“I did what you asked with the equipment you gave me.”
“I know, Jesse, and it’s not your fault.”
“Haven’t you heard from Charley Bottoms?”
“Yeah, but Barker—”
“Barker what?”
“Barker is getting paranoid about this, I think. He seems to believe that you and Charley are somehow colluding to make an ass of him.”
“What about the shots of the blueprints?”
“The shots are a little washed out. The camera was loaded with a special, low-light film, and you lit the plans too brightly when you photographed them.”
“All I used was a desk lamp.”
“It was too much; you’d have been better off just using ambient light.”
“Listen to me, Kip: our deal was that I would get evidence to indict Coldwater and his partners. I’ve done that; I’ve provided you with both testimony and documentary evidence, and Charley’s testimony confirms it. Now I’m at the end of my tether, and you’re going to have to move your ass if you want my testimony in court.”
Kip ignored this. “Let me ask you, since you know the territory, how many men are we going to need, and how should we come in?”
Jesse thought for a minute. “First of all, the best cops in the world are not going to be enough; you’re going to need soldiers, and I don’t mean the Idaho National Guard. I would get the attorney general to go to the president and request crack troops, trained in urban tactics, street fighting.”
“That’s not going to be easy,” Kip replied.
“You’re going to have to do a lot of things simultaneously; you’re going to have to put troop-carrying choppers on top of that mountain, establish a perimeter and hold it, to keep Coldwater and his people from getting into that underground system. Unless you can do that right off, a siege situation will develop and you’ll look like idiots.
“Simultaneously, you’re going to have to take Coldwater, Casey and Ruger; otherwise they’ll rally their followers, and you’ll have a pitched battle on your hands. Cut off the head of the snake, and the rest will be easier.
“Third, you’re going to have to seal off the town to prevent anyone from getting in. Coldwater now has alliances with other groups, like the one that Charley Bottoms is in, and they might well come to his aid. Also, you can’t let any of Coldwater’s people get out. The nasty part of this is that, even if you capture the mountain and arrest Coldwater and his principal aides, you’re going to have to round up the rest of the church congregation from wherever they are, and they may fight on an individual basis.”
“How many people are we talking about?”
“Judging from what I’ve seen at the church, I’d estimate somewhere between five hundred and a thousand men, and three or four times that many women and children. They seem to have a lot of kids.”
“Will the women fight?”
“My guess — and it’s only a guess — is that Coldwater doesn’t invest enough confidence in women to train them, and that you’ll have to deal mostly with men and boys. I’d count on being opposed by teenagers with assault rifles, if I were you.”
“What you’re saying, essentially, is that, no matter how we do this, it’s going to be a mess.”
“I think you have a choice between a mess and a godawful, mind-boggling tragedy that could shake this country to its roots, that could make the attorney general, the president and the military look like bumbling idiots who can’t be trusted to keep order. I think that if you screw this up you have the chance of having the biggest pitched battle in this country since the Civil War.”
Kip was silent for a long moment. “We’re going to need armor, aren’t we?” he asked finally.
“You’re going to need it, but how the hell will you get it here without alerting Coldwater? If you fill up the roads of northern Idaho with tanks and armored personnel carriers, it’ll be on radio and television a long time before they can get here, and Coldwater is going to be ready. Your best bet is choppers, a lot of them, and enough men to mop up the town on a house-to-house basis.”
“Is there an airport?”
“Yes. I’ve seen a sign pointing to it, but I’ve never been out there.”
“You better take a look at it and get back to me.”
“That’s a good idea; I’ll do it.”
“How many troops are we talking about?”
“What was it they called Field Marshal Montgomery in World War Two? Something like Martini Monty, because he wouldn’t attack unless he had a six-to-one advantage. I think you’ll need that, if you fail to cut off the head of the serpent first.”
“So we’re talking five, six thousand men with full field gear, assault weapons, flak jackets, the works.”
“I think you better bring in heavy weapons, too, in case Coldwater makes it to his fortress. You’ll want to be at least as well armed as he is.”
“Nothing like this has ever happened in the history of this country,” Kip said, sounding disconsolate. “At least, not since the Civil War, as you pointed out. American troops carrying out a full-scale assault on an American town? It’s insane.”
“Maybe so, but comparatively speaking, it’s even more insane to do nothing, not to mention negligent. Something else, Kip, and I hate to bring this up: you’d better be ready for casualties. This could be bloody, so you’d better have both the medics and the PR people on alert to handle the dead and wounded and to break it to the public.”
“Barker wants to round up a thousand federal agents from the FBI, from the U.S. marshals, from Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco and the Treasury Department and send them in there on the ground, in APCs, with bullhorns, telling everybody to surrender.”
“You tell Barker for me that, if he does that, he’s going to lose half of them, and the other half will have to run, if they’re not surrounded. Then he’ll have to bring in the military to pull it out of the fire, and he’ll have to destroy this town to win.”
“I don’t know if he’s going to buy your recommendation.”
“Then, Kip, you have to go over his head; you have to go outside the Justice Department, if necessary, straight to the White House.”
“If I do that, they’ll hang me out to dry, my career will be over, and I’ll have a wife and two kids that I can’t support.”
“If you don’t do it, Kip, the press will hang the whole thing on you and Barker. After all, you’re the official contact with Bottoms and me. When this is over, and the president appoints a commission to investigate why such a huge tragedy occurred, you’ll not only be hung out to dry, you might end up in prison, and where will your family be then?” Jesse was trying hard to scare Kip to death; he had the feeling that if he didn’t, nothing was going to happen. He played his last card. “You tell Barker I’m going to give him fourteen days to act, and in force. If he doesn’t, I’m getting out, and if I’m arrested by your people I’ll see the whole business on the front page of the New York Times and the Washington Post. I’ll write a book about it; I’ll sell it for a TV movie; and I’ll never ever shut up. Do I make myself clear?”
“Jesse, don’t even think about doing that.”
“I’ve already thought about it, Kip, and as God is my witness, I’ll do it. Your only other choice is to get me a presidential pardon now, and let me and my family get out of here. That’ll shut me up.”
“Call me Monday.”
Jesse had a desperate thought. “Wait a minute, Kip.”
“Yeah?”
“I want to come to Washington and make a presentation to your people, the military and somebody from the White House.”
“That’s crazy, Jess; an escaped convict standing up in front of that kind of meeting? What kind of credibility would you have?”