Time to Live: Part Five Read Online Free PDF Page B

decided not to wait. The kid’s story got to him.
    He drove without his lights or siren. No sense upsetting people before it was necessary. He wanted to look around, get the lay of the land, so that when the cavalry did arrive, he’d have some good intel for them. He was nearly on the scene when he heard his radio call sign on the air: “Control to Trooper one two zero.”
    “One two zero.”
    “One two zero, be advised that we’ve received a call from number fifteen Seventh Road, claiming to be a man with two hostages. He says that if he sees any sign of a police officer, he’s going to start shooting.”
    Matt felt his stomach muscles tighten. The stakes had just gone up a thousand percent. “One two zero’s direct. I’m requesting a tac frequency for this incident.” This was going to be a long operation, and unless they obtained a secondary radio channel for tactical operations, there would be so much chatter that no one would know what the hell was going on.
    “Ten-four, one two zero, stand by.”
    Clearly, the perp was trying to establish himself as the party in control. Big mistake. Hostage-takers never gained control. What they never seemed to understand was no matter how long negotiations dragged on, there was only one hard and fast reality: that bad guys left the fight either in handcuffs or in body bags. There was no third option. You worked like hell to save the hostages, and you prayed that they’d get a new lease on life, but at the end of the day losing a current hostage was the preferred outcome over allowing the bad guys to snare another one.
    Matt pulled his cruiser to a stop on the far side of the dune surrounding number seventeen, the house adjacent to Scotty’s, taking care to stay out of sight. This part of the state was the waterside equivalent of hillbilly country. Years ago, the people who settled out here mostly made their livings as fishermen. More recently, as fishing became more difficult, the area had become a haven for people who enjoyed solitude for any number of reasons, both legal and ill. Despite having whiled away a few good summers down here, Matt couldn’t imagine what attraction it held for the residents.
    Daily hardships and inconveniences did instill a certain independence in people, which in turn bred intolerance for most laws that told people what they could and couldn’t do in the privacy of their homes. Or stills. Or cannabis crops.
    Over the past decade, thanks to raids by the FBI, DEA, and ATF, law enforcement agencies had ceded the public relations battle to the bad guys. When a badge showed up around these parts, blood pressures skyrocketed.
    As Matt closed and locked his door to begin the fifty-yard trek to the dune that concealed number fifteen, he considered bringing the shotgun that stood sentry in its bracket in the front seat, or the Remington 700 .30-06 rifle that he kept in the trunk, but opted against both of them. Those were tactical weapons, and he had no intention of storming the place yet. For now, he just wanted to take a look around.
    He also wanted to stay out of sight. Trenches in the sand doubled as a driveway, marking the route to the front. After a hard turn, they disappeared behind the dune. To round that corner would be to step out into the only firing lane that the perps could readily see.
    Instead, Matt chose to climb the near side of the dune to get an elevated view of the property. What he saw made him smile. The shingle and tar paper shack with its steel security bars sat in the middle of two sheltering dunes that ran roughly north and south on the east and west sides of the building. Without the dunes, the tiny home would no doubt have floated away or been blown down over the years. Ironically, the same dunes that protected the property presented a huge tactical disadvantage to the people inside. They were the low point in the center of nothing but high ground, with only one avenue of escape—through that break in the dune on the