"Do they have a radio?"
"I didn't see one."
"Do they watch the TV a lot?"
She nodded.
"What other stuff do they have?"
"She says they have some tools. New ones. They're in plastic."
"What kind?"
"Silver ones. Wrenches. Pliers. Screwdrivers. A big shiny hammer."
"Offer her a job, Arthur," Henry LeBow said. "She's better than half our agents."
"Anything else you can think of, Jocylyn?"
Her red fingers moved.
"She misses her mommy."
"One more thing," Potter said. He hesitated. He wanted to ask something more about Melanie. He found he couldn't. Instead he asked, "Is it cold inside?"
"Not too bad."
Potter took the girl's round, damp hand and pressed it between his. "Tell her many thanks, Frances. She did a fine job."
After this message was translated Jocylyn wiped her face and smiled for the first time.
Angie asked Frances to tell the girl that she'd take her to the motel in a minute. Jocylyn went outside to wait with a woman state trooper.
LeBow printed out the list of what the men had inside the slaughterhouse with them. He handed it to Tobe, who pinned it up beside the diagram.
Tobe said, "It's like a computer adventure game. 'You're carrying a key, a magic sword, five stones, and a raven in a cage.' "
Potter sat back in his chair slowly, laughing. He looked at the list. "What do you make of it, Henry? Tools, a TV?"
"Knocked over a store on their way out of the prison?"
Potter asked Budd, "Any reports of a commercial burglary between here and Winfield, Charlie?"
"I'm outta that loop. I'll check." He stepped outside.
"I've never had such good intelligence from a hostage who'd been inside so short a time," Potter said. "Her powers of observation are remarkable."
"God compensates," Frances said.
Potter then asked Angie, "What do you think?"
"She's with us, I'd guess."
Because of the Stockholming process hostages have been known to give false information to negotiators and tactical teams. On one of Potter's negotiations – a weeklong terrorist barricade – a released hostage left a handkerchief in front of the window where Potter was hiding so that the barricaded gunman would know where to shoot. A sniper killed the hostage taker before he could fire. Potter testified on the hostage's behalf at her subsequent trial; she got a suspended sentence.
Potter agreed with Angie's assessment. Jocylyn hadn't been inside long enough to skew her feelings about Handy and the others. She was just a scared little girl.
Angie said, "I'm going to take her to the motel. Make sure she's comfortable. Reassure the other parents."
Henry LeBow called, "Arthur, just got some info on Henderson."
Potter said to Angie as she stepped out the door, "While you're down there, check up on him. He makes me nervous."
"Pete Henderson we're talking, the Wichita SAC?"
"Yep."
"Why?"
"Gut feel." Potter told her about the threat. And added that he was more concerned that Henderson hadn't at first volunteered that he'd interviewed Handy after the S amp;L arson. "It's probably because his boys did a lousy job on the collar, letting the girlfriend get away and ending up with two wounded troopers." The postcollar interrogation too, which Potter now recalled had yielded only unimaginative obscenities on Handy's part. "But he should've told us up front he was involved."
"What do you want me to do?" Angie asked.
Potter shrugged. "Just make sure he's not getting into any trouble."
She offered a gimme-a-break look. Peter Henderson, as Special Agent in Charge of a resident agency, had the rank to get into as much trouble as he liked and it wasn't for underlings like Angie Scapello to do anything about it.
"Try. Please." Potter blew her a kiss.
LeBow handed Potter the printout, explaining with a sneer, "It's only resume-quality data. But there are some details I'll bet he wants to keep under wraps."
Potter was intrigued. He read. Henderson had come up through the ranks, working as an investigator in the Chicago Police Department while he went to DePaul Law School at night. After he got his degree he joined the Bureau, excelled at Quantico, and returned to the Midwest, where he made a name for himself in southern Illinois and St. Louis, primarily investigating RICO crimes. He was a good administrator, fit the Feebie mold, and was clearly destined for a SAC job in Chicago or Miami or even the Southern District of New York. After which the career trajectory would have landed him in D.C.
If not for the lawsuit.
Potter read the press accounts and, supplemented by details from memos Henry LeBow had somehow managed to pry from the Bureau databases, he understood why Henderson had been shunted off to Kansas. Six years ago a dozen black agents had sued the Bureau for discrimination in doling out assignments, promotions, and raises. The St. Louis office was one of the targeted federal districts, and Henderson was quick to offer testimony supporting their claim. Too quick, some said. In the anticipated shakeup following the Title VII suit the then-current Bureau director was expected to resign and be replaced by a young deputy director, who would become the first black head of the FBI and who would – Henderson figured – remember those loyal to the cause.
But Henderson's scheming had blown up in his face. The steam went out of the suit as it bogged down in the federal courts. Some plaintiffs dropped out; others simply couldn't prove discrimination. For reasons stemming from ambition, not ideology, the young black deputy director chose to move to the National Security Council. The existing Bureau director simply retired, amid no scandal, and was replaced by the Admiral.
Turncoat Peter Henderson was administratively drawn and quartered. The man who'd once gotten a tap into syndicate boss Mario Lacosta's Clayton, Missouri, private den was sent packing to the state in which the geographic center of the country could be found and that was indeed known mostly for pilferings at McConnell Air Force Base and internecine battles with Indian Affairs and BATF. The career of the thirty-nine-year-old agent was at a complete standstill.
"Risks?" Potter asked LeBow. "He going to get in our way?"
"He's not in any position to do anything," the intelligence officer said. "Not officially."
"He's desperate."
"I'm sure he is. I said 'not officially.' We still have to keep our eyes on him."
Potter chuckled. "So, we've got an assistant attorney general ready to hand himself over to the takers and a SAC who wants to hand me over to them."
We have met the enemy…
He turned back to the window, thinking of Melanie, recalling what Jocylyn had said. She just closes her eyes. Doesn't do anything. What does that mean? he wondered.
Tobe broke into Potter's musings. "Handy's expecting a chopper in an hour, five minutes."
"Thank you, Tobe," Potter responded.
He looked out over the slaughterhouse and thought: A key, a magic sword, five stones, and a raven in a cage.
"Officer."
Charlie Budd was walking back to the van from his own unmarked car, where he'd just typed in a computer request for 211s in a four-county area. The only robberies today had been a convenience store, a gas station, and a Methodist church. The booty in none of them matched the weapons, TV, and tools that the HTs had brought with them.
"Come over here, Officer," the man's low voice said.
Oh, brother. What now?
Roland Marks leaned against the side of a supply van, smoking a cigarette. Budd thought he'd be ten miles away by now but there was purpose in his eyes and he looked like he was here to stay.
"You witnessed that little travesty," Marks announced. Budd had been in the corner of the van as Potter read the riot act. Budd looked around then wandered through the grass to the dark-featured man and stood upwind of the smoke. He said nothing.
"I love summer afternoons, Captain. Remind me of growing up. I played baseball every day. Did you? You look like could run like the wind."