Wallace, thinking in panic: Oh, Christ, it’s a sting. . . . All a setup.

“Now!” Sachs shouted again.

Henson muttered, “Shit.” He did as he was told.

Wallace continued to grip Sachs’s Glock. He looked down at it.

Her eyes on Henson, Sachs turned slightly toward Wallace. “That piece you’re holding’s unloaded. You’d die for no reason.”

Disgusted, he dropped the gun on the table, held his hands up.

Mystified, Inspector Flaherty was scooting back in her chair, standing up.

Sachs said into her lapel, “Entry teams, go.”

The front door crashed open and a half dozen cops pushed inside—ESU officers. Following them were Deputy Inspector Halston Jefferies and the head of Internal Affairs Division, Captain Ron Scott. A young blond patrolman entered too.

The ESU officers muscled Wallace to the floor. He felt the pain in his hip and joints. Henson was cuffed as well. The deputy mayor looked outside and saw the two other officers from the One One Eight, the ones who’d been standing guard in front. They were lying on the cold sidewalk, in restraints.

“Hell of a way to find out,” Amelia Sachs said to no one as she reloaded her own Glock and slipped it back in her holster. “But it sure answers our question.”

The query she’d referred to wasn’t about Robert Wallace’s guilt—they’d learned beforehand that he was one of Baker’s partners; it was about whether Marilyn Flaherty had been involved too.

They’d set up the whole thing to find out, as well as get a taped admission from Wallace.

Lon Sellitto, Ron Scott and Halston Jefferies had established a command post in a van up the street and hidden the ESU sniper in the back room to make sure Wallace and the cop with him didn’t start shooting before Sachs had a chance to tape the conversation. Pulaski was supposed to take the front door with one team, and another one would take the back. But at the last minute they learned that Wallace had other officers with him, cops from the 118, who might or might not be crooked, so they’d had to change plans a bit.

Pulaski, in fact, nearly walked right into Wallace’s cops outside the storefront and ruined the whole thing.

The rookie said, “Inspector Jefferies pulled me into the command van just before those guys outside saw me.”

Jefferies snapped, “Walking down the street like a Boy Scout on a fucking hike. You want to stay alive on the streets, kid, keep your goddamn eyes open.” The inspector’s rage seemed tame in comparison with yesterday’s tantrum, Sachs noted. At least he wasn’t spitting.

“Yessir. I’ll be more careful in the future, sir.”

“Jesus Christ, they let anybody into the academy these days.”

Sachs tried to repress a smile. She turned to Flaherty. “Sorry, Inspector. We just had to make sure you weren’t a player.” She explained her suspicions and the clues that had led her to believe that the inspector might’ve been working with Baker.