Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 37, No. 1, July 1975

Hecatomb by William L. Story

Hecatomb — a quiet word for the slaughter of hundreds of innocents. Sixty feet above the ground stood a threat to the entire city, a quiet, frantic man too insane to listen...

Lieutenant Horace Rudderham swore as the phone rang in the kitchen. He had just pulled down the shades to block the morning light in the bedroom, undressed, and taken an antihistamine for his hayfever.

Sitting on the edge of the bed in his undershirt and drawers, he listened to his wife go to the phone. He hoped it was one of her friends or one of the kids’ but something — an instinct, a sense developed over the years — told him he wouldn’t be getting any sleep this day.

Helen opened the bedroom door letting in the bright morning sunlight that filled the kitchen. “Honey, it’s the station. Let me tell them you’re sick,” she said looking down at him sympathetically. “It’s not right that you should have to go back out after working all night. You’ll be exhausted with your allergy and this heat.” As she said the words, she knew they were futile.

“Maybe they don’t want me to go out,” he said.

“It’s Mike Chavez and he says it’s important. You know they’ll want you to go out.”

Coughing as he got up, he patted her shoulder and went to the phone.

“What’ve you got, Mike?” he asked. He nodded as he listened. Pulling a chair over with his foot he sat down and signaled his wife to make some coffee. “I’ll be ready,” he said after a moment, as he hung up. His fatigue had disappeared and he forgot his sinuses.

Helen’s back was to him as she worked at the stove putting coffee into the percolator instead of just boiling water for instant. Rudderham started to tell her that he might not have time, that Chavez would be right over, but thought better of it.

The hell with it. He’d make the time. He knew that his working the night shift bothered her anyway, but especially so when he got called right back out again.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Oh, it’s nothing... not much. You know,” he mumbled. The quick, sketchy details Chavez had given over the phone were incredible. He couldn’t tell her. He wouldn’t anyway, for she worried enough as it was, but Chavez had said this was strictly on the hush.

“I’ll get dressed,” he said getting up.

“Should I make a cup for Mike?” she asked.

“I don’t think he’ll be coming in. This is kind of a rush job,” he said.

“I thought you said it wasn’t important.”

He knew that she knew it was important enough to call a man who had gone off duty and that she was starting to get argumentative. She also knew for what sort of jobs he was usually called in special. “Well, you know, it’s no big deal. It’s just that we have to move on it right away.”

“Will you be back early?”

“Christ, Honey, I don’t know. Maybe,” he said going into the bedroom.

When he came out dressed, she had two cups set up for herself and him.

“Is the coffee ready?” he asked.

“Another minute or two,” she said.

Glancing at his watch, he went to the window and looked down the two stories to the street. Mike Chavez wasn’t outside yet, but would be at any minute.

“Why don’t you pour mine now, honey. It’ll be all right. It smells good and strong.”

“Do you want some toast or anything?” she asked.

“No. No thanks,” he said, sitting down as she poured the coffee. He forced himself to be deliberate as he stirred in milk and sugar. He thought that after twenty-two years as a cop in a big city working uniform and plain clothes that he had good control of his feelings. It was not that he had become inured or didn’t have a proper regard for his own skin. It was that he was generally able to hide whatever fear, revulsion, or disgust the acts of his fellow man produced in him. At least from Helen. But now he was agitated and he felt it must show. She must sense his nervousness.

“Can you tell me what it is?” she prodded. This wasn’t like her. She had long since learned that he didn’t discuss his police business with her, except the most routine.

He looked at her sharply. “It’s nothing, Honey. I’ll talk to you about it when I get home.”

“It must be something really big, really important,” she pressed.

“Now why the hell do you say that, for crying out loud?” he said, exasperated.

“Because usually you complain when they get you back out after duty. Even for special things, you usually complain at least a little bit. But you haven’t complained once and I know you’re tired from working a full shift.” She sipped her coffee. “And your hayfever’s acting up and that makes you irritable. Besides, this heat. It’s enough to make anyone complain to have to even move.”

“I think that’s Mike outside,” Rudderham said going to the window. “Yeah, that’s him. I’ve got to go.” He slid on his sport jacket knowing as he did so that he’d remove it when he got in the car and probably wouldn’t put it back on again until he returned home. It was an old habit and he realized that when he wore it he most likely branded himself as a cop as surely as if he wore a uniform.

He went to her and kissed her on the top of her head. “You haven’t finished your coffee,” she said.

“I really don’t have time, honey.” She didn’t look up. “Listen,” he continued, “we’ll go out someplace this weekend, okay? You know, a movie and dinner someplace nice. What do you say?”

“Be careful.”

He patted her shoulder. “See ya,” he said gently, going to the door and down the stairs.

Rudderham pulled his jacket off and dropped it on the back seat of the unmarked car as he slid in. Without a word, Mike Chavez gunned the car away from the curb and down the quiet street of two and three family homes.

They were on Whittier Avenue in the midst of the morning traffic heading toward the river before Chavez spoke. “Sorry to get you back out, Harry, but the Chief says we might need you besides the regular demo guys.”

“Fill me in, will you,” Rudderham said.

“Like I said on the phone, this guy’s got high explosives of some sort with him and he’s sitting up on one of the natural gas storage tanks by the river. He threatens to blow it up by noon.”

“Jesus Christ!” said Rudderham.

“You said it.”

Rudderham mopped his brow with his handkerchief and then blew his nose. “You said high explosives of some sort. What’s he got?”

“We don’t know for sure. Or even if he’s got anything that’s real.” Chavez stomped on the gas and slipped through an intersection as the light turned red. “One of the gas company workmen saw the guy this morning when he went to work. He was sitting on a platform on the tank about fifty feet up or so, I guess. He threw the workman a note to the Governor and then told him to beat it or he’d blow the whole thing up right then and there.” Chavez crushed the cigarette he’d been smoking in the ashtray. “The workman read the note and that was enough for him.”

Rudderham swore again. “How the hell was he able to do it? I mean, how the hell do you get up on a gas storage tank with a bomb without anyone stopping you?”

“He did it overnight, I guess. Those things aren’t even guarded. Climb the fence at night when no one’s there and you’re in business.”

“My God, if one of those tanks went up it’d be a miniature A-bomb. How much gas does one of them hold?” Rudderham asked.

“I have no idea. But that’s not all. There are five other tanks there and high-tension lines too. Can you picture the chain reaction if one tank went up? And all in a residential area, if you can call it that.”

“Christ, how many people are in that area? Are they evacuating them?”

“I don’t think so. That was one of the conditions of the note. At the first sign of abnormal activity, he threatened to blow it up,” Chavez said.

“He’s a psycho.”

“Looks it.”

“What else did he say in the note?” Rudderham demanded.

“I don’t know. You’ll be filled in when we get there. We’re set up about a block from the tank. I don’t know any more than what I’ve told you.”

Harry Rudderham cursed the demolition training he had had in the Army. Officially, he hadn’t done any as a cop, but the department still consulted him occasionally on bomb threats and the like even though the regular demo boys did the dirty stuff. But this was something new and potentially bigger than anything he had ever been involved in. If his estimates were correct — and he admitted to a lot of unknowns — this could be a mini-Hiroshima. Being one block from the source wouldn’t mean a thing.

He looked at his watch. Nine-thirty-five. “Jesus,” he said, “we’ve got less than two and a half hours if that guy means what he says.”

They were in the general neighborhood now and he could see the gas storage tanks by the river silhouetted against the hazy August sky. Mike Chavez was driving carefully as kids darted in and out of the parked cars, using the street for a playground.

Old and rundown, the racially mixed neighborhood was street after street, block after block, of wood-frame three and four deckers jammed in one on top of the other. Lieutenant Rudderham knew that they backed up to within one hundred yards or so of the gas tanks. He shuddered as he thought of the effects of fire and explosion, especially on a day like this when water pressure would be low. If the tanks went up, there would be no need to wait for urban renewal.

Mike Chavez pulled the car to the curb in front of an empty variety store. They were about a block from the gas tanks. Rudderham recognized two other unmarked police vehicles and was momentarily surprised at the lack of squad cars and fire apparatus. Then he realized that the presence of patrol cars and fire equipment, even if hidden from the tank itself, would arouse curiosity and might precipitate the activity that would cause whoever it was to fulfill his threat of early detonation.

“That’s just the problem, Harry,” Chief of Police Carl Werner confirmed when Rudderham and Chavez were inside the vacant variety store. A command post of sorts had been hastily set up — table, with police radio on it; chairs; map of the area. Besides Chief Werner, Harry Rudderham recognized the Police Commissioner, the Fire Chief, four boys from demo, and a man he knew was from Civil Defense but whose name he had forgotten. The Mayor of the city was in front of the map, smoking a cigarette nervously.

“If we call in black and whites, fire equipment, civil defense apparatus and so on,” Werner continued, “we’re running the risk of this guy setting it off early. Of course, he’ll do it by noon anyway, he says. So if we want to evacuate or block off this area, we’d have to start now.”

“We’d never be able to do it,” said the Mayor. “Not enough time.” He ran his fingers through thinning hair. “We’ve been in touch with the Governor, of course. He’s offered State Police, even the National Guard. But what the hell good will they do now? We’ll need them later, of course, if...”

“Mike mentioned a note to the Governor,” Rudderham said.

“This is it,” said the commissioner, proffering it to the lieutenant.

Rudderham read the note, hand printed in capital letters on a piece of school composition paper:

“He gave his name? Is that really the guy?” Rudderham asked, handing the note back to the Commissioner.

“We’ve checked him out and I guess that’s who he is, all right,” said Werner. “We have his wife downtown, the poor bastard. Weiss hasn’t been home all night and his wife says he’s been acting strangely for months. Really brooding about his job, the neighborhood, and so on.”

“What does he know about explosives?” asked Rudderham. “Job? Military?”

“Nothing in his job experience to give him knowledge of explosives. He’s a factory worker. Mattress factory. We’re still waiting to hear from the Army. He did serve in World War Two his wife says. But — and this is significant — according to his wife he likes to tinker around the cellar with chemicals, electrical gadgets, and so on. Now, what he’d be able to come up with, we don’t know. Whether he ever got the right combination of chemicals or not is almost impossible to check out. We’ve been to the house and if he ever had anything in the cellar, he’s cleaned it out.”

“Where does that leave us?” asked Rudderham.

“Right on the spot,” said the Mayor, perspiring furiously. The lieutenant wondered whether the heat alone was the cause.

“We’re getting a man with binoculars into one of the houses near the tank,” said Werner. “He should be there by now. The problem was getting the family out and isolated without causing a stir. The house is about one hundred fifty yards from the tank.” The Chief lit a cigarette with steady hands. “We’re hoping we can get a rifle shot at him. We’ve got a couple of guys for that on the way.”

“Why can’t you evacuate all the parts of the neighborhood that he can’t see? You know, right up to the line of houses that border the tank. And then get those houses emptied by the back door?”

“That’s what we had in mind if it comes to it. But, as we said, it’s risky and there isn’t much time. It’d be awful hard to pull that off without creating a lot of stir. We’d hate to push him into doing something that he might not do otherwise. See what I mean?

“There’s no guarantee that he’ll go through with it. He might be bluffing. He might back off on his own. But if we upset him by doing what he says he doesn’t want us to do, that might push him over. Of course, we don’t even know if what he’s got would do the job. That’s a chance in our favor.”

“What does the Gas Company say?” asked Rudderham. “I mean, how durable are those tanks?”

“Well, it depends. The tanks — holders, they call ’em — are made of steel plate about four inches thick. It’d take a good charge to rupture it, but...” The Chief paused. “And don’t forget there are five other tanks there plus the high-tension lines.”

Chief Werner took a deep drag on his cigarette, inhaling and holding the smoke in his lungs a moment. “It comes down to this. We don’t know if it’d blow or not for sure. There might just be a rupture of the tank and the gas would leak out without exploding or catching fire. That is, if we’re real lucky. But if it blows... Jesus, there could be one hell of a chain reaction with those other tanks and the wires. I don’t like to think of the results, believe me.”

Lieutenant Rudderham looked at the Mayor. The man was ashen. Taking his handkerchief from his pocket, Rudderham captured two hard sneezes and blew his nose. Damn hayfever. He looked at his watch. Nine-fifty-five.

Noticing, the Mayor looked at his own watch, went to the window and looked out for a moment. Turning, he said, “We can’t wait any longer. I want the area blocked off and evacuation of the houses near the tanks begun. Get the people out the back doors and moved out in unmarked cars.”

Rudderham pulled a chair from under the table and sat down. Suddenly, he was completely fatigued. The inside of the store was stifling. The day gave promise of mid-ninety degree readings again, a continuation of a heat wave approaching three weeks.

The radio on the table cracked for the first time. Because of the special frequency, they weren’t picking up routine calls. “This is Gill. Do you read me? Over.”

Chief Werner went to the radio and spoke into the mike. “We hear you, Gill. Go ahead.”

“He’s partially obscured by one of the supporting girders. He’s got a box with him of some sort but it’s hard to make it out clearly.”

“How high up is he, Gill?” asked the chief.

“Pretty high. Sixty feet anyway.”

Chief Werner looked at the others and scratched his head. “I think he’d be able to observe any evacuation activity from that height, Mr. Mayor.”

Swallowing hard, the Mayor sat down at the table near the radio.

“Could someone get a shot at him from where you are?” asked Werner into the mike.

There was a moment’s pause before Gill’s voice came back. “The range is okay. But he’s pretty well obscured by the girder. He’s got the box wedged between himself and the tank so that if you missed with the first shot he could send the whole thing up. There’d be no second shot.”

“Would they have a better shot from another house? Another angle, you know?” asked the Chief.

There was another pause before Gill spoke. “No soap. These houses back right up to the tanks. The houses to my right would have the shot blocked by the tank itself. The houses to the left would be even more blocked by the girder.”

“Look, Gill,” the Chief said, “the boys with the rifles ought to be there any minute. When they get there, report right back to me. And until you do, don’t let them do a goddam thing. Out.”

“Roger. Out.”

For a moment no one spoke and then the Commissioner said, “There’s no way we can get to him from the other side, I suppose.”

“Not without running the chance of him seeing them coming. We might get someone in the tank yard from the river, but they couldn’t get within six hundred yards without him spotting them if he s being at all watchful,” said the Chief.

Rudderham reached for his handkerchief and honked loudly into it. It was hours before he could take another pill. The heat seemed to aggravate his symptoms. If only it would rain. “Has anyone tried talking to him?” he asked.

“We batted that around,” said Werner, “and decided against it for the time being. For one thing, it’d attract a crowd if we went in there with a bull-horn. We just don’t know if it’d push him the wrong way.”

“Not to be argumentative, sir,” said Rudderham, “but I think it’s worth a try. It sounds to me like this guy is unsure of himself, despite what he says in the note.”

“How do you see that, Harry?” asked Chavez.

“Well, just the fact that he bothered to warn us beforehand. And the time lapse. It’s as if he’s giving himself time to back down or be talked out of it.”

“I don’t know...” said the Mayor.

“The guy’s just like a suicide. You know, part of him wants to, part doesn’t. Part is willing to be talked out of it. I don’t like to sound like a shrink, but I think he’s trying to say something more than what’s in the note. I think you could communicate with him. Not with a bull-horn, but someone getting in close to the guy in a nonthreatening way. You know, just talking to him.”

“But who the hell is going to get in that close to him?” asked the commissioner.

“If you mean from the danger viewpoint, we’re not much safer here than we would be on top of the tank, I’m afraid,” replied Rudderham, blowing his nose again. “I really think someone should talk to him,” he continued. “He must be hot as hell up there. He’s isolated. I think we should communicate with him. Besides,” he added, “maybe we could distract him that way so he wouldn’t notice evacuation activity.”

No one spoke. The Mayor ran his fingers through his hair and went to the window. Chief Werner lit another cigarette.

“I think it’s worth a shot,” prodded Rudderham. “For chrissake, we’ve got to try something. We can’t just sit here. We’ve got less than two hours.” He wiped his nose and considered taking another pill even though it was too early. The trouble was they made him drowsy and he was tired enough anyway.

“I’m a goddam hero. I’ll go, if you want,” he said putting away his handkerchief and remembering that a fresh one was in his jacket in the car.

The radio cracked. “This is Gill. The rifle boys are here. What do you want them to do?”

Werner picked up the mike and asked, “Has he moved? Do they have a clear shot at him?”

“Sorry Chief. He hasn’t budged. The best they could do is to get him in the shoulder. That might knock him off his perch.”

“Wait,” said the Chief into the mike. “What do you think?” he asked looking from the Mayor to the Commissioner and back.

“Too risky,” said the Mayor.

“Those rifles pack a wallop, sir. They have a lot of shocking power,” argued Chief Werner. “A solid shoulder hit would probably knock him off that tank.”

“Only probably, you say. And what if it’s not a solid hit?”

“Those guys are good,” said the Chief. “They’re well in range and they’d be firing together.”

The Mayor came from the window and sat down again. “I don’t know.”

“If I talked to him I might get him to move so they’d have a better shot,” suggested Rudderham. “I don’t think he’d push the button right away just because someone tried to talk to him.”

Werner crushed his cigarette and lighted another right away. “I think it’s worth a chance,” he said, looking at the Mayor.

The Mayor studied Harry Rudderham for a moment. “You really want to?” he asked.

“I’ll do it.”

“Well,” he said after a pause, “go ahead them. Try it.”

Picking up the mike, Chief Werner said into it, “Gill, we’ve got a man, Harry Rudderham, who’s going to the tank to talk to Weiss. He’ll try to get him to move so that the rifle boys have a clear shot. Do you read me? Over.”

“We hear you, Chief.”

“Okay. Now get this. They are not to shoot until or unless they get a definite instant kill shot. Is that clear?”

“Roger, Chief,” came the response. “We understand. And say ‘good luck’ to Harry. Out.”

Werner looked at Rudderham. “You want Mike to give you a ride?”

“Yeah. Let’s go, Mike. Let’s get the hell over there,” said Rudderham as they stepped out to the car amidst expressions of good luck.

Outside, the slight breeze did nothing to mitigate the effects of the heat. Shimmering lines rose from the sidewalk and the tops of the parked cars.

Lieutenant Harry Rudderham reached into the back seat of the sedan for his jacket and exchanged handkerchiefs before sitting down. Chavez pulled the car from the curb and headed for the tanks. As they approached the row of houses that butted the gas yard, Rudderham said, “Let me out before the car gets within his sight.”

Mike Chavez pulled the car to the curb beside piled up trash. Three young boys lolling on the sidewalk of the front stoop of a four-decker watched the two men in the car languidly. Flies buzzed around a plastic trash bag that had been ripped open by a dog, paper and cans spilling from it into the gutter.

“Harry, what can I say? Good luck, I guess, is all.”

“Right,” said Rudderham unstrapping his holster from his belt and sticking it in his rear pocket. He got from the car and walked to the end of the street toward the open area of the Gas Company yard. He could see the barbed-wire fence and cursed himself for not making sure that a gate was open somewhere. He didn’t think he’d be able to climb the fence.

He pictured himself hung up at the top with the seat of his pants ripped out. Even as a kid, he couldn’t climb fences worth a damn. But it’d be ludicrous to walk back if there was no gate open.

As he reached the last row of houses, he paused. Six gas tanks were in front of him in the huge fence-enclosed area. Running inside the enclosure, beside the tanks, were the high-tension lines. Beyond the tanks lay the river. He could faintly hear the sounds of its traffic. The sun beat down indistinctly from the hazy, yellowish sky. His legs were rubbery from fatigue and his sinuses throbbed.

Slightly to the left loomed the tank nearest the fence and row of houses. That was it. He could see nothing on it. According to Gill, Weiss would be on the left side of it. He looked up and down the row of fence for a gate but couldn’t see one. He looked at his watch. Ten-thirty-two.

Turning to his left, he began to walk down the sidewalk. A small, short-haired dog with bulging eyes growled at him from between two barrels of trash. “Beat it, you ugly little bastard,” he said to it. The dog growled again and walked behind him stiff legged. “Take a nip at me and I’ll kick your goddam jaw off.” He continued walking and the dog barked at him but stopped following and turned away.

Rudderham glanced up discreetly along the row of houses to see whether he could spot the one Gill and the rifle boys were in, but was unable to distinguish which one it was. He looked across at the tank. He should be able to see Weiss soon. Around the corner from the row of fence, he could see an open gate and he quickened his pace. Perspiring freely now, he wiped his brow with his handkerchief.

Rudderham glanced again at the tank and his heart quickened. He could see him. The form was huddled between the tank and a supporting girder as Gill had described. He couldn’t see the box but didn’t dare scrutinize too carefully.

When he reached the end of the street, he crossed over and walked along beside the fence until he came to the gate. The tank was about one hundred fifty feet from him and he could see Weiss huddled against it. He thought that Weiss was watching him. He paused and then, keeping his eye on the figure on the tank, walked through the open gate.

Again, he cursed the fate that had made him select demolition those many years ago as a young man in the Army. He felt a sneeze coming but didn’t reach for his handkerchief for fear that Weiss would regard the move as threatening. Tall weeds grew all along the fence and within the enclosure itself. Rudderham stifled the sneeze almost through sheer will but could feel his nose start to run.

He looked to his right at the row of houses he had just walked past, trying once again to spot which one Gill and the others were in. He thought he could guess which it was from the angle Gill had described but he detected nothing in the windows.

He was about sixty feet from the tank when Weiss yelled at him. “Who are you? Get out of here, do you hear me?”

“Mr. Weiss?” Rudderham called, continuing to walk slowly toward the tank. “Mr. Weiss, can I talk to you?”

“You get out of here, do you hear me? I don’t want to talk to anyone.”

“Just for a minute, Mr. Weiss.”

“Who are you? Are you from the police?” asked Weiss. He hadn’t moved his position between the tank and the girder at all.

“Yes, Mr. Weiss, I’m a police officer. But I just want to talk to you, that’s all,” yelled Rudderham.

“I don’t want you to come any closer. You stop right there, you hear me?” screamed Weiss.

Harry Rudderham took another two paces and stopped. He judged himself to be about thirty feet from the tank.

“Now I want you to turn around and walk out of here,” the bomb man said.

“I just want to talk to you, Mr. Weiss. What you are planning to do makes no sense.”

Weiss yelled back, “I won’t talk about it. My mind’s made up.”

“Talking won’t hurt, will it? You’ve probably got a lot of good reasons for wanting to do it.” Harry Rudderham took a few steps forward. “You’re right that people shouldn’t have to live in slums, but it’s a complicated problem.”

“You stop right now or I’ll blow the whole thing up,” shrieked Weiss, holding a box out for Rudderham to see. He held his breath as Weiss shifted his position slightly.

“Mr. Weiss,” shouted Rudderham after a moment. “I think you should at least explain to someone why you’re going to do this. Your note didn’t give much detail, you know.” Conducting the conversation at a yell strained the lieutenant’s allergy-taxed respiratory system. He found himself becoming winded. “Can’t I come a little closer so we don’t have to shout at each other like this?”

Weiss seemed to be regarding Rudderham carefully. Finally he said, “Do you have a gun? You throw your gun down but don’t you try anything.”

Reaching into his back pocket, Harry Rudderham extracted his holster and service revolver. He held it for Weiss to see and then carefully put it on the ground and stepped toward the tank. “Okay, Mr. Weiss. I’m unarmed. I don’t mean you any harm anyway. Like I say, I just want to know more about why you’re going to do this.”

He was almost at the base of the tank. Slightly to his left, a steel ladder ran up the side of the tank. The ladder was an open tube, the rungs a series of circles going up. The tank was far larger than he had imagined one would be. It was strange how you could see something that was so common and never really have any idea of its size or appearance.

Shielding his eyes from the glare with his left hand, he looked up at Weiss. The man was sitting on the next to the top of four ledges that circumscribed the tank. He had the box, whatever it was, beside him. “Yeah, Mr. Weiss, like I said, you’re right about slums being lousy, but how is what you plan to do help all those people?” Rudderham asked, waving his right arm to the row of houses.

“Didn’t you read my note?” Weiss screamed. “Of course, I’m sure you did. The Governor probably won’t even see it which is just the kind of thing I mean. No one takes these evil situations seriously. No one cares except the people trapped. Well, they’ll take it seriously after I’m through.” The man’s voice was shrill and he looked trapped, desperate, like cornered men the lieutenant had seen many times. For the first time, he thought that Weiss might fulfill his threat. The man had moved somewhat but Rudderham could tell that he still hadn’t exposed himself sufficiently to the rifle fire.

If he walked any closer to the tank, he’d be under the ledge and wouldn’t be able to see Weiss. Yet he had to get closer to the man. He needed eye contact.

“Look, Mr. Weiss,” Rudderham said. “I’ve got terrible hayfever, you know. It raises hell with my sinuses, throat, the whole thing. It’s awful hard for me to talk raising my voice this way.” He paused and slowly extracted his handkerchief from his pocket. He blew his nose loudly into it, wiped carefully, and returned it to his pocket. “Do you think I could climb up the ladder a little way and talk to you? I’m unarmed. I can’t do anything to hurt you.”

“You’re right. There’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing anyone can do to hurt someone who’s willing to die for what he believes in. Are you willing to die, Mr. Policeman?”

Harry Rudderham walked toward the tank while part of him said that he should turn the other way. He longed to hear the report of a rifle and see Weiss’s body hurtle from the tank. Please, just let it end like that, that simply.

When he was under the ledge so that Weiss couldn’t see him, he looked at his watch. Three minutes to eleven. He ducked under the loop of the first circle-rung and began to climb. It was about twenty feet to the first ledge. Breathing deeply, legs aching, he forced himself to climb. The ladder was in the full sunlight and the metal was painfully hot to his hands.

When he reached the first ledge, he leaned against the tank, catching his breath. He began to cough, deep racking coughs, raising a thick gob of wretched-tasting slime. He spat it over the side. He wondered whether he’d feel anything if the tank blew. Would he be conscious of the fact of explosion for a split second or would it be a transition from awareness to unawareness with nothing in between?

Rudderham looked up. He could see nothing except the bottom of the next ledge. He’d have to climb up two more ledges if he was to be able to see Weiss. He looked at his watch again. He had wasted eight minutes. Five after eleven. The first traces of panic gnawed at his stomach. The coffee he had had with Helen had turned to acid. How long ago was that?

Wetting his hands with saliva, he grabbed the metal ladder and began to climb again. He kept going past the next ledge and stopped about five feet below the ledge Weiss was on. Weiss was just above him and slightly to his right. “Mr. Weiss, I’m going to come up, but don’t worry, all I want is to talk,” Rudderham said, hoping his voice sounded reassuring.

When Harry Rudderham was eye level to the ledge, Weiss said, “You stay right there.” Weiss was about five feet to his right, in the same position. He was a small man. Mid-fifties, Rudderham pegged him. He had on work clothes — baggy pants, faded blue shirt. He wore paint-speckled eyeglasses with a crack in the right lens. It made him squint.

“You’re a brave man, Mr. Policeman. But you’re a fool. I mean what I say. I am very determined. Very determined.” Weiss looked at Rudderham, and then beyond him, eyes vacant and glassy.

Harry Rudderham adjusted himself on the ladder. The thing was burning hot and his hands hurt.

“Don’t you try anything, Mr. Policeman. If you do, I’ll push the switch. Here, look.” He held the box for the lieutenant to see. It was a green wooden box, somewhat larger than a shoe box, with a toggle switch on top. “I have twenty-five sticks of dynamite in here, Mr. Policeman. I think that’s enough, don’t you?”

The question was tantalizing. What was in the box? Very possibly, nothing.

Henry Rudderham looked past Weiss to the row of houses, suddenly realizing that he was directly in the line of fire. Somehow, he would have to lure the man to move one way or the other while he got safely below the ledge. “Mr. Weiss,” he said, “my God, it’s hot here especially with the sun beating off this tank. Why don’t we at least move around the other side to the shade?”

“Yes. I’m very hot. But it won’t be for much longer.”

This was perverse. “I have to reach into my pocket for my handkerchief so don’t think I’m reaching for anything else.” Rudderham drew out the rumpled cloth and wiped his dripping nose. He then blew hard into it.

“This hayfever is a real pain in the neck, I’m telling you. I get it every spring and then it goes away for a while until mid-August right through September or even into October.”

It was ludicrous standing on this ladder, holding on first with one hand then with the other because of the hot metal, talking about hayfever when at any moment he might be blown into molecules. As he talked, Harry Rudderham watched Weiss closely. The man would look at him and then look away dreamily. Occasionally, he looked at the green box in his hand, caressing it absently like a pet cat.

“I used to take shots for it when I was a kid. I had it real bad then. Now, the pills control it pretty well, but not completely, as you can see. Heh, heh.”

Paying the lieutenant no attention, Weiss was mumbling to himself. Rudderham wished he had his gun. He was sure he could get the man. “Ah, do you have any kids, Mr. Weiss?”

“What’s that?”

“I just asked if you have any kids.”

Weiss looked strangely at the lieutenant. “No. Not any more.”

Suddenly, Harry Rudderham was convinced that the box really did contain explosives and that the man intended to use them. He knew he had to operate on that assumption. If it were a bluff, there was nothing to lose. If he precipitated the man into early action... well, that was the chance.

“You know what’s sad, Mr. Weiss?” he asked, hoping fear and fatique hadn’t robbed him of good judgement. “That you, by appointing yourself as God, are going to rob a lot of people of the chance to rise above the thing you want to destroy.”

He regarded the man closely. He seemed still to be paying no attention. “There are a lot of kids living in those homes. Kids who like living.” Rudderham glanced down at his watch. Eleven-eighteen. “But now some righteous fanatic is going to take their lives away. History is filled with people like you who do more evil in the name of what they think is good.”

He paused, swallowing hard. What the hell, he didn’t have all day. “In short, Mr. Weiss,” Rudderham shouted, “you’re a goddam nut who’s just going to hurt a lot of people and not solve anything.”

Weiss turned suddenly, eyes blazing. His mouth was working and a stream of incoherent syllables gushed out. As Weiss began to slide in his direction, Rudderham waited until the man had moved about half the distance toward him and then ducked his head.

Two quick reports cracked the air, then a third, followed by a shriek of pain. Rudderham heard the box fall to the ledge. He popped his head up quickly, hoping the rifle fire had ceased.

Weiss was propped against the side of the tank, spun around by the impact of the bullet. Animal noises came from his throat as his eyes rolled wildly. His eyeglasses were gone. Blood trickled from under his right armpit. Exit wound, the lieutenant noted irrelevantly. The box was an inch or two from the side of the ledge about four feet from Rudderham.

Shrieking animal sounds, Weiss started toward it. Pulling-himself up on to the ledge and with a frantic kick of his feet, Rudderham dove at Weiss. The man was fantastically strong. With incredible strength, he dug his fingers into the lieutenant’s face, tearing into the flesh with his nails. Rudderham felt himself being turned over and pinned to the ledge.

Weiss, teeth bared, face contorted in pain and rage, pushed into Rudderham’s chin with the heel of his left hand while with his right he groped for the box. Rudderham clung to Weiss’s right arm; from the corner of his eye he could see the fingers probing for the toggle switch. He felt his head being forced back and throat stretched by the relentless left hand and he thought he was going to gag. The sun glared down, nearly blinding him.

Suddenly, in his efforts to grab the box, Weiss swung over Rudderham, straddling him. Bringing his leg up sharply, the lieutenant drove his knee into the man’s groin. With a bellow of agony, Weiss fell back, clutching his belly.

As Weiss rose to his knees and started toward the box again, Rudderham plunged forward driving his head into his stomach. Falling backward, Weiss slipped into the ladder chute, his head striking one of the rungs. Rudderham watched him fall down the chute like a bag of laundry, bumping back and forth, from side to side, until a leg caught in a rung, and he sat still, wedged grotesquely near the bottom.

For a moment Harry Rudderham lay watching the inert form. In the distance, he heard sirens wailing their electric note. He picked himself up and sidled to the box. He checked his watch. Eleven-twenty-nine. Putting his ear to the box, he listened carefully for a back-up timing device. Nothing. It could be acid and off considerably either way. The box had to be removed from the proximity of the tank.

Lieutenant Harry Rudderham picked the box up, went to the ladder and, wedging it with his right arm against his chest, began a rapid but cautious descent. Near the bottom of the ladder, he heard the demo truck swing through the gate. When he reached Weiss’s form blocking the chute, he removed the leg dangling through the rung and the man fell to the ground. Stepping over Weiss, he handed the box to the heavily padded man who had stepped from the truck.

Less than a half hour later, Chavez pulled the sedan on to the street of neat two and three family homes. Rudderham looked at his watch. Twelve-fifty. A nice cold shower then out for lunch with Helen if she hadn’t eaten. The hell with a nap. He watched the row of houses slide past the car. Not a bad neighborhood, but someday he wanted to live on the first floor. He was tired of climbing stairs.

Mike Chavez pulled the car to the curb and stopped. “Quite a day,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“You’ll get a commendation for sure.”

Rudderham shrugged.

“Twenty-five sticks, huh? Where the hell did he get them?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think they would have blown the tank?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus Christ!” said Chavez.

The two men just sat for a moment, neither speaking. Finally Rudderham said, “Well, buddy, I’m going in.” He yawned and then took out his handkerchief and blew his nose. “Werner gave me tomorrow off. Good deal, huh?”

Picking his sport coat off the rear seat, he slid out the door. He looked in the window and grinned. “Hey, the next time you call me in the morning make it for checking out a firecracker complaint, huh?”

He walked from the car to his home, wondering how he’d explain the scratches on his face to Helen.