Jeffery Deaver - A Maiden's Grave

"Are you serious, Arthur?"

LeBow said, "Time's awasting. Inside for two hours, seventeen." Potter said to Budd, "Oh, and we need a block of rooms at the nearest hotel. What'd that be?"

"Days Inn. It's up the road four miles. In Crow Ridge. Downtown, as much as they've got a downtown. How many?"

"Ten."

"Okay. What's the rooms for?"

"The parents of the hostages. Get a priest and a doctor over there too."

"Maybe they should be closer. If we need them to talk to their kids, or -"

"No, they shouldn't be. And station four or five troopers there. The families are not to be disturbed by reporters. I want anybody harassing them -"

"Arrested," Budd muttered. "Oh, brother."

"What's the matter, Trooper?" LeBow asked brightly.

"Well, sir, the Kansas state song is 'Home on the Range.' "

"Is that a fact?" Henderson asked. "And?"

"I know reporters, and you're gonna be hearing some pretty discouraging words 'fore this thing's over."

Potter laughed. Then he pointed to the fields. "Look there, Charlie – those troopers're all exposed. I told them to stay down. They're not paying attention. Keep them down behind the cars. Tell them Handy's killed officers before. What's his relationship with weapons, Henry?"

LeBow typed and read the screen. He said, "All indictments have involved at least one firearms count. He's shot four individuals, killed two of them. Fort Dix, M-16 training, he consistently shot low nineties on the range. No record of sidearm scores."

"There you have it," Potter told Budd. "Tell them to keep their heads down ."

A light flashed toward them. Potter blinked and saw, in the distance, a combine had just turned on its lights. It was early of course but the overcast was oppressive. He gazed at the line of trees to the right and left of the slaughterhouse.

"One other thing, Charlie – I want you to leave the snipers in position but give them orders not to shoot unless the HTs make a break."

"HTs – that's the hostage takers, right?"

"Even if they have a clear shot. Those troopers you were telling me about, with the rifles, are they SWAT?"

"No," he said, "just damn fine shots. Even the girl. She started practicing on squirrels when she was -"

"And I want them and everybody else to unchamber their weapons. Everybody."

"What?"

"Loaded but not chambered."

"Oh, I don't know 'bout that, sir."

Potter turned to him with an inquiring look.

"I just mean," Budd said quickly, "not the snipers too?"

"You can pull the bolt of an M-16 and shoot in under one second."

"Not and steady a scope you can't. An HT could get off three shots in a second." The initials sat awkwardly in his mouth, as if he were trying raw oysters for the first time.

He's so eager and talented and correct, Potter mused.

What a day this is going to be.

"The takers aren't going to come out and shoot a hostage in front of us before we can react. If it comes to that, the whole thing'll turn into a firefight anyway."

"But -"

"Unchambered," Potter said firmly. "Appreciate it, Charlie."

Budd nodded reluctantly and reiterated his assignment: "Okay, I'm gonna send somebody down to give a statement to the press – or not to give a statement to the press, I should say. I'll round up reporters and push 'em back a mile or so, I'll get us a block of rooms, and tell everybody to keep their heads down. And deliver your message about not loading and locking."

"Good."

"Brother." Budd ducked out of the van. Potter watched him crouching and running down to a cluster of troopers. They listened, laughed, and then started herding the reporters out of the area.

In five minutes the captain returned to the command van. "That's done. Those reporters're about as unhappy as I thought they'd be. I told ' em a Feebie'd ordered it. You don't mind me calling you that, I hope." There was an edge to his voice.

"You can call me whatever you like, Charlie. Now, I want a field hospital set up here."

"Medevac?"

"No, not evacuation. Trauma-team medics and triage specialists. Just out of clear range of the slaughterhouse. No more than sixty seconds away. Prepped for everything from third-degree burns to gunshot wounds to pepper spray. Full operating suites."

"Yessir. But, you know, there's a big hospital not but fifteen miles from here."

"That may be, but I don't want the HTs to even hear the sound of a medevac chopper. Same reason I want the press copters and our Hueys out of earshot."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to remind them of something they might not think of themselves. And even if they do ask for a chopper I want the option to tell them that it's too windy to fly one in."

"Will do."

"Then come back here with your commanders. Sheriff Stillwell too. I'm going to hold a briefing."

Just then the door opened and a tanned, handsome young man with black curly hair bounded inside.

Before he greeted anyone he looked at the control panels and muttered, "Excellent."

"Tobe, welcome."

Tobe Geller said to Potter, " Boston girls are beautiful and they all have pointy tits, Arthur. This better be important."

Potter shook his hand, noting that the dot of earring hole was particular prominent today. He recalled that Tobe had explained the earring to his superiors in the Bureau by saying he'd done undercover work as a cop. He never had; he simply liked earrings and had quite a collection of them. The MIT graduate and adjunct professor of computer science at American University and Georgetown shook everyone's hand. He then looked down at LeBow's laptops, sneered, and muttered something about their being antiquated. Then he dropped into the chair of the communications control panel. He and Derek introduced themselves and were immediately submerged in a world of shielded analog signals, subnets, packet driver NDIS shims, digital tripartite scrambling, and oscillation detection systems in multiple landline chains.

"Just about to brief, Tobe," Potter told him and sent Budd to run his errands. To LeBow he said, "Let me see what you've got so far."

LeBow turned the profile computer to Potter.

The intelligence officer said. "We don't have much time."

But Potter continued to read, lost in the glowing type of the blue screen.

The jackrabbit – not a rabbit at all but a hare – is nature's least likely fighter.

This is an animal made for defense – with a camouflaging coat (gray and buff in the warm months, white in the winter), ears that rotate like antennae to home in on threatening sounds, and eyes that afford a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the terrain. It has a herbivore's chiseling teeth and its claws are intended for tugging at leafy plants and – in males – gripping the shoulders of its mate when creating future generations of jackrabbits.

But when it's cornered, when there's no chance for flight, it will attack its adversary with a shocking ferocity. Hunters have found the bodies of blinded or gutted foxes and wildcats that had the bad judgment to trap a jackrabbit in a cave and attack it with the overconfidence of sassy predators.

Confinement is our worst fear, Arthur Potter continues during his lectures on barricades, and hostage takers are the most deadly and determined of adversaries.

Today, in the command van at the Crow Ridge barricade, he dispensed with his Wild Kingdom introduction and told his audience simply, "Above all, you have to appreciate how dangerous those men in there are."

Potter looked over the group: Henderson, LeBow, and Tobe were the federal officers. On the state side there was Budd and his second-in-command, Philip Molto, a short, taciturn officer in the state police, who seemed no older than a high-school student. He was one of the tactical unit commanders. The others – two men and a woman – were solemn, with humorless eyes. They wore full combat gear and were eager for a fight.