There were nods all around and murmursof assent. Zoe silently seethed. His plan was too weak. He was putting all hisstock in Cesar either still being in that private back room as they stormedthrough, or escaping through the back door into the garage.
The commander might have had a plan, butit was not the one she knew was right. She looked up and caught Shelley’s eye,holding it for a second. Her partner hesitated, but then gave a nod.
That was all the approval Zoe needed.
She would make sure that they got theirman.
The van shuddered into motion with arattle of the engine, moving them toward their destination. The atmosphere inthe back of the van was palpably more tense immediately, everyone on edge,their adrenaline building. There was no more talk. All mouths were straight,flat lines, all shoulders held at stiff angles.
“Coming up on target,” the commandersaid quietly, responding to information from his earpiece relayed by thedriver.
The tension ratcheted up another notch.Zoe looked down and saw knuckles white on handles of guns, in fists, on theedge of the bench seat. Up again, and the van swayed around a bend, all eyes onthe doors now.
“On my marks,” the commander said.
The van sped up and then braked sharply,the motion rocking them all forward, and over it all the commander wasshouting: “Go! Go! Go!”
The two men nearest the doors pushedthem open and were through, and everyone was moving, Zoe and Shelley last onthe benches and furthest away, last to move. They piled forward, narrowlyavoiding stepping on one another’s feet as they charged, out of the doors andonto the ground.
The air was a shock of fresh oxygenafter the cramped, warm interior of the van, and the light of the day hit themtoo. Zoe remembered just in time to snap the plastic visor of her helmet downover her face, before rushing toward the main entrance with the rest of them. Threehad already peeled off to the side, heading for the exit they would beguarding, and the remainder headed inward while Zoe and Shelley swung around tothe side.
The unit commander himself threw openthe main doors, throwing himself to the side so he would not become animmediate target. He and the other cops were yelling, distraction and confusiontechnique as much as instruction, as they charged into the bar at the same timeas Zoe flung open the side door.
“Armed police! Get on the ground! Handsin the air! Everyone freeze! Armed police!”
The effect was not the one they mostdesired. No one stopped and dropped to the floor, or instinctively threw theirhands in the air—except for one elderly, overweight man in the corner, who Zoesaw from the side of her vision, giving up immediately. The others tookdifferent reactions. They scattered for the doors, chairs and tablesoverturning behind them and glasses shattering on the floor.
It was another motion that caught hereye next—a man behind the bar, reaching under it and drawing out a shotgun.
“Gun!” she yelled out—then, asplit-second later: “Shelley, down!”
Shelley hit the floor, reacting withabsolute trust to Zoe’s words. Shotgun pellets blasted though the space abovetheir heads, the space where Shelley would have been if not for Zoe noting thespeed and angle with which he maneuvered the gun and figuring out his chosentarget.
Shelley scrambled to her feet again asone of the cops tasked with clearing the bar—Wyatt, maybe, it was hard to say—leaptthe bar and tackled the gun out of his hands. The unit commander was stillshouting orders, and now he beckoned his other team members onward, past thesteadily dwindling stream of people running and toward the closed double doorsat the other end of the bar.
Zoe didn’t need to look at Shelley toconfirm their course of action. They had already decided in the van. She feltmore than saw her partner head off at a right angle, along the front of the barafter the commander, as Zoe turned toward the kitchen exit.
Zoe’s gun was holstered at her waist,where she fully intended to keep it, even if her fingers itched toward it asshe ran. She knew what she had to do. She had studied images of Cesar taken onhis release from prison, and she knew how he was built. He was a gunman,probably quicker on the draw and more accurate than her, and he was also runningthrough a tightly packed space without much room for movement. She had onechance to take him down, and she was going to stick to it.
A man rushing for the door to theoutside bumped heavily into Zoe’s right shoulder as their paths crossed, nearlyknocking her off her feet. He swore and dodged around her, and she barelystayed out of the way of the other cop—Panek—going after him. The kitchen exitwas a swing door with a round window, like a diner, and she had only a momentto see the vague shape of a man barreling toward her before she committed tocharging through it.
Zoe angled her body low, stretching herarms out ahead of her and to either side, as far apart as she could make them.He was coming right toward her, the man she recognized absolutely as Cesar, andhe had no chance to stop his own momentum. He raised a gun in a confused kindof motion, unused to seeing a woman in riot gear charging with her head low,and before he had the chance to react any further Zoe connected with his midriff.
Her helmet struck his solar plexus hard,sending shockwaves through her neck but also through his nerves and organs. Thefirst thing she heard was him gasping for breath, even as they sailed throughthe air, Cesar knocked from his feet by the impact and Zoe’s momentum carryingher forward. She
