CS tear gas is generated by chemicals that burn in order to release and spread the gas from the canister it’s contained in. Of course that process makes the canister hot, sometimes hot enough to start fires. These types of canisters were made famous by their use on the Branch Davidians in Waco, the day their building went up in flames. But even since then their use has scarcely abated, even though they’ve started a great many other fires besides that one.
Inside the sawmill, one of these canisters landed right in the middle of a very old pile of sawdust next to the back wall. Soon after that it was smoldering, and within minutes the flames had come to life.
Randy grabbed his gas mask from his duffel bag. It was a German surplus mask that would protect him adequately, but fighting and shooting while wearing one of these things was not the preferable way to go. The two kids had no masks, but he still had to use the one for himself. Just like on an airplane when the oxygen masks drop, you can’t help anyone else if you’re out of commission yourself.
Randy pulled the two kids up behind a solid piece of machinery close to the front entrance. Then he made his last attempt to send them out. “Police, I’m sending these kids out the front door now,” he shouted into the radio. Then he moved up to the front door himself, pulled it open and then hit the floor just to be on the safe side.
It was a good move, because another burst of gunfire came in through the front. Either they didn’t believe him or they just didn’t care. Either way, he couldn’t send the kids out. Randy crawled back behind the machine the kids were hiding behind.
It wasn’t looking good for them, as the tear gas was getting thick and breathing becoming impossible. They didn’t have much time as it was, and to make things even better, flames were now creeping up the back wall. Randy’s childhood battleground was going up in smoke a big hurry.
There was only one other remote possibility, a place even he and his friends had never dared to explore as kids. He didn’t even know if it was still there, or still accessible, but these kids were now looking to him to save them and there weren’t a lot of options. He grabbed their hands and led them to a stairwell that went into a basement. It was completely dark down those stairs, but Randy’s weapon light illuminated the way.
The air down there was somewhat preserved, which was very fortunate. The smoke, carbon monoxide, and tear gas made the air up above pretty much unsurvivable, even with a mask. With the flames shooting up the inside of the building, and the impending collapse and resulting heatwave, this temporary shelter they had found wasn’t going to be far behind.
Andy and Erica were beginning to recover from the gas and smoke, so Randy pulled his mask off to talk to them. “Kids, I can’t tell you how sorry I am I got you into this.”
“Why wouldn’t they let us come out?” Erica cried.
Randy had a number of answers to that, but wrecking their sense of justice at this age would be worse than breaking the news about Santa Claus. “Listen to me,” Randy said. “I had plans on making this place my last stand, but I’m giving that up because I have to get you out of here. You have to stay close and listen to me though. Understand?” The kids nodded, not having to be told twice. “Good. Now let’s get busy.”
* * *
The flickering light of the flames grew brighter and bigger, until the inside of the place was fairly well engulfed. As Burt watched the fire with his men, a white Ford Taurus sped down the road into the parking lot, and a black-haired thirtysomething man jumped out.
“Did you get the two kids out of there?” he shouted.
Burt was a bit surprised to hear there actually were kids in there. “Exactly what the hell were they doing in there?” was his answer.
The man screamed in agony and rage, at the top of his lungs. Then he ran back to his car and popped the trunk. He grabbed a pair of leather work gloves, a crowbar, and a full-face painter’s respirator that functioned not unlike Randy’s gas mask. He ran toward the front entrance, but Raymond Ward and a couple other SWAT cops cut him off. “The fire department is on their way, they’ll handle this.”
“Fucking bullshit, they’ll be toast before they get here!” Erica’s father shoved his way past the men and continued on, for a good ten steps before he was felled by the Taser probes that were fired into his back by one of the SWAT cops. The man might have been adequately equipped and prepared to save some lives, and he might have been in a better position than the fire department was at the moment, but he had failed to observe a principal tenet of authority. Never, ever try to do a public official’s job for him, or you will face their wrath.
If somebody dies as a result of that, too fucking bad.
Chapter 16
Just When You Thought It Was Safe
11:51 P.M.
The bespectacled face standing over Sergeant Jack Hayward was calm and reassuring, and that went a long way toward making him feel that he was in good hands. “Hello sir,” the man said, “My name is Doctor Terrence Kletz.”
The intensive care unit at the Forest Hill Clinic was having an amazingly slow night, considering all that was going on. Most of the recipients of Randy’s attention had been outright fatalities, and thus had never made it here. The rest of the town seemed to have no interest in being a part of the action, and was thus staying indoors, which took a big bite out of their business overall. Jack Hayward had the ICU pretty much to himself.
“We need to get you further stabilized before you can go into surgery,” the doctor went on. “You need to be aware that you have perforations in both lungs, and you’ll have to stay on this ventilator for a while. Do you understand?”
Hayward nodded, then he reached up and lifted the mask to speak. “Am I gonna live?” he stammered out, then put the mask back on himself.
Doctor Kletz smiled. “Nothing else vital has been hit, so barring anything really unexpected, you should be okay.” He was glad that Hayward still had his ability to speak. He’d be needing that.
* * *
When the word went out of Randy’s demise, all the other agencies and authorities that had remained outside the fray converged on the scene to take control. The State Patrol and Sheriff’s Department arrived with over a dozen cars each and began squabbling over jurisdiction. The FBI had some investigators on scene to look into possible civil rights violations, but they left the jurisdictional fighting to the local boys. The fire department was gradually getting the blaze under control, but it might be days yet before the wreckage was sifted through to recover bodies.
The police in Forest Hill had suffered some unprecedented losses, but on the flip side of the coin, they had also given men and women in uniform an enormous black eye. Bigger, many of them felt, than they deserved, especially during a time when they faced a real possibility of attacks on police becoming the next major shooting trend. They weren’t about to let this small town department have free reign to cover up their own misdeeds any further, especially after leaving two kids inside of the place to burn while possibly knowing of their presence. That sort of thing made for bad PR. People in uniform stuck together to an enormous extent, but this department was really testing the limits of that loyalty.
There was one thing all of these agencies did agree on though, and that was that the time had come for Burt and what remained of his department to vacate the scene entirely. They got their way on that too.
* * *
The cars pulled into the parking lot, and the remainder of the Forest Hill Police Department filed into the building. “Lunchroom, everyone,” Burt said to them as they headed in.
Inside the lunchroom, everyone sat while Burt took his customary place at the front.
“I think it’s safe to say we’ve had a bad couple of nights,” he began.
“Bad couple of fucking nights?” Raymond Ward, the newly promoted SWAT commander, didn’t sound like he considered that a fair description. “Like last night didn’t cost us enough lives, today we had to lose three more before we could get the fucker?”
/> “Don’t forget about Robin,” Ralph Waterbury added.
“Robin’s alive,” another female officer named Carol Roden replied. “But they’re cutting her leg off as we speak.” Some of the men in the room seemed more disturbed by that than they were by the news of their fallen comrades. They had gotten a lot of enjoyment from staring at those legs.
“I copped a feel on that leg once,” one of the younger SWAT cops named Owen Hubbs said. “She stuck her fingernail in my eye, and it was totally worth it.” There was a moment of silence at that.
“So how ‘bout some words of wisdom, Chief?” Raymond asked. “Even if this did have to happen sometime, why us? Why our department? What’s the fucking point we’re supposed to take away from this?”
“Point?” Burt replied. “There isn’t any point.”
“How about not trying to shoot motorists in the back?” one of the officers named Sean Merey offered. “That’s what started all this.”
“Hold it right there,” Burt said. “First off, even if that happened the way Gustin said, it doesn’t justify trying to wipe out a department. Second, this started for him a long time before then. Look at the weapons he chose and the gear he put together. He had been preparing for years already, and that shit wasn’t for home defense. He was arming up for a confrontation with us, and waiting for the right excuse to come along.”
“So maybe the real question is, what brought that about?” Raymond asked. “Why’d he feel the need to arm up like that?”
Sergeant Byron Palmer chimed in. “Well, his view would be that our actions brought it about. He was unhappy about our enforcement protocols.”
“Which is no excuse at all,” Burt said. “There’s no way for us to do this job while keeping everyone happy, it’s in the job description. But the world is full of people who have neither been there nor done that, yet they come loaded with criticism. Sometimes they even come with some wild views on what they’re justified in doing to show their objections. Well, the law spells out what’s justified. Shut up, do as you’re told, and settle it in court later if you don’t like what happened.”
“Have you looked at the blog wars going on in the newspaper comment sections? Fewer and fewer people are willing to listen to that view,” Raymond said.
“We’ll deal with that as we go,” Burt replied. “The important thing right now is that we did what we had to, and we didn’t back down. We kept after him, and it may have cost us a lot, but we got him. He lost, and nobody wants to follow in the footsteps of the loser.” Burt let that settle in for a moment. “There’s enough extra help in town to take over for us until tomorrow. I want everyone here to write up a preliminary report and then go home.”
* * *
“Wake up, Sergeant Hayward.” Getting to sleep with this infernal machine strapped to his face had been a nightmare already, so those didn’t come as welcome words. “I need to ask you some questions.”
Hayward struggled back to consciousness, which wasn’t easy between the painkillers in his bloodstream and the oxygen level in his blood that kept him perpetually lightheaded. He opened his eyes and turned them to the doctor who stood over him.
“They’ll be flying you to the Harborview Trauma Center for surgery,” he went on. “But before you go I need to know a few things.” Doctor Kletz pulled a stool over beside the bed and sat down on it. Hayward saw a face peeking into the room, then closing the door. It was an older, dark-haired woman who wasn’t wearing a nurse’s uniform. It was almost like she was standing guard out there.
“It’s good that they got you here as fast as they did. It makes my job a lot easier when the patient arrives before the blood loss makes saving them too difficult. They must have considered you a top priority, wouldn’t you say?” Hayward managed a small nod. “You’re not the first patient of notoriety to arrive on my table. Are you familiar with the name of Arnold McCaslin?” Hayward’s eyes widened, at least to the extent that he was able to manage it. “That was a sad case. His wound was completely survivable, but his medical care was delayed so long that he really had little right to be breathing when he arrived on my table. He died on my table in the same hospital your department escorted him to.” Hayward’s eyes showed clear memory of that day.
“But before that happened, not only was he breathing, he was talking.” Now the sergeant was beginning to feel concern. “He wanted to tell me about what had happened. He said that he hadn’t been allowed to talk to anyone else. But one of your officers had told me earlier that I could only focus on treating him, and that anything he might try to tell me would be of no value anyways. I have to admit, it seemed to make sense at the time, so I told the young man that I had to be a professional and focus only on what I was trained to do. He seemed to understand. Part of him did anyhow, the other part was heartbroken.”
The bellows of the ventilator machine pumped up and down rhythmically. As much as he hated the sound already, Hayward began to realize how comforting it was. “I’ve recently heard it opined,” Doctor Kletz went on, “that he was intentionally kept from receiving my care until it was too late. Is there any truth to that?”
Jack Hayward’s apprehension had now morphed into real fear. He had been on the giving end of many an interrogation, and he knew how to use fear against people. Whether this doctor intended it or not, he was making some fairly professional use of it himself. Hayward felt trapped. The truth was out of the question, and lying to this man could be a colossal mistake in his position, so he opted for silence. The doctor looked him in the eye and nodded, seemingly satisfied that he had his answer.
“These are modern times,” he said, “and yet it seems like the more things change, the more they stay the same, in ways I don’t understand. Case in point, the old saying that dead men don’t talk. Honestly, why haven’t we outgrown that? Why not just do your job right and never have to bring that up? I don’t understand it.” He rolled his stool back for a moment, to glance at the entrance. Nothing had changed, the door was cracked open and Dorothy was right outside. “I don’t understand barbarism, or why anyone would end somebody’s life just to assert their control over them,” he continued. “And you know what else I don’t understand?” Hayward was on the edge of his seat waiting for that answer, as the doctor moved closer and stared him in the eye. “Why it is, despite all of our great technological advances and our power to think ahead, that we still leave things like this within easy reach of delirious patients.” Doctor Kletz lifted his hand up in front of Jack Hayward, and in it he was holding a plug. A power plug.
He took Hayward’s hand, put the plug in it, and closed it tightly. “First, do no harm. That’s the oath I took. Subject to interpretation.” Hayward looked up above him. The lights on the machine were off, the bellows had stopped, and with it the forced air to his mask. With no power to the machine, there was nothing to power any alarm either. “I wouldn’t hear Arnold McCaslin’s confession,” the doctor continued, “and I’ve always regretted that. I’ll hear yours though, but I suggest you make it quick.”
Hayward pulled the mask away from his face, and his gasps for air became gradually shallower as his lungs began to close up within his ribcage. “I… guilty,” he managed to say. “And I… sorry.” Those were the only words he could manage in time.
“I confess that I’m not a religious man,” Doctor Kletz said. “But if I’m wrong about that, then you go before God with the truth on your lips. That ought to count.” The doctor got up and walked out of the room. Much to Hayward’s surprise, as his consciousness began to fade, those words actually did what no justification, real or imagined, had ever done for him. They gave him peace.
* * *
With the small, pointy knife blade inside the Gerber multi-plier tool, the hollow point of the forty-caliber slug was bored out deeper. Then the Zippo lighter was disassembled. The wheel was removed, and from beneath it, the tiny, cylindrical shaped flint was taken out. The rest of the lighter was discarded, and the flint was inserted into the de
epened hollow point of the slug. Lead shavings around the bored hole were packed in around the flint, and compressed down to hold it in place.
It was crude, but it only had to work once.
* * *
The television was distracting. Having to write reports was always an annoyance, but doing so while watching a never-ending stream of news reports about the heavy-handedness and incompetence of your own department was closer to unendurable. Interviews were being conducted with citizens of Forest Hill, and such colorful phrases as jack-booted thugs and Barney Fife’s were being tossed about freely. Those who didn’t have their own offices had little choice but to endure it.
The faces of Andy and Erica, the two kids who were inside the building that had gone up in flames, were shown alongside of interviews with their grieving parents. Recordings of the police radio traffic had already been released, proving that Randy had tried to warn the police and let the kids come out. They played a phone response from the Chief stating that the kids had actually been hostages, no matter what Gustin had said, and that their deaths had been his doing. Then they showed Erica’s father, who had spoken to Randy, being asked about that statement, and in between the tears and curses of rage, he was able to communicate that Burt’s answer didn’t fly with him in any fashion.
All anyone wanted was to finish the goddamn paperwork and be out of there.
* * *
Burt hated interviews, and this night was especially full of them. Unfortunately for him he had bought into the job of being the official representative, so he did it anyways.
He was sitting in his office, on the phone with an Associated Press reporter, and the questions weren’t friendly. Did one of your officers really try to murder him? Did they really try to shoot him as he surrendered? Was there really a campaign of harassment before all of this? How do you explain breaking a defenseless woman’s arm? How could you not let those kids escape the building? Burt answered them all with the same types of official lines that had always served him well in the past. This time around though, the masses didn’t seem to be buying them like they used to.
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