This, as it turned out, was a mistake.
He never heard the man in stocking feet come up the basement stairs; he only knew someone was there when the pistol’s barrel touched his left temple.
In a soft whisper he heard, “You make a sound into your mic and I’ll blow your fucking head off.”
The ERT officer made no sound. As he stood there, still looking up the hallway, he saw the two officers positioned with him on the ground floor look up the hall in his direction, as they checked to make sure he was covering his territory. The three men shared eye contact, but soon enough the others turned around and moved a few feet into the living room. They were unable to see the tip of the pistol barrel sticking out of the open basement doorway and pressing against the side of their teammate’s head.
The Bravo officer was pulled by the neck into the basement, then stripped of his rifle, NODs, and communications gear. In the dark the terrified man heard the door next to him shut softly and a bolt slide into place, then he was directed by the barrel of the gun against the back of his neck to move down the steps. He followed the whispered instructions, walking all the way back in the direction of the furnace.
In the middle of the basement the suspect pulled the Bravo officer’s pistol out of his drop leg holster. He then heard, “You have forty-five seconds to get everything off. Go.”
It was impossible for the ERT officer to get all his gear, his armor, his tunic, his boots, and his pants off in forty-five seconds, but he did his best. Court knew he couldn’t do it, but he also knew he’d work faster with an impossible timeline.
While the man stripped, Court dressed, but he put the man’s radio headset in his ear first so he could listen in.
Soon in a soft voice he heard, “This is Alpha One. Hold all positions. We’ve got a closed closet door in the master bedroom with movement indicated under the door.”
Court now had a tunic, body armor, a balaclava, and night vision goggles on.
“Speed it up,” Court whispered to the man as the cop fought to get his belt off.
A new call from upstairs came over the radio, asking all elements to report status before they confronted whatever was hiding in the closet. Court spoke to his hostage, who by now was down to his underwear. “Quick… what’s your call sign? Think before you answer. If you’re wrong, I drop you right here.”
“Bravo Four,” the man said.
Court zipped up the black tactical pants while the radio came alive.
“Bravo One, check.”
“Two check.”
“Bravo Three check.”
Court clicked the transmit button, but he rubbed his headset mic against the stubble on his chin as he spoke to mask the sound of his voice. “Four check.”
The next man on the team continued the roll call.
Court fastened the utility belt around his waist, not taking time to thread the belt through the loops. It was a little large for him, like the rest of the gear, but he made it work.
Court then cuffed the ERT officer to a pipe extending from the water heater, then he pulled a flash bang grenade out of the officer’s load-bearing vest.
Alpha One stood outside the master bedroom on the second floor of the Mayberry home. Two of his men trained their laser aiming devices on the closet door at the far end of the room. Under the door, faint shadows moved back and forth at irregular intervals.
Alpha One shouted, “D.C. Metro Police! Come out of the closet! Hands high!”
There was no response then, nor when he repeated the command two more times.
Finally Bravo Six entered the room, moved to the side of the door. He let his rifle hang from its sling and pulled his pistol from his drop leg holster, then he used his free hand to reach for the door. Everyone else tightened for action, their laser pointers evenly spaced across the door as Bravo Six slid it open.
On the floor in the back of the closet, a flashlight stuck out of a woman’s shoe. In front of this was a huge puddle of milk, and around the puddle, three cats moved around, lapping it up hungrily.
“Son of a bitch,” the ERT man mumbled.
A flash bang grenade went off on the ground floor below them.
The four regular police officers watching the backyard of the house from the neighbor’s yard saw the flash of light in the windows. The explosion broke glass in the kitchen that flew out over the patio. As they knelt behind a fence and watched, they heard in their radios the calls of the tactical team as they lined up on the second-floor stairs, ready to hit the floor below them from the stairwell.
It was clear they were missing a man, but these four in back understood why. A single tactical officer, his rifle in his left hand and his right hand clutching his left elbow, appeared in the side yard. The cops thought he might have come either from the front of the house or the basement apartment.
He ran up to them; clearly he was hurt, but at least he was ambulatory. While one of the cops made the officer-down call, the other three covered for the wounded ERT man as he ran past their position, all the way through the yard, and towards the street on the other side of this property. None of the men noticed the cop was wearing a backpack that was not police issue.
One of the officers started to run to help him, but he was called back by the other three. They knew they needed to hold their position in case the suspect appeared and tried to run after the fight inside.
Court ran to the street, where two police cars sat parked on the corner. The cars were both empty with their doors open, but four armed officers stood nearby, ready to block any traffic trying to get into the neighborhood.
“Ambulance is on the way!” one cop called out when he saw the tactical officer. “How bad is it?”
Court was all the way up to the two vehicles when he slowed and stopped. He let go of his arm now, and raised the rifle. “Show me your hands.”
“What the hell?”
“Where are the keys?”
No one spoke; they were all clearly stunned. Court glanced in one of the cruisers and saw the keys in the ignition. “Drop your weapons on the street, kick them away.”
All four did as instructed, and Court leapt into the cruiser, fired it up, and then raced off.
He knew this drive would be a short one. The helicopter pilot above would be informed of the situation in seconds, and it wasn’t tough for a cop in the sky to track a cop car on an empty street.
He pulled under a covered parking space in an apartment complex just seven and a half blocks away, parked the squad car, and leapt out, leaving the rifle behind. Just as the helo above neared his position, he sprinted through the parking lot, then he climbed a fence and dropped down into a drainage canal that ran at the back of the apartment complex.
He knew where he was going, after having studied satellite maps of his neighborhood to plan for rushed escapes.
He raced along the canal, ran to a large culvert, and ducked in. As he moved through pitch-darkness he pulled out his phone to light his way, and with this he saw a smaller drain, waist-high and not more than four feet in diameter, that ran off at a ninety-degree angle. Water gushed down from it into the culvert.
This wasn’t sewage; it was just runoff water from the streets, but there wasn’t anything clean about it. Court climbed up and into the long, narrow shaft, and he knelt low. This killed his wounded ribs, but he ignored the pain and moved as fast as he could from the area.
He wasn’t sure where the drain went — this wasn’t on the sat maps — but he had a flashlight, and he had a sense that he was moving to the east. If he just stayed in here for a few blocks and climbed out he’d find himself somewhere in the middle of the city, and from there he was sure he would be safe from the immediate threat.