In a law firm’s low-partitioned bullpen typists at computer terminals watch as cops, with guns up, search methodically. Corners, closets, under desks.
The lobby now is utterly still. Armed police stand guard at the entrances in silent tableau … The elevators … Paramedics carry Slade out on a stretcher …
And in the multi-story garage a sudden deafening noise precedes the appearance of white-helmeted cops on motorcycles who come roaring up the ramps.
And up in the unfurnished office Clay is barking at the uniformed officer with the cell phone: “Shut down every elevator …”
The officer begins to relay the instructions into his phone …
In the elevator shaft Radford clings to a narrow perch high up inside the shaft. He’s got a firm grip with one hand; in the other he holds Slade’s service revolver. Several elevators are at various levels; two or three are moving. Then suddenly, jarring the cables, all the elevators stop. Radford reacts to the sound of men’s footsteps in a nearby corridor. He can hear voices but can’t make out the words.
On the double doors nearest him is stenciled the legend “7th floor.” Abruptly the point of a crowbar appears, sliding through between the doors. It begins to pry the doors apart …
Radford reacts. Reaches out, nearly loses his balance, gets a grip on one of the thick cables, swings out into space …
The revolver falls from his grasp, tumbles down into darkness; after a significant and scary length of time he hears the sound when it hits bottom.
The crowbar has slipped, allowing the doors to close again, but now it’s prying them open again …
Radford clings to the swaying cable …
No choice. He allows himself to begin sliding down the cable. He goes faster and faster, dwindling downward …
The crowbar has pried the doors open enough for a cop to stick his face through; several hands hold the doors apart for him. He looks up, around, down.
All the cables are swaying.
And after a moment the cop speaks. “Nothing. Let’s go.”
In the dark at the bottom of the elevator shaft, Radford picks himself up slowly. His hands are bleeding. He lurches to one side, finds his balance uncertainly, begins groggily to feel his way around the concrete walls, searching for a way out …
In the unfurnished office frantic activity continues: Clay, Vickers, Technician. Vickers now holds a CB radio; he’s trying to listen to it while he badgers Clay: “What’ve you got on the assassin?”
The technician talks to Clay, overlapping: “Remington 40-XC National Match. Caliber 308.”
Vickers scowls. “That’s a target rifle.”
The technician says, “Yeah. We’re trying to raise the serial number. Acid.”
Vickers says into his radio, “You can assure the director we’ve got the lid screwed tight.” He cups the mouthpiece and glares daggers at Clay. “The United Nations Secretary General wants to know what the fuck’s going on here.”
Clay hasn’t got time for him. She’s tagging Dickinson: “How many men on the roof? Where’s that chopper?”
In a basement corridor a cop prowls with a nightstick past a large metal ventilation grille in the wall—a return-duct for the air-conditioning system, through which Radford, hands bleeding, filthy and grease-stained, peers out while he tries to dry the blood from his palms on his shirt. He sees the cop open a door on the opposite side of the hall and looks in: glimpse of a utility-furnace room. The cop shuts the door and comes toward Radford’s grille and turns; he posts himself on guard, his back to the wall, half blocking the grille.
Radford looks up … the inside of the duct is constricting, claustrophobic.
He’s sweating.
The cop beyond the grille doesn’t budge.
Dickinson and the bald cop walk into the unfurnished office with a uniformed Army medical corps major—Dr. Huong Trong. Dickinson walks the doctor up to Clay. “Commander—this is Major Trong … Doctor Trong.”
Clay is glad to see Trong. “Okay!” She takes the doctor by the arm and steers him toward the cut-glass hole in the window. “C. W. Radford. One of yours, I think.”
“Used to be,” Dr. Trong concedes. “Belongs to the V.A. now … You believe he’s the assassin?
“Smoking gun—literally, Doc—his fingerprints all over it—and the injured cop gave us a positive make on his Army photograph. Doesn’t leave much reasonable doubt.”
Dr. Trong says, “Did anybody actually see him do it? Because if they didn’t, you might want to keep an open mind.”
Vickers scowls at Dr. Trong. “What’re you, Major? Japanese?”
“Korean.”
“Yeah.”
The cop stands with his back to the grille. Two SWAT officers jog quickly past, toting riot shotguns; they nod to the cop; he nods back. They jog out of sight … Abruptly the grille comes slamming out from the wall, knocking the cop off his feet, and behind it Radford explodes from the duct, elbow-chops the cop and drags the insensate man (including nightstick) through a doorway into the utility-furnace room … When the door closes behind them the corridor is empty and silent …
Dickinson is bitching to Clay. “Reinforcements getting jammed up in the afternoon rush hour.”
Clay says, “I called a shift for traffic control …”
Vickers is menacing now. “Commander Clay—if you let the scumbag get away—”
Clay tells him, “If you’re upset about something, maybe you should call the police.”
“Ho, very funny. Do you have any idea the international repercussions—?”
“You people can play global politics,” Clay snaps. “I don’t care if the stiff was left or right, east or west … Colonel Vickers, I know what the situation is, here. You are not helping.”
A uniformed cop with two nightsticks climbs the stairs from landing to landing. At each floor an armed cop is posted. The cop with the two sticks waves a careless hello to a cop on duty, and turns to climb the next flight.
It’s Radford, in cop’s uniform.
On a higher landing there’s a fire emergency station with a coiled high-pressure hose. Beyond it is another uniform standing guard. When Radford climbs into sight the cop starts to smile and greet him, then scowls—recognition. Something not quite right in the way Radford wears the uniform.
“Hey—!”
The cop draws his gun … And on other landings the other cops hear his cry … And—
Radford kicks the revolver from the cop’s hand, takes the nightstick away from the cop, then—all this with lightning speed—busts the fire-hose loose, opens the valve and just as cops start shooting, he uses the high-pressure blast from the hose to drive ’em back above and below.
Bullets ricochet … He hears a cop cry as he tumbles downstairs … The cascading flood obscures his view …
On an upper floor of the garage near the top of its spiral ramp, half a dozen police motorcycles are parked on their kickstands. A helmeted motorcycle cop stands guard over the bikes, and watches everything at once. He can hear a lot of activity—distant voices; sirens in the city; running feet …
Now a uniform approaches from some distance away. He carries two nightsticks. The helmeted motorcycle cop sees him coming, but is not alarmed until Radford walks up and abruptly slams him upside the helmet with the two heavy nightsticks. The blow knocks the cop to his knees. In a flash, Radford is bestride a motorcycle.
He kicks the stand out of the way … switches on the ignition … jumps on the starter … doesn’t start …
Alerted by something somewhere, several cops come pouring into sight, chasing him …
And on the ground the helmeted motorcycle cop clears his head and reaches for his sidearm …
One last kick … Radford finally gets the motorcycle started and roars away … The motorcycle cop snatches up his walkie-talkie and barks into it …
Skittering down the hairpin turns of the spiral garage ramp, Radford can see the point several floors below where two squad cars slither into place across the foot of the ramp, blocking it—a fly couldn’t get through there, let alone a man on a bike …