Stephen Hunter - Soft target

“We don’t have enough men,” he continued. “We don’t have the equipment to blow the doors simultaneously until the National Guard engineers get here. Any assault will create a bloodbath. It’s much better to cooperate and get this thing over. I cannot in good conscience go any other way.”

“Sir, we have got to be in some kind of posture where we can operate quickly if-”

“I don’t know what is taking them so long to make up their minds, but I am now officially recommending that the terrorists’ terms be met, that those Somali prisoners be removed to the airport and sent to Yemen. Let’s get this thing over, let’s get those hostages out. It’s the only way I can morally proceed. It’s important to keep our moral guidelines intact.”

“Yes sir,” said Kemp.

“Now please, return to your investigation. That’s very important and I’m trusting you implicitly on it.” He tried to sound utterly calm and serene.

Kemp muttered and ran off.

“You handled that well,” whispered Renfro.

“Thanks,” said Obobo, slightly more upset than he cared to reveal. These macho people always wanted to shoot. That was the problem with law enforcement-too many shooters, too many bigots, too many old John Waynes who reveled, even if they weren’t honest enough to articulate it, in the license for violence, had some sort of pornographic obsession with the guns. The last thing he needed was gunslingers screwing things up. Kemp, Jefferson, the same kind of But then he had a moment of mortal fear.

Where was Jefferson?

“Where is Major Jefferson?” he barked beyond the hovering Renfro to Major Carmody.

“I haven’t seen him in-”

He was getting himself gunned up, the colonel just knew it.

“Get me Jefferson,” he said to his commo guy.

Again, no one noticed Mr. and Mrs. Girardi. The people at the press tent lounged around, separated by an impregnable line of yellow tape from the state police Command van a hundred feet or so back, and next to it, the smaller FBI van.

But parked here, at the jerry-built tent where soft drinks and coffee urns had been placed, men and women simply stood and talked, or talked over cell phones. The cameramen, who had to lug the heavy equipment with them, took advantage of the lull to park themselves on the many folding chairs that had been set up for a canteen before the site had been turned into a chaotic press tent by the reporters.

Finally, a man in a suit came over to them. He seemed not to be a reporter, for he didn’t have that sort of scruffy look that most of the reporters affected, and he didn’t have a notebook or a cell phone in his hand.

“May I help you?” he said. “I’m David Jasper, corporal, Minnesota State Police. I’m Mr. Renfro’s assistant. I’m in charge of this facility. Do you have press credentials? You have to have press credentials to be admitted to this area.”

“We’re the Girardis,” said Mr. Girardi. “I don’t know anything about credentials. Nobody asked us for credentials.”

“Well, the officer must have been otherwise occupied. It’s a very tense situation.”

“We’re here about Jimmy.”

“I’m sorry?” he said, as he tried to gently herd them away from the reporters.

“Our son Jimmy. He’s fourteen but small for his age. Today was the first time I let him go to the mall by himself.”

“He hasn’t called?”

“No, sir.”

“Folks, you have to know, it’s a mess in there. It’s total chaos, and nobody’s quite sure what’s happening.”

“We thought you might have a list or something. Of casualties. Maybe he was hurt, maybe he was sent to a hospital.”

“Have you tried the Red Cross?”

“They were the ones who said come over here.”

“Oh, I see, the runaround. Well, I’m sympathetic, but lots of people are in your situation. It’s going to be days before all this is sorted out. Best advice is simply go home and wait for notification. Maybe Jimmy will-”

Suddenly there was a spontaneous whoop from a group of reporters, and at that moment, several broke and rushed to the young corporal, pushing the Girardis aside.

“WUFF is on air saying there’s an agreement, why the hell don’t we have that?”

“Where’s Obobo? We need a confirmation!”

“Okay, okay,” said Corporal Jasper, “let me check.” He turned from the Girardis to grab his own cell phone, and the two watched as the circus moved elsewhere.

The phone rang in Nikki’s hand three thousand feet above the mall in the WUSScopter, and she saw that it was Mrs. Birkowsky, the hiding clerk’s mother.

She punched answer immediately.

“Mrs. Birkowsky?”

“Ms. Swagger, I just got what I think is good news from my daughter.”

Nikki did a little jump in her copilot’s seat, and the sparkly horizon on the plains above Indian Falls seemed to leap with her. Was this thing going to end happily? Could it?

“Please, share with me,” she asked.

“Amanda says the gunmen are all jumping happily and some have shot their guns off in jubilation, she thinks.”

“What could that mean?” asked Nikki.

“Whatever their demands are, I’d guess, the government has just agreed to them. It means that the hostages will be released soon.”

“Yes ma’am,” Nikki said. “Is that all Amanda said?”

“Well, she said there was also a kind of roar from the crowd, she called it a happy roar, a roar of excitement. I’m going to see my little girl again soon. I just had to share it.”

“Mrs. Birkowsky, I’m very happy for you. But please tell Amanda not to come out of hiding until after the police authorities have taken over. With people like this, you never know.”

“Yes, yes, of course, but isn’t it wonderful?”

“It’s fabulous,” said Nikki.

She switched to Marty at the station.

“Okay, is anything going on?”

“What do you mean?” he asked. “I mean from our ground people. Has there been a newsbreak? Is there a new presser scheduled? Are there any signs, say, of buses moving up or ambulances getting into position or even the armed men drawing back?”

“Not a thing. It’s still a holding situation.”

“What about gunfire from within the mall?”

“No reports. Nothing, all quiet on the western front. What is this all about?”

“I have a report from inside the mall that the gunmen are celebrating, shooting off their guns in jubilation, and that the hostages are suddenly, I don’t know, happy, or relieved.”

“Is it enough to go live?”

“It sure sounds like the state has met their demands.”

“I don’t know, Nik.”

“Well-wait, wait, I’m seeing buses beginning to feed in.”

“Okay, that’s it, let’s go with it now, on air.”

“You got it.”

Jim the cameraman leaned in, supporting himself in the bulwark, turning his camera light on. She heard her vocal wired into the main feed, heard the ridiculous dit-dot-dash bullshit intro music, and heard Phil Reston’s syrupy, staff-announcer voice say, “Breaking news from WUFFnews, the WUFFcopter, over America, the Mall, where terrorists are holding a thousand hostages as the Crisis at America, the Mall, goes into its fourth terrifying hour. Here is Nikki Swagger, WUFFnews.”

“WUFFnews has just learned that inside the mall, gunmen have fired weapons skyward in jubilation and that hostages themselves are relieved and excited. Some believe these factors indicate that the state government has agreed to terrorist demands, as yet unspecified, and that the terrible crisis might reach a peaceful conclusion, and that freedom for the hostages might be imminent.”

Though she couldn’t see him, she knew that the shot had cut to the anchorman, who now said in his best Ted Baxter profundo, “Nikki, can you confirm a timetable for this terrific news?”