"Track and field. Four-forty and eight-eighty mostly."
"All right." Marks's voice dropped again, softer than Budd thought it possibly could and still be audible. "We had the luxury, you and I'd dance around a bit like we were on a dinner cruise and you'd get my meaning and then go off and do what you ought to. But there's no time for that."
I was never cut out to be an officer, Budd thought, and replayed for the hundredth time the bullet cutting down seventeen-year-old Susan Phillips. He choked suddenly and turned it into an odd-sounding cough. "Say, I'm real busy right now, sir. I have to -"
"Answer me yes or no. Did I see something in your eyes in the van?"
"Don't know what you mean, sir."
"Sure, maybe what I did was out of line. I wasn't thinking too clearly. But you weren't completely sure Potter was right either. And – no, hold up there. I think if we took a vote more people in that van'd come down on my side than his."
Budd summoned his courage from somewhere and said, "It's not a popularity contest, sir."
"Oh, no, it's not. That's exactly right. It's a question about whether those girls live, and I think Potter doesn't care if they do or not."
"Noooo. That's not true. Not by a long shot. He cares a lot."
"What'm I seeing in your face, Officer? Just what I saw in the van, right? You're scared shitless for those little things in that slaughterhouse."
Our number-one priority isn't getting those girls out alive…
Marks continued, "Come on now, Officer. Admit it."
"He's a good man," Budd said.
"I know he's a good man. What the fuck does that have to do with anything?"
"He's doing the best -"
"There is no way in hell," Marks said slowly, "I'm letting those girls in there die. Which is something he's willing to do… and that's been eating at you all day. Am I right?"
"Well -"
Marks's hand dug into his suit jacket and he pulled out a wallet, flipped it open. For a crazy moment Budd though he was going to display his AG's office ID. But what Budd found himself looking at had far more impact on him. Three photos in glossy sleeves of young girls. One had knitted eyebrows and slightly distorted features. The handicapped daughter.
"You're a father of girls, Budd. Am I right?"
The captain swallowed and tried to look away from the six dark eyes. He couldn't.
"Just imagine your little ones in there. And then imagine someone like Potter saying, 'Hell, they're expendable.' Imagine that, Captain."
Budd inhaled long. And finally managed to look away. The wallet snapped closed.
"We have to get him removed."
"What?"
"He's signing their death sentences. What did he say about meeting Handy's demands? Come on, Budd. Answer like an officer."
He looked into Marks's eye and ignored the slap, saying, "He said Handy wasn't leaving there except in cuffs or a body bag."
And that if those girls had to die, so be it.
"Is that acceptable to you, Officer?"
"It's not my job to say if it is or isn't."
" 'I was only following orders.' "
"That's about the size of it."
Marks spit the cigarette from his mouth. "For God's sake, Captain, you can take a moral position, can't you? Don't you have any higher values than running errands for a fat FBI agent?"
Budd said stiffly, "He's the senior officer. He's federal, and -"
"You just hold on to those words, Captain," Marks railed like a pumped-up evangelist. "Tuck 'em under your arm and bring 'em out at the funerals of those girls. I hope they make you feel better." He reached into Budd's soul and poked with a fingernail. "There's already one girl's blood on our hands."
He means your hands.
Budd saw Susan Phillips as she fell to her knees. The impact of that fall made her jaw drop open and distorted her beautiful face for a moment. It became beautiful once more as she died.
"What?" Budd whispered, his eyes on the buggish headlights of the harvesting threshers. "What do you want?" This sounded childish and shamed him but he couldn't stop himself.
"I want Potter out. You or I or somebody state'll take over the negotiations and give those cocksuckers their damn helicopter in exchange for the girls. We'll track 'em down when they land and blow 'em to hell. I've already checked. We can get a chopper here in a half-hour, fitted with a homing device that'll track 'em from a hundred miles away. They'll never know we're following."
"But he says Handy's too dangerous to let out."
"Of course he's dangerous," Marks said. "But once he's out he'll be up against professionals. Men and women who're paid to take risks. Those girls aren't."
Marks had tiny eyes and it seemed to Budd that they were on the verge of tears. He thought of the man's mentally retarded daughter, in and out of hospitals all her short life.
He observed that Marks had said nothing about the effect of Budd's decision on his career. If he had, Budd would have stonewalled. When it came to things like that, cheap shots, the young captain could be a mule. Then it discouraged him immensely to see that Marks had assessed that about him and had pointedly avoided any threats. Budd realized that he was already lying on the mat, shoulders pinned, staring at the ceiling. The count had begun.
Oh, brother.
"But how can we get Potter out?"
He said this to stymie Marks but of course the man was prepared. The small black box appeared in Marks's hand. For an absurd moment Budd actually thought it was a bomb. He stared at the tape recorder. "All I want is for you to get him to say that the hostages are expendable."
"You mean, record him?"
"Exactly."
"And… and then what?"
"I've got some friends at a St. Louis radio station. They'll run the tape on the news. Potter'll have to step down."
"That could be the end of his career."
"And it could be the end of mine, doing this. But I'm willing to risk it. For chrissake, I was willing to give myself up in exchange for them. You don't see Potter doing that."
"I just don't know."
"Let's save those nine poor girls in there, Captain. What do you say?" Marks thrust the recorder into Budd's unhappy hands. The officer stared at it then slipped it into his pocket and without a word turned away. His only act of defiance was to offer, "No, you're wrong. There are only eight people inside. He's gotten one out." But Marks was out of earshot when he said it.
4:10 P.M.
Captain Charles R. Budd stood in a gully not far from the command van.
He was delegating, yes, but mostly he was trying to ignore the weight of the tape recorder, a thousand pounds of hot metal, in his hip pocket.
I'll think about that later.
Delegate.
Phil Molto was setting up the press table: a folding fiberboard table, a small portable typewriter, paper and pencils. Budd was no news hog but he supposed this setup would be useless for today's high-tech reporters. Did they even know how to type, those pretty boys and girls? They seemed like spoiled high-school kids.
He guessed, though, that this arrangement had less to do with journalism than with politics. How did Potter know how to handle all these things? Maybe living in the nation's capital helped. Politics one way or another. The earnest young captain felt totally incompetent.
Shame too. The tape recorder melted into fiery plastic and ran down his leg.
Forget about it. Fifty minutes to five – fifty minutes to the deadline. He kept a meaningless smile on his face but he couldn't sweep from his mind the image of the teenage girl falling to ground, dying.
He somehow knew in his heart more blood would be spilled. Marks was right. In the van he had sided with the assistant attorney general.