Well, now we knew where. It then became a question of how many. And, given the capabilities of Gabriel, I thought it would be very nice to know who was where.
Since the tractor I had picked as my refuge had a large glazed cab with a pair of frozen coveralls obscuring my view, and since the bucket and engine stood a good eight feet above the ground, I had a dilemma. If I looked at the shed and airplane from the rear of the tractor, I wasn’t able to see the house. If I looked at the house, I wasn’t able to see the shed. Furthermore, it occurred to me that, if I moved toward the front of the tractor in order to see the house again, the lower half of my body was completely exposed to whoever was in the shed. Well, I had to find out who was where. On both sides. I’d now lost sight of Volont, and assumed that there was at least one other member of the surveillance team somewhere …
“George …” Sort of came out in a very energetic whisper.
He looked toward me.
“How many people from the surveillance team …?”
He held up two fingers.
“Where …?”
He shook his head.
I took a deep breath. Well, maybe I could at least locate Gabriel. “Jacob Nieuhauser!” I hollered, generally toward the shed.
Silence. I repeated myself. With an addition. “Deputy sheriff! We have a warrant for your arrest! Surrender!”
Total silence. I tried again. Nothing. I was thinking about reinforcements, and stalling until they arrived. I figured that it had taken us about ten minutes to get to the farm via helicopter. That meant that, if things went completely without a hitch, we could expect the chopper back about twenty minutes after it had left us. And with it, some of the TAC team. At least fifteen minutes from now, and probably thirty, knowing how things usually went.
I looked to my right, toward Hester. She was looking toward the house. “Hey, Gorse!” She looked around. “Cell phone?” I mouthed.
“What?”
I made a “talking on the phone” gesture, and then held out my hand. She fumbled inside her jacket, and then produced her phone. She squared herself facing me, concentrated for a second, and then tossed it toward me, underhand.
Unfortunately, it landed just on my side of the front tractor tire. About fifteen feet from me, and twelve of those feet were completely exposed to whoever was in the shed.
Hester stared at the phone, and then looked up. She appeared to start to say a word that began with an f, from the way her lower lip curled under her teeth.
Well, now. I thought about it for a few seconds. Most of the time, if you’re in a rush, you screw up. Calm and deliberate actions usually succeed. Right. With that in mind, I holstered my sidearm, and almost literally threw myself at that damned phone. I slipped as I reached for it, caught myself with my left hand, went down on one knee, grabbed the phone, and hurled myself back toward the safety of the huge rear tire.
Panting, I became aware that there hadn’t been a shot fired. Even better.
Still breathing hard, I dialed the Sheriff’s Department. They answered on the second ring.
“This is… Houseman … here. I need … Grossman’s phone number … really fast…”
I dialed the Grossman house. I was betting that Linda was in the house, and that Harvey and Gabriel were in the shed. I felt that I would be able to convince Linda to give up, or at least to not make it worse for herself by taking shots at us, or signaling to the men in the shed.
“Hello?” Such a little voice.
“Uh, uh, Carrie?” Carrie. I’d forgotten about Carrie.
“Yes.”
“Hi. This is Deputy Houseman. Remember me?”
“Yes. You’re the one behind the tractor, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am.” Oh, Lord. “Carrie, can I speak with your mom?”
“She’s not here, Deputy Houseman.” A little voice, but so very serious.
“Oh, that’s too bad. Uh, do you know where she is, Carrie?”
“In the shed with my dad.” Her voice quavered just a bit. “Are you going to hurt them?”
“I sure don’t want to, Carrie.” I didn’t want them to hurt me, either. “Uh … is there somebody else there in the shed with them, too?”
There was a pause. “No.”
No? In there with Carrie? “Are you alone in the house, Carrie?”
“Yes.”
Well, that was sort of a relief. She was effectively out of the way for any activity. But the crucial question was “Where’s the other man, Carrie?”
There was a longer pause. “I shouldn’t tell you. But I can see him. Can’t you? He’s by the snow pile.”
Oh, hell, I thought. That’s Volont.
“I think that man came with us in the helicopter, Carrie …”
“No, it’s Mr. Gabriel. I can see him. He’s with that man who came with you. See? Here they come … I better go now …” And she hung up.
“See?” “See?” I looked toward the edge of the snow pile where Volont had disappeared. A moment later, Volont and Gabriel emerged. Together. Sort of. Except Volont had his hands clasped behind his head. As they moved out a bit more, I could see that Gabriel was, as usual, doing things right. None of this gun to the hostage’s head business. No, not him. Gabriel was about three feet behind Volont, with a handgun pointed at the agent’s back. No way Volont was going to be able to try for the gun without being shot. None. Just too much distance between them.
They came just about to the front edge of the shed, and stopped.
Hester saw them, too. “Carl… They’ve got Volont…”
“I see …”
George, way over to my left, couldn’t see either Volont or Gabriel because of the edge of the barn.
“What? What…?”
“Gabriel’s got your boss,” I said. “Between the buildings …”
George scooted out from behind the pile of drums, and ran as hard as he could for the barn. He slipped once, but made the concrete apron leading to the main door. He pressed himself against the side of the barn, and held his gun down at his side. From where he was, the people in the shed couldn’t see him unless they came forward from the shadows. They had to have known he’d broken cover and headed for the barn, though. I pointed my handgun around the edge of my faithful tractor tire, and took aim at the general area where one of the Grossmans would have to be if they were to get a shot at George.
“Hester?” As quietly as I could, and still have her hear me. Pretty loud.
“Yeah …?”
“Hester, the little Grossman girl is alone in the house. She answered the phone. Both parents are in the shed with the plane.”
You never have to tell Hester twice. Ever. She popped her head up for a second, got her bearings, and then began to move quickly and apparently effortlessly to her right, into the cover provided by the house. The last I saw of her, she was disappearing around the corner, heading for the backyard.
“Drop your guns!” Gabriel. Nobody moved.
“I said, ‘Drop your guns!’ If you do, nobody will get hurt.”
I doubted that. The dead surveillance agent had pretty well gotten me past that point. It did occur to me that, with George concealed from the line of sight of the bad guys, and Hester slipping around the back of the house, I was the only one to do any talking for the good guys.
“Nobody will get hurt if you put yours down,” I shouted. Brilliant. But I couldn’t really think of anything else to say.
“Deputy Houseman? Is that you?” Gabriel sounded almost happy.
“Yes!”
“Are you still insured with Lloyds of London?” he boomed.
“Probably not!”
“You can’t bluff this one, Houseman! Drop your guns!”
Well, of course we couldn’t. No way. The thing was, time was really on our side, now. The helicopter would be coming back soon, with the cavalry. Once they landed and got into position, what with George and Hester flanking the bad guys, and me blocking the front… endgame.
It began to occur to
me that me blocking the front was the only catch. They knew about George heading toward the barn, but they had to think Hester was still out front with me. Their obvious move was to take out the people blocking the front. Get in the plane. Taxi straight out of the shed, and just take off.
I began to feel there was a neon arrow pointing to the ass end of my tractor.
Stall. I had to stall.
“It’s all over!” I shouted. “Don’t get any more people hurt or killed! Surrender!”
I keep forgetting. “Surrender” to your average criminal has a lot less stigma than “surrender” does to a career military man.
“No!” He paused. “Take him out!”
What?
Somebody in the shed, I assumed Harvey Grossman, let loose with a rifle on full auto, and pretty much emptied a magazine toward me and the woodpile where Hester had been. I could see, even as I started to duck back, that some of the slugs tore into the ground between the front and rear of the tractor. Most seemed to strike the cab and the huge rear tires and rims. I was showered with tiny bits of glass, wood splinters, and sprayed with a thick liquid. For a second, I thought the viscous stuff was blood, until I realized that most farmers filled the tractor tires with oil instead of air.
I waited what seemed like forever before I screwed my courage up and hollered around the tire again.
“There’s no more reason to go on with this! Give it up!” How many ways are there to say “surrender” without saying “surrender”?
At least this time, nobody shot.
“If you don’t come out with your hands up,” hollered Gabriel, “I’m going to shoot our boy Volont!”
Where was that damned helicopter? I couldn’t think of anything else to say, and until it arrived, Gabriel had the upper hand.
“Like I said, ‘Give it up!’” Stalling, stalling …
“Harvey, start up the plane!” Gabriel stepped forward with Volont, toward the opening to the shed. They stopped, so close to the front of the barn that Volont, a few feet in ahead of Gabriel, saw George. He only glanced at him, and then looked steadfastly over in my direction. Control.
There was a little commotion inside the shed, near the plane. I more sensed it than actually saw anything. But a few seconds later, Linda Grossman emerged, hesitant, with a gun in her hand. “I’m going to the house!” she yelled. “We’re taking my daughter!”
I saw Gabriel’s lips move, but didn’t hear what he said. Linda stepped slowly into the yard area, obviously afraid of being shot any second. She was concentrating mostly on the house, and began to move more quickly the closer she got.
Shit. Now we’d have Carrie in the plane as well. No chance at all. Gabriel was just about home-free.
Just as Linda Grossman got to the porch door, she turned, looking toward Gabriel. That’s when she spotted George. That’s also when she screamed, and started to bring up her gun. Things happened very, very fast after that. In the space of two seconds…
Hester stepped out of the porch door of the Grossman house and slammed into Linda, pitching her to the ground.
Carrie stood in the door, and screamed, “Mommy!”
Gabriel knocked Volont down, and stepped toward Linda Grossman, bringing his gun around toward Hester.
I fired two rounds at Gabriel, and missed. He shifted his aim toward me.
And George stepped out from the side of the barn, and fired once. There was a flash of pinkish halo around Gabriel’s head, in the bright sunlight. He went to his knees, and pitched forward, facedown into the mud and snow. It was freaky, seeing him do that and make no attempt to break his fall. He was dead before he hit.
Hester, firmly pressing Linda Grossman’s head into the snow with her knee, pointed her gun into the shed. “Come out, now!”
I stepped around the tire as I saw Harvey Grossman emerge from the shadows. His hands were in the air. I advanced slowly toward him, pointed my gun at his chest. “You’re under arrest!”
In the silence that followed, Volont expressed his gratitude to George. “You fucking idiot! I needed him alive!”
If George had decided to shoot again, I wouldn’t have stopped him. In the distance, I could hear the wop, wop of Huey rotor blades. Closer, I could hear Carrie crying and screaming at Hester.
“Don’t hurt my mommy, you … you damn cop!”
Epilogue
As far as the Beauregard goes, there was some truly great TV coverage, with her being pulled to shore by the two diesel locomotives. Endless interviews with the “survivors.” A great print article by Nancy, with exclusive photos by Shamrock. The two of them covered the entire event, with a little help from their friends. If they ever were really angry at me, it didn’t last too long. They sent me a tin of cookies with a note. WE FORGIVE YOU. JUST DON’T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN. It was signed NANCY & SHAMROCK.
I’ll tell you, they got some great photos of Adams and me at the stretch van.
ATF had a bomb team search the General Beauregard just as soon as the last person came off the boat. There were no more bombs. The marine engineers told us that if the railroad yard diesels hadn’t been ready when they were, we likely would have lost the boat, and most of the passengers. Points to Lamar on that one.
At any rate, Cletus got two years for conspiracy. A plea bargain. He claimed he’d been duped. I sort of think that he was. Well, with a lot of his own effort.
Blitek was charged with attempted murder, but skated on a plea of insanity. Honest. I couldn’t believe it. As far as I’m concerned, he was inept and fearful, not suicidal. But the prosecutor said we wouldn’t be able to prove who he was trying to kill, since he hadn’t actually killed or hit anybody. My argument was that we couldn’t prove he was suicidal, since he was still alive. Prosecutors have no sense of humor. I’m told that all Blitek does at the Mental Health Institute is argue politics with the doctors.
Freddie, the poor devil who started the whole thing off by missing his cousins, got a five-year suspended sentence for burglary. One of the few plea bargains I agree with. And I know Fred. We’ll probably get him for burglary again someday. He won’t be able to help it.
Freddie’s aunt, the mother of the murdered Colsons, came to see me. She wanted to know what the man was doing in the house, when he killed her sons. Why he was there in the first place. I finally told her that he was a burglar, too, but a much more dangerous one than her sons.
The best news, from an evidentiary point of view, was that we finally had access to the real fingerprints for Gabriel. We were able to match them as far back as an ejected rifle cartridge found at the Stritch farm where the photographer was shot. Finally closed that case.
Both Harvey and Linda Grossman told us that Gabriel had, indeed, killed the two boys at the farm. He had thought they were cops, and never changed his mind. Harvey’s in prison, doing an armed robbery stretch for the boat business, time plus fifteen years for having the handgun in his possession. He was, it turned out, a convicted felon. Federal. Volont had been onto him from the start, and made sure Gabriel was able to recruit him. Seemed kind of unfair to me. After all, he never would have been there in the first place if it weren’t for Volont. Linda got a twenty-year suspended sentence. Her daughter, Carrie, was the main reason for that.
I never told anybody what Volont told me about the devices Gabriel wanted to buy. But I watch the news every night, waiting. Somebody, after all, has probably purchased them by now.
Volont said that when he was at the body of the first surveillance agent, he could hear somebody say, “He’s where?” inside the shed. Turned out that Carrie was on the phone to her dad, telling everybody where we were. That’s why he jumped over the snow pile. When he did, he just about landed on the second surveillance agent’s dead body. Gabriel had apparently killed him just before we got there. As Volont was checking the body, Gabriel was behind him. Must have been quite a surprise.
Oh, one more thing. George told me that Volont was really mad at him. Kept making the claim that he could hav
e gotten the gun away from Gabriel, and it wasn’t necessary for George to shoot at all. Right. The thing was that, this way, we all damned well knew where Gabriel was now. For the first time.
The thing that bothered me most, though, was the hurt look on Hester’s face when Carrie was yelling at her. She deserves so much better than that.
Glossary
AG: Attorney General, either State or Federal
ATF: Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, sometimes referred to as BATF, a bureau under the U.S. Department of the Treasury
CIA: Central Intelligence Agency. An agency of the U.S. Government
COMM: Police Radio call sign of the Communications Center in Nation County
DCI: Division of Criminal Investigation. A Division of the Iowa Department of Public Safety
DEA: Drug Enforcement Administration, an agency of the U.S. Government
DIA: Defense Intelligence Agency, the Intelligence analysis section of the U.S. Department of Defense
DNE?: Division of Narcotics Enforcement, an agency of the State of Iowa, and an offshoot of DCI
DNR: Department of Natural Resources, an agency of the State of Iowa
FBI: Federal Bureau of Investigation, a bureau of the U.S. Department of Justice
ISP: Iowa State Patrol, the uniformed division of the Department of Public Safety
ME: Medical Examiner
NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NRO: National Reconnaissance Office
NSA: National Security Agency
SA: Special Agent, either of the Iowa DCI or the FBI
SAC: Special Agent in Charge, either of the DCI or the FBI
SO: Sheriff’s Office
Some Useful “Ten Codes”
The so-called “ten codes” were developed in the early days of police radio communications. Many times, in those days, the first part of a transmission would be lost due to equipment vagaries, while the length of the transmissions and their clarity was improved by assigning numbers to the most common messages. Therefore, the “10” was used to alert the listener that a message number was to follow. This system has remained in use, and seems likely to do so for the foreseeable future.
The Big Thaw Page 36
