"Al?"
"Hold on. He's awake."
"Joe? Are you all right?"
"What is this, 'He's awake,' crap? I've been up here writing letters and rinsing out a few things."
"Fella was spelling me on the monitoring, that's all. Try to stay loose."
"I'm loose, you're the one who sounds tired. Listen, they're going to come up for me..."
"We've been working on that. You're going to get air support."
Leland was silent. If the police could control the roof, they could lower men onto it. They needed Leland to get that close. Support, helclass="underline" they wanted him to cover their landing. As far as they were concerned, he was expendable. They had even managed to get a public-relations face on it, calling it "air support." Now the gang had another reason to want him dead. So much time had passed since they had locked him up here that it was possible they had stopped monitoring channel eleven.
"Look, I'm not sure that will work. This roof is covered with structures that will give them damned good cover. They came to stay. It's odds-on that they have rockets."
"Only one way to find out, right, brother?"
Now they were brothers, Leland thought. Hell, he could hear the con in Al's voice! "Look, kid, we can talk about his honestly, but don't bullshit me, please."
"Something I should have told you, Joe. The networks are here, and they're picking up and sending out everything we're saying."
Leland sighed. "Am I getting paid?"
"I don't think so."
"They'll have to take their fucking chances with the rest of us."
He voice was controlled. "It's Christmas morning back east, Joe. Little kids are watching."
"They should be in church. Sure — if anybody out there wants to do something for me, he can go to church."
"There you go. Everybody knows you've been through hell — now you've got me doing it. Merry Christmas, everybody! Joe, we're not kidding you. With first light, we'll have helicopters overhead constantly. They're going to cover you."
"Listen to me. Listen carefully and think!The only reason I'm still alive is because they know they have the situation under control. They wantto shoot down a helicopter."
"No, Joe, they want air time. They want to patch into the networks. They want to hook up to the satellite and talk to the whole world."
"And?"
"The people we've been able to talk to so far say that it's difficult, if not impossible, to give them what they want. We're trying to talk to them about it."
And at first light, the helicopters would attempt to get what remained of the SWAT team down. If they succeeded, the men would fight their way down to the hostages, many of whom would be killed. Among the dead, Steffie, Judy, and Mark.
But the police were going to fail. The job would be surrendered to the army, which would blow its way in from above and below. The army would succeed, and then all would die. Leland decided not to argue any more.
"Joe, are you awake enough to talk to a friend?"
"You soundlike you're on television."
"Go easy on me, man. I want to go home and see what Santa left under my tree."
"People keep giving me machine guns." He was moving again, trying not to let the pain show in his voice. "Got six of them so far."
"I thought you said seven."
"Oh, I got seven of them.The last was Hannah over there."
"How do you know her name?"
The police had to get a picture of what had happened in here. "I wanted to talk to her about poetry. What's this about a friend?" He saw that he had an interesting dilemma: if he had enough light to see what he was doing, he would not be able to do it for long.
"Well, you have a choice of two, Billy Gibbs or Kathi Logan."
"Tell Billy Gibbs that I'm still flying point. He'll know what I mean."
"Then you want to talk to Miss Logan?"
"Ms."
"Hey, I had to do that in front of the whole country. Billy Gibbs heard you on television and he says to come out of the sun, whatever that means."
"It means that Billy knows who the Captain, is, that's what it means." It wasn't bad advice, actually. Leland struggled to the east side of the building.
"Was that your rank during the war?"
"Are you going to let me talk to Kathi or aren't you?"
"I'd better, or I'm going to get bad fan mail."
"I keep forgetting we have an audience. They missed half the show."
"You keep saying that. Are you sure you killed seven?"
"So far."
"And that there were originally twelve?"
"I heard them say that — and not for my benefit, either."
"What do you mean by that?"
"We've been playing cat-and-mouse up here since nine o'clock last night. If any of them live through this, we're going to have a reunion next year. Pizza and bowling. Put Kathi Logan on before your switchboard lights up, hambone."
"Boy, I'm glad I don't ride a black-and-white with you."
"Joe? It's Kathi. Can you hear me?"
"As if I were in the candy store around the corner. Want to go to the movies? How are you?"
"I'd love to go to the movies. I'm fine — how are you? I have the television on and it looks like a war up there."
"Nah, just one dumb cop trying to quiet down the neighborhood."
"They're saying what you've done so far."
"You can say it."
"No, I can't."
"I understand. Listen, kid, this is what I was trained for. There's a young lady lying over there who called me a trained dog. These people have a habit of trying to deny your humanity. Do you care who's listening?"
"Besides me, no. I'm interested in who's talking."
"Trained I am; a dog I'm not, or any other animal. I'm a human being, just one, and they can't see that my presence here ought to teach them something."
"I agree with you, Joe, but I don't know if I'm as brave as you are."
He was looking for a way in through the roof. If the five survivors were monitoring him, let them think that he was having a chat with his girl. He could smell her perfume. He could feel her lips on his lips again. Thank God — it was what fate had left him to believe in. "Okay, this is a personal call. Did you listen to your tape?"
"Yes."
"I was cut off by these people. They didn't know that I had stepped away from the party to call you. I got upstairs. I saw them kill a guy named Rivers. Anton Gruber shot him through the heart. I'm an eyewitness. I tried to flash an SOS, but they sent a guy after me. I sent him back with his neck broken. You might as well know who I am, kid. I've been operating on this corner for almost thirty-five years. The police want a record of this. Do you understand what I'm doing?"
"Yes."
"Can I really make this a personal call?" There was no way in through the roof. "I've been thinking of that place on the beach. It's going to be a while before I can walk, but that's all right."
"Why can't you walk?"
"I'll tell you that, too." The only way in that he knew was through the ventilator shaft, but then he would have no way of going up or down. Even if he could really move.
He was beginning to see that it was in his favor if he could convince Little Tony that he was totally disabled. He had to provide covering fire for the helicopters, if for no other reason than to make the gang think that he could still defend himself. What the hell time was it? Almost 5:30. They would start to see light in another fifty minutes.
He kept talking, almost as if reciting in class, counting the bodies out loud. He had decided to take stock of all his assets, including Hannah's empty automatic. He had a pair of kit bags. Skeezix's Czech assault rifle and almost three clips of ammunition. He had bath towels wrapped around his feet, if he needed them. What else? What was left of him?