13
"Jesus Christ," Sammie murmured ducking down, her eyes already scanning the area around us. “You think he’s still alive?”
Squatting next to her, I craned my neck to look at him again.
“He’s got a firm grip on that ring, not that that necessarily means anything.”
I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted. “You down there. Can you hear me?”
For a moment nothing happened. Then, almost imperceptibly, one leg moved about eight inches.
“Jesus,” Sammie repeated. “If he lets go, he’s had it.”
I scuttled back to the squad car, not knowing what we had-if the man had fallen by accident, if he’d been pushed or shot, and, if so, whether his attacker was still nearby, perhaps sighting on the two of us right now.
I unhooked the mike from the car’s radio. “M-80 from O-3.”
Dispatch answered immediately, “Go ahead, O-3.”
“I’m at our intended destination with one civilian down, possible hostage situation, unknown and un-located perpetrator. Get me all the help you can, including an ambulance and a high-angle rescue team, but stop them at the entrance to the access road until I give further word.”
The reply was crisp and unemotional. “10-4. M-80 out.”
Sammie joined me crouching by the open door. “So now what? That guy doesn’t look like he has too much left in him.”
I pulled two armored vests from the back seat, handed one to her, and slipped into the other without attaching the Velcro tabs. The exhaustion that had been dragging me down for untold hours, clogging my brain and affecting my concentration, had vanished completely, replaced by an almost frightening hyper-vigilance. “This road hits a hairpin curve about two hundred feet farther downhill and then doubles back to a parking lot on the dry side of the dam. We should have pretty good cover and a safe approach to the Glory Hole from there-assuming no one’s waiting for us.”
“Right,” was all she said, before slipping on the vest, circling the car, and getting back behind the wheel.
The sylvan peacefulness of moments ago had been abruptly wrenched into something almost perversely opposite. Without a single hostile sign or sound, our surroundings now were threatening and dangerous-the trees potential sniper nests, the rocks and bushes obstructions to a clear, safe view all around. We rolled the car slowly down the hill and around the corner, our eyes straining against the dark green of the bordering trees for anything suspicious, dimly aware of the massive bulk of the dam growing to our right as we circled around below its potentially protective shoulder.
As soon as we got to the small parking lot at the end of the road, some thirty feet below the dam’s crest, we raided the car trunk, and lugging a shotgun, a radio, a coil of rope, a pair of binoculars, and some extra ammunition, we made our way though the bordering trees up the steep slope to the top. To our left, extending eight hundred feet to the hills across from us, and several thousand feet down to a seemingly tiny streambed far below, was the vast, open, grassy sweep of the dam’s restraining slope. Normally a sight of inspiring beauty and industrial ingenuity, it was now just a potential killing field of gigantic proportions-a place to avoid at all costs until the threat, if any, could be located.
Just shy of the narrow utility road where the abandoned pickup stood, we ran out of tree cover.
Sammie-small, athletic, almost wiry-was barely breathing hard after the strenuous climb. She crouched by the last tree trunk and looked around at the quiet countryside. “How d’you want to play it?”
I wiped the sweat from my forehead with my sleeve. “The road’s got a low cement wall on the water side. If we tuck up close to that, it ought to protect us pretty well from everywhere except the cliff we came from.”
She looked over her shoulder. “What about from the trees?”
“The angle from the top of the dam ought to cover them-just keep low once you get there.”
She pursed her lips, took a deep breath, muttered, “Right,” and took off across the last twenty feet at a dead run, her feet digging into the slope like a sprinter’s. I watched all around as best I could, knowing there was little I could do with a shotgun in any case, and was infinitely relieved when I saw her reach the top and roll out of sight across the road.
I waited a few seconds, hearing only birds and the gentle breeze among the leaves overhead. Then I too set out, feeling slow and clumsy, slipping in spots where Sammie had run like a teenager. When I got to the roadway and rolled across it as she had done, clutching the shotgun parallel to my chest, my relief came more from just being able to rest than from any newfound sense of protection. I lay flat on my back, staring at the cloud-dappled sky, gasping for air. Sammie crouched beside me, peering over the top of the low cement wall.
“What d’you see?” I asked, trying to speak as normally as possible.
“Nothing.”
I struggled to a sitting position, first checking the few spots nearby from where someone could draw a bead on us, and poked my head over the wall. The contrast with the scene now to my back-a miles-long view down a narrow, stream-cut valley, seen from the very top of what amounted to a manmade mountain-contrasted violently with what I saw before me. Just five yards below me, the water of the reservoir stretched out so near to where we were hiding that it felt almost like standing up in a boat.
I shifted my gaze to the Glory Hole, where, between the circular dock and the concrete edge, I could just see the top of the man still hanging on for his life. The catwalk leading from the shore to the dock above the spillway was about twenty feet away, but there was a locked gate cutting off access. My eyes went to a small object lying at the intersection, where the second catwalk connected the Glory Hole to the maintenance access tower with the shed on it.
“Hand me the binoculars,” I asked.
Sammie took the shotgun from me as I focused the field glasses on the object.
“It’s a tool box,” I muttered, “lying between the wounded man and the shed on the access tower.”
“So if he was shot and fell backwards over the railing, the bullet must’ve come from the shed.”
“Right.” I handed the binoculars back to Sammie and cupped my hands around my mouth again. “You in the Glory Hole. This is the police. If you can hear me, try to raise your free hand.”
Sammie had the glasses trained on him. “He moved his fingers.”
“Okay,” I shouted, “we saw that. I need to ask you some questions. Move your fingers for yes; stay still for no. You got that?”
“Yes,” Sammie interpreted.
“Have you been shot?”
“Yes.”
“Is the shooter still around?”
Sammie paused, about to say no. “Hold it, he moved his hand. Better take that as an ‘I guess so.’”
“You think he is, but you’re not sure?” I shouted.
“Yes,” Sammie said softly, “no doubt about it.”
“Was he in the shed?”
“Yes.”
“Was he alone?”
“He’s hesitating again… There it is.”
“You only think he was alone?”
“Right.”
“Have you been there a long time?”
“Yes.”
“Can you hang on much longer? Are you secure there?”
“Not a twitch, Joe.”
“Can you move at all?”
“Still nothing.”
“Shit,” I muttered, “by the time everyone gets here, he’ll be down the toilet-literally.” I cupped my hands again. “Can you hang on for another ten minutes?”
“Yes, but he didn’t put much into it.”
“All right. We’re on our way, but we’ve got to be careful, okay?”