"Uh… just a sec… and Alpha One might be able to do the right front on the chip truck." The spotter paused. "Yeah, he can, he can do that one."
"Take your shots," said Volont.
We, of course, couldn't see a thing of the truck tires. Or the trucks. Or even the bank, by now.
"Alpha One has put two grooves in the big truck tire, the one with the lift gate, but just can't get a good shot. Will change aspect, and try again. The other trucks are disabled."
"Roger," said Volont. "Well, so much for the coins. That ought to move things right along."
With her stern against the ice, and her bow pointing into the slow current, the Beauregard had slowly pointed her bow to the left, toward our side of the shore. We were now able to barely make out about the first seventy-five feet of her bow, just about ten windows back along the deck. It looked strange, the front end just jutting out of the fog.
I heard Hester say, "Come on in…" and a large man of about forty-five entered the room. "This is Captain Olinger, an off-duty captain of the boat," said Hester.
"Glad to meet you," said Volont. "I can see some activity on the front end of the boat, Captain. Can you tell what they're doing?"
Captain Olinger looked carefully through Hester's binoculars for a moment. "Well, it looks like some amateurs are preparing the rescue boat for launch," he said. "One of them is trying to release the boarding ladder… Not much of a sailor, is he?"
"Captain," said Volont, "these people have threatened to sink the boat. Can they do it?"
The captain looked down at Volont. "Beats me. What do they have to work with?"
Volont cleared his throat, embarrassed and irritated. Nobody likes to ask a dumb question. "Maybe I should ask what it would take to sink it?"
"And you are?"
James intervened. "He's FBI," he said.
"Oh. Well, she's got five watertight compartments. If the doors are properly closed… you'd have to breach the hull on either side of each of two of the transverse bulkheads to sink her. Flood two of the compartments." He looked back out the window toward the Beauregard. "I'd say that'd sink her, all right."
26
I got busy about then with another phone call from Nancy and Shamrock. They had been on a quick scouting expedition, and had made careful observations.
"There are about five or six onboard, and they're doing something up front with a raft, or something, and they're pissed off and worried about something to do with that van on shore."
Not bad. "What are they worried about the van for?"
"I don't know. But they don't seem to know why it's still there, like it shouldn't be…" Nancy 's voice, though rapid, was pretty calm.
"They got that right," I said, with just a hint of pride. "Where are they?"
"Up front. One or two above us, but the others are out on deck, as far as I can tell. Are they going to leave us?"
"I don't know. They might." I was really encouraged. If they were talking so that Nancy could overhear, and if they were worried about the van not moving, they weren't the best of troops. That meant that we might be able to handle them like ordinary criminals, not like pros.
She slowed her voice way down. "Are they going to sink us?"
"They can't."
"Oh, right, Houseman. Just like Titanic."
"No, really. You're in fourteen feet of water. That means the bottom of the boat is only seven or eight feet above the river bottom. Worst you can do is get your feet wet. Best thing for you two to do is to go up one deck."
"I'm gonna get a drink," said Nancy.
"Yeah, right…"
"No shit, Houseman. The bars are still open. Hell, these idiot terrorists are letting people do their thing. There are still a bunch of people playing the slots."
"You're kidding?"
"No. For real. The only thing different is that there aren't any boat security people or any dealers around." She said good-bye, and broke the connection. To go get a drink, presumably.
I shared the information with the group.
Hester thought it was a good idea. "I mean, it keeps the people calm. It lets the gamblers go back to their thing. Keeps everybody happy. Why not?"
"Especially now," said Volont. "With about half your people sitting in that van. You don't really want to do crowd control. Keep everybody happy, like there wasn't any problem at all. Pretty smart."
"Call the bank," said Volont. "See how things are in there."
Sally did, on speaker phone. You could hear the phone ringing, and then a man's voice.
"What the fuck is taking so long?"
"This is a police dispatcher…"
Click.
Well.
It was time to discuss things. We did. Not at length, naturally, but we got a bunch of thoughts together, and found that we were in substantial agreement on most points.
Stopping the van was an excellent idea, and had taken control from Gabriel. It hadn't put us in control, not yet. But there was at least more of an even playing field.
The boat, while it could be hurt, wasn't going to be sinking in the traditional sense. Passengers might be jeopardized in the long term, but not immediately. The captain explained that he thought the worst danger was that, since the engines would become inoperative if submerged, and that since the upper decks were mostly windows, it was going to get pretty damned cold onboard if they did anything drastic.
Not an urgent thing, at least not in the current environment.
We had apparently put a lot of pressure on the bad guys at the bank. Good. We also got confirmation that they couldn't see anything but the boat's stacks from the bank, in the best of times. Therefore, they were probably unable to see the stopped van at the boat dock. Uncertainty. Good.
We didn't want the gunmen to panic. All we wanted to do at this point was severely undermine their confidence, and it looked like we were making good progress there. All we had to do was just hold our ground, wait for the negotiator, and make preparations to get the passengers off the boat as soon as we could. Hester had an excellent suggestion.
"Get a couple of ambulances in – close, but not in the hazard zone. But obvious. Let 'em wonder who they're for…"
The group in the stretch van ought to really appreciate that. We had Sally call the ambulances to the scene.
We also started to marshal school buses across the river, in parking lots of the Conception County Sheriffs Department. If we had to off-load a bunch of passengers, we'd want a way to get them to the nearest shelter. In this case, the school gym.
Based on Nancy's report, and the reaction on the phone at the bank, it appeared that cracks were starting to appear in the opposition's confidence.
The loose talk around the passengers was a very good sign, and the voice on the bank phone sounded stressed as all get-out. And we hadn't heard from Gabriel for a while. Busy with the troops?
"Like I said, they don't have a lot of really good people in this," I said. "Just a couple. Discipline is going to be a problem."
"Lack of training," said Volont. "But not a failure of leadership. Gabriel is a very strong leader. Don't underestimate that."
"But with untrained people, he's going to have to be right there. The ones that are separated from him, they're the ones who are going to start coming apart." Hester kept looking at the boat. "Makes me wonder, though. They're getting sort of nervous on the boat. They are really nervous at the bank. You suppose he's in the stretch van stranded on the ramp?"
Interesting thought. If he was in the van, it was the best thing that could happen to us. If we could take that van, and let the boat and the bank be fully aware of it… Decapitate the whole operation. How far could the rest of them be from surrender, if we took the stretch van and Gabriel really was in it?