Public Enemies_ America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI - Bryan Burrough [179]
Nelson turned and fired into the car, at Agent Baum and Christiansen. Both men tumbled out the passenger door, Baum landing atop Christiansen. Baum stood to run but Nelson shot first. Three slugs tore into Baum’s neck. He toppled over the white fence, landing on his face, a sick gurgling sound coming from his throat. Christiansen stumbled forward, into the headlights. Nelson turned on him. Two bullets struck Christiansen in the hip, knocking him off his feet. As he fell into a ditch Nelson kept firing, hitting him three more times.
At the sound of shots Emil Wanatka ran. Nelson was crazed; he shot at everything that moved. Wanatka dived into a snowbank, bullets kicking up gravel behind him. Alvin Koerner made it back to the house and locked the door.
When he ran out of moving targets, Nelson jumped into the FBI car, threw it into reverse, and stomped the accelerator, the Ford’s tires circling so violently they sprayed bits of gravel against the side of Koerner’s house. Just as Nelson backed down the lane, Agent Newman came to his senses. Finding his gun in his hand, he raised it and fired, emptying it at the Ford. It did no good: Nelson disappeared down Route 51.
Newman stood. He was woozy; the bullet had grazed his forehead. Blood gushed down his face and into his eyes. He wobbled to the parked car and saw LaPorte’s friend, Carl J. Christiansen, cowering in the backseat. “Come out with your hands up!” Newman ordered.
“Please don’t shoot me,” Christiansen begged. “I’m a resident.”
Newman heard a moan and saw the fallen bodies. He shoved Christiansen toward Koerner’s front door; even in his dazed state, he could see they needed immediate medical attention. Christiansen banged on the door, shouting, “Alvin! Open up!,” but Koerner wouldn’t answer. The two men circled to the back of the house, where they could see people in the kitchen. Newman banged on the window, slapping his badge against the glass. No one moved. After yelling for another minute or two, Newman said, “I’m going to Voss’s and you’re going with me.”
“The hell I am,” Christiansen said. “I’m staying here.”
“Goddamn you,” Newman said, pressing the pistol into Christiansen’s side. “You’re going with me.”
They climbed into the car and headed out onto the road.
Moments after Nelson escaped from the Koerners’ home, the car carrying Werner Hanni and three other agents from St. Paul sped north along Highway 51 toward the Birchwood Lodge. As they neared the lodges, Hanni saw a black Ford approaching on the two-lane road. He dimmed his lights and peered at the car, thinking it might be FBI men.
Suddenly a spotlight flashed from the oncoming car and momentarily blinded Hanni as the two cars passed each other. Several of the agents craned their heads to see whether the car would stop. A minute later Hanni pulled into the drive at Birchwood Lodge to see whether the car would return; it didn’t. Later that night Hanni realized the car with the spotlight had been driven by Baby Face Nelson.
As Hanni and his men stood at the roadside, another car drove up. Two deputy sheriffs got out; they had been called about some kind of shooting. A minute later a third car drove up. “Are you officers?” someone from the car shouted.
“This is Hanni,” Hanni said.
A man bleeding from a head wound stepped out of the car. “This is Newman. Where’s the nearest doctor?”
Purvis still crouched in the driveway at Little Bohemia, studying the lodge for signs of a gang that was no longer inside. The first inkling he had of his woes came when Emil Wanatka hustled up out of the woods. He had run all the way from Koerner’s, and was so winded he couldn’t raise his hands when an agent ordered him to. “All your men are dead,” Wanatka finally managed to say. “At Koerner’s.”
Purvis looked at him skeptically. He asked Wanatka for his