Free Spectrum (The Karen Vail Series) by Alan Jacobson Page A

lowered her torso to the floor and waited for the gun to fire. She didn’t believe they would just let her go. She was a witness. Then again, there were now several other cops who could identify them, so killing her served no purpose.
    Thank-you, God.
    Jackson pulled the pin from the grenade and tossed it down the hallway. The tiny piece of metal tinkled slightly as it bounced—and then disappeared.
    Crap.
    Jackson backed away with Russo in tow.
    “Release your hostage,” the officer said. “We’ll give you a way out, a car—”
    “Soon as we free,” Jackson said, “soon as we free. Then we talk.”
    They’re not gonna release him. He’s their ticket out of here. And once they get away, who knows where they’ll go—or what they’ll do . Maybe even shoot him. Just like they did with Costello and Shaunessy—who have to be long dead by now.
    As they backed away toward the opposite end of the hallway, keeping an eye on the ESU officers, Vail scooted left on her stomach. She stretched out her arm and palmed the spent M16 machine gun.
    When Jackson and McGrady turned in the other direction, she got to her knees and hurled the weapon at them. It struck McGrady’s feet and he stumbled. Jackson turned, his face crumpled in anger, and brought his handgun toward her.
    Two shots exploded in the hallway.
    McGrady dropped to his knees, a bullet hole in his forehead. Another shot struck Jackson in the face and he went down as well.
    Vail ran toward the grenade, which had dropped on the hard flooring and bounced knee-high. She snatched it up and in one motion tossed it backhanded down the nearby corridor.
    It careened down the narrow hallway—one bounce, two bounces, three, four—and then exploded.
    THE CONCUSSIVE FORCE shook the floor and knocked Vail to the ground. Shrapnel flew toward her, whizzing by her face, shattering glass, and sending small projectiles through the air. A piece of hot metal lodged in Vail’s thigh.
    The burn eluded her for a second, and then the intense pain set in. ESU officers flew past her, kicking away the weapons from the reach of the downed men. Another two helped Russo to his feet.
    Vail rolled to her side, tried to push herself erect, and then gave up. Finally a man clad in a tactical uniform helped her stand and led her down the hall before getting called away by his commanding officer to clear the adjacent rooms.
    Outside, across the street, Vail saw an ambulance idling at the curb, its colored lights swirling.
    “Vail!”
    Her hearing was muffled, especially in her right ear, but she made out her name. She turned and saw Russo seated on the rig’s rear bumper. Vail limped over and winced as she lowered herself beside him. One paramedic was taking vitals while another tended to his bullet wound.
    “Your sister really work for INS?” Russo asked.
    Vail flinched again when she twisted her leg to check out her thigh. “Nope. Don’t have a sister.”
    Russo chuckled. “You did good. I’m impressed. And I owe you.”
    Vail did not know what to do with that, so she simply said, “Thanks, sir—I mean, Russo.”
    “I’m serious. You showed me a lot in there. You’re gonna make a great cop. You can think on your feet, you can think outside the box. That’s an important trait we don’t see a lot of in rookies, especially not one on her second day on the job. You’ve got balls.”
    Vail lifted her brow.
    “You know what I mean.”
    “I appreciate that.” Vail winced as a medic probed the foreign object in her thigh.
    “I’d go through a door with you any day, Karen.”
    “Go through a door?”
    Russo winked. “Give yourself some time on the job. You’ll understand.”

9
    >ASTORIA, QUEENS
    Friday, February 23, 1973
    Basil emptied his First Astoria savings account and walked to the home of Gregor and Alysia Persephone. Livana met him with the kids a few paces from the front door. They exchanged a long look.
    “Why’d you come?” Basil asked as Cassandra took his