I barely slept that night, and in the morning Rich and I went to the judge’s chambers with 7th Heaven, the crime scene photos of the Malones, the Meachams, and the Jablonskys, and the morgue photos of the Chus. I brought Connor Campion’s statement that the boys who’d come to his house with a gun and fishing line had said their names were Hawk and Pidge, and I showed the judge their yearbook photos, captioned with their real names.
By ten a.m. we had signed warrants and all the manpower we’d need.
Chapter 114
STANFORD UNIVERSITY, an A-list university for the best and brightest, is located 33.5 miles south of San Francisco, just off Highway 280, near Palo Alto.
Hans Vetter, AKA Pidge, spent his days in the video lab of the Gates Computer Science Building, a pale five-story, L-shaped building with a tiled roof and a rounded bulge at the entranceway. The labs and research offices were clustered around three major classrooms, and the building itself was isolated on an island of its own, separated from other school buildings by service roads.
Conklin and I had gone over the floor plans of the Gates Building with the U.S. marshals, who were coordinating with campus security. With windows on all sides of the building, the law enforcement team would be seen by anyone sitting near a window.
We parked our vehicles out of sight on the curve of a service road and moved in on foot. Conklin and I wore Kevlar under our SFPD jackets and had our guns drawn, but we were taking direction from U.S. marshals.
Adrenaline surged through me as we were given the signal to go. While others stood by side entrances, twelve of us charged up the front steps and entered the high-ceilinged lobby, then went to the stairwells and landings.
Pairs of marshals peeled off as we took each floor, clearing the open spaces, locking classrooms down.
My thoughts raced ahead.
I was worried that we were too loud, that we’d already been seen, and that if Vetter had smuggled a weapon past the metal detectors, he could take his classmates hostage before we could bring him down. Conklin and I reached the top-floor landing and marshals took up stances on both sides of the doorway to the video lab. Conklin peered through the sidelight of the door, then turned the knob, swung the door wide open.
Backed by Conklin and the U.S. marshals armed with automatic rifles, I stepped through the doorway and bellowed, “FREEZE. Everyone stay still and no one will get hurt.”
A female student screamed, then the room erupted into chaos. Kids bolted from their stools and hid under workstations. Cameras and computers crashed to the floor. Glass shattered.
Kaleidoscopic images spun around me, and shrieks of terror ricocheted off the walls. The situation went from bad to out of control. I kept scanning the room, trying to pick out a stocky boy with long brown hair, square jaw, the eyes of a killer – but I didn’t see him.
Where was Hans Vetter?
Where was he?
Chapter 115
THE LAB INSTRUCTOR stood transfixed at the front of the room, his blanched face going livid as shock turned to outrage. He was in his thirties, balding, wearing a green cardigan and what looked like bedroom slippers under the cuffs of his trousers. He shoved his hands out in front of himself as if to push us out of his classroom. He announced his name – Dr. Neal Weinstein – and demanded, “What the hell? What the hell is this?”
If it weren’t so damned terrifying, it would’ve been almost funny to watch Weinstein, armed with only his flapping hands and his PhD, face down adrenaline-pumped federal law enforcement officers primed to blow the place apart.
“I have a warrant for the arrest of Hans Vetter,” I said, holding both the warrant and my gun in front of me.
Weinstein shouted, “Hans isn’t here.”
A white female student with black dreads, a ring in her lower lip, peeked out from behind an overturned table. “I spoke to Hans this morning,” she said. “He told me he was going away.”
“You saw him this morning?” I asked.
“I talked to him on his cell.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
She shook her head. “He only told me because I wanted to borrow his car.”
I left marshals behind to interview Weinstein and his students, but as Conklin and I left the building, I felt terra firma shimmy beneath my feet.
Hawk’s death last night had sent Pidge underground.
He could be anywhere in the world by now.
In the parking lot across from the Gates Building, some kids were clinging together in clumps, others dazed and wandering. Still others were laughing at the unexpected excitement. News choppers circled overhead, reporting to the world on an incident that was a total disaster.
I called Jacobi, covered one ear, and summed up the situation. I didn’t want him to know how scared I was that we’d blown it and that Vetter was still out there. I tried to keep my voice even, but there was no fooling Jacobi.
I heard him breathing in my ear as he took it all in.
Then he said, “So, what you’re saying, Boxer, is that Pidge has flown the coop.”
Chapter 116
THE SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT and their SWAT team rolled up alongside our squad car as we braked on a crisp, well-shorn lawn. In front of us was a three-story colonial-style house only a couple of miles from the Stanford campus. The detailing on the house was authentic to the period, and the neighborhood was first class. The mailbox was marked VETTER.
And Hans Vetter’s car was in the driveway.
Walkie-talkies chattered around us, and radio channels were cleared. Perimeters were set up, and SWAT got into position. Conklin and I got out of our car. I said, “Everything about this place reminds me of the homes Hawk and Pidge burned to the ground.”
Using a car door as body armor, Conklin called out to Hans Vetter with a bullhorn. “Vetter. You can’t get away, buddy. Come out, hands on your head. Let’s end this peacefully.”
I saw movement through the second-story windows. It was Vetter, moving from room to room. He seemed to be shouting to someone inside, but we couldn’t make out his words.
“Who’s he talking to?” Conklin asked me over the roof of the squad car.
“Has to be his mother, goddamn it. She’s gotta be inside.”
A TV went on in the house and was turned up loud. I could hear the announcer’s voice. He was describing the scene we were living. The announcer said, “A tactical maneuver that began two hours ago at Stanford University has changed location and is centered in the upscale community of Mountain View, a street called Mill Lane -”
“Vetter? Can you hear me?” Rich’s voice boomed out through the bullhorn.
Sweat rolled down my sides. The last pages in 7th Heaven depicted a shootout with cops. I recalled the images: bloody bodies on the ground, Pidge and Hawk getting away. They had shielded themselves with a hostage.
Conklin and I conferred with the SWAT captain, a sandy-haired pro and former U.S. Marine named Pete Bailey, and we worked out a plan. Conklin and I moved quickly to the Vetter house and flanked the front door, prepared to grab Vetter when he opened it. SWAT was positioned to take the kid out if anything went wrong.
As I neared the house, I caught a whiff of smoke.
“Is that fire?” I asked Rich. “Do you smell it?”
“Yeah. Is that stupid fuck burning his house down?”
I could still hear the sound of the TV inside the Vetter house. The news announcer was getting a feed from the chopper overhead and was keeping up with the action on the ground. It made sense that Vetter was watching the television coverage. And if Rich and I were in the camera’s-eye view, Vetter knew where Conklin and I were standing.