Authors: J.D. Rhoades
“Let me talk to her,” Sanderson said. There was a brief murmur of voices on the other end, as if Keller was having a conversation with someone in the room. “She says to tell you someone will be there soon to tell you what to do.”
Sanderson took a handkerchief out of his suit jacket and wiped the sweat from his brow. “Okay, Keller,” he said. “Is she holding a weapon on you?”
“No,” Keller said. “I came in with a shotgun, but if I’d used it, her gun would probably have gone off. She has it secured to the back of his head with duct tape. The other end’s taped to her hand.”
“Okay, Keller,” Sanderson said. “Just sit tight. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“You either, Sanderson,” Keller said. He hung up.
Cassidey came jogging up. “HRT’s been scrambled,” she said. “They’re on a plane out of Quantico. And I got hold of Clancy.”
“What did he say?”
“He’s on his way down from Fayetteville. He says he’ll be here in about an hour and a half. He’ll take over then. He said to just secure the perimeter and sit tight. Don’t do anything.”
Good, Sanderson thought. Clancy was the ranking agent. He’d know what to do. And HRT—the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team—was the best. All he had to do was maintain control for an hour and a half. That he knew he could do.
A uniformed officer walked up. “Agent Sanderson?” he said. Sanderson nodded and put out his hand. The uniformed officer shook it. “I’m Sergeant Dockery,” he said.
“Thanks for your help, Sergeant,” Sanderson said.
“Sir,” Dockery said. “Our Emergency Response Team is already here. If we move fast…”
“No,” Sanderson said. “HRT’s on the way down from Quantico. We don’t move ‘til then.”
“Sir,” Dockery argued, “we have as much—”
“I already checked on what you have, Sergeant,” Sanderson snapped. “You have a group of officers from other units pulled off other duties to train a few times a year. Your SOP manual’s in the middle of being rewritten, so you don’t really have an SOP. Thanks, Sergeant, but no thanks. Just hold the perimeter until our people get here.”
Dockery clenched his jaw. He turned and walked off.
“You certainly do have a way with the locals, Mark,” Cassidey said. “Calling in HRT for a single barricaded subject’s kind of like swatting flies with a howitzer, isn’t it?”
“Cassidey,” Sanderson said, “if you don’t have anything useful to offer …”
“I do, actually,” she said. “I got one of the local uniforms to roust the head of the architectural committee out of bed.”
“Architectural committee?”
Cassidey gestured at the house. “They’re not going to let you build just anything in a place like this. They have a committee to make sure ‘standards’ are maintained. Anyone who wants to build a house here has to give the committee a copy of the blueprints. And they keep them on file.” She looked smug. “You’ll have a copy of the total layout of the place within the next half hour. Right down to the air-conditioning ducts.”
“Good,” Sanderson said. He turned his attention back to the house.
“Well, don’t everyone thank me at once,” Cassidey muttered. The roar of helicopter rotors split the air. All around, officers glanced up. A white and red chopper flashed overhead, low enough that everyone instinctively flinched down, away from the noise. Sanderson saw the decal on the side reading NEWS 10 SKYWATCH.
“Damn it,” Sanderson yelled. “Somebody get hold of that station! Tell them to get that fucking chopper out of here!”
One of the uniforms walked up. He was holding out a cell phone. “It’s for you,” he said. “Patched through from the station.”
“Who is it?” Sanderson asked. “Says her name is Tranh,” the uniform said. He gestured toward the helicopter, which was making a lazy turn above the trees. “She says she’s in that chopper.”
“I haven’t got time to make a statement to the fucking press,” Sanderson snapped. He started to turn away.
The uniformed cop didn’t lower the cell phone. “She said she’s got info on the girl inside. Says she has a list of her demands.”
Sanderson felt control slipping away.
“If we get permission,” Grace yelled to the pilot over the rotor noise, “can you put us down on that golf course?”
“Are you out of your mind?” the pilot yelled back. “It’s like a goddamn war zone down there!”
She looked down. He was right. Everywhere she looked she saw armed men. They surrounded the front door of the house in a semicircle, crouched behind their vehicles. She saw others positioned in a stand of trees across the golf course from the back of the house.
“The cops won’t shoot if we get the okay,” Grace said. “And I know the girl won’t shoot. She needs us. Don’t be such a damn pansy!”
“I’d have to put it down on the green,” the pilot said. “Everything else is too uneven.”
Grace slapped him on the shoulder. She looked over at Wayne. He was checking the battery pack on his camera. He gave her a quick thumbs-up. Grace raised the cell phone back to her ear. “Yes! I’m here!”
“This is Special Agent Sanderson, FBI,” a voice said. “What the hell are you doing, lady?”
“Laurel Marks called me this morning,” Grace said. “She gave me a list…”
“Wait a minute,” Sanderson said. “You knew this was going to happen?”
“No,” Grace said. “She didn’t tell me exactly what she was going to do or when. She said I’d know where to go when the time came. But she said if I didn’t follow her instructions exactly, people were going to die.”
There was a brief pause. Then, “What are the demands?”
“That was one of her instructions,” she said. “I have to deliver them in person. To whoever’s in charge on the scene. Is that you?”
The reply sounded very tired. “Yeah,” Sanderson said. “Yeah, that’s me.”
“I need to land the helicopter,” she said. “Can we set down on the golf course behind the house?”
“I don’t know,” Sanderson said. “That’ll tear up the course pretty bad. I don’t know if I can authorize …”
“Agent Sanderson,” Grace said. “If I don’t get this list to you, in person, that girl in there’s liable to kill someone. Are you authorized to let that happen?”
Another, longer pause. “Okay,” Sanderson said. “But hang on. I have to let the people inside know what’s going on.”
“I’ll wait,” Grace said.
Laurel heard the throbbing pulse of the helicopter getting louder and louder. She smiled. And there they are. The sound kept increasing. Jesus, they’re low, Laurel thought. She felt a moment of apprehension. Maybe it’s not the TV people, she thought. Maybe it’s the cops, maybe they ‘re getting ready to … The noise filled the room, drowning out everything else, blotting out thought. She instinctively looked up. She noticed movement in her peripheral vision and snapped her eyes back down.
Keller was standing up. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling, on the source of the noise. Something was wrong with him. He was shaking all over. His hands were clenching and unclenching at his sides.
“SIT YOUR ASS DOWN!” she screamed at him. She snatched the shotgun she had taken from him up off the couch. She pointed it at him, clumsily holding the short weapon out in front of her with her left hand. “I’LL SHOOT YOU!” she yelled.
The sound of the rotors was diminishing. Keller looked away from the ceiling and down at Laurel. The look in his eyes made her flinch. They were totally flat, dead, like the eyes of a zombie.
“I’ll shoot you,” she said again. “I will.”
“Go ahead,” Keller said, and started toward her. The phone started ringing. Keller ignored it.
Sanderson listened to the phone ringing. “Shit,” he said out loud. “Shit. Shit. Shit. Answer the phone. Answer the phone.”
Cassidey looked alarmed. “What’s wrong?”
“They won’t answer,” Sanderson said. His voice was tight with panic. “Something’s wrong. Get that guy Dockery back. Tell him to get ready to rush the house.”
“But you said … there’s no time to get organized …”
“Do it, Cassidey!” Sanderson yelled. She turned and ran toward one of the parked police cars.
Keller looked down the barrel of the shotgun. The sharp-edged thudding of the helicopter above had gone away, but the echoes were still beating inside his head. The room began to strobe wildly in his vision, images flashing like a television being channel-surfed at high speed by a madman, all the channels broadcasting from Hell.
Choppers over the desert, low and fast… squat, malevolent, ugly, weapons hanging off the sides like the stingers of giant insects … pointed at him … Bodies tumbled like broken dolls, missing heads, limbs… A flash of light out of the black desert sky, the Bradley exploding a few feet away … Men screaming, burning… his own voice screaming, the taste of sand in his mouth …
There was screaming inside, too, Ellen Marks’s voice pleading, the boy on the floor wailing in fear, drowning out the shrill ringing of the phone.
He saw the gun waver. Do it, he thought. Pull the fucking trigger…
The gun moved aside then. Keller stopped, feeling the disappointment go through him like a blade. Laurel pointed the shotgun at the bound figure of her mother in the chair.
“Okay,” she said shakily. “I get it. You want to die that bad.” She laughed. “But you take one more step and they both die. And you don’t. And probably all those cops come bustin’ in when they hear the shot. So what does that get you, Mister Jack Keller?”
Keller’s hands dropped to his sides. His shoulders slumped. Laurel audibly let out the breath she had been holding. “Get the phone,” she said. Keller walked over and picked it up. “Yeah?” he whispered.
“Keller?” Sanderson said. “Keller, where the hell have you been? What’s going on in there?”
“Nothing,” Keller said. He sounded like he’d been drugged. “Everyone’s still here.”
“Look, tell the girl. The reporter she called is here. She’s in that helicopter you’ve probably heard overhead.”
“Yeah,” Keller said. “I heard it.” There was a pause, then Keller said something strange. “I don’t like helicopters.”
“What?” Sanderson said. “Look, Keller, I don’t really give a shit if you don’t like helicopters. Just tell the girl the chopper will be landing on the grass outside the house. The reporter will be coming to me. Tell her not to get too excited or upset. Everything’s fine. Got that?”
“Yeah,” Keller said. “Everything’s fine.”
“Keller, are you …” The line went dead.
“Yes!” Grace yelled. She pumped her fist and grinned at the pilot. “Put it down.”
He shook his head. “You people are not paying me enough for this shit,” he muttered, but he turned the helicopter toward a landing.
“When Wayne and I get out, take off again. Give the station a high shot. Be ready to go live.” The pilot nodded.
Luckily, someone had thought to pull the flag out of the hole. Fine white sand from the hazards around the green blew up in a cloud as the chopper settled onto the flat, bright green surface. As Grace and Wayne exited the chopper, four black-uniformed cops trooped up. They were dressed in body armor and carried stubby automatic rifles across their shoulders. They wore bandoliers festooned with some kind of grenades across their chests. As the helicopter lifted off, they flanked Grace and Wayne, leading them around the building to the semicircle of police vehicles surrounding the house. A tall, dark-haired man in a suit was waiting.
“Miss Tranh?” he said. She nodded. “I’m Special Agent Sanderson.” He looked at Wayne. “I’m sorry, but no cameras.”
“Agent Sanderson,” Grace said. “I’m afraid that one of the demands is that I be able to broadcast.”
Sanderson looked like he was grinding his teeth. “Are we on the air now?”
Grace shook her head. “We’ll let you know. And that red light on the end of the camera, over the lens,” Wayne pointed to the tiny LED, “will go on.”
“I knew that part,” Sanderson said. “So what have you got?”
“Well, for starters,” Grace said, “I’m supposed to give you this.” She reached into the equipment bag and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. She handed it to Sanderson.
“What is it?” he said, beginning to unfold it.
“It was e-mailed to me this morning. You remember these people had gotten hold of one of those camera phones. This was apparently taken from inside the house.”
A slender blonde female agent had come up and was looking over Sanderson’s shoulder. “Whoa,” she said.
Grace nodded. “Whoa is right.” She didn’t need to look at the photo again. She didn’t think she would ever be able to forget it. The subject of the photograph, a boy of about nineteen or twenty, had apparently been made to hold the camera himself off to one side, so the picture clearly showed the shotgun taped to the back of his head. The picture was blurry, as if the boy’s hands had been shaking.
“She wanted you to know,” Grace said. “There’s no way for her to miss.”
“Yeah,” the blonde said. “Even if a sniper gets a cortex shot, she could jerk the trigger as she falls.”
“Yeah, okay,” Sanderson said. “So we know she’s serious. What does she want?”
Grace unfolded another sheet of paper. “The Cumberland County Sheriff’s most likely took in a bunch of loose-leaf notebooks from the scene where Roy Randle and those two cops were shot. There were fifteen notebooks in all. She wants you to give me number fifteen.”