Page 13 of Come For Me
Chapter Five
“We assure you, Mr. Quinn, that the situation is under control. Law enforcement has established containment of the incident site and control of the vicinity via measures dictated by the situation. As you know, we must assure the safety of the general public—”
“Don’t quote me the manual, Hedlon,” Jack growled at the phone in his hand, currently set to speaker. “I already know it. ‘The team leader will have the authority and responsibility to useany available resourcesto negotiate successfully, as long as the area remains secure, personnel are not placed in danger, and the safety of hostages is not compromised.’”
Dain loved it when Jack quoted their own policies-and-procedures manual back to them. Hedlon, not so much.
“Your team would guarantee violating all three of those provisions.”
“You have the possibility of one less hostage if you do what I’ve asked.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do!”
There was nothing wrong with his boss’s lungs; his angry words pinged the van walls like a rain of bullets. Dain’s lungs hadn’t worked right since the moment he’d walked into that conference room this morning. And the knowledge that Livie hadn’t called back like she’d said she would was a heavier weight than the Kevlar vest King was currently strapping him into.
“I will not send a civilian into a hostile situation.”
“Then send in your own men,” Jack countered.
Dain bit back his protest. Much as he wanted to storm the fucking building and get his wife out of there, the truth was that anyone getting to Livie would make her safe. Unless the person getting to her was one of the gunmen. He refused to think about that; he couldn’t, not and do what needed to be done.
“Jack really should just stop,” Dain murmured, more to himself than King, though his teammate answered anyway.
“You know Jack.” With a final slap on Dain’s chest, King turned in the tight confines of the vehicle to grab a fully loaded equipment belt. “Never misses a chance to chew asses. And Hedlon is the biggest ass of all.”
King’s liaison at the APD had given him the basics, but when SWAT arrived at the site, the team on duty had been under the authority of SWAT Commander Hedlon. And Hedlon was as by-the-book as they came. He quoted the book, in fact, as often as he could, just to be sure those around him knew it. JCL teams had endured more than one run-in with the man, but today… Today the commander could go fuck himself. Someone was going in there, and if Hedlon wouldn’t send a SWAT officer, well, Dain had a full team ready and willing to back him the hell up.
“I do not answer to you, Mr. Quinn,” Hedlon said through the speaker, “but since one of the hostages is close to you, I will tell you this: I will send someone in only when it becomes absolutely necessary. We have a trained Crisis Intervention Team for a reason. If the crisis negotiator cannot make headway, then we will seek alternatives. In the meantime, I will not risk setting the suspects off. Is that clear?”
Saint turned from his seat at the comm station, his middle finger raised and pointed directly at the phone. Elliot snorted.
Jack ignored the byplay. “How long before the negotiator makes contact again?”
For reasons known only to Hedlon, he actually answered instead of shutting Jack down. “Fifteen minutes.”
I’m not waiting that long.
Dain shook his head at Jack, a quick jerk to indicate the “negotiations” were over. Hedlon wouldn’t give in, but neither would they. As he reached for the sliding door to the van, Jack gave him a grim nod in return. “I’ll go over your head if I have to, Hedlon,” he said.
Dain didn’t bother listening to the rest. Jack would keep the man tied up, completely unaware they’d subverted his commands until after the fact. They’d deal with the fallout when Livie was safe.
Elliot and Saint followed him onto the street. Each was vested and loaded up in the exact same uniforms the patrol officers on the perimeter of the scene wore. Of course, they didn’t bear the wordSWAT, and they had a few things hidden up their sleeves—and other places—that the regular cops didn’t. Thank God for Saint. The man kept their tech as cutting edge as he did their weapons. Equipment was Saint’s baby.
Baby.
Dain’s head spun. “Are we ready yet?” he asked hoarsely, turning back to face his team. His gaze fixed on the flash of light off the crucifix around Saint’s neck where he monitored radio chatter at the comm. He knew his teammate had already said a prayer for Livie; it was his way. Dain whispered a hasty, unfocused companion to it under his breath, then closed the van door.
Elliot and King followed as he jogged across the street.
The area was quiet, partly due to the police blockade a few blocks over and partly due to the bulletins on radio and TV asking citizens to avoid the area. Dain took full advantage, using empty lots and back alleys to travel the half a mile to Georgia Financial’s building on the corner of Eighty-third Street. Next door stood a city parking garage. Dain, Elliot, and King approached from the south, jogging quickly along the concrete walls of the parking structure until the back end of Livie’s office building came into view. Dain dropped behind a dumpster and squelched his radio to let Saint know they were in place.
A singleclickconfirmed his message had been received.
The grounds weren’t extensive. The back of the building held a small parking area for deliveries and a park-like strip of trees and bushes and grass, about fifteen feet wide, along three sides of the lot. Nothing else. The door Dain needed to reach waited smack in the middle of the back wall—and two of Atlanta’s finest stood, alert and guarded, right in front of it. Thank fuck one of them happened to be Officer Ford, King’s insider. The uniform with him was an unknown, but Dain would take him out—gently—if necessary. One way or another, he was going through that door.
He’d learned patience in the military, but nothing was harder than waiting there, knowing he was so close to Livie but unable to get to her. Saint needed confirmation first. When Officer Ford brought a finger up to his earpiece and nodded, Dain figured Saint had gotten it. A doubleclick-clicksounded through his own earpiece, making his supposition fact.
