Page 104 of The Family Cross

WE RACED SOUTH, LISTENING to the radio chatter. Dusk was falling when Judy Winthrop radioed to say the high troll of the south had just turned west onto N Street and was running toward Thirty-Seventh. We were turning off Wisconsin onto N Street when our radio lit up.

The dispatcher said, “Metro detectives on foot and in pursuit of armed and dangerous individual who has entered Georgetown University grounds, southeast corner of campus, Healy Lawn area. Detectives calling for campus police to issue active-shooter alert to all students. Repeat, active-shooter alert on Georgetown campus.”

“What are Winthrop and Hayes doing?” Sampson shouted, pounding the steering wheel as we accelerated down N, four blocks from the campus entrance closest to Healy Lawn. “They’re asking for chaos!”

He grabbed for the radio mic. I got it first but didn’t use it immediately. “Let’s not make things worse, John. We’re not on the scene yet. We do not have eyeballs on the situation.”

“Get dispatch to patch us into all transmissions coming from Winthrop, Hayes, and campus police!” he said, weaving by vehicles that were in our way.

I made the ask, and almost immediately we heard Hayes say that Brundage was cutting diagonally across Healy Lawn, heading northwest, deeper into campus. Sampson swung us north onto Thirty-Seventh and raced to the South Gatehouse entrance to Georgetown University, still with the siren on and the bubble flashing.

A security guard tried to stop us, but Sampson drove straight past him, yelling, “We’re on the shooter!”

But instead of driving quickly to the northwest corner of Healy Lawn, we were caught in the very chaos John had predicted.

Though classes were winding down with the end of the school year, there were still several thousand students and faculty members on campus, even on a weekend. When the alert went out over cell phones, people were terrified. They began running in every direction, including right at us, trying to get off the grounds or to a safe place.

We couldn’t move. Sampson threw the car in park, got out, and jumped on the hood. He looked east over the sea of students.

“There’s Brundage, heading toward the performing arts center,” he yelled down to me and leaped off the hood.

Even when he was at ease, Sampson—who stood six nine and weighed around two seventy-five—was an imposing figure. But when he was on the attack or in pursuit, he became a creature to be avoided at all costs.

“Metro PD!” he shouted, running toward the students, badge and gun out. “Out of the way! Metro PD! Metro PD!” I was right behind him.

Terrified students jumped aside. Eighty yards ahead of us, Detectives Judy Winthrop and Tommy Hayes ran across Old N Way and into an alley by the Davis Performing Arts Center.

We reached the alley, crowded with cars and delivery vans, and heard a shot echo from the far end. Students started screaming and stampeding behind us. Sampson jumped up on the hood of one of the vans, looked north, and said, “I think Colin O’Hare just went over the fence to the cemetery. Sean Brundage is right behind him.”

“Who’s doing the shooting?” I gasped as we ran down the alley, weaving around all the vehicles there.

As if in answer, dispatch said over our radios, “Detectives report shots fired on Georgetown campus north of Davis Performing Arts. Repeat, suspect is confirmed active shooter.”

“GODDAMN BRUNDAGE!” JOHN SAMPSON shouted. “What does he think he’s doing?”

I was just trying to keep up. I glanced ahead and saw Judy Winthrop and Tommy Hayes leaping over a low wrought-iron fence around the cemetery.

By the time we got there, Sean Brundage had gone out a gate on the far side with the two detectives about fifty yards behind him. Winthrop squared off, threw up her service pistol, and fired at the former police detective.

“No!” I shouted, seeing people on the other side of the fence diving for cover as Brundage ran past them. “You’ll hit a civilian!”

The former cop and his pursuers were out of sight when Sampson and I got to the other side of the cemetery. We asked hysterical bystanders which way the shooters had gone, and they pointed us west, past the field house and the business school.

We heard another gunshot just before we spotted Detective Winthrop. She was running through the parking lot near the university’s observatory. We sprinted after her as we heard her partner barking over the radio: “Suspect has entered Foundry Branch Valley Park. Repeat, suspect has—”

The transmission was cut off by two shots in rapid succession and then a third. We entered the darkening woods forty yards behind Winthrop and heard voices ahead and below.

“Stay down, Brundage!” Hayes shouted. “Stay the hell down!”

“You shot me!” Brundage screamed back. “And O’Hare is getting away!”

“I don’t care! I got you!”

“You idiot, Hayes! I had him and you let him go!”