Thomas Harris - The Silence of the Lambs

Pembry had managed to sit up and he was crying. Dr. Lecter looked down at him with his red smile. "I'm ready if you are, Officer Pembry," he said.

The baton, whistling in a flat arc, caught Pembry pock on the back of the head and he shivered out straight like a clubbed fish.

Dr. Lecter's pulse was elevated to more than one hundred by the exercise, but quickly slowed to normal. He turned off the music and listened.

He went to the stairs and listened again. He turned out Pembry's pockets, got the desk key and opened all its drawers. In the bottom drawer were Boyle's and Pembry's duty weapons, a pair of.38 Special revolvers. Even better, in Boyle's pocket he found a pocket knife.

The lobby was full of policemen. It was 6:30 P.M. and the police at the outside guard posts had just been relieved at their regular two-hour interval. The men coming into the lobby from the raw evening warmed their hands at several electric heaters. Some of them had money down on the Memphis State basketball game in progress and were anxious to know how it was going.

Sergeant Tate would not allow a radio to be played aloud in the lobby, but one officer had a Walkman plugged in his ear. He reported the score often, but not often enough to suit the bettors.

In all there were fifteen armed policemen in the lobby plus two Corrections officers set to relieve Pembry and Boyle at 7:00 P.M. Sergeant Tate himself was looking forward to going off duty with the eleven-to-seven shift.

All posts reported quiet. None of the nut calls threatening Lecter had come to anything.

At 6:45, Tate heard the elevator start up. He saw the bronze arrow above the door begin to crawl around the dial. It stopped at five.

Tate looked around the'lobby. "Did Sweeney go up for the tray?"

"Naw, I'm here, Sarge. You mind calling, see if they're through? I need to get going."

Sergeant Tate dialed three digits and listened. "Phone's busy," he said. "Go ahead up and see." He turned back to the log he was completing for the eleven-to-seven shift.

Patrolman Sweeney pushed the elevator button. It didn't come.

"Had to have lamb chops tonight, rare," Sweeney said. "What you reckon he'll want for breakfast, some fucking thing from the zoo? And who'll have to catch it for him? Sweeney."

The bronze arrow above the door stayed on five.

Sweeney waited another minute. "What is this shit?" he said.

The.38 boomed somewhere above them, the reports echoing down the stone stairs, two fast shots and then a third.

Sergeant Tate, on his feet at the third one, microphone in his hand. "CP, shots fired upstairs at the tower. Outside posts look sharp. We're going up."

Yelling, milling in the lobby.

Tate saw the bronze arrow of the elevator moving then. It was already down to four. Tate roared over the racket, "Hold it! Guard mount double up at your outside posts, first squad stays with me. Berry and Howard cover that fucking elevator if it comes--" The needle stopped at three.

"First squad, here we go. Don't pass a door without checking it. Bobby, outside-- get a shotgun and the vests and bring 'em up."

Tate's mind was racing on the first flight of stairs. Caution fought with the terrible need to help the officers upstairs. God don't let him be out Nobody weasing vests, shit. Fucking Corrections screws.

The offices on two, three and four were supposed to be empty and locked. You could get from the tower to the main building on those floors, if you went through the offices. You couldn't on five.

Tate had been to the excellent Tennessee SWAT school and he knew how to do it. He went first and took the young ones in hand. Fast and careful they took the stairs, covering each other from landing to landing.

"You turn your back on a door before you check it, I'll ream your ass."

The doors off the second-floor landing were dark and locked.

Up to three now, the little corridor dim. One rectangle of light on the floor from the open elevator car. Tate moved down the wall opposite the open elevator, no mirrors in the car to help him. With two pounds' pressure on a nine-pound trigger, he looked inside the car. Empty.

Tate yelled up the stairs, "Boyle! Pembry! Shit." He posted a man on three and moved up.

Four was flooded with the music of the piano coming from above. The door into the offices opened at a push. Beyond the offices, the beam of the long flashlight shined on a door open wide into the great dark building beyond.

"Boyle! Pembry!" He left two on the landing. "Cover the door. Vests are coming. Don't show your ass in that doorway."

Tate climbed the stone stairs into the music. At the top of the tower now, the fifth-floor landing, light dim in the short corridor. Bright light through the frosted glass that said SHELBY COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

Tate moved low beneath the door glass to the side opposite the hinges. He nodded to Jacobs on the other side, turned the knob and shoved hard, the door swinging all the way back hard enough for the glass to shatter, Tate inside fast and out of the doorframe, covering the room over the wide sights of his revolver.

Tate had seen many things. He had seen accidents beyond reckoning, fights, murders. He had seen six dead policemen in his time. But he thought that what lay at his feet was the worst thing he had ever seen happen to an officer. The meat above the uniform collar no longer resembled a face. The front and top of the head were a slick of blood peaked with torn flesh and a single eye was stuck beside the nostrils, the sockets full of blood.

Jacobs passed Tate, slipping on the bloody floor as he went in to the cell. He bent over Boyle, still handcuffed to the table leg. Boyle partly, eviscerated, his face hacked to pieces, seemed to have exploded blood in the cell, the walls and the stripped cot covered with gouts and splashes.

Jacobs put his fingers on the neck. "This one's dead," he called over the music. "Sarge?"

Tate, back at himself, ashamed of a second's lapse, and he was talking into his radio. "Command post, two officers down. Repeat, two officers down. Prisoner is missing. Lecter is missing. Outside posts watch the windows, subject has stripped the bed, he may be making a rope. Confirm ambulances en route."

"Pembry dead, Sarge?" Jacobs shut the music off.

Tate knelt and as he reached for the neck to feel, the awful thing on the floor groaned and blew a bloody bubble.

"Pembry's alive." Tate didn't want to put his mouth in the bloody mess, knew he would if he had to help Pembry breathe, knew he wouldn't make one of the patrolmen do it. Better if Pembry died, but he would help him breathe. But there was a heartbeat, he found it, there was breathing. It was ragged and gurgling but it was breathing. The ruin was breathing on its own.

Tate's radio crackled. A patrol lieutenant set up on the lot outside took command and wanted news. Tate had to talk.

"Come here, Murray," Tate called to a young patrolman. "Get down here with Pembry and take ahold of him where he can feel your hands on him. Talk to him.

"What's his name, Sarge?" Murray was green.

"It's Pembry, now talk to him, God dammit." Tate on the radio. "Two officers down, Boyle's dead and Pembry's bad hurt. Lecter's missing and armed-- he took their guns. Belts and holsters are on the desk."

The lieutenant's voice was scratchy through the thick walls. "Can you confirm the stairway clear for stretchers?"

"Yes sir. Call up to four before they pass. I have men on every landing."

"Roger, Sergeant. Post Eight out here thought he saw some movement behind the windows in the main building on four. We've got the exits covered, he's not getting out. Hold your positions on the landings. SWAT's rolling. We're gonna let SWAT flush him out. Confirm."