Erin had no idea what was going on. She pulled herself upright and poured herself out the back of the vehicle onto the street. Vic was right behind her, Rolf at her side. Everyone was shouting at once. A car horn was jammed, bleating a pointless protest. She saw a cloud of steam gushing toward her from a ruptured radiator.
“Drop it! Hands in the air!” several officers yelled. Several others were repeating Twig’s words. “Gun! Gun! Gun!”
Erin saw a dark gray Mercedes, its front end crumpled. She looked down the alley and saw a pair of men, pointing guns her direction. She hurled herself back behind the BearCat, hauling Rolf with her. She didn’t see Siobhan. Maybe the Irishwoman had been sensible and hit the pavement.
Down the alley, one of the gunmen fired a wild burst. Bullets ricocheted off the BearCat’s armored side, whining and skipping in all directions.
The response was immediate and devastating. Half a dozen ESU guys opened fire. Both gunmen went down. It was over in a matter of three seconds, maybe less.
“Clear!” one man shouted, and was echoed by two others.
“Where’s the girl?” Madsen called.
Erin, acting on impulse, looked at the wrecked Mercedes. She saw the driver’s side window was broken. That struck her as odd, but she couldn’t think why until she remembered it had been intact when she’d first gotten out of the BearCat. Car windows didn’t spontaneously shatter after an accident was over. She saw bits of safety glass strewn across the pavement in an outward fan. That meant it’d been broken from the inside.
“Vic!” she shouted. “On me!”
He was there at her back, holding his rifle. She, Rolf, and Vic moved in on the Mercedes, slow and careful.
“You! In the car!” Erin called. “Throw your weapon out the window!”
There was a pause. It was too dark to see into the Mercedes. Erin’s skin crawled. There was a man with a gun inside the car. She knew it, but couldn’t see him. He could be pointing it at her right now, through the windshield, and she wouldn’t know until she saw the muzzle flash.
“You’ve got three seconds!” she shouted. “One!”
A small dark shape hit the pavement. It looked like an automatic pistol.
“Okay!” she said, moving closer and sidestepping toward the broken window. “Now open the door. Slowly!”
The driver’s side door swung open. A few bits of glass jarred loose from the window frame and tinkled to the ground. In the alley, Erin heard the ESU guys securing the scene. She ignored them.
“Now get out of the car, hands in the air!”
Hands raised, Ian Thompson stepped out onto the asphalt. He was looking at Erin with a face of quiet calm. Erin, in spite of the adrenaline, felt a moment of whiplash relief.
“Turn around!” Vic shouted. “Hands against the car. Now!”
Erin realized she’d hesitated when she’d recognized Ian. She was embarrassed Vic had needed to pick up her slack.
Ian obeyed without question, laying his hands on the Mercedes. Vic stepped forward, slinging his rifle across his shoulder and taking out his cuffs. Erin kept covering Ian, out of habit more than anything, though he showed no signs of resisting.
Vic frisked him with quick, professional skill. He came up with a pair of spare magazines for a nine-millimeter pistol, along with a folding knife. Erin retrieved the gun from the pavement. It was a Beretta 92. She smelled the wisps of spent gunpowder that drifted from the barrel. It’d been fired within the past few moments.
“Shooting at cops?” Vic said, roughly pulling Ian away from the car by the shoulder and shoving him toward the BearCat. “Mistake, buddy. Big goddamn mistake.”
Erin looked at the car window. Ian had been shooting out the side, not the front. He hadn’t been firing at the BearCat. And it was the wrong window. The alley was on the passenger side of the car. He’d been shooting the opposite direction. What the hell had he been doing?
It was possible he’d been disoriented when the ESU vehicle had rammed him, and he’d just fired in a random direction. But she knew Ian. He was a veteran of two tours with the Marines, Iraq and Afghanistan. He’d been in dozens of firefights. He didn’t panic, and he didn’t shoot wildly.
She stood next to the Mercedes, crouched so her head was at the same height his had been, and pivoted, looking across the street.
It took a second to see the body lying between the parked cars on the opposite side of the street. All she saw was an arm, sprawled next to the hood of a Buick.
“Got another body!” she called, sprinting across the street. “Twig! You hear me?”
“Yeah, I copy,” Twig said. “I don’t see him, though. I’m on the roof right above you. The angle’s bad. I didn’t know anyone was there.”
Erin and Rolf got there and found a man lying on his face. He was wearing a long coat and a stocking cap. A sawed-off shotgun lay next to one of his hands. Erin kicked the gun away and crouched beside him. She rolled him partway over. His eyes were open, but he wasn’t seeing a thing. He’d been shot twice that she could see, a pair of holes neatly punched through the breast of his jacket. The holes were less than an inch apart, both straight into the man’s heart.
“That’s some good shooting,” commented Madsen, coming up behind her.
“Yeah,” Erin said. She’d been right about one thing. Ian was definitely an excellent shot.
“Who’s this mope?” Madsen asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “But he shot Twitchy Newton earlier this evening, and he shot at me.” She flexed her bandaged knuckles.
“He dead?”
“Yeah. The other two?”
He nodded. “No sign of the girl, though. What’s her name, Finneran?”
Erin stood up. “No sign? That’s impossible.”
He shrugged. “Got me. She was there, she hit the ground, then she was gone. I’m telling you, she’s not there now.”
Erin flexed Rolf’s leash. “We’ll see about that. Rolf, komm!”
They weren’t done yet.
