Exit Strategy

by Jen J. Danna

  He opened his eyes and leaned in over his rifle, finding the perfect position ingrained in him through years of meticulous practice. Powering on his night-vision scope, the dim cemetery opened up to him in a crystal-clear, eerily green glow as if it were only fifteen feet away instead of over a hundred, and with a clarity that allowed him to read the inscriptions on larger monuments.

  “Outside now.” Alex panted, his words choppy between harsh breaths. “Asked the monsignor to lock the front gates. Can’t get out. He’s heading into the north cemetery.”

  “I have men in position.” Sanders’s voice came in loud and clear. “Who has eyes on the north cemetery?”

  “Logan here. I do. West side, as far as the farthest stand of trees.”

  “Morgan here. I’ve got the east side.”

  “We have you covered,” Sanders said.

  Through the tree branches at the east end of the cemetery, a flash of motion caught Logan’s eye. A man raced out of the trees, weaving through headstones to dive behind a raised tomb with a sloped roof. Logan quickly cataloged the man’s features magnified through his scope—thick-set with thinning hair, and a handgun clutched in his right hand.

  John Boyle.

  Awaiting orders, Logan trained the cross hairs on the suspect and slipped his finger into place against the trigger.

  “Alex.” Gemma’s voice whispered through his earpiece. “I’m in, and behind the obelisk near the fence. Where are you?”

  “Farther in.” Alex’s voice. “Behind the tall headstone with the Celtic cross on top. He’s crouched down behind the bigger tomb with the pitched roof.”

  “Got it. You go west. I’ll stay on the east side.”

  “10-4.”

  Alex scurried into view in a crouched position, staying low as he moved behind a squat headstone. Fifteen feet away, Boyle released the magazine from his gun, and then fished in his pocket for another one.

  “Who has him in sight?” Sanders asked.

  “He’s blocked from my angle.” Morgan’s voice.

  “I have him,” Logan said. “He just dropped a magazine and is loading a fresh one. He’s not going down easy.”

  “We’ve got this.” Gemma’s words were laced with exhaustion and frustration. “We have him contained. Do not jump the gun. We can bring him in.”

  “And risk two officers?” Sanders’s tone was harsh. They’d put him off long enough and he’d run out of patience.

  “Give us a chance,” Alex said.

  Sanders paused for only seconds. Then, “Do it now, do it fast, and do it safely, or I’m giving the order. Logan, are you ready?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You are a go. Neutralize the target the moment you feel one of our officers is in jeopardy.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  For about twenty seconds, there was silence on comms and no apparent movement in the cemetery. Then Gemma darted into his field of vision, slipping behind a tall headstone approximately twenty feet from the suspect. Her upturned face was angled toward him, and a dark smear under her nose ran down to flank her lips as she spoke. Was that blood?

  From his vantage, he could see how Gemma opted to handle the situation in the face of Sanders’s orders. She was off mic, cutting the A-Team out of communications in a last-ditch attempt to achieve a peaceful resolution. But while Sauders might be out of the loop, Logan already had his marching orders. It was a gutsy move, but the final decision was still his.

  Alex moved again, sliding between headstones to get closer to Boyle, taking advantage of the distraction set up by his sister.

  One way or another, this situation would resolve itself in the next few minutes All that remained to be determined was how many of them would walk out of the cemetery and who would be left behind.

  Logan focused on Boyle. One shot, center mass, and it would be over for Boyle as fast as it had been for First Deputy Mayor Willan when Boyle put a bullet in his brain only hours before. Logan pushed his anger down and concentrated on the scene in front of him.

  Boyle uncurled from his crouched position. Through the scope, Logan followed his motion, unable to tell if Boyle’s intent was to surrender or attack.

  He needed to be ready for either.

  Hours before, when Logan had stepped out of Gemma’s path as she made her way into the deadly situation at City Hall, he’d been half certain he’d never see her again. Now here she was after saving all those hostages, desperately trying to save one more life.

  I don’t know if you’re the bravest person I know, or the most foolhardy.

  He knew the answer now as he watched her attempt to talk an ex-cop into surrender, making herself the target of his attention to allow her brother to close in.

  As hard as he tried to be completely detached about the situation, he knew what Gemma’s mother’s death had done to her. Done to her whole family. He couldn’t allow another madman with a gun to take her brother before her eyes in a horrific replay of Maria Capello’s murder. She’d only barely survived the first experience. He couldn’t be sure she’d survive a second. He certainly wouldn’t be able to stand by to watch her try.

  If he was into social media, he’d have tagged their relationship as “it’s complicated”. Out of each other’s lives for more than a decade, there was still a pull there he couldn’t explain. Had she gotten away, or had he given her up? Either way, after a single encounter that resolved none of their tension, they’d each turned their focus to their respective careers. But it put her into a grey area in his mind. Whether he felt the need to protect a fellow cop, the daughter of a respected commander, a former lover, or the damaged child she’d once been, he couldn’t tell.

  He didn’t have time to analyze. He just knew what he needed to do.

  Boyle suddenly sprang, jumping on top of the tomb and swiveling to face Alex even as the younger man swung his gun up in a two-fisted grip. From his position, he was aiming to disable Boyle.

  Gemma’s frantic voice suddenly filled his ear. “Sean, don’t do this. He’s going for suicide by—”

  Boyle leaped off the tomb, simultaneously pointing his gun directly at Alex in an unmistakable kill shot. Logan smoothly followed his motion, anticipating his trajectory.

  No choice.

  He squeezed the trigger, knowing instinctively he’d hit his mark.

  Boyle jolted in midair, the gun flying from his hand as his body morphed from aggressive purpose to limp inanimation in a fraction of a second before tumbling to the ground.

  Except for sliding his finger from the trigger guard to safeguard the detectives below, Logan didn’t move, watching the rest of the scene play out through his scope as Gemma and Alex sprinted in from different directions. Gemma bent over Boyle and searched for a pulse at his throat, but after a few seconds, she gazed up at her brother and shook her head. Alex turned away and strode off toward the church, fury radiating in every step.

  Gemma collapsed into the grass beside Boyle, a picture of weariness and defeat.

  Logan lowered his rifle and pushed to his feet, standing to look down over Mulberry Street. He couldn’t see with the sharpness of night vision or the clarity of the scope, but he didn’t need either. There was enough light for him to see Gemma staring up at him. He didn’t need to see the recrimination in her eyes. He knew it was there; could feel it burn through him.

  She would see his actions tonight as a betrayal. He had orders from his commander, but she’d reached out in that last moment to him personally. He’d ignored her plea and now a man was dead.

  He suspected she’d never consider he’d made that shot for her. Maybe it was possible that, as Gemma clearly thought, Boyle was simply trying to look like he was threatening an officer in order to draw the sniper shot he knew protocol would demand, because death was the only way to avoid going to prison for his crimes. But if she’d been wrong, she’d now be cradling Alex’s lifeless body in her arms. He trusted her instincts, but it was a chance he simply couldn’t take, considering what was
at stake.

  She probably hated him right now.

  Considering the alternative, he could live with that.

  Keep an eye out for the next in the

  Jen J. Danna’s NYPD Negotiators series

  Coming soon

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  NO MAN’S LAND

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  CHAPTER 1

  Urbexing: Urban exploration, usually of abandoned or nearly inaccessible man-made structures.

  Sunday, October 7, 10:47 AM

  Massaponax Psychiatric Hospital

  Fredericksburg, Virginia

  “Is this how you usually get into these places?” Meg Jennings pushed through the ragged tear slicing diagonally across the lower half of the towering chain-link fence. She ducked low, to avoid the jagged edges that threatened to catch the long dark hair she’d tied into a ponytail and to tug at her backpack.

  “This is easy, compared to some.” District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Services firefighter Chuck Smaill grinned down at her. “It’s a small price to pay to get a look at some truly creepy stuff.”

  “You’re really selling it. And as a duly sworn member of the FBI, I won’t even ask if we’re trespassing. I think it’s better if I’m left officially in the dark on that point.” Meg straightened and turned to the man standing beside her. Several inches taller than her own nearly six feet, DCFEMS firefighter and paramedic Lieutenant Todd Webb had the build of a man used to physical work and the short-cut dark hair that spoke to how often he wore a firefighter’s helmet. “Todd, give me a hand with the fence for Hawk?”

  “Sure.” Having preceded her through the gap, Webb grabbed one edge of the chain link and curled it back as Meg mirrored his actions on the opposite side.

  “That’s good. Okay, Hawk, come!”

  The black Labrador trotted through the gap, his tail waving jauntily. Without his standard uniform of the FBI’s Human Scent Evidence Team’s navy-and-yellow vest, he sported only a bright red collar and rubber-soled Velcro boots to protect his paws.

  Once he was through, Meg let go and the chain-link fencing vibrated back into place with a discordant metallic twang.

  Smaill held his arms wide. “Welcome to no man’s land.”

  Meg eyed the property around them. “No man’s land?”

  “It’s an urbex term”

  “Urban exploration has its own terms?”

  “It has a language all its own. If you got on any of the urbex forums, you wouldn’t understand half of what they say because they all use the lingo. Like ‘blagging,’ ‘lift surfacing,’ and ‘tankcatting.’ In this case, no man’s land is the dead space between an outer security fence and the actual site or building. So, welcome to no man’s land.”

  Meg took in the prickly weeds and overgrown grass, their lush green fading with autumn’s cooling days. “Um... thanks?” She tipped her hand over her eyes, squinting past the open space to the red brick structure rising into the cloudless sky. “That’s really fantastic Gothic Revival architecture. Such a shame it’s practically falling down in real time.”

  Smaill’s eyebrows shot up to disappear behind the sun-streaked blond hair that fell boyishly over his forehead. “You recognize the architecture?”

  Webb laughed and bumped his shoulder affectionately to Meg’s “Oh yeah, she loves old buildings I can’t count the number of times she’s had me pull to the side of the road so she can admire some old Victorian manor out her window The older the better”

  “Hey, at least I don’t make you jog with me at six in the morning like I do Brian He tends to pick parks for jogging, but I love going through the oldest neighborhoods in DC Those classic houses have a special glow as the sun is just clearing the treetops” Meg considered the red brick structure “And it’s not hard to nail this one. See the decorative pointed brick crowns over the windows? The front-facing gables on the top floor in that steep roof? The main central castle tower? Classic Gothic Revival But this building is more than its architecture. Do you know anything about it?”

  “I always find out about a site before I visit,” Smaill said. “Makes the hacking more interesting because you know what you’re exploring. Also makes it safer because you get an idea of the setup and might foresee some of the hazards. When this place first went up in the decade following the Civil War, it was the Massaponax Insane Asylum. See how it’s built? As a big center structure with the two wings on either side?”

  “Yeah. The architect didn’t quite get the symmetry down, though.”

  “He wasn’t trying to. The wing on the left, the big one, that was the men’s wing. The more modest wing was for the ladies.”

  “And here we are without McCord, the walking Civil War encyclopedia,” Webb deadpanned. “Even without the numbers he could spout off the top of his head, I’m betting the Battle of Fredericksburg and the rest of the Civil War left a large proportion of the surviving male population with some nasty mental health issues.”

  “Got it in one,” said Smaill. “Back then, they didn’t know what was wrong with those men. PTSD wasn’t defined until after the Second World War. In the First World War, they recognized the issue as ‘shell shock,’ but they still didn’t know what to do about it. Now imagine how unprepared they were to handle it in the 1860s and 1870s after Sherman’s March to the Sea, the destruction of South Carolina, and the retaking of Fort Sumter that ended the Civil War.”

  “So instead of dealing with it, they locked those men up here,” Meg said. “Out of the public eye.”

  “Here and many other places. Hardly seems like the right way to treat veterans who barely survived the effort to protect their country. Granted, some days I’m not sure we do that much better now. Come on, let’s get in there.”

  The group followed a scant path that cut across what was once a well-tended lawn, now given way to weeds and brambles dotted with fallen amber leaves.

  When Smaill had invited Webb on one of his urbex outings, Webb had suggested that Meg and Hawk come as well. Having met Meg and Hawk six months before at the site of the National Mall bombing, and then being with her for several other cases, Webb knew urbex would be exactly the kind of search-and-rescue—or SAR—practice that kept Meg and Hawk at the top of their game. Meg agreed wholeheartedly. From then on, it was just a matter of matching schedules between a firefighter, a firefighter / paramedic, and a SAR team. A common day off between the first responders finally meant they could make the trip together from DC to Virginia.

  “What’s that mean?” Webb pointed to a faded metal sign attached to the brick near the front door featuring a yellow circle overlaid by a triad of downward-facing rust-colored triangles. “It’s almost like a radiation hazard warning, but not quite.”

  “I’ve run into that one before,” said Smaill. “It’s the civil defense symbol for a fallout shelter from the Cold War.”

  “Duck and cover,” Meg murmured. She scanned the lower windows—some were cracked but mostly intact; others were boarded up. “Can we get in the front door?”

  “Last time I was here, someone had forced the lock on it and it was standing open. Hopefully no one has secured it since then. I’m not sure who owns the property now. I know there were rumors someone was going to buy it, gut it, and reno it into swanky condos, but clearly that hasn’t happened yet.”

  “It’s a great property.” Meg scanned the front of the building, each floor marked by a horizontal stripe of white stone transecting the brick, and windows topped by decorative arches of alternating white and black blocks. “The outside is really stylish.”

  “And the inside is really a mess,” Smaill countered. “But if they took it back to the studs and built it out again, it could be spectacular.” Bracing one hand on the wrought iron railing, he climbed the stairs to the front door, with Meg, Hawk, and Webb following.

  The heavy wood door formed a Gothic arch with
a pointed apex. It stood open, leaving a gap of several feet to the doorjamb that allowed daylight to stream inside.

  “When we’re inside, be constantly conscious of your surroundings. For instance, places where the floor has given way can be treacherous. And if some spots have collapsed already, there are likely others that could go with only minimal stress. Eyes and ears open at all times. If anything looks dicey, don’t push it.” Smaill looked down at Hawk. “He’s ready to go in?”

  “All he needs are his boots. We can’t afford for anything to injure his feet and risk taking him out of future searches. But he’s used to working rubble wearing them. I’m going to keep him on lead unless I’m concerned he’s going to get caught on it. Then I’ll let him loose.”

  “There might be a few places where he’ll do better without it, but you know best. He’ll come when you call him if he’s off leash?”

  “Just you wait,” Webb said before Meg could answer. “That dog is so well trained, he can practically bring you breakfast in bed. Don’t worry, he’ll be great.”

  Smaill pushed the door open a few more inches and stepped into the gloom. “Then let’s do it.”

  They moved from the brilliant technicolor of fall into what was originally monochrome hospital beige, now spoiled by dark splotches of rust and mildew and brilliant palettes of paint. It took a minute for their eyes to adjust to the lower light, but then details began to emerge.