Donald Harstad: The Big Thaw

In addition to the entry team, there would be four more TAC team members moving along the other blind spot, who would rush the door after the others got inside.

"Have the robbers locked the doors?" asked Lamar.

"The big glass doors? Doesn't make any difference," said Adams. "Not really."

Lamar stood looking out toward the boat. "What are your odds at the bank?"

"Good," said Adams. "Not perfect, but good. Given this situation, it's not likely to get any better."

"And the hostages?"

"Good, too."

"But not perfect," said Lamar. "Never is, is it?"

"No, it never is," said Adams.

Lamar kept looking out at the boat. "Damned if you do, damned if you don't," he said, mostly to himself. "Lose six hostages in the bank, or over six hundred on the water…"

"We have to go now," said Volont, "or the window of opportunity closes."

"Are you sure?" Lamar turned. "If they get to leave the bank, do you think he'll sink the boat?"

"He will, to cover his escape," said Volont.

"And if we take them out of the bank…?"

"Then there's no point to continue the whole business," said Volont. "The soldier surrenders to save lives. Much better press that way."

"I hope you're right," said Lamar. He turned to face Adams. "Take 'em out of the bank."

We left the office to Lamar, Art, and Sally. The rest of us hustled down toward the bank. Adams left first, and just disappeared into the fog. It was that thick. You could only see about fifty feet before things started becoming indistinct.

I could see the tops of the heads of the five TAC agents who were to go through the hole, as they moved along the bank wall. Then they all ducked down, and I lost them to the fog, the trucks, and the low wall. We waited. And waited. Nothing happened. We waited. I suppose it was all of twenty seconds, to tell the truth, but it felt like a year.

Suddenly, the three TAC agents in the second group popped around the corner of the bank and rushed the main door, disappearing inside in the blink of an eye.

Nothing.

Then, the so-called secure radio crackled to life. "TAC One needs an ambulance at the bank, NOW!"

Sally ordered the ambulance in, and about half a dozen uniformed officers from both our department and the State Patrol moved in with it, running alongside…

Nothing, again.

Then, "Okay, TAC One has lots of healthy hostages, two dead suspects, one wounded. No casualties among the good guys."

"All right!"

"Yes!"

"Way to go!"

"Could somebody" crackled Sally's voice, "come back up here? He's been on the phone again, and Lamar wants you up here when he calls back…"

We got back to Hester's office, and had to wait for almost a minute for Gabriel to call. Lamar looked worried and pleased at the same time. No dead or injured hostages. But we still had to coax Gabriel off the boat.

The phone rang. Gabriel.

"What have you done at the bank? You stupid sons of bitches, what have you done?"

He knew. He was, after all, listening to our radio traffic. I also noticed that his cell phone sounded weak. His batteries were wearing down, I thought. More pressure.

"You might as well give up," said Lamar.

The connection went dead.

This time, water didn't just boil up by the General Beauregard. This time, there was a fountain of water more than fifty feet in the air, as the next charge went off. It came shooting up out of the fog, followed a moment later by a thunderclap that rattled our windows.

Captain Olinger had assessed the damage to the Beauregard almost before the water plume subsided.

"Void four," he said. "She'll be down a good foot to two feet at the stern with that one… I sure as hell hope the fuel tank wasn't ruptured…"

People burst out onto the forward weather decks of the Beau, climbing the exterior steps to the next deck. As she settled, I could see the water creep above the bottom of the glazed panes toward the rear of the boat. That would put the cash-counting rooms, rest rooms, and coin room into the water. The blackjack tables and the lower bank of game machines would be getting damp, as well. And that water was damned cold.

"If security is being restrained," asked George, "who's moving the people around like that? The bad guys?"

"The dealers and the waitresses," said Hester. "And the deckhands. They're trained for that."

As she spoke, we could see the black slacks and white ruffled blouses of the employees going to the big lockers, beginning to hand out the personal flotation devices. They seemed calm. The passengers, though, were starting to move toward the edge of the decks, and you could almost see them thinking of jumping in. So far, the icy water and the small PFD they'd been issued seemed to be dissuading them from leaving, but it was a funny thing. I was certain that as soon as the first one jumped, we'd get lots more. Anybody in that water for more than ten minutes was as good as gone, especially given they were mostly in their fifties.

The General Beauregard stabilized again, with the portion of the deck we could see angling down at about a 15 degree angle, and the last half of the main deck had to be awash. Steam was wafting out of the gangway doors, where the warm air inside met the cold water.

Just seeing her like that gave me butterflies. I fully expected something to give way, and for her to slide stern first beneath the water.

The phone rang again, and we all expected Gabriel. I know that Sally did, because she put it on "speaker" automatically.

It was Nancy, her voice sort of quivery, and no longer bothering to whisper.

"Houseman, this fucking thing is sinking!"

"No, no, it's not. Not yet." I am sometimes honest to a fault.

"'Not yet'? 'NOT YET'!"

"No, we have a captain here, and he says it's not. Here. Just a second… This is a lady we know, and she's on the boat," I said to Captain Olinger, gesturing for him to help.

"That's right, ma'am," he said, loudly. "It's not going to sink after that explosion. Please tell the rest of the passengers that…"

"Get us OFF this thing!"

"We're working on it," I said. "We gotta clear this line…"

"Nancy, isn't it?" said Volont. "Could you look around and get a number on the terrorists for us?"

"What? What? Not on your stupid little life," she said, and hung up.

"Wait a minute," I said, after Nancy had terminated the conversation. "Wait… What's happening here? I mean, Gabriel doesn't kill for no reason, right?"

"No reason in his own mind," said Volont.

"Right. So, the stretch van has been eliminated… and now the bank is back in our possession. So, what the hell is he doing still trying to sink the boat?"

I didn't get an answer.

"Is there any indication that he's suicidal?" I asked. "I mean, if he's not, now that the other aspects of the operation are done for, there's no point in continuing to play with the boat. He won't sink it. He'd be sinking himself."

"I wish I could count on that," said Lamar.

"We gotta keep up the rescue effort… sure we do," I said. "Just to be safe." I pointed to the crippled gambling boat. "What we really gotta do is understand that this might be a distraction."

"For what?" asked George.

"For him getting away," I said. "Get some surveillance on the other side of the boat. The river side. Gabe's going to try to make his getaway while we try to save the passengers. He's got to have a plan to get himself off that damned thing…"

We set up an observers point in an iceboat, about 300 feet east of the Beau. They said they could see everything, and there was no movement that looked like the bad guys were trying to get off the thing. We also closed off the Mississippi River bridge. We closed the thing off completely, and had officers and agents observing the riverside of the boat, watching the bluffs above the fog line, and making sure nobody had gotten off and was climbing to safety.