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Clay tells him, “If you’re upset about something, maybe you should call the police.”
“Ho, very fu
“You people can play global politics,” Clay snaps. “I don’t care if the stiff was left or right, east or west … Colonel Vickers, I know what the situation is, here. You are not helping.”
A uniformed cop with two nightsticks climbs the stairs from landing to landing. At each floor an armed cop is posted. The cop with the two sticks waves a careless hello to a cop on duty, and turns to climb the next flight.
It’s Radford, in cop’s uniform.
On a higher landing there’s a fire emergency station with a coiled high-pressure hose. Beyond it is another uniform standing guard. When Radford climbs into sight the cop starts to smile and greet him, then scowls—recognition. Something not quite right in the way Radford wears the uniform.
“Hey—!”
The cop draws his gun … And on other landings the other cops hear his cry … And—
Radford kicks the revolver from the cop’s hand, takes the nightstick away from the cop, then—all this with lightning speed—busts the fire-hose loose, opens the valve and just as cops start shooting, he uses the high-pressure blast from the hose to drive ’em back above and below.
Bullets ricochet … He hears a cop cry as he tumbles downstairs … The cascading flood obscures his view …
On an upper floor of the garage near the top of its spiral ramp, half a dozen police motorcycles are parked on their kickstands. A helmeted motorcycle cop stands guard over the bikes, and watches everything at once. He can hear a lot of activity—distant voices; sirens in the city; ru
Now a uniform approaches from some distance away. He carries two nightsticks. The helmeted motorcycle cop sees him coming, but is not alarmed until Radford walks up and abruptly slams him upside the helmet with the two heavy nightsticks. The blow knocks the cop to his knees. In a flash, Radford is bestride a motorcycle.
He kicks the stand out of the way … switches on the ignition … jumps on the starter … doesn’t start …
Alerted by something somewhere, several cops come pouring into sight, chasing him …
And on the ground the helmeted motorcycle cop clears his head and reaches for his sidearm …
One last kick … Radford finally gets the motorcycle started and roars away … The motorcycle cop snatches up his walkie-talkie and barks into it …
Skittering down the hairpin turns of the spiral garage ramp, Radford can see the point several floors below where two squad cars slither into place across the foot of the ramp, blocking it—a fly couldn’t get through there, let alone a man on a bike …
To one side he sees double doors open and two cops on foot appear. They stop, amazed, with guns lifting to aim at Radford on the speeding bike … Nothing to lose now. He aims the screaming motorcycle straight at the open double door—and goes through it like a bullet, scattering the two cops … All the cops react—astonishment …
In a building hallway Radford on the motorcycle comes roaring through the hall. Several gaping civilians flatten themselves back against the side wall as the juggernaut roars by …
The motorcycle thunders through the law office bullpen, smashing glass doors, and roars down the aisle between rows of desks. Typists leap for safety.
Another hallway—and at its far end a solid closed door, and an armed cop lifting his revolver in both hands, as …
Radford on the speeding bike sees the obstacle and slithers to one side, crashing the bike through double glass doors that disintegrate to let him into—
A designer furniture showroom—and the man on the motorcycle wildly plows through the place, knocking over lamps and statuary, making a shambles of the place—
—Then he’s descending one of the building stairwells—zooming downstairs, bumpety-bump …
Vickers bulls his way out of the unfurnished office in time to see a man on a motorcycle heading straight toward him. This is very fast. Vickers gets off two wild shots but then his nerve fails and he stumbles back into the doorway as the motorcycle roars past. Vickers pushes forward out of the doorway to take aim at the dwindling fugitive, ignoring several cops and civilians who are in the line of fire, but now Clay comes out in time to knock Vickers’ shooting arm up. The bullet goes into the ceiling.
Clay is furious. “How many bystanders you want to kill?”
Vickers glares murderously at her …
In the multi-story garage the street floor is all quiet now. Two cops by the toll booths. The don’t notice when a side door softly opens. They can’t see into those shadows, and aren’t looking for it, but then—
—SMASH of sound as the motorcycle lays down rubber, screams around the backside of the toll booths, up over curbs, through a narrow pedestrian walkway, out onto the street as the two cops belatedly open fire …
On the street Radford whips out of sight around a corner, the cops cease firing, squad cars roar out of the garage in pursuit …
That afternoon the boulevards are totally coagulated with multiple lanes of afternoon rush-hour traffic: nothing moving. Gridlock. Horns honking, angry commuters shouting “Assholes!”
Police cars come up against the tangle of traffic and are stymied, as—
Radford on the motorcycle threads a swift bold path through narrow openings—going the wrong way between a couple of stopped trucks—disappearing …
The stalled police get out of their cars, stand on tiptoe and climb on top of the cars to search for the fugitive. They can’t find anything. They look at one another in baffled dismay …
Two joggers trot by in ru
Finally the rest of the motorcycle squad begins to arrive. There’s a lot of pointing and shouting. Helicopters swoop above the buildings, searching.
And nobody knows which way he went.
The helicopter that lands on the City Hall helipad has no official markings.
Vickers climbs out, fuming, followed by two business-suited FBI agents. He’s snarling to them: “I don’t believe these fuck-ups.”
Then, seeing the press approaching, Vickers composes his features into a semblance of a confident smile. The agents break trail for him through the crowd, in which Vickers is not happy to recognize newspaperman Steve Ainsworth. Cameras and microphones are shoved at Vickers. He hears a babble of ad-lib questions. He fires responses: “No, we haven’t got him in some secret hiding place. That’s ridiculous … Don’t spread rumors, Christ’s sake. We know of no conspiracy at this time. We’ve identified one suspect and we’re looking for him.”
He escapes into the building.
It’s a busy hive. Ringing phones. Whizzing printers. Talk. Clay issuing terse orders to a group of cops, including Dickinson. Beside her is Dr. Trong, still in his medical corps uniform. Vickers enters with the two FBI agents, again talking to them: “Armed and dangerous. If necessary, shoot on sight.”
Dickinson overhears this last. He swings toward Clay. “That mean we can shoot on sight?”
“No, you may not shoot on sight. You may not shoot at all unless it’s to save a life … Any fool can shoot people. You’ll get no answers out of him if he’s dead.” She’s looking pointedly at Vickers. He reacts. She takes a pace toward him. “On notice, Colonel. Homicide investigation. My turf.”
“You think this is a two-bit murder case? A very important international figure has been assassinated. We’ve got a world-class political flap—they’ve sent these gentlemen and a lot more like ’em from the FBI. We’ve got the State Department on our backs and the Joint Chiefs have their thumbs on the buttons … The President himself—”
“You’ll have to wait on line. It’s our jurisdiction.” Clay isn’t giving an inch.