Penance

The SWAT guys weren’t thrilled with Starshak being CO, but Starshak had been SWAT before, and with what Lynch had on the mayor, Lynch was calling the shots. The circle of people Lynch trusted was closing in, and he wasn’t going to have anybody outside of it in charge of anything.

The SWAT guy in the front passenger seat said, “Roger that,” and then turned back to Starshak. “Ma

Then the radio tuned to Ferguson’s frequency went live. “West negative thirty-three.” A pause. “And west sixty-one.”

Starshak keyed the command cha

“Go, go, go!”

As the van lurched forward, Starshak ran his finger along the map, counting down the buildings. West sixty-one was Ma

Starshak keyed his mic. “We’re taking west sixty-one.”

Fisher watched Ma

Lynch watched as Ma

“Ms Ma

The eyepatch killed Lynch’s peripheral vision. He barely saw the kick coming. Ma

Ferguson and Jenks didn’t have time to think about west sixty-one. They saw the church doors open, saw Ma

Weaver heard three things almost at once. A rifle shot from right outside the front of the condo, the radar box being hit by a bullet, and a loud screech of tires. He snatched his M4 off the table and ran up the hall to the front window. Cops in raid gear were piling out of a big Chicago PD truck. Fuck this, Weaver thought. The president was on his own. Gotta slow things down just a tad, get to the van, get out of Dodge, live off the money in the Caymans.

Weaver fired a long burst from the hip through the front window and into the line of cops ru

“Fire up the van,” he yelled to the entry team as he sprinted for the back door, swapping out his magazine on the run.

Starshak was first out of the truck, bolting toward Ma

Further back, two of the assault team returned fire, chewing up the window the shots had come from.

“Let’s move,” shouted Starshak, and the ram team went around him and hit the door.

Starshak and the ram team went through the door first, the rest of the team streaming in. One dead to his left, by the window. The team spread out through the condo, Starshak hearing “clear, clear, clear,” as they checked the rooms.

“Got one in here, Captain.”

He walked into the bedroom to the right off the hallway, saw one of his guys checking the pulse of the girl duct-taped on the bed. Ma

“She OK?” Starshak asked.

“She’s out, but her pulse is good.”

Someone yelled from the back. “Got a white van headed south down the alley.”

Ferguson was about to fire on the shooter in Ma

“Lynch, you asshole – you didn’t even save the girl,” Ferguson shouted into the comm. Only one thing left to do. He turned to Jenks.

“Your audio unit – you get a read on Fisher?”

“Ground level, straight across from Ma

Ferguson swung his rifle right, lined up the truck, and started putting rounds through the roof and truck cap as quickly as he could. Jenks did the same, both spacing their rounds so that nobody in the truck could avoid being hit at least two or three times.

“Got him or we didn’t,” said Ferguson. “Time to go.”

The two men dropped their rifles on the tarp, walked to the ropes at the east end of the roof, clipped on, zipped to the ground, and trotted down the alley heading east.

Fisher lay prone on the street beneath the bed of the pickup, listening to the rounds ripping through the cap on the truck and thudding into the bags of sand he had set across the bed. Methodical fire, rounds walking down and across the truck bed. Then the firing stopped.

He looked up toward the church. He saw Detective Lynch stumble from the church porch, dive off the porch, and then start toward the truck. Behind Lynch, a young priest walked through the door. Not one of the priests Fisher had seen during his recon. The priest pulled a hand gun from the slit in his cassock and began to raise the weapon toward Lynch.

No time. Fisher snapped the Dragunov into position and fired.

Lynch got to his feet and staggered to the church doors, leaning on them and pushing them open, his head still fuzzy. Ma

Up the street, he saw the first of the SWAT units squeal around the corner and angle in toward the curb in front of Ma

He heard Ferguson in his comm. “Lynch, you asshole – you didn’t even save the girl.” Then he heard rifle fire from Ferguson’s position. Lynch hit the cement on the church porch and rolled off the south edge, thinking Ferguson was after him, but he heard no rounds hitting. He looked up. More fire from Ferguson’s position. Ferguson and Jenks were shooting up the red pickup parked across the street from Ma

Had to be Fisher’s hide. Lynch got to his feet, stumbled down Sheridan, and then he heard another rifle shot, saw a muzzle flash underneath the truck, felt the round zip past him, left of his head, heard a shot immediately behind him, pistol, felt a tug and a burning on his left arm, heard a grunt. Lynch span around. The young priest who had been hearing confessions was sprawled in the street, a big chunk of his head gone, a Glock on the asphalt near his right hand.

Lynch dove to his right, rolling behind a parked car. He didn’t know if Fisher was trying to kill him or save him, but if it was the former, he wouldn’t miss twice. He looked at his arm. A chunk was missing along the side of his left triceps. He remembered the pistol on the pavement next to the dead priest’s hand. Fisher’s shot had gone past his head, so Fisher hadn’t shot him in the arm. That meant the priest had. Which meant Fisher had saved his life.