Steven James - Opening Moves

Just one shot. That was it. Then all was still.

The line had gone dead. Ralph punched in the bank’s number. Pat answered, his voice soft, grim. “Radar’s dead. The hostages are okay. Tell SWAT to lower their weapons. I’m coming out.”

Joshua had left the boy securely in the back of the moving truck where he’d parked it just across the street from the bank before any of this began.

He’d stepped out of the cab to watch what was going on, and now stood just outside of the police perimeter, news crews all around him.

Just a few moments ago he’d heard the gunshot.

Now, along with everyone else, he stared anxiously at the door to see what would happen next.

Earlier, when he first saw the man wearing the FBI jacket enter the bank, he’d been upset that they weren’t using a cop like he’d demanded, but then he recognized the face of the guy entering: Bowers. Why he was wearing an FBI jacket was beyond him, unless he was doing it for some jurisdictional reason. Joshua didn’t know, but it didn’t matter as long as he went in.

Part of his demands included Radar carrying out the body, emerging from the front door for all the news cameras to catch the climax on film, just like the cameraman from WISN Channel 12 News had caught the chase and apprehension of the Oswalds back in 1994.

And so, from just across the street, Joshua watched and waited for the story to come full circle at last.

With my shoulder I couldn’t do it, couldn’t carry him. One of the hostages was a big guy, bigger even than me. After I freed him from the plastic cuffs, I had him pick up Radar’s body.

Even though I had the FBI jacket on again, I knew that the SWAT team would be tweaked, looking for any movement, ready to fire, so as I nudged the front door open, I did so slowly, carefully, my arms to the side, hands out. “It’s over!” I yelled. “The hostages are okay.” I hesitated. I couldn’t help it. “Sergeant Walker is gone.”

At least a dozen news cameras were aimed at me from across the street.

I stepped aside and held the door open. The man who’d been a hostage and was now carrying Radar’s limp body, joined me outside. As I’d instructed him, he stayed stationary long enough to make sure the cameras caught the image of him standing there, just as the kidnapper had demanded.

Then, he lowered Radar to the ground and held up his hands as he edged away from me. Four SWAT members rushed forward, I slowed them down, told them what’d gone down inside, then three of them bent over Radar’s bloody body while the fourth walked toward the EMTs to lead them over here. They would roll Radar away, a blanket drawn up over his head as they passed the media, all those news cameras. Then transport him. Lights off.

The shock hit me all at once.

I began to crash.

The adrenaline that’d been chugging through me since I first entered the slaughterhouse seemed to dissipate in one fell swoop. That, along with the impact of what had happened to Tod and Radar, were all working to drain my strength and I felt weak, disoriented.

You still have to find Tod. You still need to get the guy who took him.

As the EMTs approached, I found myself unable to stand on my own and I leaned against the side of the building to keep from dropping to the ground. Ralph came sprinting up to me, then supported me while two EMTs hurried toward us with a gurney.

I was vaguely aware of the Flight for Life helicopter landing in a vacant parking lot down the block. If it was for me, I wasn’t so sure I needed it, but it would definitely make the trip to the medical center go a lot faster.

I blinked to keep focused, but was overwhelmed by the melee of law enforcement personnel suddenly swarming around us. As always with these things, there were too many people here: cops, lawyers, a hostage negotiator, counselors, the police chaplain, SWAT, Lyrie and Thompson from the task force, support personnel. As I collapsed onto the gurney, I saw some of the officers were helping hostages out of the bank.

Then I was lying on my back, staring at the darkening sky and the paramedics were wheeling me toward the helicopter and the world was spinning in a slow, delirious circle and all I could think of was Radar and what had happened to him and his family.

Joshua watched it all.

Bowers emerged from the bank entrance, then the guy carrying Sergeant Walker’s bloody corpse appeared behind him. Somehow Bowers had overpowered Walker and taken him out.

Or did Radar take his own life?

Was it possible?

Either way, a cop had died. It’d been filmed. It was over. Joshua was certain that the man who’d called him earlier in the day, before sunrise, would be impressed.

And they would finally meet.

He made his way through the crowd inside the cordoned-off area, then went back to the moving truck to take care of the boy.

Ralph crouched beside me as the paramedics worked to cut off his jacket so they could get to the bullet’s entrance and exit wounds. As they did, he said to me softly, in a voice meant only for me, “People see what they expect to see.”

When I looked at him, I realized he knew. “How did-?”

“You’re not the only one who notices things. The bloody shirt Radar had on-that’s the one you were wearing when you got here.”

So, he’d figured it out: when I was standing outside the door and the SWAT members first rushed forward, I’d told them the truth, and one of them had quickly informed the paramedics- pretend he’s dead, buy us some time.

I kept my voice low. “I didn’t know if anyone else was on the line when I called from the bank. That’s why I said what I did, when I told you he was dead.”

“It was smart.”

“He almost didn’t go for it.”

“Thank God he did.”

Hopefully, it would provide us the window we needed to save his son.

The helicopter rotors started gearing up and I had to yell in order for Ralph to hear me. “We need to find Tod!”

He shouted that he was on it, that he would find the boy. I asked him one last question: “Do we know who the woman was, the one in the slaughterhouse?” But before he could answer, my attention was drawn to something else.

A moving truck at the end of the street, turning the corner.

“No,” Ralph replied, “but we’re gonna find out!”

I grabbed his sleeve and pointed to the moving truck. It was too far away to make out the plates, but when he saw it, he realized what I was thinking, spun, and bolted back toward the squads parked beside the bank.

Ralph cussed.

He hadn’t been able to get to a car in time or maneuver past the news vans fast enough, and the moving truck had disappeared before he could catch it. He hadn’t even been able to identify which company it was from.

He had local law enforcement send some cars out looking for it, then returned to the SWAT van.

A call was waiting for him from Gabriele at the department. She asked about Radar and Pat, he told her what she needed to know, then asked her to get some officers to start calling moving companies that had trucks out today. She informed him that Richard Basque had been transported to the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center for surgery on his broken jaw.

“Do we know the name of the victim yet?”

“Not yet. But she has a tattoo on her left ankle. A custom job. We’re calling parlors now to try to find out who did the artwork.”

Ralph thought about Tod, about the victim, about what he could do right now. He told Gabriele, “I’m gonna go talk to Basque.”

Then he hung up and took off.

Joshua left the boy in the moving truck in the parking lot of the Kohl’s department store where he’d purchased the shoes earlier in the day and where his car was waiting for him.