Jeffery Deaver - A Maiden's Grave

LeBow searched for his description of the device and read it aloud.

"And you're confident you'll get one more out?" the tactical agent asked.

"We're buying her for fifty thousand."

"The girl should be able to tell us if the trap's still set," D'Angelo said.

"I don't think it matters," Potter said, looking at Angie, who nodded her agreement. "Bomb or no bomb, he'll nail the hostages. If he's got any time at all, one or two seconds, he'll shoot them or pitch a grenade in."

"Grenade?" D'Angelo frowned. "Have a list of his weaponry?"

LeBow had already printed one out. The HRT commander read through it.

"He's got an MP-5? With scope and suppressor?" He shook his head in dismay.

There was a knocking on the side of the van and a young HRT officer stepped into the doorway. "Sir, we've completed initial reconnaissance."

"Go ahead." D'Angelo nodded at the map.

"This door here is wood with steel facing. Looks like it's rigged already with cutting charges."

D'Angelo looked at Potter.

"Some enthusiastic state troopers. That's how he got the Heckler amp; Koch."

D'Angelo nodded wryly, brushing his flamboyant mustache.

The trooper continued, "There's another door on the south side, much thinner wood. There's a loading dock in the back, here, by the river. The door's open far enough to get a tunnel rat under if they strip. Couple of the smaller guys. Next to it's a smaller door, reinforced steel, rusted shut. There's a runoff pipe here, a twenty-four-incher, barred with a steel grille. Second-floor windows are all barred with three-eighths-inch rods. These three windows here aren't visible from the HTs' position. The roof is covered with five-sixteenths-inch steel plates and the elevator shaft is sealed. The shaft access door's metal and I estimate bang-to-bullets of twenty to thirty seconds if we go in that way."

"Long time."

"Yessir. If we do four-man entry on the two doors, covering fire from a window, and two men in from the loading dock, I estimate we could engage and secure in eight to twelve seconds."

"Thanks, Tommy," D'Angelo said to his trooper. To Potter he added, "Not bad if it weren't for the trap." He asked Potter, "How Stockholmed is he?"

"Hardly at all," Angie offered. "He claims the more he knows somebody the more inclined he is to kill them."

D'Angelo's mustache received another stroke. "They good shots?"

Potter said. "Let's just say they're cool under fire."

"That's better'n being a good shot."

"And they've killed cops," Budd said.

"Both in firelights and as execution," Potter offered.

"Okay," D'Angelo said slowly. "My feeling is we can't do an entry. Not with the risk of the gas bomb and grenades. And his frame of mind."

"Have him walk to the chopper?" Potter asked. "It's right there." He tapped the map.

D'Angelo gazed at the portion of the map showing the field and nodded. "Think so. We'll pull everybody back out of sight, let the takers and hostages walk through the woods here."

Angie interrupted. "Handy'll pick his own route, don't you think, Arthur?"

"You're right. He'll want to be in charge of that. And it probably won't be the straightest one."

D'Angelo and Potter marked off four likely routes to get from the slaughterhouse to the chopper. LeBow drew them on the map. D'Angelo said, "I'll set up snipers in the trees here and here and here. Put the ground men in deep camouflage along all four routes. When the takers go by, the snipers'll acquire. Then we'll stun the whole group with smokeless. The agents on the ground'll grab the hostages and pull ' em down. The snipers'll take out the HTs if they show any threat. That sound okay to you?"

Potter was staring down at the map.

A moment passed.

"Arthur?"

"Yes, it sounds good, Frank. Very good."

D'Angelo stepped outside to brief his agents.

Potter looked at Melanie's picture and then sat down once more, staring out the window.

"Waiting is the hardest, Charlie. Worse than anything."

"I can see that."

"And this is what you'd call your express barricade," Tobe offered, eyes on his dials and screens. " 'S'only been about eleven hours. That's nothing."

Suddenly someone burst through the open doorway so quickly every law enforcer inside the van except Potter reached for weapons.

Roland Marks stood in the doorway. "Agent Potter," he said coldly. "Do I understand you're going to take him down?"

Potter looked past him at a tree bending in the wind. The breeze had picked up remarkably. It would bolster the lie about the river being too choppy to land a helicopter.

"Yes, we are."

"Well, I was just speaking to your comrade Agent D'Angelo. He shared with me a disturbing fact."

Potter couldn't believe Marks. In the space of a few hours he'd nearly screwed up the negotiations twice and almost lost his life in the process. And here he was on the offensive again. The agent was a few seconds away from arresting him just to get the pushy man out of his life.

Potter lifted an eyebrow.

"That there's a fifty-fifty chance one of the hostages will die."

Potter had assessed it at sixty-forty in the hostages' favor. But Marian had always chided him for being an incurable optimist. The agent rose slowly and stepped through the burnt doorway, motioning the attorney general after him. He took a tape cassette from his pocket, held it up prominently then put it back. Marks's eyes gave a flicker.

"Was there anything else you wanted to say?" Potter asked.

Marks's face suddenly softened but just for a moment, as if he recognized an apology forming in his throat and shot it dead. He said, "I don't want those girls hurt."

"I don't either."

"For God's sake, put him in a chopper, have him release the hostages. When he lands the Canadians can come down upon him like the proverbial Assyrians."

"Oh, but he has no intention of going to Canada," Potter said impatiently.

"I thought… But that special clearance you boys put together…"

"Handy doesn't believe a word of that. And even if he did he knows we'd put a second transponder in the chopper. His plans are to head straight to Busch Stadium. Or wherever his TV tells him there's a big game tonight."

"What?"

"Or maybe a parking lot at the University of Missouri just as evening classes are letting out. Or McCormick Place. He'll land someplace where there'll be a huge crowd around. There's no way we can take him in a scenario like that. A hundred people could be killed."

Understanding dawned in Marks's eyes. And whether he saw those lives jeopardized, or his career, or perhaps was seeing nothing more than the hopeless plight of his own poor daughter, he nodded. "Of course. Sure, he's the sort who'd do just that. You're right."

Potter chose to read the concession as an apology and decided to let him be.

Tobe pushed his head out of the doorway. "Arthur, I just got a phone call. It's that Kansas State detective Charlie told us about. Sharon Foster. She's on the line."

Potter had doubts that Foster could help them. Introducing a new negotiator in a barricade can have unpredictable results. But one thing Potter had decided might be helpful was her gender. His impression of Handy was that he was threatened by men – the very fact that he'd gone to ground with ten female hostages suggested that he might listen to a woman without his defenses raised.

Inside the van Potter leaned against the wall as he spoke. "Detective Foster? This is Arthur Potter. What's your ETA?"

The woman said that she was proceeding under sirens and lights and should be at the incident site by ten-thirty, ten-forty. The voice was young and matter-of-fact and extremely calm, though she was probably doing a hundred miles an hour.

"Look forward to it," Potter said, a little gruffly, and hung up.