A team of eight of us would go into the sixth-floor apartment to take down Mitchell Brand. Eight was more than enough; there's only safety in numbers up to a point.

As the team checked weapons and put on Kevlars, I stared out on to the streets. Sodium-vapor streetlights created a yellow fuzziness down below. What a bad scene. Even with this much police presence in the neighborhood, the drug game continued. Nothing could stop it. I watched a brazen team of lookouts and steerers selling crack on the far corner, beyond the projects. An addict approached, quick-stepping, his head down. A local fool is a familiar sight to me. I turned away from the drug deal as if it weren't happening.

I began to talk to the team," Mitchell Brand is wanted for questioning in the robbery of a First Union in Falls Church. He could definitely be our link to whoever is behind the robberies. This is the best suspect we've come up with so far. He could be the Mastermind.

"As best we can tell, Brand is up in the girlfriend's apartment. She's a new honey for him. Detective Sampson will pass around a standard layout for a one-bedroom in the building. You should know that inside the one-bedroom we may find Brand, his girlfriend, and her three children aged two to six."

I turned to Agent Walsh. Two of his agents were part of the go team. He had nothing to add, but he told his men, "The Washington police will act as the primary at the apartment. We will be backup in the hallway and going into the girlfriend's apartment. That's about it," he said.

"Okay, let's move out," I said to everybody. "Everybody use extreme care. Everything we know about Brand says he's dangerous and will be heavily armed."

"He was Special Forces, army," John Sampson added. "How's that for whipped cream on shit?"

Chapter Seventy

Armed and dangerous it is a common enough catch-phrase, but with real meaning to police officers.

We entered Building Three single-file through the dingy, under-lit basement, then we hurriedly marched up several flights of stairs to the sixth floor. The stairway was dirty and stained the color of bad teeth. There was evidence there might have been a serious fire in there at one time. Soot was caked heavily on the walls, the floor, and even the metal banister. Could the Mastermind be hiding up here? Was he a black man? That seemed unthinkable to the FBI. Why?

Suddenly, we surprised a pair of pathetic, bone-thin crack heads lighting up on the fourth-floor stairwell. We had our guns out and they stared at us bug-eyed, afraid to be there, afraid to move.

"We didn't do nothin' to nobody," one of the men finally said in a scratchy gargle. He looked well past forty, but was probably only in his twenties.

"As you were,” I said in a low voice. I sternly pointed a finger at them. "Not even a whisper."

The paranoid junkies must have thought that we were coming for them. The two crack heads couldn't believe it when we hurried right past them. I heard Sampson say," Get the fuck out of here. It's your last lucky day."

I could hear infants crying and small children shouting, the babble of several TV sets, and jazz and hip-hop and salsa music leaking through the thin walls. My stomach was knotted up. Moving in on Brand in a crowded building was a very bad deal, but everybody wanted results now. Brand was an excellent suspect.

Sampson lightly touched my shoulder. "I'll go in with Rakeem," he said "You follow, sugar. Don't argue with me."

I frowned but nodded. Sampson and Rakeem Powell were the best marksmen we had. They were careful and smart and experienced, but this was a tough, scary bust. Armed and dangerous. Anything could happen now.

I turned to a detective who held a heavy metal ram with two hands. It looked like a small, blunt missile. Take the door right the hell down, Officer. I'm not asking you to knock first."

I looked back at the lineup of tense and anxious men behind me. I held up one fist. "We're going on four," I said.

I gestured with my fingers one two three!

The battering ram hit the door with all the shattering force of a professional NFL blocking fullback. The door locks blew right off. We were inside. Sampson and Powell were a step ahead of me. No shots had been fired yet.

"Mom-mee!" One of the small children screeched an alarm. I had an instant of fear about the families that had been hurt already because of the Mastermind. We didn't need any blood to flow here.

Armed and dangerous.

Two kids were watching South Park on TV. Where was Mitchell Brand? And where was the kids' mother, Theresa Lopez? Maybe they weren't even home. Sometimes kids got left alone in apartments for days.

The bedroom door in front of us was closed. Music was playing somewhere in the apartment. If Mitchell Brand was here tonight, he wasn't too security conscious. That didn't track very well for me. I didn't like anything about this so far.

I yanked open the bedroom door and peered inside. My heart was thundering. I was in a crouched shooting stance. A third small child was playing with a teddy bear on the floor," Blue Bear," she told me.

"Blue bear," I whispered.

I stepped back fast into the hallway. I saw Sampson kick another door open. The apartment layout we'd been given was wrong! This was a two-bedroom apartment.

Suddenly, Mitchell Brand came out into the hallway. He was dragging along Theresa Lopez. He had a .45 caliber handgun pressed up against her forehead. She was a pretty, light-brown-skinned woman, shaking badly. Both Brand and Lopez were naked except for gold chains around his thick neck, wrists, and left ankle.

"Put down the gun, Brand,” I shouted above the din in the apartment. "You're not going anywhere. You can't get out of here. You're smart enough to know that. Put down the gun."

"Just get out of my way! "he shouted. 'I'm smart enough to put a hole in your face first."

I stood my ground in front of Brand. Sampson and Rakeem Powell came up on either side. "The First Union Bank job in Falls Church. If you're not involved, you've got no problem," I said, lowering my voice some. "Put down the gun."

Brand yelled again. "I didn't rob the First Union Bank! I was in New York City that whole week! I was at a weedin', Theresa's sister. Somebody set me up. Somebody did this to me!"

Theresa Lopez was starting to sob uncontrollably. Her children were crying and calling out for their mother. Detectives and FBI agents held them back, kept them safe.

"He was at my sister's wedding! "Theresa Lopez screamed at me. Her eyes were pleading. "He was at a wedding!"

"Mommee! Mommee!" the kids cried.