"Why?"
"Partly it's what Angie was saying. Everything he does has a purpose. He's not a crazed kick killer."
"What sort of plan were you thinking of?"
"Don't know exactly. Something he thinks is gonna outsmart us."
Budd's hands slipped into his rear pockets again. The man's nervous as a fifteen-year-old at his first school dance, Potter reflected.
"Why do you say that?"
"I'm not sure exactly. Just an impression. Maybe because he's got this holier-than-thou attitude. He doesn't respect us. Every time he talks to us what I hear is, you know, contempt. Like he knows it all and we don't know anything."
This was true. Potter had noticed it himself. Not a shred of desperation, no supplication, no nervous banter, no tin defiance; all the things you usually heard from hostage takers were noticeably absent here.
Along with the flattest VSA line Potter had ever seen.
"A breakout," Budd continued. "That's what I'd guess. Maybe setting fire to the place." The captain laughed. "Maybe he's got fireman outfits in there – in those bags he brought in with him. And he'll sneak out in all the confusion."
Potter nodded. "That's happened before."
"Has it?" Budd asked, incredulous that he'd thought of this strategy and, accordingly, very pleased with himself.
"Medical-worker outfits one time. And police uniforms another. But I'd given all the containment officers handouts, like what I distributed earlier, so the HTs were spotted right away. Here, though, I don't know. It doesn't seem to be his style. But you're right on about his attitude. That's the key. It's saying something to us. I just wish I knew what."
Again Budd was fiddling nervously with his pockets.
"Those tools," Potter mused, "might have something to do with it. Maybe they'll set a fire, hide in a piece of machinery or even under the floor. Then climb out when the rescue workers are there. We should make sure that everybody, not just the troopers, has a copy of the profile flyers."
"I'll take care of it." Budd laughed nervously again. "I'll delegate it."
Potter had calmed considerably. He thought of Marian. The infrequent evenings he was home they used to sit together by the radio listening to NPR and share one cigarette and a glass of sherry. Occasionally, once a week, perhaps twice, the cigarette would be stubbed out and they would climb the stairs to their ornate bed and forgo the musical programming for that evening.
"This negotiation stuff," Budd said. "It's pretty confusing to me."
"How so?"
"Well, you don't seem to talk to him about what I'd talk to him about – you know, the stuff he wants and the hostages and everything. Business. Mostly, it seems that you just chat."
"You ever been in therapy, Charlie?"
The young officer seemed to snicker. He shook his head. Maybe analysis was something Kansans didn't go in for.
Potter said, "I was. After my wife died."
"I was going to say, I'm sorry to hear that happened."
"You know what I talked to the therapist about? Genealogy."
"What?"
"It's my hobby. Family trees, you know."
"You were paying good money to a doctor to talk about hobbies?"
"And it was the best money I ever spent. I started to feel what the therapist was feeling and vice versa. We moved closer to each other. What I'm doing here – with Handy – is the same. You don't click a switch and make Handy give up the girls. Just like the doctor doesn't click a switch and make everything better. The point is to create a relationship between him and me. He's got to know me, and I've got to know him."
"Hey, like you're dating?"
"You could say that," Potter said without smiling. "I want to get him into my mind – so he'll realize it's a hopeless situation. So he'll give me the girls and surrender, to make him feel that it's pointless to go on. Not to understand it intellectually, but to feel it. You can see it's working a bit. He's given us two and hasn't killed anyone else, even when that other girl snuck out." Potter drew a final breath of his imaginary Camel. Stubbed it out.
He started to imagine climbing stairs, Marian's hand in his. But this image faded quickly.
"And I do it to get into his mind. To understand him."
"So you become his friend?"
"Friend? Not a friend. I'd say that we become linked."
"But, I mean, isn't that a problem? If you have to order HRT to green-light him, you'd be ordering the death of somebody you're close to. Betraying them."
"Oh, yes," the negotiator said softly. "Yes, it's a problem."
Budd blew air out of his cheeks and again studied the harvesting. "You said…"
"What?"
"You said before that you're willing to sacrifice those girls to get him. Is that really true?"
Potter looked at him for a moment while Budd's distraught eyes gazed at the steadfast threshers miles away. "Yes, it is. My job is to stop Handy. Those're my orders. And yes, there may have to be sacrifices."
"But they're little girls."
Potter smiled grimly. "How can you make a value judgment? These aren't the days of women and children first. A life is a life. Are those girls more deserving than the family Handy might kidnap and kill next year if he escapes today? Or the two traffic cops he shoots when they stop him for speeding? I have to keep thinking that those hostages are dead already. If I can save some, so much the better. But I can't look at it any other way and still function."
"You're good at what you do, seems."
Potter didn't answer.
"You think there'll be more deaths?"
"Oh, yes, I'm afraid so. Just an educated guess but I do think so."
"The girls?"
Potter didn't answer.
"Our immediate problem, Charlie – what can we use to buy another hour with?"
Budd shrugged. "No guns or ammo, right?"
"That's not negotiable."
"Well, he thinks he's getting his imaginary helicopter, right?"
"Yes."
"As long as we're lying to him 'bout that, why don't we lie to him 'bout something else? Promise him something to go along with it."
"Can't give a kid a toy without giving him batteries, is that what you're saying?"
"I guess I am."
"That's brilliant, Charlie. Let's go kick it around with Henry."
As they climbed into the van Potter clapped the trooper on the shoulder and Budd responded with as hangtail a smile as the agent had ever in his life encountered.
They would divide into three teams, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie.
The HRU officers, under Dan Tremain, were gathered in a cluster on the left side, the northwest side, of the slaughterhouse, hidden in a grove of trees. The men were now wearing black assault coveralls over their body armor. Nomex hoods and gloves. Their goggles rested on the crest of their foreheads.
Alpha and Bravo teams had four men each, two armed with Heckler amp; Koch MP-5 submachine guns, fitted with B.E.A.M. mounts and halogen flashlights, two armed with H amp;K Super 90 semiautomatic shotguns. The two HRU troopers in Charlie team had MP-5s as well but were also carrying Accuracy Systems M429 Thunderflash stun grenades and M451 Multistarflash grenades.
Two other troopers had been deployed. Chuck Pfenninger – Outrider One – was in standard uniform beside the command van. Joey Wilson – Outrider Two – in ops armor and camouflage was beneath the middle window to the left of the main door of the slaughterhouse. He was hidden from view of the command post and the troopers in the field by the Laurent Clerc School bus and a ginkgo tree.
Tremain went over the plan one more time in his mind. As soon as Wilson reported that the HTs were as far away from the hostages as they could hope for, Pfenninger would blow the generator in the command van, using an L210 charge, known informally as a mini-Molotov. It was a small gasoline bomb sealed in a special fiberboard container, like single-serving boxes of grape juice or fruit punch. The container would disintegrate under the heat from the blast and would be virtually undetectable by crime-scene technicians. Properly placed, it would cut off all communications and seal the troopers inside the van. The vehicle had been designed to be driven through flames, was well insulated, and had an internal oxygen system. As long as the door remained closed, no one inside would be injured.