"Get on it! Jesus H. Christ, life jackets and a rubber boat!" Volont turned to George. "Get over to that Huey and see what sort of good they can do us in a rescue."

"You might as well let me give you all the bad news at once," said James. He did. If a pa.s.senger used a life jacket, in the water out there today, they would live about fifteen minutes. That was, if the current didn't carry them under the ice. If they were to be recovered after ten minutes, since the average gambler was about fifty-eight years old, they would likely still die of exposure. The nearest hospital was in Conception County, across the bridge. They had two ambulances. Frieberg had two ambulances. Our entire county could muster another six. By calling in everything available, and declaring an extreme emergency, we still wouldn't be able to get more than a dozen ambulances to Frieberg in the first hour.

With twelve ambulances, at eight to ten minutes per trip, into an ER that held six, into six hundred and fifty pa.s.sengers in the water, meant that more than six hundred of them would be dead in fifteen minutes. But that was a.s.suming they went into the water.

"How deep is it out there?" I wanted to know.

"Winter depth we've never really looked at..." said James. "It's low. Probably lower. That's for sure."

I picked up a phone book. "Anybody mind if I call the lock and dam? To get the depth?" n.o.body did. I got the lock master, and he had the data in about a second. They could only give me the main channel data, and the general river stage at Frieberg. They said it was fourteen feet.

I motioned James over. "How much does the boat draw? Like, how deep does she sit in the water?"

He thought for a second. "I'd have to check to make sure, but I think it's seven or eight feet."

I grinned. "Really ... Look at this." I showed him the figure fourteen, underlined. "That's the current river stage data from the lock and dam, with the measurement taken by the robot sensors under the bridge, here. So it's the depth of the water about five hundred feet from the Beauregard Beauregard." I thanked the master.

I went over to Volont, who was on the phone to the Coast Guard station in St. Louis. He was quite exasperated, from the tone. He hung the phone up, and almost ran into me as he turned. "What?"

"I might have the first surprise for our side, I think. Look at this."

"Wait ... what?"

"That's right," I said. "If the sensors are accurate, if she sinks, she goes down six or seven feet. And stops on the bottom."

"What's going on?" asked George.

"If Gabriel blows the bottom out of the boat, the people on the lowest casino deck are just going to get their feet wet." I handed him the paper.

The phone rang again, and I expected it to be Gabriel. Nope. It was Lamar, for me.

"What the f.u.c.k is going on down there?"

I told him, being sure to get in the good news about the water depth.

"I thought you told me this was going to be a simple G.o.dd.a.m.ned bank robbery at five G.o.dd.a.m.ned banks?"

I explained the part about the five locations. How it all fit the information we had. Just in a different way. "Neater 'n s.h.i.t, Lamar, you think about it..."

"'Neat'?"

"Well, yeah." I explained just what we had in as positive a light as I could. Not easy. I also said that we appeared to have Gabriel pretty well bottled up, and with a TAC team and a Huey, it was virtually impossible for him to escape. And this time, we even had his photograph.

He decided to come down.

"Before you do, Lamar, be sure to get a couple of people on Nola's sister's place. Linda Grossman's. If we would miss him, for some reason, that's where he might go."

"'Miss him'?! 'Miss him'?! If that son of a b.i.t.c.h disappears this time, all of you better disappear right along with him!"

I thought that was a little unfair. But the message certainly was clear.

Volont was apparently encouraged by the river depth. He was on the no longer secure radio. "Alpha Chase, you clear to take out some tires on the stretch van?"

"Roger that."

"Stand by..." He turned to me. "Come on, Houseman. Let's go down by the tracks."

We hurried out of the pavilion, down into the deepest fog I'd ever experienced. We headed due east, and stopped just behind the big fire truck. In the intense light from its big halogen floodlights, we had a pretty good view of the stretch van. Just sitting there, filled with very still shadows. Several of them.

Volont picked up his radio, and gave the order to shoot out the tires on the van. "Do it."

I'd never seen that before. It was a bit of a disappointment, really. There was no discernible firing, either visually or audibly. Just a popping sound. The front and rear tires on the right side of the stretch van just went flat. Instantly. I think I might have seen a little bit of dust or something, or maybe just rapidly condensing air as it blew out of the tires. Very unremarkable. But now the little group in the van was totally screwed. Their vehicle was immobile. The only other refuge had been the boat, which was now across about a hundred feet of icy water. The concrete area they were parked on offered no cover whatsoever, for at least twenty yards in any direction.

The first three cop cars came around the bluff from the south, and stopped about fifty yards from the van. Now, I figured, we'd see just how disciplined the boys in the van were. If they fired even one round, they were all as good as dead. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

"Let's let 'em stew until we have a lot of people here," said Volont, "and then get 'em out of the van."

I looked around. We were pretty much alone, with the nearest fireman behind the truck. It was now or never.

"Look," I said. "This is all out of proportion. Way the h.e.l.l out. What's really happening, here?"

I waited a very long ten seconds. Very quiet, except for the muted roar of the fire truck engine.

"Let's go back over here," said Volont, pointing to the edge of the bluff about a hundred feet behind the fire truck. "Where we don't have to shout."

We stood close to the bluff, and he told me what Gabriel was really doing. Well, that's what he said. I don't doubt him.

"I've been on Gabriel several years," he said. "You know that."

Yeah, I did.

Was I aware of the term "weapons of ma.s.s destruction"?

"You mean, like, nuclear, chemical... biological things?"

He did. Apparently, this had all started for Volont when the Soviet Union began to dissolve. "You know what the acronyms ADM, MADM, or SADM stand for?"

No, I didn't.

"That's atomic demolition munitions, medium atomic demolition munitions, and small atomic demolition munitions. Know what they are?"

"'Atomic' rings a bell," I said, sarcastically.

"Right. Well, in the U.S. Army, those are small nuclear devices used like land mines. They were developed to block tunnels and things, blow up harbor facilities, to stop the Soviets when they invaded Western Europe. Engineering tools."

He made them sound like bulldozers.

"The Soviets had the same sort of thing." He flashed a tight smile. "For when Western Europe invaded them, no doubt."

"That figures..."

"So, first of all, Gabe resigns his commission, and makes noises like he's going to start his own little state out west. Fill it with his followers, and declare independence from the U.S.A." He looked up. "Of course, secession meets with disapproval at the federal level." He smiled again.

"He's going to war?" I asked, incredulous. "He's nuts."

"Not exactly. Our people on the inside say he puts it this way ... The only countries that gain respect from the U.S. government are nuclear powers. Therefore he wants some nuclear weapons. As a deterrent. To ensure his independence."

"Jesus H. Christ."

"The devices came on the market after the Soviets went belly up. That's when I got involved. Back in '95, he made inquiries, and was told that it would cost ten million bucks." He shrugged. "Cheap, but they're only about five kilotons or so of yield. The higher yields, twenty-plus kilotons or megaton range devices, they go for a hundred million."

"Nuclear suitcase bombs," I said. "My G.o.d."

"Well, not 'suitcase.' These weigh over one thousand pounds in the packing crates. We would cla.s.sify them as ADMs, actually."

"He could deliver them in a pickup truck," I said.

"Oh, yeah. They're also designed to work underwater. Lots of possibilities. And much easier to use than missile warheads, for example. No fusing options like impact, proximity, delay..."

"G.o.d."

"But that's why he needs the money. He's a bit short. That's why he's going to try to take even the coins. Time is running out, and he's afraid somebody else is going to buy the devices."

"Oh. Well, sure." A nuclear layaway plan had never occurred to me.

"He was trying for the banks last time. Just didn't get it done. But he has the plan, he has the volunteers, he has the infrastructure, right here. So he comes back." He shrugged again. "Nothing personal, but Nation County is easy pickings."

"Yeah."

"It's a warrior, with a war, Houseman. He doesn't want to kill the people on the boat. Really. Would be bad for 'international relations,' once his little private country is set up." He paused, and then, "But he will kill them, all of them, if he has to. For the survival of the state, so to speak."

"But he doesn't have them now? The nuclear weapons?"

"No."

The sense of relief was enormous. "I mean, I thought there was a special unit that worked that sort of thing ..."

"There is. They kick in when nuclear weapons are actually in play. Right now, they're just monitoring things very closely. Right now, it's our baby." He stopped. "Until he should get some. Anything you'd like to ask?"

"Any idea what his targets are?" I had a vision of our courthouse under a small mushroom cloud.

"I don't think he has any. We're not here to prevent nuclear terrorism, really," he said. He smiled. "We're just trying to prevent the great state of Gabriel from becoming the world's smallest nuclear power."

I took a deep breath. "So, why are you telling me this?"

"Just so you'll know, if we end up with six hundred frozen bodies in the Mississippi, that they died for a good cause." He looked around. "Let's go back to the office. Don't tell anybody." He grinned. "Not that they'd believe you."

"Carl," said Sally, "call the office, ten-thirty-three."

After my chat with Volont, a local "emergency" just seemed to lose its punch.

I called the office. The duty dispatcher said, "I have a female subject on the phone, calling from the gaming boat, and she wants a number for you right away. Says her name is Nancy..."

"Give it to her," I said, and hung up. "Hey, guys?"

They looked my way. "I think we have a contact on the boat."

I explained quickly about Nancy and Shamrock. The little deal we'd made. The fact that I'd seen them board the boat early on.

The phone rang. "Command," said Sally. "Yes, he is. Would this be Nancy?"

She handed me the phone.

"Houseman, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d," said an angry whisper, "if you knew about this, you turkey, I'll get you for this. You did. Didn't you?"

"No, none of us did," I said. "We were as surprised as anybody..."

"Not f.u.c.kin' quite," she whispered.

"Uh, well, yeah. Yeah. Are you two all right?"

"Just great. Get us out of here." There was a bit of commotion. "There. We're in the ladies' John on the middle deck," she said.

"Anybody hurt?"

"Not that we saw. What the h.e.l.l's going on? Why did we leave the pier? Who are these people?"

I did my very best to explain, and gave her a fast summary, leaving out as much of the negative as I could, just to keep from worrying her unnecessarily about things that were already past. I was concerned for the two of them, but I was also really happy to have a voice on the boat.

"So, what are they doing now?" I mean, since she was there, she might as well be useful.

"They aren't in here, Houseman." Dryly. Sarcastically. But she was calming down.

"Nancy, it might help us get you out of that mess if you can tell us what's going on ..."

"Houseman, you got us in this mess. You get us out." At least her voice sounded almost normal, now.

"Try to find out how many of the bad guys are still on the boat. And where they are."

"What, are you nuts?" Reasonable question. She paused. "Well..."

"You gotta admit, it's a great story," I said, trying to cheer her up.

"I'm not interested in a posthumous Pulitzer," she whispered. "I gotta go ..." and broke the connection.

"Is anybody hurt?" asked Hester. "Are they going to be able to help?"

"No casualties as far as they know. And, sure, I think they're going to be able to help a lot."