Authors: M. D. Grayson
* * * *
We parked right behind Nancy and Tyrone on Sixty-Second and joined them at the CP in front of the SWAT truck.
When everyone was assembled, Radovich reached for the microphone on his radio and said, “Okay, folks, the CP is up. Let’s have the entry teams into pre-position,” he ordered. I watched as a large unmarked van rolled past us from the north and stopped in the road two houses above the target. Ten heavily armed SWAT team members in full black tactical gear, including Kevlar helmets, hopped out. At the same time, another van did the same thing but coming from the opposite direction. Three men emerged from that one. From our briefing, I knew that a third van was also being positioned in the alley with four more men.
“One’s ready,” Gary’s radio crackled to life.
“Three’s ready.” That was the team in back.
“Two’s ready.” That was the north team.
“Surveillance one?” Radovich said. He had a plainclothes officer in the park with binoculars on the front of the house.
“The front of the house is clear,” the voice on the radio said. “There’s no one outside and no one appearing even to be looking outside.”
“Surveillance two?” He had another man in the alley behind the house.
“There’s no one in the backyard. The drapes are drawn—should be able to walk right up.”
“Excellent,” Radovich said to himself. He keyed his microphone. “Close the roads,” he ordered.
Seconds later, I saw a patrol car block Brooklyn about a quarter mile south. Although I couldn’t see, I knew that Brooklyn was also being closed on the north, along with Sixty-First Street to the west. All vehicle access points were now sealed off.
“Okay. Entry teams, into assault position.” The ten-man team on the north moved single file down the street while, at the same time, the three-man team from the south came forward in similar fashion. When they reached their respective edges of the property, all three members of the south team went to the side yard south of the home. The north team split—three men going into the side yard on the north side.
The remaining seven men on the north team ducked down past the living room windows and silently approached the front door on the porch. Once there, they moved quickly into their pre-assigned assault positions—two men holding shotguns aimed directly at the door locks, one man between them holding a heavy steel battering ram. The four men who would enter first crouched single file behind the man with the battering ram.
When Radovich saw that the entry team was in position, he said, “Time is now 12:17. Entry team commander—you have the command.”
The man in the front of the entry line immediately started a count we heard over the radio—“one, two, three,” and then he pointed at the door at the same time he said, “Go!” into his radio microphone.
The two shotguns exploded simultaneously, sending breaching slugs into the locks and leaving gaping holes where a split second before a deadbolt and a door handle had been. Almost immediately afterward, the man wielding the battering ram swung it with such force that the front door was blown back on its hinges. The next man in line tossed a flashbang grenade into the home that exploded with a brilliant flash of light and a loud
bang!
The noise hadn’t even quieted when the first SWAT members charged through the door yelling, “Police!” and “Hands up!”
* * * *
“Move in!” Radovich said to the officers in the squad cars. “Go! Go! Go!” He waved them forward as the cars shot past him one by one before screeching to a halt a couple of seconds later in front of the house. The patrol officers immediately jumped out of their vehicles, weapons drawn, and took up defensive positions behind their cars.
The CP was nearly forty yards from the front door, and we obviously couldn’t see what was happening, but we were still able to hear the men yelling inside the house, “Hands up! Don’t move!” A neighbor in an adjoining house opened his front door and stepped out onto the porch to see what the commotion was about.
“Go back in your house, sir!” one of the patrol officers barked. The man looked around, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. Then he scurried back inside and shut the door.
Shortly afterward, a voice I recognized as belonging to the entry commander said over the radio, “Main floor’s clear! Starting upstairs.” Then he said, “We’ve got eight in custody. We’re going to start bringing them out now. You guys ready?”
“Ready,” Radovich said. He ordered the patrol officers to move forward out of their defensive positions and prepare to start handling suspects.
We watched as the SWAT team began marching out the gang members who’d been captured in the raid. The young men walked outside, hands held high, squinting against the bright daylight. I couldn’t see from this distance, but if they’d been acting true to form, most were undoubtedly stoned. Once outside, they were immediately lined up against a planter wall by the patrol officers, frisked, handcuffed, and made to sit down.
Three minutes later, the entry commander again spoke over the radio. “Upstairs is clear!”
“Good,” Radovich said. “Two down, one to go.”
Less than three minutes afterward, the radio sprang to life. “House is clear! We’re Code 4. Bring up the medics and the ambulance. We’ve got a girl in bad shape down in the basement.”
Uh-oh
. Radovich called the EMTs and the ambulance and sent them in. Then he turned to us. “That’s our cue. Let’s go,” he said. We hustled over to the house just as the EMTs were entering. They carried a collapsible gurney with them.
I looked at the gang members seated against the planter wall, and then I turned to Toni. She was staring at the front door, obviously worried about the girl inside. My skin went cold when I realized that I hadn’t stopped to consider that it might possibly be Kelli who was injured. Obviously, Toni had already thought of that.
But as I looked around, I became certain that this was not the case. “It’s not her,” I said to Toni.
“You don’t know that,” she said, continuing to stare at the front door.
“Yeah, I do. Look at these mutts here.”
She glanced at the men seated against the wall.
“So?”
“He’s not here,” I said.
“What’s that?” Nancy asked. She’d been listening to us.
“Donnie Martin isn’t here,” I said.
“Isn’t that his car?” she asked, pointing to the white BMW beside us.
I nodded. “Yeah, it is. But he’s not here.”
Nancy turned to Radovich. “Anyone else inside?” she asked.
Radovich spoke into his radio, then turned to her. “This is it,” he said. “All present and accounted for.”
I motioned Nancy and Radovich away from the detainees so we wouldn’t be overheard.
“We’ve got a problem,” I said. “Donnie Martin isn’t here. Neither is Crystal Wallace. Neither is DeMichael Hollins. And neither is Toni’s sister Kelli.” I looked over at Toni. “I’m pretty certain the girl they bring out isn’t going to be Kelli Blair.”
I continued. “But Martin’s going to find out about this bust pretty quick. And when he does, we don’t know how he’s going to react, but it probably won’t be good. You better make sure you collect up all the cell phones from these guys. We need to find him and bust him pretty damn quick.” I looked up to make sure Toni wasn’t listening. “And there’s no telling what he’ll do if he suspects Kelli Blair is somehow involved.”
“There’s nothing to make him start thinking that, is there?” Nancy asked.
I thought for a minute. Then, slowly, shook my head. “I don’t think so,” I said. “Unless she talks, and there’s no reason for her to do that. But still, trying to match wits with a lunatic is a dangerous game.”
“He’s right,” Tyrone said, “this guy’s a wacko. He might start lashing out just because she coincidentally shows up the day before the raid.”
“Like I said,” I repeated. “We need to find Donnie Martin. And hopefully Kelli.”
“Okay. Got any ideas where we should start?”
“Toni,” I called out. She turned to look at me. “Do you remember what kind of car DeMichael Hollins drives?”
“Dark red Ford Expedition. Maroon, maybe.” I looked around, but I already knew the answer. There was no dark red Ford Expedition there.
“There’s your answer,” I said. “Martin and Crystal and probably Kelli came over here, and then they all loaded up in DeMichael Hollins’s Expedition and took off. That’s what we need to be looking for. You should have all the details in the surveillance report I gave you.”
“I’ve got it,” Nancy said, pulling a vehicle report we’d given her from a file. “Ty, call it in, will you? It’s a 2009 Ford Expedition, maroon in color, Washington tags: 585-UWW.”
“Got it,” Tyrone said.
* * * *
I wouldn’t say that I had a bad feeling about things, but I was definitely starting to get a little uneasy. I suppose we should have known there was no guarantee that Martin and Crystal and Kelli would be at the house, but with his car parked there, it had seemed a reasonable expectation. I suppose that just because Martin went to the boys’ house at the same time every day that we had him under surveillance didn’t mean he was guaranteed to be there today. Still, we’d hoped to end this right now.
Five minutes later, they brought the victim up. Toni had been staring at the door, but when the men and the gurney started to come out, she turned away and buried her face in my shoulder, unable to watch. Toni is tough as they come, but I guess the thought of her sister being rolled out on a stretcher was maybe a little too hard to take. I watched for both of us. Two SWAT officers assisted two EMTs—one on each corner—as they carried the girl out on the gurney. The EMTs had already started an IV, and a fifth person carried the IV bag. I strained to see who the victim was. At first, I couldn’t see her face—she was blocked by the guys—but judging by the way one arm was sort of halfway flopped off the gurney, it sure looked like she was unconscious. Then, I caught a glimpse of her. Her small face was bruised and swollen, but I recognized her. I looked down at Toni.
“It’s okay, Toni,” I said. “It’s not Kelli.”
“No?” She turned to look.
“No,” I said. “It’s Isabel. And I hate to say it, but she doesn’t look too good.”
AS SOON AS they were out the front door, the EMTs extended the wheels on the gurney and started to roll it to the waiting ambulance. The EMT walked alongside, trying to hang Isabel’s IV bag on a stand mounted to the moving gurney. Toni walked quickly in their direction after I identified Isabel. I followed.
The EMT noticed Toni walk up and guessed correctly that she was about to be questioned. “Relative?” she asked as she worked.
Toni shook her head. “Investigator. And friend.”
“What’s her name?”
“Isabel Delgado,” Toni said. “What happened to her?”
“The poor girl’s been beaten—probably with a club of some sort and maybe a belt, judging from the looks of it. She’s lucky she’s alive.”
“Is she conscious?” Toni asked.
The EMT shook her head. “Not really. She’s kind of in and out of it. I think she’s been drugged—no telling with what—we can’t determine that here. I think her arm’s broken there,” she pointed. “And she’s had internal injuries, too, that much I can say for sure. She’s been bleeding vaginally. She’s got blood all over her legs.” I looked at the sheet that covered Isabel from the waist down, but I couldn’t see any blood.
“Will she be alright?” Toni asked.
The EMT held a finger up to her lips, indicating that Toni should be careful about asking such questions in the event Isabel could hear what was going on. Then she shrugged her shoulders and opened her hands up in the universal “who knows” signal. But, apparently for Isabel’s benefit in the event she
was
able to hear, she said, “Of course she will. Do you hear that, Isabel?” to the motionless girl. “You’re going to be fine. You just hang in there for us—we’re going to take good care of you. And you’re going to be fine.”
Toni cringed. “Where are you going to take her?” she asked.
“We need to get her straight to the university medical center ER,” the EMT said quietly. “If she’s still bleeding internally, that has to be stopped right away.” She turned to the other EMT. “Ready,” she said. Together, they rolled the gurney up to the back of the ambulance. Then, when they pushed forward on the gurney, the legs folded up and tucked under as the gurney slid inside. The third team member had already entered and was waiting at the head of the gurney.
“Hello, Isabel,” he called out animatedly. “We’re taking you to the hospital now. We’re going to take good care of you, and you’ll be just fine.” He immediately started a transfusion as the two EMTs outside slammed the doors shut and sprinted for the doors. They fired up the ambulance’s diesel engine and pulled away. A second later, the siren blasted to life across what had been a peaceful neighborhood up until about twenty minutes ago.
Toni stood and watched the ambulance drive away. I walked up close behind her and put my hand on her shoulder. Together, we watched the ambulance drive up the street.
“You alright?” I asked.
She nodded. I leaned around her so that I could see her face. She was biting her lip, and tears were streaming down her face. “Jesus Christ,” she said. “Did you see her? These guys are animals, Danny,” she said. “And Kelli’s still out there.”