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She looked at me, said quietly, “I’ve never handled anything remotely like this, Alex. You have, so I’m all ears.”
I scanned the scene again and then said, “We need to be inside the house directly across the street from Le’s and also in the house directly behind it. And we need Le’s cell phone number.”
“I’ll try Michele Bui again,” Bree said.
The SWAT van pulled up. Captain Matt Fuller, dressed head to toe in black body armor, climbed out and hurried toward us.
“Shit,” I muttered.
“What?”
“I’d hoped Captain Reagan was on duty,” I said. “Fuller’s good at what he does, but he wants to do it as often as he can, if you know what I mean.”
A burly man with soft, almost saggy facial features, Fuller said, “Dr. Cross. Chief Stone. Sampson. How’s the officer down?”
“Two are down, Captain,” Bree said. “Lincoln, who’s one of my men, and Officer Parks. Both are in critical need of medical attention, especially Parks.”
Fuller looked at the scene through binoculars. When he put them down, he said, “We’re going to want to be in the house opposite and the one behind.”
“You took the words right out of my mouth,” I said, and then I looked to Bree again. “Call Michele. Get that number.”
Captain Fuller, four of his men, Sampson, and I used an alley to reach the row house directly in front of Detectives O’Donnell and Lincoln and across the street from Parks. A frail older woman had been evacuated from the house. She’d given her key to one of the patrolmen who’d helped her, and we used it to go through the back door into her kitchen.
We passed a steep staircase on our way into the living area, barely taking in the dated furniture, the photos of a lifetime, and a baby grand piano.
“Maxwell and Keith, you’re upstairs,” Captain Fuller said behind me. “Stay back from the windows, keep it dark.”
While the two SWAT officers climbed the stairs, Bree pushed aside the window curtains just enough for us to see O’Donnell and Lincoln right there on the sidewalk, backs to the Explorer, no more than fifty feet away. O’Donnell had his belt around Lincoln’s thigh, but Lincoln looked wan, like he’d lost a lot of blood.
“Lincoln needs medical help now,” Bree said.
“Both of them do,” I said, watching Parks go through some kind of pain spasm that made him arch in agony.
The SWAT commander was quiet for several moments and then said, “We’re going to handle this one at a time. Easiest first, which means Lincoln.”
Fuller looked at his two other men. “How fast can you get out the door, go down those steps, grab Lincoln, and get your asses back inside?”
“Twenty seconds,” Sergeant Daniel Kiniry said.
“Maybe less,” Officer Brent Remer said. “Unless we come under fire.”
“O’Donnell? How long since the last shots?” Fuller asked.
“Ten, maybe twelve minutes,” the detective came back.
The captain thought a moment and then spoke into his radio. “Wilkerson?”
“Go ahead, Captain.”
“Break me out a couple of grenades.”
Chapter
41
Bree and I looked at Captain Fuller like he’d lost his mind.
“Grenades?” Bree said. “Isn’t that a little extreme?”
