The Killing Hour Read Online Free

Breathe!
    They needed to regain control of the situation. She couldn’t get the damn rounds into the magazine. Breathe, breathe, breathe. Hold it together. A movement caught the corner of her eye. The car. The black sedan, doors still open, was now rolling forward.
    She grabbed her radio, dropped it, grabbed it again, and yelled, “Get the wheels, get the wheels.”
    Squire and Lehane either heard her or got it on their own, because the next round of gunfire splattered the pavement and the sedan came to an awkward halt just one foot from Kimberly’s car. She looked up. Caught the startled gaze of the man in the driver’s seat. He bolted from the vehicle. She leapt out from behind her car door after him.
    And a moment later, pain, brilliant and hot pink, exploded across her lower spine.
    New Agent Kimberly Quincy went down. She did not get up again.
             
    “Well, that was an exercise in stupidity,” FBI supervisor Mark Watson exclaimed fifteen minutes later. The vehicle-stop drill was over. The five new agents had returned, paint-splattered, overheated, and technically half-dead to the gathering site on Hogan’s Alley. They now had the honor of being thoroughly dressed down in front of their thirty-eight fellow classmates. “First mistake, anyone?”
    “Alissa didn’t get her seat belt off.”
    “Yeah. She unfastened the clasp, but didn’t pull it back. Then when it came time for action . . .”
    Alissa hung her head. “I got a little tangled, went to undo it—”
    “Popped up and got shot in the shoulder. That’s why we practice. Problem number two?”
    “Kimberly didn’t back up her partner.”
    Watson’s eyes lit up. A former Denver cop before joining the Bureau ten years ago, this was one of his favorite topics. “Yes, Kimberly and her partner. Let’s discuss that. Kimberly, why didn’t
you
notice that Alissa hadn’t undone her seat belt?”
    “I did!” Kimberly protested. “But then the car, and the guns . . . It all happened so fast.”
    “Yes, it all happened so fast. Epitaph of the dead and untrained. Look—being aware of the suspect is good. Being conscious of your role is good. But you also have to be aware of what’s right beside you. Your partner overlooked something. That’s her mistake. But you didn’t catch it for her, and that was
your
mistake. Then she got hit, now you’re down a man, and that mistake is getting bigger all the time. Plus, what were you doing just leaving her there on the pavement?”
    “Lehane was yelling for rifle support—”
    “You left a fellow agent exposed! If she wasn’t already dead, she certainly was after that! You couldn’t drag her back into the car?”
    Kimberly opened her mouth. Shut her mouth. Wished bitterly, selfishly, that Alissa could’ve taken care of herself for a change, then gave up the argument once and for all.
    “Third mistake,” Watson demanded crisply.
    “They never controlled the car,” another classmate offered up.
    “Exactly. You stopped the suspect’s car, but never controlled it.” His gaze went to Lehane. “When things first went wrong, what should you have done?”
    Lehane visibly squirmed. He fingered the collar of his brown leisure suit, cut two sizes too big and now bearing hot-pink and mustard-yellow paint on the left shoulder. The paint guns used by the actors in the drills—aka the bad guys—stained everything in sight, hence their Salvation Army wardrobe. The exploding shells also hurt like the dickens, which was why Lehane was holding his left arm protectively against his ribs. For the record, the FBI Academy trainees weren’t allowed paint guns but used their real weapons loaded with blanks. The official explanation was that their instructors wanted the trainees to get a feel for their firearms. Likewise, they all wore vests to get used to the weight of body armor. That all sounded well and good, but why not have the actors shoot blanks as well?
    The students had their theories. The