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Chapter 4
Antrole and I crouched low. Gunfire had a way of triggering the instinct to ball up as small as possible. The ambushers kept firing high, as if they expected us to still be standing. It was a classic mistake. The holes along the door and the wall gave me an idea of where the shooters were in the room.
Both Antrole and I started to return fire with our Glocks. The shooters had lost the element of surprise and our police training and tactics gave us the upper hand now. I saw a shadow move near the door and peppered it with .40-caliber rounds. Splinters and debris filled the open doorway.
A bullet pinged off a metal doorframe across from me. It struck a Pokémon sticker between the eyes. I hoped the shooter wasn’t good enough to have aimed for it.
A splinter the size of a toothpick lodged in my left hand. Pain shot up my arm and blood spread across my fingers.
Now I could hear the shouts and cries from people in the other apartments, which distracted me from whoever was shooting at us. But only for a moment. A door opened a crack and a head popped out. All I could see was gray hair.
Antrole shouted, “Police—get back inside!”
Someone yanked the old man back into the apartment.
Antrole backed against the far wall of the hallway and scooted to my side of the door, just as a wave of shots hit where he had been crouched. Shouting at the civilian had given away his position.
He hunkered down next to me with his pistol up and I felt the tide turning. All we had to do was move down the hallway and wait for the cavalry to arrive. 911 calls had to be flooding in about now. Time was on our side.
Then a shotgun blast blew a hand-size hole just above my head. Jesus Christ. It felt like a bazooka. I choked on some of the drywall dust launched into the air and blinked to clear it out of my eyes. Sweat gathered on my forehead and I felt myself pant.
The shotgun racked on the other side of the wall. The shooter would fire again at any second.
Antrole yelled, “Clip!”
He was reloading so I needed to keep my gun up. Our training would save us.
I saw a shadow pass the hole in the wall where the shotgun had done its work, and fired twice as Antrole opened up on the doorway again. Someone hit the floor hard on the other side of the wall.
Bullets hit the wall all around us after Antrole fired. He stumbled awkwardly onto the floor.
I looked down and saw that Antrole had been hit in the leg. Blood was pumping out onto the cheap carpet, making the washed-out colors in the fabric come alive with red.
I leaned in close and said, “Can you walk?”
“If it will get us away from here, hell yes.”
It felt like maybe the gunfight was over. No one was shooting, a welcome change.
Something flew out of the door and bounced back off the wall. It made an odd thumping sound on the floor right in front of the door. I saw it roll around in odd arcs on the ground.
Too late, I realized it was a hand grenade.
Chapter 5
My eyes focused on the old-style army pineapple grenade, almost hypnotized.
Out of instinct, I reached down and grabbed Antrole by the collar. He raised his pistol and fired at whoever had tossed the hand grenade from the other side of the door. It was tough pulling 180 pounds across the rough, cheap carpet, a lesson in physics and friction.
I couldn’t tell how many shooters were left inside the apartment, but Antrole was laying down fire to keep their heads down. At least one of them was still active. I could hear him scuttling around the apartment, then he fired a round through the wall.
Someone at the other end of the hallway popped out of their apartment and started to run. A young man in a white T-shirt disappeared down the stairwell. It distracted the shooter in the apartment, too. For an instant, everything went quiet.
When I had dragged Antrole a few feet down the hallway, his collar gave way and ripped completely from his coat. I tumbled backward onto the floor and felt a sting of pain, a finger on my left hand turned awkwardly. I desperately reached out to grab my partner again. It felt like I had dropped him down a well. I shouted something, but by now my ears were ringing so badly I don’t even know what I said.
That’s when it happened. The grenade detonated.
