by Jan Burke
“I think there’s someone alive on the next floor up,” Frank said, feeling hope rise. “Bingle hears something up there.”
Ben helped Frank lift the dog back through, and soon they were on their way up to the next floor. Ben radioed the USAR team, asking them to meet them at the stairwell of the fourth floor.
They were moving fast now, hurrying down the last corridor. Bingle suddenly halted, though, and cocked his head again. Rascal did the same, then looked back at Ben. Bingle wagged his tail and made a wavering, high-pitched howling sound.
“No…”
“I don’t think he’s howling,” Ben said quickly. “That’s his singing voice.”
Frank had heard Bingle’s famous crooning — the inspiration for the dog’s name — and didn’t think this had been much like it. He wondered if Ben was merely trying to soften a blow.
Bingle and Rascal moved off again, pulling hard at their leads.
“Anna?” Ben said into the radio. “Hurry.”
Hurry, Frank thought. That isn’t what you say if the victim is dead.
“What kind of alert is singing?” he asked, quickening his pace to keep up with Bingle’s.
“It’s not an alert. It’s just one of his tricks. But sometimes he does it when he hears someone else singing.”
As they neared the entrance to the stairwell, Bingle made the sound again, then looked back at Frank. Frank followed him over the debris in the older stairwell. Here the metal door leading to the newer stairs was closed and blocked, but the dog scratched furiously at it. Barking at the door, and then Frank, and then turning back to Ben to bark at him.
Telling the dog he was marvelous and intelligent, Ben called him back to his side. He commanded him to stop barking, but took out the toss-toy and played quietly with him.
At the stairwell door, Frank immediately heard a distinct, rhythmic tapping sound.
“Hello? Can you hear me?” Frank shouted.
There was no answer, but the tapping continued in the same rhythm. Ben was talking into the radio now, telling the USAR team that they had definitely found a live victim and describing the location.
Frank used the end of his flashlight to tap against the door three times.
This time there was a pause in the tapping, and then three taps came back.
Frank tapped again.
A small segment of Morse code came back — three dots, three dashes, three dots — SOS.
Frank tried tapping back in the same code: Are you hurt?
There was a long pause and then the SOS was repeated.
Frank relayed this information to Ben, who passed it along by radio. Frank continued to tap and repeat patterns of tapping, hoping to reassure the trapped person.
Soon the technical rescue team arrived — it had taken them less than four minutes despite the fact that they were also carrying equipment — an exothermic cutting torch, a concrete saw, lift pillows, breathing canisters, first aid supplies, a microphone that could be threaded through small openings, and cribbing wood.
“On to the next floor,” Ben said as the team went to work on cutting the door. “Unless you want to stay here?”
“No, I’ll come along. But—”
“I’ve already asked them to contact you when they learn who it is.”
On the fifth floor, instead of darkness near the stairwell, they found daylight.
The west stairwell bomb had gone off on the seventh floor of the new stairwell, blowing out chunks of concrete that then fell through the roof of the older stairwell — which started at the fifth floor. In addition to forming a crude skylight, the debris completely blocked access between the two stairwells. Dust and dirt from the roof lay everywhere.
But on this floor the dogs had their strongest response yet. Taken near the stairwell separately, all three alerted. Bingle didn’t sing this time, but his interest in getting closer to the new stairwell was plain. Ben frowned, studying the obstacles before them, then said, “Bingle’s the best climber of these three. Let’s see what he wants to show us, Frank. Anna, hold on to Rascal for me, will you? I’ll follow along, Frank, just in case you need help with him.”
As Bingle led them over boulder-sized pieces of concrete and fallen beams, he became more and more excited. Finally he stopped and cocked his head. He stood in the sun near a small opening formed by two large pieces of concrete that had fallen against each other in a tent shape.
For a moment, Frank was afraid the dog was going to try to burrow into the space, but as he came closer, he saw that it was too small even for Bingle to squeeze through. Bingle stuck most of his snout into the opening, snuffling loudly, and began wagging his tail. Abruptly, he pulled his nose out and raised his head up high. Frank braced himself to hear howling, but instead the dog sneezed — then began barking.
Ben had come closer then, too, and once again managed to both praise and reward Bingle while getting him to be quiet. Suddenly, Frank realized why the dogs had been so sure this time — through the opening he could hear the faint sound of a voice.
A familiar voice calling, “Hello! Hello! We’re down here!”
“Irene!” Frank began shouting. “Irene!”
“Frank? In here!” came the faint but clear response. “Oh, Frank! I’m here! Seth and Judge Kerr, too.”
“Irene—” he said, and for a moment couldn’t say anything more. He felt tears on his face and let them fall.
“I’m okay, Frank — Seth, too.”
He heard Ben calling on the radio, asking for more help. He didn’t sound much steadier.
“Are any of you hurt?” Frank asked.
“The judge is hurt the worst. Seth is with him — they ended up a little farther down, but Seth and I can hear each other. Seth says Kerr is breathing, but he’s unconscious.”
“And you?”
“A little bumped around, that’s all. Were you the one who was tapping?”
“Yes. Ben and Bingle and Anna and her dogs are here. Bingle is the star of the day. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“From the moment Seth told me someone was answering his taps, I’ve been doing better and better.”
He continued to talk to her until the second technical team arrived. He moved back into the corridor then, watching as they used inflatable lift pillows to widen the opening and began the work of shoring up the space they’d use to free her.
Ben put a hand on his shoulder. Frank turned to see Anna waiting down the corridor with the dogs. “We’ve got to move along,” Ben said.
Frank glanced back at the rescue team, which was hammering cribbing in place.
“Sure,” he said.
“Oh, no, you stay here. I think we can dispense with your help.”
“I meant what I said—”
“I know you did. But if you haven’t figured out that I risked being kicked off the SAR team just because I couldn’t stand to think of you sitting out in the plaza while I looked for your trouble-prone wife—”
“I was going crazy down there, Ben. I — I don’t know how to thank you—”
“I owe the two of you too much for thanks to be due. Besides, this was good for me — it will help me with the rest of the day.”
He watched them take the dogs down the hall, Ben talking to Bingle in Spanish, Anna to Rascal and Devil in English, working up their enthusiasm, telling them to “find ’em,” knowing that the outcome would seldom be the one that others hoped and waited for.
Frank moved back toward the stairwell, as close as the workers would allow him to come.
For now, he would wait. And silently offer thanks.
54
Friday, July 14, 4:00 P.M.
St. Anne’s Hospital
The doctors said they expected Judge Kerr to make a full recovery, but he would be hospitalized for a while. As the blast hit, he had tried to shield Seth from falling objects but was himself struck on the head by a small piece of concrete. He had lost consciousness and fallen down the stairs, taking Seth with him. A rain
of debris had separated them from Irene.
Seth, who had been the first to be rescued, had a few scrapes and bruises. Frank had gone down to the fourth floor again when they brought him out. He held tightly to Frank from the moment he was freed until Elena met them at the hospital.
Irene was scraped and bruised, too, and more extensively. He had winced at all the abrasions on her face and arms and legs, and especially at a swollen spot just above her left eyebrow. “I’m so disappointed. I was trying to get mine in the same place as yours,” she said, tracing a finger lightly along his stitches. “Do you mind if I tell people this happened when I kicked a bad guy’s ass?”
“With this much damage, you’d better say it was a dozen bad guys.”
He had held her gently when she was freed — neither of them able to say a word. She had been terrified, he could tell, although she had put up a brave front for Seth’s sake — talking with him, singing songs with him — Bingle had been singing in response to one of these. They got away from the building as soon as possible, and he was relieved to see the fear gradually recede as she spent time in the open air.
Frank decided to visit Bredloe while Seth and Irene talked with Elena. Although it was hard for him to let either Irene or Seth out of his sight, he was still not comfortable with Elena. He was overdue for a visit to Bredloe in any case.
Bredloe recognized him and said a slow, slurred version of his name. And something that sounded like the word “sorry.”
“No need to be, sir.”
Frank couldn’t make out the next phrase, but Miriam translated. “Yes, there is.”
Miriam told Frank that while her husband was doing much better, the long-term effects of his injuries were still uncertain.
“Hard for you to be patient with it, I know,” Frank said to him.
“Yes. Sometimes almost as frustrating as policework.”
Miriam started to translate, but Frank smiled and said, “I understood that perfectly.”
Because the captain tired quickly, and because he was anxious to return to Irene, Frank kept the visit short.
When he returned to the lobby, Irene was sitting alone. “Where are Seth and Elena?” he asked.
“Waiting outside. I asked them to give us a few minutes. I think they needed a little time to themselves, too.” She tugged him toward a small office. “I asked one of the nurses if we could come in here to talk. She said it would be okay.”
He pulled her gently into his arms, being careful of her bruises, and didn’t let her say a word for a while. “This time,” he said, “this time you really scared the hell out of me.”
“Is that some freaked-out macho-man way of telling me you love me?”
He laughed, then kissed her again. “I’ve got all kinds of ways to do that.”
His cell phone rang. He started to ignore it, but she said, “No rush — answer it.”
It was Vince.
“You want to be in for the kill?” he said. “Haycroft is here.”
“Have you arrested him?”
“Not yet. He’s holding a hostage.”
“Shit,” he said.
“A lady from the courthouse. A guard. Nice woman. Anyway, get on over here, because my money is on the SWAT boys.”
He hung up and explained the situation to Irene.
“Go on,” she said. “I’m fine. A little tired, but fine.”
“I’m not. Not after this afternoon.”
“Do you want me to go with you?”
He shook his head, then looked into those blue eyes of hers. “Tonight.”
“Maybe.”
He laughed. “You know, I nearly forgot to tell you how glad I am that you almost never obey orders.”
She looked at him for a long moment and said, “Come home as soon as you can.”
55
Friday, July 14, 4:20 P.M.
Las Piernas Airport
He was inside the Cessna. Denise, bound and gagged, was whimpering in the seat next to his. Good God, didn’t the woman understand what a privilege he had conferred on her? No one was allowed to fly with him!
He must end this standoff, if for no other reason than to be rid of her.
He started the engine, SWAT team or no. Actually, because of them. He let them know that he had set up a sort of reverse “dead-man’s switch.” If he were to be shot and killed, the plane would not shut off — it would, in fact, be uncontrolled, whether taxiing on land or flying in the air. He would smash Ms. Denise here into the side of the hangar, and she and anyone nearby would become crispy critters.
He was tired of listening to the hostage negotiator, Tom Cassidy. He knew all the tricks of Cassidy’s trade, and he wasn’t even interested in tormenting the fellow, as he well could have. As he had been tormented himself. Oh, yes, tormented.
The first thing Cassidy told him was that Harriman wasn’t dead. Cassidy announced this as if it were a good thing, as if there were any doubt he’d be charged with murder anyway. His rage over Harriman’s survival was nearly boundless.
Next he had learned that thanks to Harriman, Judge Lewis Kerr wasn’t dead, either. When he had heard this news, he began to feel a little afraid of Harriman. He could almost believe that Lefebvre had come back to haunt him.
He despised Cassidy for ruining his day in this way. And so he had struck back and lied — told Cassidy that perhaps a person who would do something so heinous as planting bombs in a courthouse wouldn’t stop at destroying just one government building. “If I were you,” he told the big Texan, “I’d wonder if such a criminal had bombs all over town.”
That one had been worth the price of admission!
Now the game grew tiresome, though. It was time he got away, created a new and better life, a whole new identity. He had no difficulty believing he’d get away once he was airborne. Denise would be released only after he had completed his disappearance.
And who was she, really? A little nobody.
But he knew they would allow him to escape — all in order to protect a woman who didn’t know how to put a proper English sentence together. They would never want to be accused of causing her death. That’s what he loved most about their rules. They had to play by them.
Their rules were what kept them from succeeding against crime in the spectacular way he had succeeded. If he were in Tom Cassidy’s position, he would order the snipers to take him out immediately. To hell with anyone killed on the ground as a result.
There was some sort of commotion, and he realized that he had a new guest at his little bon voyage party. Frank Harriman.
When Frank met Vince outside the hangar, he handed him a brown bag. “This is all you need,” he said.
“For what?”
“To catch Haycroft. I’m starting to get to know this son of a bitch.” He told him his strategy.
“Cassidy will never go for it,” Vince said.
“He will. It’s all in the presentation. You ready to put on a show?”
Vince smiled. “Not much of a part, but yeah, sure.”
“Frank Harriman,” Cassidy drawled. “You amaze me. You have a couple of crazy-ass days — fifteen minutes of which would have been enough to get most of us served up on a marble slab — and instead you walk up to me looking ornery.”
“Have a favor to ask, Tom.”
“Yeah?”
“Let him go.”
Cassidy laughed. He ran a hand over his short hair, which — although he was not much older than Frank — was mostly gray. “Oh, brother. You were out in the sun way too long today.”
“Let Haycroft take off with the woman. Just let me say something to him as he taxis to the runway. I think he’ll come back with her.”
“‘Think’ is not good enough. But tell me what you have in mind.”
“You’re about to let him go anyway, aren’t you, Tom?”
“We’ll be following him.”
Frank rolled his eyes.
“He says he’s got more bombs planted around town,�
� Cassidy said.
“Do you believe him?”
“To be honest, no, I don’t.”
“Your instincts are still good then, Tom, because it doesn’t fit with his obsession with Kerr. And that’s what this guy is all about — that, and protecting his own ass.”
Cassidy calmly studied him for a moment. “So what’s your idea?”
Haycroft watched as the discussion between Cassidy and Harriman became more and more acrimonious. In the end, Cassidy looked utterly defeated.
“Mr. Haycroft?”
God, how he hated that damned drawl!
“Detective Harriman has just informed me that you may have your wish. He claims the district attorney refuses to file against you — I guess the D.A. is saying our department has no real physical evidence against you. Can that possibly be true?”
Haycroft hesitated. This could only mean they hadn’t found anything at the house and had not discovered the problem with the computer program in the property room. Managing a hostage meant that he had not had time to check on his diaries, and with all of the department watching him now, he was not about to reveal where he had hidden them on the plane.
Did they know about the diaries?
No, if they did, he was convinced, Cassidy would have gloated about it, as he had about the survival of Harriman and Kerr.
“If what he says is true,” Haycroft said slowly, “why were you waiting for me here? What led Detective Harriman to me in the first place?”
“Well, Detective Harriman claims it started with you telling him some fib about your son’s photograph, which made him suspicious, and he ultimately realized you had a darned good reason to dislike Judge Kerr. But even though he may be convinced you’re guilty as sin, the irony is this — if the D.A. doesn’t have more to go on than that, some dumb judge like Kerr will toss the case out on its rear end. Isn’t that right?”
“Why, yes, it’s true. But you see, there is this little problem of my having taken a hostage now.”
“Well, this is awfully embarrassing to the department, of course. I’m sure Denise there would be happy to say it was all a joke that she went along with just in order to help you out. You release her, and all is fair and square.”