When Darkness Falls

She complied without protest, averting her eyes from the pregnant woman as the men carried her inside. “Take her to the back bedroom,” she told the men.

El Oso and the other man carried her through the kitchen and down the dimly lit hall to the bedroom. She seemed to be getting heavier with each step, and the men were so exhausted that they dropped her onto the mattress.

“Please, get this baby out of me!” she cried.

The older woman was still waiting in the kitchen. “Are you ready for me?” she asked.

“Wait!” said El Oso. He took a black cloth from his pocket and put it over the prisoner’s head. She resisted and tried to pull it off, but El Oso grabbed her by the wrists. “The hood stays on, or you and your baby die.”

“Okay, whatever you say,” she said, her voice trembling. “Please, let’s just do this!”

El Oso called into the next room. “We’re ready!”

The midwife rushed through the open doorway and went straight to the prisoner. Everything she needed for the delivery was arranged neatly on a table beside the bed. “Let’s get those underpants off,” she said.

The men lifted her hips, and the midwife slid the underpants down the woman’s legs. They were soaking wet with fluid from her broken membrane. “She’s ready to push,” said the midwife.

“No kidding!” the woman cried, her voice only slightly muffled beneath the black hood.

“How far apart are your contractions?”

“I don’t know. Not very long. Hurry, please. I can hardly breathe with this stupid hood over my head!”

The midwife asked each of the men to take one of the woman’s feet and raise her legs into the air. Then she probed with her whole hand into the vagina, stopping just before she was in up to her wrist. “The head is right there. Clearly you’ve been pushing already.”

“I tried not to.”

“One more good one and I’ll be able to grab a shoulder.”

The woman’s body tightened. Another contraction was coming. “It hurts so much!”

“Push through it,” said the midwife. “Just ignore what your brain is telling you and push right through it!”

El Oso could not see the woman’s face, but he knew that beneath that black hood was the contorted face of a woman in utter agony. She screamed again, and the midwife assured her that she was doing great. El Oso was starting to feel dizzy.

“Keep pushing!” said the midwife.

The woman rose up on her elbows so that her shoulders were elevated above the mattress. She was half sitting and half lying on the bed, trying to find the best angle to push out the baby and end this ordeal. The next scream was loud enough to be heard throughout the neighborhood. The crown of a newborn’s head emerged between her legs.

The next few moments were a blur to El Oso. He heard the woman screaming, fighting to rid herself of something far too large to possibly come out of another human being. He heard the midwife praising her, yelling at her, encouraging her, ordering her to keep pushing. It took El Oso completely by surprise-after all the torture he had witnessed, all the pain he had inflicted-but he felt his own knees weakening, and he had to look away to get through the final stage of delivery.

Then the baby let out its first cry, and El Oso turned to see the midwife cutting the umbilical cord. The mother collapsed on the mattress, her torso swelling with each breath. The midwife washed the baby in a basin of warm water, which did nothing to stop the crying. She cleared the baby’s eyes and nostrils, wiped the baby’s entire body clean. When she was through, she wrapped the healthy newborn in a soft blanket and started toward the mother, who was still wearing her black hood.

“I’ll take that,” said El Oso.

The midwife halted. “Surely you are going to let her hold her own baby.”

“I said, I’ll take it,” El Oso repeated sternly.

The prisoner sat bolt upright and screamed again, which caused her to push out the placenta. The midwife hurried into position to collect the blood and tissue, but the mother couldn’t have cared less about her own body. “What are you doing with my baby?” she cried.

The other guard grabbed her by the wrists and tied her hands behind her back so that she could not remove the hood.

“I want my baby!”

“We do not punish the i

“No. Don’t take my baby!”

El Oso turned to the midwife and said, “Your job is done here.”

“No, it’s not. She’s torn. I have to sew her up. And she needs to be cleaned up to prevent infection.”

“That won’t be necessary,” said El Oso.

“It will only take a few minutes.”

“None of that matters. I need you to come with me.”

The mother tried to rise up from the bed, but the other guard held her down. “Where are you taking my baby?” she shouted.

El Oso did not respond. He simply looked at the other guard and told him to wait at the prisoner’s side until he returned. Then he took the midwife by the arm and said, “Come.”

“No!” screamed the prisoner.

“Gag her,” El Oso told the guard. The prisoner was beyond exhaustion, but she resisted with all her remaining strength. El Oso handed the baby back to the midwife and directed her toward the door. The prisoner continued to scream and resist as the guard tried to place a gag on her mouth. El Oso and the midwife left the bedroom and walked down the hallway together, the crying baby in the midwife’s arms. She unlocked the back door to the fire escape, and they were almost clear of the apartment when they heard one last cry from the back bedroom, a desperate plea that was audible even though the woman was wearing a hood over her head, even though the guard was struggling to gag her. It was a voice that El Oso would never forget.

“My name is Maria

El Oso hesitated for a split second, exchanged glances with the midwife, and then closed the door.

The baby cried all the way to the car. El Oso climbed behind the wheel, and the shiny new Ford Falcon disappeared into the night.

chapter 49

T he midafternoon rain began to fall.

It fell gently at first. Then, in typical Florida fashion, it suddenly came down in sheets, beating like a drum on the aluminum top of the mobile command center. This was one of those aberrant moments where Vince didn’t welcome the sound of falling rain to help him visualize his surroundings. Today, the rain was not his friend. Neither, it seemed, was Chief of Police Megan Renfro. By telephone, she was in the process of dressing down Vince for having allowed Jack to call Falcon on his own cell phone, a nonencrypted line.

“I know that was no mere slipup on your part,” she said. “You did that by design.”

“It was imperative that the call go through. I thought Falcon would be more likely to answer if he saw Swyteck’s name come up on the caller ID.”

“I want to believe you,” she said, “but I don’t. You used Swyteck’s cell because you wanted someone other than law enforcement to be able to hear the conversation. Like the media.”

“Why on earth would I want the media to overhear our negotiations?”

“Because you don’t agree with the decision to take Falcon out. You think you can still talk Falcon into releasing that injured girl. And if you are somehow able to convince the media that negotiation remains a viable alternative, this department will have hell to pay if we go in with guns blazing.”

Vince didn’t deny the accusation, at least not directly. “Negotiation is still workable.”

“Not in my judgment. So stop trying to back us into a corner with leaks to the press. Your job is to position Falcon for a kill shot.”

“Do you really want to take that shot in the pouring rain?”

“We need to work for the right opportunity. Obviously a window shot is not our first choice. You need to get him in the open doorway. If you can’t pull that off, SWAT will breach.”