“DC SWAT, this is Chief Stone.”
“Captain Forchek here, Chief. SWAT is armored and ready to deploy.”
A plan formulated quickly in her head. “Captain, I need a team ready to push forward in support of my current location. I want quality shooters up high, with a clear view to that Land Rover. And put teams on porches on the southwest and northwest corners of Aspen and Tenth. Your best officers. Block off Ninth, north and south.”
“Roger that, Chief.”
From the house, Romero yelled, “Seven minutes, Stone!”
“I hear you, Mr. Romero,” she said through the bullhorn. “We’re trying to find the snowplow operator.”
A rattle of gunfire went off inside before he shouted, “There’s no trying! We’re about doing here, right?”
“Right, Mr. Romero,” she said, and then she ducked back behind the cruiser, still working out her strategy.
She looked at Officer Wiggins. “Where is the snowplow driver?”
“With Barstow and Hayes,” she said. “Other end of the street.”
Bree jumped up and started running east. She keyed her mike. “Forchek, send your best driver to Aspen and Eighth.”
“That would be me,” the SWAT captain said. “And I’m already on my way.”
Bree checked her watch as she ran. Six minutes.
Near the corner of Eighth, she cut right into an alley that wound back around south and then to the west, paralleling the hostage scene.
Bree triggered her mike. “Where are we, Captain?”
“We are go at twenty-two hundred five, Chief. I’m driving the plow?”
“Roger that,” she said.
She checked her watch: 10:00. Five minutes. Was it enough?
It had to be enough. She focused on an image of Jannie and went from a run to a sprint, dodging trashcans and the odd stack of boxes for three blocks, trying not to slip in the snow. She turned back north on Tenth and raced toward the other cruiser blocking access to Aspen.
Captain Forchek, a rangy guy even in his body armor, stood there waiting with two uniformed officers and their cruiser blocking Aspen.
Gasping, she laid out her plan to the SWAT commander.
Forchek listened, thought, and then smiled. “As long as the department backs me up afterward, I can do that, Chief.”
“Good,” she said, and she nodded to the other officers. “Pull your car and retreat to Eleventh and Aspen. Park north on Eleventh. Stand ready to block Aspen on my command.”
Chapter 20
Ninety seconds later, Captain Forchek ran crouched along the snow-packed south sidewalk of Aspen Street, sticking to the shadows until he was half a block from the snowplow.
Bree watched him through binoculars from the front porch of a town house at the southeast corner of Tenth and Aspen. Four SWAT officers awaited her command behind her, across Tenth. Another four waited on a porch across Aspen. The last of the twelve was diagonally across from her on the northwest corner of the intersection.
She keyed the bullhorn.
“Mr. Romero, we are moving the snowplow. I am assuring you safe passage as long as you leave the hostages behind.”
“You think I’m stupid?” Romero bellowed. “They’re staying with us until we decide to let them go. Just move the damn snowplow and get the hell out of our way!”
Suit yourself, Bree thought as she watched Forchek creep between two cars and angle onto the street itself, keeping the snowplow between him and the Sheridans’ bungalow. He climbed in the open side door.
She keyed her mike. “Nice and easy now, Captain.”
“Roger that, Chief.”
The snowplow engine turned over. Bree swung her binoculars to the front porch of the Sheridans’ house and saw Mrs. Sheridan and her daughters coming out. Romero and his two masked men were behind them.
“Move that goddamned plow!” Romero shouted.
Forchek lifted the snowplow’s blade, turned on the headlights, and drove.
Bree watched Romero and his men hustling Sienna, Emma, and Kate Sheridan off the porch and down the short path toward the north sidewalk.
The moving snowplow blocked her view for several moments before Forchek drove past her, slowed, swung the plow in reverse, and backed it up onto Tenth Street heading north. He stopped the plow about fifty yards from the intersection, right where Bree wanted him. The plow headlights died.
Bree looked back at the Escalade and saw Romero already in the front passenger seat aiming his gun at a trembling Sienna Sheridan, who was behind the wheel. The other four were in the backseat, one girl at each window, Romero’s men in the middle.
Real heroes.
Calling their positions into her radio, Bree watched the headlights on the Escalade go on, and the big SUV started toward her.
“Here we go,” she said. “On my call, Forchek.”
“Roger that, Chief.”
The SWAT officers on both sides of Aspen ducked low. Bree pushed back into the shadows, watching through binoculars. For a moment, she held her breath as the Escalade approached Ninth. She feared Romero might turn onto the side street but sighed with relief when he kept on coming.
“He’s taking the easy way out,” she said into her mike. “Ten seconds, Captain.”
The Cadillac’s headlights swayed closer.
Bree dropped the binoculars, let them hang around her neck, and drew her service weapon. The snowplow’s lights were still off, but Forchek had it moving in a slow roll toward Aspen.
She glanced from the accelerating SUV to the plow and said, “Now.”
She heard the plow’s big diesel engine roar and saw it barreling toward Aspen and the approaching Cadillac. The Escalade almost got through the intersection. But then the forward edge of the plow blade clipped the SUV’s right rear quarter panel and tore off the bumper.
On the slick winter surface, the Cadillac was hurled into a sharp, clockwise spin. It smashed into two parked cars. Forchek skidded the plow to a stop, blocking their retreat but not her view.
Bree said, “Take Romero.”
A rifle was shot from the rooftop diagonally across the intersection from her, shattering the passenger side of the Cadillac’s windshield. The three SWAT teams exploded from their positions, and charged the Escalade.
Bree could see one of the girls screaming in the backseat of the SUV and feared the two other gunmen would execute them before the SWAT teams could set them free.
Romero opened fire with the AK-47 through the Escalade ’s passenger-side window, blowing it out and hitting two of the SWAT men. They sprawled on the sidewalk behind parked cars.
Romero kicked open the Cadillac’s door and sprayed bullets in a quick side-to-side arc, then he jumped out, crouched down, and fired another burst.
Three SWAT officers opened fire. All three hit the gangster, and he crumpled. Blood haloed around him on the snowy street.
Captain Forchek pushed open the plow door and leaped down, gun up and aiming through the Escalade’s side rear window. The silhouette of one of Romero’s men was sagged over on one of the Sheridan twins, who was shrieking in fear. The other gunman had her sister around the neck, a pistol pressed to her head.
“Don’t do it!” Forchek shouted. “I’ve got a dead shot at you from six feet! Drop the gun and put your hands up!”
The third gunman hesitated and then dropped the pistol.
Forchek yanked open the passenger rear door and pulled a sobbing Sheridan girl out.
Bree ran forward, calling into her radio for SWAT to raid the Sheridans’ home. Other officers were helping Sienna Sheridan and her other daughter from the car. Inside the Cadillac, the third of Romero’s crew stared straight ahead.
Even with the wool hat she wore down over her eyebrows, there was no mistaking her gender. Latina, mid-twenties, she had tattoos of lavender-colored teardrops on her lower cheeks.