The Vanished Man

be affirmative.
    “Ten seconds,” she shouted. “We’re counting.”
    To the two officers she radioed, “Give him twenty. Then you’re green-lighted.”
    At close to the ten-second mark, the man dropped the rifle and stood up, hands in the air. “No shoot, no shoot!”
    “Keep those hands straight up in the air. Walk toward the corner of the building here. If you lower your hands you will be shot.”
    When he got to the corner Wilkins cuffed and searched him. Sachs remained crouched down. She said to the suspect, “The guy inside. Your buddy. Who is he?”
    “I don’t gotta tell you—”
    “Yeah, you do gotta. Because if we take him out, which we are going to do, you’ll go down for felony murder. Now, is that man in there worth forty-five years in Ossining?”
    The man sighed.
    “Come on,” she snapped. “Name, address, family,what he likes for dinner, what’s his mother’s first name, he have relatives in the system—you can think of all kinds of real helpful stuff about him, I’ll bet.”
    He sighed and started to talk; Sachs scribbled down the details.
    Her Motorola crackled. The hostage negotiator and the ESU team had just showed up in front of the building. She handed her notes to Wilkins. “Get those to the negotiator.”
    She read the rifleman his rights, thinking, Had she handled the situation the best way she could? Had she endangered lives unnecessarily? Should she have checked on the wounded officer herself?
    Five minutes later, the supervising captain walked around the corner of the building. He smiled. “The H-T released the woman. No injuries. We’ve got three collared. The wounded officer’ll be okay. Just a scratch.”
    A policewoman with short blonde hair poking out from under her regulation hat joined them. “Hey, check it out. We got a bonus.” She held up a large Baggie full of white powder and another containing pipes and other drug paraphernalia.
    As the captain looked it over, nodding with approval, Sachs asked, “That was in their car?”
    “Naw. I found it in a Ford across the street. I was interviewing the owner as a witness and he started sweating and looking all nervous so I searched his car.”
    “Where was it parked?” Sachs asked.
    “In his garage.”
    “Did you call in a warrant?”
    “No. Like I say, he was acting nervous and I couldsee a corner of the bag from the sidewalk. That’s probable cause.”
    “Nope.” Sachs was shaking her head. “It’s an illegal search.”
    “Illegal? We pulled this guy over last week for speeding and saw a kilo of pot in the back. We busted him okay.”
    “It’s different on the street. There’s a lesser expectation of privacy in a mobile vehicle on public roads. All you need for an arrest then is probable cause. When a car’s on private property, even if you see drugs, you need a warrant.”
    “That’s crazy,” the policewoman said defensively. “He’s got ten ounces of pure coke here. He’s a balls-forward dealer. Narcotics spends months trying to collar somebody like this.”
    The captain said to Sachs, “You sure about this, Officer?”
    “Positive.”
    “Recommendation?”
    Sachs said, “Confiscate the stuff, put the fear of God into the perp and give his tag number and stats to Narcotics.” Then she glanced at the policewoman. “And you better take a refresher course in search and seizure.”
    The woman officer started to argue but Sachs wasn’t paying attention. She was surveying the vacant lot, where the perps’ car rested against the Dumpster. She squinted at the vehicle.
    “Officer—” the captain began.
    She ignored him and said to Wilkins, “You said three perps?”
    “That’s right.”
    “How do you know?”
    “That was the report from the jewelry store they hit.”
    She stepped into the rubble-filled lot, pulling out her Glock. “Look at the getaway car,” she snapped.
    “Jesus,” Wilkins said.
    All the doors were open. Four men had bailed.
    Dropping into a crouch, she scanned the lot and aimed her gun toward the only possible hiding place nearby: a short cul-de-sac behind the Dumpster.
    “Weapon!” she cried, almost before she saw the motion.
    Everyone around her turned as the large, T-shirted man with a shotgun jogged out of the lot, making a run for the street.
    Sachs’s Glock was centered on his chest as he broke cover. “Drop the weapon!” she ordered.
    He hesitated a moment then grinned and began to swing it toward the officers.
    She pushed her Glock