Lethal Rage by Brent Pilkey Page B

across the tile floor, taking his or her sweet damn time.
    Seconds later — Jack would have sworn it was more like five minutes — an elderly black woman shuffled into view, her sundress with its faded orange flowers a stark blast of colour against the utilitarian drabness of the lobby. A wide-brimmed straw hat — an orange flower tucked brazenly in the band — shaded her face as she crossed to the elevators. She pressed the call button and settled in to wait, her hands folded primly before her.
    Jack glanced at Mason, who gave him a palm-down gesture.
Wait.
If the entry went bad, the last thing they needed was a civilian on the edges of a gunfight. Bullets tended not to care whom they hit.
    The woman removed her hat and fanned herself with it as she glanced around the lobby, looking for friends, for dangers — just because you were a Regent Park resident didn’t mean you were safe from its predators — and saw Jack staring at her.
    He lifted a leather-gloved finger to his lips and she nodded curtly, as if to say,
What do you think I am? Stupid?
The elevator dinged and the doors wheezed open. The lady gave them a broad smile and a thumbs-up before stepping into the elevator. Jack blew out a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding and turned to Mason, a grin fixed on his face. Mason grinned back.
    Tank stood beside Sy, the two-man ram cradled easily in his arms. He nodded at Mason, who flipped the nod to Jack. Jack keyed the mike clipped to his shoulder, then whispered, “Go. We are taking the door. Go.”
    Jack heard a scout car squeal onto Sumach; then he saw two bike cops sprint out from behind 260 Sumach. He signalled Mason, who then gave Tank the go-ahead.
    The big man squared himself to the door, drew the ram back, paused for the briefest of moments, then drove it forward, using all his considerable mass and power. The heavy metal pipe tapered to a point beyond the handles, focusing all of its devastating power into an area no bigger than a quarter. Tank’s aim was perfect. The ram hit the door right beside the lock and the door exploded inward.
    The pipes were in first. Sy button-hooked around the door frame, the shotgun tight to his shoulder, and cut left to the kitchen, while Mason pushed to the right, both bellowing,
“Police! Don’t move!”
Kris and Taft were right on their heels, guns following eyes as they swept the living room for threats.
    Tank dropped the ram with a thunderous clang and Jack bolted through the doorway, driving to his right and through the living room to back up Mason in the bedroom hall. He was dimly aware of shouting as he ran, commands of “Police! Don’t move!” mixed with screams of terror and shouts of rage. He didn’t stop to look.
    Then he was beside Mason, not remembering having run across the living room. If he had been asked right then to describe the living room, he would have drawn a complete blank. It could have been filled with dancing hippos in tutus and he wouldn’t have noticed. But the hallway he could describe. It was his area of responsibility and he was damned if he was going to fuck this up.
    The hall was short, no more than a dozen feet, and he was facing a closed door. The bathroom. The left side of the hall held two bedroom doors, also closed. The hall was too narrow for two people side by side, so Jack slipped in front of Mason, crouching below the level of Mason’s shotgun. They edged forward this way, guns trained on doors, trigger fingers resting easily along the weapons’ frames.
    â€œI’ve got the hall,” Mason whispered. “The bedrooms are yours.”
    Still crouched, Jack grasped the doorknob, turned it and flung the door open. It banged against the wall. “Police! Anyone in this room, I want to see your empty hands, now!”
    Silence.
    Didn’t think it would be that easy.
Tucking his gun into his chest, Jack pivoted around the door frame, sweeping the