“Another thing,” Delaney went on. “See that TV truck out there? By dawn, there’ll be two more. And reporters and photographers from newspapers and magazines. It’s already been on radio. If you don’t get the roads around here closed off in a hell of a hurry, by morning you’ll have a hundred thousand creeps and nuts with their wives and kiddies and picnic baskets of fried chicken, all hurrying to be in on the kill. Just like Floyd Collins in the cave.”
“I got to make a phone call,” Captain Sneed said hoarsely. He looked around frantically. Chief Forrest jerked a thumb toward the gate-keeper’s cottage. Sneed hurried toward it.
“You stay here a minute,” he called back to Delaney. “Please,” he added.
He got up on the porch, saw the smashed lock.
“Who blew open this door?” he cried.
“I did,” Chief Forrest said equably.
“State property,” Sneed said indignantly, and disappeared inside.
“O Lord, will my afflictions never cease?” the Chief asked.
“I shouldn’t have talked to him like that,” Delaney said in a low voice, his head bowed. “Especially in front of his men.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Captain,” the Chief said, still sucking on his matchstick. “I’ve heard better cussing-outs than that. Besides, you didn’t say nothing his men haven’t been saying for years. Amongst their selves, of course.”
“Who do you think he’s calling?”
“I know exactly who he’s calling: Major Samuel Barnes. He’s in command of Sneed’s troop.”
“What’s he like?”
“Sam? Cut from a different piece of cloth. A hard little man, smart as a whip. Knows his business. Sam comes from up near Woodstock. I knew his daddy. Hy Barnes made the best applejack in these parts, but Sam don’t like to be reminded of that. Smokey the Bear will explain the situation, and Major Sam will listen carefully. Sneed will complain about you being here, and he’ll tell Sneed what you said about machine gunning that man from a chopper, and what you said about a mob of nuts descending on us tomorrow. Sneed will tell the Mayor you said those things, because he’s too damned dumb to take credit for them hisself. Sam Barnes will think a few seconds, then he’ll say, ‘Sneed, you turd-kicking nincompoop, you get your fat ass out there and ask that New York City cop, just as polite as you can, if he’ll stick around and tell you what to do until I can get on the scene. And if you haven’t fucked things up too bad by the time I get there, you might-you just might-live to collect your pension, you asshole.’ Now you stick around a few minutes, sonny, and see if I ain’t exactly right.”
A few moments later Captain Sneed came out of the cottage, pulling on his gloves. His face was still white, and he moved like a man who has just been kneed in the groin. He came over to them with a ghastly smile.
“Captain,” he said. “I don’t see why we can’t cooperate on this.”
“Cooperation!” the Chilton Chief cried unexpectedly. “That’s what makes the world go ’round!”
They went to work, and by midnight they had it pretty well squared away, although many of the men and much of the equipment they had requisitioned had not yet arrived. But at least they had a tentative plan, filled it in and revised it as they went along.
The first thing they did was to establish a four-man walking patrol around the base of Devil’s Needle, the sentries carrying shotguns and sidearms. The walkers did four hours on, and eight off.
Delaney’s snipers established their blind in the fir copse, sitting crossed-legged atop folded blankets. They had mounted their scopes, donned black sweaters and pants, socks and shoes, jackets and tight black gloves. Each wore a flak vest on watch.
Squad cars were driven in as close as possible; their headlights and searchlights were used to illuminate the scene. Portable battery lanterns were set out to open up the shadows. Captain Delaney had called Special Operations and requisitioned a generator truck and a flatbed of heavy searchlights with cables long enough so the lights could be set up completely around Devil’s Needle.
Captain Bertram Sneed was bringing in a field radio receiver-transmitter; the local power company was running in a temporary line. The local telephone company was bringing in extra lines and setting up pay phones for the press.
Major Samuel Barnes had not yet put in an appearance, but Delaney spoke to him on the phone. Barnes was snappish and all business. He promised to reshuffle his patrol schedules and send another twenty troopers over by bus as soon as possible. He was also working on the road blocks, and expected to have the Chilton area sealed off by dawn.
He and Delaney agreed on some ground rules. Delaney would be the on-the-spot commander with Sneed acting as his deputy. But Major Barnes would be nominal commander when the first report to the press was made, calling the siege of Devil’s Needle a “joint operation” of New York State and New York City police. All press releases were to be okayed by both sides; no press conferences were to be held or interviews granted without representatives of both sides present.
Before agreeing. Captain Delaney called Deputy Inspector Thorsen to explain the situation and outline the terms of the oral agreement with the State. Thorsen said he'd call back; Delaney suspected he was checking with Deputy Mayor Alinski. In any event, Thorsen called back shortly and gave him the okay.
Little of what they accomplished would have been possible without the aid of Chief Evelyn Forrest. Laconic, unflappable, never rushing, the man was a miracle of efficiency, joshing the executives of the local power and telephone companies to get their men cracking.
It was Forrest who brought out a highway crew to open up the shut-off water fountains in the Park and set up two portable chemical toilets. The Chief also got the Chilton High School, closed for the Christmas holiday, to open up the gymnasium, to be used as a dormitory for the officers assigned to Devil’s Needle. Cots, mattresses, pillows and blankets were brought in from the county National Guard armory. Forrest even remembered to alert the Chilton disaster unit; they provided a van with sides that folded down to form counters. They served hot coffee and doughnuts in the Park around the clock, the van staffed by lady volunteers.
Chief Forrest had offered Captain Delaney the hospitality of his home, but the Captain opted for a National Guard cot set up in the gate-keeper’s cottage. But, the night being unexpectedly chill, he did accept the Chief’s loan of a coat. What a garment it was! Made of grey herringbone tweed, it was lined with raccoon fur with a wide collar of beaver. It came to Delaney’s ankles, the cuffs to his knuckles. The weight of it bowed his shoulders, but it was undeniably warm.
“My daddy’s coat,” Chief Forrest said proudly. “Made in Philadelphia in Nineteen-and-one. Can’t buy a coat like that these days.”
So they all worked hard, and Delaney had one moment of laughing fear when he thought of what fools they’d all look if it turned out that somehow Daniel G. Blank had already climbed down off his perch and escaped into the night. But he put that thought away from him.
Shortly after dark they started bullhorn appeals to the fugitive, to be repeated every hour on the hour:
“Daniel Blank, this is the police. You are surrounded and have no chance of escape. Come down and you will not be hurt. You will be given a fair trial, represented by legal counsel. Come down now and save yourself a lot of trouble. Daniel Blank, you will not be injured in any way if you come down now. You have no chance of escape.”
“Do any good, you think?” Forrest asked Delaney.
“No.”
“Well,” the Chief sighed, “at least it’ll make it harder for him to get some sleep.”