Чак Хоган - The Standoff

Banish spoke after a moment. “No,” he said, nodding slowly. “You’re ATF’s whore.” He looked to the agent. “Give him one hundred dollars, grill the other one for an hour, then let them both go.”

Banish waited for more abuse. The informant expelled an empty breath of protest, then looked off to the side. His face showed hard-bitten dismay, lips moving in near silence as he swore bitterly to himself. Then he crossed his marked arms on the table. He lay his head down on top.

Banish wondered then why he had allowed it to get so ugly. He looked once more at the man with his head down on the table, then turned and went out past Perkins into the cool daylight of the clearing.

When he entered his office, Coyle was standing behind his desk looking through some papers. She sensed someone entering and stepped back too sharply, then saw that it was Banish. Her face went from shock to embarrassment to guilt.

“What are you doing?” Banish said, advancing.

She gestured at the desk. “It was open,” she said. Then, reining in her nerve, she offered confusion as an excuse for her interest. “A poem,” she said.

It ripped through him. He had left his notebook open on top of his desk.

“Not a poem,” he said, taking a step forward. “An exercise. Focuses the mind.”

He heard himself being defensive, and felt her respond. “ ‘The Hornet’s Nest,’ ” she said. “It’s about this, isn’t it?” Then within the framework of her shortcut hair, her face — worn dry from days of mountain living — relaxed its fatigue for a fleeting blush of discovery. “The words,” she said, “the images—”

Banish stood fast. “You came in here for something?”

She sputtered. “Seattle special detail releases. And small equipment consignments.”

“Did you find them?”

There were two sheets of paper in her hand. She looked up and examined Banish’s face from across the room, then her eyes fell. She started the long walk out of his office. She went past him without looking up and exited through the canvas flap.

Sheriff Blood almost walked into her, entering with a stack of newspapers under his arm. He tipped his hat to her back as she left. Banish crossed to his desk before Blood could and closed the notebook and went about straightening up some other items. He had hoped to avoid Blood that day. He did not want to be made to discuss the previous night.

Blood set the papers down on the desk. “You saw the briefing?” he said. Banish gave a half nod. “It’s getting pretty unfriendly down there.”

Banish said, “I would prefer specifics.”

“Well, you killed a twelve-year-old girl over nothing. That’s what they’re saying. You, meaning everybody up here. You killed her to get back at Ables, and now you’re going to pick off his family one by one until you get to him. Or until the protesters can get to you.”

Banish expected as much. “Just talk?”

Blood shrugged. He was back on his heels. “Two calls I got on my car radio this morning,” he said. “The proprietor of Huddleston Sporting Goods called to let me know by manner of curiosity that he had sold out, within one hour of opening this morning, of batteries, flashlights, camping and hunting equipment, and other such supplies. All gone.”

“Sold them to Truth members,” Banish said.

Blood’s eyebrows arched. “And some locals too. He’ll sell to anybody who’s buying, of course, that’s his business. But he thought enough about it to let me know. Then after that I get a call from the bank manager over at the Huddleston Dime. Two men went in there first thing this morning and put in a change order for fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of pennies and nickels.”

“Two men?”

“Two bald men,” said Blood. “They left cash for it. More than that, though, he said people were lining up at his tellers, regular residents, pulling out all their money. Even cashing in IRAs and taking twenty percent penalties. They want it now and they want it in cash.”

Banish looked at him. “Meaning?”

“I was hoping you’d know. What comes to my mind is survivalist activity — we’ve seen some of that around here before. Comes in waves. End of world type thing. But why the urgency, I can’t say. Could be some people took the death of the girl as a sort of sign.”

“But the protesters below,” Banish said. “They’re stable.”

“Stable because they’re still unorganized, each with their particular gripes and views. But if that mob ever pulled itself together,” Blood said, shaking his head, “those folks could just about overrun this place. And if it comes to that, I’d say the tree cover is in their favor. Don’t you want to push them back any farther?”

“Too far along for that. It would only raise more suspicion. We can control them where they are.”

“Can’t control everything,” Blood said, picking up a thin, brightly colored, half-sized newspaper off the top of the stack on the desk. “Even these tabloids have taken it up. ‘Mystery Mountaineer Foils FBI Arrest Plot,’ ” he read. “They’ve taken to calling him ‘Grizzly Ables.’ Here, there’s even a UFO angle.”

Banish busied himself.

“I don’t know,” Blood continued, opening to a page. “Folks around here tend to take these things pretty seriously. If it’s printed in a newspaper, then they accept it as the truth. You do wonder where these reporters get their sources, though.” He started to read some of it. “ ‘On the other side of the confrontation tearing this family apart, observers are now questioning why federal officials have put responsibility for the standoff — now estimated to be one of the largest non disaster relief law enforcement undertakings ever witnessed on American soil — in the hands of a mysterious federal agent with a record of criminal violence himself.’ ”

Banish stopped and stiffened. His chest went cold. His eyes fell and came to stare at a fixed point of nothingness as Blood continued. “ ‘Veteran FBI agent John T. Banish was fined $1200 in February 1991 for being drunk and disorderly aboard a Washington, D.C.-to-New York flight on Thanksgiving Day, 1990. Through a plea bargaining agreement, more serious charges of assault and making terroristic threats were dropped. “He went berserk,” reported an unidentified steward who was on that flight. “He hit me and gave me a black eye when I refused to serve him more alcohol. He was very drunk, waving his badge around.”

“ ‘Banish was also the agent in charge of the World Financial Center hostage-taking in which three people died.

“ ‘New York District Court records show dual restraining orders filed against Banish in December 1990 by his wife and daughter, who have renewed those orders every ninety days since then and remain estranged from him to this day. “He’s sick,” said a person close to the family. “John is very dangerous.” ’ ”

Blood stopped reading. He closed the paper.

Banish remained still. Regret tugged at the muscles of his face and he straightened as much as he could and slipped one stiff hand inside his pants pocket.

“Very well,” he said.

Blood set the tabloid down. This was his payback for the previous night, to watch Banish slowly twist.

It was as though Banish had heard his own obituary read to him. He saw that this was how he was to be remembered. This was the sum total of his life. Flames of regret burned in his gut, but not new flames. They were a raging, ceaseless thing that even the satisfying of his immense thirst never did quite douse.

“Very well,” he said again.

Blood said, “Something happened to you in the woods last night.”

Banish nodded. “Fine,” he said.