Alt rushed back up stairs to Lindsay’s office. They may not have much time to move. The call from Hansen had been unnerving to say the least.
“What’s going on?” Lindsay asked urgently as Bouchard also walked in.
“Cops are all over Daniels’ place. We don’t know if there was a breakin or what. But there are four or five squad cars. A couple of unmarked squads and Crime Scene is there. The scene’s tight and secure, and cops ain’t talking. Hansen and Hennessey are there monitoring.”
Lindsay nodded and went to his desk and took out a cell phone. “Let’s see if I can find out what’s going on.”
The chief led the meeting. A C.I.R.T. commander was present. Mac, Lich, Riles, and Rock had all put on vests and wind breakers that said police on the back, their badges now hanging around their necks. Weapons bristled. A crude drawing of the PTA building lay in the middle of the conference table.
The plan was to secure the parking garage and the private elevator, as well as the front entrance. Officers would cover all four sides of the building. Alt and Lindsay would be pinned inside and have no choice. Mac wasn’t sure whether they’d throw down, but he didn’t want to take any chances. At this point, all they needed was the warrants to be finished, and they were ready to go. Besides everyone around the table, there were numerous other people in the room, talking on cell phones, getting things arranged.
Just then Sally came back into the room with the warrants and handed them to Mac, whispering softly in his ear, “Be careful.”
Mac nodded. Anderson came back in the room, a cell phone to her ear, followed by Sylvia Miller and Captain Peters, both hanging up their cell phones.
The chief spoke. “Mac, you and the boys will go in the front. You get to put the cuffs on Lindsay and Alt. C.I.R.T. Team 1 goes up with you guys. Team 2 will work to secure the garage. Everyone understand?” Everyone nodded. “Let’s roll.”
Lindsay flipped his cell phone shut.
“Where’s the chopper at?”
“Took two VPs up to Duluth,” Alt answered. “Why?”
“We need to get the hell out of here.”
“What’s going on?”
“They’re coming for us right now. They have the Cross documents, and they have you killing Daniels on video.”
Alt, stunned, was slow to follow Lindsay, who came back to grab his arm. “Let’s go.”
They got into the elevator and headed to the basement. Lindsay spoke, “Apparently Daniels liked to video herself having sex. There was a hidden camera in the room, and it was running the night you took her out. Think back. After you killed her, did you take your mask off?”
Alt nodded.
“Well, they have it on video. Plus they have the documents, which hangs all of us.”
“How did they find it?”
“McRyan found it. I don’t know how, but he did.”
Alt recovering now, thinking about getting away. “McRyan. I should have known.”
“I underestimated him, Webb. You didn’t, but I did. He’s coming for us.”
They hustled off the elevator. “Sir, we aren’t caught yet.”
Skogman and Thompson were waiting for them. They had a minivan running. Automatic weapons and rounds were loaded inside. They all jumped into the van, and Bouchard got behind the wheel.
They pulled up to the exit and took a left onto East Sixth Street, a oneway.
Mac, Riley, Lich, and Rock climbed into Mac’s Explorer and the two C.I.R.T. Teams followed. Mac was going to pull up in front of the main entrance to PTA, which was on the west side of the building along St. Peter Street. Team 1 would follow them. It would take Team 2 a few minutes to get to the garage as they had to drive all the way around the building on the one-way streets.
Mac crossed East Sixth and pulled in front of the building, his front left tire up on the curb. Team 1 was a half block behind, caught at a stoplight. “We should have had them running with lights,” Riles muttered. The police radio blurted that Team 2 was still three blocks away, caught up in traffic on Cedar Street.
“We’ll have to wait a minute,” Mac said.
Alt made the call immediately when they had turned left out of the parking garage. A C.I.R.T. truck was at the stoplight, and it was clear that the driver and man in the passenger seat had seen them come out of the garage. They had no choice. Alt let his window down. Skogman behind him opened the sliding door. Thompson was doing the same, looking to the south.
Chapter Forty
The sound was unmistakable-automatic weapons fire. Mac saw it first, the black minivan, coming to the corner to the north on East Sixth. The side door was coming open, and he saw the barrel, “DOWN! DOWN! DOWN!”
Mac hit the pavement and rolled to the entryway of the PTA building. Shots flew over his head, causing glass to rain down over him. People were screaming. He looked quickly back to the Explorer. Lich was down low, hiding behind a cement holder for a garbage can. Riley had rolled to the front of the truck and had cover. Rock was down on the sidewalk, hit in the thigh, exposed.
Mac quickly got to his knees, leaned around the corner of the entryway, took a look at the background and returned fire, emptying his clip. Lich grabbed Rock and pulled him behind the garbage can.
The black minivan veered left, cutting in front of Mac and through a diagonal intersection, in front of the PTA building. Mac gave chase, running behind, firing at the van, shattering the rear window glass. The van turned right onto East Fifth. It was half a block to Washington Avenue. There was construction on the corner of East Fifth and Washington. The van could only go left when it hit the corner.
Mac burst across East Fifth and flew into Rice Park, popping another clip into his Glock. The van turned a hard left onto Washington, tires screeching. Fifty yards away, Mac fired at the side of the van, this time low, at the tires. Shots came from behind him to his right, Riley, firing high. They both connected. Mac got the front left tire, Riley spraying the drivers’ side windows. The van veered hard right, across the sidewalk, crashing into the corner of a brick wall on the east side of the Convention Center.
With the van stopped, steam coming from the radiator, smoke from underneath, Mac and Riley cautiously moved through the park towards the vehicle, weapons still drawn. Then Mac saw it, someone was out of the passenger side, running. Alt.
“Check the van! Check the van!” Mac yelled while he took off after Alt, firing on the run.
Alt kept his head low in the front passenger seat, as the van was pelted from behind. They turned sharply left, and the glass on the driver’s side started shattering all over, shots flying over Alt’s head. He felt the left side of the van abruptly drop and then buck hard to his right. He looked up in time to see the van heading into the corner of a brick wall. The left side of the front of the van took the brunt of the impact, causing the van’s back end to buck slightly on impact. It threw him into the passenger side door and most of the airbag missed him when it deployed.
Alt looked to Bouchard, who was slumped over the wheel; a bullet hole through his head. The others in the back were bloody, probably dead. Looking out the driver’s side he saw McRyan and Riley slowly approaching from the east through the park.
He jumped out and ran west towards the northeast entrance to the Convention Center. Shots hit the sidewalk around him as he ran for the doors. Once inside, he had two options. Straight was a long hallway, angled upward towards the hockey arena. There were convention-goers walking along the way. Too open.
He turned left through another set of doors into the east end of the Convention Center. There was an escalator one hundred feet away that went up to the second level on the south side of the Convention Center. He had his assault rifle and two clips in his coat. Hitting the escalator running, he got to the top, stopped and looked back.