Final Disposition (20 page)

      “This is Sergeant Tom Bauer,” he said in what sounded — to him — like a good approximation of the patrol sergeant’s deep baritone voice.  “Can anybody out there hear me?”

      “This is OMARR-Nine, I can read you fine, Sergeant,” a female voice responded immediately.  “Are you reading me?”

      Dispatcher.

      “You’re breaking up at my end, OMARR-Nine.  Think my radio’s acting up.”

      “What’s your status, sergeant?  We have a report of shots fired at your location. I have two units vectoring in on your position now, but both of them are at least fifteen-to-twenty minutes away.”

      “If I understood you correctly, you’re asking my status and advising about units responding to my location,” Cellars replied after a moment.  “Call them off … no back-up needed … and please let the waitress at the Good Egg Express know that everything’s okay out here … but that she should stay inside until I go back in and contact her.  The ‘shots fired’ came from a couple of idiots driving by in a blue Ford pickup, eastbound on Main Street.  I got a partial license, and I’m pretty sure they saw my vehicle, so it not likely they’re still hanging around.”

      “Understood,” the dispatcher responded.  “What’s the status of subject Cellars?”

      
Subject?  Not suspect?  Interesting.

      “Subject Cellars is in my custody … I’m bringing him in now.  Need to get this radio looked at.”

      “I’ll advise Captain Talbert of the situation.  OMARR-Nine out.”

      
Captain
, Cellars thought. 
Okay, now we’re getting somewhere
.

*     *     *

      Based on the degree of swelling, Cellars was pretty sure that at least one of Bauer’s lower legs were broken, which meant dragging him clear across the parking through the deep snow wouldn’t be a good idea.

      
That’s why it’s nice to be driving an ambulance when shit like this goes down
, he thought cheerfully as he ran back across the parking lot, and opened the back door of the military vehicle.

      He spent a few moments figuring out how to un-strap and then raise the stainless steel gurney … threw a duffle-bag sized First Aid Kit onto the pad … and then pushed the small-wheeled vehicle through the deep drifts of snow back to where Bauer was lying.

      He couldn’t remember ever taking First Aid training, but the logic that Bauer’s neck and legs needed to be braced with something before he was moved made perfect sense … as did the functionality of the padded leg and neck braces — complete with attached Velcro straps and nicely graphic instructions — that he found in the duffle bag.

      He was very careful securing the neck brace around Bauer’s head, and less careful with the leg braces, which meant it only took him fifteen minutes to get the unconscious patrol sergeant properly protected from further injury before removing his gun belt and then gently rolling and pulling him onto the lowered gurney.

      Then, after securing Bauer to the gurney with the attached wide straps, Cellars raised the gurney back up to hip level … and then worked twice as hard pushing the gurney through the same tracks to the ambulance.

      
Christ, remind me to never get into this line of work.

      Five minutes later, he had managed to get the gurney — with Bauer still strapped in — back into the ambulance and securely locked down.

      Going back to the blue truck, he was far less careful in the way he dragged the unconscious bushy-bearded fanatic around to his equally unconscious and only mildly-bleeding partner.  After searching them both for weapons and handcuff keys, he used Bauer’s two sets of handcuffs to secure them together in such a way that their connected sets of arms now formed an unbroken circle around the truck’s left front tire.

      
There, that ought to keep you two in place for a while.

      Deciding that the wounds in the driver’s feet and ankles weren’t all that bad — the blood seemed to be coagulating nicely around the bullet holes in his boots — Cellars wrapped about a third of a roll of bandage tape around each boot, effectively blocking up the holes, tossed the rest of the roll aside, and walked quickly back to the ambulance.

      Then it took another fifteen minutes for him to do what he really didn’t want to do, but didn’t see how he had any other choice.

      Can’t keep on driving this beast around Jasper County and looking like a US Army major.  Somebody’s bound to smarten up a little bit, eventually, and I’m going to end up getting myself clubbed or shot or burned at the stake.  Time to change my outer image a bit.

      Getting Bauer’s uniform trousers off was the most difficult part, because he had to temporarily un-strap and remove the leg braces first; but Cellars was relieved to see that the patrol sergeant had been thoughtful enough to wear a good pair of silk long johns underneath the dark blue pants.

      He thought about leaving the sergeant’s armored vest on him too, for additional warmth; but then quickly discovered that ambulance was stocked well enough to enclose at least one patient in a virtual cocoon of cotton sheets and wool blankets … which was precisely what he proceeded to do.

      
There, that ought to keep you warm until the cavalry arrives
, Cellars thought, briefly staring down at the strapped down, cocoon-wrapped and still-softly-breathing patrol sergeant before he quickly pulled off his Army boots and field uniform, strapped on Bauer’s vest, slipped into the OSP uniform shirt and trousers — noting that even with the vest on, both were at least one size too large — and then realized that he’d still have to wear his Army boots because Bauer’s feet were at least two sizes smaller than his own.

      The heavy gun belt, which Cellars quickly readjusted for his smaller waist, seemed to resolve the larger pants issue nicely.

      
Everything feels right, like I’ve worn this gear before … which I hope the hell I have.  Don’t need to be adding the charge of ‘impersonating a police officer’ to my list of sins today.  Long as I don’t have to pass some kind of official inspection, I should be okay as far as the public is concerned
, he told himself as he stepped down out of the ambulance and shut the door securely.

      Satisfied that Bauer would be okay for another half hour or so, Cellars unclipped a set of keys from the patrol sergeant’s gun belt, opened the door to his patrol car, pulled himself into the seat — feeling the empty handcuff case press into the small of his back — pulled the door shut, put the key into the ignition, strapped himself in … and then finally activated his radio mike.

      “OMARR-Nine, this is Sergeant Bauer again, are you still reading me?” he said, whispering softly into the microphone.

      “This is OMARR-Nine, Sergeant.  I’m reading you poorly now.  Can you change your location?”

      “Negative,” Cellars whispered again.  “I’m still at the Good Egg Express, requesting that you re-dispatch back-up units and an ambulance to this location.”

      “Oregon-Nine-Sam-Three, I’m reading you very poorly.  Please repeat transmission.  What is your situation?” the dispatcher responded back immediately, the concern evident in her voice.

      Oregon-Nine-Sam-Three?

      “Everything’s fine here, OMAASR-Nine,” Cellars responded in a raspy whisper.  “No need for the back-ups to hurry.  Just let them know that the suspects in the blue truck decided to come back.”

      “What is their situation?” the dispatcher asked.

      “Safely in custody,” Cellars said, “but I’m definitely going to need that ambulance out here now, ASAP.”

CHAPTER 14

      It felt good to be driving an OSP patrol car, regardless of whether it was ‘once again’ or for the first time, Cellars decided.

      Compared to the pair of monstrous U.S. Army Humvees with their huge diesel engines and massive suspensions, the dark blue Crown Vic handled like a fine-tuned dream … its powerful gas engine rumbling quietly as Cellars guided the pursuit vehicle through a series of smooth right and left turns until he was back out on a main county road.

      The sky was still dark and cloud-covered; but the wind and snow had finally stopped, leaving the roads and surrounding structures uniformly covered with layer of white crystals that sparkled under the passing beam of the Crown Vic’s headlights.

      
Good.  I’m getting tired of driving through these damned snowstorms.  Maybe now I’ve got a decent chance of finding my way around out here without getting lost,
Cellars thought as he swerved over to the side of the road, stopped — leaving the engine running — and pulled out Bauer’s ring-bound map book of OSP’s Region Nine.

      The OSP patrol car was equipped with what Cellars assumed was probably a state-of-the-art communications and vehicle locator system, which included an adjustable-platform-mounted portable computer linked to a separate large-screen GPS unit, and a multi-channel radio that gave him access to every federal, state and local law enforcement agency in Oregon.

      It was an impressive looking system.

And would probably look even more impressive if any — or all — of it was turned on,
Cellars thought.

      But that wasn’t going to happen.

      He had no doubt at all that the OMARRS-Nine dispatcher — and, for all he knew, every law enforcement officer in or around Jasper County — would know his precise location the moment he activated the Crown Vic’s communications system.  That was the whole idea of law enforcement locator systems: to help dispatchers identify and locate officers — who might or might not be able to communicate — in emergency situations, and then to vector back-up units to their location.

      All in all, a very cleverly-designed and highly-efficient system that was utilized — in varying configurations — throughout the United States and in a goodly portion of the modern First and Second World countries to keep law enforcement officers safe and in contact with each other.

      But what the system designers hadn’t accounted for was an officer in an emergency situation who didn’t want help … and who didn’t want to be located.

      Someone like Detective-Sergeant Colin Cellars, who was finding it more and more difficult to stay electronically invisible with each passing hour.

      On the other hand, not wanting to be found also had its price: in Cellars’ case, the inability to make electronic searches for information.

      Instead, he had to use a well-worn and greasy local phone book that he’d found in the Crown Vic’s trunk, along with the equally well-worn but not so greasy map book, to figure out roughly where he had supposedly first met Eleanor Patterson and her Alliance of Believer’s group while presenting his apparently infamous lecture on Evidence of Extraterrestrial Contact.

      
Wish I knew what I said … must have been interesting,
he thought moodily
; either that, or completely off-the-wall insane.

      He was trying to imagine Jeremiah Carter and his ‘less-social’ friends sitting somewhere in the back of the auditorium, staring back wide-eyed as he talked, and couldn’t help shaking his head in amusement, when another set of broadcasts coming out over his belt radio caught his attention.

      
“OMARR-Nine to any available Oregon or Jasper units near the intersection of Oakdale and Slattery, we have a just-occurred head-on collision between a snowplow and an unknown sedan, serious injuries involved, EMT’s are rolling.”

      
“Oregon-Nine-Alpha-three, I’m clear, responding from Waters and Brigham, ETA five.”

      
“Copy that, Alpha-Three. Oregon-Nine-Delta-Six?”

      
“Nine-Delta-Six, go.”

      
“Nine-Delta-Six, I’m showing you clear to respond to a priority-two burglary-in-progress call at the Ace Hardware store in North Bridgetown.  Is that a Roger?”

      
“Delta-Six, that’s affirmative. We’re approximately fifteen minutes from that location. Turning west on Jefferson now.”

      
“OMAAR-Nine to any Jasper units in the vicinity of North Bridgetown.”

      
“Jasper-One-Charley-Two, I’m east of that location on Route 18, bad road conditions out here, ETA ten-to-fifteen.”

      
“One-Charley-Two, respond as quickly as you can to back-up Oregon-Delta-Six at Ace Hardware.  Witness near the scene reported two male suspects —”

      Cellars had been carefully listening to the OSP patrol and investigative units intermittently broadcasting their status and exchanging messages with the OMARR-Nine dispatcher ever since he’d turned Bauer’s belt radio on, wanting to make sure he understood the general protocols and codes.

      He‘d quickly discovered that the Region Nine dispatch system utilized ‘plain-speech’ for almost all of their broadcasts, and the vehicle codes seemed pretty straightforward.  A gold plastic tag inserted in a slot at the top of the Crown Vic’s communication system read Oregon-Nine-Sam-Three ... which presumably explained the code the dispatcher had used when she thought she was communicating with Bauer.

      Cellars had clearly violated the basic radio protocol when he’d failed to use the ‘Sam-Three’ code to identify himself as Bauer; something that had worried him when he first discovered the tag.  But the dispatcher hadn’t seemed concerned or suspicious, and his subsequent monitoring of the Region Nine broadcasts suggested that the protocols were actually being followed pretty loosely by the Oregon and Jasper units, and nobody seemed too concerned about it.