Чак Хоган - The Standoff

He got up. The noise outside the tent was tremendous now, but first he went around picking up different phones in the tent. All dead. The lines had gone down.

Brian went to the door flap and stepped outside to look, and it was incredible what he saw. Not a celebration. A revolution. The mob of protesters charging through the staging area, hundreds of them, a thousand, up from the mouth of the road and across the clearing like a civilian army. They were out of control. Brian saw people he knew, neighbors of his, racing for the road, yelling and pushing on each other, fists in the air, legs working frantically. He saw a few agents attempt to get in and stop the crowd but it was useless. Like rocks in the river. The dam had already been broken. Then trucks appeared behind the mob, TV trucks, like pistons driving the marauders into the clearing and across to storm up the road. It was a swarm. A whole mass of frenzied people moving as one. As the trucks rolled past the tents and onto the new road, Brian lit out fast from where he was, running after them. It was already a full blown riot. He feared a massacre.

Watching the crate slide back in the dark corner, and hearing the commotion going on up at the cabin and in his ear, Taber needed all his patience to remain quietly where he was. The dirt top came up and off and smoke puffed out of the tunnel hole as a woman came out coughing violently, recognizable as Michelle Mellis. She had a gun in her right hand.

Before she could step forward, Taber said authoritatively from behind the old sit-down lawnmower, “Hold it.”

Porter, at the barn entrance, echoed him. “U.S. Marshals Service.”

Mrs. Mellis’s shirt and sweatpants were streaked with dirt. Smoke drifted up around her. She stopped where she was but did not immediately lower the gun.

“Your choice,” said Taber.

Another moment of weighing her options. “Damn,” she said then, tersely, hacking dryly into a dirty fist and tossing the gun aside.

“Hands above your head,” Porter commanded.

Taber stood and advanced with his gun aimed, moving in behind her with handcuffs. “Who killed your husband, Mrs. Mellis?” he said.

Mrs. Mellis stifled her coughing. She looked away from Taber as the bracelets clicked around her wrists. “I want a lawyer,” she said.

A crash behind Banish as part of the roof collapsed and sparks shot out into the open land behind the burning cabin. There were flashlight beams in the trees. Marshals or agents moving along the outlying grounds. Banish quickly scanned the area. He was in the zone directly behind the cabin, beyond what the spotters in the no-man’s-land could see.

There were three small shacks and the outhouse between the cabin and the cliffs. The nearest was a skeletal frame of rafters and beams, only half-constructed. He went to the one in the middle ground, made of wafer board and flathead nails, with a box window facing the cabin and a four-foot latch-handle door on the right side. The door was closed.

Banish went to it. He stood and listened over his own harsh breathing for movement inside, then lightly tugged up on the door latch. It lifted and the door fell open a few inches. No noise. He pushed it open wider and stepped inside.

There was sudden, jerking movement from within and he stopped fast. Orange flame light slanted in through the box window. He saw one young Ables girl, then another, seated side by side on the floor, in the shadows between the wooden end-legs of a broad workbench and the far-left wall. The older one, Ruth, was sitting with her arms hugged around her knees, frightened, staring up at him. The five-year-old, Esther, had one arm tangled up inside her sister’s. Her other arm hugged what appeared to be a Bible. Esther began immediately to cry. Both skinny girls wore T-shirts and soiled skirts and sandals. Both wore leather holsters. Small-caliber guns hung in each.

Banish was so gratified to see them alive that at first he could think of nothing to say. He took another slow step inside and then showed them, without being too obvious, his empty hands. He saw that Ruth noticed.

“Hello,” Banish said.

Esther turned away, burying her face in Ruth’s arm. Ruth looked at him with wary eyes, then turned her head back toward the window. Flickering orange played over her dirty face. The cabin outside was now completely engulfed. They had huddled in the small toolshed to watch the blaze.

“Hello,” Banish said again. “Are you girls all right?”

Ruth turned and looked at him. Neither girl spoke.

“Where are your sister and brother?”

Again they said nothing. Ruth’s nine-year-old face was dark-eyed and tight with suspicion.

Banish entered more fully. He did so slowly and without looking at their holsters, removing his own jacket for further reassurance. Ruth saw that he was unarmed. A helicopter buzzed overhead and for a moment the dark shed glowed under the searchlight.

“No one is going to hurt you,” Banish said. Esther’s face was hidden. Both girls appeared particularly fragile, like rag dolls tossed into an attic corner. “Are you hungry?” he said. “We have food for you. Whatever you like.”

Ruth turned to look at the blaze again.

“What happened?” Banish said.

Ruth answered him then, blankly, bravely, staring at the fire. “Daddy lit a fire and told us to get out and run,” she said.

Banish nodded. “He was worried about you.”

Esther was peeking out at him now, sniffling, urchin-eyed. Banish took another small step forward into the center of the shed.

“I have a daughter,” he said. “She looked just like you two when she was your age. Same dark hair, big eyes.”

Ruth said, “You tried to take our daddy away.”

“No,” Banish told her. “We just wanted to keep you safe. Your grandparents asked us to come up here and get you.”

Footsteps rushing outside. HRT. Banish stepped back to the door as agents in black ninja gear ran up. He showed them a harsh face and an open, insistent hand, then turned back slowly to the girls. They were still sitting there on the floor, captivated by the blaze. Their guns remained holstered.

“We’re here to rescue you,” Banish said, coming back toward them. “To bring you to your mother. She’s safe too. She’s waiting for you out in front. Do you want me to take you there?”

Esther said, sniffling, “Mommy in back room.”

Banish stared at her until his eyes glistened. His eyes glowed. He moved close to them then, almost blinded. “Come on,” he said quietly, arms out. “Come on.”

Esther stood first, reluctantly, not letting go of her sister or her Bible. Then Ruth. Ruth’s head was turned, still watching the flames through the window, as Banish knelt on one knee before them. “You’ll be all right now,” he said, unbuckling Ruth’s holster belt, then Esther’s.

Ruth’s upturned, vacant face glowed like brass. “Mommy,” she said.

When they were both disarmed, Banish waved the HRT agents in behind him. He stood and handed the first one the holster belts, then grabbed the man’s sidearm from him and went racing out of the shed.

Banish came around the front of the cabin with the gun up and aimed. The medical helicopter had landed in the foreground, rotors whining, waiting to take off again. Two EMTs led Mrs. Ables toward it. She was walking on her own, between them, wearing a loose sweater, a loose gray skirt, and a long, singed dark-haired wig. Banish came up behind them and stopped ten yards away. They were too close to the helicopter for him to risk waiting any longer.

“Mrs. Ables!” he yelled.

She stopped dead. The EMTs on either side of her stopped as well and turned back and looked at him strangely.