A Dallas Suite

Chapter Forty Six

"We'll get there and I'll call him back. If you want to focus on setting the perimeter and getting everyone in place, I'll focus on the negotiation, or whatever this is going to turn into."

"Seeks we're not playing any hero shit tonight, got it? You don't make any moves without running them by me. We're not sending you in to deal with this guy by yourself again," whoever he was calling answered the phone. "This is Moore, I need a full SWAT team at 4218 Beaumont Street. Jeff Marshall is holding a hostage at this location time now!"

I tuned him out and started to think about how this could go down. I really didn't know what to expect. Jeff had caused a distraction and gotten every available officer to respond to one side of the city while he snuck by two undercover officers to get into a building on the other side of the city. And this was Knights private hideout. It took Detective Madison a ton of digging to be able to find it. Jeff shouldn't even know this place existed. Whatever we were walking into, I didn't like it.

We pulled up in front of the apartment building and I parked my building right up onto the front curb. An army of officers were right behind us. Moore jumped out and started barking orders.

Moore had told me he wanted to get a perimeter set and go over details before I made the call while we were in the car. I helped him with getting the officers into position. Any civilians who were in the area were pushed back behind the line we were setting. You think it'd be easy with so many trained officers, but the more hands you had the more confusing things got. Everyone had their own idea and wanted to do things their way. We were trying to get everyone in unison, which wasn't easy. The people in the area were forming a crowd trying to figure out what was going on. People were filming and shouting things at officers. The entire block was covered in a blanket of red and blue lights now, bouncing off of the buildings and bliding you in any direction you looked.

SWAT pulled up and weaved their way through the patrol vehicles to pull up into the front of the building. Moore and I walked to meet with the team when I heard my phone chirp. I looked down and read the text message from Knight:

You're not good with directions, Detective. You were supposed to call as soon as you got here.

I turned the phone to show Moore. "Well call him!"

I called the number back and Knight answered right away. His voice was shaking, he was obviously terrified. "He says you should have called sooner, Detective. Uh..," there was a pause for a few seconds "he wants me to ask if your head injury is clouding your judgement."

"What does he want, Knight? Are you hurt at all?"

"He wants you to come in alone, Detective. He says he's ready for you now."

"Put him on the phone, Knight." There was another pause and I could hear whispering coming from the phone.

"He says no, he won't speak with you until you get inside."

"Okay well tell him to look outside the window. How does he think this is going to end? SWAT is here and ready to go. He knows he's not getting out of here, why is he trying to make requests?"

More whispering. "Oh... fuck! He says he has the entire third floor rigged with explosives. He knows you haven't evacuated inside yet. If he doesn't get what he wants then he's going to blow up the entire floor and level the building. He says everyone will die instantly, including a lot of the officers outside."

I had the phone set to speakerphone, so Moore and the SWAT team leader could hear what he was saying. We all looked at each other. We had no way of knowing if it was true or not, but there was no way we could take that chance. There was an unspoken understanding of this just from our eye contact. "What exactly is he wanting?"

"He wants you to come up to the room alone. He says if anyone else comes in with you, he's going to blow the building. Just you by yourself. If he suspects anything else, he'll do it. He says you have five minutes." The line disconnected again.

Moore started to say something but I talked over him, "I'm going in Sergeant. You heard what he said, the entire place could be rigged with explosives. I'm not taking that chance."

"Seeks you don't make the fucking orders around here, I do. You're not going in there alone with that man. What if he just kills you then blows the building up?"

"With all due respect, Sergeant," the SWAT leader spoke up. I hadn't noticed but he was a lieutenant, one of the main leaders of the entire Dallas SWAT unit "this is actually my scene now and I'll be making the orders from here on out. If you're okay with it, Detective, then we'll send you in. We'll stage outside and give you a minute. After that I'll take a few guys with me around the back so he hopefully doesn't see us. Then we can wait outside the room. If we hear anything happening inside, we'll breach the door and be right inside with you."

Moore shook his head and turned away. I could see him packing his can of dip, he was obviously stressed out. "That works with me, Lieutenant." We didn't have time to hash out a better plan, not if I only have five minutes from the time that phone call ended.