I moved my head around in circles. Suddenly my neck felt a little tight. "So the FBI's HRT is here to fight it out with DC SWAT?"

"Kind of looks that way, my man. Welcome to the suck and all that. You got any bright ideas so far?"

Yeah, I thought: Leave here right now. Go back to the kids. It's a Saturday. I'm off.

I handed Ned the ten dollars from our bet.

I SURE DIDN'T SEE any way out of this sticky mess, and neither did anyone else. That's why Mahoney had called me in, hoping I might have an idea to bail him out.

And of course, misery loves company, especially on a sunny afternoon when everybody wants to be anywhere but in the middle of a potential shoot-'em-up where people would probably die.

The first situation briefing took place in a nearby grade-school auditorium. It was jam-packed with Washington police personnel, but also FBI agents, including key members from the Hostage Rescue Team. HRT was ready to roll if it came to that, and it looked like it might happen soon.

Near the end of the briefing, Captain Tim Moran, the head of SWAT for the metro police, restated the facts as he knew them. He had to be in a highly emotional state, for obvious reasons, but he appeared calm and in control. I knew Moran from my years on the force and respected his courage. Even more, I respected his integrity, and never more than I did that afternoon when he might have to go against his own men.

"To sum up the situation, the target is a four-story building where black-tar heroin was being turned into powder and a lot of cash. We have at least a dozen drug-lab workers inside, mostly women. We have the lab's guards – well armed and on at least three floors. Looks like about a dozen of them, too. And we have six SWAT members who attempted a robbery and got trapped inside.

"They apparently have a quantity of the heroin and cash in their possession. They're pinned down between drug dealers and other personnel on the top floors, and about half a dozen more armed guards who showed up while the robbery was in progress. At this point we're in a Mexican standoff. We've made initial contact with both sides. Nobody wants to give in. I guess they figure, what do they have to lose, or gain? So they're just sitting tight."

Tim Moran continued in a calm voice. "Because there are members of SWAT inside, given the complications of it, the Hostage Rescue Team will take the lead here. Metro will give our full cooperation to the FBI."

Captain Moran's summation was clear and concise, and it had taken some guts to hand the operation over to the FBI. But it was the right thing to do if somebody had to go inside and possibly fire on the SWAT guys. Even if they were bad cops, they were still cops. It didn't sit well with any of us to have to shoot at our brothers.

Ned Mahoney leaned in close to me. "Now what do we do, Einstein? HRT is caught in the middle of a shit sandwich. See why I wanted you here?"

"Yeah, well, excuse me if I don't fall all over myself thanking you."

"Ah, you're welcome anyway," said Mahoney, and he punched my arm in a bullshit gesture of camaraderie that made us both laugh.

IT WAS IN HIS BLOOD.

The Butcher was in the habit of monitoring metro police communications whenever he was in DC, and it was hard to miss this baby. What a royal cluster-fuck, he couldn't help thinking to himself. SWAT against Hostage Rescue. He loved it.

For the last few years he'd been cutting back on the kinds of jobs he did, "working less, charging more." Three or four major hits a year, plus a few favors for the bosses. That was more than enough to pay the bills. Besides, the new don, Maggione Jr., wasn't exactly a fan of his. The only real problem was that he missed the thrills, the adrenaline punch, the constant action. So here he was at the Policeman's Ball!

He was laughing as he parked his Range Rover a dozen blocks from the potential firefight scene. Yes, indeedee, the neighborhood was sure jumping. Even on foot, he couldn't get much closer than several blocks away on Kentucky Avenue. On his walk toward the crime scene, he'd already counted more than two dozen metro DC police department buses parked on the street. Plus dozens more squad cars.

Then he saw blue FBI Windbreakers – probably the Hostage Rescue boys up here from Quantico. Damn! They were supposed to be hot shits, right up there with the best in the world. Just like him. This was good stuff, and he wouldn't miss it for anything, even if it was a little dangerous for him to be here. He spotted several command-post vehicles next. And at the "frozen zone," or inner perimeter, he thought he picked out the "incident commander."

Then Michael Sullivan saw something that gave him pause and made his heart race a little. A dude in street clothes talking to one of the FBI agents.

Sullivan knew this guy, the one in civvies. His name was Alex Cross, and well, he and Sullivan had something of a history. And then he remembered something else – Marianne, Marianne. One of his favorite kills and photographs.

This was getting better and better by the minute.

I COULD DEFINITELY SEE why Ned Mahoney wanted me here.

A heroin factory estimated to have more than a hundred and fifty kilos of poison, street value at seven million. Cops versus cops. It looked like a no-win situation for everybody involved. I heard Captain Moran say, "I'd tell you to go to hell, but I work there and I don't want to see you every day." That sort of summed things up.

No one inside was showing signs of surrendering – not the drug dealers, not the guys from SWAT. They also weren't allowing any of the lab workers trapped on the fourth floor to leave. We had the names and approximate ages for some of the lab workers, and most of them were women, between fifteen and eighty-one. They were neighborhood people who couldn't find other jobs, usually because of language and education barriers, but who needed and wanted to work.

I wasn't doing a whole lot better than anybody else at figuring out a possible solution or an alternative plan. Maybe that was why I decided to take a walk outside the barricades at around ten. Try to clear my head. Maybe an idea would come if I physically put myself outside the box.

By now there were hundreds of spectators, including dozens of reporters and TV camera crews. I strolled a few blocks along M Street, my hands dug deep into my pockets.

I came to a crowded street corner where people from the neighborhood were being interviewed for TV I was starting to walk by, lost in my thoughts, when I heard one of the women talking between wrenching sobs. "That my flesh and blood trapped inside. Nobody care. Nobody give a damn!"

I stopped to listen to the interview. The woman couldn't have been more than twenty, and she was pregnant. From the look of her, she was due any day. Maybe tonight.

"My gramma is seventy-five. She inside to make money so my kids can go to Catholic school. Her name Rosario. She a beautiful lady. My gramma don't deserve to die."

I listened to a few more emotional interviews, mostly with family members of the lab workers – but also a couple with the wives and kids of the drug crew trapped inside. One of the runners in there was just twelve years old.

Finally, I headed back inside the barricades, the inner perimeter, and I went looking for Ned Mahoney. I found him with some administrative types, suits, and Captain Moran outside one of the command-post vans. They were discussing shutting off the building's power.

"I've got an idea," I told him.

"Well, it's about time."