the Takoma area of Washington, DC, patrol cars had blocked off both ends of Aspen Street between Seventh and Tenth.
“FBI here?” she asked a patrol officer.
“Not yet, Chief.”
“Secret Service, Capitol Police?”
“Negative. Metro SWAT’s en route.”
That helped. Bree ducked under the crime scene tape and kept low as she hustled toward another patrol car up the block where two officers were crouched, their weapons drawn. The side windows of the cruiser were blown out. So was the windshield. Half a block beyond them, in the middle of the street, there was a midnight-blue Cadillac Escalade with California plates and an abandoned city snowplow.
“You the ones who pulled them over?” Bree said when she reached the officers.
“Wiggins and Flaherty, Chief,” said Officer Wiggins, a blonde in her thirties.
Flaherty said that getting the alert regarding Romero’s felonies had taken long enough to make the gangbanger and his friends anxious.
“When they saw me climb out of the car, one of the two in the back opened fire, and Romero hit the gas.”
They gave chase for more than a mile before Romero saw the snowplow coming at them down Aspen Street between Eighth and Ninth. They couldn’t get around the plow, and they abandoned the Escalade in the middle of the street.
Armed with pistols and AR-style rifles, Romero shot at the snowplow, shattering the windshield and sending the operator scrambling out the other door and down the street. One of the other two opened up on the patrol car before the three of them forced their way into a yellow craftsman bungalow on the north side of the street.
“Time of last shots?” Bree asked.
“Nine minutes ago,” Wiggins said. “And we’ve got officers watching the back of the house. They’re still in there.”
“Hostages?”
“We’re assuming so,” Flaherty said. “According to city records, residents are Matthew Sheridan, his wife, Sienna, and their eight-year-old twins, Emma and Kate.”
Before Bree could reply, a gun went off in the house.
A woman started screaming, and then girls’ shrill voices joined her.
Bree radioed dispatch, reported the shot and the hostages, and requested that the entire neighborhood be cordoned off.
Bree clicked off and her phone immediately rang. Chief of Police Michaels.
“What’s happening?” he demanded.
Bree told him about Romero. “He threatened Senator Walker two weeks ago in Oakland. Now he’s here in DC armed to the teeth with two of his fellow bangers.”
“You think he killed Walker?”
“When pulled over nearly three thousand miles from home, he and his men responded with violence, and they’ve taken hostages. There’s also a homicide victim in Georgetown who may or may not be involved.”
“Jesus,” Michaels said. “What do you need from me?”
She looked down the street behind her, saw a big black SWAT van pulling up.
“The cavalry just arrived, Chief,” Bree said. “I’ll let you know if anything—”
More screams came from the house.
“Sorry, Chief, gotta go,” Bree said. She hung up and peeked over the hood of the patrol car.
Emma and Kate, the terrified eight-year-old Sheridan twins, came out the front door, followed closely by two of the gangsters. The men were wearing kerchiefs over their lower faces, holding on to the collars of the sisters’ nightgowns, and pressing pistol muzzles to the backs of the girls’ heads, using the children as human shields.
“We ain’t waiting for no SWAT or negotiators,” one shouted. “Get that plow the hell out of here. You let us move on, or we kill them and go out in a blaze!”
“No!” a woman screamed.
Bree peeked again and saw a brunette in a Washington Red-skins jersey, jeans, and socks come out the door with the third man behind her. Bree recognized Romero from the picture that dispatch had sent. He held an AK-47 pressed to the back of a sobbing Sienna Sheridan.
He said something to her.
“Believe him!” she cried. “He shot my husband. He’ll kill us all.”
“So what’s it gonna be?” Romero yelled as his men started down the front steps. “A peaceful ending? Or a goddamned bloodbath?”
CHAPTER
19
BREE TOOK THE bullhorn that Officer Wiggins offered her.
“This is Chief Stone of Metro PD,” she said, trying to sound calm. “No one wants bloodshed here, Mr. Romero.”
“Then let us leave!” Romero yelled. “Now.”
“You’re going to have to give me time to clear the streets,” she called out. “It’s not like I have the keys to that snowplow at my fingertips.”
“Five minutes, then!” Romero said.
“Fifteen.”
“No. Ten! And after that we don’t give a damn about no East Coast bullshit, and little girls and Mommy gonna start dying, just like that bitch Betsy Walker did!”
Betsy Walker. My God, Bree