The wait for the Atlanta television people had not gone peacefully. A small army of vehicles had assembled on the state road in front of the house, with county sheriff cars, the FBI and their three vehicles, the Army and its vehicles, lots of state police, and some curious would-be onlookers and citizen volunteers from the town milling around down there.
Carson had set the tone for things early on. He’d been furious when he found out Gwen and Jessamine were gone. He’d made Stafford go in front of him in a room to-room search before believing it. Then the state police had brought up some portable floods, which they placed in the driveway entrance and behind the house to light up the grounds. Once the lights were on, the phone rang. Carson picked it up and told them to turn the light off. The cops said no, and put a hostage negotiator on the line. Carson responded by forcing Mrs. Benning to bring the little kids downstairs. Herding Mrs. Benning and the kids in front of him, he ordered Stafford to go around the first floor and pull all the curtains and shades closed, plunging the interior into total darkness. Then he assembled the kids and Mrs. Benning into their classroom, made them stand in front of the windows, opened the curtains, and turned on the lights so the cops could see them. He had Stafford crack open the front door, and then get down on his knees. Over Stafford’s head, he fired two rounds down the driveway in the direction of the floodlights. He didn’t hit any of the lights, but they apparently got the message and turned them all off.
After that he turned out the lights in the classroom and had Mrs. Benning pull the curtains shut. He sent them all into the parlor across, the hall, where he made them lie down on the floor, with orders to stay there, after which he locked them in. He took Stafford back into the dark kitchen and made him sit in a chair backlit by the porch light.
Carson then retired to the shadows at the back of the dining area to await the media’s arrival. When the phone rang again, with an FBI negotiator on the line, Carson told them he’d talk to the Atlanta media, and no one else, and that he was going to wait until they showed up. The cops mulled that one over, then called him back and told him they were not going to let the media in. They had hardwired the phone line to the command center in one of their vans, and would await his call.
Stafford had listened to this discussion, and he could just imagine the twelve-monkeys-trying-to-breed-a-football scene that had to be going on down there on the road among the local law, the FBI, the state cops, and the Army. The Army would be shirting little green apples at the thought of the media getting a look at the cylinder, or, worse, Carson trying to open it in an orphanage.
They’d been waiting in the darkened kitchen for over an hour when Stafford asked Carson if he could make some fresh coffee.
“Yes. But first put a pitcher of ice water and a glass over here on the table. No lights and no tricks.”
Stafford got him the water, trying to see Carson’s face in his corner of the dining area when he opened the icebox door, but Carson remained hidden in the shadows. Stafford had forgotten that he had put. the cylinder injhe refrigerator. Its stainless steel sides were sweating visibly when he got the ice tray out, and he realized the refrigerator had been running ever since he’d put the cylinder in there. He wondered about that as he went to make coffee.
He had been trying to think of some way to get an advantage over Carson, but nothing brilliant had come to mind. If that was a six-shooter, then Carson should have three rounds left. Or only two, if he practiced the safety precaution of keeping the hammer chamber empty. But in the whole time Carson had been in the house, Stafford had not actually been able to get a direct look at him. All the interior lights in the house were off, and all the blinds and drapes were drawn, making the darkness just about complete, and while Carson could not see out, no sharpshooter with a night scope could see in, either. Stafford knew the cops outside would not storm the house with the children inside, so somehow, this thing was going to have to run its course. With only one functional arm and no gun, Stafford wasn’t going to be much help in any physical sense. He would have to use his brain instead, and that was small comfort.
Carson remained quiet over there in the darkness, his silhouette barely visible at the end of the table. The standoff was beginning to get to Stafford. He desperately wanted to see the man’s face, to see if the face matched up with the intense weariness in Carson’s voice. More than anything else, he wanted to do something. On the other hand, maybe if they just waited, Carson might collapse on his own. As long as he didn’t go after the kids. The cops had last called thirty minutes ago, but Carson just picked up the phone and hung it up. Standoff.
When the coffee was ready, he asked Carson if he wanted some.
“No. You stay over there. Sit down. There, where I can see you.” Stafford did as he was told. After a few minutes, he asked Carson what had happened to Bud Lambry. Carson told him..
“Wow. What’d he do — put the squeeze on you? Wanted more money than he’d been getting?”
At first Carson didn’t respond. Finally, he did.
“We had us a sweet deal going at that DRMO,” he said. “I guess we all got a little greedy when that thing showed up.”
“So what are you going to do now?”
“I’m going to wait for the TV people.”
“And then what?”
“And then I’m going to put a bullet through your fat head if you don’t shut up.”
That’s perfectly clear, Stafford thought, so he shut up.
Slumping sideways in his chair in the darkness, Carson allowed his eyes to close for just a moment once Stafford had shut his yap down at the other end of the long table. Drinking his fucking coffee. Waiting him out. Well, he could wait until hell froze over, because Wendell Carson wasn’t falling for any more of Stafford’s tricks. Wendell Carson was running out of time and patience. Those people should have been here by now.
He opened his eyes and blinked several times, regaining his focus.
Stafford was still sitting there, in profile to him in the gloom of the darkened kitchen. The fever was bad, and he knew that Advil and water were not going to hack it anymore. The cops had said they weren’t going to let him talk to the media, and the cylinder, for all its deadly contents, was as good as useless sitting in the refrigerator over there.
If he opened it, he would be the first to experience whatever horror lay inside. He thought about getting one of those kids in here, getting on the phone, and telling the cops he’d start shooting the kids unless they sent a television crew in.
He sighed, unintentionally loudly. Stafford looked over in his direction but kept his mouth shut, as ordered. I can make that threat, Carson thought, but I couldn’t do it. He was amazed at what he had done to the sheriff. Bud Lam bry had been as close to a case of self-defense as anything, but not shooting the man on the dam. He could have yelled “Drop it,’ or something. But he hadn’t. Wendell Carson had aimed at that bastard’s midsection and put one right through his heart, like he was some stone-cold killer. He could still hear that mortal grunt, see the dark smear all the way down the face of the dam into the stillness of the pool. And the hell of it was, he didn’t feel an ounce of remorse. He didn’t feel anything at all about shooting that guy. Just like he didn’t feel anything about Tangent’s guy on the conveyor belt.
Goddamn, this thing has gotten way out of hand, thanks mostly to this, piece of shit sitting down the table from me. And that damned weird girl. Twenty-four hours ago, I had my hands on a million bucks and a whole new life in front of me. Now? Now I’m fucked. The government is going to win this one. God, that pisses me off!