The Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris [87]
Patrolman Sweeney pushed the elevator button. It didn't come.
“Had to have lamb chops tonight, rare,” Sweeney said. “What you reckon he'll want for breakfast, some fuck?ing thing from the zoo? And who'll have to catch it for him? Sweeney.”
The bronze arrow above the door stayed on five.
Sweeney waited another minute. “What is this shit?” he said.
The .38 boomed somewhere above them, the reports echoing down the stone stairs, two fast shots and then a third.
Sergeant Tate, on his feet at the third one, micro?phone in his hand. “CP, shots fired upstairs at the tower. Outside posts look sharp. We're going up.”
Yelling, milling in the lobby.
Tate saw the bronze arrow of the elevator moving then. It was already down to four. Tate roared over the racket, “Hold it! Guard mount double up at your out?side posts, first squad stays with me. Berry and Howard cover that fucking elevator if it comes---” The needle stopped at three.
“First squad, here we go. Don't pass a door without checking it. Bobby, outside--- get a shotgun and the vests and bring 'em up.”
Tate's mind was racing on the first flight of stairs. Caution fought with the terrible need to help the of?ficers upstairs. God don't let him be out Nobody weasing vests, shit. Fucking Corrections screws.
The offices on two, three and four were supposed to be empty and locked. You could get from the tower to the main building on those floors, if you went through the offices. You couldn't on five.
Tate had been to the excellent Tennessee SWAT school and he knew how to do it. He went first and took the young ones in hand. Fast and careful they took the stairs, covering each other from landing to landing.
“You turn your back on a door before you check it, I'll ream your ass.”
The doors off the secondfloor landing were dark and locked.
Up to three now, the little corridor dim. One rectan?gle of light on the floor from the open elevator car. Tate moved down the wall opposite the open elevator, no mirrors in the car to help him. With two pounds' pres?sure on a ninepound trigger, he looked inside the car. Empty.
Tate yelled up the stairs, “Boyle! Pembry! Shit.” He posted a man on three and moved up.
Four was flooded with the music of the piano coming from above. The door into the offices opened at a push. Beyond the offices, the beam of the long flashlight shined on a door open wide into the great dark building beyond.
“Boyle! Pembry!” He left two on the landing. “Cover the door. Vests are coming. Don't show your ass in that doorway.”
Tate climbed the stone stairs into the music. At the top of the tower now, the fifthfloor landing, light dim in the short corridor. Bright light through the frosted glass that said SHELBY COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
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 swing?ing 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