Bree took the bullhorn that Officer Wiggins offered her.
“This is Chief Stone of Metro PD,” she said, trying to sound calm. “No one wants bloodshed here, Mr. Romero.”
“Then let us leave!” Romero yelled. “Now.”
“You’re going to have to give me time to clear the streets,” she called out. “It’s not like I have the keys to that snowplow at my fingertips.”
“Five minutes, then!” Romero said.
“Fifteen.”
“No. Ten! And after that we don’t give a damn about no East Coast bullshit, and little girls and Mommy gonna start dying, just like that bitch Betsy Walker did!”
Betsy Walker. My God, Bree thought as they dragged the girls and their mother back inside the bungalow. He did kill her. Romero is the shooter!
She dropped behind the cruiser and keyed her radio mike.
“DC SWAT, this is Chief Stone.”
“Captain Forchek here, Chief. SWAT is armored and ready to deploy.”
A plan formulated quickly in her head. “Captain, I need a team ready to push forward in support of my current location. I want quality shooters up high, with a clear view to that Land Rover. And put teams on porches on the southwest and northwest corners of Aspen and Tenth. Your best officers. Block off Ninth, north and south.”
“Roger that, Chief.”
From the house, Romero yelled, “Seven minutes, Stone!”
“I hear you, Mr. Romero,” she said through the bullhorn. “We’re trying to find the snowplow operator.”
A rattle of gunfire went off inside before he shouted, “There’s no trying! We’re about doing here, right?”
“Right, Mr. Romero,” she said, and then she ducked back behind the cruiser, still working out her strategy.
She looked at Officer Wiggins. “Where is the snowplow driver?”
“With Barstow and Hayes,” she said. “Other end of the street.”
Bree jumped up and started running east. She keyed her mike. “Forchek, send your best driver to Aspen and Eighth.”
“That would be me,” the SWAT captain said. “And I’m already on my way.”
Bree checked her watch as she ran. Six minutes.
Near the corner of Eighth, she cut right into an alley that wound back around south and then to the west, paralleling the hostage scene.
Bree triggered her mike. “Where are we, Captain?”
“We are go at twenty-two hundred five, Chief. I’m driving the plow?”
“Roger that,” she said.
She checked her watch: 10:00. Five minutes. Was it enough?
It had to be enough. She focused on an image of Jannie and went from a run to a sprint, dodging trashcans and the odd stack of boxes for three blocks, trying not to slip in the snow. She turned back north on Tenth and raced toward the other cruiser blocking access to Aspen.
Captain Forchek, a rangy guy even in his body armor, stood there waiting with two uniformed officers and their cruiser blocking Aspen.
Gasping, she laid out her plan to the SWAT commander.
Forchek listened, thought, and then smiled. “As long as the department backs me up afterward, I can do that, Chief.”
“Good,” she said, and she nodded to the other officers. “Pull your car and retreat to Eleventh and Aspen. Park north on Eleventh. Stand ready to block Aspen on my command.”