"Maybe he'll talk nicer to you than he does to us."
The phone made a bumping sound. Then William's voice said, "I hope this means everything's back to normal and I can get out of here."
"Afraid not," Cavanaugh said. "There's been some shooting and--"
"Some shooting?" the lieutenant said in the background. "I was with the Marines in the first Iraq war. I think we used less ammunition."
"Why don't I let Lt. Russell explain it to you so I don't say anything I shouldn't."
"Name, rank, and serial number," William's voice cautioned. "Nothing else. Put him on the phone."
Cavanaugh handed the phone to the lieutenant, then looked at Jamie and Kim against the wall. Jamie impressed him with her composure, as if she'd been an operator all her life.
But Kim was another matter. The pupils of her eyes resembled pencil points. Her brow was beaded with sweat, her withdrawal symptoms accelerating.
Cavanaugh gave her a firm nod of assurance.
"At the precinct in half an hour," Russell said to the phone, then gave it back to Cavanaugh.
"Yes, William?" Cavanaugh asked into it.
"Name, rank, and serial number. No exceptions."
"I want you to call somebody." Cavanaugh gave William a name and a phone number. "Tell him I need help."
When William heard the name, his response was, "He'll get their attention."
"Okay, we're ready to move this guy," the ambulance attendant said.
The attendant and his partner lifted the semiconscious man onto a Gurney and wheeled him from the apartment. Below, a clatter of equipment indicated that the gunman Jamie had wounded was being lifted onto a similar Gurney.
"Hands behind your back," Russell told Cavanaugh
The lieutenant clicked handcuffs onto him.
The policewoman did the same to Jamie and Kim.
"Is the van here?" Russell asked a policeman.
Cavanaugh managed to stand.
Preceded and followed by police officers, he, Jamie, and Kim left the apartment. On the stairs, a camera flashed, a medical examiner and his team inspecting the other gunman Jamie had shot.
Cavanaugh descended. The smell of burnt gunpowder widened his nostrils. He stepped over empty ammunition casings and left the building, confronted by the chaos of flashing lights, police cars, ambulances, and several hundred onlookers.
Chapter 15.
As Aaron emerged from the building into the kaleidoscope of lights, Carl almost pulled the trigger. Aaron had his hands cuffed behind him. He had policemen ahead of him, policemen behind him, and two women next to him. One of the women, Chinese, was the GPS computer expert whose apartment Carl had ordered watched. The other woman was the one he'd seen in Jackson Hole. Aaron's wife.
Carl studied her. Tall, wearing slacks, with legs that drew his gaze from her ankles to her inviting hips. Athletically trim, with upward-tilted breasts that made him imagine standing behind her, cupping his hands over them. Glossy brunette hair that he wanted to stroke. Eyes so intense Carl felt their power even on the roof across the street. Aaron, you and I always had the same great taste.
Do it, Carl told himself. Shoot. But no matter how much he wanted to, he mustered the discipline that he had not possessed while he and Aaron had been in Delta Force and later when they'd worked for Global Protective Services. No "I" in "team"? I understand that now, he thought.
No self-control? Not then. Not when I took out that sentry with a knife instead of obeying the order to kill him with a sound-suppressed pistol. Not when I stabbed that crazy fan when he pulled out a knife and attacked that rock-star babe. No, I learned my lesson, Aaron. You and Duncan taught me that lesson. I spent a lot of time on shit jobs learning that lesson. Stay cool. Keep the mission in mind. Don't get distracted. Don't screw things up for a moment's satisfaction. I learned that lesson so well, I could teach you. But if I shoot, I'll never get off this rooftop and make it to where Raoul's waiting with the car. Right now, there's only one thing more important than killing you, and I'm so cool, so disciplined, so in control, that's what I'm going to do.
Carl pulled a transmitter from his pocket. When he pressed a button, a green light flashed. Then he pressed a second button.
Chapter 16.
Uneasy, Cavanaugh stood at the entrance to the building. Partially blinded by the flashing lights, he watched attendants wheel the injured gunmen toward two ambulances. We got what we need, he thought. When they're conscious, we can question them. We can find out where Carl trains his men.
"I want an officer in each ambulance," Lt. Russell said.
Two policemen stepped toward the vehicles as the attendants shut the doors, and suddenly the ambulances heaved, explosions shattering their windows, blasting their rear doors open. The shockwaves knocked the ambulance attendants and the policemen to the pavement. Others stumbled back. Bystanders ran. Many screamed.
"Bombs?" Russell spun toward Cavanaugh. "What the hell's going on? How did--"
"Wyoming," Cavanaugh said, trying to recover from his shock. His skin itching from wariness, he nudged Jamie back with him into the cover of the building's vestibule. Kim noticed and retreated with them as Cavanaugh scanned the roof on the opposite side of the street. He lowered his gaze toward the windows and the entrances to the brownstones, but the emergency vehicles and the flashing lights made it difficult to see much of anything at street level.
"Wyoming? What are you talking about?" Russell demanded.
Emergency personnel ran toward the ambulances. Smoke drifted from the open doors.
"That's where this started." Cavanaugh stepped deeper into the building, Jamie and Kim following. "A hit team tried to kill me there, also."
Russell stared.
"When two members of the team were about to be captured, their car blew apart," Cavanaugh told him.
Russell stared harder.
"We think the team's leader planted a bomb under the car and used a remote control to detonate it--to keep them from being questioned. Earlier, somebody on the team shot a sniper working for them, presumably because he couldn't be counted on to keep his mouth shut."