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.
Forty-nine minutes…
"Okay," he told his lieutenant. "Guess that'll do. You ride herd on 'em, Phil. Make sure they sit tight. They can wander around a little behind the lines and take notes on whatever they want -"
Was that okay? he wondered. What would Potter say?
"- but suit 'em up in flak jackets and make sure they keep their heads down."
Quiet Phil Molto nodded.
The first car arrived a minute later, containing two men. They climbed out, flashed press credentials, and as they looked around hungrily the older of them said, "I'm Joe Silbert, KFAL. This is Ted Biggins."
Budd got a kick out of their dress – dark suits that didn't fit very well and black running shoes. He pictured them racing down the hall of a TV station, shouting, "Exclusive, exclusive!" while papers spun in their wakes.
Silbert looked at the press table and laughed. Budd introduced himself and Molto and said, "Best we could do."
"It's fine, Officer. Only I hope you don't mind if we use our own stone tablet to write on?"
Biggins hefted a large portable computer onto the table.
"Long as we see what you write before you send it." For so Potter had instructed him.
"File it," Silbert said. "We say 'file it,' not 'send it.' " Budd couldn't tell if he was making a joke.
Biggins poked at the typewriter. "What exactly is this?"
The men laughed. Budd told them the ground rules. Where they could go and where they couldn't. "We've got a couple troopers you can talk to if you want. Phil here'll send 'em over."
"They hostage rescue?"
"No. They're from Troop K, up the road."
"Can we talk to some hostage rescue boys?"
When Budd grinned Silbert smiled too, like a co-conspirator, and the reporter realized he wasn't going to catch the captain in any slipups about whether or not HRT was on the scene.
"We're going to want to talk to Potter sometime soon," Silbert groused. "He planning on avoiding us?"
"I'll let him know you're here," Budd said cheerfully, the Switzerland of law enforcers. "Meanwhile Phil here'll bring you up to date. He's got profiles of the escapees and pictures of them. And he'll get you suited up in body armor. Oh, and I was thinking you might want to get the human-interest angle from some troopers. What it's like to be on a barricade. That sort of thing."