A Maiden's Grave

7:46 P.M.

"What's that?"

Crow Ridge sheriff's deputy Arnold Shaw didn't know and he didn't care.

The lean thirty-year-old, a law enforcer all his young working life, had been in his share of boats. Dropping stinkers for catfish, trolling for bass and muskie. He'd even been water-skiing a couple of times down at Lake of the Ozarks. And he'd never once been as seasick as he was right now.

Oh, man. This is torture.

He and Buzzy Marboro were anchored twenty yards or so into the river, keeping their eyes "glued like epoxy" on the dock of the slaughterhouse, as their boss, Dean Stillwell, had commanded. The wind was bad, even for Kansas, and the shallow skiff bobbed and twisted like a Tilt-A-Whirl carnival ride.

"I'm not doing too well," Shaw muttered.

"There," Marboro said. "Look."

"I don't want to look."

But look he did, where Marboro was pointing. Ten yards downstream, something was floating away from them. The men were armed with battered Remington riot guns and Marboro drew a lazy target at the bobbing mass.

They'd heard a splash coming from the dock not long ago and had looked carefully but found no takers escaping through the water.

"If somebody did jump in -"

"We woulda seen him," Shaw muttered through the wind.

"- he'd be right about there by now. Just where that thing is. Whatever it is."

Shaw struggled to rid himself of memories of last night's dinner – his wife's tuna casserole. "I'm not feeling too well here, Buzz. What's your point, exactly?"

"I see a hand!" Marboro was standing up.

"Oh, no, don't do that. We've moving round enough as it is. Sit your heinie down."

Tuna and cream of mushroom soup and peas and those canned fried onions on top.

Oh, man, can't keep it down much longer.

"Looks like a hand and look at that thing – it's red and white – hell, I think it's one of the hostages got away!"

Shaw turned and looked at the debris, just above the surface of the choppy water, rising and falling. Each glimpse lasted no more than a few seconds. He couldn't tell what it was exactly. It looked sort of like a net float, except, as Buzz Marboro had pointed out, it was red and white. Blue too, he now saw.

And moving away from them, straight into midstream, pretty damn fast.

"Don't you see a hand?" Marboro said.

"No… Wait. You know, it does look like a hand. Sorta." Reluctantly, and to the great distress of his churning gut, Arnie Shaw rose to his feet. That made him feel, he estimated, about a thousand times worse.

"I can't tell. A branch maybe."

"I don't know. Look how fast it's moving. It'll be in Wichita 'fore too long." Shaw decided he'd rather have a tooth pulled than be seasick. No – two teeth.

"Maybe it's just something the takers threw out to, you know, distract us. We go after it and they get away out the back door."

"Or maybe it's just trash," Shaw said, sitting down. "Hey, what're we thinking of? If they were friendlies they wouldn't've just floated past without calling for help. Hell, we've got our uniforms on. They'd know we're deputies."

"Sure. What'm I thinking of?" Marboro said, sitting down too.

One pair of vigilant eyes returned to the ass end of the slaughterhouse. The other pair closed slowly, as their owner swallowed in a desperate effort to calm his stomach. "I'm dying," Shaw whispered.

Exactly ten seconds later the eyes opened. "Oh, son of a bitch," Shaw spat out slowly. He sat up straight.

"You just remembered too?" Marboro was nodding.

Shaw had in fact just remembered – that the hostages were deaf and mute and wouldn't be able to call out for help to save their souls, no matter how close they'd passed by the skiff.

That was one of the reasons for his dismay. The other was that Shaw knew that while he himself had been an intercollegiate state finals swim champion three years running, Buzz Marboro couldn't dog-paddle more than ten yards.

Breathing deeply – not for the impending swim but merely to keep his turbulent stomach at bay – Shaw shed his weapons, body armor, helmet, boots. A final breath. He dove headfirst into the raging, murky water and streaked toward the disappearing flotsam as it headed rapidly southeast in the ornery current.

Arthur Potter gazed at the window where he'd first seen Melanie.

Then at the window where he'd almost seen her shot.

"I think we're moving up against the wall here," he said slowly. "If we're lucky we're going to get maybe one or two more out but that's it. Then we'll either have to get him to surrender or have HRT go in. Somebody tell me the weather." Potter was hoping for a hellsapoppin' storm to justify a longer delay in finding a helicopter.

Derek Elb turned a switch and the Weather Channel snapped on. Potter learned that the rest of the night would be much the same – windy, with clearing skies. No rain. Winds would be out of the northwest at fifteen to twenty miles an hour.

"We'll have to rely on the wind for an excuse," LeBow said. "And even that's going to be dicey. Fifteen miles an hour? In the service Handy's probably flown in Hueys that've landed in gusts twice that."

Dean Stillwell called in for Henry LeBow, his laconic voice tripping out of the speaker above their heads.

"Yes?" the intelligence officer answered, leaning into his microphone.

"Agent Potter said to relay any information about the takers to you?"

"That's right," LeBow said.

Potter picked up the mike and asked what Stillwell had learned.

"Well, one of the troopers here has a good view inside, sort of an angle. And he said that Handy and Wilcox are walking around inside, looking the place over real carefully."

"Looking it over?"

"Pushing on pipes and machinery. It's like they're looking for something."

"Any idea what?" LeBow asked.

"Nope. I thought maybe they're checking out places to hide."

Potter nodded at Budd, recalling it had been the captain's idea that the takers might don rescue-worker uniforms during the surrender or HRT assault. It also wasn't unheard of for takers to, say, leave a back window open, then hide inside closets or crawl spaces for a day or two until law enforcers concluded they were long gone.

LeBow wrote down the information and thanked Stillwell. Potter said, "I want to make sure everybody's got pictures of the takers. And we'll have to tell Frank and the HRT to go through the place with a fine-tooth comb if it looks like an escape."

He sat in his chair once more, staring out at the factory.

"By the way," Stillwell returned over the radio. "I'm having chow brought in for the troopers and the Heartland's delivering your all's supper any time now."

"Thank you, Dean."

"Heartland? All right," Derek Elb said, looking particularly pleased.

Potter's mind, though, wasn't on food. He was thinking something far graver – whether or not he should meet with Handy. He felt the deadlines compressing, sensed somehow that Handy was growing testy and would start making nonnegotiable ultimatums. Face to face, Potter might be able to wear the convict down more efficiently than through their phone conversations.

Thinking too: It might give me a chance to see Melanie.

It might give me a chance to save her.

Yet a meeting between the taker and the incident commander was the most dangerous form of negotiating. There was the physical risk, of course; hostage takers' feelings, both positive and negative, are their most extreme about the negotiator. They often believe, sometimes subconsciously, that killing the negotiator will give them power they don't otherwise have, that the troopers will fall into chaos or that someone less daunting will take the negotiator's place. Even without violence, however, there's a danger that the negotiator will, in the taker's eyes, shrink in authority and stature and lose his opponent's respect.

Potter leaned against the window. What's inside you, Handy? What's making the wheels go round?

Something's happening in that cold brain of yours.

When you talk I hear silence.

When you don't say a word I hear your voice.

When you smile I see… what? What do I see? Ah, that's the problem. I just don't know.

The door swung open and the smell of food filled the room. A young deputy from the Crow Ridge Sheriff's Department brought in several boxes, filled with plastic containers of food and cartons of coffee.

Potter's appetite returned suddenly as the trooper set out the containers. He expected tasteless diner fare – hot beef sandwiches and Jell-O. But the trooper pointed to each of the dishes as he laid them out and said, "That's cherry mos, that's zwieback, bratwurst, goat and lamb pie, sauerbraten, dill potatoes."

Derek Elb explained, "Heartland's a famous Mennonite restaurant. People drive there from all over the state."

For ten minutes, they ate, largely in silence. Potter tried to remember the names of the dishes to tell Cousin Linden when he returned to the Windy City. She collected exotic recipes. He was just finishing his second cup of coffee when, from the corner of his eye, he saw Tobe stiffen as a radio transmission came in. "What?" the young agent said in shock into his microphone. "Repeat that, Sheriff."

Potter turned to him.

"One of Dean's men just fished the twins out of the river!"

A collective gasp. Then, spontaneous applause erupted in the van. The intelligence officer plucked the two Post-It tabs representing the girls off the chart and moved them to the margin. He took down their pictures, which joined Jocylyn's, Shannon's, and Kielle's in the "Released" folder of hostage bios.

"They're being checked for hypothermia but they look fine otherwise. Like drowned rats, he said, but we're not supposed to tell the girls that."

"Call the hotel," Potter instructed. "Tell their parents."

Tobe, listening into his headset, laughed. He looked up. "They're on their way over, Arthur. They're insisting on seeing you."

"Me?"

"If you're an older man with glasses and a dark sports coat. Only they think your name is De l'Epée…"

Potter shook his head. "Who?"

Frances laughed briefly. "Abbé de l'Epée. He created the first widely used sign language."

"Why would they call me that?"

Frances shrugged. "I have no idea. He's sort of a patron saint for the Deaf."

The girls arrived five minutes later. Adorable twins, wrapped up in colorful Barney blankets, no less (another of Stillwell's miracles). They no longer resembled wet rodents at all but girls more awestruck than scared as they stared at Potter. In halting sign language they explained through Frances about how Melanie had gotten them out of the slaughterhouse.

"Melanie?" Angie asked, nodding toward Potter. "I was wrong. Seems you do have an ally inside."

Did Handy know what she'd done? Potter wondered. How much more resistance would he tolerate before the payback? And how lethal would it be this time?

His heart froze as he saw Frances Whiting's eyes go wide with horror. She turned to him. "The girls didn't understand exactly what was going on but I think one of them was raping the teacher."

"Melanie?" Potter asked quickly. "No. Donna Harstrawn."

"Oh, my good Lord, no," Budd muttered. "And they saw it, those girls?"

"Bonner?" Angie asked.

Potter's face showed none of the anguish he felt. He nodded. Of course it would be Bonner. His eyes strayed to the pictures of Beverly and Emily. Both young, both feminine. And then to the photo of Melanie.

Angie asked the girls if Handy had, in effect, set Bonner on the woman, or if the big man had been acting by himself.

Frances watched the signing, then said, "Bear – that's what they're calling Bonner – looked around a lot while he was doing it. Like he didn't want to get caught. They think Brutus – Handy – would have been mad if he'd seen him."

"Is Brutus friendly with any of you?" Angie asked the twins. "No. He's terrible. He just looks at us with cold eyes, like somebody in one of Shannon's cartoons. He beat up Melanie."

"Is she all right?" One girl nodded.

Angie shook her head. "This isn't good." She looked at the diagram of the factory. "They're not that far apart, the hostages and the takers, but there doesn't seem to be any Stockholming going on with Handy." The more I know about them the more I want to kill them. Potter asked about guns and the tools and the TV. But the little girls could offer nothing new. Then one of them handed him a slip of paper. It was soggy but the lettering, written in the waterproof markers Derek had provided, was clear enough. "It's from Melanie," he said, then read out loud: "Dear De l'Epée: There is so much to write to you. But no time. Be very careful of Handy. He's evil – more evil than anything. You should know: Handy and Wilcox are friends. Handy hates Bear (the fat one). Bear is greedy."

LeBow asked for the paper so he could type it into the computer. "It's disintegrating," Potter told him. He read aloud again as the intelligence officer typed.

One of the twins stepped forward and signed timidly. Potter smiled and glanced queryingly at Frances.

"They want your autograph," she said.

"Mine?"

In perfect unison they nodded. Potter took a pen from his shirt pocket, the silver fountain pen that he always carried with him.

"They're expecting," Frances continued, " 'Abbé de l'Epée.' "

"Ah, yes. Of course. And that's what they'll have. One for each."

The girls looked at the two slips of paper and carried them reverently when they left. One girl paused and signed to Frances.

She said, "Melanie said something else. She said to tell you to be careful."

Be forewarned…

"Show me how to say 'Thank you. You're very brave.' "

Frances did, and Potter mimicked the words with halting gestures. The girls broke into identical smiles then took Frances's hands as she escorted them to a trooper outside for the drive to the Days Inn.

Budd sat down next to Potter. "Why," he asked, "would Melanie tell us that?" He pointed to the note. "About Bonner being greedy, about the other two being friends?"

"Because she thinks there's something we can do with it," Angie said.

"What?"

Potter looked down at the soggy slip of paper. It was signed, "Love, Melanie C." – which was the reason he hadn't shown the note itself to Henry LeBow. He now folded it up, put the damp paper in his pocket.

"Look up Bonner," Potter instructed.

He read from the screen. Ray "Sonny" Bonner had led a useless life. He'd done time for sex offenses and minor robberies, domestic violence, public disorderliness. Lust-driven, not bright. He was a snitch too; he'd testified against his partner at a robbery trial ten years ago.

Potter and Angie looked up at each other. They smiled.

"Perfect."

The decision had been made. Potter would not meet with Handy face to face. A new strategy had presented itself. Riskier, yes. But perhaps better.

Charlie Budd was suddenly aware that both Angie and Potter were looking at him, studying him.

"What do you think, Henry?" Potter asked.

"Say -" Budd began uneasily.

"I think he's perfect," LeBow offered. "Earnest, straightforward. And he's got a great baritone."

Potter said, "You've got quite a performance ahead of you, Charlie."

"Me?" The young captain looked stricken. "How d'you mean that, exactly?"

"You're taking over the negotiation."

"What?"

"And I want you to talk to Handy about surrendering."

"Yessir," Budd answered Potter. Then: "You're kidding."

"You're perfect, Charlie," Angie said.

Potter said, "I've brought up the subject with him. Now it's time to raise surrender as a realistic possibility. Of course he'll say no. But it'll be in his mind as an option. He'll start to weigh the possibilities."

"There'll be a little more to it than that, though," LeBow said, eyes as ever on his screen.

"We're upping the ante," Potter said, and began to jot notes on a yellow pad.

"You know, I'm thinking I wouldn't be very good at this."

"You ever do any acting?" Angie asked.

"I dress up like Santa on Christmas for my kids and my brother's. That's it. Never been on stage, never wanted to be."

"I'll give you a script." Potter thought for a moment, then tore off the top sheets of the yellow pad and began again, writing meticulous notes: two pages' worth of dense writing.

"This is the gist of it. Just ad-lib. Can you read it okay?"

Budd scanned the sheets. "Sure, only I don't think I'm ready. I should practice or something."

"No time for practice," Potter told him. "Just let me give you a few pointers in negotiations."

"You're serious about this, aren't you?"

"Listen, Charlie. Concentrate. You've got to break through his barriers quickly and get him to believe this." He tapped the yellow paper.

Budd's face grew still and he sat forward in front of the desk on which rested the cellular phone.

"Now I want you to echo things he says. He'll say he wants ice cream. You say, 'Ice cream, sure.' He'll say he's angry. You say, 'Angry, are you?' It shows you're interested in what he says without expressing judgment. It wears him down and makes him think. Do it selectively, though. Not every comment or you'll antagonize him."

Budd nodded. He was sweating fiercely.

Angie offered, "Acknowledge his feelings but don't sympathize with him."

"Right," Potter continued. "He's the enemy. We don't sanction violence and therefore he's doing something wrong. But you should explain that you understand why he feels the way he does. Got it? Don't ramble. You have to be aware of how you sound and how fast you're talking. I'll tell you right now you'll be going way too fast. Make a conscious effort to talk slowly and deliberately. To you it'll feel like you're underwater."

Angie said, "If you ask him a question and he doesn't respond just let the silence run up. Don't let pauses rattle you."

"Don't let him manipulate you. He'll do it intentionally and subconsciously – using threats, fast speech, craziness, and silence. Just keep your mind on your goal." Again Potter, rather solemnly this time, tapped the yellow paper. "Most important, don't let him get to you. Let him rant and say terrible things but don't get shook up. Let him laugh at you. Let him insult you. It rolls off you. You're above it all." Potter leaned forward and whispered, "He might tell you he's going to kill all those girls. He may even fire the gun off and let you think he's shot someone. He might tell you he's going to torture them or rape them. Don't let it affect you."

"What do I say?" Budd said desperately. "If he says that, what do I say?"

"It's best not to say anything at all. If you feel compelled to respond you say simply that it wouldn't be in the best interests of a solution to do that."

"Oh, brother."

Potter looked at his watch. "Let's get this show on the road. Ready?" Potter asked.

The young captain nodded.

"Push button one."

"What?"

"It's on speed dial," Tobe explained. "Push number one."

"And then I just talk to him?"

"You understand the script?" Potter asked.

Budd nodded again. Potter pointed to the phone. "Oh, brother." He reached for the phone, dialed. "Uplink," Tobe whispered.

"Hey. How you doing, Art?" The voice came through the speakers above their heads. Handy seemed to be smirking.

"This is Charlie Budd. Is this Lou Handy?"

"The fuck're you?"

Budd's eyes were on the sheet in front of him. "I'm with the U.S. attorney's office."

"The hell you say."

"I'd like to talk to you for a few minutes."

"Where's Art?"

"He's not here."

"What the fuck's going on?"

Budd swallowed. Come on, Charlie, Potter thought. No time for stage fright. He tapped the pad before Budd. "Going on?" the captain echoed. "What do you mean?"

"I only want to talk to him."

"To who?"

"Art Potter. Who the fuck do you think?"

Budd took a deep breath. "Well, why don'tcha talk to me? I'm not such a bad guy."

"U.S. attorney?"

"That's right. I want to talk to you about surrendering." Slow down, Potter wrote.

"Oh, a shyster with a sense of humor. Well, fuck you."

Budd's face was relaxing. "Hey, don'tcha like lawyers?"

"I love 'em."

Budd said, "You wanta hear a joke, Lou?" Potter and LeBow looked at each other, eyebrows raised.

"Sure, Charlie."

"A woman goes to her gynecologist and asks can somebody get pregnant by having anal sex. And the doctor says sure you can, where do you think lawyers come from?"

Handy roared with laughter. Budd's face burned crimson.

Potter had never in twenty years of negotiating shared a joke with a taker. Maybe he'd rewrite his instruction book.

Budd continued. "Arthur's seeing about getting you some helicopter or 'nother. Something about pontoons. It should be here soon."

"It fucking well better be here in one hour and twenty fucking minutes."

"Well, all I know is, Lou, he's doing what he can. But look here, even if you get the chopper they're gonna find you sooner or later." Budd stared at the sheet in front of him. "Soon as somebody finds out who you are, the fact you shot a girl in the back, you know what'll happen. They'll collar you and somehow you'll be riding in the back of a meat wagon and some accident'll happen."

"You threatening me?"

"Hell, no. I'm trying to save you. I'm just saying the way it is. The way you know it is."

"Ain't nobody gonna find me. So fuck that surrender shit. It ain't gonna happen. You assholes'll have to come in and get me 'fore I'd do that. And you'd find me atop six dead hostages."

Potter pointed to the pictures of the twins. LeBow frowned. Why didn't Handy know they were gone?

Budd continued, "Listen, Lou, we can offer you a deal."

"A deal? What kind of deal?"

"Some immunity. Not complete, but -"

"You know what I done here?"

"What you've done?" Echoing like a pro, Potter thought.

"I killed me a few people today. We're not talking immunity, we're talking… what the fuck's that thing priests give you?"

Budd looked up at Potter, who whispered, "Dispensation."

"Dispensation."

"So I don't think so, Charlie the butt-fucked lawyer. I think I need a helicopter or I'm going to turn my good friend Bonner here loose on a girl or two. You know Bonner? He stays hard twenty-four hours a day. Re-fucking-markable. Never seen anybody like him. You should've seen him in prison. Kid comes in for GTA and, bang, there's Bonner next to him 'fore the fingerprints're dry, saying, 'Bend over, pretty boy. Spread 'em.' "

Potter clamped his hand down on Budd's arm, seeing the anguish in his face. He tapped the yellow sheet once more.

"Where's Art?" Handy said suddenly. "I like him better'n you."

"He's out rustling up your helicopter, like I said."

"Fuck if he isn't listening to this right now on the squawk box. How close is he? He could probably stick his dick in your mouth without either of you moving. Hey, you a faggot, Charlie? Sound like one to me."

Budd adjusted his grip on the phone. "Agent Potter's trying to get you what you've been asking for."

They died because they didn't give me what I wanted. Potter nodded approval.

"I want that chopper or Bonner gets a girl."

"You don't need to do that, Lou. Come on. We're all working together here, aren't we?"

"Oh, I wasn't on your team last time I looked, Charlie." Budd wiped sweat from his forehead. Potter, feeling very much like an orchestra conductor, gestured at Budd and pointed to a portion of the yellow sheet.

"My team?" Budd responded. "Hey now, that's wrong, Lou. I am on your team. And I want to offer you a deal. You and Wilcox."

Potter held his finger to his lips, indicating for Budd to pause. The captain swallowed. Angie handed him a cup of water. He drank it down, gave her a rueful smile. Handy was silent.

Budd started to speak; Potter shook his head. Finally Handy said, "Me and Shep?"

"That's right."

Cautiously: "What kinda deal?"

Budd looked down at the sheet. "We'll go for life only. No death penalty."

"For us two?"

Potter heard the uncertainty in Handy's voice. Beautiful, he thought. For the first time all night he's not sure what's going on. He gave Budd a thumbs-up.

"Just you and Wilcox," he said firmly.

"What about Bonner?"

Potter held up his wavering hands, indicating uncertainty.

"Well, I'm just talking about you two."

"Why aren't you talking about Bonner?"

Potter frowned angrily. Budd nodded and in a testy voice said, "Because I don't want to talk about Bonner. I'm offering you and Wilcox a deal."

"You're an asshole, Charlie."

"An asshole?"

"You're not telling me everything."

Potter touched his lips.

Silence.

Perfect, thought Potter. He's doing great. Finally he nodded to Budd.

"I am telling you everything." Budd gave up on the yellow sheet and stared out the window at the slaughterhouse. "And I'm telling it to you for your benefit as much as anybody's. You oughta surrender, sir. Even if you get out of here in that helicopter you'll be the most wanted man in North America. Your life's gonna be pure hell and if you get caught you'll get death. You know that. No statute of limitations for murder."

"What'm I supposed to say to Bonner?"

Potter made an angry fist.

"I don't much care what you say to him," Budd said gruffly. "He's not included in -"

"Why not?"

Hesitate, Potter wrote.

Handy broke the interminable silence. "What aren't you fucking telling me?"

"Do you want a deal or not? You and Wilcox. It'll save you from lethal injection."

"I want a fucking helicopter and that's what I'm going to get. Tell Art that. Fuck you all."

"No, wait -"

Click.

Budd closed his eyes and rested the phone on the table. His hands shook fiercely.

"Excellent, Charlie." Potter clapped him on the back.

"Good job," Angie said, winking at him.

Budd looked up, perplexed. "Excellent? He's all pissed off. He hung up on me."

"No, he's just where we want him." LeBow typed up the incident in the log and noted the time. On the "Deceptions" side of the board he wrote, Federal plea bargain by "U.S. Attorney Budd" – Handy and Wilcox. Life sentences in lieu of death.

Budd stood up. "You think?"

"You planted the seeds. We'll have to see if they take." Potter caught Angie's eye and they exchanged a solemn glance. The negotiator made a point of looking away before Budd noticed.

8:16 P.M.

"Five minutes and counting."

Dan Tremain had called the governor and together they had decided that the HRU rescue would go ahead as planned. Over the scrambled frequency he radioed this to his men.

Outrider One, Chuck Pfenninger, was in position near the command van, and Outrider Two, Joey Wilson, hidden behind the school bus, was prepared to lob the stun grenades through the front window. Alpha and Bravo teams were ready to make the dynamic entry through the northwest and southeast doors as planned.

Tremain was very confident. Although the HTs might be anticipating an attack through the one well-marked fire exit, they'd never expect the assault through the hidden southeast door.

In five minutes it would all be over.

Lou Handy stared down at the phone and felt it for the first time that day: doubt.

Son of a bitch.

"Where is he?" he snarled, looking through the slaughterhouse.

"Bonner? In with the girls," Wilcox answered. "Or eating. I don't know. What's up?"

"Something's funny going on." Handy paced back and forth. "I think maybe he cut a deal." He told Wilcox what the U.S. attorney had said.

"They're offering us a deal?"

"Some deal. Life in Leavenworth."

"Beats that little needle. The worst part is you piss. You know that? There's nothing you can do to stop it. I tell you, I'm going out, I don't want to piss my pants in front of everybody."

"Hey, homes." Handy dropped his head, gazed coolly at his partner. "We're getting out. Don't you forget it."

"Right, sure."

"I think that prick's been with 'em all along."

"Why?" Wilcox asked.

"Why the fuck you think? Money. Cut down his hard time."

Wilcox cast his eyes into the dim back of the slaughterhouse. "Sonny's an asshole but he wouldn't do that."

"He did a while back."

"What?"

"Give up somebody. A guy he did a job with."

"You knew that?" Wilcox asked, surprised.

"Sure, I knew that," Handy said angrily. "We needed him."

But how had Bonner gotten to the feds? Almost every minute of the big man's time was accounted for from the moment of the breakout.

Though not all of it, Handy now recalled. Bonner was the one who'd gone to pick up the car. After they'd gotten out of the prison Bonner had been gone for a half-hour while he picked up the wheels. Handy remembered thinking that it was taking him a long time and thinking, If he skips on us he's going to die real fucking slow.

Gone a half-hour to get a car eight blocks away. Plenty of time to call the feds.

"But he's a short-timer," Wilcox pointed out. Bonner's interstate transport sentence was four years.

"The kind," Handy countered, "they'd be most likely to cut a deal with. Feds never chop off sentences more'n a couple years.

Besides, Bonner had an incentive: sex offenders were the prisoners who most often woke up with glass shards shoved down their throat, or a tin-can-lid knife in their gut – or who didn't wake up at all.

Uncertainly Wilcox looked into the dim slaughterhouse. "Whatta you think?"

"I think we oughta talk to him."

They walked through the main room, over the rotting ramps the livestock had once ambled along, past the long tables where the animals had been cut apart, the rusting guillotines. The two men stood in the doorway of the killing room. Bonner wasn't there. They heard him standing not far away, pissing a solid stream into a well or sump pump.

Handy stared at the room – the older woman, lying curled into a ball. The gasping girl and the pretty girl. And then there was Melanie, who stared back with eyes that tried to be defiant but were just plain scared. Then he realized something.

"Where," Handy said softly, "are the little ones?"

He gazed at two empty pairs of black patent-leather shoes.

Wilcox spat out, "Son of a bitch." He ran into the hallway, following the tiny footprints in the dust.

Melanie put her arms around the girl with the asthma and cowered against the wall. Just then Bonner came around the corner and stopped. "Hey, buddy." He blinked uneasily, looking at Handy's face.

"Where are they, you fuck?"

"Who?"

"The little girls. The twins?"

"I -" Bonner recoiled. "I was watching 'em. All this time. I swear."

"All this time?"

"I took a piss is all. Look, Lou. They gotta be here someplace. We'll find 'em." The big man swallowed uneasily.

Handy glared at Bonner, who started toward Melanie, shouting, "Where the fuck are they?" He pulled his pistol from his pocket and walked up to her.

"Lou!" Wilcox was calling from the main room. "Jesus Christ."

"What?" Handy screamed, spinning around. "What the fuck is it?"

"We got a worse problem than that. Look here."

Handy hurried back to Wilcox, who was pointing at the TV.

"Holy Christ. Potter, that lying son of a bitch!"

On the screen: A newscast, showing the perfect telephoto image of the front and side of the slaughterhouse. The reporters had snuck through the police line and had set up the camera on something close and tall – maybe that old windmill just to the north. The camera was a little shaky but there was no doubt that they were looking at a fucking SWAT trooper at a front window – only twenty feet away from where Handy and Wilcox now stood.

"Is that more there?" Wilcox cried. He pointed to some bumps in a gully to the north of the slaughterhouse.

"Could be. Shit yes. Must be a dozen of them."

The newscaster said, "It looks like an assault could be imminent…"

Handy looked up at the fire door on the north side of the factory. They'd wedged it shut but he knew that explosive charges could take it down in seconds. He shouted to Bonner, "Get that scatter gun, we got a firefight."

"Shit." Bonner pulled the slide back on the Mossberg, let it snap back.

"The roof?" Wilcox asked.

Those were the only two ways a hostage rescue team could get in quickly – the side door and the roof. The loading dock was too far back. But as he stared at the ceiling he saw a thick network of ducts and vents and conveyors. Even if they blew through the roof itself they'd have to cut through those utility systems.

Handy glanced out over the field in front of the slaughterhouse. Aside from the trooper by the window – hidden from the police lines by the school bus – no other cops seemed to be approaching from that direction.

"They're coming through that side door there."

Handy moved slowly toward the window where the trooper was hiding. He gestured to Wilcox's gun. The lean man grinned and pulled his pistol from his belt, pulled the slide, chambering a round.

"Go behind him," Handy whispered. "Other window. Get his attention."

Wilcox nodded, dropped suddenly to his belly, and crawled off to the far window. Handy too crawled – to the open window outside of which the trooper was hiding. Wilcox put his mouth next to a hole in a shattered pane and gave the warble of a wild turkey. Handy couldn't suppress his smile.

When Wilcox warbled again Handy looked outside quickly. He saw the trooper, only two feet away, turning toward the sound in confusion. Handy reached out the window, grabbed the trooper's helmet, and, jerking hard, lifted him off the ground. The man let go of his machine gun, which dangled from his shoulder by a leather thong, and grasped Handy's wrists, struggling fiercely as the helmet strap choked him. Wilcox leapt to Handy's side and together they muscled the trooper through the window.

As Handy held him in a full nelson Wilcox kicked him in the groin and pulled his machine gun, pistol, and grenades away. He crumpled and fell to the floor.

"You son of a bitch," Handy raged, kicking the man violently. "Lemme look at you!" He ripped off the trooper's helmet, hood, and goggles. He bent his face low. Handy pulled his knife from his pocket and flicked it open, held the blade against the young man's cheek. "Shoot me in the back? That's the kind of balls you have? Come up behind a man like a fucking nigger!"

The trooper struggled. Handy slashed the knife downward, drawing a streak of blood along his jawline. He slammed his fist into the man's face once, then again, a dozen times, stepped away and turned back, kicking him in the belly and groin.

"Hey, Lou, take it -"

"Fuck him! He was going to shoot me in the back! He was going to shoot me in the fucking back! Is that what kind of man you are? That's what you think of honor?"

"Fuck you," the trooper gasped, rolling on the floor, helpless. Handy turned him over, slugged him in the lower back, handcuffed him with the boy's own cuffs.

"Where are the rest of 'em?" Handy poked the knife into the trooper's thigh, a shallow cut. "Tell me!" he raged. He pushed further. The man screamed.

Handy leaned his face close, inches away from the trooper's face.

"Straight to hell, Handy. That's where you can go."

The knife slipped further in. Another scream. Handy reached out and touched a tiny sphere of the tear. It clung to his finger, which he lifted to his tongue. Pushed the knife into the thigh a little bit more. More screaming.

Let's see when this boy breaks.

"Oh, Jesus," the man moaned.

Have to happen sooner or later. Just work our way north with this little bit o' Buck steel and see when he starts squealing. He begun to saw slowly with the blade, working his way toward the trooper's groin.

"I don't know where the rest of 'em are! I'm just fucking reconnaissance."

Handy suddenly got tired of the knife and beat him again with his fist, angrier than ever. "How many? Where're they coming in through?"

The trooper spat on his leg.

And suddenly Handy was back years ago, seeing Rudy sneer at him – well, it was probably a sneer. Seeing him turn away, Handy's two hundred dollars in his brother's wallet – he thought it was there, probably was. Seeing Rudy walk away like Handy was a piece of dried shit. The anger cutting through him like a carbon-steel blade in somebody's hot belly.

"Tell me!" he screamed. His fist rose again and again and smashed into the trooper's face. Finally, he stood back. "Fuck him. Fuck 'em all." Handy ran into the killing room and tipped the pot containing the gasoline over. The room filled with the chill liquid, splashing on the women and girls. Melanie the scared mouse-cunt pulled them into a corner but still they were doused.

Handy held the trooper's submachine gun toward the side door. "Shep, they're gonna come through there fast. As soon as they do I'm going to shoot a couple of 'em in the legs. You pitch that" – nodding at the grenade – "into the room, set off the gas. I want to keep some of them cops alive to tell everybody what happened to those girls. What it looked like when they burnt up."

"Yo, homes. You got it." Wilcox pulled the pin out of the smooth black grenade and, holding the delay handle, stepped into the doorway of the killing room. Handy pulled back the bolt of the H amp;K, aimed it at the door.

"Arthur, we have some movement by the window," Dean Stillwell said over the radio. "The one second to the left from the front door."

Potter acknowledged his transmission and looked out the window with field glasses. His vision of that window was blocked by the school bus and a tree.

"What was it, Dean?"

"One of my men said it looked like somebody going through the window."

"One of the HTs?"

"No, I meant going in the window."

"In? Any confirmation?"

"Yessir, another trooper said she saw it too."

"Well -"

"Oh, Jesus," Tobe whispered. "Arthur, look."

"Who are they?" Angie snapped. "Who the hell are they?"

Potter turned and glanced at the TV monitor she was gazing at. It took a moment to realize he was looking at a newscast – the monitor that had been tuned to the Weather Channel. To his horror he realized he was watching an assault on the slaughterhouse.

"Wait a minute," Budd said. "What's going on?"

"… exclusive footage. It appears that one of the troopers outside the slaughterhouse has just been kidnaped himself."

"Where's the camera?" an astounded LeBow said.

"Can't worry about that now," Potter said. The involuntary thought popped into his mind: Is this Henderson's revenge?

"Tremain," LeBow called out. "It's Tremain."

"Fuck," said good Catholic Tobe. "Those were the scrambled messages we were picking up. He's put an operation together."

"The trap inside! Tremain doesn't know about it."

"Trap?" Derek asked nervously.

Potter looked up, shocked. He understood instantly the depth of the betrayal. Derek Elb had been feeding the Hostage Rescue Unit information about the barricade. Had to be. "What's Tremain's frequency?" he shouted, leaping over the table and grabbing the young trooper by the collar.

Derek was shaking his head.

"Tell him, goddamnit!" Budd shouted.

"I don't have access. It's field-set. There's no way to break in."

"I can crack it," Tobe said.

"No, it's retrosignaling, it'll take you an hour. I'm sorry, I didn't know… I didn't know anything about a trap." Potter recalled that they had been outside when they'd learned about the bomb – at the field hospital.

Budd raged, "He's got a firebomb rigged up in there, Sergeant."

"Oh, God, no," Derek muttered.

Potter grabbed the phone. He dialed. There was no answer. "Come on, Lou. Come on!… Tobe, is SatSurv still on line?"

"Yep." He slammed his finger into a button. A monitor burst to life. It was essentially the same green-and-blue image of the grounds they'd seen before, but now there were ten little red dots clustered on either side of the slaughterhouse.

"They're in those gullies there. Probably going in through the northwest and southeast windows or doors. Give me a high-speed printout."

"You got it. Black-and-white'll be faster."

"Do it!" As the machine buzzed, Potter pressed the phone to his ear, hearing the calm, unanswered ringing on the other end. "Lou, Lou, Lou, come on… Answer!"

He slammed it down. "Henry, what'll they do?"

LeBow leapt up and stared at the printout as it spewed from the machine. "Blow in the door here, on the left. But I don't know what they're doing on the right side. There's no door. You can't use cutting charges to breach a structural wall." He pointed at the mounted diagram of the processing plant. "Look there. That dotted line. That might've been a door at one time. Tremain must have found it. They're going in from both sides."

"Single-file?"

"Two-man entry but tandem, yeah. They'll have to."

"It's -"

The bang was very soft. Suddenly the van went dark. Frances gave a short scream. Only an eerie yellow glow from the thick windows and the twin blue screens of Henry LeBow's computers illuminated the pungent interior.

"Lost power," Tobe said. "We -"

"Arthur!" LeBow was pointing out the window at the flames that were rolling up the side of the van.

"What happened? Jesus, did Handy hit us?"

Potter ran to the door. He pulled it open and cried out, leaping back from the tongue of flames and the searing heat that flowed into the van. Slammed the door.

"We can't power up," Tobe said. "Backup's gone too."

"How long do I have?" he raged at Derek.

"Answer me or you'll be in jail in an hour. How long from the time the power goes out till they attack?"

"Four minutes," Derek whispered. "Sir, I was just doing what -"

"No, Arthur," Angie called, "don't open it!"

Potter flung the door open. He flew backwards as his sleeves ignited. Outside all they could see was an ocean of flame. Then the black smoke of burning rubber and oil poured inside, sending them to the floor in search of air.

Disengaging his scrambler, Dan Tremain broadcast, "Agent Potter, Agent Potter! This is Captain Tremain. Come in, please. Are you all right?"

Tremain watched the fire on the hill. It was alarming, the orange flames and the black smoke, swirling in a tornado. He knew all about the van, had used it himself often, and knew that those inside were safe as long as they kept the door closed. Still, it was a terrible conflagration.

No time to think about that now. He called again, "Agent Potter… Derek? Is anyone in the command van? Please report."

"This is Sheriff Stillwell, who's calling?"

"Captain Dan Tremain, state police. What's going on?"

"The van's on fire, sir. We don't know. Handy may've made a lucky shot."

Thank you, Sheriff, Tremain thought. The conversations were being recorded at state police headquarters. Stillwell's comment would more than justify Tremain's action.

"Is everyone all right?" the HRU commander asked.

"We can't get close to the van. We don't -"

Tremain cut off the transmission and ordered, on the scrambled frequency, "Alpha team, Bravo team. Code word Filly. Code word Filly. Arm the cutting charges. Sixty seconds to detonation."

"Alpha. Armed."

''Bravo. Armed."

''Fire in the hole," Tremain called, and lowered his head.

Arthur Potter, fifteen pounds overweight and never athletic, rolled to the ground just past the flames that two troopers were trying unsuccessfully to douse with fire extinguishers.

He hit the ground and stared in alarm at his flaming sleeves. One trooper cried out and blasted him with carbon dioxide. The icy spray stung his hands more than the burn had though he saw the wounds on his skin and knew what kind of agony he could anticipate later.

If he lived to later.

No time, no time at all…

He rolled to his feet and ignored the embers smoldering on his jacket, the pain searing his skin. He began to jog, clicking on the bullhorn.

Potter struggled across the field, through the line of police cars and directly toward the slaughterhouse. He gasped as he shouted, "Lou Handy, listen to me! Listen. This is Art Potter. Can you hear me?"

Sixty yards, fifty.

No response. Tremain's men would be moving in at any minute.

"Lou, you're about to be attacked. It's an unauthorized operation. I had nothing to do with it. Repeat: It's a mistake. The officers are in two gullies to the north and the south of the slaughterhouse. You can set up a crossfire from the two windows on those sides. Do you hear me, Lou?"

He was gasping for breath and struggling to call out. A pain shot through his chest and he had to slow down.

A perfect target, he stood on the crest of a hill – the very place where Susan Phillips had been shot in the back – and shouted, 'They're about to blow the side doors but you can stop them before they get inside. Set up crossfire positions in the southeast and the northwest windows. There's a door on the south side you don't know about. It's covered up but it's there. They're going to blow their way in from there too, Lou. Listen to me. I want you to shoot for their legs. They have body armor. Shoot for their legs! Use shotguns. Shoot for their legs."

No movement inside the slaughterhouse.

Oh, please…

"Lou!"

Silence. Except for the urgent wind.

Then he noticed movement from the gully to the north of the slaughterhouse. A helmet rising from a stand of buffalo grass. A flash as a pair of binoculars turned his way.

Or was it the telescopic sight of an H amp;K MP-5?

"Lou, do you hear me?" Potter called again. "This is an unauthorized operation. Set up crossfire positions on the north door and the south door. There'll be plasterboard or something covering the doorway on the south."

Nothing… silence.

Somebody please…

For God's sake, talk to me. Somebody!

Then: movement. Potter looked toward it – just to the north of the slaughterhouse.

On the crest of a hill seventy-five, eighty yards away a man in black stood, his hip cocked, an H amp;K on a strap at his side, staring at Potter. Then one by one the troopers in the gullies on either side of the slaughterhouse rose and slithered away from the doors. The helmeted heads bobbed up and retreated into the bushes. HRU was standing down.

From the slaughterhouse there was nothing but silence. But Arthur Potter still was heartsick. For he knew that there would have to be a reparation. As amoral and cruel as Handy was, the one thing he'd done consistently was keep his word. Handy's world may have run on a justice of his own making, an evil justice, but justice it was nonetheless. And it was the good guys who'd just broken faith.

Potter, LeBow, and Budd stood back, arms crossed, while Tobe desperately ran wires, cutting and splicing.

Potter watched Derek Elb being escorted away by two of Pete Henderson's agents and asked Tobe, "Sabotage?"

Tobe – nearly as good at ballistics as he was at electronics – couldn't say for certain. "Looks like a simple gasoline fire. We were running a lot of juice out of the generator. But somebody could've slipped in an L210 and we'd be none the wiser. Anyway I can't look for anything now." And he stripped, joined, and taped a dozen wires at once, it seemed.

LeBow said, "You know it is, Arthur."

Potter agreed, of course. Tremain had probably left a remote-controlled incendiary device in the generator of the van.

Incredulous, Budd asked, "He'd do something like that? What are you going to do?"

The negotiator said, "Nothing right now." In his heart he lived too far in the past; in his career, he lived there hardly at all. Potter had no time or taste for revenge. Now he had the hostages to think about. Hurry, Tobe, get the lines running again.

Officer Frances Whiting returned to the van. She'd been inhaling oxygen at the medical tent. Her face was smudged and she breathed with some difficulty, but otherwise she was okay.

"Little more excitement than you're used to in Hebron?" Potter asked her.

"Not counting traffic citations, my last collar was when Bush was in office."

The smell of scorch and burnt rubber and plastic was overwhelming. Potter's arms were streaked with burn. The hair on the backs of his hands was gone and one searing patch on his wrist raged with pain. But he couldn't take the time to see the medics just yet. He had to make contact with Handy first, try to minimize whatever payback was undoubtedly fermenting in Handy's mind.

"Okay," Tobe called. "Got it." The miracle worker had run a line from the remote generator truck and the van was up and running again.

Potter was about to tell Budd to prop the door open to air the place out when he realized there was no door. It had been burned away. He sat down at the desk, grabbed the phone, and dialed.

The electronic sound of a ringing phone filled the van.

No answer.

Behind them Henry LeBow had begun to type again. The sound of the muted keys more than anything else restored Potter's confidence. Back in business, he thought. And turned his attention to the phone.

Answer, Lou. Come on. We've got too much behind us to let it fall apart now. There's too much history, we've gotten too close…

Answer the damn phone!

A loud squeal outside, so close that Potter thought at first it was feedback. Roland Marks's limo bounded to a stop and he leapt from the car, glancing briefly at the scorched van. "I saw the news!" he shouted to no one in particular. "What the fuck happened?"

"Tremain went rogue," Potter said, pressing redial once more and eyeing the lawyer coldly.

"He what?"

LeBow explained.

Budd said, "We didn't have a clue, sir."

"I want to talk to that fellow, oh, yes I do," Marks grumbled. "Where -?"

Then there was a rush of motion from the doorway and Potter was knocked sideways. He fell heavily on his back, grunted.

"You son of a bitch!" Tremain cried. "You fucking son of a bitch!"

"Captain!" Marks roared.

Budd and Tobe grabbed the HRU commander's arms, pulled him off. Potter rose slowly. He touched his head where he'd banged it in the fall. No blood. He gestured for the two men to release Tremain. Reluctantly they did.

"He's got one of my men, Potter. Thanks to you, you fucking Judas."

Budd stiffened and stepped forward. Potter waved him down and straightened his tie, glancing at the burns on the backs of his hands. Large blisters had formed and the pain was really quite remarkable.

"Tobe," he said calmly, "run the tape, would you please? The KFAL tape."

There was a hum of a VCR and a monitor burst to life. A red-white-and-blue TV station logo appeared on the bottom of the screen, along with the words Reporting Live… Joe Silbert.

"Oh, that's brilliant," Marks said sourly, staring at the screen.

"He's got one of your men," Potter said, "because you dismissed the troopers who were preventing reporters from getting near the site."

"What?" Tremain stared at the newscast.

LeBow continued to type. Without looking up he said, "Handy saw you moving in. He's got a TV inside."

Tremain didn't answer. Potter wondered if he was thinking, Name, rank, serial number.

"Expected better of you, Dan," the assistant attorney general said.

"The governor -" he blurted before he thought better of it. "Well, even if he did, we could've saved those girls. They'd be out by now. We still could have gotten them out safe!"

Why aren't I angry? Potter wondered. Why aren't I raging at him, this man who nearly ruined everything? Who nearly killed the girls inside, who nearly killed Melanie? Why?

Because it's crueler this way, Potter understood suddenly. To tell him the truth starkly and without emotion.

Ever done anything bad, Art?

"Handy rigged a booby trap, Captain," Potter said, calm as a deferential butler. "A gasoline bomb on a hair trigger. Those girls would've burned to death the instant you blew those doors."

Tremain stared at him. "No," he whispered. "Oh, no. God forgive me. I didn't know." The sinewy man looked like he was going to faint.

"Downlink," Tobe called.

An instant later the phone rang. Potter snatched it up.

"Lou?"

That sucked, Art. I thought you were my friend.

"Well, Art. That was pretty fucking low. Some goddamn friend you are."

"I had nothing to do with it." Potter's eyes were on Tremain. "We had an officer here go rogue."

"These boys have some nice equipment. We've got some grenades and a machine gun now."

Potter pointed to LeBow, who pulled Tremain aside and asked the numb captain what kind of armament the captured trooper had with him.

A figure appeared in the doorway. Angie. Potter waved her in.

"Lou," the negotiator said into the phone, "I'm apologizing for what happened. It won't happen again. You have my word on that. You heard me out there. I gave you good tactical information. You know it wasn't anything I'd planned."

"I suppose you've got those girls by now. The little ones."

"Yes, we do, Lou."

"That U.S. attorney, Budd… he set us up, didn't he, Art?"

Again a hesitation. "I have no knowledge to that effect."

He's going to be very reasonable, Potter surmised.

Or go totally nuts.

"Ha. You're a kicker, Art. Well, okay, I believe you about this D-Day shit. You tell me there was some crazy cop doing things he shouldn't oughta've. But you should've been more in charge, Art. It's the way the law works, isn't that right? You're responsible for things people work for you do."

Angie was frowning.

"What?" Budd asked, seeing the hopeless expression on her face. It matched that on Potter's.

"What's the matter?" Frances Whiting whispered.

Potter grabbed the field glasses, wiped the greasy smoke residue off them, and looked out.

Oh, Christ, no… Desperately Potter said, "Lou, it was a mistake."

"You shoot at Shep it was a mistake. You don't get me my chopper on time it's not your fault… Don't you know me by now, Art?"

Only too well.

Potter set down the glasses. He turned away from the window, glanced up at the pictures above the diagram of the slaughterhouse. Who will it be? he wondered.

Emily?

Donna Harstrawn?

Beverly?

Potter thinks suddenly: Melanie. He's going to pick Melanie.

Frances understood and cried out, "No, please no. Do something!"

"There's nothing to do," Angie whispered.

Tremain leaned his miserable face down to the window and looked out.

Handy's voice filled the van. He sounded reasonable, wise. "You're a lot like me, Art. Loyal. That's what I think. You're loyal to them that do what they're supposed to and you don't have time for those that don't." A pause. "You know just what I'm saying, don't you, Art? I'll leave the body outside. You can come get it. Flag of truce."

"Lou, isn't there anything I can do?" Potter heard the desperation in his own voice. Hated it. But it was there just the same.

Who will it be?

Angie had turned away.

Budd shook his head sorrowfully. Even boisterous Roland Marks could find nothing to say.

"Tobe," Potter said softly, "please turn down the volume."

He did. But still everyone jumped at the stark sound of the gunshot, which filled the van as a huge metallic ring.

As he stumbled toward the slaughterhouse, where the body lay pale in the halogen lights, he pulled off his flak jacket and dropped it on the ground. His helmet too he left behind.

Dan Tremain walked on, tears in his eyes, gazing at the still body, the bloody body, lying in the posture of a rag doll.

He crested the rise and saw from the corner of his eye troopers standing from their places of cover. They were staring at him; they knew he was responsible for what had happened, for this unconscionable death. He was walking up Calvary Hill.

And in the window of the processing plant: Lou Handy, a gun pointed directly at Tremain's chest. It made no difference, he was no threat; the captain had dropped the utility belt holding his Glock service pistol some yards back. On he stumbled, nearly falling, then just catching his balance like a drunk with some irrepressible sense of survival. His despair was deepened by Lou Handy's face – the red eyes, set back under bony brows, the narrow jaw, the five o'clock shadow. He was smiling, an innocuous smile of curiosity, as he gazed at the sorrow on the cop's face. Sampling, tasting.

Tremain gazed at the body lying there in front of him. Fifty feet away, forty. Thirty.

I'm mad, Tremain thought. And continued to walk, staring into the black eye of the muzzle of Handy's gun.

Twenty feet. Blood so red, skin so pale.

Handy's mouth was moving but Tremain could hear nothing. Maybe God's judgment is to make me deaf as those poor girls.

Ten feet. Five.

He slowed. The troopers were standing now, all of them, staring at him. Handy could pick any of them off, as they could him, but there would be no shooting. This was the Christmas Eve during World War I when the enemy troops shared carols and food. And helped each other collect and bury the shattered bodies strewn throughout no-man's-land.

"What have I done?" he muttered. He dropped to his knees and touched the cold hand.

He cried for a moment then hefted the body of the trooper in his arms – Joey Wilson, Outrider Two – and lifted it effortlessly, looking into the window. At Handy's face, which was no longer smiling but, oddly, curious. Tremain memorized the foxlike cast of his face, the cold eyes, the way the tip of his tongue lay against his upper lip. They were only feet apart.

Tremain turned and started back to the police line. In his mind he heard a tune, floating aimlessly. He couldn't think of what it might be for a minute then the generic instrument turned into the bagpipe he remembered from years ago and the tune became "Amazing Grace," the traditional song played at the funerals of fallen policemen.

8:45 P.M.

Arthur Potter thought about the nature of silence.

Sitting in the medical tent. Staring at the floor as medics attended to his burnt arms and hands.

Days and weeks of silence. Silence thicker than wood, perpetual silence. Is that what Melanie's day-to-day life was like?

He himself had known quiet. An empty house. Sunday mornings, filled only with the faint tapping of household motors and pumps. Still summer afternoons by himself on a back porch. But Potter was a man who lived in a state of anticipation and for him the silence was, on good days at least, the waiting state before his life might begin again – when he would meet someone like Marian, when he would find someone other than takers and terrorists and psychos with whom he might share his thoughts.

Someone like Melanie? he wondered.

No, of course not.

He felt a chill on the back of his hand and watched the medic apply some kind of ointment, which had the effect of dulling most of the stinging immediately.

Arthur Potter thought of Melanie's photograph, saw it hanging over the diagram of the slaughterhouse. He thought of his reaction when he understood, a few minutes ago, that Handy was going to kill another hostage. She was the first person in his mind.

He stretched. A joint somewhere in his back popped softly and he admonished himself: Don't be a damn fool…

But in another part of his lavish mind Arthur Potter English-lit major thought, If we have to be foolish it ought to be in love. Not in our careers, where lives hang in the balance; not with our gods or in our lust for beauty and learning. Not with our children, so desirous and so unsure. But in love. For love is nothing but the purest folly and we go there for the purpose of being impassioned and half-crazy. In matters of the heart the world will always be generous with us, and forgiving.

Then he laughed to himself and shook his head as reality descended once more – like the dull ache that returned along his seared arms. She's twenty-five – less than half your age. She's deaf, both lower- and upper-case. And, for heaven's sake, it's your wedding anniversary today. Twenty-three years. Not a single one missed. Enough nonsense. Get back to the command van. Get to work.

The medic tapped him on the shoulder. Potter looked up, startled.

"You're all set, sir."

"Yes, thank you."

He rose and walked unsteadily back to the van.

A figure appeared in the doorway.

Potter looked up at Peter Henderson. "You all right?" the SAC asked.

He nodded cautiously. Tremain might have been the main perp but Potter would have bet a week's salary that Henderson had played some role in the assault. Ambition? A desire to get back at the Bureau, which betrayed him? Yet this would be even harder to prove than the existence of the suspected gas bomb in the generator. Forensics of the heart are always elusive.

Henderson looked at the burns. "You'll get yourself a medal for this."

"My first wound in the line of duty." Potter smiled.

"Arthur, I just wanted to apologize for losing my temper before. It gets dull down here. I was hoping for some action. You know how it is."

"Sure, Pete."

"I miss the old days."

Potter shook the man's hand. They talked about Joe Silbert and his fellow reporters. They'd refer the matter to the U.S. attorney but concluded there was probably nothing to hold them for. Obstruction of justice is a tricky charge and absent interfering with an ongoing criminal prosecution judges usually come down on the side of the First Amendment. Potter had contented himself by walking ominously up to Silbert, who stood in a circle of troopers, cool as a captured revolutionary leader. The agent had told him that he was going to cooperate in every way with the widow of the dead trooper, who would undoubtedly be bringing a multimillion-dollar wrongful-death action against the TV station and Silbert and Biggins personally.

"I intend to be a plaintiff's witness," Potter explained to the reporter, whose facade cracked momentarily, revealing beneath it a very scared, middle-aged man of questionable talents and paltry liquidity.

The negotiator now sat back in his chair and gazed at the slaughterhouse through the yellow window.

"How many minutes to the next deadline?"

"Forty-five."

Potter sighed. "That's going to be a big one. I'll have to do some thinking about it. Handy's mad now. He lost control in a big way."

Angie said, "And what's worse is that you helped him get it back. Which is a form of losing control in itself."

"So he's resentful in general and resentful at me in particular."

"Though he probably doesn't know it," Angie said.

"It's lose-lose." Potter's eyes were on Budd, gazing mournfully at the slaughterhouse.

The phone buzzed. Tobe picked it up, blew soot off the receiver, and answered. "Yeah," the young man said. "I'll tell him." He hung up. "Charlie, that was Roland Marks. He asked if you could come see him right away. He's got his friend with him. Somebody he wants you to meet. He said it's critical."

The captain kept his eye on the battlefield. "He's… Where is he?"

"Down by the rear staging area."

"Uh-huh. Okay. Say, Arthur, can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Sure you can."

"Outside?"

"Taken up imaginary smoking, have you?" Potter asked.

"Arthur started a trend in Special Ops," Tobe said. "Henry's taken up imaginary sex."

"Tobe," barked LeBow, typing away madly.

The young agent added, "I'm not being critical, Henry. I'm going to imaginary AA."

Budd smiled wanly and he and Potter stepped outside. The temperature had dropped ten degrees and it seemed to the negotiator that the wind was worse.

"So, what's up, Charlie?"

They stopped walking. The men gazed at the van and the burnt field around it – the devastation that the fire had caused.

"Arthur, there's something I have to tell you." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a tape recorder. He looked down and turned it over and over in his hands.

"Oh," the agent said. "About this?" Potter held up a small cassette.

Budd frowned and flipped open the recorder. There was a cassette inside.

"That one's blank," Potter said. "It's a special cassette. Can't be recorded on."

Budd pushed the play button. The hiss of static brayed from the tiny speaker.

"I knew all about it, Charlie."

"But -"

"Tobe has his magic wands. They pick up magnetic recording equipment. We're always sweeping locations for bugs. He told me somebody had a recorder. He narrowed it down to you."

"You knew?" He stared at the agent, then shook his head in disgust with himself – for having been outsmarted at something he didn't think was very smart to begin with.

"Who was it?" Potter asked. "Marks? Or the governor?"

"Marks. Those girls… he's really in a state about them. He wanted to give Handy whatever he wanted in order to get them released. Then he was going to track him down. He had this special homing device he was going to put in the chopper. You could track 'em from a hundred miles away and they'd never know."

Potter nodded at the crestfallen captain. "I figured it was something like that. Any man willing to sacrifice himself is willing to sacrifice somebody else."

"But how'd you swap the cassettes?" Budd asked.

Angie Scapello stepped down through the open doorway of the van and nodded a greeting to the men. She walked past Budd, touching his arm very lightly as she passed.

"Hi, Charlie."

"Hey, Angie," he said, not smiling.

"Say, what time do you have?" she asked him.

He lifted his left wrist. "Hell, it's gone. My watch. Damn. And Meg just gave it to me for my -"

Angie held up the Pulsar.

Budd was nodding, understanding it all. "Got it," he said, and hung his head even lower, if that was possible. "Oh, brother."

"I used to teach the pickpocket recognition course at Baltimore PD," she explained. "I borrowed the recorder when we were strolling around in the gully – having our loyalty talk – and switched cassettes."

Budd smiled miserably. "You're good. I'll give you that. Oh, man. I've been messin' up all night long. I don't know what to say. I've let you down."

"You confessed. No harm done."

"It was Marks?" Angie asked.

"Yep." Budd sighed. "At first I was thinking like him – that we should do anything to save those girls. I gave Arthur an earful about that this morning. But you were right, a life's a life. Doesn't matter if it's a girl or a trooper. We gotta stop him here."

"I appreciate that Marks had noble motives," Potter said. "But we have to do things a certain way. Acceptable losses. Remember?"

Budd closed his eyes. "Man, I almost ruined your career."

The negotiator laughed. "You didn't come close, Captain. Believe me, you were the only one at risk. If you'd given that tape to anyone your career in law enforcement would've been over."

Budd looked very flustered then stuck out his hand.

Potter shook it warmly though Budd didn't grip it very hard, either out of shame or out of concern about the fluffy pads of bandages on the agent's skin.

They all fell silent as Potter gazed up at the sky. "When's the deadline?"

Budd looked again at his wrist blankly for a moment then he realized that he was holding his watch in his right hand. "Forty minutes. What's the matter?" The captain's eyes lifted to the same jaundiced cloud that Potter was targeting.

"I'm getting a bad feeling about this one. This deadline."

"Why?"

"I just am."

"Intuition," Angie said. "Listen to him, Charlie. He's usually right."

Budd looked down from the sky and found Potter looking at him. "I'm sorry, Arthur. I'm plumb outta ideas."

Potter's eyes zipped back and forth over the grass, blackened by the fire and by the shadow of the van. "A helicopter," he blurted suddenly.

"What?"

Potter felt a keen sense of urgency seize him. "Get me a helicopter."

"But I thought we weren't going to give him one."

"I just need to show him one. A big one. At least a six-seater – eight- or ten- if you can find one."

"If I can find one?" Budd exclaimed. "Where? How?"

A thought slipped into Potter's mind from somewhere.

Airport.

There was an airport nearby. Potter tried to remember. How did he know that? Had somebody told him? He hadn't driven past it. Budd hadn't told him; SAC Henderson hadn't said anything. Where -

It was Lou Handy. The taker had mentioned it as a possible source of a helicopter. He must've driven by it on the way here.

He told this to Budd.

"I know it," the captain said. "They got a couple choppers there but I don't know if there's anybody's there who can even fly one. I mean, if we found one in Wichita they might make it here in time. But hell, it'll take more'n forty minutes to track down a pilot."

"Well, forty minutes is all we have, Charlie. Get a move on."

"The truth…" Melanie is crying.

And de l'Epée is the one person she doesn't want to cry in front of. But cry she does. He rises from his chair and sits on the couch next to her.

"The truth is," she continues, "that I just don't like who I am, what I've become, what I'm a part of."

It's time to confess and nothing can stop her now.

"I told you about how I lived for being Deaf. It became my whole life?"

"Miss Deaf Farmhand of the Year."

"I didn't want any of it. Not. One. Bit." She grows vehement. "I got so damn tired of the self-consciousness of it all. The politics of being part of the Deaf world, the prejudice the Deaf have – oh, it's there. You'd be surprised. Against minorities and other handicapped. I'm tired of it! I'm tired of not having my music. I'm tired of my father…"

"Yes, what?" he asks.

"I'm tired of him using it against me. My deafness."

"How does he do that?"

"Because it makes me more scared than I already am! It keeps me at home. That piano I told you about? The one I wanted to play 'A Maiden's Grave' on? They sold it when I was nine. Even though I could still hear enough to play and could for a couple years more. They said – well, he said, my father said – they didn't want me to learn to love something that would be taken away from me." She adds, "But the real reason was that he wanted to keep me on the farm."

So you'll be home then.

Melanie looks into de l'Epée eyes and says what she's never said to anyone. "I can't hate him for wanting me to stay at home. But selling the piano – that hurt so much. Even if I'd had only one day of playing music it would have been better than nothing. I'll never forgive him for that."

"They had no right to do that," he agrees. "But you managed to break away. You've got a job away from home, you're independent -" His voice fades.

And now for the hard part.

"What is it?" de l'Epée asks softly.

"A year ago," she begins, "I bought some new hearing aids. Generally they don't work at all but these seemed to have some effect with certain pitches of music. There was a recital in Topeka I wanted to go to. Kathleen Battle. I'd read in the paper that she was going to sing some spirituals as part of the program and I thought…"

"That she'd sing 'Amazing Grace'?"

"I wanted to see if I could hear it. I was desperate to go. But I had no way of getting there. I can't drive and the buses would have taken forever. I begged ray brother to take me. He'd been working all day on the farm but he said he'd take me anyway."

"We got there just in time for the concert. Kathleen Battle walked out on stage wearing this beautiful blue dress. She smiled to the audience… And then she began to sing."

"And?"

"It was useless." Melanie breathes deeply, kneads her ringers. "It…"

"Why are you so sad?"

"The hearing aids didn't work at all. Everything was muddled. I could hardly hear anything and the notes I could hear were all off key to me. We left at intermission. Danny was doing his best to cheer me up. He…"

She falls silent.

'There's more, isn't there? There's something else you want to tell me."

It hurts so much! She only thinks these words but according to the fishy rules of her music room de l'Epée can hear them perfectly. He leans forward. "What hurts? Tell me?"

And there's so much to tell him. She could use a million words to describe that night and never convey the horror of living through it.

"Go ahead," De l'Epée says encouragingly. As her brother used to do, as her father never did. "Go ahead."

"We left the concert hall and got into Danny's car. He asked if I wanted some dinner but I couldn't eat a thing. I asked him just to drive home."

De l'Epée scoots forward. Their knees meet. He touches her arm. "What else?"

"We left town, got onto the highway. We were in Danny's little Toyota. He rebuilt it himself. Everything. He's so good with mechanical things. He's amazing, really. We were going pretty fast."

She pauses for a moment to let the tide of sadness subside. It never does but she takes a deep breath – remembering when she had to take a breath before saying something – and finds herself able to continue. "We were talking in the car."

De l'Epée nods.

"But that means we were signing. And that means we had to look at each other. He kept asking me what I was sad about, that the hearing aids didn't work, was I discouraged, had Dad been hassling me about the farm again?… He…"

She must breathe deeply again.

"Danny was looking at me, not at the road. Oh, God… it was just there, in front of us. I never saw where it came from."

"What?"

"A truck. A big one, carrying a load of metal pipes. I think it changed lanes when Danny wasn't looking and… oh, Jesus, there was nothing he could do. All these pipes coming at us at a thousand miles an hour…"

The blood. All the blood.

"I know he braked, I know he tried to turn. But it was too late. No… Oh, Danny."

Spraying, spraying. Like the blood from the throat of a calf.

"He managed to steer mostly out of the way but one pipe smashed through the windshield. It…"

De l'Epée kneads her hand. "Tell me," he whispers.

"It…" The words are almost impossible to say. "It took his arm off."

Like the blood running down the gutters into the horrible well in the center of the killing room.

"Right at the shoulder." She sobs at the memory. Of the blood. Of the stunned look on her brother's face as he turned to her and spoke for a long moment, saying words she couldn't figure out then and never had the heart to ask him to repeat.

The blood sprayed to the roof of the car and pooled in his lap, while Melanie struggled to get a tourniquet around the stump and screamed and screamed. She, the vocal one. While Danny, still conscious, nodding madly, sat completely mute.

Melanie says to De l'Epée, "The medics got there just a few minutes later and stopped most of the bleeding. They saved his life. They got him to a hospital and the doctors got his arm reattached within a couple of hours. For the past year he's had all sorts of operations. He's having one tomorrow – that's where my parents are. In St. Louis, visiting him. They think he'll get back maybe fifty percent use of his arm eventually. If he's lucky. But he lost all interest in the farm after that. He's pretty much stayed in bed. He reads, watches TV. That's about all. It's like his life is over with…"

"It wasn't your fault," he says. "You're taking the blame, aren't you?"

"A few days after it happened my father called me out on the porch. There's something about him that's funny – I can lip-read him perfectly."

(Like Brutus, she thinks, and wishes she hadn't.)

"He sat on the porch swing and looked up at me and he said, 'I guess you understand what you've done now. You had no business talking Danny into doing something as foolish as that. And for a selfish reason all your own. What happened was your fault, there's no two ways about it. You might just as well've turned the engine over on a corn picker when Danny was working on a jam inside.

" 'God made you damaged and nobody wants it. It's a shame but it's not a sin – as long as you understand what you have to do. Come home now and make up for what you done. Get that teaching of yours over with, get that last year done. You owe your brother that. And you owe me especially.

" 'This is your home and you'll be welcome here. See, it's a question of belonging and what God does to make sure those that oughta stay someplace do. Well, your place is here, working at what you can do, where your, you know, problem doesn't get you into trouble. God's will.' And then he went to spray ammonia, saying, 'So you'll be home then.' It wasn't a question. It was an order. All decided. No debate. He wanted me to come home this last May. But I held off a few months. I knew I'd give in eventually. I always give in. But I just wanted a few more months on my own." She shrugs. "Stalling."

"You don't want the farm?"

"No! I want my music. I want to hear it, not just feel vibrations… I want to hear my lover whisper things to me when I'm in bed with him." She can't believe she's saying these things to him, intimate things – far more intimate than she's ever told anyone. "I don't want to be a virgin anymore."

Now that she's started it's all pouring out. "I hate the poetry, I don't care about it! I never have. It's stupid. Do you know what I was going to do in Topeka? After my recital at the Theater of the Deaf? I had that appointment afterwards." Then his arms are around her and she is pressing against his body, her head on his shoulder. It's an odd experience, doubly so: being close to a man, and communicating without looking at him. "There's something called a cochlear implant." She must pause for a moment before she can continue. "They put a chip in your inner ear. It's connected by wire to this thing, this speech processor that converts the sounds to impulses in the brain… I could never tell Susan. A dozen times I was going to. But she would've hated me. The idea of trying to cure deafness – she hated that."

"Do they work, these implants?"

"They can. I have a ninety percent hearing loss in both ears but that's an average. In some registers I can make out sounds and the implants can boost those. But even if they don't work there are other things to try. There's a lot of new technology that in the next five or six years'll help people like me – grass-roots deaf and peddlers and just ordinary people who want to hear."

She thinks: And I do. I want to hear… I want to hear you whisper things in my ear while we make love.

"I…" He's speaking, his mouth is moving, but the sound dwindles to nothing.

Fading, fading.

No! Talk to me, keep talking to me. What's wrong?

But now it's Brutus who is standing in the doorway of her music room. What are you doing here? Leave! Get out! It's my room. I don't want you here!

He smiles, looks at her ears. "Freak of nature," he says.

Then they were back in the killing room and Brutus wasn't talking to her at all but to Bear, who stood with his arms crossed defensively. The tension between them was like thick smoke.

"You give us up?" Brutus asked Bear.

Bear shook his head and said something she didn't catch.

"They picked them up outside, those little girls."

The twins! They were safe! Melanie relayed this to Beverly and Emily. The younger girl burst into a smile and her fingers stuttered out a spontaneous prayer of thanks.

"You let them go, didn't you?" Brutus asked Bear. "Your plan all along."

Bear shook his head. Said something she didn't catch.

"I talked to…" Brutus snarled.

"Who?" Bear seemed to ask.

'The U.S. attorney you cut a deal with."

Bear's face grew dark. "No way, man. No fucking way."

Wilcox came up behind him and said something. Bear stabbed a finger at Melanie. "She's the one…"

Brutus turned toward her. She gazed back coldly at him then rose and walked slowly over the wet tiles, almost choking on the smell of gasoline. She stopped and stood directly over Donna Harstrawn. With her finger she gestured Brutus forward. Her eyes locked into Bear's, Melanie lifted the woman's skirt a foot or two, revealing bloody thighs. She nodded at Bear.

"You little bitch!" Bear took a step toward her but Brutus caught his arm, pulled Bear's gun from his belt, tossed it to Stoat.

"You stupid asshole!"

"So? I fucked her, so what?"

Brutus lifted an eyebrow and then pulled a gun from his pocket. He pulled the slide and let it snap forward then pushed a button and took out the little metal tube that held the rest of the bullets. He put the pistol in Melanie's hand. It was cold as a rock, it gave her power like raw electrical current and it terrified her.

Bear was muttering something; in the corner of Melanie's eye she saw his lips moving. But she couldn't take her eyes from the gun. Brutus stood behind her and directed the barrel toward Bear's chest. He wrapped her hands in his. She smelled him, a sour scent of unwashed skin.

"Come on!" Bear's face was grim. "Quit fooling…"

Brutus was speaking to her; she felt the vibrations on the flesh of her face but she couldn't understand him. She sensed he was excited, almost aroused, and she felt it too – like a fever. Bear raised his hands. He was muttering something. Shaking his head.

The gun burned, radioactive. Bear eased away and Brutus adjusted the pistol to keep the muzzle pointed directly at his chest. Melanie pictured him lying atop Mrs. Harstrawn. She pictured him gazing at the twins' thin legs, their flat chests. Pull the trigger, she thought. Pull it! Her hand started to shake.

She again felt the vibrations of Brutus's words. In her mind, she heard his voice, an oddly soothing voice, the phantom voice. "Go ahead," he said.

Why isn't it firing? I'm ordering my finger to pull.

Nothing.

Bear was crying. Tears down his fat cheeks, running into his beard.

Melanie's hand was shaking badly. Brutus's firm hand curled around hers.

Then the gun silently bucked in her hand. Melanie gasped as the hot wind from the muzzle hit her face. A tiny dot appeared in Bear's chest and he gripped the wound with both hands, looked into the air, and fell backwards.

No, it fired by itself! I didn't do it, I didn't!

I swear!

She screamed those words to herself, over and over. And yet… yet she wasn't sure. She wasn't sure at all. For an instant – before the horror of what had happened hit home – she was enraged that she might not have been the one responsible for his death. That Brutus, not she, had applied the final ounce of pressure.

Brutus stepped away and reloaded the gun, pulled a lever, and the slide snapped forward.

Bear's mouth moved, his eyes darkened. She watched his miserable face, which looked as if all the injustice of the earth were conspiring to cheat a good man out of his life. Melanie didn't even try to figure out what he was saying.

She thought: Every once in a while deafness is a blessing.

Handy stepped past Melanie. He looked down at Bear. Muttered something to him. He fired one shot into the man's leg, which kicked violently in reaction. Bear's face contorted with pain. Then Handy fired again – into his other leg. Finally he aimed leisurely at the huge gut; the gun exploded once more. Bear shuddered once, stiffened, and went still.

Melanie sank to the floor, put her arms around Emily and Beverly.

Brutus bent down and pulled her close. His face was only inches away. "I didn't do that 'cause he fucked that woman. I did it 'cause he didn't do what I'd told him. He let those girls get away and was gonna snitch on us. Now you just sit on back there."

How can I understand his words if I can't understand him?

How? Melanie wonders. I hear him so perfectly, just like I hear my father.

So you'll be home -

How? she wonders.

Handy's eyes looked Melanie up and down as if he clearly knew the answer to her question and was simply waiting for her to catch on. Then he looked at his watch, bent down, grabbed Emily by the arm. He dragged the little girl, hands pressed together in desperate prayer, into the main room.

Handy was singing.

Potter had called and said, "Lou, how're things going in there? Thought we heard a few gunshots."

To the tune of "Streets of Laredo" Handy sang in a half-decent voice, "I see by my Timex you got fifteen minutes…"

"You sound like you're in a bright mood, Lou. You doing okay foodwise?"

His voice didn't reveal his concern. Were they gunshots?

"I'm feeling pretty chipper, sure am. But I don't want to talk about my moods. That's fucking boring, isn't it? Tell me about my golden helicopter that's flying through the air right now. You get me one with diamond rotors, Art? Some babe with huge tits in the cockpit?"

What were those shots?

Looking at the monitor, the telescopic camera fixed on the window, he could see ten-year-old Emily Stoddard's waved blond hair, her big eyes, heart-shaped face. The silver glint of Handy's blade rested on her cheek.

"He's going to cut her," Angie whispered. For the first time that day her voice cracked with emotion. Because she, like Potter, knew he'd do it.

"Lou, we have your chopper. It's on its way."

Why won't he wear down? Potter wondered. After this much time most criminal takers're climbing the walls. They'll do anything to cut a deal.

"Hold on, Lou. I think that's the pilot now. I'm going to put you on hold. I'll be right back."

"No need. Just get me that chopper in fourteen minutes."

"Just hold on."

Potter hit the mute button and asked, "What do you think, Angie?"

She gazed out the window. Suddenly she announced, "He's serious. He's going to do it. He's tired of the bargaining. And he's still mad about the assault."

"Tobe?"

"It's ringing, there's no answer."

"Damn it. Doesn't he keep the phone in his pocket?"

"You still there, Lou?"

"Time's awasting, Art."

Potter tried to sound distracted as he asked, "Oh, hey, tell me, Lou. What about those shots?"

A low chuckle. "You sure are curious about that."

"Were they shots?"

"I dunno. Maybe it was all in your head. Maybe you were feeling guilty 'bout that trooper of yours getting accidentally shot after you accidentally tried to attack me. And you heard it, you know, like a delusion."

"Sounded real to us."

"Maybe Sonny accidentally shot himself cleaning his gun."

"That what happened?"

"Be a shame if anybody was counting on him to be a witness and all and what happens but he goes and cleans a Glock without looking to see if there was a round inside."

"There is no deal between him and us, Lou."

"Not now there ain't. I'll guaran-fucking-tee that."

LeBow and Angie looked up at Potter. "Bonner's dead?" the negotiator asked Handy.

Have you ever done anything bad, Art?

"You got twelve minutes," Handy's cheerful voice said.

Click.

Tobe said, "Got him. Budd."

Potter grabbed the offered phone. "Charlie, you there?"

"I'm at the airport and they've got a helicopter here. But I can't find anybody to fly it."

"There's got to be somebody."

"There's a school here – an aviation school – and some guy lives in the back but he won't answer the door."

"I need a chopper here in ten minutes, Charlie. Just buzz the river and set it down in that big field to the west. The one about a half-mile from here. That's all you've got to do."

"That's all? Oh, brother."

Potter said, "Good luck, Charlie." But Charlie was no longer on the line.

Charlie Budd ran underneath the tall Sikorsky helicopter. It was an old model, a big one, the sort that had plucked dripping astronauts from the ocean during the Gemini and Apollo days at NASA. It was orange and red and white, Coast Guard colors, though the insignias had long ago been painted over.

The airport was small. There was no tower, just an air sock beside a grass strip. A half-dozen single-engine Pipers and Cessnas sat idle, tied down securely against Land of Oz twisters.

Budd slammed his fist onto the door of a small shack behind the airport's one hangar. The sign beside the door said, D. D. Pembroke Helicopter School. Lessons, Rides. Hourly, Daily.

Despite that claim, however, the place was mostly a residence. A pile of mail sat on the doorstep and through the window in the door Budd could see a yellow light burning, a pile of clothes in a blue plastic hamper, and what appeared to be a man's foot hanging off the end of a cot. A single toe protruded from a hole in his sock.

"Come on!" Budd pounded hard. He shouted, "Police! Open up!"

The toe moved – it twitched, swung in a slow circle – then fell still.

More pounding. "Open up!"

The toe was fast asleep once more.

The window shattered easily under Budd's elbow. He unlocked the door and pushed inside. "Hey, mister!"

A man of about sixty lay on the cot, wearing overalls and a T-shirt. His hair was like straw and spread out from his head in all directions. His snore was as loud as the Sikorsky's engine.

Budd grabbed his arm and shook violently.

D. D. Pembroke, if D. D. Pembroke this was, opened his wet, red eyes momentarily, gazed through Budd, and rolled over. The snoring, at least, stopped.

"Mister, I'm a state trooper. This's an emergency. Wake up! We need that chopper of yours right now."

"Go away," Pembroke mumbled.

Budd sniffed his breath. He found the empty bottle of Dewar's cradled beneath the man's arm like a sleeping kitten.

"Shit. Wake up, mister. We need you to fly."

"I can't fly. How can I fly? Go away." Pembroke didn't move or open his eyes. "How'd you get in here?" he asked without a trace of curiosity.

The captain rolled him over and shook him by the shoulders. The bottle fell to the concrete floor and broke.

"You Pembroke?"

"Yeah. Shit, was that my bottle?"

"Listen, this is a federal emergency." Budd spotted a jar of instant coffee on a filthy, littered tabletop. He ran water in the rusted sink and filled a mug, not waiting for it to turn hot. He dumped four heaping tablespoons into the cold water and thrust the dirty cup into Pembroke's hands. "Drink this, mister. We gotta get going. I need to you fly me to that slaughterhouse up the road."

Pembroke, eyes still closed, sat up and sniffed at the cup. "What slaughterhouse? What's this shit in here?"

"The one by the river."

"Where's my bottle?"

"Drink this down, it'll wake you up." The instant grounds hadn't dissolved; they floated on the top like brown ice. Pembroke sipped it, spit a mouthful onto the bed, and flung the cup away. "Jeeeez!" Only then did he realize that there was a man in a blue suit and body armor standing over him.

"Who the fuck're you? Where's my -"

"I need your helicopter. And I need it now. It's a federal emergency. You gotta fly me to that slaughterhouse by the river."

"There? The old one? It's three fucking miles away. You can drive faster. Fuck, you can walk! God in Hoboken… my head. Oooooh."

"I need a chopper. And I need it now. I'm authorized to pay you whatever you want."

Pembroke sagged back onto the bed. His eyes kept closing. Budd figured even if they managed to take off, he'd crash and kill them both.

"Let's go." The trooper pulled him up by his Oshkosh straps.

"When?"

"Now. This instant."

"I can't fly when I'm sleepy like this."

"Sleepy. Right. What do you charge?"

"A hundred twenty an hour."

"I'll pay you five hundred."

"Tomorrow." He started to lie down again, eyes closed, patting the dingy sheets for his bottle. "Get the hell outta here."

"Mister. Open your eyes."

He did.

"Shit," Pembroke muttered as he looked down the barrel of the black automatic pistol.

"Sir," Budd said in a low, respectful voice, "you're going to stand up and walk out to that helicopter and fly it exactly where I tell you. Do you understand me?"

A nod.

"Are you sober?"

"Stone cold," Pembroke said. He kept his eyes open for a whole two seconds before he passed out once more.

Melanie lay against the wall, caressing Beverly's sweaty blond hair, the poor girl gasping with every breath.

The young woman leaned forward and looked out. Emily, crying, stood in the window. Now Brutus turned suddenly and looked at Melanie, gestured her forward.

Don't go, she told herself. Resist.

She hesitated for a moment then walked out of the killing room toward him.

I go because I can't stop myself.

I go because he wants me.

She felt the chill sweeping into her from the floor, from the metal chains and meat hooks, from the cascade of slick water, from the damp walls spattered with mold and old, old blood.

I go because I'm afraid.

I go because he and I just killed a man together.

I go because I can understand him…

Brutus pulled her close. "You think you're better'n me, right? You think you're a good person." She could tell he was whispering. People's faces change when they whisper. They look like they're telling you absolute truths but really they're just making the lie more convincing.

"Why're we selling it? Honey, you know what the doctor said. It's your ears. You can still hear now some, sure, but that'll go, remember what they said. You don't really want to start something you'll have to give up in a few years. We're doing it for you."

"See, I'm going to cut her in about three minutes, that chopper don't show up. I'd kill her I had more hostages. But I can't afford to lose another one. Least not yet."

Emily stood, hands still clasped together, staring out at the window, shaking as she sobbed.

"See" – Brutus closed his fiercely strong fingers around Melanie's arm – "if you were a good person, you were really good, you'd say, 'Take me, not her.' "

Stop it!

He slapped her. "No, keep your eyes open. So if you're not like totally good you must have some bad inside you. Somewhere. To let this little one get cut instead of you. It's not like you'd die. I ain't gonna kill her. Just a little pain. Make sure those assholes out… know I mean business. You won't put up with a little pain for your friend, huh? You…bad. Just like me?"

She shook her head.

His head swiveled. Stoat's too. She guessed the phone was ringing.

"Don't answer it," he said to Stoat. "Too much talking. I'm sick and tired…" He thumbed the blade. Melanie was frozen. "You? You for her?" He moved the blade of the knife one way then the other. Figure eights.

What would Susan have done?

Melanie hesitated though she knew the answer clearly. Finally she nodded.

"Yeah," he said, eyebrows raised. "You mean it?"

"Two minutes," Stoat called.

Melanie nodded then embraced sobbing Emily, lowered her head to the girl's cheek, directed her gently away from the window.

Handy leaned close, his head inches from Melanie's, his nose beside her ear. She couldn't hear his breath, of course, but she had the impression he was inhaling something – the scent of her fear. Her eyes were fixed on the knife. Which hovered over her skin: her cheek, her nose, then her lips, her throat. She felt it caress a breast and slide down her belly.

She felt the vibration of his voice, turned to look at his lips. "… should I cut you? Your tit? No loss there – you don't have no boyfriend to feel you up, do you? Your ear? Hey, that wouldn't matter either… You see that flick, Reservoir Dogs?"

The blade lifted, slipped over her cheek. "How 'bout your eye? Deaf and blind. You'd be a real freak then."

Finally she could take it no longer and she closed her eyes. She tried to think of the tune of "Amazing Grace" but it was nowhere in her memory.

A Maiden's Grave…

Nothing, nothing, all silence. Music can be vibrations or sound, but not both.

And for me, neither.

Well, she thought, do whatever the fuck you're going to do and get it over with.

But then the hands pushed her brutally away and she opened her eyes, staggering across the floor. Brutus was laughing. She understood that this little sacrifice scene had been just a game. He'd been playing with her once again. He said, "Naw, naw, I've got other plans for you, little mouse. You're a present for my Pris."

He handed her off to Stoat, who held her firmly. She struggled but he gripped her like a vise. Brutus pulled Emily back into the window. The girl's eyes met Melanie's momentarily, and Emily pushed her hands together, praying, crying.

Brutus caught Emily's head in the crook of his left arm and lifted the tip of the knife to her eyes.

Melanie struggled futilely against Stoat's iron grip.

Brutus looked at his watch. "Time."

Emily sobbed; her joined fingers twitched as they uttered fervent prayers.

Brutus tightened his grip on Emily's head. He drew back a few inches with the knife, aimed right for the center of her closed right eye.

Stoat looked away.

Then suddenly his arms jerked in surprise. He looked straight up at the murky ceiling.

Brutus did too.

And finally Melanie felt it.

A huge thudding overhead, like the roll of a timpani. Then it grew closer and became the continuous sound of a bowed upright bass. An indiscernible pitch that Melanie felt on her face and arms and throat and chest.

Music is sound or vibration. But not both.

Their helicopter was overhead.

Brutus leaned out the window and looked up at the sky. With his bony fingers he dramatically unlocked the blade of his knife and closed it with what Melanie supposed was a loud snap. He laughed and said something to Stoat, words that Melanie was, for some reason, furious to realize she could not understand at all.

9:31 P.M.

"You're looking a little green around the gills there, Charlie."

"That pilot," Budd said to Potter, climbing into the van unsteadily. "Brother, I thought I'd bought the farm. He missed the field altogether, set her down in the middle of Route 346, almost on top of a fire truck. Now, there's an experience for you. Then he puked out the window and fell asleep. I kept shutting stuff off till the engine stopped. This smell in here isn't helping my stomach any." The captain's exemplary posture was shot to hell; he slumped into a chair.

"Well, you did good, Charlie," Potter told him. "Handy's agreed to give us a little more time. HRT11 be here any minute."

"Then what?"

"We shall see what we shall see," Potter mused.

"When I was driving up," Budd said, his eyes firmly on Potter's, "I heard a transmission. There was a shot inside?"

LeBow stopped typing. "Handy shot Bonner," the intelligence officer said. "We think."

"I think Handy and Wilcox," Potter continued, "took our strategy a little more seriously than I'd expected – about Bonner cutting a separate deal. They figured him for a snitch."

"Wasn't anything we could do about it," LeBow said offhandedly. "You can't second-guess stuff like that."

"Couldn't have been foreseen," Tobe recited like a cyborg in one of the science fiction novels he was always reading.

Charlie Budd – the faux U.S. attorney, a naif in the state police – was the only honest one in the group, for he was silent. He continued to look at Potter and their eyes met. The young man's gaze said he understood that Potter had known what would happen when he gave Budd the script; it'd been Potter's intent all along for Budd to plant the seed of distrust that would set Handy against Bonner.

But in Budd's glance was another message. His eyes said, Oh, I get it, Potter. You used me to kill a man. Well, fair's fair; after all, I spied on you. But now our sins have canceled each other out. Mutual betrayals, and what's happened? Well, we're one hostage taker down, all to the good. But listen here: I don't owe you anything anymore.

A phone buzzed – Budd's own cellular phone. He took the call. He listened, punctuating the conversation with several significant "urns," and then clamped a hand over the mouthpiece.

"Well, how 'bout this? It's my division commander, Ted Franklin. He says there's a trooper in McPherson, not too far from here. A woman. She negotiated Handy's surrender five years ago in a convenience store holdup that went bad. He wants to know if he should ask her to come down here and help."

"Handy surrendered to her?"

Budd posed the question and listened for a moment. Then he said, "He did, yes. Seems there were no hostages. They'd all escaped and HRU was about to go in. A lot different from this, sounds like."

Potter and LeBow exchanged glances. "Have her come anyway," the negotiator said. "Whether she can help us directly or not, I can see Henry's licking his chops at the thought of more info on the bad guys."

"Yes indeed."

Budd relayed this to his commander and Potter was momentarily heartened at the thought of having an ally. He sat back in the chair and mused out loud, "Any way we can get another one or two out before HRT gets here?"

Angie asked, "What can we give him that he hasn't asked for? Anything?"

LeBow scrolled through the screen. "He's asked for transportation, food, liquor, guns, vests, electricity…"

Angie said, "All the classic things. What every taker wants."

"But not money," Budd said suddenly.

Frowning, Potter glanced at the "Promises" side of the board, where the things they'd actually given Handy were recorded. "You're right, Charlie."

Angie asked, "He hasn't?" Surprised.

LeBow scrolled through his files and confirmed that Handy had not once mentioned money. He asked the captain, "How'd you think of that?"

"I saw it in a movie," Budd explained.

"It's an opportunistic taking," LeBow offered. "Handy's not out to make a profit. He's an escaping criminal."

"So was this fellow," Budd said. Potter and LeBow glanced at the captain, who, blushing, added, "In the movie, I mean. I think it was Gene Hackman. Or maybe he was the one playing your role, Arthur. He's a good actor, Hackman is."

Angie said, "I agree with Charlie, Henry. It's true that a lot of criminal takers don't want money. But Handy's got a mercenary streak in him. Most of his underlying raps're larceny."

"Let's try to buy a couple of them," Potter said. "What've we got to lose?" He asked Budd, "Can you get your hands on any cash?"

"This time of night?"

"Immediately."

"Geez, I guess so. HQ's got petty cash. Maybe two hundred. How's that?"

"I'm talking about a hundred thousand dollars in small bills, unmarked. Within, say, twenty minutes."

"Oh," Budd said. "In that case, no."

LeBow said, "I'll call the DEA. They've got to have some buy money in Topeka or Wichita. We'll do an interagency transfer." He nodded at Tobe, who flipped through a laminated phone book and pushed in a phone number. LeBow began speaking through his headset in a voice as soft and urgent as his key strokes.

Potter picked up his phone and rang Handy.

"Hey, Art."

"How you doing, Lou? Ready to leave?"

"You bet I am. Go to a nice warm cabin… Or a hotel. Or a desert island."

"Whereabouts, Lou? Maybe I'll come visit."

You got yourself quite a sense of humor, Art.

"I like cops with a sense of humor, you old son of a bitch."

"Where's my chopper?"

"Close as we could get it, Lou. In that field just over the trees. Turned out the river was too choppy after all. Now listen, Lou. You saw that chopper. It's a six-seater. I know you wanted an eight- but that's all we could rustle up." He hoped the man hadn't gotten a very good look at it; you could fit half the Washington Redskins in an old Sikorsky. "So, I've got a proposition. Let me buy a couple of the hostages."

"Buy?"

"Sure. I'm authorized to pay up to fifty thousand each. There just isn't room for the six of you and the pilot. No overhead racks for carry-ons, you know. Let me buy a couple of them."

Shit, Art, I could shoot one of 'em. Then we'd have plenty of space.

But he'll laugh when he says it.

"Hey, I got an idea. 'Stead of giving one of 'em to you, I could shoot her. Then we'd have plenty of room. For us and our matched sets of American Tourister."

The laugh was almost a cackle.

"Ah, but Lou, if you kill her you don't get any money. That'd be a bummer, as my nephew says." Potter said this good-naturedly, for he felt the rapport had been re-established. It was solid, fibrous. The negotiator knew that the man was seriously considering the offer.

"Fifty thousand?"

"Cash. Small, unmarked bills."

A hesitation. "Okay. But only one. I keep the rest."

"Make it two. You'll still have two left. Don't want to be greedy."

Fuck it, Art. Gimme a hundred for one. That's the best I'll do.

"Nope," Handy said. "You get one. Fifty thousand. That's the deal."

Potter glanced at Angie. She shook her head, perplexed. Handy wasn't bargaining. After some feigned horse trading, Potter had been prepared to turn over the full one hundred for a single girl.

"Well, all right, Lou. I accept."

"Only, Art?"

There was a tone in Handy's voice Potter hadn't yet heard and it troubled him. He had no idea what was coming next. Where had he left himself exposed?

"Yes?"

"You have to tell me which one."

"How do you mean, Lou?"

The chuckle again. "Pretty easy question, Art. Which one do you want to buy? You know how it works, good buddy. You go to a car lot and say, I'll take that Chevy or that Ford. You pays your money, you takes your choice. Which one you want?"

His heart. That's where Potter had left himself unprotected. In his heart.

Budd and Angie stared at the agent.

Tobe kept his head down, focusing on his animate dials.

"Well, Lou, now…" Potter could think of nothing else to say. For the first time today, indecision crept into Potter's soul. And, worse, he heard it in his voice. This couldn't happen. Hesitation was deadly in a negotiation. Takers picked up on it immediately and it gave them power, deadly power. With someone like Handy, a control freak, hearing even a one-second pause in Potter's voice might make him feel invincible.

In the delay Potter sensed he was signing the death warrants for all four hostages. "Well, that's a tough question," Potter tried to joke.

"Must be. Fact, sounds like you're pretty damn flummoxed."

"I just -"

"Lemme help you, Art. Let's take a stroll through the used-hostage lot, why don't we? Well, here's the old one – that teach. Now, she's gotta lot of mileage on her. She's pretty run-down. A clunker, a lemon. That was Bonner's doing. He rode her hard, I tell you. Radiator's still leaking."

"Jesus," Budd muttered.

"That son of a bitch," placid Angie said.

Potter's eyes were firmly fixed on the yellow, homey windows of the slaughterhouse. Thinking: No! Don't do this to me! No!

'Then there's the pretty one. The blond one. Melanie."

Why does he know her name? Potter thought. Unreasonably angry. Did she tell him? Does she talk to him?

Has she fallen for him?

"I myself have taken a shine to her. But she's yours if you want her. Then we have this little shit that can't breathe. Oh, and finally we got the pretty one in the dress just about became Miss One-Eye. Take your pick."

Potter found himself looking at Melanie's picture. No, stop it, Potter commanded himself. Look away. He did. Now think! Who's the most at risk?

Who threatens his control the most?

The older teacher? No, not at all. The little girl, Emily? No, too frail and feminine and young. Beverly? Her illness would, as Budd had suggested, irritate Handy.

And what of Melanie? Handy's comment about taking a shine to her suggested that some Stockholming was going on. Was it enough to make him hesitate to kill her? Probably not. But she's older. How could he ask for an adult before a child?

Melanie, Potter's heart cried helplessly, I want to save you! And the same heart burned with rage for Handy's laying the decision in his lap.

He opened his mouth; he couldn't speak.

Budd frowned. "There isn't much time. He may back down if we don't pick right now."

LeBow touched his arm. He whispered, "It's okay, Arthur. Pick who you want. It doesn't really matter."

But it did. Every decision in a barricade incident mattered. He found himself staring at Melanie's picture again. Blond hair, large eyes.

Be forewarned, De l'Epée.

Potter sat up straight. "Beverly," he said suddenly into the phone. "The girl with the asthma." He closed his eyes.

"Hmmm. Good choice, Art. Her wheezing's gettin' on my nerves. I was getting close to doing her on general principles 'cause of that fucking wheeze-wheeze shit. Okey-dokey, when you get the cash, I'll send her out."

Handy hung up.

No one spoke for a long moment. "I hate that sound," Frances finally muttered. "I never want to hear a phone hang up again."

Potter sat back. LeBow and Tobe were looking at him. Slowly he swung to the window and looked out.

Melanie, forgive me.

"Hello, Arthur. This's a bad one, to hear tell."

Frank D'Angelo was a lanky, mustachioed man, calm as a summer pond. The head of the Bureau's Hostage Rescue Team had been in charge of the hot work in fifty or sixty negotiations Potter had run. The tactical agents – pulled off the Florida and Seattle barricades – had just arrived and were assembled in the gully behind the command van.

"It's been a long day, Frank."

"He's got a booby trap rigged?"

"So it seems. I'm inclined to get him out on a short leash and then apprehend or neutralize. But that's your speciality."

D'Angelo asked, "How many hostages left?"

"Four," Potter answered. "We're getting another one out in about ten minutes."

"You going to make a surrender pitch?"

The ultimate goal of all negotiations is to get the takers to surrender. But if you make your case to them just before they get their helicopter or other means of escape, they might conclude, reasonably, that an offer to surrender is actually a veiled ultimatum and that you're about to nail them. On the other hand, if you just green-light an attack there'll likely be casualties and you'll spend the rest of your life wondering if you might have gotten the takers to give up without any bloodshed.

Then too there was the Judas factor. The betrayal. Potter was promising Handy one thing and delivering something very different. Possibly – likely – the man's death. However evil Handy was, he and the negotiator were partners of sorts, and betraying him was something Potter would also have to live with for a long, long time.

"No," the agent said slowly, "no surrender pitch. He'll hear it as an ultimatum and figure we're planning an assault. Then we'll never get him out."

"What happened here?" D'Angelo pointed at the burned portion of the command van.

"Tell you about it later," Potter responded.

Inside the van D'Angelo, Potter, LeBow, and Budd looked over the architectural plans of the building and the terrain and SatSurv maps. "This is where the hostages are," Potter explained. 'That was current as of an hour ago. And as far as we know the gas bomb is still rigged."

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.

"Good luck," Marks said. He hesitated, as if thinking of something else he might say. He settled for "God save those girls" and left the van.

"DEA's on the way," Tobe announced. "They've got the cash. Coming in by confiscated turbo helicopter. They get the best toys, those pricks."

"Hey," Budd said, "they're bringing a hundred thousand, right?"

Potter nodded.

"Where're we gonna keep the fifty that we don't give him? That's a lot of cash to store."

Potter held his finger to his lips. "We'll split it, Charlie, you and me."

Budd blinked in shock.

At last Potter winked.

The captain laughed hard, as did Angie and Frances.

Tobe and LeBow were more restrained. Those who knew Arthur Potter understood that he rarely made jokes. He tended to do so only when he was at his most nervous.

10:01 P.M.

The killing room had become cold as a freezer.

Beverly and Emily huddled against Melanie as they all watched Mrs. Harstrawn lying ten feet away: eyes open, breathing, but otherwise dead as Bear, who still blocked the entrance to the room and whose body was sending three long fingers of black blood reaching slowly toward them.

Beverly, air rasping into her lungs, as if she'd never breathe again, could not take her eyes off the streams.

Something was going on in the other room. Melanie couldn't see clearly but it seemed that Brutus and Stoat were packing up – guns and bullets and the tiny TV set. They were walking through the large room, looking around. Why? It was as if they felt sentimental about the place.

Maybe they were going to give up…

Then she thought, No way. They're going to get into that helicopter, drag us along with them, and escape. We'll live this same nightmare over and over and over again. Fly to someplace else. There'll be other hostages, other deaths. More dark rooms.

Melanie found her hand once more at her hair, uneasily entwining a finger in the strands, which were now damp and filthy. No "shine" now. No light. No hope. She lowered her hand.

Brutus strode into the room and gazed at Mrs. Harstrawn, looking down at her creased brow. He had that slight smile on his face, the smile Melanie had come to recognize and to hate. He pulled Beverly after him.

"She's going home. Going home." Brutus pushed her out of the door of the killing room. He turned back, pulled a knife from his pocket, opened it, and cut the wire that had run to the canister of gasoline. He tied Melanie's hands behind her back and then her feet. Emily's too.

Brutus laughed. "Tying your hands up – that's like gagging you too. How 'bout that?"

Then he was gone, leaving the three remaining hostages.

All right, she thought. The twins had done it; they would too. They'd get out by following the scent of the river. Melanie turned around, her back toward Emily's, offered her bound hands. The little girl understood and struggled with the knots. But it was useless; Emily admired long fingernails but had none of her own.

Try harder, come on!

Suddenly Melanie shivered as Emily's fingers dug deep into her wrists. She cringed as the little girl's hands tugged once desperately at her fingers then suddenly disappeared. Someone had the girl, was dragging her away!

What's going on?

Frowning, Melanie twisted around.

Bear!

His face bubbling with blood and twisting in rage, he pulled Emily to the wall. He shoved her against the tile. She fell, stunned. Melanie opened her mouth to scream but Bear lunged forward, stuffing a filthy rag into her mouth and clamping his bloody hand on her shoulder.

Melanie fell backward. Bear's huge face dropped down onto her breast and kissed her, wet and bloody. She felt the moisture through her blouse. His blurry eyes looked over her body as she tried to spit the rag from her mouth. He pulled a knife from his pocket. He opened it with a bloody hand and his teeth.

She tried to squirm away but he continued to clutch her breast. He rose up on one elbow and rolled off her. She kicked hard but her bound feet rose only an inch or two. A stream of blood poured from his slacks, where it had been pooling for the past hour, and covered her legs with the cold, thick liquid.

Melanie, sobbing in terror, tried to push away from him, but he gripped the cloth over her breasts with a desperate strength. He threw his leg over her calves, pinning her to the ground as more blood cascaded over her.

Please, help me. Somebody. De l'Epée…

Somebody! Please -

Oh, no… She shivered in horror. Not this. Please, no.

He tugged her skirt above her waist with his knife hand. Yanked down her black tights. The knife started up along her thigh to her pink cotton panties.

No! She tried to struggle away, her ears roaring from the effort. But there was no escape. His huge bulk lay upon her and dripped his heavy blood onto her legs. The blade touched her mound, cut through one seam of the underwear. Through the sparse hair between her legs she felt the cold steel and recoiled.

A hideous grin on his face, he looked at her with icy disks of eyes. The metal sliced the other side of the panties. They fell away.

Her vision grew dim. Don't faint! Don't lose your sight too!

Pinned to the ground by his weight. Afraid to move anyway; the knife hovered an inch above her pink cleft, the faint hair, the pale skin.

With his free hand Bear reached down to his crotch and unzipped. He coughed, spraying more blood upon her, spattering her chest and neck. As he reached in his pants the knife dipped and she groaned, nearly gagging on the rag, as the cold metal slipped in between her legs.

Then the blade rose again as he guided his huge, glistening penis out. She struggled away from him but he let go of himself and once more grabbed her breast, holding her still.

He rubbed against her leg, blood pouring off his twitching organ and running onto her bare thigh. He pressed against her skin once, twice, and then shifted his weight to move further along her body.

And then…

Then…

Nothing.

She was breathing faster than she believed possible, her chest trembling. Bear was frozen, eyes inches from hers, one hand on her chest, the other holding the blade, point down, poised between her legs, millimeters from her flesh.

She spit the rag from her mouth, smelled his putrid stink, the rich, rusty smell of blood. Sucked in air.

Felt the cold knife twitch against her skin once, twice, and then it went still.

It took a full minute before she realized that he was dead.

Melanie fought down the nausea, sure that she'd be sick. But then slowly the sensation passed. Her legs were numb; his bulk had cut off her circulation. She planted her bound hands firmly on the concrete beneath her and pushed. A huge effort. But the blood was slick, like fresh enamel, and she managed to slide several inches away from him. Try again. Then once more. Soon her legs were almost out from under him.

One more time…

Her feet popped out and came to rest exactly where he held the knife. Tensing her stomach muscles, she lifted her feet slightly and began sawing the wire against the steel blade of the knife.

She glanced toward the doorway. No sign of Brutus or Stoat. Her stomach muscles screamed as she sawed against the wire.

Finally… snap. It gave way. Melanie climbed to her feet. She kicked Bear's left hand once, then again. The blade fell to the ground. She kicked it to Emily. Gestured for her to pick it up. The little girl sat up, crying silently. She looked at the knife, which was resting in a pool of blood, and shook her head no. Melanie responded with a fierce nod. Emily closed her eyes, turned, and groped in the slick red pool for the weapon. Finally she gripped it, wincing, and held the blade up. Melanie turned and began rubbing the wire binding her wrists against the blade. A few minutes later she felt the strands break. She grabbed the knife and then cut Emily's wire as well.

Melanie stole to the doorway. Brutus and Stoat were at the windows, looking away from the killing room. Beverly was standing by the door and Melanie could see a trooper approaching with an attache" case. So they were exchanging the girl for something. With luck, they'd be busy for some minutes – long enough for Melanie and the others to get to the dock.

Melanie bent over Mrs. Harstrawn, who was now soaked in Bear's blood. The woman stared at the ceiling.

"Come on," Melanie signed. "Get up."

The teacher didn't move.

"Now!" Melanie signed emphatically.

Then the woman signed words Melanie had never seen before in ASL. "Kill me."

"Get up!"

"Can't. You go."

"Come on." Melanie's hands stabbed the air. 'No time!" She slapped the woman, tried to pull her to her feet; the teacher was dead weight.

Melanie grimaced in disgust. "Come on. Or I'll have to leave you!"

The teacher shook her head and closed her eyes. Melanie put the knife, still open, into the pocket of her skirt and, pulling Emily by the hand, slipped out of the doorway. They stepped into the door leading to the back of the slaughterhouse and vanished through the dim corridors.

Lou Handy looked at the cash, a surprisingly small pile for that much money, and said, "We should've thought of this before. Every little bit helps."

Wilcox looked out the window. "How many snipers you think they got on us?"

"Oh… lessee… 'bout a hundred. And with us nailing that trooper of theirs, they've probably got one'r two ready to shoot away and pretend they didn't hear the order not to."

"I always thought you'd be a good sniper, Lou."

"Me? Naw, I'm too, you know, impatient. I knew some of 'em in the service. You know what you do mosta the time? You gotta lie on your belly for a couple, three days 'fore you can make one shot. Not move a muscle. What's the fun of that?"

He flashed back to his days in the military. They seemed both easier and harder than life on the run, and very similar to life in prison.

"The shooting'd be fun, though."

"I'll give you that – Oh, fucking hell!"

He'd glanced at the back of the slaughterhouse and saw bloody footprints leading out of the room where the girls had been.

"Shit," Wilcox spat out.

Lou Handy was a man driven by positive forces, he truly believed. He rarely lost his temper and, yes, he was a murderer but when he killed he killed for expediency but hardly ever from rage.

Yet, a few times in his life, a fierce anger bubbled up from his soul and he became the crudest man on earth. Unstoppably cruel.

"That cunt," he whispered, his voice cracking. "That cocksucking cunt."

They ran to the doorway, where the bloody prints disappeared.

Handy said, "Stay here."

"Lou -"

"Stay the fuck here!" Handy raged. "I'm gonna fix her clock like I shoulda done a long time ago." He plunged into the murky bowels of the slaughterhouse, the knife in his hand, held low, with the blade up, as he'd been taught not in the army but on the streets of Minneapolis.

10:27 P.M.

Sight is a miracle and it's the foremost of our senses. But we are as often informed by the adjunct perception, sound.

The sight of a river tells us what it is but the sound of water also can explain its character: placid or deadly or dying itself. For Melanie Charrol, deprived of this sense, smell had taken over. River rapids were airy and electric. Still water smelled stale. Here the Arkansas River smelled ominous – pungent and deep and decaying, as if it were the grave of many bottom feeders.

Still, it said, Come to me, come to me, I'm your way out.

Melanie followed its call unerringly. Through the maze of the deserted slaughterhouse she led the little girl in the hopeless Laura Ashley dress. The floorboards were rotting through in many places, but the bare bulbs from the main portion of the slaughterhouse were so bright that even back here enough light filtered into these reaches to illuminate their path. Occasionally she paused, lifted her nose, and breathed the air to make certain they were headed in the right direction. Then she'd turn once more toward the river, spinning around and looking behind her when the panic got to be too much.

Smell has not replaced sound as our primitive warning system.

But Brutus and Stoat didn't seem to have noticed the escape yet.

The teacher and student continued through the increasing gloom, pausing often and feeling their way along. The thin shafts of light were Melanie's only salvation, and now she glanced up at them. The upper part of the walls had rotted away and it was from there that the faint heavenly glow filled the murky underworld sky of this part of the slaughterhouse.

Then there it was, in front of them! A narrow door below a sign that said Dock. Melanie tightened her grip on Emily's hand and tugged the little girl along behind her. They pushed through the door and found a large loading-dock area. It was mostly empty but there were some oil drums that looked like they might still float. But the large door opening onto the outside was raised only a foot or so – high enough for them to crawl under but not high enough to push out one of the drums.

They walked to it and slipped outside.

Freedom, she thought, breathing the intoxicating air.

She laughed to herself at the irony – here she was rejoicing at being Outside, tearfully thankful for escaping from the horrible Inside. Motion startled her, she saw a boat not far offshore. Two officers in it. Somehow, they'd already spotted the girls and were now rowing toward the dock.

Melanie turned Emily around, signed, "Wait here for them. Stay down, hide behind that post."

Emily shook her head. "But aren't you -"

"I'm going back. I can't leave her."

"Please." The little girl's tears streaked down her face. The wind tossed her hair around her head. "She didn't want to come."

"Go."

"Come with me. God wants you to. He told me He does."

Melanie smiled, embraced the little girl, and stepped back. Looked over her tattered, filthy dress. "Next week, we have date. Shopping."

Emily wiped tears and walked to the edge of the dock. The policemen were very close, one smiling at the girl, the other scanning the building with a short black shotgun pointed toward the black windows above their heads.

Melanie glanced at them, waved, then slipped back beneath the loading-dock door. Once inside, she took Bear's knife from the pocket of her bloody skirt and started back into the slaughterhouse, instinctively following the same route she'd taken to arrive here.

Her neck hairs stirred suddenly and she felt a wave of the sixth sense that some deaf people claim they possess. When she looked, yes, yes, there he was – Brutus, about fifty feet away, crouching, making his way from one piece of machinery to another. In his hand he too held a short knife.

She shivered in terror and ducked behind a stack of employee lockers. She thought of climbing into one but remembered that he'd hear any sound she made. Then the sixth sense came back, pelting her neck. Melanie realized, though, that this wasn't anything supernatural at all; it was the vibration of Brutus's voice, calling to Stoat.

What was he saying?

A moment later, she learned. The lights went out and she was plunged into blackness.

She dropped to the ground, paralyzed with terror. Deaf, and now blind. She curled into a ball for a moment, praying she'd faint, the terror was so great. She realized she'd dropped the knife. She patted the ground but soon gave up on it; she knew that Brutus would have heard the sound of the weapon falling and was probably making his way toward her right now. He could be kicking aside everything in his way and she'd never know, while Melanie herself had to crawl carefully over the ground, picking her way silently over bits of metal and wood, machinery and tools.

I have to -

No!

She felt something on her shoulder.

She turned in panic, lashing out with her palm.

But it was just a wire dangling from the ceiling.

Where is he? There? Or there?

Be. Quiet. It's the only thing that'll save you.

Then a reassuring thought: He can hear, yes, but he can't see any better than I can.

Want to hear a joke, Susan? What's worse off than a bird that can't hear?

A fox that can't see.

Eight gray birds, sitting in dark…

If I'm absolutely silent he'll never know where I am.

The remarkable internal compass that the otherwise unjust son of a bitch Fate gave Melanie tells her that she's headed in the right direction, back toward the killing room. And by God she will carry Donna Harstrawn on her shoulders if she has to.

Slowly. One foot before the other.

Silent. Absolutely silent.

Going to be easier than he'd thought.

Lou Handy was at his worst and he knew it – still fired up with bitterness, aching for a payback, but thinking coolly now. This was when he killed and tortured and enjoyed it the most. He'd followed the bloody footsteps to the loading dock, where, he'd assumed, both of the little shits had gotten out. But then as he was about to start back he'd heard something – a clink of metal, a scrape. And he'd looked down the corridor and seen her, Melanie, the mouse bitch freak of nature, making her way back to the main room of the slaughterhouse.

He'd moved closer and what was that he'd heard?

A squish, squish sound.

Her footsteps. Bloody footsteps. Good old Bonner, leaking and gross to the very end, had bled all over her shoes. With every step Melanie took she was broadcasting exactly where she was. So he'd called to Wilcox to shut the lights out.

It was wild how dark the place was. Pitch. Couldn't see your hand. At first he was real careful about making sounds. Then he thought, Why, you fuck, she can't hear you! And he hurried after her, pausing every few minutes to listen for the sound of the wet squish.

There it is.

Beautiful, honey.

Closing in.

Listen…

Squish.

Can't be more than thirty feet away. Look, here we go. There she is.

He saw a ghostly form in front of him, walking back toward the main room of the plant.

Squish, squish.

He walked closer to her. He knocked a table over but her footsteps just kept rollin' along. She didn't hear a fucking thing. Closing the distance now, fifteen feet… ten. Five. Right behind her.

The way he'd been behind Rudy, smelled the man's Vitalis, seen the oak dust on his shirt and the bulge in the back pocket that was a wallet filled with what it shouldn't've been filled with. "You fucker," Handy'd screamed to his brother, not seeing red, like the expression, but seeing black fire, seeing nothing but his rage. Rudy had sneered, kept on walking. And the gun in Handy's fist began firing. A little gun, a.22, loaded with long, not even a long-rifle, slugs. Which left little red dots on the neck and his brother doing the fucking scary little dance before he fell to the floor and died.

Handy raged again at Art Potter for bringing up the thought of Rudy today, like he was planting the memory in Handy's soul the way a pebble got pushed into your palm in a prison yard fight. Raged at Potter and at fat, dead Bonner and at Melanie, the fucking spooked mouse bitch.

Two feet behind her, watching her timid steps.

She didn't have a clue…

This was fucking great, walking in step with her. There were so many possibilities… Hello, Miss Mouse… But he picked the simplest. He leaned close and licked the back of her neck.

He thought she'd break her back she leapt away from him so fast, twisting sideways and falling into a stack of rusted sheet metal. His hand closed on her hair and he dragged her after him, twisting and stumbling. "Yo, Shep, put those lights back on!"

A moment later the room filled with dim light and Handy could make out the doorway to the main part of the slaughterhouse. Melanie struggled to pry his hands from her hair but he had a good grip and she could beat till kingdom come and he'd never let her go.

"You're making strange little peeps. I don't like it. Shut up! Shut the fuck up!" He slapped her in the face. He didn't think she got what he was saying but in any case she shut up. He dragged her through the cascading water, through the aisles of junk. Straight to a decapitation guillotine.

It was basically a huge piece of butcher block, carved out with an indentation for the pig's or steer's chest. On the top was mounted a frame holding a triangular blade, operated by a long rubber-covered handle. A big fucking paper cutter.

Wilcox watched. He asked, "You really gonna…?"

"What about it?" Handy screamed.

"It's just we're so close to getting out, man."

Handy ignored him, grabbed a piece of wire from the floor, and wrapped it around Melanie's right wrist. Twisted the tourniquet tight. She struggled, hit him in the shoulder with her left fist. "Fucking freak," he muttered, and slugged her hard in the back. She dropped to the floor, where she curled into a ball, moaning, staring in horror at her hand turning blue.

Handy lit his Bic lighter and ran it slowly over the blade of the guillotine. She shook her head violently, eyes huge. "Should've thought about it before you turned on me." He scooped her up from the floor and slammed her against the guillotine.

Sobbing, slapping at him, the mouse bitch tried to struggle away. He figured the pain in her right hand, now deep purple from the wire, was close to unbearable. Handy shoved her groin against the guillotine and pushed her forward, facedown, extending her right arm under the blade. He kicked her legs out from underneath her. She lost all leverage and dangled, helpless, from the machine. Handy easily pinioned her hand in the cutting groove.

He hesitated a moment and looked down at her face, listening to the gasping sound that rose from her throat. "God, I hate that fucking sound you people make. Hold her, Shep."

Wilcox hesitated, stepped forward, and took her arm in both of his hands. "Don't think I want to watch this," he said uneasily, and looked away.

"I do," Handy muttered. Unable to resist the urge, he lowered his head close to her face, inhaled her scent, rubbing his cheek against her tears. Stroked her hair.

Then his hands rose to the lever. He worked it back and forth, loosening it up, dropping the blade to her flesh, lifting it again. It rose to its full height. He took the rubber handle in both hands.

The phone rang.

Handy looked at it.

A pause. Wilcox released Melanie's hand, stepped away from the guillotine.

Shit. Handy debated.

"Answer it."

" 'Lo?" Wilcox asked into the receiver. Then listened. He shrugged and glanced at Handy, who paused. "Yo, homes, it's for you."

"Tell Potter to go to hell."

"It ain't Potter. It's a girl. And I'll tell you, sounds like she's some fox."

10:58 P.M.

Potter sat at the window, looking through his Leica binoculars, while behind him young, fierce Detective Sharon Foster, who'd pulled her cruiser hell-for-leather into the forward staging area ten minutes before, was pacing nervously and swearing like a sailor at Louis Handy.

"The fuck you say, Lou," she snarled. Like many female line officers Foster had that resolute, humorless grit that her pert blond ponytail and pretty face couldn't belie.

"Been a while, you bitch. You a detective now?"

"Yep. I got promoted." She bent down and squinted through the command van's window at the slaughterhouse, her head inches from Potter's. "What the hell've you done with your life, Lou? Aside from screwing it up royal?"

"Hey, I'm right proud of my accomplishments." From the speaker came the cold chuckle Potter recognized so well.

"I always knew you were one grade-A fuckup. They could write a book about you."

Potter recognized exactly what Foster was doing. It wasn't his way. He preferred to be more easygoing, Will Rogersish. Tough when he needed to be, but he avoided jousting, which could easily escalate into emotional skirmishes. Arthur Potter hadn't bantered with Marian and he didn't banter with his friends. But sometimes with certain takers – usually brash, overconfident criminals – this young woman's style worked: the barbs, the give-and-take.

Potter continued to stare at the slaughterhouse, trying desperately to get a look at Melanie. The last of the students, Emily, had been picked up by Stillwell's deputies in the skiff behind the building. Through Frances the little girl had explained that Melanie had gotten her out and then gone back for Mrs. Harstrawn. But that had been nearly twenty minutes ago and no one had seen the last two hostages escape. Potter assumed Handy had found her. He was desperate to know if she was all right but would never interrupt a negotiator at work.

"You're an asshole, Lou," Foster continued. "You may get away in that chopper but they're going to catch you. Canada? They'll extradite your ass so fast it'll make your head spin."

"They gotta find me first."

"You think they wear red jackets and Smokey the Bear hats and chase down muggers with whistles? You've killed, Lou – hostages and cops. There isn't a law enforcer in the world gonna stop till they get you."

LeBow and Potter exchanged glances. Potter was growing uneasy. She was pushing him a lot. Potter frowned but she either missed or ignored the expression, above criticism from an older man – and a Fee-bie at that. He was also feeling the thorns of jealousy. It'd taken him hours to build up a rapport with Handy; Potter was Stockholmed through and through. And here was this new kid on the block, this blond chippy, stealing away his good friend and comrade.

Potter nodded discreetly at the computer. LeBow caught his meaning and went on line to the National Law Enforcement Personnel Database. A moment later he turned the screen for Potter to read. Sharon Foster only looked young and inexperienced; she was in fact thirty-four and had an impressive record as a hostage negotiator. In thirty barricade situations she'd managed clean surrenders in twenty-four. The others had gone hot – HRT assaults had been required – but they'd been EDs. When emotionally disturbed takers are involved, negotiated solutions work only ten percent of the time.

"I like Art better," Handy said. "He don't give me any shit."

"That's my Lou, always looking for the easy way."

"Fuck you," Handy barked.

"Something I've been thinking about, Lou," she added coyly. "I'm wondering if you're really going to Canada."

Now Potter glanced at D'Angelo. The tactical plan required that Handy and Wilcox trek through the woods to the helicopter. If Foster made him think they hadn't believed him, Handy would suspect a trap and stay holed up.

Potter stood up, shaking his head. Foster glanced but ignored him. LeBow and Angie were shocked at the disrespect. Potter sat down again, more embarrassed than hurt.

"Sure, I'm going to Canada. I've got myself a special priority. I've talked to the fucking FAA myself."

As if he hadn't spoken, her southern-accented voice rasped, "You're a cop killer, Lou. You touch down anywhere in these United States, with or without hostages, you're dead meat. Every cop in the country knows your face. Wilcox's too. And believe me, they'll shoot first and read rights to your bleeding body. And I promise you, Lou, any ambulance carrying you to a prison hospital's gonna take its own sweet fucking time gettin' you there."

Potter had heard enough of her hardball tactics. He was sure she'd push Handy right back into his hole. He reached for her shoulder. But he stopped when he heard Handy say, "Nobody can catch me. I'm the worst thing you'll ever come across. I'm cold death."

It wasn't Handy's words that gave Potter pause but the tone of his voice. He sounded like a scared child. Almost pathetic. However unorthodox her style, Foster had touched something in Handy. She turned to him. "Can I make a surrender offer?" LeBow, Budd, and D'Angelo all looked at Potter. What was in Handy's mind? he wondered. A sudden awareness of the hopelessness of the situation? Maybe a reporter had managed to broadcast that federal Hostage Rescue had arrived and surrounded the slaughterhouse, and Handy had heard it on his television. Or maybe he'd simply gotten tired. It happened. In an instant the energy dissipates. HTs ready to come out with guns blazing will just sit on the floor when HRT kicks in the door and look at the approaching agents without the energy to lift their hands over their heads.

Yet there was another possibility, one that Potter hated to consider. Which was that this young woman was simply better than he was. That she'd breezed in, assessed Handy, and then pegged him right. Again the jealousy tore at him. What should I do?

He thought suddenly of Melanie. What would be most likely to save her?

Potter nodded to the young detective. "Sure. Go ahead."

"Lou, what'll it take to make you come out?"

Potter thought: Lemmefuck you.

"Can I fuck you?"

"You'd have to ask my husband and he'd say no." A pause.

"There's nothing I want but freedom. And I got that."

"Do you?" Foster asked softly. Another pause. Longer than the first.

Potter speculated. Fuck, yeah. And nobody's taking it away from me. But Handy said, in effect, just the opposite. "I don't… I don't want to die."

"Nobody wants to shoot you, Lou."

"Everybody wants to shoot me. And I go back, the judge'll give me the needle."

"We can talk about that." Her voice was gentle, almost motherly.

Potter stared at the yellow square of light. Somewhere in his heart he was beginning to believe that he'd made some very serious mistakes tonight. Mistakes that had cost lives.

Foster turned to the agent. "Who can guarantee the state won't seek the death penalty?"

Potter told her that Roland Marks was nearby, sent Budd to find him. A moment later Marks climbed into the van and Foster explained to him what Handy wanted.

"He'll surrender?" The assistant attorney general's cold eyes were on Potter, who felt all the censure and scorn he'd fired at Marks earlier that day flow right back at himself. For the first time today Potter found he couldn't hold Marks's eye.

"I think I can get him to," Foster said.

"Yes indeed. I'll guarantee whatever he wants. Put a big red seal on it. Ribbons too. I can't get an existing-sentence reduction -"

"No. I'm sure he understands that."

"But I'll guarantee we don't go sticking those little needles in his arm."

"Lou. The state assistant attorney general is here. He's guaranteeing that they won't go after the death penalty if you surrender."

"Yeah?" There was a pause, the sound of a hand over the receiver. Then: "Same for my boy Shep here?"

Foster frowned. LeBow turned his computer to her and she read about Wilcox, She looked at the AG, who nodded.

"Sure, Lou. Both of you. And the other guy with you?"

Potter thought: Son of a bitch had himself an accident.

Handy laughed. "Had a accident."

Foster lifted an inquiring eyebrow to Potter, who said, "Believed dead."

"Okay, you and Wilcox," the blond detective said, "you got a deal."

The same deal that Potter, through Charlie Budd, had offered him. Why was Handy accepting it now? A moment later he found out.

"Hold up, you frigid bitch. That's not all."

"I love it when you talk dirty, Lou."

"I also want a guarantee to stay outta Callana. I killed that guard there. I go back and they'll pound me to death for sure. No more federal time."

Foster looked once more at Potter, who nodded to Tobe. "Call Justice," he whispered. "Dick Allen."

The deputy attorney general in Washington.

"Lou," Foster said, "We're checking on it now."

Potter again anticipated: I'm still horny. Let's fuck.

Handy's voice brightened and the old devil was back. "Come sit on my cock while we're waiting."

"I would, Lou, but I don't know where it's been."

"In my Jockeys for way too long."

"Just keep it there for a while longer then."

Potter was patched through to Allen, who listened and agreed reluctantly that if Handy was willing to surrender he could serve his state time first. Allen would also waive the federal charges for the escape though not for the murder of the guard. The practical effect of this was that Handy wouldn't have to surrender to any federal jailers until about fifty years after he'd died of old age.

Foster relayed this to Handy. There was a long pause. A moment later Handy's voice said, "Okay, we'll do it."

Foster looked at Potter with a cocked eyebrow. He nodded numbly, dumbfounded.

"But I gotta see it in writing," Handy said.

"Okay, Lou. We can arrange that."

Potter was already writing the terms out longhand. He handed the sheet to Henry LeBow to type and print out.

"So, that's it," LeBow said, eyes on his blue screen. "Score one for the good guys."

Laughter broke out. Potter's face burned as he watched the elation on the faces of Budd and the other federal agents. He smiled too but he understood – as did no one else on the threat management team – that he had both won and lost. And he knew that it was not his strength or courage or intelligence that had failed him but his judgment.

Which is the worst defeat a man can suffer.

"Here we go," LeBow said, offering the printout to Potter. He and Marks signed the document and Stevie Gates made one last run to the slaughterhouse. When he returned he wore a perplexed expression and carried a bottle of Corona beer, which Handy had given him.

"Agent Potter?" Sharon Foster had apparently been calling his name several times. He looked up. "Would you like to coordinate the surrender?"

He stared at her for a moment and nodded. "Yes, of course. Tobe, call Dean Stillwell. Ask him to please come in here."

Tobe made the call. Unfazed, LeBow continued to type in information on the incident log. Detective Sharon Foster glanced at Potter with a look that he took to be one of sympathy; it was patronizing and hurt far more than a snide smile of triumph would have. As he looked at her he felt suddenly very old – as if everything he'd known and done in his life, every way he looked at things, every word he'd said to strangers and to friends was, in an instant, outmoded and invalid. If not an outright lie.

He was in camouflage gear so no one saw the lean man lying in a stand of starkly white birch not far from the command van.

His hands clasped the night-vision binoculars, sweat dotting his palms copiously.

Dan Tremain had been frozen in this position for an hour, during which time a helicopter had come and gone, the federal HRT had arrived and assembled nearby, and a squad car had streaked up to the van, bearing a young policewoman.

Tremain had taken in the news, which was spreading like fire in a wheat field from trooper to trooper, that Handy had decided to give it up in exchange for an agreement not to seek the death penalty.

But for Dan Tremain this wasn't acceptable.

His trooper, young Joey Wilson, and that poor girl this afternoon had not died so that Lou Handy might live long enough to kill again, certainly to gloat and relive the perverse joy at the carnage he'd caused throughout his pointless life.

Sacrifice was sometimes necessary. And who better than a soldier to give up his life in the name of justice?

"Surrender in ten minutes," a voice called from behind him. Tremain could not possibly have said whether it was the voice of a trooper or that of an angel dipping low from God's own heaven to make this announcement. In any event he nodded and rose to his feet. He stood tall, wiped the tears from his face, adjusted his uniform, brushed his hair with his fingers. Never one to preen, Tremain had decided it was important that he look strong and resolute and proud when he ended his career in the dramatic fashion he had planned.

11:18 P.M.

Surrender is the most critical stage of a barricade.

More lives are lost in surrenders than during any other phase of hostage situations except assaults. And this one would be particularly tricky, Potter knew, because the essence of surrender was Handy's nemesis – giving up control.

Again his natural impatience prodded him to get things over with, to get Handy into custody. But he had to fight this urge. He was running the surrender by the book and had assembled the threat management team before him in the van.

The first thing he did was shake Dean Stillwell's hand. "Dean, I'm putting Frank and the Bureau's HRT in charge of containment and tactical matters now. You've done a fine job. It's just that Frank and I've done this in the past a number of times."

"No problem at all, Arthur. I'm honored you let me help." To Potter's embarrassment Stillwell snapped a salute, which the agent reluctantly returned.

Budd, LeBow, Tobe, and D'Angelo all hunched over the terrain maps and diagram of the slaughterhouse as Potter went through the procedure. Angie, who had no tactical experience and could offer little assistance to D'Angelo and the HRT, was escorting Emily and Beverly to the Days Inn. Intense, young Detective Sharon Foster was outside smoking – very real Camels. Frances was in the van, waiting patiently.

"Everybody's going to be wired up and half-nuts," Potter said. "Our people and the takers. We're all tired and there's going to be a lot of carelessness. So we have to choreograph every step." He fell silent and was looking out the window at the square yellow eyes of the building.

"Arthur?" LeBow said.

He meant, Time's awasting.

"Yes, sure."

They bent over the map and he began to give commands. It seemed to him that he'd lost his voice completely and he was surprised to find that the men who stood before him nodded gravely as if listening to words that he himself hardly heard at all.

Twenty minutes later, as Potter lay in a stand of fragrant grass and hit the speed-dial button, it occurred to him that something was very wrong. That Handy was laying a trap.

He thought of Budd's words earlier in the day, about Handy's planning something clever and flamboyant – a breakout maybe, a run for it.

A gut feel. Listen to it. He's usually right.

And now the feeling was undeniable.

The click of an answered phone.

"Lou." Potter began what was probably their last conversation via throw phone.

"Whatsa game plan, Art?"

"Just want to go over a few ground rules." Potter was fifty yards from the slaughterhouse entrance. Frank D'Angelo and Charlie Budd were beside him. LeBow and Tobe remained in the command van. "Is the older woman conscious? The teacher?"

"Zonked out. Told you, Art. She had a bad night. Bonner's – well, was a big fella. I'm talking in all ways."

Potter found his voice quavering as he asked, "And the other teacher?"

"The blond one? The little mouse?" There was a pause and Handy offered his famous chuckle. "Why you so interested in her, Art? Seem to recall you asked about her a couple times."

"I want to know how our last hostages are."

"Sure you do." Handy laughed again. "Well, she's probably had better nights herself."

"How do you mean, Lou?" he asked casually. What terrible retribution had he exacted?

"She's too young for an old fart like you, Art." Damn it, Potter thought, furious. Handy was reading him too clearly. The agent forced himself to put her out of his mind and returned mentally to Chapter 9 of his handbook, entitled "The Surrender Phase." Potter and D'Angelo had decided to send in the tunnel rats – point men – under the loading-dock door to secure the interior and guard the hostages then have the takers come out through the front.

"All right, Lou," Potter continued. "When I tell you to I'd like you to put your weapons down and just step outside, with your arms out to your side. Not on your head."

"Like Christ on the cross."

The wind had grown much worse, bending saplings and stands of sedge and bluestem, Queen Anne's lace, sending up clouds of dust. It would play hell with the snipers' shooting.

"Tell me the truth. Is Bonner dead or wounded?" Potter had visited Beverly, the poor asthmatic, in one of the hospital tents and learned that the big man indeed had been shot. But the girl explained that she'd done her best to avoid looking at him. She couldn't say for certain if he was still alive.

"Tired of talking, Art. Me and Shep're gonna chat for a few minutes then we'll give it up. Hey, Art?"

"Yes, Lou?"

"I want you out front. Right where I can see you. It's the only way I'm coming out."

I'll do it, Potter thought instinctively. Anything you want. "I'll be there, Lou."

"Right out front."

"You've got it." A pause. "Now, Lou, I want to tell you exactly -"

"Goodbye, Art. It's been fun."

Click.

Potter found himself gripping the phone long after Handy's voice was replaced by the rush of static. From nowhere the thought formed: The man's bent on suicide. The hopelessness of the situation: the impossibility of escaping, the relentless pursuit, an unbearable prison term awaiting him. He's going out in a flash.

Ostrella, my beloved…

It would be the ultimate control.

D'Angelo broke into the reverie, saying, "We'll assume Bonner's alive and armed until we get a confirmation."

Potter nodded, pressed disconnect, put the phone in his pocket. "Choreograph it carefully, Frank. I think he may go down shooting."

"You think?" Budd whispered, as if Handy had a Big Ear on them.

"A hunch is all. But plan accordingly."

D'Angelo nodded. He got on the horn and doubled the number of snipers in the trees, moved up some explosives experts to the initial takedown team. When they were in place he asked, "Should we move in, Arthur?"

Potter nodded to him. D'Angelo spoke into his microphone and four HRT troopers slipped along the front of the slaughterhouse. Two paused at open windows and the others disappeared into the shadows on either side of the door. The ones by the window had mesh bomb blankets over their shoulders.

Then the HRT commander called the two point men inside the building. He listened for a moment then repeated the report to Potter: "Two hostages, apparently alive, lying on the ground in the room you indicated. Injured but extent unknown. Bonner appears to be dead." The unemotional voice grew troubled. "Man, there's blood everywhere."

Whose? Potter wondered.

"Are Handy and Wilcox armed?"

"No weapons in their hands but they're wearing bulky shirts. Could be hidden."

Injured but extent unknown.

Potter said to D'Angelo, "They had tools. Might've brought tape with them too and taped weapons under their shirts."

The HRT commander nodded.

Blood everywhere…

Sharon Foster joined the men on the hillock. She'd put on bulky body armor.

How was this going to end? Potter wondered. He listened to the mournful sound of the wind. He felt a desperate urge to talk to Handy once more. Pressed the speed-dial button on the phone he carried.

A dozen rings, two dozen. No answer.

D'Angelo and LeBow were looking at him. He hung up.

Inside the slaughterhouse, the lights went out. Budd stiffened; Potter motioned him to relax. HTs often doused lights upon leaving, afraid to present a silhouette target even though they were giving up.

The crescent moon had moved fifty degrees through the windy sky. Often there's a sense of familiarity, even a perverse comfort, that a negotiator finds in the setting in which he's spent hours or days. Tonight, though, as he gazed at the black and red brick, all Potter could think of was Handy's phrase "Cold death."

The door opened slowly, stuck halfway, then opened further.

No movement.

What will it be? he wondered. Good or bad? Peaceful or violent?

Ah, my beautiful Ostrella.

During surrenders, he'd seen it all: Terrorists falling to the ground, crying like babies. Unarmed criminals streaking for freedom. Hidden guns. The young Syrian woman who walked slowly from an Israeli consulate, arms properly outstretched, and smiled sweetly at him just before the grenades in her bra blew herself and three HRT agents to pieces.

Be forewarned.

For only the third or fourth time in his career Arthur Potter lifted his weapon from his belt holster, high on his padded hip, and awkwardly pulled the automatic's slide, chambering a round. He replaced the gun, not clicking on the safety.

"Why isn't anything happening?" Budd whispered in irritation.

Potter stifled a sudden, inexplicable urge to laugh hysterically.

"Art?" Handy's voice floated from inside the slaughterhouse, a soft, ragged sound on the wind.

"Yes?" Potter called through the megaphone.

"Where the fuck are you? I don't see you."

Potter looked at Budd. "Here's where I earn my paycheck." He rose unsteadily, polished his glasses on the lapel of his sports coat. Sharon Foster asked if he was sure he wanted to do this. He glanced at her then walked awkwardly down the hill and stepped over an ancient split-rail fence. He paused about thirty yards from the front of the slaughterhouse.

"Here I am, Lou. Come on out."

And there they were.

Handy first. Then Wilcox.

The first thing he noticed was that their arms were at the backs of their heads.

It's all right, Ostrella. Come out however you want. Come home. You'll be okay.

"Lou, stretch your arms out!"

"Hey, take it easy, Art," Handy called. "Don't give yourself a fucking heart attack." Blinking against the powerful glare of the blinding lights. Amused, looking around.

"Lou, you've got a dozen snipers aiming at you -"

"Just a dozen? Shit! Thought I was worth more than that."

"Put your arms out or they'll shoot."

Handy stopped walking. Looked over at Wilcox. They broke into smiles.

Potter's hand went to the butt of his pistol.

Slowly the prisoners' arms extended.

"I look like a fucking ballerina, Art."

"You're doing fine, Lou."

"Easy for you to say."

Potter called, "Move in separate directions about ten feet, then lie facedown on the ground."

They walked away from the slaughterhouse, farther than ordered but then dropped to their knees and went prone. The two HRT agents by the door kept their H amp;Ks trained on the fugitives' backs and stayed clear of the doorway just in case Bonner wasn't in fact dead or there'd been other takers inside that even the hostages hadn't known about.

The two agents hovering by the windows climbed inside, followed by two more, who ran from the shadows and sped through the door. The beams of the powerful flashlights attached to their guns whipped throughout the slaughterhouse.

They'd been briefed about the incendiary device Handy'd rigged and they'd be moving very slowly, looking for tripwires. Potter believed he'd never been so anxious in his life. He expected the interior of the slaughterhouse to blossom into orange flame at any instant.

Outside, two more HRT agents had moved up, covering the two beside the door, who now advanced on Handy and Wilcox.

Did the men have armed grenades on them?

Hidden knives?

It wasn't until they'd been cuffed and patted down that Arthur Potter realized the barricade was over. He'd escaped, alive and unhurt.

And had once again read Handy wrong.

Potter returned to Budd, D'Angelo, and Foster. Told the HRT commander to radio the agents taking the two convicts into custody with orders on how to handle them. Potter remembered that Wilcox was the cowboy in the group, more impulsive than the others. He'd ordered him shackled around the waist as well as cuffed but told them not to do so with Handy. Potter knew Lou would be more willing to cooperate if he retained at least a little control.

Other agents appeared silently and covered the two men. They pulled them to their feet and frisked them again, more carefully, then quickly led them into a gully and hurried them away from the slaughterhouse.

Then the lights went on inside.

A long, long moment of silence, though it was probably just seconds.

Where is she?

"Go ahead," D'Angelo said into his mike. He listened for a minute then said to Potter, "It's secure. No other takers. No traps. There was something rigged in the room but it's been dismantled."

The others rose to their feet too and watched Handy's progress as he approached up the gully.

"And the hostages?" Potter asked urgently.

D'Angelo listened. He said aloud, "Bonner's dead."

Yes, yes, yes?

"And they found two female hostages. One, white, late thirties. Conscious but incoherent."

For chrissake, what about -

"Second one, white, age mid-twenties. Also conscious." D'Angelo winced. "Seriously hurt, he says."

No. Oh, my God.

"What?" Potter cried. "What happened to her?" The negotiator lifted his own radio and cut into the channel. "How is she? The younger woman?"

The HRT agent inside said, "Handy must've really done a number on her, sir."

"How bad?" Potter said furiously. Budd and D'Angelo stared at him. Handy was approaching, two agents on either side. Potter found he couldn't look at him.

The agent inside said into the radio, "Well, sir, she doesn't look that badly hurt but the thing is he must've beat the hell out of her. She can't hear a word we're saying."

The surrender had happened so fast he'd forgotten to tell the tactical agents Melanie was deaf.

D'Angelo said something to him and so did Charlie Budd but Potter didn't hear, so loud was his manic, hysterical laughter. Sharon Foster and nearby troopers looked at him uneasily. Potter supposed, without caring, that he sounded like the crazy old man that he was.

"Lou."

"Art, you don't look nothing like what I thought. You do have to lose a few pounds."

Handy stood behind the van, hands cuffed behind him. Sharon Foster was nearby, looking over the prisoners. When Handy glanced at her body, grinning, she stared back contemptuously. Potter knew that after a hard negotiation, particularly one in which there'd been a killing, you felt an urge to insult or belittle your enemy. Potter controlled it himself but she was younger and more emotional. She sneered at Handy, walked away. The convict laughed and turned back to Potter.

"Your picture doesn't do you justice," the negotiator said to him.

"Fuckers never do."

As always, after a surrender, the hostage taker appeared minuscule compared with the image in Potter's mind. Handy's features were hard and compact, his face lean and lined and pale. He knew Handy's height and weight but still he was surprised at how diminished he seemed.

Potter scanned the crowd for Melanie. He didn't see her. Troopers, firemen, medics, and Stillwell's now-disbanded containment force were milling about outside the slaughterhouse. The car and the school bus and the processing plant itself were of course crime scenes and since by agreement this was technically now a state operation Budd had formally arrested Handy and Wilcox and was trying to preserve the site for the forensic teams.

Where is she?

There was a brief incident when Potter arrested Handy on federal charges. Handy's eyes went cold. "What the fuck is this?"

"I'm just preserving our rights," Potter said. SAC Henderson explained that it was a mere technicality, and Roland Marks too confirmed that everyone would adhere to the written agreement, though Potter had a bad moment when he thought Marks was going to take a swing at the convict. The assistant AG muttered, "Fucking child killer," and stormed off. Handy laughed at his receding back.

Shep Wilcox, grinning, looked around, disappointed, it seemed, there were no reporters present.

The older teacher, Donna Harstrawn, was brought out on a gurney. Potter went to her and walked alongside the medics. He looked at one of the techs, eyebrow raised. "She'll be okay," the young man whispered. "Physically, I mean."

"Your husband and children are at the Days Inn," he told her.

"It was…" she began, and fell silent. Shook her head. "I can't see anyone now. Please. No… I don't ever…" Her words dissolved, incoherent.

Potter squeezed her arm and stopped walking, watched them carry her up the hill to the waiting ambulance.

He turned back to the slaughterhouse just as Melanie Charrol was being escorted out. Her blond hair in disarray. She too – like Handy – seemed smaller than Potter expected. He started forward but paused. Melanie hadn't seen him; she was walking quickly, her eyes on Donna Harstrawn. Her clothes were dark – gray skirt, black stockings, burgundy blouse – but it seemed to Potter that they were saturated with blood.

"What's all that blood on her?" he asked one of the HRT agents who'd been inside.

"Not hers," came the response. "Bonner's probably. Man bled out like a gutted twelve-point buck. You want to debrief her?"

He hesitated.

"Later," he said. But in his mind the word was more of a question and the answer was unknown.

Detective Sharon Foster strode up to Potter and shook his hand.

" 'Night, Agent Potter."

"Thanks for everything," he said evenly.

"Piece of cake." She jabbed a blunt finger at him. "Hey, great job with that surrender. Smooth as silk." Then wheeled and returned to her squad car, leaving Potter standing alone. His face burned like that of a rookie dressed down by a tough training sergeant.

Angie Scapello returned momentarily from the Days Inn to collect her bags and say goodbye to Potter and the others. She still had some work ahead of her at the motel, where she would debrief the hostages further and make sure they and their families had the names of therapists who specialized in post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Budd and D'Angelo hitched a ride with Angie to the rear staging area. Potter and two troopers escorted the takers back to the van. Squad cars waited nearby to take them to the state police troop HQ ten miles away.

"Had yourself a fire, looks like," Handy said, looking over the black scorch marks. "You ain't gonna blame that on me, I hope?"

As he gazed at the convict Potter was aware of a man approaching from the shadows of a gully. He paid little mind since there were dozens of troopers milling about. But there was something purposeful about the man's stride, too quick and direct for him to be passing through the crowd casually. He was heading directly for Potter.

"Weapon!" Potter cried as Dan Tremain, twenty feet away, began to lift the gun.

Wilcox and the trooper holding him dove to the ground, as did the second escort trooper, leaving only Handy and Potter standing. Within easy pistol range.

Handy, smiling, turned to face Tremain. Potter drew his own gun, pointed it at the HRU commander, and stepped in front of Handy.

"No, Captain," the agent said firmly.

"Get out of the way, Potter."

"You're already in enough trouble."

The gun in Tremain's hand exploded. Potter felt the bullet snap past his head. He heard Handy laughing.

"Get out of the way!"

"Do it," Handy whispered in Potter's ear. "Pull the trigger. Waste the fucker."

"Shut up!" the agent barked. Around them four or five troopers had pulled their sidearms and were sighting on Tremain. No one knew what to do.

Or wanted to do what they knew they should.

"He's mine," Tremain said.

"It's legal," Handy whispered. "Kill him, Art. You want to anyway. You know you do."

"Quiet!" Potter shouted. And yet suddenly he understood that Handy was right. He did want to. And what's more, he felt that he had permission – to kill the man who'd nearly burnt his Melanie to death.

"Do it," Handy urged. "You're dying to."

"This'll bring you nothing but grief, Dan," Potter said slowly, ignoring his prisoner. "You don't want to do this."

"There you go, Art. Telling people what they want to do. I'll tell you what you want to do. You want to shoot the prick. Man almost got your girlfriend killed. She is your gal, isn't she, Art? Mel-a-nie?"

"Shut your damn mouth!"

"Do it, Art. Shoot him!"

Tremain fired again. Potter cringed as the bullet streaked past his face and dug a chunk out of the slaughterhouse.

The captain steadied the gun, seeking a target.

And Arthur Potter spread his arms, sheltering the man who was his prisoner. And – yes, Charlie, who was his friend.

"Do something bad," Handy whispered in a smooth, reassuring voice. "Just step aside a inch or two. Let him kill me. Or you shoot him."

Potter turned. "Will you -?"

Several FBI agents had drawn guns and were shouting for Tremain to drop his weapon. The state troopers were silently rooting for the HRU commander.

Potter thought: Handy had almost killed Melanie.

Just step aside a few inches.

And Tremain had nearly killed her too.

Shoot. Go ahead.

Handy whispered, "He'd had his way, Art, your girlfriend'd have third-degree burns over most of her body now. Her hair and tits all burned up. Even you wouldn't want to fuck somebody like -"

Potter spun, his fist lashing out. It drove into Handy's jaw. The prisoner reeled back and landed on the ground. Tremain, now only ten feet away, aimed once more at the man's chest.

"Drop the gun," Potter commanded, spinning around and stepping forward. "Drop it, Dan. Your life isn't over with yet. But it will be if you pull that trigger. Think about your family." He remembered the ring he'd seen on Tremain's finger. He said softly, "God doesn't want to waste you over somebody as worthless as Handy."

The pistol wavered, dropped to the ground.

Without looking at Potter or Handy again, Tremain walked over to Charlie Budd and held his hands out for the cuffs. Budd looked over his fellow officer, seemed about to say something but chose to remain silent.

As he scrambled to his feet Handy said, "You missed a good bet, Art. Not many people have the chance to waste somebody and -"

Potter had him by the hair, and the pistol's muzzle drove up under Handy's stubbled jaw.

"Not a single word."

Handy reared back, breathing hard. He looked away first, truly scared. But only for a moment. Then he laughed. "You're a real piece of work, Art. Yessir. Let's get it over with. Book me, Dano."

MIDNIGHT

Arthur Potter was alone.

He looked at his hands and saw they were quivering. Until the incident with Tremain they'd been rock solid. He took an imaginary Valium but it had no effect. He realized after a moment that his unease wasn't so much the aftermath of the showdown after all as an overwhelming sense of disappointment. He'd wanted to talk to Handy. Find out more about him, what made him tick.

Why had he really killed Susan? What had he been thinking? What had happened in that room, the killing room?

And what does he think about me?

It was like watching the troopers escort a part of himself away. He gazed at the back of Handy's head, his shaggy hair. The man looked sideways, a hyena grin on his face. Potter caught a glimpse of an acute angle of jawbone.

Be forewarned.

He remembered his pistol. Unchambered the round and replaced it in the clip then bolstered the gun. When he looked up again, the two squad cars bearing Wilcox and Handy were gone. At the moment it seemed like the perverse camaraderie between negotiator and taker would never fade. Part of him was heartsick to see the man go.

Potter considered the work left to be done. There'd be an IR-1002 to write up. There'd be a debriefing tonight via phone with the operations director in the District and a live debriefing with the Admiral himself after the man had read the incident report. Potter ought to start preparing the presentation now. The Director liked his briefings to be as short as news bites, and real-life incidents rarely had the courtesy to line up so willingly. Potter had stopped into Peter Henderson's press conference but answered only a few questions before heading out the door, leaving the SAC to take as much credit and apportion as much blame as he wished; Potter didn't care.

He'd also have to figure out how to deal with the aborted assault by the state HRU. Potter knew that Tremain never would have tried what he did without sanction from above – possibly even the governor's. But if that were the case, the chief executive of the state would already have distanced himself from the commander. He might even be planning a subtle offensive maneuver of his own – like the public crucifixion of one Arthur Potter. The agent would have to prepare a defense for that.

And the other question – should he stay here for a few days? Return to Chicago? Return to the District?

He stood not far from the scorched van, abandoned by the crowds of departing officers, waiting to see Melanie. He gazed at the slaughterhouse, wondering what he would say to her. He saw Officer Frances Whiting leaning against her car, looking as exhausted as he felt. He approached her.

"Have time to give me a lesson?" he asked.

"You bet."

Ten minutes later they walked together to the hospital tent.

Inside, Melanie Charrol sat on a low examining table. A medic had bandaged her neck and shoulders. Perhaps to help him she'd twisted her hair into a sloppy French braid.

Potter stepped toward her and – as he'd told himself, had ordered himself, not to do – he spoke straight to the medic applying some Betadine to her leg, rather than to Melanie herself. "Is she all right?"

Melanie nodded. She stared at him with an intense smile. The only time her eyes flicked away from his was when he spoke and she glanced at his lips.

"It's not her blood," the medic said.

"It's Bear's?" Potter asked.

Melanie was laughing as she nodded. The smile remained on her face but he noticed that her eyes were hollow. The medic gave her a pill, which she took, then she drank down two glasses of water. The young man said, "I'll leave you alone for a few minutes."

As he left, Frances stepped inside. The two women exchanged fast, abrupt signs. Frances said, "She's asking about the other girls. I'm giving her a rundown."

Melanie turned back to Potter and was staring at him. He met her gaze. The young woman was still unnerved but – despite the bandages and blood – as beautiful as he'd expected. Incredible blue-gray eyes.

He lifted his hands to sign to her what Frances had just taught him and his usually prodigious memory failed him completely. He shook his head at his lapse. Melanie cocked her head.

Potter held up a finger. Wait. He lifted his hands again and froze once more. Then Frances gestured and he remembered. "I'm Arthur Potter," he signed. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"No, you are Charles Michel de l'Epée," Frances translated Melanie's signing.

"I'm not that old." He was speaking now, smiling. "Officer Whiting here said he was born in the eighteenth century. How are you feeling?"

She understood without a translation. Melanie waved at her clothes and gave a mock frown then signed. Frances translated, "My skirt and blouse have had it. Couldn't you have gotten us out just a little earlier?"

"The movie-of-the-week people expect cliffhanger endings."

And as with Handy he felt overwhelmed; there were a thousand things to ask her. None of which found their way from his mind to his voicebox.

He stepped even closer to her. Neither moved for a moment.

Potter thought of another sentence in ASL – words that Frances had taught him earlier in the evening. "You're very brave," he signed.

Melanie looked pleased at this. Frances watched her sign but then the officer frowned and shook her head. Melanie repeated her words. To Potter, Frances said, "I don't understand what she means. What she said was, 'If you hadn't been with me I couldn't have done it.'

But he understood.

He heard a chug of engine and turned to see a harvester. As he watched the ungainly vehicle he believed for a moment it was driving hordes of insects before it. Then he realized he was watching husks and dust thrown skyward by the thresher blades.

"They'll do that all night," Frances translated.

Potter looked at Melanie.

She continued, "Moisture's critical. When conditions're right they run like nobody's business. They have to."

"How do you know that?"

"She says she's a farm girl."

She looked straight into his eyes. He tried to believe that Marian had gazed at him thus so he could root this sensation in sentiment or nostalgia and have done with it. But he couldn't. The look, like the feeling it engendered, like this young woman herself, was an original.

Potter recalled the final phrase that Frances had taught him. He hesitated then impulsively signed the words. As he did it seemed to him that he felt the hand shapes with absolute clarity, as if only his hands could express what he wanted to say.

"I want to see you again," Potter signed. "Maybe tomorrow?"

She paused for an endless moment then nodded yes, smiled.

She reached out suddenly toward him and closed her hands on his arm. He pressed a bandaged hand against her shoulder. They stood in this ambiguous embrace for a moment then he lifted his fingers to her hair and touched the back of her head. She lowered her head and he his lips, nearly touching them to the thick blond plait. But suddenly he smelled the musky scent of her scalp, her sweat, latent perfume, blood. The smells of lovers coupling. And he could not kiss her.

How young she is! And as he thought that, in one instant, his desire to embrace her vanished and his old man's fantasy – never articulated, hardly formed – blew away like the chaff shot from the thresher he'd been staring at.

He knew he had to leave.

Knew he'd never see her again.

He stepped back suddenly and she looked at him, momentarily perplexed.

"I have to go talk to the U.S. attorney," he said abruptly.

Melanie nodded and offered her hand. He mistook it for a signing gesture. He stared down, waiting. Then she extended it further and took his fingers warmly. They both laughed at the misunderstanding. Suddenly she pulled him forward, kissed his cheek.

He walked to the door, stopped, turned. " 'Be forewarned.' That's what you said to me, isn't it?"

Melanie nodded, her eyes hollow once again. Hollow and forlorn. Frances translated her response: "I wanted you to know how dangerous he was. I wanted you to be careful."

Then she smiled and signed some more. Potter laughed when he heard the translation. "You owe me a new skirt and blouse. And I expect to be repaid. You better not forget. I'm Deaf with an attitude. Poor you."

Potter wandered back to the van, thanked Tobe Geller and Henry LeBow, who were taking commercial flights back to their respective homes. A squad car whisked them away. He shook Dean Stillwell's hand once more and felt a ridiculous urge to give him a present of some sort, a ribbon or a medal or a federal agent decoder ring. The sheriff brushed aside his mop of hair and had the presence of mind to order his men – federal and state alike – to walk carefully, reminding them that they were, after all, at a crime scene and evidence still needed to be gathered.

Potter stood beneath one of the halogen lights, looking out at the stark slaughterhouse.

"Night, sir," a voice drawled from behind him. He turned to Stevie Gates. The negotiator shook his hand. "Couldn't have done it without you, Stevie."

The boy did better dodging bullets than fielding compliments. He looked down at the ground. "Yeah, well, you know."

"A word of advice."

"What's that, sir?"

"Don't volunteer so damn much."

"Yessir." The trooper grinned. "I'll keep that in mind." Then Potter found Charlie Budd and asked him for a lift to the airport. "You're not going to hang around for a while?" asked the young captain.

"No, I should go."

They climbed into Budd's unmarked car and sped away. Potter caught a last glimpse of the slaughterhouse; in the stark spotlights the dull red-and-white structure gave the appearance of bloody, exposed bone. He shuddered and turned away.

Halfway to the airport Budd said, "I appreciate the chance you gave me."

"You were good enough to confess something to me, Charlie -"

"After I almost fixed your clock."

"- so I better confess something to you."

The captain rubbed his tawny hair and left it looking like he'd been to the Dean Stillwell hair salon. He meant, Go ahead, I can take it.

"I kept you with me as an assistant 'cause I needed to show everybody that this was a federal operation and state took second place. I was putting you on a leash. You're a smart man and I guess you figured that out."

"Yup. Didn't seem you really needed a high-priced gofer like me. Ordering Fritos and beer and helicopters. It was one of the things made me put that tape recorder in my pocket. But the way you talked to me, treated me, was one of the things that made me take it out."

"Well, you've got a right to be good and mad. But I just wanted to say you did a lot better than I expected. You were really part of the team. Handling that session by yourself – you were a natural. I'd have you negotiate with me any time."

"Oh, brother, not for any money. Tell you what, Arthur – I'll run 'em to ground and you get 'em out of their holes."

Potter laughed. "Fair enough, Charlie."

They drove in silence through the miles and miles of wheat. The windswept grain was alive in the moonlight, like the silken coat of an animal eager to run. "I've got a feeling," Budd said slowly, "you're thinking you made a mistake tonight."

Potter said nothing, watching the bug eyes of the threshers.

"You're thinking that if you'd come up with what that Detective Foster did you could've got 'em out sooner. Maybe even saved that girl's life, and Joey Wilson's."

"It did cross my mind," Potter said after a minute. Oh, how we hate to be pegged and explained. What's so compelling about the idea that our selves are mysteries to everyone but us? I let you in on the secrets, Marion. But only you. It's an aspect of love, I think, and reasonable enough there. But how queasy it makes us feel when strangers have the eye to see us so unfurled.

"But you kept 'em alive through three or four deadlines," Budd continued.

"That girl though, Susan…"

"But he shot her before you even started negotiating. There was nothing you could've said to save her. Besides, Handy had plenty of chances to ask for what Sharon offered him, and he never did. Not once."

This was true. But if Arthur Potter knew anything about his profession it was that the negotiator was the closest thing to God in a barricade and that every death fell on his shoulders and his only. What he'd learned – and what had saved his heart over the years – was that some of those deaths simply weigh less than others.

They drove another three miles and Potter realized he'd grown hypnotized, staring at the moon-white wheat. Budd was talking to him once again. The subject was domestic, the man's wife and his daughters.

Potter looked away from the streaming grain and listened to what the captain was telling him.

In the tiny jet Arthur Potter slipped two sticks of Wrigley's into his mouth and waved goodbye to Charlie Budd, who was waving back, though the interior of the plane was very dim and Potter doubted that the captain saw him.

Then he sank down into the spongy beige seat of the Grumman Gulf-stream. He thought of the flask of Irish whisky in his briefcase but found himself decidedly not in the mood.

How 'bout that, Marian? No nightcap for me and I'm off-duty. What do you say about that?

He saw a phone on a console nearby and thought he should call his cousin Linden and tell her not to Wait up for him. Maybe he'd wait until they were airborne. He'd ask to speak to Sean; the boy would be thrilled to know that Uncle Arthur was talking to him from twenty thousand feet in the air. He gazed absently out the window at the constellations of colored lights marking runways and taxiways. Potter took from his pocket the still-damp note Melanie had written him. Read it. Then he crumpled the paper, stuffed it into the pocket of the seat in front of him.

The jets whined powerfully and with a sudden burst of thrust he found the plane not racing down the runway at all but streaking straight into the sky, almost from a dead stop, like a spaceship headed to Mars.

They rose up and up, aiming for the moon, which was an eerie sickle in the hazy sky. The plane pointed itself at the black disk surrounded by the white crescent. Uncharacteristically poetic, Potter thought of this image: the icy thumb and index finger of a witch, reaching for a pinch of nightshade.

The negotiator closed his eyes and sat back in the soft seat.

Just as he did, the Grumman banked fiercely. So sharp was the maneuver that Arthur Potter knew suddenly he was about to die. He considered this fact very calmly. A wing or an engine had fallen off. A bolt holding together the whole airplane had finally fatigued. His eyes sprang open and – yes, yes! – he believed he saw his wife's face clearly in the white glow surrounding the moon as it scythed past. He understood that what had joined the two of them, himself and Marian, for all these years joined them still, just as powerfully, and she was pulling him after her in death.

He closed his eyes again. And felt utterly at peace.

But no, he was not destined to die just yet.

For as the plane completed its acute turn and headed back toward the airport, dropping the landing gear and flaps, sliding down down down to the flat Kansas landscape once more, Potter clutched the telephone to his ear, listening to SAC Peter Henderson tell him in a shaking, grim voice how the real Detective Sharon Foster had been found dead and half-naked not far from her house a half-hour ago and how it was now suspected that the woman who'd impersonated her at the barricade had been Lou Handy's girlfriend.

The four troopers who'd been escorting Handy and Wilcox were dead, as was Wilcox himself – all killed in a violent shootout five miles from the slaughterhouse.

And as for Handy and the woman – they were gone without a trace.