bullet, he put his shoulder to the panel, vressed until it gave inward.
By the time he reached the Lexington Avenue windows, Harris and the
woman had passed him. They were two floors below.
He returned to the elevator. He was going to have to go outside and
confront them when they reached the street. He pushed the button for
the ground floor.
Braced against the eighth-floor windows, they agreed to cover the final
hundred and twenty feet in two equal rappels, using the fourth-floor
window posts as their last anchor points.
At the fourth level, Graham smashed in both rectangular panes. He
snapped a carabiner to the post, hooked, his safety tether to the
carabiner, and jerked involuntarily as a bullet slapped the stone a foot
to the right of his head.
He knew at once what had happened. He t-slightly and looked down.
Bollinger, in shirt sleeves and looking harried, stood on the
snow-shrouded sidewalk, sixty feet below.
Motioning to Connie, Graham shouted, “Go in! Get inside! Through the
window!”
Bollinger fired again.
A burst ollight, pain, blood.- a bullet in the back….
Is this where it happens? he wondered.
Desperately, Graham used his gloved fist to punch out the shards of
glass that remained in the window frame. He grabbed the center post and
was about to drag himself inside when the street behind him was suddenly
filled with a curious rumbling.
A big yellow road grader turned the corner into Lexington Avenue.
Its large black tires churned through he slush and spewed out an icy
liquid behind. The t plow on the front of the machine was six feet high
and ten feet across. Emergency beacons flashed on the roof of the
operator’s cab. Two headlights the size of dinner lates popped up like
the eyes of a frog, glared through p the failing snow.
It was the only vehicle in sight on the storm-clogged street.
Graham glanced at Connie. She seemed to be having trouble disentangling
herself from the lines and getting through the window.
He turned away from her, waved urgently at the driver of the grader.
The man could barely be seen behind the dirty windshield. “Help!
Graham shouted. He didn’t think the man could hear him over the roar of
the engine. Nevertheless, he kept shouting. “Help! Up here!
Help us!”
Connie began to shout too.
Surprised, Bollinger did exactly what he should not have done. He
whirled and shot at the grader.
The driver braked, almost came to a full stop.
“Help!” Graham shouted.
Bollinger fired at the machine again. The slug ricocheted off the steel
that framed the windshield of the cab.
The driver shifted gears and gunned the engine.
Bollinger ran.
Lifted by hydraulic arms, the plow rose a foot off the pavement.
It cleared the curb as the machine lumbered onto the sidewalk.
Pursued by the grader, Bollinger ran thirty or forty feet along the walk
before he sprinted into the street. Kicking up small clouds of snow
with each step, he crossed the avenue, with the plow close behind him.
Connie was rapt.
Bollinger let the grader close the distance between them. When only two
yards separated him from the shining steel blade, he dashed to one side,
out of its way. He ran past the machine, came back toward the Bowerton
Building.
The grader didn’t turn as easily as a sports car. By the time the
driver had brought it around and was headed back, Bollinger was standing
under Graham again.
Graham saw him raise the gun. It glinted in the light from the street
lamp.
At ground level where the wind was a bit less fierce, the shot was very
loud. The bullet cracked into the granite by Graham’s right foot.
The grader bore down on Bollinger, horn blaring.
He put his back to the building and faced the mechanical behemoth.
Sensing what the madman would do, Graham fumbled with the compact,
battery-powered rock drill that was clipped to his waist belt. He got
it free of the strap.
The grader was fifteen to twenty feet from Bollinger, 2 who aimed the
pistol at the windshield of the operator’s cab.
From his perch on the fourth floor, Graham threw the rock drill.