“I want SWAT and nobody but SWAT in the main building. Let me have that back.”
Tate repeated the order.
Tate was a good sergeant and he showed it now as he and Jacobs shrugged into their heavy armored vests and followed the gurney as the orderlies carried it down the stairs to the ambulance. A second crew followed with Boyle. The men on the landings were angry, seeing the gurneys pass, and Tate had a word of wisdom for them: “Don’t let your temper get your ass shot off.”
As the sirens wailed outside, Tate, backed by the veteran Jacobs, carefully cleared the offices and sealed off the tower.
A cool draft blew down the hall on four. Beyond the door, in the vast dark spaces of the main building, the telephones were ringing. In dark offices all over the building, buttons on telephones were winking like fireflies, the bells sounding over and over.
The word was out that Dr. Lecter was “barricaded” in the building, and radio and television reporters were calling, dialing fast with their modems, trying to get live interviews with the monster. To avoid this, SWAT usually has the telephones shut off, except for one that the negotiator uses. This building was too big, the offices too many.
Tate closed and locked the door on the rooms of blinking telephones. His chest and back were wet and itching under the hardshell vest.
He took his radio off his belt. “CP, this is Tate, the tower’s clear, over.”
“Roger, Tate. Captain wants you at the CP.”
“Ten-four. Tower lobby, you there?”
“Here, Sarge.”
“It’s me on the elevator, I’m bringing it down.”
“Gotcha, Sarge.”
Jacobs and Tate were in the elevator riding down to the lobby when a drop of blood fell on Tate’s shoulder. Another hit his shoe.
He looked at the ceiling of the car, touched Jacobs, motioning for silence.
Blood was dripping from the crack around the service hatch in the top of the car. It seemed a long ride down to the lobby. Tate and Jacobs stepped off backwards, guns pointed at the ceiling of the elevator. Tate reached back in and locked the car.
“Shhhh,” Tate said in the lobby. Quietly, “Berry, Howard, he’s on the roof of the elevator. Keep it covered.”
Tate went outside. The black SWAT van was on the lot. SWAT always had a variety of elevator keys.
They were set up in moments, two SWAT officers in black body armor and headsets climbing the stairs to the third-floor landing. With Tate in the lobby were two more, their assault rifles pointed at the elevator ceiling.
Like the big ants that fight, Tate thought.
The SWAT commander was talking into his headset. “Okay, Johnny.”
On the third floor, high above the elevator, Officer Johnny Peterson turned his key in the lock and the elevator door slid open. The shaft was dark. Lying on his back in the corridor, he took a stun grenade from his tactical vest and put it on the floor beside him. “Okay, I’ll take a look now.”
He took out his mirror with its long handle and stuck it over the edge while his partner shined a powerful flashlight down the shaft.
“I see him. He’s on top of the elevator. I see a weapon beside him. He’s not moving.”
The question in Peterson’s earphone, “Can you see his hands?”
“I see one hand, the other one’s under him. He’s got the sheets around him.”
“Tell him.”
“PUT YOUR HANDS ON TOP OF YOUR HEAD AND FREEZE,” Peterson yelled down the shaft. “He didn’t move, Lieutenant.… Right.”
“IF YOU DON’T PUT YOUR HANDS ON TOP OF YOUR HEAD I’LL DROP A STUN GRENADE ON YOU. I’LL GIVE YOU THREE SECONDS,” Peterson called. He took from his vest one of the doorstops every SWAT officer carries. “OKAY, GUYS, WATCH OUT DOWN THERE—HERE COMES THE GRENADE.” He dropped the doorstop over the edge, saw it bounce on the figure. “He didn’t move, Lieutenant.”
“Okay, Johnny, we’re gonna push the hatch up with a pole from outside the car. Can you get the drop?”