"Prisoner hit?"

"No," said Lamar. "Keep down."

Art crawled out on our end of the cars. "Who's doing the shooting?"

"Somebody who's a p.i.s.s-poor shot," said Lamar.

The sirens were a lot louder. I stuck my head up, and saw two brown state patrol cars nearly at the lot. I holstered my gun, grabbed my walkie-talkie, and switched to the mutual aid frequency.

"This is Three, we're down behind the cars. Shooter is in the direction of downtown, has a rifle. There are five of us here ... keep low ..."

They slid to a halt, and both exited their vehicles, getting down behind the fenders, handguns drawn. Just like in the movies.

We waited. It seemed like an hour, but it was closer to a minute. Finally, Lamar spoke up.

"I want to get him back inside," he said. "He'll be a lot safer there."

"Fine." Great. We have to drag Cletus, in his high-conspicuity orange suit, to boot. With a lousy sniper, who can't hit the broad side of a cow's a.s.s, aiming at Cletus, and more likely to hit me by mistake. But I didn't say it, because Lamar was thinking the same thing. "Might as well," I said. "I can't dance ..."

"I ain't goin' with you, by G.o.d! They might shoot me by mistake!" Cletus spit again.

"You d.a.m.n fool," said Lamar. "It's you they're after, not us!"

Cletus began retching again. Apparently, it hadn't occurred to him.

"Can't we wait until he's done? I don't want to haul somebody who's heaving all over me."

"Yeah," sighed Lamar.

We waited. I looked at the hole in the outside of the fender next to my head. I bent down, and looked back into the fender well until I saw daylight. Toward town, and in the top of the hood. Downward. Hard to do, since we were just about the highest point in town. Except for the grain elevator, about a half mile away. I peeked up over the fender. Sure. There was that huge concrete elevator, standing off in the middle distance, bigger than life. To hit us from there, the path would be downward.

"I think he's on the grain elevator," I said. n.o.body contradicted me. I glanced around, and as far as I could tell, none of us had anything but a pistol. We couldn't even shoot back.

Volont got over beside us, and we told him our little plan.

"The sooner the better," he said. "I'll help."

The three of us grabbed Cletus, Lamar and Volont by an elbow, and me by his securing belt.

"On three ... one, two ..."

I was reminded of that movie, about Butch Ca.s.sidy and the Sundance Kid. Where they counted before running into the guns of that South American army ...

"... three!"

It should be an Olympic event. We hit the porch at full tilt, the three officers panting and straining, Cletus moving his feet very rapidly, but completely ineffectively. Judy, who was watching from behind her file cabinets, saw us coming, and opened the door just in the nick of time. We all let go of Cletus at about the same time, he tripped, and skidded across the linoleum floor for about ten feet.

We took a moment to congratulate ourselves. Then I realized we'd abandoned Art and the two troopers out in the lot.

It dawned on me that I hadn't been aware of any shots fired during our portage of Cletus.

"You think he's gone?" Lamar was puffing, and wincing. His leg was probably hurting him quite a bit. He'd moved awfully well, though.

"I don't know, Lamar. But I wouldn't ... just stand around out there ... for a while." I was still breathing hard, too. And my back hurt like h.e.l.l. But we'd gotten the first order of business done. Cletus was safe.

The next problem was how to get to our cars and get down to that grain elevator. There was just no place else the shooter could be.

I took a quick peek out the safety gla.s.s panel in the steel outer door. Then a longer one. Nothing. I was wondering how I was going to tell if he really had quit and left, when there was a sudden puff of packed snow and concrete dust in the middle of the parking lot. It was kind of hard to see, and I wasn't absolutely certain what it was. Two more puffs, each closer and about a half second apart, struck the parking lot. Then a solid plunking sound as something hit the wooden support for our porch roof.

I ducked. Late, but better than never.

"I know what his problem is," I said.

"He's still there, then?" Volont was sitting on the floor, with his back to the pop machine, which was against the outside wall. Smart. I should be so smart.

"Yeah. He's there, all right. His problem is, he can't see where his shots are going ... unless he hits something that throws up debris or something ..."

"So he can't correct his aim," said Volont.

"Yeah."

"Probably alone, then," he said, matter-of-factly "That's why snipers should always have a spotter."

I filed that away. Like I would ever need it.

Lamar was on the phone to the people who ran the elevator, telling them they had a sniper on the roof, some 100 feet over their heads. It took him a minute to convince them. They couldn't hear the shots.

I was on my walkie-talkie, getting the Maitland squad car down to the elevator, to make sure there was n.o.body getting away. If the suspect hadn't gone up the interior elevator shaft, and then to the roof, he'd had to climb a long ladder.

"Want to try for a car?" asked Volont.

"Not just yet..."

I got on my walkie-talkie to the Maitland car again. "Hey, Twenty-five, you see anything down there?"

"I can't see nothin' here ..." came the stressed voice. "But somebody just made a hole in my roof! I'm out of the car."

Still there, all right. But now, having taken the time to shift his aim to the much closer Maitland squad car, I thought he'd have a tougher time readjusting and zeroing in on us.

"You know," I said to Volont, "he really can't hit s.h.i.t. You want to try for my car?"

"You mean the local can't hit s.h.i.t, or the sniper can't hit s.h.i.t?"

I grinned. "Neither one."

"Well, let's go," he said. "Just get your car keys in your hand before you go through the door."

"Okay ... it's unlocked, and the engine is already running. Just get in and stay low ..."

Volont and I went flying out the door, and down the steps three or four at a time. I nearly lost my balance, on the last four, and ended up sc.r.a.ping my hand on the sidewalk. I almost fell again, as I stopped suddenly at my car door. Running bent over, my back started to act up, and I hollered, "s.h.i.t!" as the pain flew up and over my right hip as I jumped into the car.

"You hit?"

"No, no ..." As soon as Volont has his legs in the car, I put it in reverse and stepped on the gas. We shot backward so fast I was afraid I'd sprung the open pa.s.senger door. I slammed on the brakes, and spun the wheel to the left, sliding us around on the drive. Into drive, and we shot out of the parking lot, bottoming out at the end of the driveway. Volont got his door shut, I hit the flashing lights and siren, and we were off.

"Not bad," said Volont. "Not bad ..."

"We're out of his line of sight," I said, turning left at the bottom of the long hill toward the courthouse, "until we come around that next corner."

"So we won't do that, will we?" said Volont.

I grinned. "No, we won't." I cut the siren, and we came to a smooth stop at the point of the curve leading to the elevator. "Let's go between those houses," I said, "and we should have a good view of the side of the elevator with the ladder."

I got my AR-15 out of the trunk, inserted one thirty-round magazine, and put a second one in my back pocket. I contacted dispatch on my walkie-talkie, and told them where we were.

"Uh, Comm, let's see if we can get some more people around this thing, the ... uh ... elevator. Stay low, but we need to see all four sides..."

"Ten-four, Three."

"And you might want to page the fire chief. We need people to be warned to stay off the street. And call the school, and tell them to keep everybody in, even after school, if they have to. Explain it to 'em." The school was about as far from the elevator as the Sheriff's Department.

"Ten-four."

"How's Twenty-five?" I asked her.

"I'm just swell..." came a squeaky reply. "But he's shot my car four or five times now. I'm behind the co-op garage over near the river."

"Stay there, Twenty-five," I said. "We can always fix the car."

I put on my green stocking cap. This was going to take a while. Volont had already gone between two of the houses. I moved in behind him.

As I reached the area where the backyards began, I could see his hand go up. "Careful," he said. "I can see him." He had his handgun out, but it was down by his side.

I looked up, way up. There, at the top of the elevator, to the left side, was a b.u.mp that might have been a head, with a long stick out in front. Rifle. The base of the elevator was about 150 feet from us. With him up in the air, say 90 to 100 feet ... Geometry cla.s.s, years ago, had addressed this very issue. Pythagoras. I remembered the name. I remembered it was a theorem. A squared plus B squared equals C squared. And I realized I'd have to do a square root in my head to be sure. Right. I started to adjust the sights on my rifle.

"How far away would you say he is?" I asked Volont, casually.

"Oh, about a hundred and fifty to a hundred and seventy-five feet."

"Thanks." I backed my sights all the way down to the 100 yard combat setting. At this distance, a bullet from my rifle, even going uphill, would only drop about a quarter of an inch below my aim point. If that.

Volont glanced back over his shoulder. "Can you hit him from here?"

"Yep." I looked up as a loud crack crack sounded above us. He seemed to be still shooting toward the jail. "If I can see enough of him, and there isn't much wind." sounded above us. He seemed to be still shooting toward the jail. "If I can see enough of him, and there isn't much wind."

Just as I said that, the sniper stood, and changed position. He disappeared from our view. All I had been able to catch was that he was wearing a mustard-colored hooded coat, with tan gloves. And that his rifle had a scope. A split second, and he was gone.

"Moot," said Volont. "You happen to have a bullhorn in your trunk?"

"Nope. Fire Department has one, though." I handed him my walkie-talkie mike.

While we waited for an intrepid volunteer fireman to go to the station, get the bullhorn, and bring it to us, we sketched out a plan of attack.

"I'll talk to him, and see if I can get him to give it up," said Volont. "If he starts shooting at anything but the jail or police vehicles, we take him out." He looked at me. "If that's all right. I really don't have much jurisdiction here. Your call."

"Sounds good," I said. "Problem one ... we're in about the only location that can engage him. If you shoot from the other sides, the missed rounds are going to fall in town."

He looked at the target area. "Right."

"So if he does something really stupid, it better be on this side of the building."

"If not," said Volont, "we go up and get him."

"What's this 'we' s.h.i.t? I don't do heights."

"How long," he asked, "will it take to get a TAC team in here?"

"About two hours," I said. "Maybe a bit longer. They're state troopers, and they have to come from all over."

"Helicopter?"

"I doubt it."

He sighed, audibly. "You people do need resources, don't you?"

I almost held out my hand.

The volunteer fireman got to us. There seemed to be some problem with the bullhorn, and he'd brought extra batteries. It was one of those items that was hardly ever used.

While Volont checked out the bullhorn, I looked very closely at that concrete grain elevator. The only way up, from the outside, was via that caged ladder. I remembered the first time, as a kid, I had thought about climbing it. I couldn't reach the ladder. I double-checked, and saw that the bottom rung was about seven or eight feet off the ground. Still, apparently. There was an aluminum stepladder, erected but on its side, under the cage. Obviously how our man had gotten up. Kicked it over, probably on purpose. That told me that he'd at least thought about somebody trying to climb up after him. All he'd have to do is lean over the edge, and shoot down into the circular cage. Anybody climbing up was not only going to get hit, they were going to get hit by plunging fire, along their longitudinal axis. In other words, the bullet wouldn't go through your shoulder and out. It would go in between, for example, your neck and your collarbone, and come out somewhere near the bottom of your pelvis.

Ugly concept.

There were three landings, each about twenty to twenty-five feet up the ladder. Open platforms, they had rails about four feet high. From the last platform on, anybody on that ladder was a dead man. At night, maybe, you could get as high as two platforms up, without getting shot. But by the third ...

I saw the sniper pop up, and crack off a round down toward the right side of the building. Toward Twenty-five, the Maitland officer. Or, likely, his car. I pressed the "talk" b.u.t.ton on my walkie-talkie mike.

"You okay, Twenty-five?" I asked.

"You bettcha ..." came the reply. "But I think my car's dead."

"He's just keeping your head down," I said.

"He sure as h.e.l.l is," he said.

"YOU ON THE GRAIN ELEVATOR! THIS IS AGENT VOLONT OF THE FBI!" came booming and crackling right behind me. Scared me nearly to death. He'd apparently gotten the thing fixed.

There was no response.