thought as they dragged the girls and their mother back inside the bungalow. He did kill her. Romero is the shooter!
She dropped behind the cruiser and keyed her radio mike.
“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