It was a faint crack and far less alarming than Dean Stillwell's urgent voice breaking over the speaker above their heads. "Arthur, we've got a situation here! Handy's shooting."
Hell.
"There's somebody in the field."
Before he even looked outside Potter pressed the button on the mike and ordered, "Tell everybody, no return fire."
"Yessir."
Potter joined Angie and Charlie Budd in the ocher window of the van.
"That son of a bitch," Budd whispered.
Another shot rang out from the slaughterhouse and the bullet kicked up a cloud of splinters from the rotting stockade post next to the dark-suited man about sixty yards from the command van. A voluminous handkerchief, undoubtedly expensive, billowed around the raised right hand of the intruder.
"Oh, no," Angie whispered in dismay.
Potter's heart sank. "Henry, your profile of the assistant attorney general neglected to mention he's out of his damn mind."
Handy fired again, hitting a rock just behind Roland Marks. The assistant AG stopped, cringing. He waved the handkerchief again. He continued slowly toward the slaughterhouse.
Potter pressed speed dial. As the phone rang and rang he muttered, "Come on, Lou."
No answer.
Dean Stillwell's voice came over the speaker. "Arthur, I don't know what to make of it. Somebody here thinks it's -"
"It's Roland Marks, Dean. Is he saying anything to Handy?"
"Looks like he's shouting. We can't hear."
"Tobe, you have those Big Ears in place still?"
The young agent spoke into his stalk mike and punched buttons. In a few seconds, the mournful yet urgent sound of the wind filled the van. Then Marks's voice.
"Lou Handy! I'm Roland Marks, assistant attorney general of the state of Kansas."
A huge crack of a gunshot, overly amplified, burst into the van. Everyone cringed.
Tobe whispered, "The other Big Ear's trained on the slaughterhouse but we're not getting anything."
Sure. Because Handy's not saying anything. Why talk when you can make your point with bullets?
"This is bad," Angie muttered.
The AG's voice again: "Lou Handy, this isn't a trick. I want you to give up the girls and take me in their place."
"Jesus," Budd whispered. "He's doing that?" He sounded half-impressed and Potter had to restrain himself from scowling at the state police captain.
Another shot, closer. Marks danced sideways.
"For the love of God, Handy," came the desperate voice. "Let those girls go!"
And all the while the phone inside the slaughterhouse rang and rang and rang.
Potter spoke into the radio mike. "Dean, I hate to say it but we've got to stop him. Hail him on the bullhorn and try to get him over to the sidelines. If he doesn't come, send out a couple of men."
"Handy's just playing with him," Budd said. "I don't think he's in any real danger. They could've shot him easy by now, they'd wanted to."
"
He's
not who I'm worried about," Potter snapped.
"What?"
Angie said, "We're trying to get hostages
out
, not in."
"He's making our job harder," Potter said simply, not explaining the terrible mistake Marks was now making.
With a whining ricochet, a bullet split a rock beside the lawyer's leg. Marks remained on his feet. He turned and he was listening to Dean Stillwell, whose voice was being picked up by the Big Ear and relayed into the van. To Potter's relief the sheriff wasn't cowed by the man's authority. "You there, Marks, you're to get under cover immediately or you'll be arrested. Come back this way."
"We've got to save them." Marks's raw voice filled the van. It sounded resolute but terrified and for a moment Potter's heart went out to him.
Another shot.
"No, sir. Do you understand? You're about to be placed under arrest." Potter called Stillwell and told him he was doing great. "Tell him he's
endangering
the girls doing this."
The sheriff's voice, mixing with the ragged wind, filled the van as he relayed this message.
"No! I'm saving them," the assistant AG shouted and started forward again.
Potter tried the throw phone again. No answer. "Okay, Dean. Go get him. No covering fire under any circumstances." Stillwell sighed. "Yessir. I've got some volunteers. I hope it's okay but I green-lighted pepper spray if he resists."
"Give him a blast for me," Potter muttered, and turned back to watch. Two troopers in body armor and helmets slipped from the line of trees and, crouching, headed through the field.
Handy fired several more times. He hadn't noticed the troopers yet and was aiming only around Marks, the shots always near-misses. But one bullet hit a rock and ricocheted upwards, shattering the windshield of a squad car.
The two troopers kept low to the ground, running perpendicularly to the front of the slaughterhouse. Their hips and sides were easy targets if Handy decided to turn malicious and draw blood. Potter frowned. One of the men looked familiar.
"Who're those troopers?" Potter asked Stillwell. "Is one of them Stevie Gates?"
"Yessir."
Potter exhaled a deep sigh. "He just got
back
from a run, Dean. What's he thinking of?"
"Well, sir, he wanted to go out again. Was really insistent about it."
Potter shook his head.
Marks was now only forty yards from the slaughterhouse, the two troopers closing in slowly, scrambling through the buffalo grass. Marks saw them and shouted for them to get away.
"Sir," the voice through the speaker called – Potter recognized it as Oates's – "our orders're to bring you back."
"Fuck your orders. If you care about those girls just leave me alone."
They heard a whoop of distant laughter the Big Ear was picking up. "Turkey shoot," resounded Handy's voice, riding on the wind. Another deafening gunshot. A rock beside one of the troopers flew into the air. They both dropped to their bellies, began crawling like soldiers toward the assistant AG.
"Marks," Gates called, breathing hard. "We're bringing you back, sir. You're interfering with a federal operation."
Marks whirled around. "What're you going to do to stop me, Trooper? You work for
me
. Don't you forget it."
"Sheriff Stillwell has authorized me to use all necessary force to stop you, sir. And I aim to."
"You're downwind, son. Pepper-spray me and you're the only one who'll get a faceful of it."
Handy fired again. The bullet split an ancient post two feet from Oates's head. The convict, still in a playful mood, laughed hard.
"Jesus," somebody muttered.
"No, sir," Gates said calmly, "my orders're to shoot you in the leg and drag you back."
Potter and LeBow stared at each other. The negotiator's fervent thumb pressed the transmit button. "He
is
bluffing, isn't he, Dean?"
"Yep" was Stillwell's unsteady reply. "But… he sounds pretty determined. I mean, don't you think?"
Potter did think.
"Would he do it?" LeBow asked.
Potter shrugged.
Angie said, "He's drawn his weapon."
Gates was aiming steadily at Marks's lower extremities.
Well, this is escalating into a full-blown disaster, Potter thought.
"Sir," Gates called, "I will not miss. I'm an excellent shot and I'm just about to bring you down."
The assistant AG hesitated. The wind ripped the handkerchief from his fingers. It rose a few feet above his head.
A shot.
Handy's bullet struck the white cloth. It jerked and floated away on the breeze.
Again, through the Big Ear, the distant sound of Handy laughing. Marks looked back at the slaughterhouse. Called out, "You son of a bitch, Handy. I hope you rot in hell."
More laughter – or perhaps it was only the wind.
Standing tall, the assistant AG walked off the field. As if strolling through his own backyard. Potter was pleased to see that Stevie Gates and his partner kept low as terriers as they crawled after the man under cover of the sumptuous, windswept grass.
"You could've ruined everything," Arthur Potter snapped. "What the hell were you thinking?"
He had to look up into Marks's eyes – the man was well over six feet tall – but still felt he was talking to a snotty child caught misbehaving.
The assistant attorney general began firmly, "I was thinking -"
"You
never
exchange hostages. The whole point of negotiation is to devalue them. You were as good as saying to him, 'Here I am, I'm worth more than all of those girls combined.' If he'd gotten you it would've made my job impossible."
"I don't see why," Marks answered.
"Because," Angie said, "a hostage like you would have boosted his sense of power and control a hundred times. He'd up his demands and stick to them. We'd never get him to agree to anything reasonable."
"Well, I kept thinking about those girls in there. What they were going through."
"He never would have let them go."
"I was going to talk him into it."
LeBow rolled his eyes and continued to type up the incident.
Potter said, "I'm not going to arrest you." He'd considered it and concluded that the fallout would be too thorny. "But if you interfere in any way with this barricade again I will and I'll have the U.S. Attorney make sure you do time."
To Potter's astonishment, Marks wasn't the least contrite. The witty facade was gone, yes; but he seemed, if anything, irritated that Potter had interfered with
his
plans. "You do things by the book, Potter." A large index finger pointed bluntly at the agent. "But the book doesn't say anything about a psycho who gets his kicks killing children."
The phone buzzed. LeBow took the call and said to Potter, "Jocylyn's gotten a clean bill of health from the medics. She's fine. You want to debrief her now?"
"Yes, thank you, Henry. Tell them to send her in. Stevie Gates too." To Marks he said, "I'll ask you to leave now."
Marks buttoned his suit jacket, brushed away the rock dust that had powdered his jacket from Handy's target practice. He strode to the door and muttered something. Potter believed he heard: "blood on your hands." But as to the other words, he didn't have a clue.
For precious minutes she wept uncontrollably.
Angie Scapello and Arthur Potter sat with Jocylyn and struggled to look calm and reassuring while in their hearts they wanted to grab the girl by the shoulders and shake answers out of her.
Impatience, Arthur Potter's nemesis.
He kept a smile on his face and nodded with reassurance while the chubby twelve-year-old cried and cried, resting her round, red face in her hands.
The door opened and Stevie Gates stepped inside, pulled off his helmet. Despite the cold his hair was damp with sweat. Potter turned his attention from the girl to the trooper.
"You should stand down for a while, Stevie."
"Yessir, I think I will. Those last couple shots were kind of, well… close."
"Sobered you up pretty fast, did they?"
"Yessir. Sure did."
"Tell me everything you saw when you went up there with the food."
As Potter expected, even with the aid of the videotape from the camera perched over his ear, Gates couldn't provide much detail about the interior of the slaughterhouse.
"Any thoughts on Handy's state of mind?"
"Seemed calm. Wasn't edgy."
Like he was buying a cup of coffee at 7-Eleven.
"Anybody hurt?"
"Not that I could see."
LeBow dutifully typed in the paltry intelligence. Gates could recall nothing else. Potter pointed out to the discouraged officer that it was good news he
hadn't
seen blood or bodies. Though he knew his own face didn't mask the discouragement he felt; they wouldn't get anything helpful from the twelve-year-old girl, who continued to weep and twine her short dark hair around fingers that ended in chewed nails.
"Thanks, Stevie. That's all for now. Oh, one question. Were you really going to shoot Marks in the leg?"
The young man grew serious for a moment then broke into a cautious grin. "The best way I can put it, sir, is I wasn't going to know until I pulled the trigger. Or didn't pull the trigger. As the case might be."
"Go get some coffee, Trooper," Potter said.
"Yessir."
Potter and Angie turned their attention back to Jocylyn. Her eyes were astonishingly red; she huddled in the blanket one of Stillwell's officers had given her.
Finally the girl was calm enough that Potter could begin to question her through Officer Frances Whiting. The negotiator noted that while Frances 's hands moved elegantly and with compact gestures Jocylyn's were broad and awkward, stilted: the difference, he guessed, between someone speaking smoothly and someone inserting "um"s and "you know"s into their speech. He wondered momentarily how Melanie signed. Staccato? Smooth?
"She isn't answering your questions," Frances said.
"What's she saying?" Angie asked, her quick, dark eyes picking up patterns in the signing.
"That she wants her parents."
"Are they at the motel?" he asked Budd.
The captain made a call and told him, "They should be, within the hour."
Frances relayed that information to her. Without acknowledging that she understood, the girl started another jag of crying.
"You're doing fine," Angie said encouragingly.
The negotiator glanced at his watch. A half-hour to the helicopter deadline. "Tell me about the men, Jocylyn. The bad men."
Frances's hands flew and the girl finally responded. "She says there are three of them. Those three there." The girl was gesturing at the wall. "They're sweaty and smell bad. The one there." Pointing at Handy. "Brutus. He's the leader."
"Brutus?" Potter asked, frowning.
Frances asked the question and watched a lengthy response, during which Jocylyn pointed to each of the takers.
"That's what Melanie calls him," she said. "Handy's 'Brutus.' Wilcox is 'Stoat.' And Bonner is 'Bear.' " The officer added, "Signing's very metaphoric. 'Lamb' is sometimes used for 'gentle,' for instance. The Deaf often think in poetic terms."
"Does she have any idea where they are in the slaughterhouse?" He asked this of Frances, and Angie said, "Talk to her directly, Arthur. It'll be more reassuring, make her feel more like an adult. And don't forget to smile."
He repeated the question, smiling, to the girl, and Frances translated her response as she pointed to several locations near the front of the big room then touched Handy's and Wilcox's pictures. Tobe moved the Post-Its emblazoned with their names. LeBow typed.
Jocylyn shook her head. She rose and placed them more exactly. She signed some words to Frances, who said, "Bear – Bonner – is in the room with her friends."
Jocylyn put Bear's Post-It in a large semicircular room about twenty-five feet from the front of the slaughterhouse. Tobe placed all the hostage markers in there.
Jocylyn rearranged them too, being very precise.
"That's where everyone is, she says. Exactly."
Potter's eye strayed to Melanie's tab.
Jocylyn wiped tears, then signed.
"She says Bear watches them all the time. Especially the little girls."
Bonner. The rapist.
Potter asked, "Are there any other doorways or windows that aren't on the diagram?"
Jocylyn studied it carefully. Shook her head.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Did you see any guns?"
"They all have guns." The girl pointed to Tobe's hip.
He asked, "What kind were they?"
She frowned and pointed to the agent's hip again.
"I mean, were they like this, or did they have cylinders?" He found himself making a circular gesture with his finger. "Revolvers," he said slowly.
Jocylyn shook her head. Her awkward hands spoke again.
"No, she says they were black automatics. Just like that one." Frances smiled. "She asked why don't you believe her."
"You know what an automatic is?"
"She says she watches TV."
Potter laughed and told LeBow to write down that she'd confirmed they were armed with three Glocks or similar weapons.
Jocylyn volunteered that they had two dozen boxes of bullets.
"Boxes?"
"This big," Frances said, as the girl motioned her hands about six inches apart. "Yellow and green."
"Remington," LeBow said.
"And shotguns. Like that. Three of them." Jocylyn pointed to a shotgun on the rack in the van.
"Any rifles?" Potter pointed to an M-16 resting against the wall.
"No."
"They're pretty damn prepared," Budd muttered.
Potter handed off to Angie, who asked, "Is anybody hurt?"
"No."
"Does Handy – Brutus – talk to anybody in particular? Any of the teachers or girls, I mean?"
"No. Mostly he just looks at us." This brought back some memory and, in turn, more tears.
"You're doing great, honey," Angie said, squeezing the girl's shoulder. "Have you been able to tell what the three men are talking about?"
"No. I'm sorry. I can't lip-read good."
"Is Beverly all right?"
"She can't breathe well. But she's had worse attacks. The worst problem is Mrs. Harstrawn."
"Ask her to explain."
Frances watched her hands and said, "It sounds like she's having a breakdown. She was fine until Susan was shot. All she does now is lie on her back and cry."
Potter thought: They're leaderless. The worst situation. They could panic and run. Unless Melanie has taken over.
"How's Melanie?"
"She just sits and stares. Sometimes closes her eyes." Frances added to Potter, "That's not good. The deaf never close their eyes in a tense situation. Their vision is the only warning system they have."
Angie asked, "Do the men fight among themselves?"
Jocylyn didn't know.
"Do they seem nervous? Happy? Scared? Sad?"
"They're not scared. Sometimes they laugh."
LeBow typed this into his computer.
"Okay," Potter said. "You're a very brave girl. You can go to the hotel now. Your parents will be there soon."
The twelve-year-old wiped her nose on her sleeve but didn't leave. She signed awkwardly.
"Is that all you want to ask me?" Frances translated.
"Yes. You can go."
But the girl signed some more. "She asked, 'Don't you want to know about the TV? And the other stuff?' "
Tobe, LeBow, and Budd turned their heads to Potter.
"They have a TV in there?" he whispered, dismayed. Frances translated and Jocylyn nodded.
"Where did they get it?"
"In the bags with the guns. They brought it in with them. It's a little one."
"Do they have a radio?"
"I didn't see one."
"Do they watch the TV a lot?"
She nodded.
"What other stuff do they have?"
"She says they have some tools. New ones. They're in plastic."
"What kind?"
"Silver ones. Wrenches. Pliers. Screwdrivers. A big shiny hammer."
"Offer her a job, Arthur," Henry LeBow said. "She's better than half our agents."
"Anything else you can think of, Jocylyn?"
Her red fingers moved.
"She misses her mommy."
"One more thing," Potter said. He hesitated. He wanted to ask something more about Melanie. He found he couldn't. Instead he asked, "Is it cold inside?"
"Not too bad."
Potter took the girl's round, damp hand and pressed it between his. "Tell her many thanks, Frances. She did a fine job."
After this message was translated Jocylyn wiped her face and smiled for the first time.
Angie asked Frances to tell the girl that she'd take her to the motel in a minute. Jocylyn went outside to wait with a woman state trooper.
LeBow printed out the list of what the men had inside the slaughterhouse with them. He handed it to Tobe, who pinned it up beside the diagram.
Tobe said, "It's like a computer adventure game. 'You're carrying a key, a magic sword, five stones, and a raven in a cage.' "
Potter sat back in his chair slowly, laughing. He looked at the list. "What do you make of it, Henry? Tools, a TV?"
"Knocked over a store on their way out of the prison?"
Potter asked Budd, "Any reports of a commercial burglary between here and Winfield, Charlie?"
"I'm outta that loop. I'll check." He stepped outside.
"I've never had such good intelligence from a hostage who'd been inside so short a time," Potter said. "Her powers of observation are remarkable."
"God compensates," Frances said.
Potter then asked Angie, "What do you think?"
"She's with us, I'd guess."
Because of the Stockholming process hostages have been known to give false information to negotiators and tactical teams. On one of Potter's negotiations – a weeklong terrorist barricade – a released hostage left a handkerchief in front of the window where Potter was hiding so that the barricaded gunman would know where to shoot. A sniper killed the hostage taker before he could fire. Potter testified on the hostage's behalf at her subsequent trial; she got a suspended sentence.
Potter agreed with Angie's assessment. Jocylyn hadn't been inside long enough to skew her feelings about Handy and the others. She was just a scared little girl.
Angie said, "I'm going to take her to the motel. Make sure she's comfortable. Reassure the other parents."
Henry LeBow called, "Arthur, just got some info on Henderson."
Potter said to Angie as she stepped out the door, "While you're down there, check up on him. He makes me nervous."
"Pete Henderson we're talking, the Wichita SAC?"
"Yep."
"Why?"
"Gut feel." Potter told her about the threat. And added that he was more concerned that Henderson hadn't at first volunteered that he'd interviewed Handy after the S amp;L arson. "It's probably because his boys did a lousy job on the collar, letting the girlfriend get away and ending up with two wounded troopers." The postcollar interrogation too, which Potter now recalled had yielded only unimaginative obscenities on Handy's part. "But he should've told us up front he was involved."
"What do you want me to do?" Angie asked.
Potter shrugged. "Just make sure he's not getting into any trouble."
She offered a gimme-a-break look. Peter Henderson, as Special Agent in Charge of a resident agency, had the rank to get into as much trouble as he liked and it wasn't for underlings like Angie Scapello to do anything about it.
"Try. Please." Potter blew her a kiss.
LeBow handed Potter the printout, explaining with a sneer, "It's only resume-quality data. But there
are
some details I'll bet he wants to keep under wraps."
Potter was intrigued. He read. Henderson had come up through the ranks, working as an investigator in the Chicago Police Department while he went to DePaul Law School at night. After he got his degree he joined the Bureau, excelled at Quantico, and returned to the Midwest, where he made a name for himself in southern Illinois and St. Louis, primarily investigating RICO crimes. He was a good administrator, fit the Feebie mold, and was clearly destined for a SAC job in Chicago or Miami or even the Southern District of New York. After which the career trajectory would have landed him in D.C.
If not for the lawsuit.
Potter read the press accounts and, supplemented by details from memos Henry LeBow had somehow managed to pry from the Bureau databases, he understood why Henderson had been shunted off to Kansas. Six years ago a dozen black agents had sued the Bureau for discrimination in doling out assignments, promotions, and raises. The St. Louis office was one of the targeted federal districts, and Henderson was quick to offer testimony supporting their claim. Too quick, some said. In the anticipated shakeup following the Title VII suit the then-current Bureau director was expected to resign and be replaced by a young deputy director, who would become the first black head of the FBI and who would – Henderson figured – remember those loyal to the cause.
But Henderson's scheming had blown up in his face. The steam went out of the suit as it bogged down in the federal courts. Some plaintiffs dropped out; others simply couldn't prove discrimination. For reasons stemming from ambition, not ideology, the young black deputy director chose to move to the National Security Council. The existing Bureau director simply retired, amid no scandal, and was replaced by the Admiral.