Tremain would officially take charge and "declare" that the situation had gone hot.
As soon as this happened HRU's three teams would move into the slaughterhouse. Charlie team would use Model 521 cutting charges to blast a hole in the roof and drop two stun grenades onto the takers. Alpha and Bravo would blow the side and loading-dock doors simultaneously and enter the building while Charlie dropped the second – the flash – grenades, which would explode in a huge burst of blinding light, and then rappel through the opening in the roof. Bravo team would head straight to the hostages, and Alpha and Charlie would advance on the HTs, neutralizing them if there was any resistance.
They were now waiting for three troopers who'd gone to check out the side door, the loading dock, and the roof.
Dan Tremain lay prone beside the steely Lieutenant Carfallo and gazed at the slaughterhouse, which rose above them like a medieval castle, toothy and dark. The captain said to his troops, "You'll be using four-man entry. The first two men will be the key shooters. Machine guns first, followed by shotgun backup. This will be a dynamic shooting entry. You will proceed until all hostile targets have been successfully engaged and neutralized and the premises have been secured. There are six hostages inside, located where I indicated on the map. They're all female, and four are young girls, who may panic and run. You will exercise absolute muzzle control of your weapons at all times you are inside. Do you copy?"
Affirmative answers.
Then came the bad news.
One by one the surveillance troopers called in. The reconnaissance revealed that the side door was far thicker than the diagram indicated: three-inch oak with a sheet steel face. They would have to use four cutting charges. For safety, Alpha team would have to be farther away when it blew than originally planned. That would add as much as s seconds to the time it would take to get to the girls.
It turned out too that there'd been some construction on the roof not reflected in the original architectural drawings – a series of steel plate covering virtually the entire roof, had been bolted into place years ago. The men on the roof would have to use a large amount of C4 to cut through them. In an old building like this, that much plastic explosive could bring down girders – possibly even major portions of the roof.
Tremain then learned from the third scout that the loading-dock door was jammed open only about eight inches. It was a huge steel sheet, too large to blow.
The captain conferred with Carfallo and they revised their plan They decided they'd have to forgo the roof and loading-dock assault and go with a two-team, single-door entry through the north door. Wilson standing by the front window, would toss in a stun grenade, followed by the flash. This was risky because it would expose him to both the policeline and the HTs; he might get shot by either. But Tremain conclude there was no choice.
He needed another hour, he decided, for an effective attack – time to find another unbarred door or window and time to weaken the hinge on the fire door so they could use smaller charges.
But he didn't have an hour. He had twenty minutes until the next deadline.
Until the next girl would die.
Well, then, a single-entrance assault it would be. Tremain said "Code word 'filly' means green light. Code word 'stallion' means stand down. Acknowledge."
The men responded. Tremain led them into the gully beside the slaughterhouse. There they plastered themselves against the damp earth and fell into absolute stillness and silence, for so they had been instructed, and these were men who lived by their orders before anything else.
6:40 P.M.
Joe Silbert had taught himself to type with two fingers on an Underwood upright that smelled of oil and ink and the bittersweet scent of eraser shavings clogging the carriage.
Technology hadn't changed things for him much and he now pounded away with only his index digits thudding loudly on the large portable Compaq. The orange light of the screen illuminated both him and Ted Biggins, made them look jaundiced and depleted. Silbert supposed that, being almost double Biggins's age, he looked twice as bad.
Philip Molto stood his diligent guard, as instructed by nervous Captain Budd.
"What do you think?" Silbert asked Biggins.
Biggins looked over his colleague's shoulder at the dense single-spaced type on the screen and grunted. "Mind if I take over?" He nodded at the screen.
"Be my guest."
Biggins could touch-type like a demon and his fingers moved quietly and invisibly over the keys. "Hey, I'm a fucking natural at this," he said, his hair perfectly coiffed although he was only an engineer and Silbert was in fact the on-camera reporter.
"Hey, Officer," Silbert called to Molto, "our shift's almost up. We're just going to leave the computer here for the next team. They'll pick up the story where we left it off."
"You guys do that?"
"It's a cooperative thing, you know. You'll keep an eye on the computer?"
"Sure thing, yessir. What's the matter?"
Silbert was frowning, looking out into the stand of trees and juniper bushes behind the police line. "You hear something?"
Biggins was standing up, looking around uneasily. "Yeah."
Molto cocked his head. There were footsteps. A snap of branch, a shuffle.
"There's nobody behind there," the lieutenant said, half to himself. "I mean, nobody's supposed to be."
Silbert's face had the cautious look of a man who'd covered combat zones before. Then he broke into a wry grin. "That son of a bitch. Lieutenant, I think we've got a trespasser here."
The trooper, hand on his pistol, stepped into the bushes. When he returned he was escorting two men in black jogging suits. Press credentials bounced on their chests.
"Well, look who it is," Silbert said. "Walter Cronkite and Chet Huntley."
Biggins said to Molto, "If you're going to arrest them, forget trespassing. Charge 'em with being first-degree assholes."
"You boys know each other?"
One of the captives grimaced. "Silbert, you're a son of a bitch. You blow the whistle on us? And don't even let that little shit with you say a word to me."
Silbert said to Molto, "They're with KLTV. Sam Kellog and Tony Bianco. They seem to've forgotten that we're press-pooling."
"Fuck you," Bianco snapped.
Silbert spat out, "I gave up an exclusive just like you did, Kellog. You would've had your turn."
"I'm supposed to arrest you," Molto said to Kellog and Bianco.
"Bullshit, you can't do that."
"I'll think about it on the way back to the press tent. Come on."
"Look, Officer," Kellog said, "as long as we're here…"
"How'd you get here anyway, Kellog?" Biggins said. "Crawl on your belly?"
"Fuck you too."
Molto led them away. As soon as the squad car vanished Silbert barked to Biggins, "Now. Do it."
Biggins unhooked the casing of the computer monitor and pulled it open. From it he took a Nippona LL3R video camera – the subminiature model, which cost one hundred and thirty thousand dollars, weighed fourteen ounces, and was equipped with a folding twelve-inch parabolic antenna and transmitter. It produced a broadcast-quality picture in virtual darkness and had a telescopic lens as smooth as a sniper's rifle-scope. It had an effective range of three miles, which would be more than enough to reach the KFAL mobile transmitting center, where Silbert's colleagues (Tony Bianco and Sam Kellog, as it turned out, not too coincidentally) would soon – if they weren't actually under arrest – be waiting for the transmission. In case they were in fact sacrifices to the First Amendment other technicians were ready to wade into the breach.