“Fuckin’ Jack, he’s taking a chance . . . .”

“He’s all armored up. He thinks he’s back at St. Thomas.”

“I don’t know,” Lucas said. “It’s your call, but it sounds like Jack might have played too long without a helmet.”

“He did it before. Same deal. Gang guy, needed him to talk. He had a gun in his belt when Jack went in. He never had a chance to pull it. Jack was on him like holy on the pope.”

“So we sit some more,” Lily said, peering through the venetian blinds at the apartment across the street.

“Not here,” Del said. “We sent your drawing of the apartment down to the ERU—they’re staging in the garage of that Amoco station three blocks up. We need you to go down there and talk to them about the apartment.”

“All right,” said Lucas. “If anything happens, call.”

“Del’s pretty sharp for this time in the morning,” Lily said on the way down to the ERU meeting.

“Uh.” Lucas glanced at her.

“He’s maybe got his nose in the evidence? He was sleeping so hard yesterday it kinda looked like a chemical crash.”

Lucas shook his head. “No coke,” he muttered.

“Something?”

Lucas shrugged. “There’re some stories,” his voice still low. “He maybe does a black beauty from time to time.”

“Like once a fuckin’ hour,” she said under her breath.

The ERU felt like a ball team. They were psyched, already on their toes, talking with the distracted air of a team already focusing on the game. The apartment diagram had been laid out on plastic board with a black marker. The Polaroid photos Lucas had shot in the apartment were Scotch-taped to one side. He spent a few minutes spotting chairs, sofas, tables, rugs.

“What kind of rug is that? Is that loose?” Dionosopoulos asked. “I don’t want to run in there and fall on my ass.”

“That’s what you did at St. Thomas,” one of the other ERU men said.

“Fuck you and all pagan Lutherans,” Dionosopoulos said casually. “What about the rug, Lucas?”

“It’s small, that’s all I can tell you. I don’t know, I’d say be careful, you could slide . . . .”

“It’s one of those old fake Persian carpets, you know, you can see the threads,” said Lily. “I think it’d slide.”

“Okay.”

“Lucas?” One of the other team members moved up. “Del just called. He sounds weird, man, but he says to get your ass back to the surveillance post. Like instantly.”

“What do you mean, ‘weird’?” Lucas asked.

“He was whispering, man. On the radio . . .”

Del met them in the hallway outside the apartment. His eyes looked like white plastic poker chips.

“What?” asked Lucas.

“The feds are here. They’ve got an entry team on the way in.”

“What?” Lucas brushed past him into the apartment. The Minneapolis agent-in-charge was standing by the window, next to the FBI surveillance man. Both were wearing radio headsets and looking across the street.

“What the fuck is going on?” Lucas asked.

“Who are you?” the AIC asked, his voice cold.

“Davenport, lieutenant, Minneapolis Police. We’ve got this scene wrapped . . . .”

“It’s not your scene anymore, Lieutenant. If you doubt that, I suggest you call your chief—”

“We got guys on the street,” a Minneapolis surveillance man suddenly blurted. “We got guys on the street.”

“Motherfucker,” Del said, “motherfucker . . .”

Lucas looked through the slats of the venetian blind. Lily was at his shoulder. There were six men on the street, two in long coats, four in body armor. Three of the men in armor and one man in a coat were climbing the stoop into the apartment building; the other man in a coat waited at the base of the steps, while the last man in armor posted himself at the corner of the building. One of the men on the steps showed a shotgun just before going inside. The man in the coat turned and looked at the surveillance post. Kieffer.

“Oh, no, no,” Lily said, “He’s got an AVON, they’re gonna hit the door with AVONs.”

“It’ll never fall, man,” Lucas said urgently to the AIC. “The door’s a solid chunk of oak. Call them down, man, it’ll never fall.”

“What?” The AIC couldn’t sort it out, and Lily said, “The door won’t fall to AVONs.”

Lucas turned and ran out of the apartment and down the hall to the front door of the building. He could hear Del chanting, “Motherfuckers, motherfuckers . . .”

Lucas crashed through the front door, startling the FBI man on the street. The agent made a move toward his hip and Lucas swerved, screaming “No, no . . .”

There was a boom, then a second and a third, not sharp reports, but a hollow, echoing boom-boom-boom, as though someone in the distance were pounding a timpani. Lucas stopped, waiting, one second, two, three; then another boom, boom . . . And then a pistol, a sharper sound, nastier, with an edge, six, seven rounds, then a pause, then an odd cracking explosion . . .

“Minneapolis cops,” Lucas shouted to the FBI man at the base of the stairs. Lily was with him now and they crossed the street. The FBI man had one hand out at them, but with the series of pistol shots he turned and looked at the building.

“Get out of the fuckin’ street, dummy,” Lucas screamed. “That’s fuckin’ Hood with the pistol. If he comes to the window, you’re a dead sonofabitch.”

Lucas and Lily crossed the sidewalk to the building until they were standing behind the stoop. The FBI man came over and stood with them, his pistol out now. There was shouting in the hallway.

“They got him,” the agent said, looking at them. He sounded unsure.

“Bullshit,” said Lily. “They never got inside. If you got a radio, you better call the paramedics, because it sounds like Hood sprayed the place . . . .”

The building door popped open and Kieffer, in a crouch, his gun drawn, stepped down onto the stoop.

“What’s happening, what’s happening?” shouted the armored agent on the corner.

“Back it off, back it off,” Kieffer shouted. “He’s got hostages.”

“You dumb sonofabitch, Kieffer . . .” Lucas shouted.

“Get out of here, Davenport, this is a federal crime scene.”

“Fuck you, asshole . . . .”

“I’ll arrest your ass, Davenport.”

“Come down here and you can arrest me for kicking a federal agent’s ass, ’cause I will,” Lucas shouted back. “You dumb cocksucker . . .”

The federal entry team and the Minneapolis teams stabilized the area and hustled the other tenants out of the apartment building and adjacent buildings. The city’s hostage negotiator set up a mobile phone to call Hood.

When Lucas and Lily returned to the surveillance apartment, Daniel was talking with the AIC and Sloan was leaning against the apartment wall, listening.

“ . . . go on television and explain exactly what happened,” Daniel was droning piously. “We’ve had substantial experience with this type of situation, we had the scene cleared and stable, we had an excellent action plan prepared by our best officers. Suddenly, with no coordination and without proper intelligence—intelligence that we had: we knew that door wouldn’t fall to AVONs, which is one reason we didn’t try them—suddenly, an FBI team takes jurisdiction and promptly launches what I can only describe as a rash action, which not only endangered the lives of many police officers and innocent people in adjoining apartments, but also jeopardizes the chances of capturing Bill Hood alive, and cracking this terrible conspiracy which has taken the lives of so many people . . . .”

“It should have worked,” the AIC said bitterly.

Daniel discarded his pious-preacher voice and turned hard. “Bullshit. You know, I never would have believed you’d have tried this. I thought you were too smart. If you’d come in with your team, taken some time, talked it over, we could have done a joint operation and you would have gotten the credit. The way it happened . . . I ain’t taking the rap.”

“Could I get everybody out of here? Just for a minute,” the AIC asked loudly. “Everybody?”