One Shot Read Online Free PDF

military shooter,' Emerson said. 'All military personnel are in the databases. So it's just a matter of time.'
    It was a matter of forty-nine minutes. A desk guy knocked and entered. He was carrying a sheaf of paper.
    The paper listed a name, an address, and a history.
    Plus supplementary information from all over the system. Including a driver's licence photo. Emerson took the paper and glanced through it once. Then again.
    Then he smiled. Exactly six hours after the first shot was fired, the situation was nailed down tight. A must-win.
    'His name is James Barr,' Emerson said.
    Silence in the office.
    'He's forty-one years old. He lives twenty minutes from here. He served in the U.S. Army. Honourable discharge fourteen years ago. Infantry specialist, which I'm betting means a sniper. DMV says he drives a six-year-old Dodge Caravan, beige.'
     
    He slid the papers across his desk to Rodin. Rodin picked them up and scanned them through, once, twice, carefully. Emerson watched his eyes. Saw him thinking the guy, the gun, the crime. It was like watching a Vegas slot machine line up three cherries. Bing bing bing! A total certainty.
    'James Barr,' Rodin said, like he was savouring the sound of the words. He separated out the DL picture and gazed at it. 'James Barr, welcome to a shitload of trouble, sir.'
    'Amen to that,' Emerson said, waiting for a compliment.
    I'll get the warrants,' Rodin said. 'Arrest, and searches on his house and car. Judges will be lining up to sign them.'
    He left and Emerson called the Chief of Police with the good news. The Chief said he would schedule an eight o'clock press conference for the next morning.
    He said he wanted Emerson there, front and centre.
    Emerson took that as all the compliment he was going to get, even though he didn't much like the press.
    The warrants were ready within an hour, but the arrest took three hours to set up. First, unmarked surveillance confirmed Barr was home. His place was an unremarkable one-storey ranch. Not immaculate, not falling down. Old paint on the siding, fresh blacktop on the driveway. Lights were on and a television set was playing in what was probably the living room. Barr himself was spotted briefly, in a lighted window. He seemed to be alone. Then he seemed to go to bed.
    Lights went off and the house went quiet. So then there was a pause. It was standard operating procedure to plan carefully for the takedown of an armed man inside a building. The PD SWAT team took charge. They used zoning maps from the city offices and came up with the usual kind of thing. Covert encirclement, overwhelming force on standby front and rear, sudden violent assault on the front and rear doors simultaneously. Emerson was detailed to make the actual arrest, wearing full body armour and a borrowed helmet. An assistant DA would be alongside him, to monitor the legality of the process.
    Nobody wanted to give a defence attorney anything to chew on later. A paramedic team would be instantly available. Two K9 officers would go along, because of the crime scene investigator's theory about the dog in the house. Altogether thirty-eight men were involved, and they were all tired. Most of them had been working nineteen hours straight.
    Their regular watches, plus overtime. So there was a lot of nervous tension in the air. People figured that nobody owned just one automatic weapon. If a guy had one, he had more. Maybe full-auto machine guns. Maybe grenades or bombs.
    But in the event the arrest was a walk in the park.
    James Barr barely even woke up. They broke down his doors at three in the morning and found him asleep, alone in bed. He stayed asleep with fifteen armed men in his bedroom aiming fifteen submachine guns and fifteen flashlight beams at him. He stirred a little when the SWAT commander threw his blankets and pillows to the floor, searching for concealed weapons. He had none. He opened his eyes. Mumbled something that sounded like What? and then went back to sleep, curling up