Stuart Kaminsky - Blood On The Sun

Flack stood ready to shoot if the suspect attacked him. The problem was that Bloom had no weapon and Bloom, when he wanted to, could look like a harmless middle-aged man with a paunch and poor eyesight. Shooting unarmed suspects or perpetrators was forbidden except under unusual circumstances. This certainly appeared to be an unusual circumstance.

Flack's hesitation of less than a second would have meant nothing with most people he arrested. Bloom moved with surprising speed, throwing his full weight into Flack, who staggered backward and dropped his gun.

The only one between Bloom and escape was Stella, who stood in the doorway with no expression. She was unarmed.

Bloom had packed a single medium-sized duffle bag, which lay on his bed upstairs. He had taken little time to pack. The delay had been caused by the bureaucracy of the bank. He had called to tell them that he wished to withdraw all of his money, that he would be there within an hour. When he arrived at the bank, the clerk directed him to an assistant bank manager who looked more like a well-dressed young movie star. The assistant manager had assured Bloom that they were almost finished putting together the cash. Over an hour later, Bloom had left the bank with a thickly packed zippered tote bag. The bag was in the trunk of an Al-tima he had stolen no more than twenty minutes before Stella, Flack and Rossi had appeared at his door. The car was parked in a three-story lot within sight of Bloom's shop.

Now he had to improvise. He had been taught to improvise and over the years had added many improvements on what he had been taught decades ago.

Bloom moved quickly toward Stella. Behind him Rossi's gasps for air sounded like the wheezing of a person in the final throes of emphysema. Flack got to his knees, looked around for his gun and saw it in the left hand of Arvin Bloom.

Kills with his left, writes and eats with his right, thought Stella.

Flack started to stand on shaking legs. Bloom heard the detective over the gasps of the officer on the floor. Bloom turned the gun toward Flack, who started to reach for the backup gun taped to his ankle. Bloom knew just what Flack was doing.

Before the detective could reach his gun, Bloom would shoot him and the woman in the doorway. It would make noise. The shots would probably be called in to 911. He would have to move slowly when he got outside. He couldn't run.

Pain. A terrible pain that sent him into spasms and made him drop to the floor and drop Flack's gun. Bloom, eyes twitching rapidly, looked at Stella and the small black stun gun in her hand. How many volts had she used? He began to writhe on the floor. Flack picked up his gun from the floor where Bloom had dropped it, holstered the gun and cuffed Bloom.

Both Stella and Flack moved to Rossi, whose face was white and bloated. Rossi's mouth was open wide, trying to suck in air. His pleading eyes moved from Flack to Stella.

Flack got on his phone and called for an ambulance, saying, "Officer down."

When he clapped the phone shut, Stella, who was holding Rossi's hand, said, "He needs a tracheotomy, now. Lay him on his back."

Bloom was still writhing, but the spasms had subsided.

Stella had not brought her kit. There had been no thought of crime scene work, only the arrest of a murderer. A mistake. It had been a week of mistakes. Aiden had made a mistake. So had Danny. Now she had made one, too.

The heat, she thought.

"We need a knife or a razor blade," she said. "Something really sharp."

Flack reached into his pocket quickly and glanced at Rossi, whose face was almost a watermelon red. Flack's hand came out with a multi-bladed Swiss Army knife. He opened one of the blades and handed the knife to Stella. She knew how to test the sharpness of a blade without cutting herself. She swiftly ran a finger up the blade toward the edge and past it. Then she looked at the edge of the blade and nodded her head toward Flack.

"We need a straw, a plastic tube, something…" she said, but she could see in Flack's eyes that he had seen this before. He could probably even do the tracheotomy, but it was her job.

She looked at Rossi. She was thinking that the young cop's life could now be measured in seconds. Bloom was sitting on the floor, dazed.

"Thin cardboard," she said. "Roll it in a tight tube."

Flack understood. He remembered a tissue box on the counter from the last time he was there. Flack moved behind the counter, found the box and took out the tissues. Then he tore off one side of the box and rolled the cardboard.

"Stella," he called, holding up the tube.

"It'll do," she said.

He gave the rolled-up tube to Stella, who knelt next to Rossi. Rossi's eyes were closing.

"Need me?" Flack asked.

"I'll call if I do," she said.

"Ever done this before?"

"No," she said, lowering the knife toward Rossi's throat.

"Good luck," said Flack, getting up and moving toward Bloom.

A little luck would be great, but Stella believed less in luck than skill. She knew how to do this. She had watched paramedics do it three times. When they were done, she had asked them questions and then later asked Sheldon Hawkes to tell her how it was done.

Stella found the indentation between Rossi's Adam's apple and the cricoid cartilage. Then she made a half-inch horizontal incision about half an inch deep. Rossi didn't react. He didn't seem to be breathing.

Next Stella stuck a finger into the incision. The whole procedure was not only unsterile, but probably profoundly dirty. Couldn't be helped. Blood circled her inserted finger and flowed out of the incision site. Then Stella felt her finger enter the windpipe. With her free hand, she picked up the makeshift cardboard tube and tightened it. It should fit. If not, she would have to make a larger hole if she had enough time.

She carefully removed her finger from the incision and slowly inserted the cardboard tube into the windpipe. She leaned over and blew into the tube to clear it of blood that might have rushed in. Then she waited five seconds and blew into the tube again. She was unaware of where she was and even who she was. She concentrated only on the big police officer. She blew into the tube every five seconds.

"How's it going?" asked Flack.

She didn't answer. She was counting seconds.

Then she heard the warning sound of the paramedic van in the distance. She turned her head toward the street for an instant and then back at the fallen police officer, whose chest was now rising. Less than thirty seconds later, Rossi's eyes opened. He was breathing on his own with pain in his chest and the invasive tube of cardboard in his throat. Rossi mouthed, "Thank you." Stella nodded.

Two paramedics rushed in, kits in hand.

"Where does it hurt?" one of them asked. "Were you shot?"

Stella looked down at her blouse, which was covered with blood, as were both of her hands and her face.

"Not me," she said. "Take care of him. This is his blood."

Both paramedics nodded and moved to Rossi, who, with pain, said, "I can walk."

"Not a good idea," one paramedic said.

"I'm walking," he whispered softly so Flack and Bloom couldn't hear him. "I'm not letting that son of a bitch see me carried out."

They helped him to his feet. He seemed to be breathing normally.

"Nice tracheotomy," said one of the two paramedics. He looked at Stella and added, "You do it?"

Stella nodded.

"You guys are CSI, right? We've seen you before?"

"We're CSI," Stella confirmed.

"All of you?"

"Not the one in cuffs," she said. "He's a murderer."

Rossi gently shook off the hands of the paramedics and managed to walk normally to the door, glancing once at Bloom, who didn't look back at him. The policeman he had hit was unimportant, not worth looking at. It didn't matter that he had lived instead of dying. There had been a few before him, in at least six countries. They were living dots that he could easily erase, witnesses, people who had gotten in the way. They hadn't mattered, since the killing that had been assigned to him had been carried out. Now, for the man who called himself Bloom, the primary thing was staying alive.