by Dan Kelly
They’ll have to force open the elevator doors in the basement, but how quickly and quietly they’ll be able to do that is the iffy part of the plan. Well, not exactly. There’s another iffy part that’s on everybody’s mind. Will there be enough time for Popeye and Jimmy to get to the basement, open the elevator doors, locate the Chameleon and take him out, one way or the other, before he can set off his fire bomb. They have no doubt that it will be an ingenious and spectacular fire bomb of some sort, judging from the Chameleon’s past performances.
Nate’s been thinking about what he’s learned from looking at the schematics of the building. “The freight elevator will have to be part of the Chameleon’s plan to escape once he finds out there are men covering the back door. Since the freight elevator can be powered independently of everything else in the building, he can use it to get to the lobby, use the keys to get into the stairwell and climb his way to the 23rd floor and the door to the attic, use his key to that door and then access the roof and the fire escape via the skylight. Knowing him, he could plant a device to remotely trip a circuit breaker, once again cutting off power to the elevator and stranding it in the lobby. He most likely will ignite the fire in the stairwell with a spark from another device remotely controlled. He may be crazy, but I don’t think he’s suicidal. He’ll want to give himself a margin for error so his chances of getting away unscathed are pretty good.”
As the men are donning assault gear, helmets, vests, gloves, Tasers and other weapons, Nate share his thoughts with them. Popeye says to Tucker, “We May have to shoot him on sight before he has a chance to detonate whatever he might have planted to start the fire.”
Tucker’s chilling response is, “Do what you have to do. We’ll deal with the fallout later. If you don’t, a lot of people will die.”
Chapter 70
Popeye’s thinking, “With a little luck, we just might pull this off. It’s definitely out of the box, but that’s okay with me as long as we don’t wind up in one.”
Luck proves to be looking over their shoulders, but it’s not the kind Popeye’s hoping for. As Popeye and Tucker’s men board the helicopter, strong gusts of wind begin blowing in off Lake Michigan which might make it extremely difficult for the pilot to hold position above the apartment house long enough for them to rappel down to the roof.
It turns out that the pilot is a Gulf War veteran who has a lot of experience flying in sandstorms at the controls of an Apache Longbow, which were more dangerous to the pilots than they were to the enemy. “Gentlemen, this Bell Jetranger is the safest and most reliable chopper I’ve ever flown. We should have no problem getting you down on that roof.”
Popeye’s thinking, “’Should’ being the operative word there. I’d feel a whole lot better if he had said ‘will’.”
As they take off from the roof of the hotel, the winds die down, but not for long. Just as the pilot begins to hover over the apartment building to gradually lower the chopper as close to the roof as it’s safe to get, gale force winds begin to buffet the whirlybird causing it to slip and slide uncontrollably for seconds at a time. Popeye’s self-preservation mode kicks in and he’s about to tell the pilot to abort and get them back to the hotel, but changes his mind when he looks at the pilot and sees the guy’s smiling like he’s enjoying the ride.
“I hope this guy knows what he’s doing. This is not my idea of a fun thing to do. We’ve got to get down on that roof now! Time has got to be running out on us.
Another couple of minutes go by and then, like someone flicked a switch, the winds died down to gentle zephyrs and the pilot said, “Time to pay a visit to your friend down there. Good luck.”
Glad to be on the move, Popeye was on the apartment house roof in less than twenty seconds, followed closely by Tucker’s men. “Okay, guys, remember the Chameleon doesn’t think like normal people. He’s liable to do anything, so be prepared for anything. Let’s move it.”
The skylight door wasn’t locked from the inside, so they didn’t have to break anything and make a lot of noise. They descended the stairs all the way to the lobby without incident and were able to pry the elevator doors open without too much trouble, but the access doors to the shaft, one in the floor and one in the ceiling, were too small for Popeye to fit through. If there is enough room in the shaft to maneuver, Jimmy is going to have to confront the Chameleon on his own, without backup from Popeye.
“Jimmy, we don’t know if the guy with Carducci is a hostage or an accomplice, so be very careful. Until we have them both in custody and can sort things out, it will be safer for you to treat him as an enemy. If you’re fired upon, don’t return fire until you can see who you’re shooting at. If this guy is a hostage and he gets shot, even accidentally by a ricochet, there will be hell to pay. Take a look at the shaft and tell me if you’ll have enough room to get to the cables and slide down to the basement.”
Jimmy sticks his head down through the opening in the floor of the elevator and takes a gander. “I can manage, Popeye. There are metal rungs built into the two sides of the shaft for service personnel, but the shaft is way too small for someone as big as you.”
“Okay, Jimmy, you’re on. Let’s check our communicators because it’s the only way I’ll have of knowing what’s happening down there. Don’t get tongue tied on me. I don’t want to be playing guessing games up here.”
Nodding, Jimmy does a test transmission on his communicator, stuffs his hands into a pair of thick protective gloves and seconds later he has climbed down the rungs to the bottom of the shaft. Prying open the basement elevator doors is going to be a lot harder than the lobby doors. He doesn’t have Popeye’s muscle helping him and he’s standing below the elevator doors, so getting the proper leverage is going to be a problem too, but Jimmy’s up to the task.
He finds a large pulley he can stand on and after much grunting and swearing manages to pry the doors open. Whispering into his communicator he says, “I’ve got the doors open and am about to enter the basement, Popeye. I hope I kept the noise level low enough so the Chameleon couldn’t hear me prying them open.”
“Good man, Jimmy. That’s a big basement. Lots of places to hide if he’s sensed your presence. Stay alert.”
“Roger that.”
For what to Popeye seems an interminably long time, his communicator is silent as a tomb. No background noise, no nothing. He doesn’t dare try to use his communicator to ask Jimmy what is going on for fear the Chameleon will overhear his transmission and eliminate their element of surprise. “Come on, Jimmy. What’s taking so long?”
As if Jimmy was reading his mind, Popeye hears, “There’s no one here. The place is empty, but that’s impossible. We’ve had the front and back doors covered and no one’s come out. The janitor said the elevator to the basement has been out of commission for some time now. How could nobody be here?”
Popeye’s mind starts racing. He’s remembering what Nate shared with them before they hopped onto the chopper. “Jimmy, the Chameleon must have spotted the helicopter somehow hovering over the roof, probably through the skylight. He wouldn’t have had to reveal himself to anyone on the roof. I think Nate’s speculation is right on and the Chameleon was about to remotely trigger his version of hellfire when we showed up and threw a monkey wrench into the whole caboodle. Hang tight a minute, Jimmy. I’ve got to call Tucker and let him know what’s going on. He’s too far away to hear what we’re saying on our communicators.”
Flipping open his cell, he gets Tucker on the line. “Tuck, everything went as planned except when we got to the basement no one was home.” He repeats what he said to Jimmy and then adds, “I believe the guy is still in the building. You’ve got this building surrounded. One of your men would have spotted him if he had tried to leave.”
“I agree with you, Popeye. Have Jimmy open the cellar door and I’ll send Nate and the janitor over to see if they can figure out where these remote gadgets are hidden and render them harmless. If no damage has been done, the janitor shou
ld be able to restore power and water to the building and then he can set about removing the nails from the windows in the landings.”
“Will do, Tuck. What’s our next step?”
“We’re going to have to search every floor, every apartment. I’m going to have all my men converge on the lobby. I’ll leave the man you posted on the roof guarding the fire escape. I’ll station two men teams at the bottom of the fire escape and at the front and back doors. The rest will search every floor in the building, four men to a floor. I want you by my side. If he’s hiding in an apartment, holding anyone hostage, I may need your expertise with a rifle to take him out.”
“What about the guy that’s with Carducci? We don’t know if he’s friend or foe.”
“Until we know differently, we’ll treat him as a hostage, but very carefully.”
“What’s bothering me, Tuck, is that this guy might get it in his mind to go through with his plan even if he knows he’s surrounded and can’t get away. He just might start a fire anyway, knowing that it will probably kill him before the fire can be put out. He might be willing to take hostages, even kill them, to buy enough time for him to work up enough courage to do the deed. Everything seems to hinge on Nate and/or the janitor finding those damn remote gizmos.”
“Well, if that’s what the Chameleon is up to, we’d better get a move on and get Nate and the janitor into that basement right away. I’ll meet you in the lobby in a few minutes.”
Popeye instructs Jimmy to open the outside cellar door and help Nate and the janitor in any way he can when they arrive and then walks over to the front doors and props them open, so Tucker and his men can get into the building and begin their search.
Popeye is armed with an M24 SWS sniper rifle which Tucker somehow managed to get his hands on and decides to check it over one more time. “It’s an impressive weapon; Bolt action, 5-round internal magazine, weighs a little over 12 lbs., maximum effective range of 875 yds., adjustable stock, 10x42 Leupold Ultra M3A telescope sight. It appears Tucker’s network of contacts is still alive and well.”
His thoughts are interrupted by the man himself running into the lobby with his men streaming in after him. “Nate and the janitor have just gone around back to search the cellar. I’ll break up this group into four man teams and assign them floors to search. When that’s done, you and I will search the attic. Man, I sure hope we find that remote igniter before he presses the button if what you fear comes to pass. There’s a lot of fuel in this old building for a fire to consume and a lot of people could die.”
Chapter 71
Nate and Don are rushing around the basement like a couple of men with bad cases of diarrhea looking for a toilet and they know there’s only one. Nate quickly finds the relay switches the Chameleon has inserted in the wiring connected to the basement elevator circuit breaker and the main power line coming into the basement. Evidently, the basement elevator gets its power off a feeder from the main power line, but the wiring is behind a wall.
In less than five minutes, he’s removed the switches and restored the wiring to its normal condition. Don is able to turn the water back on right away, but finding the means the Chameleon planted for starting a fire is proving to be very difficult. Nate joins him in the search, but the extra pair of eyes is no help at all.
What’s making their search even more difficult is the fumes from the accelerant that the Chameleon has spread around all over the basement. They’re having trouble breathing, their eyes are burning and watering so badly that their vision is blurred and they’re also dealing with nausea and dizziness.
Nate says, “We’re overlooking something. The Chameleon wouldn’t have poured this stuff all over everything here without a means of igniting it from a distance.”
Don looks over at him and a possibility suddenly comes to mind when he sees beads of sweat on Nate’s forehead. Don’s been sweating too, but he’s chalked it up to the tension of being in a dangerous situation. The next instant he yells, “The thermostat! You fixed the wiring, but the furnaces and air conditioners, they’re not making a sound.”
Sure enough, when they check out the thermostat they find that its guts have been removed and replaced with a little black box containing a small power supply, a relay and something that looks like a miniature ignition coil you’d find in a car. There are wires coming from the top of the ignition coil that stick out from the top of the thermostat about a quarter of an inch. When the thermostat’s in its normal position in the wall, the tips of the wires are barely noticeable.
Nate quickly cuts the wires coming from the power supply and going to the coil and then says with a sigh of relief, “Amazing. The man is amazing.”
Don says, “How could something that small provide enough of a spark to start a fire?”
“Don, this guy is a master at miniaturization. He’s made a living at it. I’m sure it would have worked if we hadn’t found it.”
“But, Nate, why did he go to all this trouble when he could have placed a device of normal size out in the open somewhere?”
“Don, this guy doesn’t think like you and I. He’s not firing on all cylinders if you get my drift, but he’s very smart and extremely cautious. He tries to plan for all contingencies. He did what he did in case someone figured out a way to get down here before he was ready to press the button. If someone did come down here, they’d see nothing alarming. This guy believes he’s covered all his bases, but he didn’t figure on a very smart janitor gumming up the works. That was some heads up thinking, guy.”
Smiling he replies, “It’s remarkable what fear can do isn’t it?”
Chuckling Nate said, “Let’s get out of here before we pass out. Walk slowly and don’t do anything that might create a spark. Go out the cellar door. We can leave it open and get a big exhaust fan going to suck out these fumes. Until we do that, this basement is still a very dangerous place to be. I’d disable the basement elevator again by throwing its circuit breaker, but I’m afraid that might create a spark and blow us up. Besides, KABOOM has never been one of my favorite sounds.
Once back upstairs in the lobby, Nate calls Tucker and gives him the status of the basement, then he calls the firehouse and arranges for them to bring over some big exhaust fans and then he calls Rex to let everyone there know what’s going on. Flipping his cell phone closed, he notices Don coming back from the stairwell door with a hammer in his hand.
“Nate, do you think you can get your firemen buddies to bring some extra gas masks along with those fans. The Chameleon has spread the same stuff he spread in the basement in the stairwells. Breathing in too much of that crap can’t be good for you.”
“You’ll get them. If there are fumes in the stairwells, you’d better be real careful removing those nails from the windows with that hammer. It would be safer if you covered the hammer with a thick cloth to prevent a spark from setting off a blaze.”
“I’m heading to my truck now to get some. I’m steering clear of the basement until those fumes are out of there. The stairwells are bad, but not as bad as the basement.”
Nate nods his acknowledgement and then begins to review in his mind all that he has learned since he entered the building. “So far, so good. We’ve been damned lucky to find what we did before the Chameleon could activate anything. I hope our luck holds out until this nut is nabbed.”
Then something he’s overlooked pops into his head. He quickly gets Tucker back on the phone. “Tucker, the Chameleon might have planted more ignition devices on the stairwells. Don told me that they’ve been sprayed with the same accelerant that we found in the basement. Doing so would enable him to start two or more fires at the same time, improving his odds of burning the building to the ground. Have your men look for a little black box that looks out of place. If they find any, tell them to open it up and rip out the power supply. The power supply looks like a battery. How are you guys holding up with those fumes?”
“We’re dealing with them, barely. Our vision is blurry, we’r
e dizzy and nauseous, breathing normally is out of the question, but so far no one’s passed out.”
“Well, hang in there. I’m going to call the fire station for some gas masks when I hang up. They should be here within ten minutes. I called them for exhaust fans just minutes ago and they’re being dropped off out front as we speak. Any sign of the Chameleon?”