"Don't talk to me like that, don't do that," I said, getting angry. "You're pissing me off again, Bobby, don't do that."
"I didn't mean-"
"No, no, I'll tell you what, I'll talk to you in the morning," I said. "I need to think, I need some time to think."
And I hung up, then moved to where Alena was coiling our makeshift rope on the bureau. I hoisted her up again, this time just lifting her from the hips, and she pulled herself the rest of the way into the crawl space. I climbed atop the bureau, handed up the two bags, then the rope, then took hold of her outstretched arm and followed her into the cold and musty darkness.
Leaving the phone to ring in the room alone.
CHAPTER
It was bitingly cold and it was treacherously icy and the drop from the edge of the roof to the shadows along the rear of the hotel was easily thirty feet. As Alena worked quickly to conceal the hole she'd made in the roof, I scanned the sky above us. I'd heard the distinctive sound of a helicopter doing fly-over while I'd been talking to Galloway, but now there was no sign of the bird. It was possible it had been ordered down for the night, maybe to preserve fuel or to give the pilot a rest so he'd be ready when really needed. Whatever the reason, it was luck, and dawdling on the roof would be a good way to squander it.
We stayed on our bellies, sliding as much as crawling along the shingles. Now that we were outside, the sounds of the siege became audible, the distant crackle of radios, the sound of the occasional vehicle coming along the road. There wasn't much noise coming from Lynch, and not a hell of a lot of light, either. Either it was a sleepy little town on a late winter's night, or, more likely, everyone was at home watching what was happening in their backyard on their televisions.
We moved carefully, sliding ourselves towards one of the many vents that had been cut into the roof. I had to clear some of the snow away to make room for our rope, and it was so hard it cut my hands. Once again, I felt the ache of the cold. If I got frostbite a second time so soon after the first, I'd end up losing my fingers. While I readied the improvised rope, Alena took the opportunity to eyeball the surroundings, using the elevation to our advantage.
"It's not deep," Alena murmured in my ear. "The perimeter seems confined to the hotel lot, patrol cars running out the next couple of blocks. The streets have been closed."
I nodded, finished looping the rope around the vent, then handed it off to Alena. She took the two ends, rolling onto her back and then back onto her belly to stay low, wrapping them together rappelling style around her waist and crotch. Then she let gravity slide her towards the edge of the roof, and, without any hesitation or pause, simply continued over the edge. I waited to hear the sound of her impact, the smack of a body landing wrong on the ground, but it didn't come, and as soon as I saw the rope turn from taut to slack, I followed her.
We were at the rear of the hotel, the side furthest from Elk, in a narrower and shallower extension of the parking lot that dominated the front side. Most of the light had been coming from the other side of the street, and the shadows were adequate enough to be comforting. A fence, wooden, perhaps seven feet high, marked the edge of the lot on this side. From above, I had seen that it butted up against the lot for a fast-food restaurant on the other side, then another street that seemed to run parallel to Elk.
That would be the edge of the perimeter, then. Over the fence, through the lot, across the street, and we'd have broken the ring. All we had to do was manage that without being seen or heard.
Alena edged out of the shadows, checking to the right and the left, as I turned back to the building and took hold of one of the ends of the linked sheets. It came free easily, and I drew it down quickly, pulling it hand over hand. Once it was down I gathered it together and looked for a place to hide it. I didn't see one that wouldn't be discovered immediately upon daylight, so I shoved it into my bag, instead.
Alena stepped back silently, crouching down, motioning for me to join her. I dropped, and for the better part of another minute, neither of us moved, listening and letting our eyes adjust. There was more light than I'd realized at first, and while it made our concealment less effective, it was going to hurt anybody wearing NVG worse. Night-vision can be a terrific tool, but it has to be used in the right environment. In near-total darkness conditions, it's ideal.
In an illuminated urban setting, not so much.
This was why Alena had been so insistent that we know if they were using NVG or not, because it gave us both an idea of their spotting distance, both actual and imagined. Wearing their goggles, the team members would believe they were seeing farther, and seeing more, than they actually were. Given the lighting conditions as a result of the streetlamps, the refraction from all the snow and ice, the signposts for the various services offered this close to the interstate, and the general urban light dome, anyone wearing the goggles was actually seeing far less.
She put her mouth to my ear, so close that I could feel her lips brush my skin. "Patrol car right, under the streetlamp. No motion."
I looked, saw the car she was speaking of. The streetlamp nearby was dropping glare almost precisely on its windshield.
"Left, rooftop, countersniper and spotter," she whispered.
They were harder to spot, but I found them after a moment. About three hundred feet away, set up on the flat roof of a service station. They'd focused on the door that led to our room, and with good reason: As far as the Lynch PD was concerned, it was our only way in or out. Given that the SWAT team had very clearly shifted to a waiting posture, I wasn't surprised they'd missed us. They had to be bored and miserably cold, and if the spotter was wearing NVG, half blind as well without even realizing it.
"On three, to the fence together," she said. "Put me up and over, then follow. Don't stop."
I nodded.
She used her fingers, showing me three fingers, then two, then one.
We ran for the fence, low and light. I was faster, and that let me get into position before her, dropping my bag as I went down on one knee, turning to face her approach. She didn't break stride, just put her right foot into my hands, and I lifted with my arms as much as my hips, heard the fence behind me groan for an instant as she made contact with it, and then her weight was gone. An instant later, I heard her landing on the other side, and it sounded like she'd come down hard, and badly, because she couldn't keep from making a noise.
I looped my arms through the straps of my tiny duffel, pressing it against my chest, then reached for the top of the fence and pulled, swinging my legs to the side, to bring them up and over with me. I wanted to be quick, and I wanted to be quiet, and that meant letting my arms, once again, do most of the work until my legs had the momentum to lead. Once they had cleared the top of the fence, though, I twisted with them, turning and following them over.
My landing, like Alena's, was bad, and I discovered why the second I came down. The crust of snow against this side of the fence was deceptive, and thin, and it concealed a layer of ice as slick as oiled glass. My feet went out from beneath me the moment I came down, and I tried to readjust, and instead landed hard, on my left hip.
The urge to curse was almost overpowering.
Alena offered me her hand, and I used it to get back to my feet, then almost immediately went down again for precisely the same reason I had the first time. She caught me, started to slip, and then I had to catch her. It would have been pure Buster Keaton if it wasn't so damn deadly.
There was a Dumpster off to the back, and even in the winter cold, it stank of spoiled milk and rotting meat. We got into its cover, facing the direction we had come, looking back at the fence. The night maintained its relative silence; nothing in it seemed to spike, nothing in it seemed to indicate that anyone knew we had moved.