Chapter 3

 

 

-Hartford-

 

 

It is 11:55 p. m. in downtown Hartford, CT and officers Tom McGregor and Pat Paglisse have

just finished the last of the doughnuts they’d picked up at Tanya’s Tasty Treats when they came

on duty. They’ve been sitting in their patrol car which they’ve backed into an alley talking about sports and how expensive it’s gotten to attend any professional sports event when they hear the sound of glass breaking.

 

When they pull out to investigate, they see two men breaking into a BMW X5 parked a half block away in front of an apartment building. They start the gumball flashing and the siren blaring and Tom puts the pedal to the metal to head them off before they can hotwire the car, but these guys are pros and get the car started and are laying rubber before Tom can get into position to stop them. Now they’re barreling down Main Street in hot pursuit of two crazy carjackers with the speed of the chase sometimes approaching 85 miles per hour and these nuts are blazing through red lights without even a tap on the brakes. “This ain’t good Tom. I’ll radio in for assistance and you back off a little, but keep them in sight.”

 

The next instant there’s a major power outage and bedlam breaks out everywhere. The entire city is in a shroud of darkness and all of the police communication channels are jammed with officers requesting assistance for one calamity or another. “Shit! It looks like we’re on our own Tom. I can’t get through.”

 

The chase continues for another 15 minutes throughout the city until luck intervenes, all bad. Taking a sharp curve in the road too fast, the BMW crashes into a concrete abutment, bounces off, flips several times, winding up on its roof and blocking the roadway. To avoid ramming into the BMW, Tom swerves into the oncoming lane and runs head on into a semi moving at a fairly good clip. All four are pronounce dead at the scene.