Manning hauls the tiller into his belly. Our AV slews to a stop. Manning leaps out, twelve-gauge in hand, sprinting for the Hi-Top’s driver’s door. I dash toward the opposite flank.

On both sides of the crashed vehicle, precinct cruisers are skidding in. Uniformed officers, all with weapons drawn, race toward the nose-crumpled, smoking van.

MANNING

Hold fire! Hold fire!

Manning reaches the Hi-Top first, moving from the rear in a low crouch along the vehicle’s flank. I’m approaching from the front, head-on to the windshield—left palm heel under the butt of the P226, right forefinger on the trigger, all safeties off, advancing one step at a time at ninety degrees to Manning so we don’t wind up shooting each other, with my muzzle extended in front of me and my eyeline over the front sight. I can smell the van’s airbag—the nitrogen from the explosive charge and the talc from the sack itself.

Manning is shouting, “NYPD!” and ordering the woman to extend both hands, empty, out the driver’s-side window. Her airbag’s white lacerated shell drapes, limp and steaming, over the steering wheel and half of the dash. The woman herself sprawls facedown and motionless atop the deflated cocoon. I have two seconds to glimpse her through the windshield amid the reflection of the flashing red and yellow lights of the police and emergency vehicles surrounding the crash site; then Manning’s left arm jerks the driver’s door open hard. The woman pitches, head and shoulders foremost, out under the flashing lights.

Manning catches her before her skull hits the pavement. Is she dead? Manning cradles the woman with one hand behind her neck. Immediately two uniformed officers reinforce him and take the bulk of the female’s weight into their arms. Manning checks her swiftly for weapons. One of the officers aims a tac light into the woman’s eyes. She groans and tries to turn away.

Manning waves the other officers to stay back. His immediate priority, after securing the fugitive, is to clear the vehicle of any possible accomplice or booby trap that might turn us all into smoking body parts. From my position in the glare of the van’s headlights I can achieve only the shallowest view-angle on the woman. Her face is bruised and blackened; both eyes are contused and shut. Her left arm is twisted at an unnatural angle. With one hand Manning snuffs the smoldering fabric of her collar, apparently set alight by the airbag detonation. He hands the woman into the care of the two officers and motions to me to follow him. I skim in his wake along the van’s flank toward the right sliding door that leads into the living compartment.

Manning takes a position aft of the door. I’m covering him from a half crouch, directly flanking the van. Two uniformed officers from the Six-Eight back him from the rear.

One, two . . .