The Big Thaw (39 page)

The first three cop cars came around the bluff from the south, and stopped about fifty yards from the van. Now, I figured, we’d see just how disciplined the boys in the van were. If they fired even one round, they were all as good as dead. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

“Let’s let ’em stew until we have a lot of people here,” said Volont, “and then get ’em out of the van.”

I looked around. We were pretty much alone, with the nearest fireman behind the truck. It was now or never.

“Look,” I said. “This is all out of proportion. Way the hell out. What’s really happening, here?”

I waited a very long ten seconds. Very quiet, except for the muted roar of the fire truck engine.

“Let’s go back over here,” said Volont, pointing to the edge of the bluff about a hundred feet behind the fire truck. “Where we don’t have to shout.”

We stood close to the bluff, and he told me what Gabriel was really doing. Well, that’s what he said. I don’t doubt him.

“I’ve been on Gabriel several years,” he said. “You know that.”

Yeah, I did.

Was I aware of the term “weapons of mass destruction”?

“You mean, like, nuclear, chemical… biological things?”

He did. Apparently, this had all started for Volont when the Soviet Union began to dissolve. “You know what the acronyms ADM, MADM, or SADM stand for?”

No, I didn’t.

“That’s atomic demolition munitions, medium atomic demolition munitions, and small atomic demolition munitions. Know what they are?”

“‘Atomic’ rings a bell,” I said, sarcastically.

“Right. Well, in the U.S. Army, those are small nuclear devices used like land mines. They were developed to block tunnels and things, blow up harbor facilities, to stop the Soviets when they invaded Western Europe. Engineering tools.”

He made them sound like bulldozers.

“The Soviets had the same sort of thing.” He flashed a tight smile. “For when Western Europe invaded them, no doubt.”

“That figures…”

“So, first of all, Gabe resigns his commission, and makes noises like he’s going to start his own little state out west. Fill it with his followers, and declare independence from the U.S.A.” He looked up. “Of course, secession meets with disapproval at the federal level.” He smiled again.

“He’s going to war?” I asked, incredulous. “He’s nuts.”

“Not exactly. Our people on the inside say he puts it this way … The only countries that gain respect from the U.S. government are nuclear powers. Therefore he wants some nuclear weapons. As a deterrent. To ensure his independence.”

“Jesus H. Christ.”

“The devices came on the market after the Soviets went belly up. That’s when I got involved. Back in ‘95, he made inquiries, and was told that it would cost ten million bucks.” He shrugged. “Cheap, but they’re only about five kilotons or so of yield. The higher yields, twenty-plus kilotons or megaton range devices, they go for a hundred million.”

“Nuclear suitcase bombs,” I said. “My God.”

“Well, not ‘suitcase.’ These weigh over one thousand pounds in the packing crates. We would classify them as ADMs, actually.”

“He could deliver them in a pickup truck,” I said.

“Oh, yeah. They’re also designed to work underwater. Lots of possibilities. And much easier to use than missile warheads, for example. No fusing options like impact, proximity, delay…”

“God.”

“But that’s why he needs the money. He’s a bit short. That’s why he’s going to try to take even the coins. Time is running out, and he’s afraid somebody else is going to buy the devices.”

“Oh. Well, sure.” A nuclear layaway plan had never occurred to me.

“He was trying for the banks last time. Just didn’t get it done. But he has the plan, he has the volunteers, he has the infrastructure, right here. So he comes back.” He shrugged again. “Nothing personal, but Nation County is easy pickings.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s a warrior, with a war, Houseman. He doesn’t want to kill the people on the boat. Really. Would be bad for ‘international relations,’ once his little private country is set up.” He paused, and then, “But he will kill them, all of them, if he has to. For the survival of the state, so to speak.”

“But he doesn’t have them now? The nuclear weapons?”

“No.”

The sense of relief was enormous. “I mean, I thought there was a special unit that worked that sort of thing…”

“There is. They kick in when nuclear weapons are actually in play. Right now, they’re just monitoring things very closely. Right now, it’s our baby.” He stopped. “Until he should get some. Anything you’d like to ask?”

“Any idea what his targets are?” I had a vision of our courthouse under a small mushroom cloud.

“I don’t think he has any. We’re not here to prevent nuclear terrorism, really,” he said. He smiled. “We’re just trying to prevent the great state of Gabriel from becoming the world’s smallest nuclear power.”

I took a deep breath. “So, why are you telling me this?”

“Just so you’ll know, if we end up with six hundred frozen bodies in the Mississippi, that they died for a good cause.” He looked around. “Let’s go back to the office. Don’t tell anybody.” He grinned. “Not that they’d believe you.”

“Carl,” said Sally, “call the office, ten-thirty-three.”

After my chat with Volont, a local “emergency” just seemed to lose its punch.

I called the office. The duty dispatcher said, “I have a female subject on the phone, calling from the gaming boat, and she wants a number for you right away. Says her name is Nancy…”

“Give it to her,” I said, and hung up. “Hey, guys?”

They looked my way. “I think we have a contact on the boat.”

I explained quickly about Nancy and Shamrock. The little deal we’d made. The fact that I’d seen them board the boat early on.

The phone rang. “Command,” said Sally. “Yes, he is. Would this be Nancy?”

She handed me the phone.

“Houseman, you bastard,” said an angry whisper, “if you knew about this, you turkey, I’ll get you for this. You did. Didn’t you?”

“No, none of us did,” I said. “We were as surprised as anybody…”

“Not fuckin’ quite,” she whispered.

“Uh, well, yeah. Yeah. Are you two all right?”

“Just great. Get us out of here.” There was a bit of commotion. “There. We’re in the ladies’ John on the middle deck,” she said.

“Anybody hurt?”

“Not that we saw. What the hell’s going on? Why did we leave the pier? Who are these people?”

I did my very best to explain, and gave her a fast summary, leaving out as much of the negative as I could, just to keep from worrying her unnecessarily about things that were already past. I was concerned for the two of them, but I was also really happy to have a voice on the boat.

“So, what are they doing now?” I mean, since she was there, she might as well be useful.

“They aren’t in here, Houseman.” Dryly. Sarcastically. But she was calming down.

“Nancy, it might help us get you out of that mess if you can tell us what’s going on…”

“Houseman, you got us in this mess. You get us out.” At least her voice sounded almost normal, now.

“Try to find out how many of the bad guys are still on the boat. And where they are.”

“What, are you nuts?” Reasonable question. She paused. “Well…”

“You gotta admit, it’s a great story,” I said, trying to cheer her up.

“I’m not interested in a posthumous Pulitzer,” she whispered. “I gotta go…” and broke the connection.

“Is anybody hurt?” asked Hester. “Are they going to be able to help?”

“No casualties as far as they know. And, sure, I think they’re going to be able to help a lot.”

Volont decided to crank up the pressure.

“Alpha One and Alpha Two, can you take out some tires on the suspect vehicles at the bank?”

“Alpha One. No problem with the one on my left…” came crackling through the radio.

“Alpha Two can do the one on the river side, but we can’t do the potato chip truck in the middle.”

“Uh … just a sec … and Alpha One might be able to do the right front on the chip truck.” The spotter paused. “Yeah, he can, he can do that one.”

“Take your shots,” said Volont.

We, of course, couldn’t see a thing of the truck tires. Or the trucks. Or even the bank, by now.

“Alpha One has put two grooves in the big truck tire, the one with the lift gate, but just can’t get a good shot. Will change aspect, and try again. The other trucks are disabled.”

“Roger,” said Volont. “Well, so much for the coins. That ought to move things right along.”

With her stern against the ice, and her bow pointing into the slow current, the
Beauregard
had slowly pointed her bow to the left, toward our side of the shore. We were now able to barely make out about the first seventy-five feet of her bow, just about ten windows back along the deck. It looked strange, the front end just jutting out of the fog.

I heard Hester say, “Come on in…” and a large man of about forty-five entered the room. “This is Captain Olinger, an off-duty captain of the boat,” said Hester.

“Glad to meet you,” said Volont. “I can see some activity on the front end of the boat, Captain. Can you tell what they’re doing?”

Captain Olinger looked carefully through Hester’s binoculars for a moment. “Well, it looks like some amateurs are preparing the rescue boat for launch,” he said. “One of them is trying to release the boarding ladder … Not much of a sailor, is he?”

“Captain,” said Volont, “these people have threatened to sink the boat. Can they do it?”

The captain looked down at Volont. “Beats me. What do they have to work with?”

Volont cleared his throat, embarrassed and irritated. Nobody likes to ask a dumb question. “Maybe I should ask what it would take to sink it?”

“And you are?”

James intervened. “He’s FBI,” he said.

“Oh. Well, she’s got five watertight compartments. If the doors are properly closed … you’d have to breach the hull on either side of each of two of the transverse bulkheads to sink her. Flood two of the compartments.” He looked back out the window toward the
Beauregard
. “I’d say that’d sink her, all right.”

I got busy about then with another phone call from Nancy and Shamrock. They had been on a quick scouting expedition, and had made careful observations.

“There are about five or six onboard, and they’re doing something up front with a raft, or something, and they’re pissed off and worried about something to do with that van on shore.”

Not bad. “What are they worried about the van for?”

“I don’t know. But they don’t seem to know why it’s still there, like it shouldn’t be…” Nancy’s voice, though rapid, was pretty calm.

“They got that right,” I said, with just a hint of pride. “Where are they?”

“Up front. One or two above us, but the others are out on deck, as far as I can tell. Are they going to leave us?”

“I don’t know. They might.” I was really encouraged. If they were talking so that Nancy could overhear, and if they were worried about the van not moving, they weren’t the best of troops. That meant that we might be able to handle them like ordinary criminals, not like pros.

She slowed her voice way down. “Are they going to sink us?”

“They can’t.”

“Oh, right, Houseman. Just like
Titanic
.”

“No, really. You’re in fourteen feet of water. That means the bottom of the boat is only seven or eight feet above the river bottom. Worst you can do is get your feet wet. Best thing for you two to do is to go up one deck.”

“I’m gonna get a drink,” said Nancy.

“Yeah, right…”

“No shit, Houseman. The bars are still open. Hell, these idiot terrorists are letting people do their thing. There are still a bunch of people playing the slots.”

“You’re kidding?”

“No. For real. The only thing different is that there aren’t any boat security people or any dealers around.” She said good-bye, and broke the connection. To go get a drink, presumably.

I shared the information with the group.

Hester thought it was a good idea. “I mean, it keeps the people calm. It lets the gamblers go back to their thing. Keeps everybody happy. Why not?”

“Especially now,” said Volont. “With about half your people sitting in that van. You don’t really want to do crowd control. Keep everybody happy, like there wasn’t any problem at all. Pretty smart.”

“Call the bank,” said Volont. “See how things are in there.”

Sally did, on speaker phone. You could hear the phone ringing, and then a man’s voice.

“What the fuck is taking so long?”

“This is a police dispatcher…”

Click
.

Well.

It was time to discuss things. We did. Not at length, naturally, but we got a bunch of thoughts together, and found that we were in substantial agreement on most points.

Stopping the van was an excellent idea, and had taken control from Gabriel. It hadn’t put us in control, not yet. But there was at least more of an even playing field.

The boat, while it could be hurt, wasn’t going to be sinking in the traditional sense. Passengers might be jeopardized in the long term, but not immediately. The captain explained that he thought the worst danger was that, since the engines would become inoperative if submerged, and that since the upper decks were mostly windows, it was going to get pretty damned cold onboard if they did anything drastic.

Not an urgent thing, at least not in the current environment.

We had apparently put a lot of pressure on the bad guys at the bank. Good. We also got confirmation that they couldn’t see anything but the boat’s stacks from the bank, in the best of times. Therefore, they were probably unable to see the stopped van at the boat dock. Uncertainty. Good.

We didn’t want the gunmen to panic. All we wanted to do at this point was severely undermine their confidence, and it looked like we were making good progress there. All we had to do was just hold our ground, wait for the negotiator, and make preparations to get the passengers off the boat as soon as we could. Hester had an excellent suggestion.