."
Eight dead, Eve thought. It ends now. "This meeting's over."
"Locked and loaded," Baxter said.
"All units, go.Go "
She went in the door first, and down a set of old iron stairs. In her mind she pictured other units coming in the front, the side, streaming across the main floor.
Weapon drawn, badge held up, she swung through the doorway into the basement room.
"NYPSD! Nobody moves."
There were some screams, some shouts. A few people scrambled, either for cover or escape. Secondary units poured in like ants at a picnic. Ants armed with laser rifles and twin-barreled stunners.
"Put your hands up. Hands up," Eve shouted, "or you will be stunned. This building is surrounded. There is no way out. You are under arrest for terrorist acts, for conspiracy to commit murder, for the murder of a police officer, and other charges that will be made known to you."
She moved forward, sweeping faces, movements. Some wept now, and others stood rigid in fury. Still more knelt, hands clasped like martyrs about to be fed to the pagan lions.
"On the floor," she ordered. "On your faces. Hands behind your heads."
She swung hard as she saw Judge Lincoln reach inside his jacket. "Do it," she said softly. "Give me a reason."
His hand dropped. He had a hard face, dark stone with features sharply carved. She had sat in his courtroom, given testimony there. Had trusted him to feed justice.
She took the weapon from under his jacket, patted him down.
"We're the solution," he told her. "We're courageous enough to act while others sit and wait."
"I bet Hitler said the same thing. On the floor." She pushed him to his knees. "On your face, hands behind you."
She clapped the restraints on him herself. "This is for Colleen Halloway," she said softly in his ear. "She knows more about courage than you ever will. You're a goddamn disgrace."
She got to her feet. "Baxter, read this bunch of heroes their rights."
It was two-thirty when she made it home. But it wasn't fatigue that dogged her now but a weariness so internal it dragged at both body and mind.
She felt none of the rush of victory, the pumping energy from seeing a job through. When she closed the door at her back, she couldn't find it in her to toss an insult at the waiting Summerset.
"Despite the lateness of the hour, am I to expect your house guests will arrive with their usual desire for refreshments?"
"No. They've got homes of their own, and they're using them."
"You were successful?"
"They scored eight before I stopped them. I guess that would depend on your definition of successful."
"Lieutenant."
Her mind was too shadowed for more than mild irritation. She stopped on the second step, looked back. "What do you want?"
"During the Urban Wars there were a number of civilian-driven organizations. Some risked their own lives to try to protect neighborhoods under siege or to rebuild those that had been decimated. There were many acts of heroism. And there were other groups who were also organized. They sought only to destroy, to punish, to wage other levels of warfare. Some formed their own courts, held trials. Oddly, all of those trials ended with a verdict of guilty, and were swiftly followed by execution.
"Each," he said, "had considerable success with their separate agendas. History is, however, enlightened by one and tainted by the other."
"I'm not looking to make history."
"That's a pity," he said as she continued up the stairs. "Because you've done so tonight."
She went by the lab first, but there was only Jamie. He was obviously out of work mode and into recreation. There was a graphic of Yankee Stadium on his monitor. He was playing against Baltimore, and the O's were up two runs in the bottom of the sixth.
"Shit, you blind?" He slapped the unit as the ump called a strike on his batter. "That was high and outside, asshole."
"It caught the corner," Eve disagreed. "Nipped the strike zone. Good pitch."
"Like hell." He paused his game, swiveled around. "Wanna take me on? It's better with two reals instead of playing against the comp."
"I'll trounce all over you some other time. Hit the sheets."
"Hey, hey, wait!" He scrambled up. "Aren't you going to tell me how it went down?"
"It went down."
"Well, Iknow. We got the call on it. But no deets. Spill some deets, Dallas."
"Tomorrow. We'll have a full briefing."
"One deet. You give me one, then I got one for you."