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handgun? Like this?” C.J. tapped the Beretta 9mm bolstered to her right hip.
    Maria Sanchez nodded. “Like that, but old, an old gun he got from no-good friend.”
    “And he tried to shoot you with it?”
    Frantic nodding. “Point it at me, and I run out the door. But he still in there. He got Emilio. I no have time to grab him.”
    “Emilio?” C.J. asked, hoping it was a dog.
    “ Mi nino!”
    My boy. This was getting better and better.
    “How old is Emilio?” C.J. asked.
    “ Seis —six months.”
    “We’re gonna need backup,” Brasco said abruptly. Tension had pulled his broad, pockmarked face into a stiff mask. “This isn’t no goddamn four-fifteen. It’s an ADW that’s turned into a hostage-barricade.”
    “Let’s see if we can talk to him first.” C.J. didn’t wait for Brasco’s reply. She asked Mrs. Sanchez if her husband spoke English, and when the answer was yes, she rapped on the front door, raising her voice. “Mr. Sanchez, this is the police. Open up, please. We need to talk to you.”
    Silence from inside.
    “Mr. Sanchez, we just want to talk.”
    Nothing.
    “Open the door, Mr. Sanchez.” She tested the knob and noted that it did not turn. Locked. “This is the police. Open up and let us talk to you, okay?”
    Still no response.
    “Fuck this,” Brasco said. “I’m calling it in. We need SWAT down here with a CNT.”
    C.J. nodded, but she wasn’t happy about it She didn’t want to bring Metro SWAT into this. What had started as a drunken dispute could end up in a bloodbath.
    She heard Brasco on the radio while she gathered additional information from Maria Sanchez. Layout of the house, possible exits, time elapsed since she fled the residence. Brasco came back and reported, “ETA ten minutes for another squad, thirty or more for SWAT and a negotiator.”
    C.J. pointed toward the back of the house. “There’s a rear window. I’d better cover it. You watch the front door.”
    “Okay. Hey, C.J., you’re just gonna watch the window, right?”
    “Right,” she said, though she wasn’t at all certain what she would do.
    And now it was decision time.
    She could wait by the window until another A-car arrived, then wait much longer for the SWAT boys to get here with the negotiator. When Ramon Sanchez learned he was surrounded, he might surrender—or put the gun to Emilio’s head and pull the trigger.
    And if SWAT went in ...
    Five men with machine guns bursting into this tiny house, screaming orders, ready to fire at any shadow ...
    The baby shrieked louder.
    C.J. made up her mind. She tried to ignore the trickle of sweat down her back as she drew her Beretta and climbed through the window.

4
     
     
    When she dropped onto the cot, the springs creaked, but she was pretty sure the sound was inaudible in the front room, drowned out by the baby’s cries.
    C.J. shifted her service pistol into a two-handed combat stance. She didn’t want to use the gun. Only once in her three years on the force had she shot anybody, and even then, the injury hadn’t been fatal. She didn’t deserve the damn nickname the other Newton cops had given her, and she didn’t want to start living up to it now.
    The baby began to sob.
    She eased herself off the cot and planted both shoes on the floor. The bedroom was minuscule, and the front room couldn’t be much larger. She estimated the home’s total floor space at less than five hundred square feet. A few steps would carry her through the doorway, into the red zone.
    The red zone. That was what Walt Brasco called it, Walt the football fan, in reference to the critical territory inside the twenty-yard line. As if going after the bad guys was no different from scoring a touchdown.
    Shouldn’t be doing this, C.J., a small voice warned. This is cowboy stuff.
    She silenced the voice. It was wrong. This was not cowboy stuff. It was cop stuff. It was what she did, what any cop would do who wasn’t a glorified paper pusher.
    She advanced, treading silently,