Fruits of the Poisonous Tree

13

"Jesus Christ," Sammie murmured ducking down, her eyes already scanning the area around us. “You think he’s still alive?”

Squatting next to her, I craned my neck to look at him again.

“He’s got a firm grip on that ring, not that that necessarily means anything.”

I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted. “You down there. Can you hear me?”

For a moment nothing happened. Then, almost imperceptibly, one leg moved about eight inches.

“Jesus,” Sammie repeated. “If he lets go, he’s had it.”

I scuttled back to the squad car, not knowing what we had-if the man had fallen by accident, if he’d been pushed or shot, and, if so, whether his attacker was still nearby, perhaps sighting on the two of us right now.

I unhooked the mike from the car’s radio. “M-80 from O-3.”

Dispatch answered immediately, “Go ahead, O-3.”

“I’m at our intended destination with one civilian down, possible hostage situation, unknown and un-located perpetrator. Get me all the help you can, including an ambulance and a high-angle rescue team, but stop them at the entrance to the access road until I give further word.”

The reply was crisp and unemotional. “10-4. M-80 out.”

Sammie joined me crouching by the open door. “So now what? That guy doesn’t look like he has too much left in him.”

I pulled two armored vests from the back seat, handed one to her, and slipped into the other without attaching the Velcro tabs. The exhaustion that had been dragging me down for untold hours, clogging my brain and affecting my concentration, had vanished completely, replaced by an almost frightening hyper-vigilance. “This road hits a hairpin curve about two hundred feet farther downhill and then doubles back to a parking lot on the dry side of the dam. We should have pretty good cover and a safe approach to the Glory Hole from there-assuming no one’s waiting for us.”

“Right,” was all she said, before slipping on the vest, circling the car, and getting back behind the wheel.

The sylvan peacefulness of moments ago had been abruptly wrenched into something almost perversely opposite. Without a single hostile sign or sound, our surroundings now were threatening and dangerous-the trees potential sniper nests, the rocks and bushes obstructions to a clear, safe view all around. We rolled the car slowly down the hill and around the corner, our eyes straining against the dark green of the bordering trees for anything suspicious, dimly aware of the massive bulk of the dam growing to our right as we circled around below its potentially protective shoulder.

As soon as we got to the small parking lot at the end of the road, some thirty feet below the dam’s crest, we raided the car trunk, and lugging a shotgun, a radio, a coil of rope, a pair of binoculars, and some extra ammunition, we made our way though the bordering trees up the steep slope to the top. To our left, extending eight hundred feet to the hills across from us, and several thousand feet down to a seemingly tiny streambed far below, was the vast, open, grassy sweep of the dam’s restraining slope. Normally a sight of inspiring beauty and industrial ingenuity, it was now just a potential killing field of gigantic proportions-a place to avoid at all costs until the threat, if any, could be located.

Just shy of the narrow utility road where the abandoned pickup stood, we ran out of tree cover.

Sammie-small, athletic, almost wiry-was barely breathing hard after the strenuous climb. She crouched by the last tree trunk and looked around at the quiet countryside. “How d’you want to play it?”

I wiped the sweat from my forehead with my sleeve. “The road’s got a low cement wall on the water side. If we tuck up close to that, it ought to protect us pretty well from everywhere except the cliff we came from.”

She looked over her shoulder. “What about from the trees?”

“The angle from the top of the dam ought to cover them-just keep low once you get there.”

She pursed her lips, took a deep breath, muttered, “Right,” and took off across the last twenty feet at a dead run, her feet digging into the slope like a sprinter’s. I watched all around as best I could, knowing there was little I could do with a shotgun in any case, and was infinitely relieved when I saw her reach the top and roll out of sight across the road.

I waited a few seconds, hearing only birds and the gentle breeze among the leaves overhead. Then I too set out, feeling slow and clumsy, slipping in spots where Sammie had run like a teenager. When I got to the roadway and rolled across it as she had done, clutching the shotgun parallel to my chest, my relief came more from just being able to rest than from any newfound sense of protection. I lay flat on my back, staring at the cloud-dappled sky, gasping for air. Sammie crouched beside me, peering over the top of the low cement wall.

“What d’you see?” I asked, trying to speak as normally as possible.

“Nothing.”

I struggled to a sitting position, first checking the few spots nearby from where someone could draw a bead on us, and poked my head over the wall. The contrast with the scene now to my back-a miles-long view down a narrow, stream-cut valley, seen from the very top of what amounted to a manmade mountain-contrasted violently with what I saw before me. Just five yards below me, the water of the reservoir stretched out so near to where we were hiding that it felt almost like standing up in a boat.

I shifted my gaze to the Glory Hole, where, between the circular dock and the concrete edge, I could just see the top of the man still hanging on for his life. The catwalk leading from the shore to the dock above the spillway was about twenty feet away, but there was a locked gate cutting off access. My eyes went to a small object lying at the intersection, where the second catwalk connected the Glory Hole to the maintenance access tower with the shed on it.

“Hand me the binoculars,” I asked.

Sammie took the shotgun from me as I focused the field glasses on the object.

“It’s a tool box,” I muttered, “lying between the wounded man and the shed on the access tower.”

“So if he was shot and fell backwards over the railing, the bullet must’ve come from the shed.”

“Right.” I handed the binoculars back to Sammie and cupped my hands around my mouth again. “You in the Glory Hole. This is the police. If you can hear me, try to raise your free hand.”

Sammie had the glasses trained on him. “He moved his fingers.”

“Okay,” I shouted, “we saw that. I need to ask you some questions. Move your fingers for yes; stay still for no. You got that?”

“Yes,” Sammie interpreted.

“Have you been shot?”

“Yes.”

“Is the shooter still around?”

Sammie paused, about to say no. “Hold it, he moved his hand. Better take that as an ‘I guess so.’”

“You think he is, but you’re not sure?” I shouted.

“Yes,” Sammie said softly, “no doubt about it.”

“Was he in the shed?”

“Yes.”

“Was he alone?”

“He’s hesitating again… There it is.”

“You only think he was alone?”

“Right.”

“Have you been there a long time?”

“Yes.”

“Can you hang on much longer? Are you secure there?”

“Not a twitch, Joe.”

“Can you move at all?”

“Still nothing.”

“Shit,” I muttered, “by the time everyone gets here, he’ll be down the toilet-literally.” I cupped my hands again. “Can you hang on for another ten minutes?”

“Yes, but he didn’t put much into it.”

“All right. We’re on our way, but we’ve got to be careful, okay?”

“He gave us a thumbs-up.” Sammie looked at me. “The manual says no life is worth your own.”

“We don’t even know the guy’s still in the shed,” I countered.

Sammie eyes grew wide. “Where the hell else would he be?”

“He might’ve had a boat, and that shed leads to something down below. That’s what the tower’s for.”

“You know that for a fact?”

I didn’t answer her. The radio between us squawked instead, “O-3 from M-80.”

I picked it up. “Go ahead.”

“You have two Wilmington units at the entrance of your access road, two sheriff ’s deputies five minutes out, a Dover unit and a VSP unit, both about ten minutes out. What’s your status?”

“Still the same. We’re about to reconnoiter. You better get the state police tactical support unit rolling just in case. And tell the Wilmington units to approach cautiously and to stage at the parking lot below the dam. We’re on the crest road.”

“10-4. M-80 out.”

Sammie gave me a smile. “I get the feeling the manual is about to be thrown out.”

I went back to looking over the wall at the spillway. “Just edited a little, but we are going to wait for the Wilmington people.”

“Then what?”

“Then I run out onto the catwalk, shoot off the lock, drop down onto the edge of the Glory Hole with the rope and pull that poor bastard to safety, all while you and the others riddle that shed with covering fire-if need be.”

“The need being that he put a bullet in your head?”

I gave her a shrug. “All right, riddle it anyway-there’ll be three of you-and we’ll send our apologies to the power company later.”

“And if there’s another shooter somewhere?” she persisted.

“Come on, Sammie, this ain’t the movies. We both know that’s probably Bob Vogel in there, and even if he did have a friend backing him up, he’d be long gone by now. People like that don’t risk their lives for each other.”

But I could tell from the look in her eye that I was preaching to the converted. Sammie Martens-more than most of my other officers-rarely shirked a fight. The only girl and the youngest child in a large, dysfunctional family of boys, Sammie had run away from home, joined the Army where she’d received combat training, and was constantly taking refresher courses in hand-to-hand fighting, rappelling, special weapons, and whatnot. She was single and childless and almost grimly determined to climb the ranks. I thanked God regularly that mixed in with this lopsided package was also a good sense of humor and an ability to laugh at herself-sometimes.

Right now, however, she was struggling to be diplomatic. “Since we’re waiting for people from about four different police agencies, don’t you think you ought to stay here to coordinate them, and let me go out there? You are in command, after all.”

Again, according to the manual, she was right. But it was my idea to take the risk, and I couldn’t shake the notion that behind her concern for protocol lay a deeper worry that I might not be up for the job. I hadn’t been the only one to notice the toll that run up the hill had taken-or to know that I hadn’t had any sleep since Christ knew when. Nevertheless, whether fired by ego or a sense of responsibility, I wasn’t interested in a debate.

“No,” I answered curtly. She looked at me a moment longer, making her private peace with the idea, and then nodded her acceptance.

High up on the cliff, we saw the Wilmington police car roll by, and a few minutes later, two tense young men with shotguns joined us on the service road.

While I busied myself with the coil of rope and replaced the soft-nosed bullets in my pistol clip with metal-jacketed ones-better suited for blowing the padlock apart-Sammie explained the plan and positioned them to give me maximum coverage.

I shuffled over to the narrow cut in the wall that led to the pathway and the fenced-off catwalk beyond, stuffing the portable radio into my pocket. Now that the other two officers were here, there were enough communications to go around.

Sammie joined me, her eyes bright. “You sure about this?”

“Just so long as you pulverize that shed.”

She patted my back. “Okay-good luck.”

I waited for the first explosive shotgun blast to pepper the near wall of the shed before bolting from cover and sprinting down the path toward the gate, my eyes scanning back and forth for any sudden movement. At the gate, I positioned myself as far from potential ricochets as I could, turned my face away, and fired one bullet into the center of the padlock, feeling tiny shards of metal slice into my firing hand.

The lock was mangled but still fast.

I positioned myself again and heard a shout from the wall. I glanced up at the shed in time to see a quick shadow and a flash of light amid the shattering of wood and glass from the shotgun pellets, and felt a section of the chain-link right next to my ear shatter under the impact of a bullet. I fired two quick shots at the lock, without much care this time, and saw the fractured remnants of it spin off into the water below.

I threw my shoulder against the gate and ran as fast and as low as I could toward the circular dock above the spillway, by now totally deafened by the explosive crescendo behind me. Glancing repeatedly up at the disintegrating shed, I tied one end of the rope to the inside metal railing and threw the rest of the coil in the direction of the wounded man, who’d turned his head to watch me, his face grimacing with pain.

Just as I hooked one leg up to go over the railing myself, I heard a series of rapid, muffled shots from the shed and saw a large chunk of the wooden wall, almost level with the tower’s decking-and below where most of the shotgun blasts were hitting-come flying away, carried off by the bullets that had created it. The shooter inside, presumably lying on his stomach, had created a firing hole by simply blasting one out.

Not bothering with the niceties of rappelling, I pulled out my own pistol again and emptied half the clip in the direction of the hole. I felt one bullet bite into my Kevlar vest near my heart, and jumped.

It was a longer drop than I’d thought, and the impact of the bullet, while doing my body no harm, had nevertheless given me a rotational punch, which meant I was twisting in the air as I fell.

I landed on my feet, barely, but given the downward slope of the concrete surface, plus my own lack of balance, I tumbled headlong into a forward roll toward the gaping center of the Glory Hole, feeling as I went the pull of the ever-increasing pitch.

It was the wounded man who saved me, throwing the coil of rope at me with his free arm, using up what little strength he had left. As I hurtled past him, out of control and scrabbling at the rough cement with my fingernails, my arm became entangled in the rope. There was a ferocious jarring as the line drew taut, damn near dislocating my shoulder but arresting my fall. I hung there, my feet dangling over the small, circular void of the Glory Hole’s center drain, hearing my pistol reverberating off its sides as it hurtled down some two hundred feet to the bottom.

I stayed motionless for several seconds, trying to regain my bearings, wondering if I had the strength to pull myself up. There was silence all around, as if the fall had damaged my hearing. In fact, only the shooting had stopped, and I slowly became aware of a small rush of water below me from a small inlet port drilled into the drain’s side. Gradually, as if emerging from a fog, I heard the muffled squawking from the radio still in my pocket, and, from yet another quarter, a repeated but feeble, “Hey, Bud… Hey, Bud,” that came from the wounded man, now stretched out way above me.

I could just see the soles of his work boots over the curvature of the spillway-the ribbon of his blood extending past and below me like some parody of a lifeline-and realized with a start that he had no idea whether I’d made it or not. “I’m okay. Thanks for the save.”

There was no answer.

“How’re you holding out?”

I could barely hear him. “Not good.”

I straightened myself out against the concrete, putting the rope between me and the rough surface, wincing at the friction burns that now covered both my hands. Slowly, I wriggled my way up, improving as the slope lessened, until I could gather my feet beneath me and half walk, half pull myself level to the wounded man.

Once there, I wrapped the line several times around my middle, anchoring myself, and then looped the end of it under his armpits.

“What’s your name?”

“Frank.” His voice was a whisper.

I snugged the loop up and tied it off. “Do you know where you’re hit?”

“The chest, I think.”

I gestured to the wooden taintor gates that controlled the amount of water pouring into the spillway during flood season. “I’m going to go up there, secure this line, and pull you up after me. Okay?”

Frank barely murmured his assent.

Using the rope hand over hand, I step-walked the rest of the way to the edge of the Glory Hole, almost to flat footing, and carried out the anticlimactic conclusion to my almost fatally flawed plan, wondering whether Sammie would have done a better job or ended up dead at the bottom of the drain.

I pulled Frank up to me like a deer carcass and then carefully rolled him onto his back. The front of his khaki uniform was drenched in blood. “How’re you doin’?”

He blinked up at me several times, as if trying to decipher my words. “I feel kind of numb.”

“Can you wiggle your hands and feet?”

“I guess.” He moved his extremities very slightly.

“How’s your breathing? Any pain?”

“Not much,” he murmured.

“When did you get hit?”

“I don’t know-maybe twenty minutes ago.”

That caught me off guard. “Why didn’t you answer your radio? They’ve been trying to raise you for hours.”

“It stopped working after I headed out this morning.” He gave me a weak smile. “That’s why I was going to the shed-to report in.”

I shook my head at the providence of pure luck and finally pulled the radio from my pocket. “Sammie-you there?”

“Jesus Christ, Joe. Where the hell you been?”

“Busy. This guy’s secure now, but he needs help fast.”

“The ambulance is here, but we still don’t know if the scene’s safe.”

“Hang on.” Ignoring the pain in my hands, I reached up and grasped the edge of the circular dock above and chinned myself up until I could look along the length of the second catwalk to the remnants of the shed on the access tower. The damage was extensive, a good part of both shore-facing walls tattered and torn enough to threaten the whole structure. I could see into it, however, thanks to all the extra impromptu windows, and could even see through it to the daylight on the far side. It looked completely empty.

I dropped back down and retrieved the radio. “Sam, I think you can go ahead. He must’ve ducked below surface. Send a recon team in to secure, though. He may be setting us up.”

“Can you give us cover?”

“Negative. I lost my gun. Bring me a backup, will you?”

“10-4.”

Frank was weakly tugging at my pant leg. I squatted down to hear him. “He can get away.”

“How?”

“Through the spillway tube-the outlet’s a half mile from here. The tower has its own tunnel, leading to a bypass chamber. That used to be it-a dead end. But we cut a connector passage from the chamber to the spillway tube just last week. It hasn’t been sealed yet. He’s got a clear shot.” He stopped and breathed heavily, catching his breath, wincing with the effort.

A shiver of adrenaline tickled the nape of my neck at again losing the man who had both raped Gail and now tried to kill me. “Okay, don’t say any more. We’ll get him.”

I could hear the recon team approaching cautiously along the first catwalk, so I chinned myself up again and swung one leg onto the dock to save my strength.

Sammie saw me and hurried forward, her eyes glued to the shed. She squatted down next to me and helped me up with her free hand. “How’s the guy doin’?”

“Hanging on by a thread.” I took the gun she handed me. “We’re going to have to go after the shooter.”

She looked at me, surprised. “Why?”

“Because he’s got an out. There’s an underground connector to the spillway outlet about a half mile away.”

“Shit,” she muttered, and moved as quickly as a panther across to the second catwalk and up to the shed, her shotgun held at the ready, the two other men and I in her wake.

The shed was empty and in the center of its debris-strewn floor was a trap door leading to a steep metal ladder. Damp, cold air drifted up out of the opening like the mist from a fresh grave.

I turned to one of the officers who had accompanied Sammie-a state police sergeant from the Brattleboro barracks. “You know where the spillway outlet is?”

He shook his head. “But there’s a power-company rep on the dam.”

“Good. Get him to show you and seal it off. Better yet, if you have the manpower, seal it and send a team in to meet us partway. Sammie and I’ll be heading down from here. If this guy feels he’s being pinched in the middle, he may chuck it in-assuming he’s not already gone.”

The sergeant left, stepping around the medical personnel on the curved dock, who were already beginning to lift their back-boarded patient up over the railing.

I turned to the remaining officer, from the Dover Police Department. “You have a flashlight I can borrow?”

He pulled a heavy brain-basher from his belt and held it out to me. “What’d you want me to do?”

I glanced over at Sammie, who was standing grim but ready at the edge of the black rectangular opening-a mirror to my own eagerness to get this done, once and for all. “Stay here and keep in touch by radio. And do what you have to do if he gets by us and doubles back.”

A young man with probably no more than a year on the force, he looked at me with wide eyes. “Could he do that?”

“He could if he kills us both,” Sammie muttered.