Lisa Gardner - The killing hour

“Driver, using your left hand, remove the key from the ignition.”

Lehane was making the guy use his left hand, simply to work the law of averages. Most people were right-handed, so they wanted to keep that arm in sight at all times. Next, the driver would be instructed to drop the car key out the open window, then open the car door, all with his left hand. Then he would be ordered to step slowly out of the car, keeping both hands up at all times. He would slowly pivot 360 degrees so they could visually inspect his form for weapons. If he was wearing a jacket, he would be asked to hold it open so they could see beneath his coat. Finally, he would be ordered to walk toward them with his hands on his head, turn, drop to his knees, cross his ankles and sit back on his heels. At that time, they would finally move forward and take their suspect into custody.

Unfortunately, the driver didn’t seem to know the theories behind a proper felony vehicle stop. He still didn’t lower his hands, but neither did he reach for the key in the ignition.

“ Quincy?” Lehane’s voice crackled over the radio.

“I can see the driver,” Kimberly reported back, gazing through the rifle sight. “I can’t make out the passenger side, however. Tinted windshield’s too dark.”

“Squire?”

Tom Squire had cover duty from Vehicle B, parked twenty feet to the right of Kimberly. “I think… I think there might be someone in the back. Again, hard to tell with the windows.”

“Driver, using your left hand, remove the key from the ignition.” Lehane repeated his command, his voice louder now, but still controlled. The goal was to remain patient. Make the driver come to you, do not relinquish control.

Was it Kimberly’s imagination, or was the vehicle now slowly rocking up and down? Someone was moving around…

“Driver, this is the FBI! Remove the key from the ignition!”

“Shit, shit, shit,” Alissa murmured beside Kimberly. She was sweating hard, streams of moisture pouring down her face. Leaning half out of the car, she had her Glock.40 positioned in the crack between the roof of their vehicle and the open door. Her right arm was visibly shaking, however. For the first time, Kimberly noticed that Alissa hadn’t fully removed her seat belt. Half of it was still tangled around her left arm.

“Driver-”

The driver’s left hand finally moved. Alissa exhaled forcefully. And in the next instant, everything went to shit.

Kimberly saw it first. “Gun! Backseat, driver side-”

Pop, pop, pop! Red mushroomed across their front windshield. Kimberly ducked and dove out of the vehicle for the shelter of her car door. She came up fast and spread cover fire above the top of her window. More pop, pop, pop .

“Reloading rifle,” she yelled into the radio.

“Vince reloading handgun.”

“Taking heavy fire from the right, backseat passenger window!”

“Alissa!” Kimberly called out. “Cover us!”

Kimberly turned toward her partner, frantically cramming fresh rounds into the magazine, then realized for the first time that Alissa was no longer to be seen.

“Alissa?”

She stretched across the front seats. New Agent Alissa Sampson was now on the asphalt, a dark red stain spreading across her cheap orange suit.

“Agent down, agent down,” Kimberly cried. Another pop, and the asphalt exploded two inches from Alissa’s leg.

“Damn,” Alissa moaned. “Oh damn, that hurts! ”

“Where are those rifles?” Lehane yelled.

Kimberly shot back up, saw the doors of the Mercedes were now swung open for cover and bright vivid colors were literally exploding in all directions. Oh, things had gone definitely FUBAR now.

“Rifles!” Lehane yelled again.

Kimberly hastily scrambled back to her side, and got her rifle between the crack of the car door. She was frantically trying to recall protocol. Apprehension was still the goal. But they were under heavy fire, possible loss of agent life. Fuck it. She started firing at anything that moved near the Mercedes.

Another pop, her car door exploded purple and she reflexively yelped and ducked. Another pop and the pavement mushroomed yellow one inch from her exposed feet. Shit!

Kimberly darted up, opened fire, then dropped back behind the door.

“Quincy, rifle reloading,” she yelled into the radio, her hands shaking so badly now with adrenaline that she fumbled the release and had to do it twice. Come on, Kimberly. Breathe!

They needed to regain control of the situation. She couldn’t get the damn rounds into the magazine. Breathe, breathe, breathe. Hold it together. A movement caught the corner of her eye. The car. The black sedan, doors still open, was now rolling forward.

She grabbed her radio, dropped it, grabbed it again, and yelled, “Get the wheels, get the wheels.”

Squire and Lehane either heard her or got it on their own, because the next round of gunfire splattered the pavement and the sedan came to an awkward halt just one foot from Kimberly’s car. She looked up. Caught the startled gaze of the man in the driver’s seat. He bolted from the vehicle. She leapt out from behind her car door after him.

And a moment later, pain, brilliant and hot pink, exploded across her lower spine.

New Agent Kimberly Quincy went down. She did not get up again.

“Well, that was an exercise in stupidity,” FBI supervisor Mark Watson exclaimed fifteen minutes later. The vehicle-stop drill was over. The five new agents had returned, paint-splattered, overheated, and technically half-dead to the gathering site on Hogan’s Alley. They now had the honor of being thoroughly dressed down in front of their thirty-eight fellow classmates. “First mistake, anyone?”

“Alissa didn’t get her seat belt off.”

“Yeah. She unfastened the clasp, but didn’t pull it back. Then when it came time for action…”

Alissa hung her head. “I got a little tangled, went to undo it-”

“Popped up and got shot in the shoulder. That’s why we practice. Problem number two?”

“Kimberly didn’t back up her partner.”

Watson’s eyes lit up. A former Denver cop before joining the Bureau ten years ago, this was one of his favorite topics. “Yes, Kimberly and her partner. Let’s discuss that. Kimberly, why didn’t you notice that Alissa hadn’t undone her seat belt?”

“I did!” Kimberly protested. “But then the car, and the guns… It all happened so fast.”

“Yes, it all happened so fast. Epitaph of the dead and untrained. Look-being aware of the suspect is good. Being conscious of your role is good. But you also have to be aware of what’s right beside you. Your partner overlooked something. That’s her mistake. But you didn’t catch it for her, and that was your mistake. Then she got hit, now you’re down a man, and that mistake is getting bigger all the time. Plus, what were you doing just leaving her there on the pavement?”

“Lehane was yelling for rifle support-”

“You left a fellow agent exposed! If she wasn’t already dead, she certainly was after that! You couldn’t drag her back into the car?”

Kimberly opened her mouth. Shut her mouth. Wished bitterly, selfishly, that Alissa could’ve taken care of herself for a change, then gave up the argument once and for all.

“Third mistake,” Watson demanded crisply.

“They never controlled the car,” another classmate offered up.

“Exactly. You stopped the suspect’s car, but never controlled it.” His gaze went to Lehane. “When things first went wrong, what should you have done?”

Lehane visibly squirmed. He fingered the collar of his brown leisure suit, cut two sizes too big and now bearing hot-pink and mustard-yellow paint on the left shoulder. The paint guns used by the actors in the drills-aka the bad guys-stained everything in sight, hence their Salvation Army wardrobe. The exploding shells also hurt like the dickens, which was why Lehane was holding his left arm protectively against his ribs. For the record, the FBI Academy trainees weren’t allowed paint guns but used their real weapons loaded with blanks. The official explanation was that their instructors wanted the trainees to get a feel for their firearms. Likewise, they all wore vests to get used to the weight of body armor. That all sounded well and good, but why not have the actors shoot blanks as well?