Cross

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