Grand Jury [antikvár]

Each book I write is a new lesson in the generosity not just of people I already know and value, but also of some I have never met before.Once again, Dan Castleman gave unstintingly of his time and expertise, turning many a lunch hour into an odyssey through the real-life world of law enforcement.Also remarkably helpful were Linda Imes, Margaret Chan, Chan Wing Kee and that most stalwart of stalwarts, Mary Corrarino.Kenneth Vianale and Kin Ng and Melinda Parsons each got me started down a path I would otherwise never have trod, as did Katharine Muir.And my progress was fostered in many ways by Dan Kleinman and David Erickson, and by Betsy Elias, Judy Mintz and Margit Anderegg.To them all, and to everyone else who helped (many of whom are mentioned in the concluding Author's Note), my deep and abiding gratitude.They wait in the darkened apartment-house corridor, a half dozen men wearing blue NYPD windbreakers over their bulletproof vests, guns out arul ready, breathing kitchen smells none of them grew up with, listening to the singsong of an iruieci-pherable language from the floors below."Police!" one yells, pounding on the door. "Open up!"No response."Police!" he yells again. Nothing.The battering ram splinters the door, buckles it inward. The first two rush into a narrow entrance hall darker than the corridor, pistol and shotgun trained on the rectangle of dim light at the hall's end. Ai they move warily toward the open door and whatever lies beyorui, another pair comes in behind them.Their view through the doorway is blocked by a screen of angled panels, ancient black wood adorned with a vista of jagged mountains and twisted trees. Along the edges of the panels crawls a carved wooden serpent with the head of a dragon.They bring in the battering ram and bowl it along the floor ahead of them. It slams the panels flat.In its wake. Detective Mick Pullone scoots through the doorway, crouching, shouting, "Police! Freeze!" eyes and shotgun sweeping the room, seeing no detail but scanning for movement, a sign of anything living, human, a threat.He ducks his head back out into the entrance hall. "Okay," he says and his partner joins him, followed again by the sec-orui pair. Behind them, the cops who wielded the battering ram secure the entrance and cover the others' backs as they move on into the apartment.Pullone, in the lead running the hallway toward the bedrooms, sees motion. "Freeze! Police! On the floor! Now!"The man is rooted to the spot, his body quivering. His hands are empty.The detective leaps forward, gun up and to the side so his shoulder crashes into the man before he can react. The impact propels the much shorter, lighter man sideways arul down, stumbling over his own feet. Immediately, Pullone is straddling him, automatic pistol parting the hairs on the back of the man's neck, pushing hard as the man presses his face against the floor, desperate to escape the cold metal of the gun muzzle digging into the base of his skull.