The End of the Dream (35 page)

call.” And help had come pouring in from all over Seattle. The SWAT team, on duty or off in uniform or not, had raced to the scene. There were 165 law enforcement units in the area or on their way. The firefight was over at least for the moment. Two of the suspects were down, and one had escaped. No one had any assurance that the third man wasn’t out there with a semiautomatic weapon. They didn’t even know yet who the third man was. Mike knew he needed to set up containment of the area. They would place patrol cars and K-9 officers and their dog-partners around the perimeter of a ten block area. Magan asked for Guardian One to bring the King County Police helicopter into the area of NE Seventy-seventh and Twentieth Avenue NE so that they could search for the third suspect from the air. It was perhaps most important to keep the van itself inviolate. The key was still in the ignition and the headlights were on. And there it was, a blue nylon duffel bag stuffed with money. There were scattered bills and the torn paper bindings that had held them on the carpet of the van, most of them stained now with blood. “I don’t know why, “ Magan recalled, “but I thought there was only a couple of thousand dollars there. However much it was, I knew that there would be people crawling all over the place in a minute, and that it had to be guarded so that nothing inside was touched.” He strung yellow crime scene tape around the van.

There was a plastic bag with two bottles of mineral spirits inside, another with a damp washcloth, and grotesque-looking pieces of what looked like real flesh, but, on closer inspection, were only a fake nose with a mustache attached and a false chin. After so long, and so many disappointments and frustrations, it was all there in front of Mike Magan. This had to be Hollywood’s van. He looked at the back of the van and saw eight bullet holes in the left door. His shots. The van’s right rear window was shattered, but the force appeared to have come from the inside. Magan was hyper alert now.

He peered again into the back of the white van. He saw the . 308 caliber hi assault rifle that had been aimed at him only minutes beft was on the front passenger seat, a semiautomatic shotgun was near an open guitar case on the floor behind the driver’s seat, a 9-mm semiautomatic pistol was on the floor near the back doors, its slide locked open, a clear plastic bag with a number of 9-mm rounds inside. Three portable Motorola radios and a police scanner were also on the floor. Any one of themellen, Pete, Basley, Casey, Mike himself, or Mahaffey and Gerry could have been killed. Easily. One of the paramedics looked closely at Mike, evaluating his state of mind.

“Do you want to talk about it? “ she asked. He didn’t. “I snuck away for a couple of minutes, “ he said. “I checked my clothes for bullet holes, and I didn’t find any but then I started feeling my arms and legs to see if I’d been shot. It just seemed to me that some of those bullets had to have hit me.” Miraculously, he had no wounds.

But he knew he was going to lose his job. He turned to Ellen Glasser and Don Glasserwho had shown up at the scene and said, “Well, that’s it. I’m fired on Monday.” They looked at him stunned. “You’re not going to be fired, “ Ellen said. “You did a good job. You did exactly what you were supposed to do.” Mike shook his head. “I killed one guy. The other one wants me to kill him. Another guy’s loose out there someplace. No, I’ll be fired on Monday, all right.” He meant it. He knew he would be accountable for every round he had fired. And it had all happened so fast.
 
People kept asking him what he was feeling, and he recalled later that, “I was feeling pissed that I had caused all this mess.” Mike watched the paramedics working over the two wounded men, and hoped that they weren’t dead or dying. Ellen Glasser was beside him now, and so was Shawn Johnson. Shawn had materialized from somewhere on the other side of the blue van.

They watched the comatose man silently, his stomach was swollen, a sign that the blood in his body was pooling there. Mike realized that he was trembling, and he looked at Shawn and saw that he, too, seemed to be vibrating. Although it wouldn’t truly hit any of them until later, it is a well-respected axiom that the cop who has to shoot someone is wounded just as badly as those who take the bullets. It doesn’t matter that he may have had to shoot because his life and other lives were in danger, and it doesn’t matter that the wounded or dead are in the act of committing a felony, the aftermath of a shooting is emotionally shattering. At this point, no one could be sure whose bullets had struck the two suspects. Officers behind the van and in front of it had all fired. And all of them turned over their service weapons40 caliber Glocksto ballistics experts. Each officer on the scene had done everything right, they had two suspects in custody, and more than enough evidence to tie them to the Lake City robbery.

Still, Mike Magan knew that Hollywood himself was out there and still dangerous. Mike suddenly needed to talk to his wife, so he called Lisa at work on his cell phone. She wasn’t available, and he left a message for her that it was an emergency and she should page him. His phone rang almost immediately. This was 1990s technology, it would be hard to imagine an old-time gunfighter or even Elliot Ness calling home from a shootout. Lisa Magan is an incredible wife for a cop, level-headed and not given to excess emotion. But she had heard reports that something big was going down in the Northeast sector of Seattle. She was scared.
 
Now she heard Mike’s voice, and she knew he was alive.

“What’s going on?

“ she asked Mike. “I’ve been in a shooting.”

“Hollywood? “ Mike can’t remember if he nodded or said yes. “I’m watching a man die right in front of me, “ he said, his eyes steady on the paramedics and the unconscious man on the ground. “How do you feel?

“

“Lisa, I did what I had to.” Lisa told Mike that she would call his parents, and they hung up. Seattle Homicide Sergeant Dave Ritter arrived, and gave Mike one of the sharp looks he was becoming accustomed to. “You OK? “ Ritter asked. “I’m fine, but I don’t know about those guys, “ Mike said, pointing to the wounded suspects. Dave Ritter reached out and tapped Mike on the chest. “Where’s your vest?

“

“In the trunk of my car.” Ritter looked at the unmarked car near the van. “This your car? “

“Yeah.”

“I don’t see any bullet holes, “ Ritter said, grinning.

“You are one lucky SOB! “ Mike led Ritter over to the van and showed him the weaponry inside, explaining which had fired and which had jammed.
 
The homicide sergeant’s grin faded. It seemed a miracle that none of the police officers had been killed that they hadn’t even been wounded.
 
Chief Norm Stamper and Assistant Chief Harvey Ferguson arrived. For a very brief period, ten of the brass of the Seattle Police Department stood at the scene.

Every one seemed to be asking, “You OK? You OK? “ and the officers involved in the shooting kept nodding and saying they were. “Then we’ll leave you to do your job, “ Stamper said. “So far, you’re doing just fine.” Mike Magan felt better, but he still needed to be reassured that he had done the right thing. It was lucky that there was a lot to be done, and he felt better when he was moving. The rain beat down now like a tropical monsoononly colder and the SWAT team needed someplace to change into their uniforms. Mike found a homeowner nearby who offered his garage as a dressing room. Seattle Homicide detectives scoured the spots where gunfire had taken place, picking up casings and taking photographs. They checked out the bloody van and saw the virtual arsenal in the back, a Beretta shotgun (loaded with two rounds in the tube and one in the chamber), a military 308 assault rifle with its serial numbers ground off (loaded with one round in the chamber, but with the bolt open and jammed), a 36Ruger P89 9-mm pistol (its action locked back and an empty magazine still inserted), a Smith & Wesson 9mm pistol (loaded with one round in the chamber and a loaded magazine inserted).
 
There were almost sixty rounds of live ammunition for the automatic assault rifle in the back of the van. That kind of fire power could blow up a squad car’s engine, or blow a cop right out of his seat. But one gun was missing, the Glock that Hollywood always carried wasn’t there.

He was still out there and probably armed. He was on foot, and he had to be desperate to escape, there was liable to be another shootout. He had told both Steve and Mark that this would be his last bank robbery.

Had he meant it? Shawn Johnson had barely arrived home that Thanksgiving Eve when he got the call that Hollywood had hit the Lake City Sea first branch. He, too, had raced to the north end of Seattle through the pouring rain and throngs of preholiday traffic. On the way, he, too, had wondered if this was the night when he would be able to put a face to a name. Was he finally going to meet Hollywood?

While Mike Magan, Pete Erickson, and Shawn’s supervisor, Ellen Glasser, were pursuing the white Astrovan along NE Seventy-fifth, Shawn was north of them, heading toward the area where patrol cars were swarming.

He had arrived to find the van nosed into the rhododendron bush.

Seattle cops had two men on the ground, and Mike Magan was running up the hill with his shotgun at the ready.

It would take a while to sort out who was who. Don Glasser, Ellen’s husband, had been buying pizza for their four children when he heard over the FBI radio that she was involved in a pursuit. Luckily, Ellen, crouched on the floor of the back seat, had been able to keep the FBI operator apprised of what was happening. Don knew as soon as possible that she was OK. When Mike Magan disappeared beyond the crest of the hill, Ellen had jumped in the front seat to move his car closer to give him cover.

But the keys were gone. Then she had heard the radio report that two suspects were in custody and one had fled on foot. It was 6,28 P. M. It seemed impossible that so much had happened in only forty-seven minutes.
 
Only forty-seven minutes since the tones had sounded in the task force offices, tones alerting them to a bank robbery ten miles away. No one knew, really, how many bank robbers there were. Shawn Johnson and Mike Magan had discussed the possibility that someone might even try to waylay the caravan of aid cars on the way to the hospital.

With lights flashing and siren wide open, Shawn followed the aid cars to Harbor view Medical Center. He had a Seattle Police squad car right behind him, and uniformed officers rode inside the aid cars beside the patients/prisoners. The medics shook their heads as they worked feverishly over the taller man, it was questionable that he would even survive the transport to the hospital. Johnson hoped that he might be able to talk with the other man. Although the FBI and the Seattle Police had not verified it yet, one of the men who was being treated in the ER Triage Unit of Harbor view Medical Center was Steve Meyers. Though he had suffered extremely painful and disfiguring wounds to his right arm and left front shoulder, they were not fatal.

The doctors told Shawn Johnson that he could talk to Meyers as soon as he received emergency treatment. Steve Meyers wore a black T-shirt, black sweater, and blue jeans all sodden with his blood now. He had a black shoulder holster, $545.81 in bills and coins, two Ford keys and an automobile light bulb in the pocket of his ieans. The other man?

He was in extremely critical condition. His wounds were all on his right side, he had been shot in the right thigh, right arm, and through the back into the stomach. They were trying to get him stable enough to undergo surgery to stop the hemorrhaging in his gut. Medical personnel cut away the unconscious man’s cloth inga green jacket with a hood, green corduroy pants, a green shirt, all heavily stained with blood. He had worn two pairs of brown leather gloves, beige boat shoes, and a belt with a black nylon holster, which held a Taser stun gun, and three semiautomatic magazines with 9-mm ammunition. In one of his pockets, they found his false nose, chin, cheeks, and his false mustache. He hadn’t had time to get all the makeup off, though, and he still had strips of latex on his forehead, down the sides of his face and on his chin.

Still unidentified, the big man was wheeled on a gurney to the basement for surgery. And, at last, Shawn Johnson was told that he could talk to the man named “Steve.” South of Seattle, after a bumpy, crowded flight from Arizona, Sabrina Adams was looking forward to her holiday reunion with Scott. She could hardly wait to deplane and she hurried to the luggage carousels on the bottom level of Se’tac airport. She stood outside the doors, watching for Scott’s white van as all manner of vehicles moved through the passenger pickup zone’s four lanes.

Often, she saw a white vanand sometimes even an Astrovanbut it was never Scott’s.

Despite the rain, she stood out near the curb so that she could see him the moment he drove up off the ramp. Minutes and then hours passed.

But Scott Scurlock never came. Sabrina waited for a very long time, going through feelings of disappointment, annoyance, anger, and, [ inevitably, anxiety. Where was he?

Finally, she realized that something must have kept him from picking her up and that he hadn’t been able to get a message to her. She took a cab to Olympia, fifty miles south of the airport, half-expecting to find him waiting there.
 
But no one was home not in the treehouse and not in the gray house. Exhausted and worried, Sabrina climbed the steps and ladders to the treehouse and fell asleep in the bed she usually shared with Scott.

He would probably wake her when he got home with one of his perfectly logical explanations, and they would spend Thanksgiving together. More than sixty miles away, Seattle detectives and patrolman were going door to door, talking to residents to determine if they had seen anyone running in their yards, or even if someone might be inside, holding the homeowners hostage. They worked their way up and down the street where the van had crashed, and found nothing unusual, even though they were careful to evaluate possible witnesses carefully. Did they seem nervous?

Were they trying to signal that someone was behind them, holding a gun?