28.

Baiting the Trap

We had several hours to kill before it was time to set up the trap at the Charlestown Navy Yard for Bobby Amendola, so we went back to the office, where Bancroft attended to his other cases, Millie went to the squad room, and I sat in Danny O’Rourke’s empty cubicle and made calls to Tom Sullivan, my bartender Sam Longtree, and to Marisa. There was universal agreement that my latest plan might work, or it might fail spectacularly.

At seven thirty, Bancroft and I took the elevator down a floor to the squad room to tell Millie it was time for him and me to depart for the Charlestown Navy Yard, ahead of her.

“Last chance to go to law school,” I told her.

“The legal profession would seem mega-boring compared to this,” she said.

Bancroft drove us to the Charlestown Navy Yard and parked in the rear lot of the Constitution Museum. While waiting, we chatted about sports, politics, and his retirement dream, which involved a lake cabin in Vermont with good bass fishing and satellite TV for all the sports channels.

Bancroft looked at his watch and said, “I’ve got Kevlar vests in the trunk.”

We got out and put them on. At eight thirty, we heard a car drive by on the street in front of the museum: Millie in the armored Ford SUV. A moment later, she called Bancroft on his cell phone to say she was in place.

A half-hour later, right at nine, we heard a car on the road. We got out of the Taurus, found we didn’t have a clear line of sight to the visitor center parking lot, went back to the Taurus. Bancroft drove out onto the road, headlights off, and parked, far enough back to not be seen from the visitor center parking lot, but close enough, with the windows down, for us to hear gunshots.

A few moments later, we heard three of them.

Bancroft hit the gas and headed toward the visitor center just as we saw a pair of headlights coming at us. He skidded to a stop parallel to the road, a blocking move, and put the headlights on, along with the car’s lights and siren. We got out and stood behind the open car doors. I had my Glock pointed at the oncoming car and Bancroft had the shotgun.

The game of chicken ended when Amendola was maybe twenty yards away. He swerved onto the grass of the park. He was driving his Escalade, which would have no trouble off-road.

Bancroft and I hopped back into the Taurus and he gunned it in pursuit of Amendola, lights and siren still on. He picked up his police radio microphone and said, “Dispatch, this is Detective Bancroft, badge number 1430, in pursuit of a black Cadillac Escalade, license number unknown. Subject is driving off-road at high speed through the Charlestown Navy Yard, passing the commandant’s house and heading northwest toward the Thirteenth Street exit onto Chelsea Street.”

“Roger that, Detective,” came a woman’s voice in reply. “What do you need?”

“Require units to block off Chelsea one mile east and west of Thirteenth and surveillance by Air One,” Bancroft told her.

“We’re on it,” the dispatcher said. “Stay in touch and good hunting.”

All the while, we were bumping over the ground at speed, gaining on the Escalade as it sped toward the park exit where we came in.

“If he goes out that exit,” Bancroft said, “his only choices are to turn east or west, where he’ll be blocked by our units, or to turn back into the park on Sixteenth Street going east, or on Fifth Street, going west.”

I’d been in many high-speed pursuits, but none of them in a park. I heard the unmistakable whirring of helicopter blades through the open car windows.

“We’ve got him now,” Bancroft said.

His breathing was rapid, as was mine, and his hands gripped the wheel so hard his knuckles were white. The Escalade was fast, but no match for the Taurus’s Police Interceptor engine. We came up on its rear bumper just as the police chopper came overhead and lit up the scene with a blinding spotlight. An amplified voice from the chopper said, “Police, halt! Police, halt!”

Which reminded me of a cop TV show I liked, Blue Bloods. However, something about that show always annoyed me. Whenever Danny or Jamie was approaching a suspect, he shouted out, from a distance: “Police! Stop! Police!” Of course, the suspect bolted. What you really did was sneak up on the bad guy until you were right on him and he couldn’t escape. Another annoyance about Blue Bloods was that Danny, a detective played by Donnie Wahlberg, was always able to run the suspect to ground. Donnie was no spring chicken, but he could catch guys much younger as they sprinted through traffic, down alleys, and climbed over fences. Will Estes, who played Jamie, a uniformed officer, was a spring chicken, but he wore a heavy utility belt and black leather dress shoes, while the miscreant was usually wearing a track suit and Nikes, or some such outfit. Still, Jamie caught up with the guy. The show should hire me as a consultant. Then I’d have two incomes from the world of crime fiction.

Shouting out an order to halt was much more effective when it came from a helicopter hovering overhead.

Bancroft accelerated up close to the Escalade and, using a technique cops learn in driving school, turned the Taurus’s right bumper hard into the left rear of the Escalade, causing it to fishtail and hit a massive oak tree head-on at high speed.

Bancroft skidded to a stop beside the Escalade and we hopped out, guns up. Right then, Millie’s armored SUV arrived. It was safe, but too heavy to be fast. She got out with her pistol drawn. Bancroft extended his hand, palm out, toward her, telling her to stay back. He and I approached the Escalade, Bancroft on the driver’s side and me on the passenger’s side. Through the window, I could see that Amendola wasn’t moving, with the air bag inflated against his chest and face.

“Like clockwork,” Millie told us as she approached the Escalade. “He did exactly what you said he would. I think one of his bullets ricocheted off my window and caught him somewhere in his upper body. Never saw anyone look so friggin’ surprised.”

She was grinning.

The thrill of the hunt.