Tate moved low beneath the door glass to the side opposite the hinges. He nodded to Jacobs on the other side, turned the knob and shoved hard, the door swinging all the way back hard enough for the glass to shatter, Tate inside fast and out of the doorframe, covering the room over the wide sights of his revolver.
Tate had seen many things. He had seen accidents beyond reckoning, fights, murders. He had seen six dead policemen in his time. But he thought that what lay at his feet was the worst thing he had ever seen happen to an officer. The meat above the uniform collar no longer resembled a face. The front and top of the head were a slick of blood peaked with torn flesh and a single eye was stuck beside the nostrils, the sockets full of blood.
Jacobs passed Tate, slipping on the bloody floor as he went
in to the cell. He bent over Boyle, still handcuffed to the table leg. Boyle, partly eviscerated, his face hacked to pieces, seemed to have exploded blood in the cell, the walls and the stripped cot covered with gouts and splashes.
Jacobs put his fingers on the neck. “This one’s dead,” he called over the music. “Sarge?”
Tate, back at himself, ashamed of a second’s lapse, and he was talking into his radio. “Command post, two officers down. Repeat, two officers down. Prisoner is missing. Lecter is missing. Outside posts watch the windows, subject has stripped the bed, he may be making a rope. Confirm ambulances en route.”
“Pembry dead, Sarge?” Jacobs shut the music off.
Tate knelt and as he reached for the neck to feel, the awful thing on the floor groaned and blew a bloody bubble.
“Pembry’s alive.” Tate didn’t want to put his mouth in the bloody mess, knew he would if he had to help Pembry breathe, knew he wouldn’t make one of the patrolmen do it. Better if Pembry died, but he would help him breathe. But there was a heartbeat, he found it, there was breathing. It was ragged and gurgling but it was breathing. The ruin was breathing on its own.
Tate’s radio crackled. A patrol lieutenant set up on the lot outside took command and wanted news. Tate had to talk.
“Come here, Murray,” Tate called to a young patrolman. “Get down here with Pembry and take ahold of him where he can feel your hands on him. Talk to him.”
“What’s his name, Sarge?” Murray was green.
“It’s Pembry, now talk to him, God dammit.” Tate on the radio. “Two officers down, Boyle’s dead and Pembry’s bad hurt. Lecter’s missing and armed—he took their guns. Belts and holsters are on the desk.”
The lieutenant’s voice was scratchy through the thick walls. “Can you confirm the stairway clear for stretchers?”
“Yes sir. Call up to four before they pass. I have men on every landing.”
“Roger, Sergeant. Post Eight out here thought he saw some movement behind the windows in the main building on four. We’ve got the exits covered, he’s not getting out. Hold your positions on the landings. SWAT’s rolling. We’re gonna let SWAT flush him out. Confirm.”
“I understand. SWAT’s play.”
“What’s he got?”
“Two pistols and a knife, Lieutenant—Jacobs, see if there’s any ammo in the gunbelts.”
“Dump pouches,” the patrolman said. “Pembry’s still full, Boyle’s too. Dumb shit didn’t take the extra rounds.”
“What are they?”
“Thirty-eight +Ps JHP.”
Tate was back on the radio. “Lieutenant, it looks like he’s got two six-shot .38s. We heard three rounds fired and the dump pouches on the gunbelts are still full, so he may just have nine left. Advise SWAT it’s +Ps jacketed hollowpoints. This guy favors the face.”
Plus Ps were hot rounds, but they would not penetrate SWAT’s body armor. A hit in the face would very likely be fatal, a hit on a limb would maim.
“Stretchers coming up, Tate.”
The ambulances were there amazingly fast, but it did not seem fast enough to Tate, listening to the pitiful thing at his feet. Young Murray was trying to hold the groaning, jerking body, trying to talk reassuringly and not look at him, and he was saying, “You’re just fine, Pembry, looking good,” over and over in the same sick tone.
As soon as he saw the ambulance attendants on the landing, Tate yelled, “Corpsman!” as he had in war.
He got Murray by the shoulder and moved him out of the way. The ambulance attendants worked fast, expertly securing the clenched, blood-slick fists under the belt, getting an airway in and peeling a nonstick surgical bandage to get some pressure on the bloody face and head. One of them popped an intravenous plasma pack, but the other, taking blood pressure and pulse, shook his head and said, “Downstairs.”
Orders on the radio now. “Tate, I want you to clear the offices in the tower and seal it off. Secure the doors from the main building. Then cover from the landings. I’m sending up vests and shotguns. We’ll get him alive if he wants to come, but we take no special risks to preserve his life. Understand me?”
“I got it, Lieutenant.”