Alone (2 page)

“Hey, honey . . . I'm looking for a lost dog. . . .”

November 1998. The Thanksgiving Miracle curled up naked in her white porcelain tub, her thin, bony body trembling from the cold as she clutched a single razor in her fist. Something bad was going to happen. A darkness beyond darkness. A buried box from which there would be no coming back.

“Come to bed, Louise. She'll call if she needs you.”

“Hey, honey . . . I'm looking for a lost dog?”

The blade, so slender and light in her hands. The feel of its edge, kissing her wrist. The abstract sensation of warm, red blood, lining her skin.

The phone rang. Catherine roused herself from her lethargy long enough to answer it. And that single call saved her life. The Thanksgiving Miracle rose again.

She thought about it now. As the TV blared in the background:
An armed suspect has barricaded himself in his home after taking numerous shots at his neighbors. Boston SWAT officials consider the situation highly volatile and extremely dangerous.

As her son sobbed in her arms. “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy.”

And as her husband bellowed from below: “I know what you're doing, Cat! How stupid do you think I am? Well, it's not going to work. There's no way in hell you're going to get away with it! Not this time!”

Jimmy stormed up the stairs, heading for their bedroom.

The phone had saved Catherine before. Now she prayed it would save her once again. “Hello, hello, nine-one-one? Can you hear me? It's my husband. I think he's got a gun.”

Chapter
2

B
OBBY HAD BEEN
a member of the Massachusetts State Police Special Tactics and Operations (STOP) Team for the past six years. Called out at least three times a month—and generally every damn holiday—he thought very little could surprise him anymore. Tonight, he was wrong.

Roaring through the streets of Boston, he squealed his tires taking a hard right up Park Street, heading for the golden-domed State House, then threw his cruiser left onto Beacon, flying past the Common and the Public Garden. At the last minute, he almost blew it—tried to head up Arlington straight for Marlborough, then realized that Marlborough was one way the wrong way. Like any good Masshole driver, he slammed on his brakes, cranked the wheel hard, and laid on his horn as he sliced across three lanes of traffic to stay on Beacon. Now his life was tougher, trying to pick up the right cross street to head up to Marlborough. In the end, he simply drove toward the white glow of floodlights and the flashing red lights of the Advanced Life Support ambulance.

Arriving at the corner of Marlborough and Gloucester, Bobby processed many details at once. Blue sawhorses and Boston PD cruisers already isolated one tiny block in the heart of Back Bay. Yellow crime-scene tape festooned several brownstone houses, and uniformed officers were taking up position on the corners. The ALS ambulance was now on-scene; so were several vans from the local media.

Things were definitely starting to rock and roll.

Bobby double-parked his Crown Vic just outside a blue sawhorse, jumped out the door, and jogged around to his trunk. Inside, he had everything a well-trained police sniper might need for a party. Rifle, scope, ammo, black BDUs, urban camo BDUs, ghillie hood, body armor, changes of clothing, snacks, water, a bean bag, night-vision goggles, binoculars, range finder, face paint, Swiss Army knife, and flashlight. Local police probably kept spare tires in their trunks; a state trooper could live out of his cruiser for a month.

Bobby hefted up his rucksack and immediately started assessing the situation.

In contrast to other SWAT teams, Bobby's tactical team never arrived en masse. Instead, his unit consisted of thirty-two guys located all over the state of Massachusetts, from the fingertip of Cape Cod to the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains. Headquarters was Adams, Mass., in the western half of the state, where Bobby's lieutenant had taken the call from Framingham Communications and made the decision to deploy.

In this case, a domestic barricade with hostages, all thirty-two guys had been activated and all thirty-two would arrive. Some would take three to four hours to get here. Others, like Bobby, made it in less than fifteen minutes. Either way, Bobby's LT prided himself on being able to get at least five officers anywhere in the state in under an hour.

Looking around now, Bobby figured he was one of those first five officers. Which meant he needed to hustle.

Most SWAT units were comprised of three teams: an entry team, a perimeter team, and snipers. The perimeter team had the primary job of securing and controlling the inner perimeter. Then came the snipers, who took up position outside the inner perimeter and served as reconnaissance—appraising the situation through their scope or binoculars, and radioing in details on the building as well as all people and movement inside. Finally, the entry team would prepare for last-resort action—if the hostage negotiator couldn't convince the suspects to come out, the entry team would storm in. Entries were messy; you prayed it didn't come to that, but sometimes it did.

Bobby's STOP team brought all those bells and whistles to the table, but they didn't specialize. Instead, given that they arrived piecemeal, they were cross-trained on all positions so they could get up and running the second boots hit the ground. In other words, while Bobby was one of the team's eight designated snipers, he wasn't looking at taking up sniping position just yet.

First goal—establish the inner perimeter. The inner perimeter was the area looking in at the scene. Establishing a good inner perimeter solved ninety percent of any tactical unit's headaches. You controlled and contained. It took at least two guys to form a perimeter, each standing on opposing corners, monitoring the diagonals.

Bobby was one guy. Now he was looking for a second. He spotted three other state police cruisers parked across the way, so he had teammates around here somewhere. Then he noticed the white van set up as command center. He jogged toward the van.

“Trooper Bobby Dodge,” he announced five seconds later, climbing into the command center, setting down his gear, and thrusting out a hand.

“Lieutenant Jachrimo.” The CO took his hand, handshake tight but quick. The thin-faced lieutenant wasn't from the state police, but from BPD. That didn't surprise Bobby; the scene was technically Boston jurisdiction, plus the state police commander was probably still two hours away. While Bobby would've preferred his own LT, he was trained to play nice with others—up to a point, of course.

Jachrimo had a white board up in front of him and was making a Gantt chart in the upper left-hand corner. “Position?” the CO asked Bobby.

“Sniper.”

“Can you hold a perimeter?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Great, great, great.” Lieutenant Jachrimo broke away from the white board long enough to stick his head out of the van and yell at a Boston uniform, “Hey. Hey, you. I need the phone company. Understand? Use your radio, call in to dispatch and get the goddamn phone company, 'cause nothing in this van is working, and you can't really have a command post if it doesn't command. Got it?”

The uniform went flying, and Jachrimo returned his harried attention to Bobby. “Okay, so what do you know?”

“Domestic barricade, male subject believed armed with a gun, wife and child also on the premises.” Bobby repeated the message he'd received on his pager.

“Suspect's name is Jimmy Gagnon. Mean anything to you?”

Bobby shook his head.

“Just as well.” Jachrimo finished his Gantt chart, then started an overhead sketch of the neighborhood on the lower part of the white board. “So here's where we're at. Woman called nine-one-one shortly after eleven-thirty. Claimed to be Catherine Gagnon, Jimmy's wife. Said her husband was drunk and threatening her and their son with a handgun. The nine-one-one operator tried to hold her on the line, but there was some kind of disturbance and the call was disconnected. About sixty seconds later, nine-one-one received a call from a neighbor reporting sounds of gunfire.

“The call came into headquarters, but our guys are already out on a situation in Revere, so I kicked it to Framingham Communications, who contacted your lieutenant. Your unit's serving as the primary, maybe for the whole show, maybe until our guys wrap up the party in Revere. Don't know. As of this moment, we have uniforms securing the external perimeter. There are men posted, here, here, and here, and cars positioned here and here to block off the connecting streets.” Jachrimo made a series of Xs on his sketch, and that quickly, one block of brownstones was cordoned off from the surrounding neighborhood.

“The Gagnons occupy the top four levels of unit number four-fifteen. Uniforms have already evacuated the residents below their unit, as well as the residents of the brownstones on either side. We haven't had contact with anyone inside the residence yet, which, frankly, doesn't make me happy. As far as I'm concerned, we should've had the inner perimeter secured ten minutes ago and the hostage negotiators here eight minutes ago. But hey, that's just me.”

“Manpower?”

“Troopers Fusilli, Adams, and Maroni are already on-scene. They're scoping the building now, looking to form a very tight perimeter, probably inside the building. I got one officer tracking down blueprints and another—hopefully—getting me the goddamn phone company.”

“Intel from the neighbors?”

“According to the first-floor unit owner, the Gagnons did significant work on the place in the past five years. The top level of the brownstone was converted into cathedral ceilings for the fourth floor, where they apparently have one helluva master bedroom, with a walk-out balcony. Level one contains a small, one-bedroom unit, in addition to the lobby, which features an elevator that goes up to the second floor and the entrance to the Gagnon residence, as well as a staircase which reaches every level of the townhouse. The basement has been finished into a two-bedroom unit. We evacuated the couple that lives there and they told us exactly nothing; they have no idea about crawl spaces in the building, fire escapes, nada. It's an old building, though, so there's bound to be a few surprises.

“It would seem that the Gagnons keep to themselves, and whatever parties they've had, they haven't invited their neighbors. Couple has a reputation for its fights and we've been called out before for domestic disputes. First time there's been mention of a gun, though, so that's a fresh kick in the pants. Is it her? Is it him? Hell if I know. Mostly, it just sucks for the kid. So that's where we are and that's what we got.”

The lieutenant's spiel ground to a halt just in time. Phone company had arrived. Another one of Bobby's teammates as well.

“Perfect,” the lieutenant declared. He stabbed one finger at the new trooper. “You, inner perimeter. And you,” the finger moved to Bobby. “Find a position. I want intel on that house. Where's the husband, where's the wife, where's the kid? And better yet, is anyone still alive? Because it's been over thirty minutes now, and we haven't heard a thing.”

S
TEPPING OUT OF
the command center, Bobby picked up his pace. Now charged with a task, he had choices to make. He ran through them quickly.

First off, proper gear. He went with city camo, a battle dress uniform blended with shades of gray. Solid black provided too much of a silhouette. Camo blends, on the other hand, gave the eye a sense of depth, allowing the wearer to sink into the surrounding environment.

Over the top of his BDUs came soft body armor. The rest of his team would be wearing Kevlar with boron plates, but that kind of heavy body armor was too cumbersome for sniping. Bobby needed to be able to move quickly, while also maintaining an often uncomfortable pose for hours on end. For him, a flak vest and helmet would do.

Next up, rifle, scope, and ammo. Bobby slung his Sig Sauer 3000 over his shoulder, then went with a Leupold 3-9X 50mm variable scope. His scope was already zeroed to one hundred yards, standard setup for a law enforcement sniper, versus military snipers, who zeroed their scopes to five hundred yards. The military guys, however, were running around in ghillie suits and crawling through swamps. Bobby's job rarely got that interesting.

Briefly, Bobby debated night-vision goggles, but given that the area was lit up like the Fourth of July, he passed.

That left ammo. He selected two: Federal Match Grade .308 Remington 168-grain slugs, and Federal Match Grade .308 Remington 165-grain bullets with bonded tips. The 168-grain slugs were standard issue; the 165-grain bullets were better for shooting through glass. Given that it was a cold night and the residence in question seemed buttoned up tight, he'd start with a bonded tip in the chamber. When you only got one shot, you had to play the odds.

Next Bobby pared down his rucksack to three bottles of water, two PowerBars, a bean bag, his binoculars, and a range finder. He closed his trunk and turned immediately to the street.

He had his gear, now he needed a position.

Back Bay was an old, wealthy area of Boston. The tall, narrow brownstones boasted granite arches, elaborate wrought-iron balconies, and expansive bay windows. Broad shade trees, beautiful in the summer but now mere silhouettes, cast their skeletal canopies over BMWs, SAABs, and Mercedes, while in the glow of the police floodlights, gray veins of leafless ivy climbed up redbrick walls and caressed intricate window casings. It was a beautiful city block, grand, self-contained, slightly arrogant.

Bobby could work his entire life and still not be able to afford to
park
on a street like this, let alone live here. Funny how some people could seemingly have every advantage in life and still be so royally fucked up.

Distance would not be a problem, he determined. The brownstones sat shoulder to shoulder, with only fifty yards between one side of the street and the other. Angle was more of a consideration. Anything greater than forty-five degrees and the ballistics grew problematic. The brownstone in question appeared to be five stories, plus a daylight basement. The CO had commented, however, that the fifth floor had essentially become a vaulted ceiling for a fourth-story master bedroom.