For the next hour, I led family members up to tell their stories into the mikes, to reason and plead with the men inside to put down their weapons and leave the building, or at the very least to let the lab workers out. The speakers stressed that it was hopeless not to surrender and that many of those inside would die if they didn't. Some of the stories told at the mikes were heartbreaking, and I watched spectators tear up as they listened.
The best of the moments were anecdotes – a Sunday soccer game a father was supposed to referee; a wedding less than a week away; a pregnant girl who was supposed to be on bed rest but who came to plead with her drug-runner boyfriend. Both of them were eighteen.
Then we got an answer from inside.
It came while a twelve-year-old girl was talking about her father, one of the dealers. Gunshots erupted in the building!
The gunfire lasted for about five minutes, then stopped. We had no way of telling what had happened. We knew only one thing – the words of their loved ones had failed to move the men inside.
No one had come out; no one had surrendered.
"It's all right, Alex." Ned took me aside. "Maybe it bought us a little more time." But that wasn't the result either of us was looking for. Not even close.
At one thirty, Captain Moran turned off the mikes outside. It looked like nobody was coming out. They had made their decision.
A little after two o'clock, it was decided by the higher-ups that the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team would go into the building first. They would be followed by a wave of DC police – but no one from SWAT. It was a tough-minded decision, but that's the way it was these days in Washington – maybe because of the terrorist activity over the past few years. People didn't seem to want to try to negotiate their way out of crisis situations anymore. I wasn't sure what side of the argument I was on, but I understood both.
Ned Mahoney and I would be part of the first assault team to go inside. We were assembled out on Fourteenth Street, directly behind the building under siege.
Most of our guys were pacing, restless, talking among themselves, trying to stay focused.
"This is a bad one," Ned said. "SWAT guys know how we think. Probably even that we're coming in tonight."
"You know any of them? The SWAT team inside?" I asked.
Ned shook his head. "We don't usually get invited to the same parties."
Chapter 27
WE DRESSED UP in dark flight suits with full armor, and both Ned and I had MP5s. You could never predict too much about a night assault, but especially this one, with SWAT types on the inside and HRT as the force coming to get them.
Ned got a message on his headset, and he turned to me. "Here we go, Alex. Keep your head down, buddy. These guys are as good as we are."
"You do the same."
But then the unexpected happened. And this time, it wasn't such a bad thing.
The front door to the building opened. For a few seconds, there was no activity at the door. What was going on in there?
Then an elderly woman dressed in a lab smock wandered out into the bright lights aimed at the building. She held her hands up high and kept saying, "Don't shoot me."
She was followed by more women in lab coats, young and old, as well as two boys who looked to be twelve or thirteen at the most.
People behind the barricades were screaming out names. They were weeping for joy, clapping wildly.
Then the front door slammed shut again.
The exodus was over.
Chapter 28
THE RELEASE OF ELEVEN lab workers stopped the full Hostage Rescue Team assault and opened up communications again. The police commissioner and the chief of detectives appeared on the scene and talked with Captain Moran. So did a couple of ministers from the community. Late as it was, the TV crews were still here shooting film.
At around three, we got word that we were going inside after all. Then there was another delay. Hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait.
At half past, we got the go. We were told it was final.
A few minutes past three thirty, Ned Mahoney and I were up and racing toward a side entrance into the building; so were a dozen other guys from HRT. The good thing about protective gear is that it might stop a fatal or damaging bullet; the bad thing is that it slows you down, makes it harder to run as fast as you need or want to, and forces your breath to come in gulps and gasps.
Snipers were taking out windows, trying to keep resistance from inside as low as possible.
Mahoney liked to call this drill "five minutes of panic and thrills," but I always dreaded it. To me, it was more like "five minutes closer to heaven or hell." I didn't need to be here, but Ned and I had done a couple of assaults together and I couldn't stay away.
A booming, earsplitting explosion took out the back door.
Suddenly, there were swirling clouds of black smoke and debris everywhere; then we were both running through it. I was hoping not to catch a bullet to the head or some other exposed body part in the next couple of minutes. I was hoping nobody had to die tonight.
Ned and I took fire right away, and we couldn't even tell who the hell was shooting at us. Drug dealers or the SWAT guys. Maybe both.
The sound of submachine guns and then grenades was deafening in the hallways and as we inched up a set of winding stairs. There was a whole lot of firepower inside the building now, maybe too much for it to hold together. The noise level made it hard to think straight or keep any focus.
"Hey! Assholes!" I heard somebody shout from above us. A volley of gunshots followed. Flashes of blinding light in the darkness.
Then Ned grunted and went down hard on the stairway.
I couldn't tell where he was hit at first; then I saw a wound near his collarbone. I didn't know if he'd been shot or struck with flying debris. There was a lot of blood spilling from the wound though.
I stayed right there with him, called for help on the radio. I heard more blasts, shouts, male and female screams coming from above us. Chaos.
Ned's hands were shaking, and I hadn't seen him show fear of anything before. The firefight raging in the building only added to the terror and confusion. Ned's face had lost its color; he didn't look good.
"They're coming for you," I told him. "Stay with me, Ned. You hear me?"
"Stupid," he finally said, groaning. "Walked right into it."
"You feeling it yet?"
"Could be worse. Could be better too. By the way," he said, " you're hit too."
Chapter 29
"I'LL LIVE," I told Ned as I huddled over him on the stairwell.
"Yeah, me too. Probably, anyway."
A couple of minutes later, the paramedics were with us in the cramped space. By the time they got Ned out of there, the gunfight seemed to be over. Just like he always said – five minutes of panic and thrills.
Reports started to come in. Captain Tim Moran gave the latest to me himself. The assault on the heroin factory seemed to have had mixed results. Most of us felt we shouldn't have gone in so soon – but it wasn't our decision. Two metro officers and two from HRT were wounded on our side. Ned was headed into surgery.
There were six casualties among those inside the building, including two men from SWAT. A seventeen-year-old mother of two was one of the dead. For some reason she'd stayed inside when the lab workers came out. The girl's husband had died too. He was sixteen.
I finally got home at a little past six in the morning. I was dragging, wasted, bone tired, and something about coming in so late, or early, seemed surreal.
It only got worse. Nana was up waiting in the kitchen.
Chapter 30
SHE WAS SITTING OVER toast and a cup of tea, looking infirm, but I knew better.
The hot beverage was steaming, and so was she. She hadn't gotten the kids up yet. Her small TV was tuned to the local news reports on last night's police action at Kentucky and Fifteenth. It felt unreal to see the footage right here in our kitchen.