take them directly to the hospital-the others go to the first-aid station in the lower lobby!”
Barton searched the faces frantically as the people left the helicopter. “Quinn! Over here, Quinn!” She turned and smiled wanly.
Barton hurried over. “Where’s Jenny?”
The smile faded. “I’m sorry Craig. She and the.
Lerouxes were in the last elevator load that started down.
She glanced quickly around as if looking for someone then said: “How bad is it?”
“Very bad-though there’s an outside-chance we can get to the elevator.”
Reporters and cameramen had started to surge around them now.
Barton caught a brief glimpse of Quantrell and his assistants talking to some of the tenants as they were being, escorted to ambulances.
Then he felt somebody pushing behind him.
“Quinn! My God, Quinn!” A tall man, somewhat younger than himself, pushed past and then Quinn was in his arms. For a moment Barton watched them; Quinn’s eyes were closed, but he could see the tears streaking down her face.
“Leslie, please get me out of here.”
“Sure, Quinn, my car’s half a block down-the police let me through.”
He took off his coat and wrapped it around her and started to lead her off. She glanced back once, said, “Good luck, Craig,” then huddled against the man at her side. The poise and self-reserve were leaving her very quickly ;low, and Barton could see that she was sobbing.
Barton briefly thought of Jenny, then turned back to the milling crowd and shouted at the police, “Get these people back, get them out of here! Another ‘copter win be landing here in a minute or two!”
Infantino had talked briefly with the helicopter pilot and now hurried over to Barton. “Burleigh -turned the bird over to his copilot; he’s handling the elevator up there.”
“Let’s wish him luck,” Barton said quietly. Then the copter blades started to Turn as the helicopter rose from its improvised landing pad.
Far above they could see a second one descending.
“It’s our turn as soon as Number Four comes in,” Infantino said.
“It will probably take us that long to get ready.” A runner ran over and handed him a’slip and he glanced at it, then turned to Barton, his face grim. “Casualty report. You remember that salesman you couldn’t account for? Bigelow? We found him.” He spelled out the details and Barton felt as if he were going to get sick.
“What about his girl friend, the one Jernigan thought might be with him?”
“Elmon?” Infantino shrugged. “Three guesses,” he said, and nodded at the canvas-wrapped sculpture before the building.
Behind them, the second U.H-1 settled softly to the plaza and began to discharge its tired passengers.
CHAPTER 67
“Come on, you mother!” Tex Burleigh swore violently to himself as he hurriedly pulled down the last of the elevator housing. The cables that wound over the sheaves were now exposed directly to the elements.
“Four of them must have snapped,” Douglas said, holding Burleigh’s flashlight on the.cable drums.
Burleigh glanced over at him, trying to estimate how much muscle there might be beneath the man’s bulk. Big men had a way of fooling you, he thought, but something told him there was a good deal of power under the man’s flab. “What’d you say your name was? Douglas? Well, look, Douglas, can you stick it out here for a little while?
I know you’re freezing your ass but I’m going to need your help.”
He was shouting now, trying to make himself heard over the noise of another U.H-1 setting down on the roof and the roar from the giant Sikorsky overhead.
“You’ve got it!” Douglas yelled. “What do you want me to do?”
Burleigh pointed above them at the Sikorsky and the long cable that dangled from her middle. “We’ve got to splice the cable from the F-106 to one of the elevator cables and then cut them free from the sheaves.”
He pointed at the two rocketlike tubes. “That’s what the torches are for.”
“What if the splice doesn’t hold?”
“Mister, it’s got to!” Burleigh began to pull out various tools from the bag at his feet. Finally he took out three large, slotted steel bars, each with two heavy, hexagonal bolts protruding. “These are our splices and we damned well better make one of them good!”
Burleigh gripped a ten-inch wrench and began to loosen the hexagonal bolts. One end of the splice bar fell open as he withdrew one of the bolts. “You’ll have to hold onto me while I get this around the elevator cable,” he told Douglas.
“Will it fit?” Douglas asked.
“The bolt tightens the jaws of the splice. They’re serrated; they’ll bite into the cable like teeth. After we splice onto the Sikorsky cable, then we’ll have to cut the elevator cables free. But before that, we’ll have to wrap the cables with wire to keep them from splaying. They Could take your head off otherwise. And if the splice doesn’t hold, that’s the end of the ball game.” He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a walky-talky and extended its antenna. “City Shuttle Two, come in.”
“Loud and clear, Tex-where the hell are you?”
Burleigh nodded at Douglas. “Give them a wave with the flashlight.”
Douglas moved back from the shed and started to wave with the flashlight, then felt himself start to slip and kicked out with his foot. He felt it hit something and then found purchase on part of the shed platform. He flicked the switch on the flashlight several times and waved it back and forth. The Sikorsky spun on its rotor thirty degrees and moved forward, settling lower as it moved, the single cable trailing slightly behind it in the wind.
“Okay, hold it,” Burleigh said into the walky-talky.
then “Give me about ten feet of cable.”
Above them, the ‘copters winch made a distant whining sound and the cable slowly dropped. It whipped across the roof once, then came back.
Burleigh threw Douglas a heavy mechanic’s rag. “Grab it with this; don’t use your hands-it’ll cut them to ribbons.” Douglas took the rag, then caught the end of the cable, feeding it into the shaft opening at his feet. The cable continued to lower.
“Okay, hold it for the splice.” Burleigh slipped the walky-talky back into his pocket, picked up the wrench, and glanced about the roof for one of the splices. “Hey, what the hell-?”
Douglas lowered the flashlight so the beam hit the rooftop. Only two of the slotted metal rods were there.
The big man had slipped on the roof for a moment, Burleigh recalled; he had probably kicked one of them over the side. Douglas thought of it at the same time and for a moment looked like he was going to come apart.
“Christ, I didn’t mean-“
“Forget it,” Burleigh said. “I told you one would hold.” He picked up a splice and said, “Okay, grab my legs.
I’ll be leaning over one of the sheaves. When I give you the word, feed me the copter cable.”
Douglas found a purchase and gripped both of Burleigh’s legs.
Burleigh leaned far out over the shaft opening. The wind whipped about his head, tugged at his fatigue cap, and blew it out into the void.
The elevator cable was cold and coated with a thin slick of ice.
For a second Burleigh felt as if his hands might stick to the metal.
He brought the open latch of the splice around and secured it onto the cable. Then he inserted the bolt and began to tighten it with the wrench. The snowflakes melted on his hands and made the wrench slippery and suddenly it started to slide out of his grasp. He grabbed for it with the other hand and heard the splice riding down the cable.
He wriggled back up and sat on the roof, breathing hard for a minute.
