"John, you have got to be kidding me!"
Devitt didn't care the least about the Mayor's Aide standing next to the Police Chief after the latest press conference debriefing, as a matter of fact, part of him hoped that word about his outburst would reach the top levels of this town in no time.
Upon seeing the Lieutenant of Homicide approach at a fast stride, Conden's expression grew from surprised to apologetic in the fraction of a second, as he pushed the young man next to him aside, then met Devitt halfway toward the elevators and comfortably far away from the press packing up their equipment.
"Roy, we don't have a choice and you know that.", the Police Chief said in a quiet tone, hoping to keep their discussion out of the curious ears of passer-by's.
"We do have a choice. I won't just abandon my men out there as night falls. God knows what kind of condition they're in right now. We are dealing with a ruthless cartel of killers here. We don't have time to sit around and wait till the damn sun rises again. Every minute that ticks by can make the difference between life and death, for god's sake."
"Calm down…", Conden urged and put a reassuring hand on his Lieutenant's chest, "Don't think for a second that I am not worried about Stone and Keller, but you gotta look at the big picture here, Roy. Two patrol officers are dead. A reporter has been kidnapped along with two of my men. We don't know where in the hell they are being hidden and I am not willing to endanger any more lives in the pursuit of this case until I have all agencies here and ready to work together."
Huffing in frustration, Devitt glanced back and forth between the Chief and the emptying conference room.
"We don't have the time to wait, John. I can get several teams out there right now. We can begin canvassing the area while I am waiting to hear back from the local power company on electricity usage. That will help us narrow down their hideout and we can move in for a rescue mission."
"This is not the military anymore.", Conden warned and shook his head, "We've got a group of ten Feds coming in from Portland tonight. Once they are here, we're going to brief them with everything we know, and at first light we will move out. There's no telling just what you might stumble across out in these woods. Worst case, you could alert these…these guys of our presence and cause them to execute Stone and Keller and flee. A half-hearted, emotion-driven plan like this can backfire…it can cause us to lose both, our guys and our killers. Do you really want that?"
Gritting his teeth, jaws clenched, Roy struggled to keep his emotions in check, fighting an inner battle between Conden's logic and the fact that twenty-some years on the force told him that waiting would quite possibly result in sealing both Mike's and Steve's fate.
It was a risk he wasn't willing to take, and yet was powerless to stop.
"If they think we're onto them, they might be in the middle of moving locations already. Tomorrow may be too late to find the warehouse and we may never see our guys again."
"We have to take that chance.", Conden countered unrelentingly, "By tomorrow morning we will have a large group of officers ready to check out the entire area top to bottom, gather evidence and hopefully free our men. After everything that happened, I am not willing to jump into uncharted waters tonight, with a skeleton crew, in the dark, looking for a needle in the haystack out of some misguided sense of urgency. I feel the same way you do, Roy, but there's more at stake here than just Mike and Steve."