Jeffery Deaver - A Maiden's Grave

"Don't talk to her," Angie concluded. "She won't understand your words and it might make her panic, thinking she's missing something important. And keep smiling."

"Smiling. Sure. Piece of cake." Gates swallowed.

Potter added, "Now, she's overweight and can't run very fast, I'd guess." He unfurled a small map of the grounds of the slaughterhouse. "If she could hustle I'd tell you to duck into that gully there, the one in front of the place, and then just run like hell. You'd be oblique targets. But as it is I think you'll just have to walk straight back."

"Like the girl who got shot?" Budd asked, and nobody was happy he had.

"Now, Stevie," Potter continued, "you should go up to the door. But under no circumstances are you to go inside."

"What if he says he won't release her 'less I do?"

"Then you leave her. Leave the food and walk away. But I think he'll let her go. Get as close as you can to the door. I want you to look inside. Look for what kinds of weapons they have, radios, any signs of blood, any hostages or hostage takers we might not know about."

Budd asked, "How could more've gotten in?"

"They might have been waiting inside for Handy and the others to arrive."

"Oh, sure." Budd looked discouraged. "Didn't think of that."

Potter continued to Gates, "Don't engage him in a dialogue, don't argue, don't say anything, except to answer his questions directly."

"You think he'll ask me stuff?"

Potter looked at Angie, who said, "It's possible. He might want to tease you a little. The sunglasses – he's got a playful streak in him. He might want to test you. Don't rise to the bait."

Gates nodded uncertainly.

Potter continued, "We'll be monitoring your conversations and I can feed you answers through your earphone."

Gates smiled a faint smile. "Those'll be the longest hundred yards of my life."

"There's nothing to worry about," Potter said. "He's a lot more interested in food right now than he is in shooting anybody."

This logic seemed to reassure Gates though the memory loomed in Potter's mind that some years ago he'd said similar words to an officer who a few moments later had been shot in the knee and wrist by a hostage taker who decided impulsively that he didn't want the painkillers and bandages the officer was bringing him.

Potter added an asthma inhaler to the bag of hamburgers. "Don't say anything about that. Just let him find it and decide to give it to Beverly or not."

Budd held up several pads of paper and the markers Derek had provided. "Should we include these?"

Potter considered. The pads and pens would give the hostages a chance to communicate with their captors and improve the Stockholming between them. But sometimes small deviations from what they expected set off HTs. The inhaler was one deviation. How would Handy feel about a second? He asked Angie's opinion.

"He may be a sociopath," she said after a moment. "But he hasn't had any temper tantrums or emotional outbursts, has he?"

"No. He's been pretty cool."

In fact he'd been frighteningly calm.

"Sure," Angle said, "add them."

"Dean, Charlie," Potter said, "come here a minute." The sheriff and the captain huddled. "Who're the best rifle shots you've got?"

"That'd be Sammy Bullock and – what do you think? Chris Felling? That's Christine. I'd say she's better'n Sammy. Dean?"

"If I was a squirrel sitting four hundred yards away from Chrissy and I saw her shoulder her piece, I wouldn't even bother to run. I'd just kiss my be-hind goodbye."

Potter wiped his glasses. "Have her load and lock and get a spotter with glasses to keep a watch on the door and windows. If it looks like Handy or one of the others is about to shoot, she's green-lighted to fire. But she's to aim for the doorjamb or windowsill."

"I thought you said there'd be no warning shots," Budd said.

'That's the rule," Potter said sagely. "And it's absolutely true – unless there's an exception to it."

"Oh."

"Go on and take care of that, Dean."

"Yessir." The sheriff hurried away, crouching.

Potter returned to Gates. "Okay, Trooper. Ready?"

Frances said to the young man, "Can I say 'Good luck'?"

"Please do," Gates said earnestly. Budd patted him on his Kevlared shoulder.

Melanie Charrol knew many Bible-school stories.

The lives of the Deaf used to be tied closely with religion, and many of them still were. The poor lambs of God… pat them on the head and force them to learn enough speech to struggle through catechism and Eucharist and confession (always among themselves of course so they didn't embarrass the hearing congregation). Abbe de l'Epée, good-hearted and brilliant though he was, created French Sign Language primarily to make sure his charges' souls could enter heaven.

And of course vows of silence by monks and nuns, adopting the "affliction" of the unfortunate as penance. (Maybe thinking that they could hear God's voice all the better though Melanie could have told them it didn't work worth squat.)

She leaned against the tile walls of the killing room, as horrible a part of the Outside as ever existed. Mrs. Harstrawn lay on her side, ten feet away, staring at the wall. No tears any longer – she was cried out, dry, empty. The woman blinked, she breathed but she might as well have been in a coma. Melanie rose and lifted her leg away from a pool of black water encrusted with green scum and the splintered bodies of a thousand insects.

Religion.

Melanie hugged the twins, feeling their delicate spines through identical powder-blue cowgirl blouses. She sat down beside them, thinking of some story she'd heard in Sunday school. It was about early Christians in ancient Rome, awaiting martyrdom in the Colosseum. They had, of course, refused to deny their faith. Men and women, children, happily praying on their knees while the centurions came for them. The story was ridiculous, the product of a simple-minded textbook writer, and it seemed inexcusable to adult Melanie Charrol that anyone would include it in a children's book. Yet like the cheapest melodrama the story had wrenched her heart then, at age eight or nine. And it wrenched her heart still.

Staring at the distant light, losing herself in the pulsing meditation of the yellow bulb, growing, shrinking, growing, shrinking, seeing the light turn into Susan's face, then into a beautiful young woman's body torn apart by lions' yellow claws.

Eight gray birds, sitting in dark…

But no, it's just seven birds now.

Was Jocylyn about to die too? Melanie peeked around the corner, seeing the girl standing at a window. She was sobbing, shaking her head. Stoat had her by the arm. They stood near the partially open door.

Motion nearby. She turned her head – the automatic reaction of a deaf person to the movement of gesturing hands. Kielle had closed her eyes. Melanie watched her hands move in a repetitive pattern, confused about the girl's message until she realized that she was summoning Wolverine, another of her comic-book heros.

"Do something," Shannon signed. "Melanie!" Her tiny hands chopped the air.

Do something. Right.

Melanie thought of de l'Epée. She hoped the thought of him would restart her frozen heart. It didn't. She was as helpless as ever, staring at Jocylyn, who looked back toward the killing room and caught Melanie's eye.

"Going to kill me," Jocylyn signed, sobbing; her cheeks, round and pale as a honeydew, glistened from the tears. "Please, help."

The Outside…

"Melanie." Kielle's dark eyes flared. The girl had suddenly appeared beside her. "Do something!"

"What?" Melanie suddenly snapped. "Tell me. Shoot him? Grow wings and fly?"

"Then I will," Kielle said, and turned, bursting toward the men. Without thinking, Melanie leapt after her. The little girl was just past the doorway to the killing room when Bear loomed in front of them. Both Melanie and Kielle stopped abruptly. Melanie put her arm around the girl and looked down, eyes fixed on the black pistol in Bear's waistband.