Patterson Array - NYPD Red

MICKEY

I told these cops I haven’t seen or heard from Gabe in years.

PO

In that case, when I go back and search your loft, his DNA won’t be there.

MICKEY

So what if his DNA is there? He used to visit me back in the old days. Or maybe he broke in when I was out. That’s no proof that I met with him.

PO

Cops need proof, Mickey. I don’t. All I need is reasonable cause to believe you lapsed into your old criminal ways and you’ve violated the conditions of your parole. Now, listen carefully, because I’m only going to say this once. Tell me what Gabriel Benoit is planning next, and I’ll be too busy to look for his DNA at your loft. But I want every detail and I want it on a gold platter, because the silver platter is already off the table.

And that would be that. Mickey would open up like a three-dollar hooker at a lumberjack convention.

Gabriel’s cell rang.

Lexi. Please let it be Lexi.

He checked the caller ID. Mickey.

He didn’t answer. Talking to Mickey was a waste of time. What he had to do now was shut the bastard up.

He had till 1:00.

By the time he got back to the apartment, Gabriel’s clothes were sweat-soaked all the way through. He wheeled the explosives into the bedroom, stripped down, took a quick shower, and tried to figure out what to wear for the next scene.

Lexi would know, but she wasn’t here. He rummaged through their wardrobe supply and did the best he could.

It was 10:30. He had time before Mickey’s parole officer showed up, but first he needed a drink. He grabbed one of Lexi’s champagne glasses from the dish rack and poured a shot of vodka. Not enough to get him buzzed. Just a little something to take the edge off.

He sat down at Lexi’s computer, booted up, opened Firefox, and checked her recent browser history to see what sites she’d been visiting. It was the usual crap-Perez Hilton, TMZ, Astrology Connection.

He checked her email. Maybe she sent him something and he didn’t get it on his cell. But there was nothing.

He opened her recent document folder. And there it was at the top of the list-AltScene.doc with yesterday’s date.

Alt. Scene? Lexi, what are you thinking?

He double-clicked and the document filled the screen.

ALT. SCENE: EXT. FRANK E. CAMPBELL FUNERAL CHAPEL, MADISON AVENUE AND 81ST STREET-DAY

PANDEMONIA PASSIONATA looks so pretty in her little black mourning dress as she waits patiently behind the police barricade at Ian Stewart’s memorial service. The mourners file slowly out of the chapel, but she ignores the little fish. She’s here for the Big One. This is Pandemonia’s moment. Redemption time.

Who the hell is Pandemonia Passionata?

He kept reading. Halfway through the scene, he stood up, and stormed off to his closet.

The Walther wasn’t there.

He flung the champagne glass against the wall.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!” he screamed, pounding his fist against the closet door.

It wasn’t anger. It was agony.

There were at least thirty cops on the scene and none of us saw the gun. But as soon as I heard the first shot, I had no doubt what we had on our hands. Active shooter-an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area.

Our Counterterrorism Bureau issued a book on the subject. I’ve read it three times, and what stands out for me is this: Active-shooter attacks are dynamic events. Police response depends on the unique circumstances of the incident.

In other words, when the bullets start flying, we can’t tell you what’s going to happen. You’re on your own.

The first shot hit Shelley Trager. He stopped abruptly, his hands to his chest. A potted plant, one of two that stood in solemn repose on either side of the front door, broke his fall, and he slid to the ground, his face contorted in pain.

The crowd hemorrhaged in every direction, and that’s when I got my first look at the shooter. A woman in black. She was standing directly behind the metal barricade, right arm outstretched, gun pointed at the people caught in the front doorway of the funeral home.

Her? Ninety-six out of every hundred active shooters are men. Our heads had been wrapped around looking for a man.

My gun was out, and I bolted across Madison as she pulled the trigger a second time. She was not a pro. Her one-armed shooting stance was all wrong, and her hand kicked back when she took the shot. I have no idea who she was aiming at, but I watched as the bullet drilled through Henry Muhlenberg’s skull, exiting in a trail of blood, bones, and brains.

The crowd was in chaos. With the barricade trapping them on one side, and the funeral home on another, a handful of people ran north toward 82nd Street, but the bulk of them came running straight at me, heading for the opposite side of Madison. The shooter, who was less than ten feet from Spence and Kylie, turned her gun toward them.

I stopped, trying to line up a clean shot.

And then I went down hard.

A large man in a purple sweatshirt had broadsided me, kicked the gun out of my hand when I hit the ground, fell on top of me, and screamed, “I got him, I got him!”

I heard another shot, then another, then a third, as more wannabe-hero civilians piled on top of me.

I had counted five shots in all. And then nothing. Five seconds passed. Seven. Ten. The gunfire had stopped.

The Counterterrorism Bureau was right. Every active-shooter event is different. I had no idea what was going to happen, and now with my face pressed to the oil-streaked pavement, I had no idea how this one had ended.

I could hear NYPD coming to my rescue. “Let him up, let him up. He’s a cop.”

“He has a gun,” the fat guy directly on top of me yelled back in a thick southern drawl.

“He’s a cop, you idiot. We all have guns. Now get off him.”

And then, from ten feet away, another voice-loud, official, conclusive. “She’s dead.”

Who’s dead?

I was at the bottom of a dogpile that must have been four or five guys high. I could feel the load getting lighter as the uniforms dragged them off one by one.

Finally, the 250-pound guy who brought me down, who turned out to be a high school football coach from Batesville, Mississippi, got up and reached out to help me.

“I’m sorry, Officer. It’s just that I saw you running toward a bunch of people with a gun…”

Who’s dead? WHO’S DEAD???

I stood up, got my bearings, and pushed my way to the front of the funeral home.

“You laying down on the job again?”

It was my partner, service pistol still in her hand, the hint of an inappropriate smile on her face, and, most important, not dead.

“You all right?” I said.

“No. But I’m better off than she is.”

The woman in black was lying on the sidewalk, face up, two bullet holes in her chest, one in her forehead.

“You do that?” I said.

Kylie nodded.

Perfect shot group.

“I saw Trager and Muhlenberg go down,” I said.

“Muhlenberg was dead before he hit the ground,” Kylie said. “Shelley has a few broken ribs, but he’ll be fine.”

“A few broken…how is that possible? I saw him take a direct hit to the chest.”

“The son of a bitch was wearing a vest.”

Trager was lying on Madison, a jacket propping his head up. I knelt down beside him.

He smiled up at me. He still had the crooked teeth of a kid who had grown up in poverty. At this point, he had enough money to straighten them a thousand times over, but he kept them as they were-a daily reminder of his roots.