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After a few seconds he said, “Quarry office.”
    The light flickered again. It looked to be twenty yards ahead, as much as I could figure in the dark. “Tac, that you up there?”
    The light flashed five times—the signal.
    “We’re coming on.”
    Murakawa grabbed my shoulder. “What do you think you’re doing? John could be halfway there. He could be anywhere.”
    Murakawa was right. The negotiator never puts himself in the immediate danger zone, I knew that. Still, I insisted, “He’s not there.”
    “Let Tac secure the path,” he insisted.
    The adrenaline surged against my skin. I wanted to run forward, to see the victim, to know she was all right. Instead I waited while he called.
    “Ask them how she is, Murakawa.”
    It was a moment before he said, “Grayson says she’s depressed, seems a bit deflated, but she can be patched up fine.”
    “Sounds pretty good.”
    Murakawa nodded. His radio crackled. “Okay, now we can move.”
    The light stayed on ahead. I flashed my own light on the path and pushed through the underbrush. Suddenly I couldn’t wait to see the woman, to know for myself she was going to make it. The quarry floor would probably be no bigger than an eight-by-ten-foot room. My light caught the edge of the raised cement floor. In front of it was enough firepower to subdue a small nation. The black-suited Tac guys stepped back off the path as I neared the cement floor. The first thing I spotted there was the other black running shoe.
    It was a moment before I noted the leg it was attached to—or what remained of it. I stared in disbelief—and rage. The legs were plastic—blow-up dummy legs. It looked like a blow-up dummy like the kind you get from the sex catalogs. But I couldn’t be sure because all the air was gone. In the harsh beams of the flashlight the too-blue eyes, cherry-red lips, and pink cheeks looked garish and the deflated body unbelievably old.
    “A dummy,” I muttered. My neck was so tight the words were barely audible; my head throbbed. I wanted to kick something, someone, the perp, till he was as lifeless as the dummy. “Shit! Shit! Shit! We’re the dummies.”
    The Tac Team guys were grumbling and shaking their heads. “At least, Smith,” Murakawa said, “you got us down here now. We could have spent half the night up top waiting to liberate these plastic legs.”
    I nodded. I hoped the city manager’s officer and Inspector Doyle saw it that way.
    The remains of the old quarry office and the ground around it were bright as day. Every one of the Tac Team, plus Murakawa and I, had our flashlights out. We were all spraying the lights, looking for something to save the situation.
    It was Murakawa who spotted the wooden box under the overhang against the hillside. It was covered with papers. Envelopes, official forms.
    “Here’s the final irony,” one of the guys said. “An extra load of paperwork.”
    “Hey,” another said, “add that to your report. You can check it out in your spare time.”
    Groans came from all around. Hostage Negotiation Team work was extra—the exercise and the follow-up. Everyone would get home late tonight and spend tomorrow trying to squeeze in writing the report.
    “Look at this!” Murakawa held up a form.
    “Parking ticket?” someone asked.
    “Right.” He turned back to the box. “The whole batch are parking tickets. Christ, there must be hundreds of them.”
    We all made for the pile and grabbed. There were plenty to go around.
    One of the Tac Team, Samson from traffic, was the first to say “Oh, hell! Parking tickets! And they’ve all got different license numbers.”
    “From different cars,” someone said.
    I picked up one. “This is dated five months ago.”
    “This one’s yesterday,” Murakawa put in.
    “I don’t believe it!” Samson said. “This bastard’s been lifting parking tickets from windshields for months. All over town people have been thinking they’ve gotten away with not feeding the meters. They