Чак Хоган - The Standoff

“Watson,” said Ables.

“Still here,” said Banish.

“You tell me this, then,” he said. “Sons of bitches” — a hissed aside. “You tell me what would happen to my family... if surrendered.”

Banish looked up from the console. Next to him, the sound man’s face broadened into a wide, winning smile.

The meeting took place by the glass-wall diagram inside the command tent around nine in the morning that day, whatever day it was. Brian was working the phone lines as well as doing twenty different other things, menial things, messengering papers around and such, because he was the grunt, no different there than at the police station. But he was paying as much attention to the meeting as he could. The fact that it was being held out in the tent and not inside Agent Banish’s office showed that things must have been going pretty well. Brian could feel it also in the rush of the agents, who were attuned to the morale of the place the way fish are to river currents. They carried more of a sureness of voice now, a clearer purpose in their ways, a sharper stride.

He hadn’t known what he was getting into. He did as much work as anyone else in the command tent, though on a lower level, and got no more sleep than anyone else did. They were all run ragged and operated at such a high pitch that Brian saw you either joined in right off or got trampled underfoot. Luckily he had landed running. This was the inside lane here. He would go hurrying across the clearing for something or other to do with his new assignment and see someone sitting around near the kitchens or the trailers and wonder how they found the nerve to do that here. Why everyone wasn’t moving as fast as he was, spinning, spinning. Brian’s main responsibility was the outside phone lines, so he kept trying to find a slow moment to sneak out a call to Leslie, but he couldn’t. There were none. It never did stop.

First, Agent Banish played the tape of the negotiations for Marshal Fagin, Agent Perkins, Agent Coyle, the Hostage Rescue agents, and whoever else was there. Brian missed most of it.

“Reiterate the order,” Agent Banish said afterward. “The children are to be given wide berth. Do not fire. If any doors open, it may be them coming out. Let whatever’s going to happen, happen.”

These words seemed to be directed mainly toward the Hostage Rescue agents. Brian had helped coordinate the reassignment of trailer space to accommodate them following their arrival.

“Perkins,” Agent Banish said, “form an arrest party and have them ready to take Ables into custody. I’ll script a press release saying we have begun negotiations and anticipate a break soon.”

Naturally, it was Marshal Fagin — who, the scuttlebutt said, would be eased out of his duties on the mountain now that the Hostage Rescue Team had arrived who disagreed.

“Bullshit,” he said. “He’ll never surrender.”

Agent Banish looked at Marshal Fagin, the grayed burn darkening half of his face. “I’m going to break him,” he said confidently.

Marshal Fagin said, “I know this fuck. He’s a scrapper, a back-stabbing son of a bitch. Look what he’s tried already. He won’t go down without a fight. This fucker hates to lose.”

From the way Agent Banish was looking at Marshal Fagin and clearly weighing what he had just said, Brian could tell that the watercooler talk around there was just about as accurate as it was back at the station house. Even in Brian’s distracted state, it was plain to him that Marshal Fagin would be remaining at the front lines. He was one of the few people Agent Banish seemed to listen to. As opposed to Agent Perkins, who had a knack for discovering the obvious. The command tent agents respected him about as much as they would a substitute teacher.

Agent Banish said, “It doesn’t fit his profile — all right. But we’ve got him. We’re three hundred beekeepers in charge of one bee. There is no way he can escape, even if he thinks he can. So let him toss and turn. Let him scheme himself out. I’m inside his house now and inside his head.”

Banish was sick of sour coffee, but that morning’s supply of fruit juice was already gone. He took the coffee black and turned to find Fagin approaching.

“I’ll say this only once,” Fagin said, standing close when they were alone. “We know where the phone is. We know when Ables is on the line. I don’t give a fuck who gets the call, me or HRT. Head shot through the window. Clean. Bang in behind stun grenades, flash entry. The whole thing, I can give you twenty seconds, in and out.”

Banish shook it off. He had already considered similar scenarios. “If you could guarantee me — guarantee — safe harbor for the wife and Mrs. Mellis and the kids, then I might be convinced to roll Ables. But you can’t, so I won’t. Besides, there’s no need now. He will come out. The question is when.”

Fagin’s steady eyes were brought out by his hard-set, deeply brown face. “Your choice,” he said sternly.

Then Fagin got that distant look again, receiving something through his ear wire. His eyes righted themselves and he glanced around, his face showing that the news was nothing important. “Here comes Tonto,” he said.

Sheriff Blood was drifting over in his laconic way, not looking at either Banish or Fagin but crossing directly toward them regardless.

“Sort of a happening going on down below,” Blood said to Banish when he reached them. “Something I thought I’d make you aware of if you don’t already know.”

“What?” Banish said.

“Kind of an event in these parts. The state troopers got called away on special detail.”

Banish looked at him. “What detail could take precedence over this?”

“Well,” Blood said. Banish could see then that the Indian was, strangely, embarrassed. “Over in Little Elk tonight.” He nodded then and came right out with it: “There’s to be a miracle, they say.”

Banish could feel Fagin turning and jumped in ahead of him. “What kind of miracle?” he said.

Blood nodded. “The religious kind.”

Fagin said, “Here we go.”

Blood said, “Jesus Christ, or Yashua if you prefer, is set to reveal Himself over at a church in Little Elk around midnight tonight. They’re expecting upward of twenty thousand. Word gets out on a thing like this, people come in from all parts. The troopers needed to keep the highways moving.”

Banish regarded the Indian. “Twenty thousand people,” he said.

Blood nodded. “Upward of.”

Banish was silent a moment. Fagin studied the both of them. “There’s this thing,” Fagin said, “on the planet where I’m from, called television. It’s what most people do at night. Keeps them pretty fucking quiet, usually.”

Banish said to Blood, “You’re telling me that all those people down there, the entire protest, has evaporated. Just like that.”

“It’s down to about thirty.” Blood nodded. “Markers, more or less, for the hundreds they represent. Quiet down there now, kind of peaceful.”

Fagin looked at both of them. “This is fucking retarded,” he said. He strode off.

Blood turned more fully toward Banish then. “How did you know about those unattended deaths?”

Banish looked at him.

“That first day,” said Blood. “You figured that most of them were Indians.”

Banish watched the sheriff’s eyes. “Indians are the only minority up here.”

“What does that imply?”

“That you believe the deaths are related.”

Blood stood fast, looking at Banish, his eyes brighter. “Four of those six were hit-and-runs,” he said.

“Which Police Chief Moody dismisses as drunken Indians. Which is why you called the FBI in here so fast. You think you might need some help.”