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“No.”
Brady said, “Don’t approach that building until I say so. Keep your eyes on that car and the open door. SWAT is still assembled. They can be there in ten. I’ll get a perimeter in place and get back to you.”
“Copy that, Lieutenant.”
“Don’t get twitchy,” Brady said. “Once we’ve got that store locked down, we’ll have all the time we need to reel him in.”
Unless Catton puts a gun to Cindy’s head and bargains his way out.I canceled the thought. Rich dialed down the radio volume and we sat there waiting for the troops to arrive.
I wanted to jump out of the car and run for that open doorway. I worried that if she was inside the bookstore, she was dead. I also knew that the correct and only thing to do was sit, watch, obey orders.
“I’m sure of this,” Rich said.
He wasn’t but he wanted to be. I felt the same way. I kept my eyes on the door and the car under the dusky sky and felt time drag slowly by. I kept my hand on the door handle and waited for Brady’s order to go in.
CHAPTER 90
A DUN-COLORED ARMORED vehicle pulled into a parking spot behind us. It was an MRAP, an army surplus light tactical vehicle originally made for military use in Afghanistan; now some were used by municipal police departments who needed them. I was glad to see this one.
Brady’s voice sputtered over the radio.
“Boxer, Conklin, the core perimeter is in place. The secondary perimeter is nearly set. The command post is on Ivy and Hayes. I’m there. So is Alvarez. Stand by.”
I heard the squeal of a bullhorn, then Covington’s voice boomed loud enough for us to hear from the storefront around the corner.
“Bryan Catton. This is your SWAT captain Reg Covington speaking. You are surrounded. Come out nice and slow with your hands up. No one needs to get hurt.”
Back behind the parking lot, eight men in full tactical gear scrambled out of the MRAP and grouped around it. I knew one of them, Lieutenant Chris Martin. Black, late thirties, fiveten, he’s a former Ranger and experienced in dynamic entries and special equipment. He came over to my side of the car and made the universal sign to roll down the window.
He said, “Sarge, Conklin, can you come on out for a minute?”
When we were standing alongside our car, Martin opened a foam-lined transportation case and showed us a robot mounted on tanklike treads and that looked to be twenty inches wide by nearly forty long and thirty high.
“This is Mastiff,” said Martin. I’d taken two classes in SWAT robotics and had worked around similar bots. I knew Mastiff weighed over a hundred pounds.
Martin said, “If you haven’t seen this SuperDroid before, introducing HD2-S Mastiff, an all-terrain tactical robot, new and improved.”
“Impressive,” I said, impressed.
“I’m now giving you a crash course in bot reconnaissance. First, why do I need you outside at the controls? Because I need your eyes with Mastiff while we’re inside a dark place we’ve never been, looking for a homicidal maniac, likely armed, and a hostage.
“Second, the bot is programmed and knows its job. The controls are intuitive, less complicated than your phone.
“Third, if you need to get out of here, you’re inside a vehicle. If you need to talk to your commander, you have the radio.”
Martin continued the lesson, opening a large Pelican case. “Here is the Operator Control Unit, easy as one, two, three.”
I tried to take in what Martin was telling me, but the one message that was as easy as one, two, three was that Martin was putting me in charge of Mastiff. I knew the tactical breachand clear drill. Flash-bangs went in first to stun any living thing. Next, the robots went into the room and scoped out the place, sending visual to the tac team outside. If necessary the robots knocked down doors. Before the tactical team went in, we would have received full images of the interior. If a subject was found, he’d be down and out for a few minutes, enough time to find him, disarm him, cuff him, extract him. If no one was home, the same procedure would be repeated in the next room.
Mastiff’s control board and view screen looked like a laptop computer game. The joystick was at the top of the screen surrounded by marked buttons for override manual control. But I knew this bot could go full auto if needed.
Martin said, “She’s called Mastiff after the Alpine dogs by that name. These treads allow her to travel over sand, gravel, water, riprap. She can climb stairs and can bust down a door. She’s a two-way radio programmed to do a grid search in any kind or size of room.”
Lieutenant Martin was describing the six-axis extending arms with grippers this beast could use to deliver a meal or a bomb or a phone. Mastiff operated off a base that could rotate 400 degrees to capture floor-to-ceiling images with its pan-tilt 20× optical zoom camera.
“Take the stick, Boxer. Give it a shot.”
I pulled back on the joystick and the camera turret rose a few inches on the robot’s neck. I swiveled the stick and the camera behaved accordingly. I pressed the button at the top of the stick and the camera snapped a picture.
