Evacuating the sunken patio outside the basement apartment devolved into utter chaos for the ERT unit. The three men who’d been hit by flame were not seriously injured, but they did not know this yet. More than anything they were disoriented by the incredible light and heat that had encircled them moments before. The fact that the stairs to the driveway were right in front of the apartment door and therefore still involved in the fire meant everyone had to climb up and over the wall around the patio and onto the driveway, and this was hampered by the three injured men who needed to be helped out, as well as the difficulty in keeping rifles high and at the ready in case the fire stopped and Jeff Duncan charged out of the little room with a weapon in his hand.

After nearly forty-five seconds, though, all eight ERT officers were up on the driveway and to the side of the unrelenting exhaust of flame, and four of them covered the extraction of the wounded men.

More police ran up the driveway to help with the evacuation.

By the time everyone was off of the Mayberry property and positioned in the street, behind the cover of a pair of armored ERT trucks, the glow from the patio had finally died down.

There was concern for a moment as to whether the home itself might have caught fire, but when no evidence of either flame or smoke presented itself after five minutes, the ERT team leader called again into his microphone, “On me! We’re going back in!”

—

The second breach of the basement apartment went much better than the first. The apartment was empty; that was determined quickly, but only after they entered to find a rolling propane tank with a toy airsoft gun mounted on top of it. A triggering mechanism with an electric lighter and a length of bungee cord completed the improvised automatic flamethrower.

The plastic gun had melted into the top of the tank, but the booby trap had proved effective in delaying entry. The propane expelled was primarily vapor, but the compressed gas in the airsoft gun had propelled it outward. The ERT leader couldn’t figure out how the suspect could have left the apartment after having set the trap, but he didn’t spend too much time thinking about it.

Instead he said, “He’s not here. Let’s clear upstairs.”

—

Two teams of eight men each hit the house. Alpha came through the front door and Bravo came through the back near the kitchen.