I sat.
I stared.
The BMW halted and Hector had his head cocked and his gun up, trained on the car.
I held my breath.
Marty Balducci got out of the BMW and my body automatically went into my ready to run squat again.
“Sit!” Jack repeated, louder this time and I didn’t want to, I really didn’t want to but I sat again.
Marty didn’t look good and I felt the blood drain out of my face. I couldn’t see all that clearly on the small screen but he appeared to be bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds to the chest.
Marty held onto the open car door to keep himself up but I could tell he was struggling. He lifted his gun toward Hector but he couldn’t quite lift it far enough. I could see they were talking (or shouting) at each other. Hector, arms out, gun up, was advancing slowly.
Jack hit a button on the console and the room filled with the ringing of a phone.
Then, on another monitor, I watched as an Explorer entered the garage.
I stared, body tense, as it parked at an angle behind Marty’s BMW and Lee and Luke got out, already armed, guns up and trained on Marty.
“What’s happening?” I whispered but Jack didn’t answer. He had his hands on the console in front of us, close to both the phones that were pointed in his direction and a number of buttons and knobs.
“Nine, one, one,” a voice said. “What’s your emergency?”
“I need an ambulance, there’s a man with multiple gunshot wounds in the garage under Nightingale Investigations…” Jack told the operator, speaking clearly, calmly, giving an address, his name, a telephone number.
While Jack talked, I saw Lee and Luke advance on Marty, just like Hector, they all seemed to be talking to each other and moving in slow motion.
Without warning, likely unable to hold himself up anymore, Marty suddenly went down.
“He’s down,” Jack said to the 911 operator.
Hector and Lee stopped moving slowly and rushed to Marty. Hector kicked Marty’s gun away, shoved his own into his jeans, got down on his knees and bent over Marty, obscuring our view. Luke ran to the back of the Explorer.
Something caught in my corner vision and I looked to a monitor two banks up and to the right and, at what I saw, I shouted (and pointed for good measure), “Jack! It’s Donny!”
Donny Balducci and two men I didn’t know were creeping along the hallway, which hallway I didn’t know.
“We need cars,” Jack barked at the 911 operator. “Squads. We got three men, all armed, in the building, approaching the Nightingale offices, same address as for the ambulance, we got civilians in here. We’re on the fourth floor. Over and out.”
Then he hit a button and immediately flipped a switch. “Lockdown. Three armed men approaching,” Jack said but I heard it over a PA which seemed to be all around us.
I watched Shirleen jump up, open a drawer, pull out a gun and then she ran to the front office door. She locked it, I felt Jack’s movements as he hit another button and the room filled with ringing again.
“Get out of there Shirleen, get out, get out…” I chanted, watching Donny and his gang approach the office door as Shirleen hustled toward the inner door.
“Stark.” I heard Luke’s voice fill the room and tore my eyes away from Donny to see Luke standing in the garage, his phone to his ear.
“Donny’s in the building, two men with him, all armed, in the hallway, outside the front office door. We’re in lockdown. Ambulance is in transit for Marty, I called squads. Over.”
Jack was talking but Luke was now moving, jogging toward the stairs, Lee breaking away from Hector and coming with Luke. Somewhere along the line someone had given Hector a first aid kit but it was sitting next to him on the concrete unused and Hector was giving Marty CPR.
Then I saw Shirleen disappear from the reception area.
“Status. Over,” Luke said.
“Shirleen’s in the hall, Brody’s in the back office. Sadie and me in the surveillance room. Everyone else out on assignment. Over.”
“Shirleen goes in with Sadie, you’re in the hall. Over and out.”
Luke and Lee had disappeared from the screen because they’d hit the stairs. Jack pressed some buttons and the viewpoint changed on some of the monitors and I saw Luke and Lee on the stairs, taking them two at a time.
Jack got up and, when I turned to him, he had a gun.
“No matter what you see or what you hear, you do not leave this room. Got me?”
I nodded.
“Repeat it,” he said.
“No matter what, I won’t leave this room,” I said quickly.
He nodded then he was gone, Shirleen passing him on his way out.
“Jack got the police comin’?” Shirleen asked, her eyes going directly to the monitors and she started scanning them as she took a seat.
“Police and ambulance,” I replied.
“Holy shit, what’s happened in the garage?” Her eyes were riveted on Hector giving Marty CPR.
“Marty drove in, got out of the car, he was filled with bullets. He collapsed. Hector’s working on him. Lee and Luke are headed up here.”
Shirleen was silent.
Then quietly she remarked, “They don’t have vests.”
“What?”
She looked at me then back at the monitors and muttered, “Nothin’.”
It hit me she meant bulletproof vests.
I felt fear slice through me as I watched, mouth dropping open as Donny gave up trying to force the door open with his foot, took a step back and drilled some rounds in it with his gun. Then he kicked the door open and they all surged in just as Lee and Luke rounded another flight of stairs.
“Why don’t they wait for the police?” I shouted, coming into a squat again and I wasn’t going to sit down, no way, I didn’t know how to sit anymore.
Visions, unbidden, forced themselves into my head. Lee and Indy’s wedding picture in the paper. Luke taking Ava in his arms and talking against her mouth. Both of them teasing me.
It hit me that these were my friends and they were in danger.
Because of me.
I straightened out of my squat and stood.
“Child, settle,” Shirleen said softly.
All at once, everything happened, on the monitors and in the office.
I heard more gunshots, these close, coming from Donny who was firing at the inner door. The paramedics were running toward Hector. Uniformed police were running up the stairs, guns drawn. Lee and Luke were in the hall and jogging toward the offices.
“Stay back!” I shouted, leaning forward now, hands on the console, body trembling, eyes going manically from screen to screen.