The Big Thaw

19

When we got back to the office, I'd fully expected to see Volont. Lamar picked up his messages. "Our friend Volont is out tailing Linda Grossman," he said. "Thinks she'll lead him to our boy."

"You're kidding… he really doesn't know where Gabriel is, does he?"

"Doesn't look like it. I hope he's really good at following somebody in the open country…"

We'd found that the urban folks were pretty funny when it came to tailing people in rural areas. They were used to congested traffic. Out here, when you and your quarry were the only two vehicles on the road, it was a bit tougher to remain inconspicuous. When you were in our hilly country, to boot, you had to be within 200 yards of your subject or you lost sight of them. With myriad intersections, farm lanes, and field entrances, if you lost 'em for more than a few seconds, you could lose them completely. The best way was to have a good estimate of their destination, and get to a spot where you could see some of the roadway from a distance. Spot-check. Actually, following was out of the question, unless you knew for certain where they were headed. If you knew that, there was no real point in following them at all. Just go where they were headed, and wait.

"You want to guess what else?" asked Lamar.

"What else?"

"He's got Art with him."

"You've got to be kidding me… he's briefed Art?"

"Yep. I guess he feels that with Art with DCI now, he don't need us to help him get around the county."

"Great. Just fuckin' great. Art ain't ready for this." I just shook my head. "Christ." Saying "Christ" brought the image of Art following Volont to the gates of hell. "Volont just got a disciple," I said. "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Art."

Lamar chuckled. "That's funny."

"You think he's really gonna hit five banks at the same time?" I looked at the map of the county on the wall behind him. "Doesn't make sense to me."

It really didn't. With the wormy roads, the small banks, the smaller take… it was folly to try that. With a "team" he'd put together from locals, it was worse than that. Three of the banks had large vaults with time locks. Unless you were pretty good at cracking safes, you'd have to hit the bank during business hours if you wanted to get anything to speak of. Even then… $10,000.00 wasn't much, for the effort, the risk, even the equipment.

"Cletus escaped yet?"

"What?" I'd caught him thinking about something else.

"Cletus ain't busy, is he?" I laughed.

He wasn't, but his attorney had spent the night at the local motel, and had already convinced the judge that Cletus needed a bond reduction hearing. Lamar was to have Cletus in court in about fifteen minutes.

"I'd sure like to talk to Cletus about those little 'training sessions' Gabriel's been giving." I looked out the window. I couldn't talk to Cletus, naturally, without his attorney being present. No real problem. It gave me time for a long coffee break.

I grabbed a cup, and stood at the window overlooking the parking lot and the town below. The sky was bright blue, and it looked almost like spring. It was still below freezing, but relief was on the way. In a few days, we'd be back in the deep freeze. All the warm interlude would have accomplished was to make the gravel roads a little harder to drive, with the mud tracks becoming hard as iron when they refroze. But it was nice, anyway.

Lamar and Cletus came down the hall from the cell block, Cletus in his orange coverall and handcuffed in front. Lamar was limping a little more than usual. Changes in the weather really did affect his leg.

I went out to my car, unlocked it, and started the engine. We'd transport Cletus in my car, and I wanted it warmed up. I left the engine running, and came back in to grab my vest. I met Lamar and Cletus at the door. "I'll be right with you," I said, walking into the secretaries' office to get my vest off the hangers.

I got it, and as I turned, I saw them descending the wooden steps toward the parking lot. Lamar in the middle of the steps, Cletus on the right, near the rail. That way, handcuffed as he was, Cletus was supported on both sides if he started to slip. Suddenly, Lamar froze, and Cletus turned to his left, and just about knocked Lamar over as he stumbled into him. Then I saw one of the wooden posts supporting the porch roof just split in half. No noise. Just splintered and split. It was like slow motion.

Lamar hollered, "Carl!" and tried to grab Cletus and haul him back up the stairs. Cletus, with his balance already thrown off, wasn't able to use his hands well enough to grab the railing, lost his footing, and started to tumble down the steps. Lamar reached down for him, and the porch floor behind him erupted in splinters.

Bullets. Those were bullets. I tried to get my coffee cup on the counter as I hurried by, missed, and drenched the carpet. Judy yelped, totally unaware of what was happening outside.

I flew out the front door, just in time to see Lamar and Cletus falling in a heap at the foot of the steps. I started toward them and the pillar next to me made a thump-cracking sound, like it had been struck with a large hammer, and splinters smacked into my left cheek and shoulder. I ducked, and saw the sidewalk ahead of Lamar start to puff in several places as rounds struck it. I jumped down the steps, slipped, wrenched my damn back again, and almost fell on Lamar. I grabbed Cletus just as Lamar got back on his feet.

"Behind the cars," he gasped, and we started dragging Cletus through the wet slush toward the line of parked cars out in the lot. I thought Cletus had been hit, and fleetingly wondered if he'd die on us.

Just as we got to the first car, there was a thunking sound, as if you'd hit it with a golf ball. Several golf balls. Dust flew from under the fenders, and one of the tires went flat with a bang.

We kept dragging Cletus, to the second car, and then the third. We heaved him up to the front of the fourth, and collapsed behind him.

I grabbed my walkie-talkie. "Comm, ten-thirty-three, ten-thirty-three, shots fired, parking lot!"

One of the newer dispatchers was on duty, I think her name was Grace. "Ten-nine?" 10-9 means for you to repeat your traffic.

"This is Three, this is ten-thirty-three, somebody is shooting at us in the parking lot!" I gasped for breath. "Get assistance!"

The golf balls started up again, working toward us. Plunk, plunk, bang, plunk. A tire.

"Where is that fucker?"

"Can't tell…" I couldn't, either. Nor was I about to stick my head up and look. I could hear the dispatcher say something on the order of "Three… thirty-three… uh… courthouse… I think…"

Of course. We couldn't hear the gunshots, and neither could she. She was assuming that we were at the courthouse. That's where she knew Lamar had been headed.

I brought my walkie-talkie back up. "We're here at the jail. Shots fired. Get an ambulance!"

"You hit?" Lamar sounded terribly concerned.

"No. You?"

"No. Who the fuck is the ambulance for?"

"Him," I said, indicating the orange heap that was Cletus.

"Shit," said Lamar, "he ain't hurt, he's just scared."

We didn't hear any more plunking sounds. The shooting had stopped. The question was: Had the shooter given up?

I cold hear dispatch again, this time Sally's voice. My confidence increased. Cautiously, I raised my head over the fender of the closest car. Nothing. I ducked. Nothing.

"See anything?"

"Nope." I was acutely conscious of the icy water and mud soaking into my shirt and pants. "Let me look again." This time, I drew my gun.

Up, peek, down. Like playing a child's game. I put my left hand on the fender and splayed my fingers out as far as I could. Reference points. I popped my head up, and looked over the top of my thumb, concentrating for about a second only on that sector. Down. Up, with the index finger as my reference. Down.

"Anything?"

"I can't see shit," I said, "but I don't know where to look."

Cletus started to make retching sounds.

"Not again…" said Lamar.

I bobbed my head up, referring to my little finger. Nothing. Down again. Cletus was still making the noise. "You suppose it could be the jail food?"

"They say," said Cletus, spitting, "I got a nervous stomach."

"No shit?"

I could hear a siren start up downtown. Couldn't be the ambulance yet. Cop car.

I saw a dark blue Ford slowly pull into the lot. Well, originally dark blue. This one was spattered with light tan mud, white road salt, and grungy as hell. Volont. Car might as well have had FBI plates. Although it was so covered with mud you wouldn't have been able to read them. They monitored a completely different set of frequencies, and obviously were unaware of our problem.

"Looks like the Spook's back," I said. As the Ford turned into the parking slots, I saw it had a large dent in the right rear quarter. "Dinged up, too."

We watched Volont and Art get out of the car, and look at the dent. Both were in suits, with the same light tan mud speckled halfway to the knees.

I got into a crouch, gun still in my right hand. "Get down!"

They both looked at me, startled. Volont comprehended first. Me. The gun. The holes in the nice cars. He nearly vaulted the car closest to him, drawing his gun at the same time.

"Come on!" he yelled at Art.

Art stood still for a split second, just long enough for another golf ball sound to make him turn his head. I dropped, just as Art dove between two cars.

Volont duckwalked toward us. "Where is he?"

"Can't tell… I don't know where to look… rifle, I think…" Giving a hint that the shooter could be a long way off.

"Prisoner hit?"

"No," said Lamar. "Keep down."

Art crawled out on our end of the cars. "Who's doing the shooting?"

"Somebody who's a piss-poor shot," said Lamar.

The sirens were a lot louder. I stuck my head up, and saw two brown state patrol cars nearly at the lot. I holstered my gun, grabbed my walkie-talkie, and switched to the mutual aid frequency.

"This is Three, we're down behind the cars. Shooter is in the direction of downtown, has a rifle. There are five of us here… keep low…"

They slid to a halt, and both exited their vehicles, getting down behind the fenders, handguns drawn. Just like in the movies.

We waited. It seemed like an hour, but it was closer to a minute. Finally, Lamar spoke up.

"I want to get him back inside," he said. "He'll be a lot safer there."

"Fine." Great. We have to drag Cletus, in his high-conspicuity orange suit, to boot. With a lousy sniper, who can't hit the broad side of a cow's ass, aiming at Cletus, and more likely to hit me by mistake. But I didn't say it, because Lamar was thinking the same thing. "Might as well," I said. "I can't dance…"

"I ain't goin' with you, by God! They might shoot me by mistake!" Cletus spit again.

"You damn fool," said Lamar. "It's you they're after, not us!"

Cletus began retching again. Apparently, it hadn't occurred to him.

"Can't we wait until he's done? I don't want to haul somebody who's heaving all over me."

"Yeah," sighed Lamar.

We waited. I looked at the hole in the outside of the fender next to my head. I bent down, and looked back into the fender well until I saw daylight. Toward town, and in the top of the hood. Downward. Hard to do, since we were just about the highest point in town. Except for the grain elevator, about a half mile away. I peeked up over the fender. Sure. There was that huge concrete elevator, standing off in the middle distance, bigger than life. To hit us from there, the path would be downward.

"I think he's on the grain elevator," I said. Nobody contradicted me. I glanced around, and as far as I could tell, none of us had anything but a pistol. We couldn't even shoot back;

Volont got over beside us, and we told him our little plan.

"The sooner the better," he said. "I'll help."

The three of us grabbed Cletus, Lamar and Volont by an elbow, and me by his securing belt.

"On three… one, two…"

I was reminded of that movie, about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Where they counted before running into the guns of that South American army…

"… three!"

It should be an Olympic event. We hit the porch at full tilt, the three officers panting and straining, Cletus moving his feet very rapidly, but completely ineffectively. Judy, who was watching from behind her file cabinets, saw us coming, and opened the door just in the nick of time. We all let go of Cletus at about the same time, he tripped, and skidded across the linoleum floor for about ten feet.

We took a moment to congratulate ourselves. Then I realized we'd abandoned Art and the two troopers out in the lot.

It dawned on me that I hadn't been aware of any shots fired during our portage of Cletus.

"You think he's gone?" Lamar was puffing, and wincing. His leg was probably hurting him quite a bit. He'd moved awfully well, though.

"I don't know, Lamar. But I wouldn't… just stand around out there… for a while." I was still breathing hard, too. And my back hurt like hell. But we'd gotten the first order of business done. Cletus was safe.

The next problem was how to get to our cars and get down to that grain elevator. There was just no place else the shooter could be.

I took a quick peek out the safety glass panel in the steel outer door. Then a longer one. Nothing. I was wondering how I was going to tell if he really had quit and left, when there was a sudden puff of packed snow and concrete dust in the middle of the parking lot. It was kind of hard to see, and I wasn't absolutely certain what it was. Two more puffs, each closer and about a half second apart, struck the parking lot. Then a solid plunking sound as something hit the wooden support for our porch roof.

I ducked. Late, but better than never.

"I know what his problem is," I said.

"He's still there, then?" Volont was sitting on the floor, with his back to the pop machine, which was against the outside wall. Smart. I should be so smart.

"Yeah. He's there, all right. His problem is, he can't see where his shots are going… unless he hits something that throws up debris or something…"

"So he can't correct his aim," said Volont.

"Yeah."

"Probably alone, then," he said, matter-of-factly. "That's why snipers should always have a spotter."

I filed that away. Like I would ever need it.

Lamar was on the phone to the people who ran the elevator, telling them they had a sniper on the roof, some 100 feet over their heads. It took him a minute to convince them. They couldn't hear the shots.

I was on my walkie-talkie, getting the Maitland squad car down to the elevator, to make sure there was nobody getting away. If the suspect hadn't gone up the interior elevator shaft, and then to the roof, he'd had to climb a long ladder.

"Want to try for a car?" asked Volont.

"Not just yet…"

I got on my walkie-talkie to the Maitland car again. "Hey, Twenty-five, you see anything down there?"

"I can't see nothin' here…" came the stressed voice. "But somebody just made a hole in my roof! I'm out of the car."

Still there, all right. But now, having taken the time to shift his aim to the much closer Maitland squad car, I thought he'd have a tougher time readjusting and zeroing in on us.

"You know," I said to Volont, "he really can't hit shit. You want to try for my car?"

"You mean the local can't hit shit, or the sniper can't hit shit?"

I grinned. "Neither one."

"Well, let's go," he said. "Just get your car keys in your hand before you go through the door."

"Okay… it's unlocked, and the engine is already running. Just get in and stay low…"

Volont and I went flying out the door, and down the steps three or four at a time. I nearly lost my balance, on the last four, and ended up scraping my hand on the sidewalk. I almost fell again, as I stopped suddenly at my car door. Running bent over, my back started to act up, and I hollered, "Shit!" as the pain flew up and over my right hip as I jumped into the car.

"You hit?"

"No, no…" As soon as Volont has his legs in the car, I put it in reverse and stepped on the gas. We shot backward so fast I was afraid I'd sprung the open passenger door. I slammed on the brakes, and spun the wheel to the left, sliding us around on the drive. Into drive, and we shot out of the parking lot, bottoming out at the end of the driveway. Volont got his door shut, I hit the flashing lights and siren, and we were off.

"Not bad," said Volont. "Not bad…"

"We're out of his line of sight," I said, turning left at the bottom of the long hill toward the courthouse, "until we come around that next corner."

"So we won't do that, will we?" said Volont.

I grinned. "No, we won't." I cut the siren, and we came to a smooth stop at the point of the curve leading to the elevator. "Let's go between those houses," I said, "and we should have a good view of the side of the elevator with the ladder."

I got my AR-15 out of the trunk, inserted one thirty-round magazine, and put a second one in my back pocket. I contacted dispatch on my walkie-talkie, and told them where we were.

"Uh, Comm, let's see if we can get some more people around this thing, the… uh… elevator. Stay low, but we need to see all four sides…"

"Ten-four, Three."

"And you might want to page the fire chief. We need people to be warned to stay off the street. And call the school, and tell them to keep everybody in, even after school, if they have to. Explain it to 'em." The school was about as far from the elevator as the Sheriffs Department.

"Ten-four."

"How's Twenty-five?" I asked her.

"I'm just swell…" came a squeaky reply. "But he's shot my car four or five times now. I'm behind the co-op garage over near the river."

"Stay there, Twenty-five," I said. "We can always fix the car."

I put on my green stocking cap. This was going to take a while. Volont had already gone between two of the houses. I moved in behind him.

As I reached the area where the backyards began, I could see his hand go up. "Careful," he said. "I can see him." He had his handgun out, but it was down by his side.

I looked up, way up. There, at the top of the elevator, to the left side, was a bump that might have been a head, with a long stick out in front. Rifle. The base of the elevator was about 150 feet from us. With him up in the air, say 90 to 100 feet… Geometry class, years ago, had addressed this very issue. Pythagoras. I remembered the name. I remembered it was a theorem. A squared plus B squared equals C squared. And I realized I'd have to do a square root in my head to be sure. Right. I started to adjust the sights on my rifle.

"How far away would you say he is?" I asked Volont, casually.

"Oh, about a hundred and fifty to a hundred and seventy-five feet."

"Thanks." I backed my sights all the way down to the 100 yard combat setting. At this distance, a bullet from my rifle, even going uphill, would only drop about a quarter of an inch below my aim point. If that.

Volont glanced back over his shoulder. "Can you hit him from here?"

"Yep." I looked up as a loud crack sounded above us. He seemed to be still shooting toward the jail. "If I can see enough of him, and there isn't much wind."

Just as I said that, the sniper stood, and changed position. He disappeared from our view. All I had been able to catch was that he was wearing a mustard-colored hooded coat, with tan gloves. And that his rifle had a scope. A split second, and he was gone.

"Moot," said Volont. "You happen to have a bullhorn in your trunk?"

"Nope. Fire Department has one, though." I handed him my walkie-talkie mike.

While we waited for an intrepid volunteer fireman to go to the station, get the bullhorn, and bring it to us, we sketched out a plan of attack.

"I'll talk to him, and see if I can get him to give it up," said Volont. "If he starts shooting at anything but the jail or police vehicles, we take him out." He looked at me. "If that's all right. I really don't have much jurisdiction here. Your call."

"Sounds good," I said. "Problem one… we're in about the only location that can engage him. If you shoot from the other sides, the missed rounds are going to fall in town."

He looked at the target area. "Right."

"So if he does something really stupid, it better be on this side of the building."

"If not," said Volont, "we go up and get him."

"What's this 'we' shit? I don't do heights."

"How long," he asked, "will it take to get a TAC team in here?"

"About two hours," I said. "Maybe a bit longer. They're state troopers, and they have to come from all over."

"Helicopter?"

"I doubt it."

He sighed, audibly. "You people do need resources, don't you?"

I almost held out my hand:

The volunteer fireman got to us. There seemed to be some problem with the bullhorn, and he'd brought extra batteries. It was one of those items that was hardly ever used.

While Volont checked out the bullhorn, I looked very closely at that concrete grain elevator. The only way up, from the outside, was via that caged ladder. I remembered the first time, as a kid, I had thought about climbing it. I couldn't reach the ladder. I double-checked, and saw that the bottom rung was about seven or eight feet off the ground. Still, apparently. There was an aluminum stepladder, erected but on its side, under the cage. Obviously how our man had gotten up. Kicked it over, probably on purpose. That told me that he'd at least thought about somebody trying to climb up after him. All he'd have to do is lean over the edge, and shoot down into the circular cage. Anybody climbing up was not only going to get hit, they were going to get hit by plunging fire, along their longitudinal axis. In other words, the bullet wouldn't go through your shoulder and out. It would go in between, for example, your neck and your collarbone, and come out somewhere near the bottom of your pelvis.

Ugly concept.

There were three landings, each about twenty to twenty-five feet up the ladder. Open platforms, they had rails about four feet high. From the last platform on, anybody on that ladder was a dead man. At night, maybe, you could get as high as two platforms up, without getting shot. But by the third…

I saw the sniper pop up, and crack off a round down toward the right side of the building. Toward Twenty-five, the Maitland officer. Or, likely, his car. I pressed the "talk" button on my walkie-talkie mike.

"You okay, Twenty-five?" I asked.

"You bettcha…" came the reply. "But I think my car's dead."

"He's just keeping your head down," I said.

"He sure as hell is," he said.

"YOU ON THE GRAIN ELEVATOR! THIS IS AGENT VOLONT OF THE FBI!" came booming and crackling right behind me. Scared me nearly to death. He'd apparently gotten the thing fixed.

There was no response.

He tried again, this time adding that the suspect should surrender.

I was looking up at the top of the elevator, my rifle at my shoulder and aimed where I'd last seen the shooter, when he came popping back up at the other end of the tower. As I brought my rifle to bear, he cracked off two rounds and disappeared.

"Son of a bitch!" hollered Volont.

"Sorry," I said, "but I almost had him that time…"

I turned, half expecting him to yell again. Close. There was a neat, round hole in the rim of his bullhorn, and he was scrambling back behind some concrete steps leading into the side of one of the houses.

He put the bullhorn back to his face, and I turned toward the elevator. This time, I had my rifle pointed at where our sniper had popped up moments ago.

"YOU MIGHT AS WELL GIVE UP. YOU'RE SURROUNDED, AND CANNOT ESCAPE."

Succinct, you gotta admit.

Nothing. I was all set to light him up, and nothing.

I lowered my rifle, and joined Volont behind the steps. Quickly.

"Now what?"

"You looking for suggestions?" he asked.

"Yah."

"Wait him out."

"Okay," I said. "It's gonna get awfully cold up there tonight. He could well freeze to death."

"You got a problem with that?"

"Not in the least."

We were both looking up when the sniper's head bobbed up. Arms extended into the air. No sign of his rifle.

"Shit," I muttered, "I think I could hit him now…"

Volont gave me a withering look, and picked up his bullhorn. "ARE YOU SURRENDERING?"

Faintly, we could hear a voice, but we couldn't make out the words.

"WE CAN'T UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU'RE SAYING!"

"… I kill him?" wafted down from the top of the elevator.

"DID YOU KILL HIM? IS THAT THE QUESTION?"

"… yes…" came back. Along with something else we lost.

"I DON'T KNOW WHO YOU MEAN. YOU DIDN'T, I REPEAT, DID NOT KILL ANYONE!"

That should have been good news to a man who was about to surrender. If you're under fifty, the difference between twenty years and life can be a long time.

With that, the sniper simply stood up, and began climbing over the top rail. Apparently, it wasn't good news to him.

"Shit," I said. "He's gonna jump…"

He extended both arms in a cruciform, like he was going to do a swan dive or something.

"DON'T DO IT…"

He teetered there for a second. Composing himself for the jump. He just needed to screw his courage up a little bit more.

Then, unexpectedly, he slipped. His feet just went out from under him, his butt smacked into the rail, his arms flailed, and, instinctively, he caught himself.

Our suicidal sniper was now hanging by his hands about 100 feet over our heads. Instinct having taken over when he slipped, it looked like he had lost his resolve. He looked to be hanging on for, as they say, dear life.

Two volunteer firemen thundered past me, followed by an ambulance EMT and Volont. They rushed the fallen stepladder into position, and began climbing frantically toward the top of the elevator.

The fire chief came up beside me. "We ain't got a ladder that will make it more than seventy-five feet," he said, simply. "They better hurry."

"Yeah."

"Funny, isn't it, I mean the way they want to jump, and then they don't?"

"Sure is," I said. "I wonder why he just didn't shoot himself."

It took, oh, probably a minute, for them to get to the top. It seemed like an hour to me, and I was just an observer. They had to go over the rail, and then about twenty feet to my left, before they could get to him. I could hear them hollering to him to hang on.

It was very close. Too close for me.

The two firemen each grabbed at him over the edge, and then the EMT reached way down, and caught the back of his coat in her hands. I could just see the top of Volont's head, and supposed he was pulling on her waist. They all seemed to freeze that way for an instant, and they all sort of heaved together, and the dangling sniper slid back up, over the rail, and they all disappeared from view.

"Know who he is?" asked the fire chief.

"Not yet," I breathed. "But we will…"

By the time they got back down, there was a little crowd of us waiting for them at the bottom of the ladder. Lamar and me, Art, the two troopers from the parking lot, several firemen, and a couple of EMTs.

Volont suggested the troopers handcuff the sniper. As they did so, I got my first clear look at him. I was flabbergasted.

Our trembling, nearly collapsing sniper was none other than Horace Blitek, the screwy member of the Borglan defense team.

You could have, as they say, knocked me over with a feather.

We hauled him up to the hospital in an ambulance, to be checked out.

We were met by my old friend Dr. Henry Zimmer at the entrance to the emergency room of our thirty-bed hospital. As soon as Henry had heard there was a sniper, he had prudently called in two extra nurses, a couple of lab and X-ray techs, and his junior partner, Dr. Paul Kline. Consequently, as soon as Horace Blitek was out of the ambulance on his stretcher, he was nearly mobbed by attention.

"So, this is the guy everybody's making such a fuss about?" said Henry.

"Yep. In the flesh," I said. "He did try to jump, Henry. You might want to know that."

"Depressed," asked Henry, "or just in a hurry?" He chuckled, and started in to the ER, where Horace Blitek could just barely be seen through the little bevy of nurses and ambulance personnel. "We'll see if we can't cheer him up…"

While they attended to Blitek, I got a chance to talk to Volont and Art.

"All he had was an SKS. The pauses were to reload. Just had loose ammo in boxes. No clips." Volont shook his head. "He had to reload by hand after every few rounds."

The SKS doesn't have a detachable magazine, but it was a favorite of some survivalist types, for some reason. Semiauto rifle, 7.62 mm. Chinese manufacture of an old Soviet design. They cost about $75.00, which may have gone a long way toward their popularity.

"So, why didn't he shoot himself?" I asked.

Volont grinned. "Out of ammunition. Not even proficient enough to save one for himself."

"So," said Art, "now we just have to find out why he was so pissed off."

Henry pronounced Blitek fit a few minutes later. "Just some bruises on his forearms, and on his butt. Otherwise, he's just a picture of physical health."

"Thanks, Henry. We just needed to be sure."

"You might want to have a psychiatrist check him out, though. He's really upset. Told me that he's let Gabriel down, and that Gabriel is going to 'get' him." He clapped me on the shoulder. "You do get some strange ones for us, Houseman. But a personal feud with an archangel…"

"Yeah…"

Volont and I conferred. Based on what Henry had just said, we really needed to talk with Blitek. Even in his possibly mentally disturbed state.

"We won't be able to use anything we get against him…"

Volont shrugged. "Then we don't use it against him… but we use it to get Gabriel."

We took Blitek to the office, and began making the arrangements for an emergency committal to a mental health institute, for evaluation. He had, after all, attempted suicide. But we'd have at least two hours before the arrival of the mental health referee, who would examine him.

While we had been at the hospital with Blitek, two state troopers, and Art and George, had been to the top of the elevator. Lots of shell casings. 7.62 mm. The rifle. Some brown cardboard ammo boxes. Nothing else, though. Courtesy Maitland PD, chains and padlocks had been installed on the caged, exterior access ladder, in three layers, where a cop in a car could see them. A potential sniper could still climb to the top, but it was hoped that he'd at least be more obvious. The area was pronounced secure.

Pronouncement be damned, I noticed that almost everybody was suddenly using the back door to the office.