Potter said. "Let's just say they're cool under fire."
"That's better'n being a good shot."
"And they've killed cops," Budd said.
"Both in firelights and as execution," Potter offered.
"Okay," D'Angelo said slowly. "My feeling is we can't do an entry. Not with the risk of the gas bomb and grenades. And his frame of mind."
"Have him walk to the chopper?" Potter asked. "It's right there." He tapped the map.
D'Angelo gazed at the portion of the map showing the field and nodded. "Think so. We'll pull everybody back out of sight, let the takers and hostages walk through the woods here."
Angie interrupted. "Handy'll pick his own route, don't you think, Arthur?"
"You're right. He'll want to be in charge of that. And it probably won't be the straightest one."
D'Angelo and Potter marked off four likely routes to get from the slaughterhouse to the chopper. LeBow drew them on the map. D'Angelo said, "I'll set up snipers in the trees here and here and here. Put the ground men in deep camouflage along all four routes. When the takers go by, the snipers'll acquire. Then we'll stun the whole group with smokeless. The agents on the ground'll grab the hostages and pull ' em down. The snipers'll take out the HTs if they show any threat. That sound okay to you?"
Potter was staring down at the map.
A moment passed.
"Arthur?"
"Yes, it sounds good, Frank. Very good."
D'Angelo stepped outside to brief his agents.
Potter looked at Melanie's picture and then sat down once more, staring out the window.
"Waiting is the hardest, Charlie. Worse than anything."
"I can see that."
"And this is what you'd call your express barricade," Tobe offered, eyes on his dials and screens. " 'S'only been about eleven hours. That's nothing."
Suddenly someone burst through the open doorway so quickly every law enforcer inside the van except Potter reached for weapons.
Roland Marks stood in the doorway. "Agent Potter," he said coldly. "Do I understand you're going to take him down?"
Potter looked past him at a tree bending in the wind. The breeze had picked up remarkably. It would bolster the lie about the river being too choppy to land a helicopter.
"Yes, we are."
"Well, I was just speaking to your comrade Agent D'Angelo. He shared with me a disturbing fact."
Potter couldn't believe Marks. In the space of a few hours he'd nearly screwed up the negotiations twice and almost lost his life in the process. And here he was on the offensive again. The agent was a few seconds away from arresting him just to get the pushy man out of his life.
Potter lifted an eyebrow.
"That there's a fifty-fifty chance one of the hostages will die."
Potter had assessed it at sixty-forty in the hostages' favor. But Marian had always chided him for being an incurable optimist. The agent rose slowly and stepped through the burnt doorway, motioning the attorney general after him. He took a tape cassette from his pocket, held it up prominently then put it back. Marks's eyes gave a flicker.
"Was there anything else you wanted to say?" Potter asked.
Marks's face suddenly softened but just for a moment, as if he recognized an apology forming in his throat and shot it dead. He said, "I don't want those girls hurt."
"I don't either."
"For God's sake, put him in a chopper, have him release the hostages. When he lands the Canadians can come down upon him like the proverbial Assyrians."
"Oh, but he has no intention of going to Canada," Potter said impatiently.
"I thought… But that special clearance you boys put together…"
"Handy doesn't believe a word of that. And even if he did he knows we'd put a second transponder in the chopper. His plans are to head straight to Busch Stadium. Or wherever his TV tells him there's a big game tonight."
"What?"
"Or maybe a parking lot at the University of Missouri just as evening classes are letting out. Or McCormick Place. He'll land someplace where there'll be a huge crowd around. There's no way we can take him in a scenario like that. A hundred people could be killed."
Understanding dawned in Marks's eyes. And whether he saw those lives jeopardized, or his career, or perhaps was seeing nothing more than the hopeless plight of his own poor daughter, he nodded. "Of course. Sure, he's the sort who'd do just that. You're right."
Potter chose to read the concession as an apology and decided to let him be.
Tobe pushed his head out of the doorway. "Arthur, I just got a phone call. It's that Kansas State detective Charlie told us about. Sharon Foster. She's on the line."
Potter had doubts that Foster could help them. Introducing a new negotiator in a barricade can have unpredictable results. But one thing Potter had decided might be helpful was her gender. His impression of Handy was that he was threatened by men – the very fact that he'd gone to ground with ten female hostages suggested that he might listen to a woman without his defenses raised.
Inside the van Potter leaned against the wall as he spoke. "Detective Foster? This is Arthur Potter. What's your ETA?"
The woman said that she was proceeding under sirens and lights and should be at the incident site by ten-thirty, ten-forty. The voice was young and matter-of-fact and extremely calm, though she was probably doing a hundred miles an hour.
"Look forward to it," Potter said, a little gruffly, and hung up.
"Good luck," Marks said. He hesitated, as if thinking of something else he might say. He settled for "God save those girls" and left the van.
"DEA's on the way," Tobe announced. "They've got the cash. Coming in by confiscated turbo helicopter. They get the best toys, those pricks."
"Hey," Budd said, "they're bringing a hundred thousand, right?"
Potter nodded.
"Where're we gonna keep the fifty that we don't give him? That's a lot of cash to store."
Potter held his finger to his lips. "We'll split it, Charlie, you and me."
Budd blinked in shock.
At last Potter winked.
The captain laughed hard, as did Angie and Frances.
Tobe and LeBow were more restrained. Those who knew Arthur Potter understood that he rarely made jokes. He tended to do so only when he was at his most nervous.
10:01 P.M.
The killing room had become cold as a freezer.
Beverly and Emily huddled against Melanie as they all watched Mrs. Harstrawn lying ten feet away: eyes open, breathing, but otherwise dead as Bear, who still blocked the entrance to the room and whose body was sending three long fingers of black blood reaching slowly toward them.
Beverly, air rasping into her lungs, as if she'd never breathe again, could not take her eyes off the streams.
Something was going on in the other room. Melanie couldn't see clearly but it seemed that Brutus and Stoat were packing up – guns and bullets and the tiny TV set. They were walking through the large room, looking around. Why? It was as if they felt sentimental about the place.
Maybe they were going to give up…
Then she thought, No way. They're going to get into that helicopter, drag us along with them, and escape. We'll live this same nightmare over and over and over again. Fly to someplace else. There'll be other hostages, other deaths. More dark rooms.
Melanie found her hand once more at her hair, uneasily entwining a finger in the strands, which were now damp and filthy. No "shine" now. No light. No hope. She lowered her hand.
Brutus strode into the room and gazed at Mrs. Harstrawn, looking down at her creased brow. He had that slight smile on his face, the smile Melanie had come to recognize and to hate. He pulled Beverly after him.
"She's going home. Going home." Brutus pushed her out of the door of the killing room. He turned back, pulled a knife from his pocket, opened it, and cut the wire that had run to the canister of gasoline. He tied Melanie's hands behind her back and then her feet. Emily's too.