The first police lights were visible, blue and red cutting through the rain, rising up the face of the building from the street level below, and the radio voices were louder now, organized and purposeful, and moving toward them. Darius kept his position until boots were on the floor and voices were in the corridor and someone was knocking on the records room door with the specific authority of people whose job it was to make bad situations stop. He looked at Victoria one last time before the room filled with other people. She was already looking at him. Thank you, she said.
You already said that, he said on floor 14. I know, she said. I'm saying it again. He nodded. The door opened and the room filled with light.
The first officer through the door was a woman, maybe 30, with the kind of eyes that took in a room in one sweep and filed everything before she said a single word. She looked at Web, looked at Daryus's forearm across his shoulders, looked at Victoria, standing barefoot with a dead phone in one hand and a live one in the other. Looked at the ceiling tile that was sitting slightly crooked above the desk. She didn't ask any of the obvious questions. Is anyone injured?
She said. No, Darius said. Is this man a threat? He was. He's cooperating now.
She nodded. And two officers behind her moved forward and Darius stepped back and let them take web. And the handoff happened cleanly, professionally. The these things happen when everyone in the room has decided that the the fighting part is finished. Webb went with them without resistance.
At the door, he stopped and looked back at Victoria. "I'm sorry," he said. Victoria looked at him for a long moment. "I know," she said. "And she meant it. " Darius could hear that she meant it.
That it wasn't forgiveness and wasn't absolution, but was the simple acknowledgement of a truth. "The way a person accepts that something is real before they decide what to do with it. " "We left the officer her name tag," said Rius. Turned to Victoria. "Miss Hayes, we have units securing the building floor by floor. Do you have information on other individuals we should be looking for? " "One," Victoria said.
Ethan Caldwell, "He's my CO and he coordinated everything tonight from outside the building. " "I have his last known location," she looked at Web's phone in her hand. "This phone has a call log. The last number is Caldwell's cell. He was in contact with this man until approximately 15 minutes ago. Reyes took the phone with a gloved hand and bagged it.
We'll need statements from both of you. She said there's a command post being set up on floor 2. The flooding has receded enough on the south side that we have access. Can you both walk? Yes, Victoria said.