Sawhill’s voice came over the radio without fanfare. “Go.”
The van’s rear doors opened on greased hinges, and the team piled out. For large men, they moved with grace and speed. The first four peeled off, two heading to the left side around the rear of the building, two repeating the maneuver on the right side. They all carried automatic weapons. Stride moved with his team of six across the street at a jog and up the sidewalk to the building entrance. The outer door was open. Alexander and Odom, carrying assault rifles, went first, moving inside the building and then signaling behind them an all-clear. The two policemen began slowly climbing the stairs to the second floor, their weight causing the wood steps to creak.
Stride heard a voice on his radio. “We’re in position in back.”
Two cops with battering rams followed up the stairs. Stride and Cordy went next. The last man held position at the top of the stairs while the others proceeded down the hallway, hugging the walls. Stride heard few sounds from the apartments they passed. It was the middle of the night. He counted five doors on either side, and ahead of them, less than a hundred feet away, was an identical door at the far end of the hallway.
Blake’s door.
They tried to be silent. It was almost impossible. The complex was low-end construction, and the floors groaned as six bulky men made their way to the rear. If Blake was awake and alert, he’d hear them coming. Alexander and Odom had their rifles aimed at Blake’s apartment, and they picked up the pace, knowing they couldn’t make a quiet approach. Stride saw a spy-hole in Blake’s door and wondered if he was there, watching them. If he was, he had to know he was trapped and outgunned.
As Stride passed one of the apartment doors on the left, it suddenly opened inward.
He spun and was bringing his gun up when he saw an old woman in the doorway, her eyes bleary. She wore a tattered white robe. When she saw Stride, her mouth fell open in fright, and she was an instant away from screaming when he quickly pushed her back into the apartment and covered her mouth with his hand.
“Hold,” he hissed into his radio. Then, to the woman: “Police, ma’am. It’s okay. Stay in your apartment. Don’t open the door.”
She nodded frantically.
Stride smiled at her and backed out into the hallway. He shut the door with a soft click. “Go.”
Alexander and Odom took up positions on opposite sides of Blake’s door. Stride went to the left, behind Alexander, and Cordy went to the right, behind Odom. They waited. There wasn’t a sound from inside the apartment, and no light shined from the crack at the base of the door.
Alexander held up three fingers. Then he made a fist again and raised his fingers one at a time.
One. Two. Three.
The battering rams both hit the door at once, and it caved immediately. Alexander and Odom spun around the frame and ran crouched into the apartment with their rifles leveled. Stride and Cordy followed. They all shouted at once. “Police!”
They made a circuit of the small living room in less than five seconds, but it was empty. One man shouted that the kitchen was clear. The only other room in the apartment was the bedroom, and the fragile veneer door leading there was closed. Alexander didn’t wait for the battering ram but simply brought up his giant leg, which was like the trunk of an oak tree, and kicked the door down, tearing it off its hinges and sending it flying into the room.
He stormed in.
“Hostage on the bed!”
Stride followed him into the room. A young teenager was tied to the four casters of the bed. She was naked and spread-eagled, with a T-shirt rolled and tied around her mouth. Her eyes were as wide as saucers. She tried to scream, and she struggled with the rope that held her.
“Clear!” Alexander shouted, having checked the closet and bathroom. “The son of a bitch isn’t here!”
Sawhill’s pinched voice responded over the radio. “He’s not there?”
“Negative.”
“Rodriguez, Holtz, tell me you’ve got him in back.”
“Sorry, sir, nothing here, no movement.”
Sawhill was exasperated. “We had this place staked out five minutes after the 911 call! Where did he go? Start going door to door, check every apartment.”
“What about the warrant?” Alexander asked.
“We have a multiple murderer loose in the building. Just do it!”
Stride interrupted on the radio. “Give me thirty seconds, sir. Let’s talk to the girl.”
He gestured at the closet. “Alexander, grab me one of those dress shirts, okay?” The big cop pulled a shirt off the hanger and tossed it to Stride, who used it to cover the girl on the bed. She was small, and the shirt stretched from just below her neck almost to her knees.
“Take it easy, okay?” Stride said. “You’re fine now.”
He drew out a small knife from his pocket and cut the twine that tightly bound her tiny wrists to the casters of the bed. Deep red welts gouged her skin, and the rope was bloody where she had struggled to get free. As soon as he cut her loose, she sprang up and threw her arms around his neck. She sobbed, and her nose ran on his Kevlar vest.
Stride let her cry out for a few seconds, then gently pushed her away.
“Where is he?” he asked her.
She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“When did he leave the apartment?”
“A while ago. I don’t know. More than an hour, I think. I was afraid he’d come back.”
Stride didn’t think Blake was ever coming back here. “What happened after he brought you into the apartment?”
“He made me undress. Then he tied me to the bed, and he made me make the call. He held a gun to my head, and he told me exactly what I should say. As soon as I made the call, he gagged me and left.”
“Call?” Stride asked. He suddenly understood and felt a sense of horror.
“The 911 call. He made me call and pretend like I was outside, you know?”
“You called 911?”
The girl nodded earnestly.
Stride shook his head. “Shit.” He spoke into the radio. ‘The 911 call was a hoax, sir. Blake made the girl do it. He bolted as soon as she did. He’s been long gone, an hour or more, while we’ve been spinning our wheels.”
Sawhill, who never swore, sounded close to swearing. “I don’t believe this. Check the other apartments anyway, just to be sure.”
Alexander nodded. “Got it, sir.”
“He’s probably got a backup crib on the other side of the city,” Sawhill said. “Keep an eye out for reports of stolen cars from this neighborhood. He may have snatched another vehicle to get out of here.”
Stride was about to reply, and then he thought about it. Blake had begun to get inside his head. He couldn’t have expected to encounter Amanda in the doughnut shop, so he had to act fast to get out from under the heat. The net would be tightening, and sooner or later, it would lead the police right here. He needed a diversion. An escape. Blake was buying time.
Too much time, Stride realized. He didn’t need to invite the cops into a phony raid in order to get away. He was trying to tie them down, keep them occupied.
So he could launch his last big play.
Stride felt his whole body run cold. “That son of a bitch.”
He had spoken into the radio, and Sawhill responded. “What? What are you talking about?”
Stride ripped off his headset. He clawed his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed. It took forever for the call to go through, a stretch of dead air and silence that went on and on. As he waited, he began to have waking nightmares.
The phone rang. His home phone. Where Serena and Claire were.
“Pick up,” he begged them.
The phone kept ringing. No one answered.
Stride ran for the door.