Blood risk

carried the smallest suitcase, while Harris went back to fetch the last two after depositing Merle Bachman under the door to the mansion roof.
        Tucker stood over Bachman, swaying, needing to sit, refusing to allow himself that much. They were close, too close to stop being alert and prepared.
        In the distance the sound of a helicopter rattled through the still morning air.
        "Got to hurry," Tucker said.
        It had occurred to him that the gunman downstairs would hear the copter and might go outside where he could, at such close range, make an attempt to kill the pilot.
        Shirillo was the first onto the roof, making the move with little trouble, and, with Harris assisting him from below, managed to get Merle Bachman outside just as Norton brought the chopper in low over the house. The girl went next, looking back only once at the three bags full of money, and she did not require any aid. Tucker followed her, his shoulder blazing with pain as he bumped it on the beveled rim of the trap door, requiring Shirillo's help to make the last part of the trip. Pete Harris handed out the suitcases one at a time, almost as if they were filled with nitroglycerin, then followed them.
        The time was 7:38.
        "Fantastic!" the girl said, looking up at the chopper.
        Tucker said nothing.
        An automatic rope ladder wound slowly out of the passenger door of the helicopter, a feature which Paul Norton had installed for the benefit of his string of less than legitimate customers. In a half minute from the time it had begun to unroll, the ladder's final hemp rung scraped against the mansion roof.
        "Who first?" Shirillo asked, grasping the ladder and turning to look at the others. He wasn't having any trouble keeping his balance on the gently slanted roof, though to Tucker the angle seemed precipitous and the shingles seemed to move under them.
        Harris said, "I'll take Merle up first. I don't think any of the rest of you can manage him on that ladder."
        "Go," Tucker said.
        He longed to sit down and rest, even to sleep, but he knew that sleep was a dangerous desire right now.
        Harris gave Shirillo his Thompson submachine gun and said, "If you need it, do you know how to use it?"
        The kid checked it out, nodded, said, "Yes."
        Harris turned, gathered up Merle Bachman as if the smaller man were a child, slung him over his shoulder and held onto him with his left hand. He wasn't even bowed by the weight. Now, Tucker realized, despite the danger he'd posed throughout the operation, Harris was doing his share and had become as valuable as any man on the team. He gripped the rope ladder with his right hand, stepped onto the bottom rung and held tight as Norton drew them up toward the open copter door.
        A gentle wind swept over the mansion and, in conjunction with the copter's wallowing motion, caused the ladder to swing back and forth in a wide arc that threatened to dump both of the men clinging to it. However, Harris held on, and the sway declined as the ladder shortened. Then the ladder stopped; Harris climbed the last few steps, worked Bachman into the open door and followed the wounded man.
        The ladder raveled downward once again.
        "You next," Tucker told the woman.
        She was on the ladder the instant it fell before her, and she didn't wait to ride it while it retracted. As it pulled up into its mechanism, she climbed and gained the copter door in short order. Tucker wondered what Norton would think, whether he'd be nonplused by her unexpected appearance. He was relieved when, after she'd been inside the craft a moment, the ladder dropped swiftly again.
        The copter bobbed but stayed pretty much in one spot, riding the back of the wind.
        Shirillo shouted, "What about the suitcases?"
        Tucker looked at them. "Give me the 'Thompson. You take the bags up one at a time."
        Shirillo handed over the gun, lifted the smallest case, gripped the ladder and rode upward as it retracted. Harris, who was waiting for him, took the suitcase out of his hands. S'hirillo started back down.
        A rifle cracked from below, the sharp noise muffled by the heavy thumping of the chopper's blades but nonetheless frightening and recognizable, like an ax splitting wood.
        Tucker edged farther down the sloping roof until he could see the gunman on the lawn. Bracing the Thompson between