Donald Harstad: The Big Thaw

The hatchway doors along the lower deck began to open up, and passengers began to stream out toward the upper decks.

Suddenly, there was a belch of smoke from the two yard engines, and they began to move rapidly up the railroad tracks, being very careful not to gain speed too quickly. A few moments later, and the Beau had developed a noticeable movement. She was coming in.

She was also going down. The main deck was nearly awash for its full length, and the increasing angle at the stern had caused water to lap onto the rear portion of the second deck. It was going to be awfully close.

"If she strikes the bottom with her stern," said Captain Olinger, as much to himself as anyone, "I don't think the yard engines will be able to overcome the drag…" He looked at Lamar and said, "If that happens, we'll lose her."

The gunfire from the Beauregard seemed to have stopped completely, and many firemen were converging toward the area where it looked like she'd beach, if she was lucky.

"Do we have any fire trucks with really long extension ladders?" asked Adams. "She's pretty close now…"

"Nope," I answered. The tallest occupied structure in Nation County was three stories tall. Hook and ladder trucks weren't available.

Suddenly, the Beauregard seemed to lurch, and swayed over to her left, before righting herself. I could see some ten or fifteen passengers lose their footing, and slip and slide into the water.

"Fuck!" Lamar yelled at Sally to get the rescue crews into the water with whatever boats they had available.

"Struck the bottom," said Olinger, "but she bounced a bit."

The bow of the Beauregard was about 25 feet from the ramp, and the emergency personnel were beginning to prepare plank, netting, and a short section of floating dock that they'd detached from a long, beached dock about 50 yards from the water. The Beau was also way down at the stern, with water beginning to lap around the glazing at the rear of the third deck.

Suddenly, both the General Beauregard and the yard engines stopped, with the tension causing the bow cable to sing.

"Back the engines down!" hollered Lamar, into his walkie-talkie. "She's stuck… stop…"

Before he could finish, the cable snapped clear of the bow ring on the Beau, whipping and snaking through the air, flashing toward the yard engines. It struck one of the fire trucks near the ramp, rocking it, and throwing an extension ladder into the air.

Then, stillness.

The General Beauregard was stopped about ten feet from the end of the concrete boat ramp. We'd won.

"Let's go," said Hester, as she and Art grabbed a stack of papers. "What are those?" I asked, heading for the door right behind them.

"Xerox photos of Gabriel, to hand out to the troops. We don't want Gabe to slip by us, they gotta know what he looks like," said Hester.

I figured Volont wouldn't be too pleased. What the hell.

We ran all the way from the pavilion to the dock area.

Fire, rescue, and boat security personnel were busy preparing the portable ramps to carry the passengers to the dockside, and most of our officers were getting ready for a fight in case the suspects were crazy enough to resist. I was still very worried about that. Smart money would just surrender. But, then, smart money wouldn't necessarily have tried to rob the damned boat in the first place.

As the passengers were being very professionally handled by the boat staff and the rescue people, cops were everywhere, armed with their photocopies of Gabriel, and trying to scan every person who left the Beauregard. Just as Shamrock had reported, our suspects, who had originally been in coveralls, had removed them and their ski masks as soon as the one who ventured out on deck had been shot. They were mingling with the crowd, and it was pretty impossible to identify them in the rush, but at least twice we were aided by irate and frightened passengers who helpfully pointed out suspects. Nice work. They'd be reexamined in the holding areas.

We also had a woman blackjack dealer point one of the robbers out to us. It was kind of funny, really. She just grabbed his nylon windbreaker, and wouldn't let go. All the way down the ramp.

"Here's one! I've got one here!"

He was afraid to hit her with all the cops about. We scarfed him up and got her into a secure area for a statement.

Still no Gabriel.

I did see Nancy and Shamrock come down a ramp on the other side of the bow from me. They looked all right, but Nancy seemed to be a little wet. I waved. She glared back, and then grinned. One of the additional DCI agents, who'd arrived within the last couple of hours, came running over. He talked to Art and Hester for a second, and then they gave us the news.

The same kid who'd surrendered the stretch van had started to talk. We'd cleared an auditorium in the pavilion, and some DCI and FBI agents were doing the post-arrest interviews there. One of the questions the prisoners were all asked was "And when was the last time you saw Gabriel." They couldn't incriminate themselves no matter what the answer, because they'd all come directly out of the van. They were, as we say, caught in the act. Gabriel's last appearance in itself didn't affect their individual fates at all. Armed robbery was armed robbery. Or, as Sally would have said, piracy was piracy.

Anyway, when he was asked, he said, "Yesterday." The next question was directed at Gabriel's current whereabouts. The answer? "At the bank." So much for name, rank, and serial number.

Hester and Art went to the auditorium, and did the questions. She came out after about two minutes, at pretty close to a dead run. When she got across the street to where I had just been joined by George and Volont, she said, breathing hard, "He says that Gabriel wasn't on the boat. He says Gabriel is at the bank."

The other agent had said that the surviving suspects from the bank had said that Gabriel was on the boat. At first, they'd just thought that the two groups had their stories co-coordinated to confuse the cops. It looked to Hester, though, that both groups thought they were telling the truth.

"That's impossible. If he wasn't in the van, wasn't on the boat, and sure as hell wasn't in the bank…" said George, "where the hell is he?"

Our first thought was that we had missed him as they disembarked from the Beauregard. Then a state trooper came over, with a paper in his hand. He stood politely by, not wanting to butt in.

"Excuse me, sir?" Directed to me. I was pleased.

"Yeah, what you got?"

"The guy in this picture… are you sure he was on the boat?"

"Pardon?"

"Well, just before they went out with the cable, I could swear I saw him leave the parking lot over there in an old, beat-up green Chevy. It was weird, it caught my eye, because he was talking on a cell phone, and, well, he nearly fit the profile for a drug dealer, so I noticed him…"

Everybody was listening intently before he was finished.

He indicated the parking lot behind and offset to the left of the pavilion. "Right back there."

Well, sure. Of course. Right in front of us all the time. Well, more behind, actually. Right where he could see into the back windows of the DCI office, and also part of the boat, and part of the bank. He'd been there all along. Had to have been. Complete control, close contact, and concealed by being obvious. Son of a bitch.

We put out a message for anybody who saw a car matching that description to merely report it and give us the location and direction of travel. One of those "Do Not Stop" bulletins. Advisedly so.

The Frieberg officer, who had been assigned to the bridge ramp before the fun started, responded immediately. He gave the same description as the trooper had, and said, "… went through here about ten or fifteen minutes ago, headed west or south, depending on where he went at the intersection…"