Four months ago, I’d had a guy in the sights of my gun. A killer who’d taken out a dozen innocents. I’d pulled the trigger and missed him. Then missed again. If my partner hadn’t been there, I’d be dead now. Hence her question.

I dodged around thick rows of sugar maple, the silver gray bark of the trees five or six feet from each other. Above me, their green and brown flowers hung in clusters.

In the world of policing against an active shooter, there’s pre-1999 and post.

Before the ’99 shooting at Columbine, the response to shooters at schools was always the same. Talk the gunman down. Call in SWAT. And wait.

Post-Columbine, all the rules changed. Go in hard and fast. And if need be, kill the shooter before he can hurt any kids.

But when a gunman takes hostages, all bets are off and patience is needed. Prayer doesn’t hurt either.

I felt sweat building up under the Kevlar, and my walkie chirped. I pressed the button two times to signal Remy that I was all right.

“We just heard something from the media,” Remy’s voice squawked.

As I glanced back, I saw our SWAT van pulling in beside the E-Z UP. “What’ve you got?” I asked into the walkie, slowing to a stop and breathing heavy.

“A student talked to CNN. Apparently he saw the car the gunman came out of. A reporter ran the plates.”

Jesus, I thought. We’re already playing catch-up to the media?

“The gunman’s name is Jed Harrington,” Remy said. “He’s thirty-six. A local.”

I glanced through branches of wood fern at the parking lot, now far in the distance. In the last four minutes, two other media vans had pulled in, farther away from the school, behind the E-Z UP.

A CNN reporter stood in front of a camera, and I could see cars backing up onto the highway. More parents arriving. Panic setting in.

“Did someone pull his jacket?” I asked. “Any history of violence?”

“He’s got no record, P.T.,” Remy said. “Stay tuned, and I’ll find out more.”

Re-clipping the walkie, I hustled for another hundred yards. The forest curved to my left, bending around the shape of the school.

I thought of Avis Senza, who I’d chatted with three or four times at the precinct. A good kid and the only child of my boss. I knew from personal experience what losing a child could do to a man. The hole that Senza might fall into.

I found the small maintenance shed and moved around the back side. Scrambled up onto an air-conditioning unit.

Our SWAT team had a guy named Pierce who’d trained in talking to hostage-takers. If I could be Pierce’s eyes, maybe we could end this standoff with no loss of life.

From atop the AC, I pulled myself onto the roof and scooched my six-foot-two-inch frame to the edge, my stomach flat against the surface. Trees from the forest hung overhead, and branches caught my tufty brown hair and scraped along my back.