C. Box - Breaking Point

“I’ve got three demands,” Butch said to Batista. “You meet them and McLanahan can go on living. If you screw me around, the sheriff gets popped just like Farkus. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes,” Batista said, his voice hushed this time as if he, too, were stunned by the sudden turn in developments.

“Joe,” Butch said, “I’m trusting you to make sure they follow through. You’ve always been straight with me. Don’t let them fuck me over again, okay?”

“I hear you,” Joe said, feeling a knife of shame being thrust into his heart.

“First,” Butch said, “I want a helicopter sent for me. I’ll give you the coordinates for where it can land. It won’t be around where I am now because the terrain’s too steep and I don’t want to sit here like a target waiting for you to find me. And I don’t want anyone on that helicopter except the pilot and Joe Pickett. I’m going to bring Joe and McLanahan with me for a while. Got that?”

“I’ve got it,” Batista said. “Where do you want to go?”

“Somewhere where you people don’t exist,” Butch said. “I’ll tell the pilot, but not you. Joe, are you okay with that?”

Joe glanced up to see Underwood nodding.

“I’m okay with it,” Joe said.

“Don’t worry-if they screw me, McLanahan will get it first.”

“That’s a relief,” Joe said, deadpan.

Batista said, “It’ll take time to locate a helicopter and send it up there. .”

“Bullshit on that,” Butch said angrily. “If you can send a drone up here, you can send a helicopter. And make sure the pilot knows what he’s doing, because it’ll be a night landing. I won’t wait until the morning.”

“What’s next?” Batista said, his voice dead.

“I want a public apology for what you did to me,” Butch said. “I want you to stand in front of a national press conference and apologize for what you and your agency did to me and my family. People out there have to know what you’re capable of.”

Joe waited for a response from Batista, and each second that went by ratcheted up the tension. He’d lie and say he was working on sending a helicopter, but he wouldn’t lie and agree to a public apology?

“He’ll do it,” Joe said.

“You’ll make sure he does?” Butch asked.

“Yup.”

“So what’s the other demand?” Batista said, his tone still cold.

“Leave my family alone,” Butch said. “Call off your dogs. Don’t harass them anymore. No more fines or sending goons up here. Just leave my wife and daughter alone. If nothing else, they can build Pam’s dream home with my life insurance payment.”

Joe closed his eyes again. Butch had all but admitted that he saw the inevitability of what would happen to him.

“Repeat them back to me,” Butch said to Batista.

Batista sighed, and said, “A helicopter, a public apology, and a dismissal of the compliance order.”

“Good,” Butch said. “You heard that, right, Joe?”

“I heard it.”

“And you’ll swear to me you’ll make sure they do those things?”

“I’ll do my best,” Joe said, feeling the knife twist.

Butch said, “Okay, then. I’ll call with the location of the landing area.”

Batista said with too much force, “Keep your phone on, Mr. Roberson. That way I can keep you updated on the status of the helicopter.”

There was a beat of silence, no response, and Butch’s phone signed off.

But Batista was still on, and he said to Joe, “How dare you say I’ll make a public apology,” he seethed.

“You should,” Joe said. “Do one thing right in this whole mess.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Batista said, dismissing the idea.

Joe said to him, “I guess being a federal bureaucrat means never having to say you’re sorry, huh?”

Batista’s voice rose to a shout. Something about two dead special agents.

“I’m done talking to him,” Joe said to Underwood, handing the phone back. Batista was still shouting.

Underwood held the phone out away from him without raising it to his ear. Joe turned Toby away and walked him into the standing dead trees as if trying to erect a wall between him and Underwood.

After a few moments, Joe watched Underwood raise the handset and say stonily, “So, boss, what’s the plan?”

Underwood listened and nodded, grunting several assents before punching off.

After clipping the phone to his belt, he turned to his team and nodded toward the top of the summit and said, “Let’s get moving.”

“What about the helicopter?” Joe said. “Shouldn’t I head down to the FOB to meet it?”

Underwood scoffed, “What do you think?”

Joe let that sink in.

“How long does Butch have?” Joe asked Underwood.

“Not long,” Underwood said, casting an inadvertent but telling look toward the sky.

“What is it with Batista?” Joe asked.

Underwood shrugged and turned away.

“Joe Pickett said to tell you he thinks you’re A moron,” Butch Roberson said to McLanahan.

McLanahan grunted, “Fuck him,” but Farkus couldn’t actually hear it. A few minutes earlier, when he saw Roberson’s finger tighten on the trigger, he’d closed his eyes and hadn’t seen the muzzle of the rifle swing to the right a foot from his forehead. The shot was like a punch in the air followed by extreme silence, and it took a moment for Farkus to realize he wasn’t dead. The hearing was gone in his right ear, though, and he’d pissed himself. When he opened his eyes, Butch had said into the handset, “That was Farkus” ; Farkus had to lip-read to understand.

He missed the rest of the conversation as well in the vacuum of white noise caused by the shot, and he thanked God he wasn’t dead, because for a second there he was sure he was going to be.

The hearing in Farkus’s ear improved to a low hum as Butch signed off, got up, and powered down the satellite phone. Butch looked distressed as he did so, and his movements were angry. He heard McLanahan say something about letting him go-that Butch could keep Farkus as his lone hostage-and maybe some of the heat would go off once they knew he’d released the ex-sheriff of Twelve Sleep County.

Suddenly, Butch said to Sollis, “Get up.”

Farkus realized why Butch had said he had two hostages, not three. Because he’d planned all along to get rid of Sollis.

“What?” Sollis sputtered.

“Get out of here. Start walking and don’t look back.”

“But you ran off our horses! I don’t have food or water. . I’m not even sure I know how to get back.”

Butch dug a crumpled daypack out of his gear and filled it with spare clothing he’d kept from the pannier as well as a half-full canteen of water and a fold-up shovel.

“You can take this,” Butch said.

“But not my rifle?”

“Are you kidding me?”

While Sollis pleaded with his eyes for intervention by McLanahan, Farkus watched Butch unbuckle the shoulder straps of the daypack and weave them under Sollis’s armpits before securing them again. He roughly cinched the ties on the pack and fiddled with a side pocket. Farkus thought he saw Butch slide something into the pocket, but he wasn’t sure what it was. He hoped it wasn’t something good to eat. Farkus was hungry, and didn’t care if Sollis starved to death out there.

Butch shrugged and said, “Go.” He prodded Sollis with the rifle and spun him around.

“I might die out there,” Sollis said over his shoulder. There were tears in his eyes. He held out his banded wrists. “Aren’t you gonna cut me loose? I can’t even get to that pack this way.”

“You’ll figure something out,” Butch said. “At least out there you’ve got a chance. If you stay here around me, I’ll keep thinking about what you did to that poor hunter, I’ll put an end to your miserable life.”