The Big Thaw

28

We reassessed, as they say. It was decided to begin to bring rescue equipment toward the boat, since the threat in the stretch van had been neutralized, and we could begin to bring people in a bit closer. We called the main office, and asked for Captain Olinger to come back up to the DCI office. We needed to plan.

Sometimes it's hard to see any real progress in a given situation. I mean, here things were, with better access to a boat we still couldn't get to, which was still occupied by several hundred gamers as hostage, held by a few armed individuals who were not about to let us get much closer than we were. A small increment, at best. But, I thought, progress, nonetheless.

Until I talked with George.

"You know, what we've done is eliminate the only suspects we could hold hostage…" He looked at me, startled at his own thoughts. "If Gabriel ordered them to surrender, he just saved their lives, eliminated the threat that they could be killed or injured, and has kept the ante the same."

"Smoothed out the lines," said Adams. He shivered in the cold, damp air. "Looks like we just rescued some of his people for him."

Art had come up while we were talking. "Well, that means we got some people to charge if things go to hell on us."

Always practical.

Captain Olinger came in. "You have a plan? I understand you have a plan…"

Lamar arrived a few moments later. I'd never been so glad to see him in my life, because I knew what was coming, and I honestly didn't want the decision on my shoulders. We had another little impromptu get-together. The upshot was that, to pressure Gabe and to force his surrender, we had to take the bank. Volont really pressed Lamar, because it was Lamar's decision. His primary jurisdiction.

"He's a soldier, Sheriff. He is. He won't kill just to be doing it. I know that. You know that. Once we take the bank, the whole reason for his whole operation is over. Done."

Lamar looked at him for a moment, and then just walked off a few feet, stomping his good foot in the slush. "Carl, Hester, come here, will ya?"

We stood with him, nobody saying a word. Finally, he asked our opinion. "So, what do you think?"

"My best guess," I said, "is this: He hasn't hurt anybody on the boat or in the bank. We have no indication that he's going to do bad things on the boat. Unless we do, I say wait him out."

"I agree," said Hester. "When he has to try to feed several hundred people out there on the water, he's done. Forty-eight hours or less, and he just drops into our laps."

"So, you don't think we should try the bank, then?"

We both said, "No."

"Unless he does something to the boat?"

Right.

"Even then, it depends on what he does. As sheriff, it's my call." Lamar was quiet for a few more seconds, and then he turned back to the FBI agent in charge. "Let it wait. Plan it, set it up, and then wait. It ain't time, yet."

I thought it was a fine decision.

We just got back into Hester's office at the pavilion, when the phone rang. Sally made her now familiar "It's Gabriel" signal, and put him on speaker phone.

"Let me speak to Volont."

"This is Sheriff Ridgeway. I think you'd better talk to me, first."

"The sheriff himself. Well, this is an honor. What kept you?"

"Business," said Lamar. "Why don't you just knock off the shit, and give up. You know we ain't gonna let your people out of the bank. You know you're gonna have to give up the boat. Why prolong things?"

"I hate to disappoint you," said the heavy voice, "but I have other plans."

"We all got plans, son," said Lamar. "Doesn't mean a lot."

Gabriel actually chuckled. "You've got balls, for a gimpy old fucker," he said. "I think you'd give me a lot tougher time than Special Agent Volont." The humor left his voice like he'd turned off a switch. "My plans tend to mean quite a bit," he said. "Please direct your attention to the boat." He broke the connection.

We looked. We couldn't see anything farther back than the bow. Nothing.

Suddenly, there was a cloud of yellowish brown billowing up from inside the fog, and a distant thump that you could feel in your feet.

"Shit!" Lamar turned to Volont. "Get 'em to move on the bank," he said.

Captain Olinger, the off-duty boat captain, rushed to the window.

"What? Who the hell is he?" asked Lamar. They hadn't had time to be introduced, I explained as Olinger began to describe things.

"Watch her," said the captain. "If she settles by the stern, that might be good. It looked like the smoke was from the port side, maybe aft of the paddle wheels… she should settle by the stern… yeah, see…"

It did look as if she was getting a little lower in the water, and I could have sworn I could see more of the surface of the decks than I could a few minutes ago.

There was a spreading stain on the water, emerging from the fog from the direction of the after portion of the Beauregard.

"Is that fuel coming out?" Lamar always worried about fires.

"I don't think so… no," said Captain Olinger. "What it looks like is sewage."

"Sewage?" I was surprised.

"Yeah… there's a ninety-four-hundred-gallon sewage tank, just above the propeller shafts, straddling two big void spaces… and it looks to me like she's open to the river around void five and the engine room."

"Is it sinking?" asked Lamar.

"Not yet," said Captain Olinger. "Just a minute…"

There was a sudden jet of water coming through the fog, from the side, about the middle of the boat. Low.

"Pumps," said Olinger. "Automatic."

"Will that work?" asked Hester.

"It helps. If that's it," said Captain Olinger, "then she won't sink." He pointed to the security diagram on Hester's bulletin board. "She's got six transverse watertight bulkheads," he said, "and it looks to me like the holing occurred about here…" He drew an X near the stern. "Worst case would be on both sides of the bulkhead that separates the engine room and void five." He smiled. "If that's it, then she's stable right now."

"How stable," asked Hester, "is stable?"

"Really stable. She can stay like that forever and not go down another inch."

The phone rang, and Sally put it on speaker. It was Gabriel.

"Impressed?"

Nobody answered.

"Oh, come now. Surely you appreciate the talent, here?" He sounded amused. "I'm assuming that you have somebody accessible who can tell you about the boat?"

He anticipated just about everything, I guess. Well, you would have, if you'd planned this long enough.

"This is Captain Olinger."

"Ah, Captain. As you've probably determined, I've flooded the engine room and the last compartment aft. If you haven't, you know it now."

"I had."

"Good for you." The humor was back in Gabriel's voice. "The next charge is set to open what you call void four, with the next charge after that at the generator room."

"There's a ten thousand gallon fuel tank in void four!"

"Stay calm, Captain. The charges just let in the water. They're not set to even affect the fuel tank."

"How can you be sure?" Volont stuck his two cents worth in.

"Ah, Super Asshole in Control Volont! You of all people should know I can do that."

None of us in the office spoke.

"Let my people out of the bank when they signal you to do so, allow them to proceed where they wish, and I won't set off charges two and three. Ask the good captain. Charge two will put her on the edge, and charge three will sink her. It's your call."

The phone went dead.

"Well," Art said, "it's good to know that she's only sitting a couple of feet off the bottom."

"Who told you that?" asked Captain Olinger.

"The lock and dam," I said.

"They use an average depth of the river in an area," said the Captain. "Before we ever berthed the Beau, we had to dredge a channel for her, to avoid bottom debris and to keep her props from eroding the bank. Out two hundred feet, and four hundred feet north and south."

We looked at him.

"Right now, she's sitting in forty-five feet of water. That'd be enough to submerge her to the pilothouse."

"Can we tow it to shore?" George was right on top, as usual.

"Take a lot," said Olinger. "She's got no propulsion, and she's carrying another… Oh, say, fifteen tons of water now. Not a job for your average winch." He pointed in the general direction of the Beauregard. "Find enough power, attach a good cable to that big tow ring just below the weather deck at the bow…"

We decided that the first step would be to get several hundred feet of cable rounded up, connected, and think of a way to get it to the boat in a hurry. What to attach it to on the bank, to pull such a load, was the largest problem. It was also a problem we had to solve before we went for the bad guys inside the Frieberg bank.

George wondered about a wrecker. No way. Couldn't overcome the inertia, according to Captain Olinger.

Lamar solved that one. "Sally, get hold of the railroad. See when they can have a couple of those big diesel engines on the track by the boat landing…" He turned to the captain. "That be enough?"

"Oh, it sure would," he said, grinning. "Plenty. Hell, you could water-ski behind her with that land of pull."

"Now we just got to figure a way to get cable attached to the boat without getting somebody shot." I looked at the dock area. "Can we get an iceboat up here?"

Our local iceboats were 16-foot aluminum flatbottoms, with caged aircraft engines, much like a swamp boat. Ice, water… made no real difference to the iceboats. I'd ridden in one for the first time at a drowning last winter. They just slowed a bit, hit the ice at a slant, and rode right up on it. Same thing going from the ice back to the water.

"We can probably get an iceboat here in fifteen minutes," said Captain Olinger.

"Let's do it," said Lamar. "I want everything in place when we decide to go…"

"It's time for the bank," said Volont.

Lamar looked first at Volont, then at Adams. "How long's it gonna take?"

"Ten minutes from 'Go,'" answered Adams. No hesitation.

"How are you going to do it?" I thought that was covered under "need to know."

Adams told us to look out the window toward the bank, one at a time, as he talked. He never looked, himself.

"The only operable truck they have is the one with the lift gate on the rear. Hydraulic. We can't get a good shot line on the tires. This turns out," he said, "to be a good thing."

He explained that there were a couple of blind spots in the bank. The bigger of the trucks had been the one the robbers had backed to the hole they'd blown in the wall. The hole wasn't quite large enough to accommodate the rear of the truck, so they'd had to leave a gap of about four feet between the end of the truck and the bank wall, to accommodate the powered lifting gate. His officers had been watching the robbers move the 55 gallon drums of money between the truck and the bank. They said that there was a good chance they could get in by approaching in the blind spot, creeping the wall, and just walking in through the hole in the wall when the power gate was in the down position.

They'd also had good views through some of the windows and were aware of the position of most of the hostages. Most.

In addition to the entry team, there would be four more TAC team members moving along the other blind spot, who would rush the door after the others got inside.

"Have the robbers locked the doors?" asked Lamar.

"The big glass doors? Doesn't make any difference," said Adams. "Not really."

Lamar stood looking out toward the boat. "What are your odds at the bank?"

"Good," said Adams. "Not perfect, but good. Given this situation, it's not likely to get any better."

"And the hostages?"

"Good, too."

"But not perfect," said Lamar. "Never is, is it?"

"No, it never is," said Adams.

Lamar kept looking out at the boat. "Damned if you do, damned if you don't," he said, mostly to himself. "Lose six hostages in the bank, or over six hundred on the water…"

"We have to go now," said Volont, "or the window of opportunity closes."

"Are you sure?" Lamar turned. "If they get to leave the bank, do you think he'll sink the boat?"

"He will, to cover his escape," said Volont.

"And if we take them out of the bank…?"

"Then there's no point to continue the whole business," said Volont. "The soldier surrenders to save lives. Much better press that way."

"I hope you're right," said Lamar. He turned to face Adams. "Take 'em out of the bank."

We left the office to Lamar, Art, and Sally. The rest of us hustled down toward the bank. Adams left first, and just disappeared into the fog. It was that thick. You could only see about fifty feet before things started becoming indistinct.

I could see the tops of the heads of the five TAC agents who were to go through the hole, as they moved along the bank wall. Then they all ducked down, and I lost them to the fog, the trucks, and the low wall. We waited. And waited. Nothing happened. We waited. I suppose it was all of twenty seconds, to tell the truth, but it felt like a year.

Suddenly, the three TAC agents in the second group popped around the corner of the bank and rushed the main door, disappearing inside in the blink of an eye.

Nothing.

Then, the so-called secure radio crackled to life. "TAC One needs an ambulance at the bank, NOW!"

Sally ordered the ambulance in, and about half a dozen uniformed officers from both our department and the State Patrol moved in with it, running alongside…

Nothing, again.

Then, "Okay, TAC One has lots of healthy hostages, two dead suspects, one wounded. No casualties among the good guys."

"All right!"

"Yes!"

"Way to go!"

"Could somebody" crackled Sally's voice, "come back up here? He's been on the phone again, and Lamar wants you up here when he calls back…"

We got back to Hester's office, and had to wait for almost a minute for Gabriel to call. Lamar looked worried and pleased at the same time. No dead or injured hostages. But we still had to coax Gabriel off the boat.

The phone rang. Gabriel.

"What have you done at the bank? You stupid sons of bitches, what have you done?"

He knew. He was, after all, listening to our radio traffic. I also noticed that his cell phone sounded weak. His batteries were wearing down, I thought. More pressure.

"You might as well give up," said Lamar.

The connection went dead.

This time, water didn't just boil up by the General Beauregard. This time, there was a fountain of water more than fifty feet in the air, as the next charge went off. It came shooting up out of the fog, followed a moment later by a thunderclap that rattled our windows.

Captain Olinger had assessed the damage to the Beauregard almost before the water plume subsided.

"Void four," he said. "She'll be down a good foot to two feet at the stern with that one… I sure as hell hope the fuel tank wasn't ruptured…"

People burst out onto the forward weather decks of the Beau, climbing the exterior steps to the next deck. As she settled, I could see the water creep above the bottom of the glazed panes toward the rear of the boat. That would put the cash-counting rooms, rest rooms, and coin room into the water. The blackjack tables and the lower bank of game machines would be getting damp, as well. And that water was damned cold.

"If security is being restrained," asked George, "who's moving the people around like that? The bad guys?"

"The dealers and the waitresses," said Hester. "And the deckhands. They're trained for that."

As she spoke, we could see the black slacks and white ruffled blouses of the employees going to the big lockers, beginning to hand out the personal flotation devices. They seemed calm. The passengers, though, were starting to move toward the edge of the decks, and you could almost see them thinking of jumping in. So far, the icy water and the small PFD they'd been issued seemed to be dissuading them from leaving, but it was a funny thing. I was certain that as soon as the first one jumped, we'd get lots more. Anybody in that water for more than ten minutes was as good as gone, especially given they were mostly in their fifties.

The General Beauregard stabilized again, with the portion of the deck we could see angling down at about a 15 degree angle, and the last half of the main deck had to be awash. Steam was wafting out of the gangway doors, where the warm air inside met the cold water.

Just seeing her like that gave me butterflies. I fully expected something to give way, and for her to slide stern first beneath the water.

The phone rang again, and we all expected Gabriel. I know that Sally did, because she put it on "speaker" automatically.

It was Nancy, her voice sort of quivery, and no longer bothering to whisper.

"Houseman, this fucking thing is sinking!"

"No, no, it's not. Not yet." I am sometimes honest to a fault.

"'Not yet'? 'NOT YET'!"

"No, we have a captain here, and he says it's not. Here. Just a second… This is a lady we know, and she's on the boat," I said to Captain Olinger, gesturing for him to help.

"That's right, ma'am," he said, loudly. "It's not going to sink after that explosion. Please tell the rest of the passengers that…"

"Get us OFF this thing!"

"We're working on it," I said. "We gotta clear this line…"

"Nancy, isn't it?" said Volont. "Could you look around and get a number on the terrorists for us?"

"What? What? Not on your stupid little life," she said, and hung up.

"Wait a minute," I said, after Nancy had terminated the conversation. "Wait… What's happening here? I mean, Gabriel doesn't kill for no reason, right?"

"No reason in his own mind," said Volont.

"Right. So, the stretch van has been eliminated… and now the bank is back in our possession. So, what the hell is he doing still trying to sink the boat?"

I didn't get an answer.

"Is there any indication that he's suicidal?" I asked. "I mean, if he's not, now that the other aspects of the operation are done for, there's no point in continuing to play with the boat. He won't sink it. He'd be sinking himself."

"I wish I could count on that," said Lamar.

"We gotta keep up the rescue effort… sure we do," I said. "Just to be safe." I pointed to the crippled gambling boat. "What we really gotta do is understand that this might be a distraction."

"For what?" asked George.

"For him getting away," I said. "Get some surveillance on the other side of the boat. The river side. Gabe's going to try to make his getaway while we try to save the passengers. He's got to have a plan to get himself off that damned thing…"

We set up an observers point in an iceboat, about 300 feet east of the Beau. They said they could see everything, and there was no movement that looked like the bad guys were trying to get off the thing. We also closed off the Mississippi River bridge. We closed the thing off completely, and had officers and agents observing the riverside of the boat, watching the bluffs above the fog line, and making sure nobody had gotten off and was climbing to safety.

"Crap, do you think he's going to wait for dark to make his move?" Good old Art.

Shamrock called with Nancy's phone. Interesting news. "Nancy has been, like, upstairs, and she says to tell you that the robbers have changed their clothes. Like, they are blending in, you know? Like you can't tell them from the rest of us."

"Okay…"

"And that she thinks there might have been, maybe, six or seven, like at first? And that nobody has been hurt yet, so far as she knows."

"All right…"

"And," said Shamrock, "I got some great shots of them, Houseman, great, like at the truck and pushing people around out here."

"Good for you."

"If we sink, I'm going to throw my film out onto the ice. I taped the cans shut, and I taped them to this stupid little life jacket, and I'll throw it out if we sink. Don't forget to look for it…"

The big railroad diesel yard engines arrived a few moments later. The attendant fire departments had rounded up sufficient cable. Now it was time for volunteers to get the cable out to the boat. Although it always surprised me, there was no shortage of volunteers. It was quickly determined that a DNR officer who was off duty and was on scene with the Volunteer Fire Department would drive an iceboat out to the Beau. He was accompanied by a state trooper with arms like tree trunks, who would handle the cable and attach it to the Beauregard when the time came.

Both men were given two Kevlar vests, the outer one with plates, to protect them as well as possible from any shots fired at them during their mission. They also wore large orange life jackets. We almost had to lift them into the boat.

Volont issued the order to have half the FBI TAC team sharpshooters become visible to those on the boat, and to let them see the rifles with the scopes before they settled into a shooting position on the roof and the dock-side. The four of them were each accompanied by a spotter, with a fairly large scope mounted on a tripod. About half a dozen state troopers and four of our deputies were also made prominent, with rifles. The message to the suspects on the boat was pretty clear. Try to take a shot, and see what happens to you. It was the best we could do.

"All shooters have a green light," said Adams over the once-secure radios. "Anybody on the boat with a gun, take him out. Spotters, if a shot is fired, give the location to everybody on the radio, not just to your shooter."

We watched as the iceboat's prop revved up, and it slid off the ramp and began to move toward the Beauregard. The original plan had been to carry the cable to the Beau, attach one end, and then move back to shore, and attach the other end to the big yard engines. That was changed, when it was pointed out that if they were shot after attaching the cable to the gambling boat, we'd lose them, the cable, and any other chance of towing the General Beauregard to shore. It was also determined that we could begin to tow immediately when the cable was attached to the boat, if it was attached to the yard engines beforehand.

Consequently, with the cable already attached to the yard engines, the iceboat crabbed slowly toward the stricken Beauregard, trailing cable over the side. It seemed to take forever, with the DNR officer exposed by sitting in front of the huge propeller cage, and the trooper on his knees in the open bow, cable in hand.

"All shooters, if anybody tries to detach the cable after it's in place, take them out." Adams was talking his sharpshooters through the scenario.

The iceboat moved steadily on, with the trooper in the bow occasionally looking over his shoulder to see that the cable paid out properly. I could feel my pulse in my neck.

When the iceboat was about ten feet away from the tow ring on the Beau's bow, the secure radio crackled to life.

"Alpha Two Spotter has a masked subject with a long gun. He's, uh, on the main deck, and he's behind the glass, just right of center."

I couldn't see him, as there were lots of reflections in the glass.

"And Alpha Two Spotter has the same subject moving to the shore side of the boat, and, and… He's coming out onto the deck…"

I saw the glazed door open, and a man step out onto the deck with what looked like an AK-47 in one hand. He was in a green coverall and was wearing a dark ski mask. He started toward the bow of the Beau, about twenty feet from him. He brought his other hand to the rifle, and began to bring it to his shoulder.

"Shoot," said Adams. Very calm, very matter-of-fact.

I didn't hear a thing, but the man with the rifle just suddenly fell off the deck into the icy water, as if he'd been backhanded by a giant.

The iceboat edged closer to the bow of the Beauregard. All of a sudden we could see a myriad of small splashes erupt in the water around the small craft, and a twinkling from the boat. Automatic rifle fire, and a large bit of it.

"Let's suppress the fire, people," intoned Adams. "Get all of 'em. There's at least one shooter on the river side of the deck… Suppress that asshole…"

An occasional star appeared in the glazed area of the Beauregard, but I couldn't see anything else happening. The sharpshooters were having a hell of a time getting a clean shot at any shooters on the boat, because the passengers were bunched up all over the place. The firing at the iceboat did seem to slacken off, though, and it kept edging closer and closer to the bow. When it got within about ten yards, it should be concealed from the shooters by the bow of the riverboat. A safe zone, although temporary. It slid up to the bow, and we all let out a little cheer.

"Let's not get happy, people," said Adams into his radio. "They gotta get out of there, too. Find the shooters. Take your best shots, but be careful." He said to me, as an aside, "We gotta make a decision as to whether or not to accept collateral damage. We hold a shot to save a passenger, we could lose several hundred in return…"

He seemed awfully calm, for all that to be going on in his head. My respect for him went up another notch.

We watched as the trooper clambered back to the front of his boat, grabbed the towing ring of the Beauregard with one hand, and the cable with the other. Surely, and with what appeared an easy motion, he drew them together, and began to fasten the cable to the ring.

"He makes it look easy," said George.

He did, too. Slicker than hell.

We all began to make noises of relief, when there was another explosion on the Beau, throwing up a gout of water, oil, and mud.

"There she goes!" hollered Olinger. "Damn it, they've sunk her for sure now!"

True enough, the General Beauregard began to settle noticeably, and by the stern.

"Get those fuckin' yard engines moving!" hollered Lamar. "Now, now!"

As the Beau started for the bottom stern-first, the yard diesels began to slowly take up the slack on the cable. Too fast, and they'd tear the towing rig right off the bow. Too slow, now, and they'd lose some 650 people to the icy water.

"Fast as they can," muttered Lamar.

The DNR iceboat accelerated rapidly, and came flying onto the concrete ramp at about 30 mph, lofting and skidding up the concrete slab for about 100 feet, before coming to rest behind a tin shed. The sense of relief was enormous, if fleeting.

As the Beauregard took on more and more water, her weight increased. As she settled deeper and deeper, the drag on the hull also increased. I was beginning to wonder if the yard engines were gong to be able to pull her in at all. So was Captain Olinger.

"It's gonna be goddamned close," he said.

As we watched, she began to glide toward us, but it was pretty obvious that she was going to be down a good amount before she got anywhere near the shore.

The hatchway doors along the lower deck began to open up, and passengers began to stream out toward the upper decks.

Suddenly, there was a belch of smoke from the two yard engines, and they began to move rapidly up the railroad tracks, being very careful not to gain speed too quickly. A few moments later, and the Beau had developed a noticeable movement. She was coming in.

She was also going down. The main deck was nearly awash for its full length, and the increasing angle at the stern had caused water to lap onto the rear portion of the second deck. It was going to be awfully close.

"If she strikes the bottom with her stern," said Captain Olinger, as much to himself as anyone, "I don't think the yard engines will be able to overcome the drag…" He looked at Lamar and said, "If that happens, we'll lose her."

The gunfire from the Beauregard seemed to have stopped completely, and many firemen were converging toward the area where it looked like she'd beach, if she was lucky.

"Do we have any fire trucks with really long extension ladders?" asked Adams. "She's pretty close now…"

"Nope," I answered. The tallest occupied structure in Nation County was three stories tall. Hook and ladder trucks weren't available.

Suddenly, the Beauregard seemed to lurch, and swayed over to her left, before righting herself. I could see some ten or fifteen passengers lose their footing, and slip and slide into the water.

"Fuck!" Lamar yelled at Sally to get the rescue crews into the water with whatever boats they had available.

"Struck the bottom," said Olinger, "but she bounced a bit."

The bow of the Beauregard was about 25 feet from the ramp, and the emergency personnel were beginning to prepare plank, netting, and a short section of floating dock that they'd detached from a long, beached dock about 50 yards from the water. The Beau was also way down at the stern, with water beginning to lap around the glazing at the rear of the third deck.

Suddenly, both the General Beauregard and the yard engines stopped, with the tension causing the bow cable to sing.

"Back the engines down!" hollered Lamar, into his walkie-talkie. "She's stuck… stop…"

Before he could finish, the cable snapped clear of the bow ring on the Beau, whipping and snaking through the air, flashing toward the yard engines. It struck one of the fire trucks near the ramp, rocking it, and throwing an extension ladder into the air.

Then, stillness.

The General Beauregard was stopped about ten feet from the end of the concrete boat ramp. We'd won.