The Standoff

Paradise Point

Dawn. Morning comes fast to the top of a mountain, like someone polishing the great black night sky, revealing it to be blue. Deputy Marshal Bascombe’s breath swirled in the growing light around him. His thermal underwear was a half size too small and pulled at him in all the wrong places, and his stomach was grumbling again.

He was in the fifth hour of his third surveillance watch. They had come up the mountainside in two-by-two cover formation to a gully thirty-five yards below the cabin. Or was it a ravine? The sides were smooth. Like a trench at this point, cutting horizontally across the mountain, then falling off through the trees and trailing away. Whatever it was, it was not man-made.

He was kneeling down, well hidden, with a good view of the cabin through the trees. He ran his thumb and forefinger along his upper lip, smoothing out his mustache. The boredom of a surveillance run. Bascombe looked around for birds. Because there was a deadness in these woods, a stillness, more like December than August, and there should have been birds. In the hometown of his youth, in rural Maryland, he had walked through the woods to school each day, browner woods than these, and there were hummingbirds that darted through the air, careening around tree trunks like bullets with wings. And if he stood still long enough in those woods, a stray hummingbird might careen around him too, mistaking him for a tree and rocketing toward him, jumping from breeze to breeze, and he would shut his eyes and feel it splitting the air around him and hear its small wings, fast like an insect’s, fanning a hairpin turn. Then he would open his eyes and watch it darting around tree trunks and away.

So there should have been birds here, and animals, something rustling in the underbrush other than deputy marshals. Squirrels in the trees, brown toads hopping, even coyotes. But — birds. If only to eat up some of the damn bugs.

It was the beginning of the marshals’ second full day on the mountain. They slept in cots on pancake mattresses and ate Red Cross “food.” They showered eight at a time, one minute lukewarm and two minutes cold. You could go a full wrist rotation between FM radio stations, from French blah-BLAH-blah to Bible readings and doomsday predictions. Hell is a place with no takeout and no classic rock. It’s a place full of bugs and no birds. Where the wilderness is silent except for your stomach rumbling and the odd crackle of static through the radio wire in your ear.

He wasn’t supposed to wonder what they were doing here. They were watching a cabin. They were watching a cabin in the woods on top of a mountain. There was a man inside the cabin who was a wanted fugitive. They were waiting for him to come out. The woods were filled with armed marshals hiding out behind trees. The marshals were dirty and tired and hungry. When not on watch, they worked down below to make the base area livable, erecting tents, building picnic tables, digging toilet trenches. They had run two weeks of TAO prep drills for this in northern New Hampshire because of the similar terrain. And then there was everything they had gone through just to get into the Special Operations Group itself, the elite tactical unit of the U.S. Marshals Service. The training, the written exams, the psychological evaluations, the endless procedural drills. They were skilled in crowd and riot control, semiautomatic weapons handling, rappelling, land navigation, felony car approach. They were experts in the apprehension of dangerous fugitives, including U.S. fugitives abroad. Like going after Noriega in Panama. That was war — gunfire in the distance, rockets shooting overhead, flares lighting up the night sky. This was a man in a cabin in the woods.

The going-through-the-motions surveillance runs brought back basic training at Camp Beauregard in the bayous of Pineville, and the insects there. The marshlands alive day and night with animal chatter and bird cries. The sweat he swept off his forehead with a full hand, having to billow his T-shirt for ventilation during the drills. The tickle of swamp leaves against his face, and faint, steamy Louisiana music through the trees.

All of which brought him back to the grilled Cajun swordfish at Samo’s. His stomach again. He had eaten at Samo’s only twice in his lifetime, but some places stay with you. The fat maître d’. The nautical decor, the dark tables with red bulb lighting. The swordfish there — steak of the sea, the waiter called it. Christ, it was delicious. The inside of Bascombe’s mouth started to flow, more like sweat than pure saliva. For the first time that shift, he even started to feel a little warm.

He was moving. Lobach flanked his right, crouched near dead tree roots spilling in tangles out of the hard dirt wall. Bascombe shuffled over, bent low, drawing up beside him. He saw himself there in Lobach, a cold man hunched down in a camouflage jumpsuit, bulky black Kevlar vest strapped over his shoulders and around his sides, black helmet on his head, a gun belt with a thigh-strapped holster, knee and elbow pads and black gloves, and the white radio wire running from his shoulder up into his ear.

There were few mirrors down at camp, so before each watch the men would pair off and greasepaint each other’s faces in camouflaging swirls of olive, vine-green, and brown. Bascombe had painted the word pussy onto Lobach’s forehead without his knowing it. This was their sport. God only knew what he looked like himself.

Bascombe said, “I can get closer.”

Lobach was a Texan with close-set eyes. Other than that and the two inches he had on Bascombe, they could have been brothers. In full tactical gear, every marshal looked alike.

“What’s to see?” Lobach said with something less than a drawl. “S’all boarded up.”

“There’s a nice fat tree up there, some fifteen yards.”

Lobach was settled back against the sloping dirt. “We have orders,” he said.

“I know that. I’m going nut so though, I gotta do something.”

Lobach swatted at the air. “Ain’t nothing to see.”

“Screw it, then. So maybe I’ll ring his doorbell and run.”

Lobach’s eyes brightened. “You do and you can have my Red Cross rations tonight.”

Bascombe was being taunted. “Fuck you,” he said.

“What, you want a back rub instead?”

“Fuck you. Texas shithead.”

“Baltimore pussy.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

Bascombe had to look away or else he’d laugh. He looked up at the high branches and the brightening blue sky above. He loved being a U.S. Marshal. He loved the two-hundred-year heritage of the service and the images it brought to people’s minds — Gary Cooper, the Wild West — and he loved the respect his gold star garnered. But something else told him he was different from all the others. It was what had driven him to volunteer for the Special Ops team against the wishes of his wife, Laura. This sense of wanting to belong. He was more thoughtful, perhaps, but basically irregular, not of the same fit as the others. He envied their easy camaraderie.

“Hey,” he said, turning back. “Remember Samo’s?”

Lobach squinted at him in confusion.

Bascombe said, “The blackened swordfish. The dinner special, six ninety-five?”

Lobach just looked at him funny. Bascombe pointed. “That tree right there,” he said. “Where the rise starts to level off. Maybe I can get more of the layout.”

Lobach swatted again. “Goddamned bugs.”

Bascombe got up on his haunches. “I’m going.”

He rose, stooping, patted his 9mm, looked over the top of the dirt embankment to make certain the coast was clear, then swung one leg up and over.

He came back down again just as quickly, landing on both feet. “Hey,” he said. “Is this a gully or a ravine?”

“Gully,” said Lobach. “You can float a boat in a ravine.”

Bascombe nodded, satisfied. He pulled tighter on the heel of each of his gloves, then went back over the top.

He straightened up at the first tree, stilling a disturbed branch, and drew his weapon, muzzle down, his gloved index finger extended along the barrel. Lobach showed him nothing, so Bascombe spun off and cross-stepped to the second tree, then diagonally again up the dirt rise to his intended post.

Nothing from Lobach. Bascombe was clear. He took a deep breath, warmed from all the motion, and suddenly smelled pine. Bark bristled against the back of his shoulders.

Arms straight, gun pointed away, he twisted and peered out from behind the fat trunk. He was closer to the cabin than he had thought. It was about twenty-by-twenty feet, a patchwork mishmash of wood grades, mostly plywood. The roof was obtuse and unshingled, windows boarded fast, and a lopsided porch on three uneven steps ran the length of the front. The land fell off beyond, the middle and rear of the cabin standing on graded lengths of wood posts to stay level. Treetops showed behind the roof; there was known to be an outhouse and some small wooden shacks among them. Then rocky cliffs beyond. The only sign of life was a lazy thread of smoke rising out of the stone chimney.

Bascombe stood back against the tree. He relaxed his arms a little and looked around, stamping his feet. He realized then that he could get just as stiff and cold and hungry and bored standing out here. He watched a dead leaf drift to the ground, then looked down the length of the mountain to where the thickening tree trunks ran together into a black wall that eventually blocked his view.

A noise behind him. Something like a thick snap or a click, and he pictured a bird or a squirrel settling on a weak branch. He turned and leaned out again to look.

The front door of the cabin was open. Two men were exiting with automatic weapons, one of them a definite match for Ables’s mug shot. Then, behind them, a young girl who looked to be about twelve or thirteen, one of Ables’s daughters. The girl had a top-handled rifle slung over her shoulder that was too heavy for her, maybe an AR-15, and was holding on to rope leashes tied to three thin gray dogs.

Bascombe stood back quickly, arms stiff. The blood pulsing now in his temples messed with his hearing, but there was nothing on the marshals’ radio net. He looked down land toward the gully, saw no one.

He ducked and leaned out the other way. Through the trees he saw a lone man approaching the cabin. Older, like a neighbor, except that all the mountain residents had long since been evacuated.

Ables, his daughter, and the third armed man — tall, burly, bearded — greeted the older unknown with their guns hanging loose, meeting him near the front right corner of the cabin. They were chewing the fat. Bascombe was too far off to hear anything. The dogs rooted around them, sniffing the dirt hungrily, happy just to be outside.

Bascombe straightened again and squared off to the south. Whatever the hell was going on, he was stuck there, but well out of sight. He was OK. He nodded his head and tried to stay loose, watching the gully for directions.

There was Lobach moving laterally to his right, establishing position. That reassured him. He nodded to himself again.

A single dog barked first, almost playfully. Then all three at once, snarling and gargling and gobbling up air. Like beasts laughing and cursing at the same time, cries choked by collared throats. Then movement, hesitant boot-steps and paws tearing up dirt and brush. Then voices calling out.

Bascombe stiffened. He slipped his finger in over the trigger.

Barking distorted by galloping now, the dogs turned loose. Things happening fast. One dog closer than the others. Furious snarling, paws beating the hard ground like hooves, now nearly upon him. Bascombe stood tight against the tree. He was shaking in anticipation, gun ready.

The lead dog shot past him. Legs blurred, head dipping and rising. Ignored, Bascombe watched it go. Then he realized it was charging the gully and Lobach.

Bascombe’s mind went into overdrive. He quickly patted his chest. High-powered rounds wouldn’t stop for the vest, he knew. He found his marshal’s ID and brought it out fast. Head throbbing, he spun out suddenly into the clear, gun out flat, ID up, exactly as he was trained to do.

“Bascombe, U.S. Marshals! Stop where you are!”

He realized as he did this that no one was able to hear him over the dogs. His ears pounded with such force, he wondered if he was even speaking at all. Still nothing on the radio net. Ables had stopped twenty yards uphill.

“Federal marshals!” he yelled. “Freeze!”

The second dog was upon him. Bascombe sighted and squeezed and kicked off a single round, and the dog yelped and collapsed onto its chest, somersaulting forward and dead.

Bascombe looked back up and re aimed His ears were ringing and roaring now. The individuals had dropped into defensive positions but the third dog was bearing down on him — jagged teeth, body hurtling forward. Then Bascombe was aware of slots opening in the walls of the cabin beyond, and various-sized gun barrels emerging from them. He wondered briefly what Lobach was doing behind him. But he didn’t see the girl until it was too late.

Behind a dead stump, the barrel of the AR-15 resting on top. Young forehead wrinkled in anger and aim. A few quick bursts. Something hit Bascombe hard in the throat and he pitched back and fell.

He slid back a few feet headfirst, then lay still. He clutched at the dirt and dead leaves under his now-empty hands. He turned his head this way and that way but could not get up. No one was near him and he was dizzy. He needed help. Voices talking in his ear now. There was the brrpt of far-off gunfire. A sweet taste in his mouth. The morning sky above. And a bird, a crow, lifting off from the high black branches, frightened by all the noise.

Skull Valley, Montana

Memorandum, SA Coyle to [title and name deleted]:

PARASIEGE

Sir:

In reference to your request of 22 October 1993, this confidential report has been compiled from personal recollections and is presented in light of the circumstances and questions surrounding the outcome of operation PARASIEGE and the current ongoing investigation. It is intended neither as a recommendation nor as a conclusion of this agent or of the FBI. Verbal exchanges have been reconstructed and should not be considered verbatim.

On 4 August 1993 at approximately 14:00 hrs. (Mountain Time), Special Agent MARY GRACE COYLE and Special Agent DOUGLAS TAYLOR of the Butte Field Office arrived at the FBI Resident Agency in Skull Valley, Montana. The Skull Valley RA is a solitary one-story, Bureau-provided residence on the outskirts of the town, supported by a single resident agent and identifiable as FBI property only by a mailbox shingle on which is depicted the official FBI emblem.

The Skull Valley RA was originally established in 1971 to monitor and investigate acts of conspiracy and gross theft of government property regarding illegal logging operations in the nearby Fort Belknap Indian Reservation and the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge. Severe timberland depletion, however, as evidenced by acres of razed hills, had long since driven even legitimate loggers from the region. The current operative function of this RA, therefore, was not immediately apparent.

The Butte Field Office had been out of contact with the Skull Valley RA for at least twenty-four hours (last logged interoffice communication: 23 March). On emergency assignment, SA Coyle and SA Taylor touched down via helicopter and proceeded across the street to the front door of the residence. The telephone wires from the sidewalk poles appeared to be intact and the structure appeared secure.

SA Taylor pressed the doorbell twice without answer. SA Coyle then left the front stoop to investigate further, whereupon she gained visual access into the residence through a front window. Nothing inside appeared to be upset or disturbed. SA Taylor then tried the doorknob and found it to be unlocked. SA Coyle rejoined him on the landing and both agents drew their service weapons and entered the premises.

The front room was neatly if sparely arranged and evidenced no signs of struggle. There were several indications, such as a quality of air consistent with proper ventilation, that the RA had recently been occupied. SA Coyle determined upon cursory examination that the telephone and teletype unit wires had been disconnected from their respective wall sockets. The agents then proceeded further with their investigation.

Of the two inner doorways, one to their immediate right was open. The agents approached with caution and entered a small kitchen, which was found to be unoccupied and undisturbed. As the agents were inspecting detailed meal, work, and sleep charts posted on the kitchen cabinets, dated as recently as the day before, a voice from the main room behind them ordered that they disarm immediately. They were instructed to place their hands behind their heads and to turn around. SA Coyle and SA Taylor had no alternative but to comply.

The individual was armed with a large-caliber handgun. He was a white male, early fifties, six-two, medium build, gray hair, blue eyes, wearing khaki pants and a light plaid shirt, white socks without shoes, wire-rimmed half-glasses, short gray beard. He had entered from the door across the front room behind them. He appeared to be agitated and disoriented, and potentially dangerous.

The individual relieved both agents of their FBI identification, which he read and flipped back against the agents’ chests to fall to the floor. He demanded to know their reason for being there. SA Coyle advised the individual that they were federal agents and that the individual was trespassing on federal property. The individual then inquired further, to which SA Coyle responded that she and SA Taylor were investigating the apparent disablement of the RA and the possible disappearance of its resident agent, SA John Banish. SA Coyle then advised the individual to set down his weapon and comply peacefully.

The individual instead proceeded to criticize both agents in a disparaging manner. Specifically, he addressed FBI rules of SOP regarding hostile entry: that all doorways be checked and secured before attempting further examination of the premises; that all agents identify themselves immediately upon entry in a loud and clear manner.

SA Taylor then inquired as to whether the individual himself was Special Agent Banish, to which the individual replied: “We’re all special. The Bureau does not discriminate.” Special Agent JOHN BANISH then lowered his weapon and returned to the front room. SA Coyle and SA Taylor followed.

SA Banish positioned himself near the open front door of the premises. He appeared anxious and uncomfortable. He advised the agents that the Butte office’s cause for alarm was unfounded, and then invited both to leave. At no time did he offer any explanation for the disconnected telephone and teletype units, nor why he apparently had not heard the helicopter approach, nor why he had not originally answered the doorbell.

When informed that SA Coyle and SA Taylor carried orders to transport him for reassignment, SA Banish became agitated and noticeably confused. He immediately questioned the validity of the orders and disallowed their accuracy:

SA COYLE: Are you aware of the Paradise Ridge situation, sir?

SA BANISH: North of here. Local police shot at.

SA COYLE: A U.S. Marshal was murdered there in a gunfight this morning. Another marshal is still pinned down at this hour. Marshals Service Special Operations Group is attempting a rescue.

SA BANISH: How old was he?

SA COYLE: Sir?

SA BANISH: The dead marshal. How old was he?

SA COYLE: We don’t know that, sir.

After some moments of silence following this irregular preliminary questioning, SA Banish went on to inquire as to the relevance of the incident pertaining to himself:

SA COYLE: The suspect in question is a. federal fugitive. Further complicating matters are the other individuals barricaded in the cabin with him, sir. Five of them are juveniles, the suspect’s own children. The situation is being approached as a hostage-taking.

SA BANISH: This is some kind of mistake.

SA COYLE: No, sir. I have the reassignment orders right here. Skills bank matched you to the subject: age, geographical location, distinguished military service.

SA BANISH: It is a mistake.

SA COYLE: I do not believe so, sir. But mistake or not, the orders have been cut. The case has been upgraded to Special and you have been assigned. You are now the case agent.

SA TAYLOR: Sir, we can help you pack while you shave.

SA BANISH: You don’t understand. My work is here.

SA COYLE: Sir. You are a federal hostage negotiator with Special Operations and Research. Your work is in Montana now.

SA BANISH: Who is the current Section Chief?

SA COYLE: Which section, sir?

SA BANISH: Seven. Kidnapping.

SA COYLE: I do not know. But this is being handled by SOARs.

SA BANISH: Who is the current SOARs chief?

SA COYLE: Carlson, sir.

SA BANISH: Division head, then. GID. Is Richardsen still Assistant Director?

SA COYLE: I believe so, sir.

SA BANISH: I will call him.

SA COYLE: You can call from the helicopter, sir.

SA BANISH: You don’t understand. I am not boarding that helicopter.

SA Banish was becoming increasingly agitated in both tone and manner. SA Coyle’s determination at this point was that SA Banish had become irrational. He was contradicting and refusing reassignment and carrying on in an emotional state. He had since retreated near the unopened door behind him, and by his defensive posture appeared to be attempting to deflect attention and/or access to said room.

SA Coyle once again advised SA Banish that he could contact AD Richardsen in transit. When SA Banish refused, SA Coyle then insisted on packing for him and proceeded through the door in question.

In sharp contrast to the front room, SA Banish’s sleeping quarters were in absolute disarray. His bedsheets were tossed, wrinkled articles of clothing hung out of half-open dresser drawers, and an odor of heated staleness was pervasive.

A secretary desk sat under sagging bookshelves in one corner of the room, littered with torn-out sheets of writing paper crossed out and rewritten many times over. On the desk was an oversized dictionary of German-to-English translation and a faded wire-bound notebook filled with foreign verse. The purpose served by these articles remains unknown to this agent.

SA Banish quickly followed SA Coyle inside. He appeared furious and inappropriately secretive, but at once surrendered his opposition and agreed to begin packing, contingent solely upon his being allowed to do so in private.

SA Coyle agreed and withdrew. She and SA Taylor retrieved their service weapons and identification from the kitchen area, again observing the peculiar, detailed lists of food intake, exact length of sleep time, etc. They then returned to the front room to wait for SA Banish to emerge.

Washington, D.C

Salvatore Richardsen, Assistant Director of the General Investigative Division of the FBI, exited the elevator and was halfway to his car beneath the J. Edgar Hoover Building when a woman’s voice from an overhead speaker summoned him back to his office for an urgent call.

Upstairs, Richardsen set his briefcase down on the slate-colored carpet and stood in his unbuttoned London Fog and punched the flashing button on his speakerphone.

“Jack,” he said, fiddling with the secretary’s message note left on his desk. Very sexy handwriting. Wishful thinking at this point, but he was definitely interested. He admired her script, trying to imagine her upright loops and fine trailing swirls curled around the word cock. “Long time, Jack. Too long. Sounds like you’re airborne.”

Banish’s voice was low and remote over the squawk box. “Sal,” he said. “What are you doing to me here?”

“It’s bad business, Jack. We’ll need someone of your caliber out there.”

“Sal, I’m in a helicopter, I can’t talk. Listen. I don’t think I’m up to it.”

Richardsen licked his warm lips. He frowned. It was impossible to get an accurate emotional read over the connection, from a helicopter headset to a speakerphone all the way across the country. Like talking to someone on a car phone in the final lap of the Indy 500.

“Jack,” he said, “you have to be up to it. A quagmire up there, very important to this office, as well as SOARs. You know the bastard’s drawn federal blood.”

A pause. The whup-whup of rotor blades and the underlying whine.

“What about Raleigh?” he heard Banish say.

Richardsen shook his head mildly. In his distraction, he held the pink message slip up to the bright ceiling lights. “He’s tied up with that Port Authority thing in Los Angeles,” he said.

The way she made a capital B. Bold, broad, sweeping strokes. Tough, confident. Take-charge. On top of things, experienced but with a delicate flow of expression. The same way she moved when she walked down the hall ahead of him. That royal-blue sheath dress she had worn today. He had a brainstorm suddenly. Get something of hers down to Handwriting for a full analysis. To get the inside track on her personality. Something off the top of her desk, maybe.

Richardsen set the message note back down and paced a bit. “Look, Jack,” he said. “Everything you need. You call back with the specs. Hostage Rescue is yours if you want it. QB this thing, you know the drills. He’s on top of a frigging mountain, so you take your time, run your plays.”

“Sal, it’s been more than two years.”

“Everyone knows that, Jack. I don’t mean everyone. But you’re out there on the fringe, counting your fingers. Look, Jack. A man of your talents. I have absolute confidence in you here, absolutely. You are the best, I mean that. Now, there’s the kids involved, I don’t know if you know. That’s the other thing. They’re armed, all right? His kids carry, that’s the report we’re getting. He trained them — which is what I mean by a quagmire here. You see how it is? With the hostage scenario, SOARs takes full control. We can’t afford to ride along with the Marshals on this one, too much at stake. External Affairs knows it’s a nightmare going in. That’s the main thing. If there’s any shooting to be done, make sure it’s the Marshals doing it. We don’t want to get drawn into a gun battle with little kids. So — they’re hostages. All right? That’s priority one.”

“Sal,” Banish said, “you offer me whatever I need, then you handcuff me to a chair. I have to go into this with a clear head.”

Richardsen grabbed his football off the shelf. “You make like I’m throwing you to the lions here, Jack. This is your job, this is what you did so damn well in New York for eleven years. So you’re coming back off injured reserve. OK, great — big comeback here.”

“Sal. Jesus.”

“Just talk him down, Jack. Get him off that fucking mountain, effect the arrest. Bring the bastard to the bar of justice. I mean it, free rein. I don’t care how you run things. And look — if the hijacking thing resolves itself soon, maybe we can release Raleigh. Hell — you trained him, right? Jack, I gotta go.”

“Sal, listen. Just tell me. Is this a push? Do they want me to resign?”

Richardsen stopped where he was. Even with all the interference, he heard it that time, the desperation in Banish’s voice. Richardsen frowned harshly.

“Jack,” he said, “we want your expertise here. We want that bag of tricks you’ve got in your head. Christ, Jack — a man’s dead and there are kids in mortal danger up there. All right? Jack — all right?”

Whup-whup.

“You are the best, Jack, the best there is. Just forget New York. Put it all behind you. Starting fresh here. My number two will be in later, so you call him with your laundry list. The SAC out there is Perkins, Butte. All right? All right. Keep in touch, Jack.”

Richardsen punched the button and the red light went off. He remained staring at the box a moment, then moved away. He turned his old college football over in his hands. The leather was cracking, its bladder gone soft. He recalled hours spent sitting at the foot of the metal frame bed in his little room at Fordham, thinking about the next game, and the hands that used to hold that ball — tight-skinned, trim-knuckled, ring less fingers — gripping it, turning it, tossing it up and down. It was the last time he could remember his priorities ever matching his responsibilities.

For anyone else, protesting or refusing an assignment would be cause for immediate termination. But the word had come down on his old friend Jack Banish and all the head cases ripe for wrongful termination lawsuits. Sal Richardsen cupped the football in his right hand. He set his feet and momentarily drew his arm back for a dramatic, game-winning Hail Mary. Then he went across the room and returned the football to its wooden stand on the shelf. He threw away the message note and picked up his briefcase and headed for the door. They had needed a negotiator on the scene ASAP. Whoever had screwed up, it was the kind of mistake that could cost a man his career. Banish was mistakenly listed on the active roster and SOARs had geographically matched him to the crisis perpetrator, and Carlson at Quantico hadn’t gone through Richardsen himself or known enough to override. So the order had been cut and the great machine set into motion. Stopping Banish now would have thrown the entire operation to a grinding halt, and there was simply no time for that. The crisis was current and ongoing. Richardsen realized that he would have to keep close tabs on this one, very close tabs. He would give it some thought on the long ride out to Rockville.

Clearing

The helicopter touched down cleanly but its roaring engine did not stop. Banish stepped out into the clearing behind Coyle and Taylor, ducking to avoid the beating rotor blades. Two U.S. Marshals in camouflage and greasepaint passed him. He turned and watched as they loaded aboard a leaden, sheet-covered stretcher. Then the whupping roar lifted again and the helicopter spun lazily overhead, tucking its nose and beating away.

Banish straightened and watched it go. His ears rang hollow from the sudden absence of noise, as though hearing an unfelt wind. His newly shaved cheeks stung in the cool air. There was a light drizzle, fog hanging in the trees. A tan jacket hung hanger-stiff under his FBI slicker, holster straps tight around his shoulders and under his arms. Three men coming toward him. Agents. Banish hoped he had his game face on.

The lead one swept back his sandy hair and introduced himself as Perkins. His relief at Banish’s arrival was evident in his manner. “We’ve had some death here,” he said.

Banish bristled. The dead man leaving the mountain was immediately his responsibility. He had become the case agent as soon as his feet touched ground.

“The other marshal?” he said.

“Coming down now. He’s OK. Was pinned down by gunfire from inside the cabin. Special Ops Group leader is debriefing his men AWS.”

As we speak, recalled Banish. The wonky acronyms, the lingo. He looked around as they crossed the dampened clearing. The sky was clouding over and the mountaintop was obscured by fog. He counted three large canvas tents and ten recreational trailers. There were temporary latrine sheds and a row of support vehicles, including a fire engine and a Red Cross food truck. Men in riot gear, suits, police uniforms, military camouflage, and civilian clothes wandered about, some carrying cups of coffee, others guns. Despite the neat arrangement of the parked vehicles and the general complacency of the men, there was no real order here as far as Banish could see.

He tried to organize his thoughts. The remoteness of the plateau clearing offered certain tactical advantages, among them the ability to maintain a large operation without significant disruption of civilian life, a secure and centralized location, and the benefit of removing a potentially hazardous situation from the public eye. Disadvantages would include exposure to the elements, lack of expedient access to the actual crisis scene, and the danger of removing a potentially hazardous situation from the public eye.

He turned his focus to Perkins. The man from Butte was practiced and smooth. A Mormon, likely, the tight-mouthed, tie ping brand of federal agent. As opposed to the Eastern type, ruddy, gray-haired backslappers who still attended their college homecoming each year — the Young Kennedys, they used to be called, the Catholic-school brand of agent, as Banish had once been. Perkins’s subordinates wore long-sleeved jerseys under camouflage issue and work boots and FBI shields on ballcaps. Perkins remained in a suit jacket and wore rubbers over shoes. He showed no indication that he had recognized Banish’s name, which was mere politeness. It put Banish on guard.

Banish said, “I don’t see any telephone lines.”

Perkins said, “No electricity either. How much do you know?”

“Nothing. I need to know it all.”

Perkins nodded. “You need the file. I can give you a little now. Suspect name is Glenn Alien Ables. Undercover Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents stung him more than two years ago for trafficking illegal fire arms He put his cabin up for bail and defaulted, and has been holed up here since. A local sheriff trying to serve him with an eviction notice triggered all this. Nine other residents on the mountain, all evacuated two days ago.”

“Access?”

“By foot. The path up is impassable.”

“How old was the dead marshal?”

Perkins turned to look at him. “I don’t know,” he said, confused. “Younger.”

“Married?”

Perkins, still looking at him, shook his head blankly. “I really wouldn’t know.”

They were coming up on the canvas tent closest to the foot of the mountain. A group of narrow-eyed marshal sharpshooters, members of the self-named Beloved Order of Long-Rifle Men and Observers, stood outside in the rain with sniper rifles by their sides, waiting.

Raised voices and thick cursing from inside the tent. A table overturned. Then a marshal was backed out forcibly through the tent folds, stumbling to the ground, propelled by a furious older black marshal. The BOLOs moved in quickly to separate the two, restraining the black marshal. The younger marshal slowly got to his feet in the fresh mud, looking stunned. His face and close-set eyes were locked. Banish noticed the word pussy dripping off his painted forehead.

The black marshal was yelling through teeth clenched on a lit cheroot. “Fucking bug spray,” he said. “On a covert surveillance op, fucking bug spray—” He strained against the arms of the four marshals holding him back. “The fuck were you thinking? This a fucking picnic here?”

“No, sir,” croaked the painted marshal.

A flaring shower of tobacco ash as the black marshal got an arm free and whipped his cheroot off the painted marshal’s vest. “Fuck me, no sir, you piece of shit. You fucking pussy. You bug-free fucking girl. They scented you. The dogs fucking scented you, you fucking perfume-wearing motherfucker. Bascombe’s fucking stung to death and you’re goddamn fucking bite-free. I will fucking kill you. Get the fuck out of my sight, I will fucking shoot you myself.”

The painted marshal was not breathing now. His mouth was twisted open and he was looking around dog-faced, as though for his dead partner. Then he turned and walked off.

The men released the black marshal but he fought them off anyway. He stalked around and saw a transport Jeep parked nearby and walked up to it and punched the center of the windshield with his gloved fist. It cracked in a fine web burst but did not shatter. Then his big arms dropped at his sides. “Fucking corpse,” he muttered.

He turned and saw Banish there with Perkins. The black marshal’s eyes were sharp over his frowning mouth, his hair cropped tight under a black ball cap “What?” he said.

Perkins introduced, too mildly: “Deputy Fagin, head of Marshals Special Ops Group; SA John Banish. Banish is the case agent on this one.”

Fagin stopped. “What fucking case agent?”

Perkins stiffened, stumbling over some of the words. “SA Banish is a hostage negotiator with Special Operations and Research—”

“Hostages?” Fagin came forward fast, looking at both of them. “There are no hostages on this mountain. What the fuck is this?”

Banish said, “Tell me what happened up there.”

Fagin turned. “Fuck you.”

Perkins said, “Now wait a minute—”

Fagin turned to him. “You fucking wait. I don’t mind a field division rep up here and I don’t mind Bureau deep-pocket help. But this is a U.S. Marshals Service operation.”

Perkins shook his head with an expression of tight-faced regret. “Not anymore.”

Fagin said, “Bullshit. Ables is a federal fugitive. Recapturing him is Marshal responsibility.”

Perkins listed the charges. “Kidnapping, assault on a police officer, assault on a federal agent, murder of a federal agent, conspiracy, conspiracy to commit murder—”

“Bullshit.” Fagin stalked away five broad steps, then came right back. Body language punctuated his vehemence. “Bullshit. That’s my man flying home under a sheet.”

Behind him, the BOLOs stirred with interest and narrow-eyed defiance. Grim, mustached men. But Banish watched everyone with the narrowest eyes of all.

“Was he married?” Banish said.

Fagin looked at Banish. His face seemed ready to explode. “This is your specialist?” he said to Perkins. “What the fuck kind of question is that?”

“Did he have any children?” Banish said.

Fagin looked at him as though he were crazy. His expression as he shook his head was one of broad, taunting confusion.

One of the BOLOs spoke up behind. “He was married,” the marshal said. “No kids.”

Banish nodded. “Late twenties?”

The BOLO nodded yes.

Banish closed his eyes. He rubbed his forehead, then his temples, then just his eyes with the thumb and finger of his left hand. There was no headache, just a swirl of complications and old, distorted voices. In the darkness he could have been anywhere.

He opened his eyes and was back where he was, the others all staring at him, waiting or annoyed or wondering what the hell. Banish was accustomed to the staring.

He looked at Fagin. “Call your Director,” he said. “Get me assigned off this mountain.”

Fagin showed him a face. “Fuck you,” he said.

Banish shook his head earnestly. “It’s all yours. I didn’t ask for it and I don’t want it. Call him up and get me out of here today.”

“Fuck you. You know that’s not how it’s done.”

Banish did know. If it were that easy, he would already have placed the call himself. “Then tell me what happened up there,” he said.

Fagin glared. He looked over at Perkins, who showed him nothing. Then he crossed his big arms.

“Routine surveillance-containment, two-by-two cover formation. Two teams flanked laterally in a gully thirty-five yards below the target. Oh-seven-hundred hours, a neighbor approaches the property. Red Cross had been escorting residents up to their homes to feed animals or pick up medicine; this individual somehow slipped away. The suspect, Ables, his brother-in-law Mellis, and one of Ables’s daughters all exit with dogs and guns to greet the visitor. The dogs pick up Lobach’s scent and charge the gully. Bascombe is positioned behind a tree twenty yards down. The lead dog passes him, going for Lobach. Bascombe jumps out, ID’s himself and taps a dog, then takes three quick, two in the chest, one in the throat.”

Banish tensed a little, recalling the sensation of lead tearing through skin and muscle. “Armor?” he said.

“Thin ballistic standard. Fucking tin. They’re using AR-15s.”

“Trigger?”

“Unknown. All three were firing, including the fucking girl. Ten more minutes of swapping shots, then a hose-down from the cabin and all three individuals retreated. The dogs are dead. We can’t get to two of them. Cabin fire pinned us down and the fog and terrain eighty-sixed air support. Rescue teams had to hike up. Took three passes to get the body out.” Fagin glanced aside again, shaking his head. “Fucking bug spray.”

“Your men didn’t hit anyone?”

Fagin said, “Unknown at this time.”

“The girl,” Banish said, pressing him.

Fagin said, “Unknown.”

“How old is she?”

Fagin looked incredulous again. “How old? The fuck does it matter, how old?”

“It matters. What are the children’s ages?”

“Read the file,” Fagin said. “Then you can send them all birthday cards. Meanwhile, we got a fucking situation here.”

Banish nodded, but to himself. Too much to handle all at once. He felt suddenly transparent standing there, as though everyone could see right through him. Confidence was crucial to success. Especially the image of confidence. He needed something here. He turned quickly to Perkins. “We’ll have a full staging area set up in this clearing — supply trucks, U-Hauls, bulldozers, more trailers, Humvees — everything fully operational by tomorrow A.M.”

Then to Fagin, “No more Red Cross walk-ups. Tighten the cabin perimeter and close it to forty yards, no one in or out. Then requisition some legitimate body armor ASAP. When things quiet down, have your men start up a collection for the deceased’s wife.”

The BOLO said, “Bascombe, sir.”

Banish nodded. He was in charge now, he should know the man’s name. “Bascombe,” he said.

The BOLOs behind Fagin nodded. Each was a family man, or planned to be, and the scent of death scared them. Nobody wanted to die alone.

Banish felt himself faltering. He had to get away and regroup. He turned and found Agent Coyle and relieved her of his suitcase. “Which trailer is mine?” he said.

Perkins said, “We’re tripled up. You can have—”

“I’ll have my own. Vacate it and send someone over with the complete file. Where does this road go?”

He was looking back across the clearing to where a Jeep was entering. The Jeep swam a bit in his vision.

Perkins said, “Down to the bridge, where we set up a roadblock. But we only have so many trailers—”

Banish was walking away. He was vaguely aware of Fagin’s saying something behind him, swearing. Then, farther away, Banish heard sobbing. He stopped and looked between two trucks and saw Lobach sitting on the wet ground with his head in his hands. Banish looked away fast and kept walking. If there was anything to say, he might have said it. But there was nothing he could say and nothing he could do. Marshal Lobach had made a mistake and another man was dead, and it was something he would taste for the rest of his life. Banish made a mental note to have him dismissed off the mountain.

Marshal’s Tent

[PARASIEGE, p. 11]

SAC Perkins and Deputy Marshal Fagin remained there watching him walk away. Deputy Marshal Fagin said in a loud manner: “What the fuck was that? The fuck is wrong with this guy?”

Following which, after some consideration, SA Coyle came forward with her observations. She addressed SAC Perkins and detailed the peculiar circumstances regarding SA Banish’s transfer. Specifically: that SA Banish drew his service weapon on SAs Coyle and Taylor, that SA Banish showed extraordinary reluctance in accepting reassignment, and that SA Banish had been in contact with AD Richardsen while in transit to request that the transfer order be rescinded.

It was admittedly uncustomary and perhaps of questionable judgment to air such behavioral transgressions in an open forum, but the pertinence of these inappropriate reactions seemed to outweigh discretion.

SAC Perkins then asked for and received this agent’s name:

SAC PERKINS: You remember the World Financial Center situation about three years ago?

SA COYLE: I was still in training at Quantico, sir. A guest lecturer from the Bureau came and addressed the pitfalls of that specific situation. As I recall, all hostage negotiation operations and procedures were subsequently reviewed as a result.

DEPUTY MARSHAL FAGIN: That was this guy?

SAC PERKINS: One of the hostages he saved tracked him down one year later and tried to kill him.

DEPUTY MARSHAL FAGIN: Is this some fucking joke? What the fuck are you handing me here? I’ve got forty fucking men on this mountain.

SAC PERKINS: I informed the SOARs chief that this situation warranted a strategic planning and crisis management specialist. I suppose skills bank matched cop to killer on tangibles alone.

SAC Perkins’s slight enthusiasm for a fellow agent was initially confusing. Of the three (unofficial) ways an agent is understood to earn the respect of his colleagues — by shooting a suspect in the line of duty, by being wounded in the line, or by shunning administrative advancement to remain in the field — it appeared that SA Banish had, over the Course of his career, fulfilled all three.

Trailer

Banish set his suitcase down on the bed. Four new walls. The trailer looked like half a cheap motel room, the half without the television set. He turned and saw himself reflected in a wall mirror and went and took the mirror down.

The words had come too easily at the marshals tent. Salesman’s patter. He feared lapsing back into the old play book routine. He feared the old confidence.

This was no hostage situation. It wasn’t even a barricade case. It was a standoff, the worst parts of both.

He shouldn’t think too much. He should act, be moving forward. He took a deep breath and reviewed the old maxims: Discipline is paramount to success; Anticipation is ninety percent of command.

He zipped open his suitcase and turned it over, dumping clothes and toiletries out onto the thickly patterned blanket draped over the low bed.

A knock rattled the aluminum door. It was Coyle, handing him a heavy white legal-sized carton, Ables’s file. Banish set it on the floor and returned to the mess on his bed, then realized that Coyle was lingering in the doorway behind. “The situation is stabilized—” she began to say as Banish swung the door shut with his foot. He sifted through his clothes on the bed and found nothing appropriate. As with everything else, he would have to start from scratch.

Staging Area

In a supply truck outside, Banish found a discarded John Deere ball cap and traded his FBI slicker for a camouflage hunting jacket. He slipped his ID inside his breast pocket and stepped out and shut the truck door. Droplets tapped on his shoulders and cap brim, the drizzle becoming full rain.

Men with jobs to do crossed the clearing briskly, ignoring Banish. Among those standing idly, Banish located the local Chief of Police by uniform. He was loose-faced and fat under an open blue slicker. His thumbs hung in his gun belt. Banish approached and got his attention.

“Evening,” Banish said.

“Evening,” said the chief.

Banish went into his breast pocket. He pulled out his ID.

The chief looked it over, rain popping off the plastic shield. “More FBI?” he said, frowning.

“New case agent,” said Banish. “Just wanted to introduce myself to the ranking police official.”

He puffed up then. “Moody,” he said. “Chief of Police.”

Banish took his ID back and dropped his hands into his pockets. “I’ll need to address your men. Have them assembled outside the command tent at nineteen hundred hours.”

The chief nodded. He was being included now. “We’ll be there,” he said, his soft chin rising.

Banish walked away.

Mountain Road

The dirt road was winding and stubborn and refused to muddy. A creek ran down along the right, pitted by rain, and the wet mountain air smelled like trees chopped open. Banish thought of ravaged Skull Valley.

He stepped aside to make way for a cruiser transporting three local policemen up to the clearing. They gave a noncommittal salute, the way cops wave to each other. Banish nodded, then stopped and turned and watched them go.

Around a steep bend at the bottom of the road lay a small bridge fashioned of iron beams and sided with pilfered highway railings. Beyond it, a grassy one-lane road ran perpendicular. Four armed marshals stood paired off on the bridge under green ponchos. They were chatting. Yellow police ribbon was woven three times across the bridge front like a lazy spider’s web.

More than a dozen protesters stood milling about peacefully on the other side. A passing car slowed to watch and honked its horn in support. Banish took it all in.

A white male in his forties with an overgrown mustache and grass-kneed jeans, holding a simple poster board sign: GO HOME.

A white female in her thirties holding her young daughter by the hand, standing with a neatly lettered wooden sign propped up against her legs: THIS is FREEDOM? LEAVE GLENN ABLES ALONE!

A white male in his fifties wearing fatigues, a wool cap, and a lumberjack beard, holding a cardboard sign at his waist and intoning its message: “Rebellion Against Tyranny. Obedience to Yahweh.”

Others held candles that flickered in the rain. One man read aloud from a Bible while holding erect a six-foot wooden cross. Banish took note of four individuals huddled off to one side.

He surveyed the shallow creek bed and the cars driving unchecked past the scene, then again the thin tape barrier stretched across the front of the bridge.

No one stopped him on the way back up the road either. Halfway to the clearing, a teenaged male with a shaved white head emerged from the high trees on the right. The youth glanced casually both ways up and down the road, then began toward Banish. He was coat less wearing a short-sleeved black shirt and black boots and fatigue pants. Hard black tattoos were etched on the white skin of his trim arms, most prominently an ornate swastika and a laughing skull.

“Hey,” he said, nodding, neither smiling nor frowning.

“Hey,” said Banish.

The youth passed him a folded handbill. Banish noted his sharp-edged rings and scarred knuckles.

“Meeting tonight behind the barricade,” the young man said. “Bring a friend.”

He turned and walked back into the trees. Banish looked after him, then down at the crude handbill, entitled AMERICA’S PROMISE. He recognized its general slant without having to bring out his glasses, and stuffed it deep into his coat pocket.

Staging Area

Sheriff Blood found himself shaking his head. He was watching uniformed men walking past in groups of four and five like soldiers, and feeling the mountain rumble again as another helicopter landed on the weed field behind him, and choking on Jeep exhaust. He was standing in the rain in the middle of the mountain clearing and actually shaking his head back and forth, slowly, so that the runoff from the brim of his plastic-wrapped cowboy hat ran down his already soaked black hair and trickled into his coat collar — and he was marveling. These were professional movers and the world was full of furniture. He would have to take special care not to be brushed aside.

A man approached him wearing a trucker’s cap and an army-style coat. His shoes were muddy, maybe even ruined, and he was soaked through with rain, though it didn’t seem to bother him. He was older, fifty, with sharp eyes and a wary face that put Blood immediately on his guard.

Blood turned fully toward him as he came. The stranger nodded in greeting. Blood nodded back.

“Evening,” the stranger said. He wore no identification. His hands were open and empty.

“Evening,” Blood said.

The stranger made a move for his breast pocket. Blood stiff-armed him, kind of casually, grabbing the man’s wrist and sweeping open his own sheriff’s coat and baring his .38.

“Easy now,” said Blood.

The stranger completed his action, slowly withdrawing a thin billfold and showing Blood his identification card with photo and badge. “FBI,” the man said, just as it read on the card in blue block letters.

Blood released the man’s wrist and returned his own hands to his coat pockets, but did not take his eyes off the agent, whose name he did not catch.

The agent put away his ID. “Chief of Police didn’t even flinch,” he said in a rich voice cutting sharply through the spilling rain.

“If it’s reaction you wanted,” Blood said, “you should have tried reaching for his wallet, not yours.”

The agent’s eyes went a little narrower, as though reappraising Blood. Seeing them move in his face and betray some of the thinking going on behind them was like watching a rock forget it was a rock and try to speak.

The agent said, “How many skinheads do you have around here, Sheriff?”

Blood figured his face did a little betraying of its own then. “A few,” he said. “Our share.”

“How many unattended deaths?”

Blood didn’t like that question either. The agent had used the local terminology for “unexplained deaths,” but it seemed to Blood that he was being talked down to.

“Eight total,” Blood said, making as though he had to think about it.

The agent nodded. “How many of those were Indians, like you?”

Small, unshaved hairs stood up on the back of Blood’s neck. He made his displeasure evident this time. “Six,” he said, further studying the agent’s face.

“High percentage,” the agent said. “I see this man Ables has quite a following around here.”

“He has his supporters.”

“Your constituents.”

Only then did it dawn on Blood. The two of them had all along been matching wits. This stranger had been running circles around him while Blood was busy playing catch-up Q and A. Now that he knew what the game was, Blood relaxed a little, as was his way, slacking off like a fisherman sitting back in a trawler chair and playing out line.

“You’re asking whose side I’m on,” he said.

“Just getting the lay of the land,” said the agent. “I’m trying to decide whether or not you belong on this mountain.”

Blood nodded. Rain pattered the ground and rapped loudly atop his hat. “You like to play games,” he said. “You must be in charge now.” He pulled the eviction notice out of his pocket and unfolded it slowly in the rain, revealing the bullet hole. “This is my ticket to the big show,” he said.

“We’ll see about that. Deputies?”

“Nope.”

“Up here alone?”

“Yep, but I’m already spoken for.”

The agent nodded without remark. “Command tent, seven o’clock,” he said, then walked away.

Blood watched him go. He rubbed the back of his neck under his long hair, smoothing over his rancor. The rain came down in strings around him. Unattended deaths. He wanted to know just how this agent had gotten under his skin so quick. Blood promised himself that the next time they locked horns, he would be better prepared.

Command Tent

It was seven o’clock on the dot and Perkins was seated and ready in a folding chair in front. The chicken fricassee which had been perpetrated that evening by the American Red Cross was still very much in his mouth. He took a drink of hot black coffee and swished it around with his tongue, hoping to wash out the filmy taste. Then he looked at the cup. He felt the stickiness of his hand. It was a cold-drink cup that the Red Cross had given him, and the hot coffee was softening it, sweating the outside and melting the inner coating, so that small slicks of wax now floated on the surface of the liquid. He frowned and stood, holding the cup away from his clothes, trying not to draw any attention to himself. He set the mess in a plastic-lined wastebasket and then sat back down, scraping his pasty tongue with his front teeth.

His Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Hardy, sat behind him flipping pages in a small notebook. Fagin sat to Perkins’s far left, still wearing his cap, vest, and all his gear, at least twenty pounds of extra weight hanging on his frame. He was blowing thick white cheroot smoke and his legs were spread broadly off the edge of the folding chair for maximum comfort. It was a good show. Anyone who expended that much energy trying to convince people he was a maverick had to be a real ass, never mind in the wrong profession. The U.S. Marshals were known as team players through and through. The operation was full FBI jurisdiction now, the marshals present only under Banish’s command, thereby diminishing Fagin’s role and strengthening Perkins’s position as the number-two man on the mountain.

The Spokane FBI Field Office was also represented, as were Montana Resident Agencies such as Kalispell, Missoula, and Great Falls. Lower-echelon Bureau and Marshal supervisory officials occupied the rest of the folding chairs.

The tent was drafty, sheets of rain blowing and rippling the tightly stretched roof and side walls. Unshaded bulbs were strung overhead and the work light was spotty, the slightest movement followed by three or four different shadows. Wires from facsimile machines and computers and telephones snaked along the lumpy canvas floor, and a generator rumbled somewhere outside, beyond the rear wall they were facing. The enlarged flyby surveillance photograph hanging on the wall showed in grainy black and white the cabin and its grounds, including the wide, elevated back porch on which Glenn Ables could be seen standing, small but unmistakable, giving the helicopter the finger.

Banish entered at five after seven. He passed around photographs first. Perkins had already reacquainted himself with the family bios and was prepared for any queries. Ables looked like a cocky little so-and-so in his two-year-old front and side mug shots. Blond buzz haircut, squirrel eyes, arrow nose, long ears, and a wide, grinning chin. Challenging the camera, not just standing in front of it. A bantamweight, short and wiry, early forties. The kind of man who gets a few in him and goes around picking fights just to prove how scrappy he is.

The eight-by-ten of Marjorie Ables entering the Montana courthouse on the day of her husband’s arraignment showed a heavy woman in her thirties wearing a frock coat, sunglasses, and a dark curly wig. She had lost her hair during chemotherapy treatment following the removal of a throat tumor that had claimed her voice in late 1987. Her hair had never grown back.

Then grade school portraits. The oldest, Rebecca, then ten, now fourteen, wearing small yellow ribbons over elastic bands in her braids, and one large ribbon tied in a loose bow under her blouse collar; and Judith, then eight, now twelve, the one thought to have participated in the shootout, hair mussed and smile awry. Both had been removed from public schooling by their parents the year following these portraits. Another black-and-white flyby photo, only four months old, showed Ruth, nine, and Esther, five, playing around one of the shacks on the grounds behind the family cabin. Ruth could be seen wearing a small-caliber handgun strapped to her hip. The fifth child and only son, Amos, eighteen months, had been born in exile. No photographs were available.

Perkins chewed on his coated tongue, passing the pictures back to ASAC Hardy and turning in his seat to give Banish his full and complete attention. Banish seemed a cranky old soldier — just a few years from mandatory retirement at age fifty-seven — but the suddenness of his reactivation must have meant that he had AD Richardsen’s ear. Perkins had heard that Richardsen and Banish had graduated from the academy together, which counted for a lot.

Banish started. “This will be brief,” he said. “The Bureau code name for this operation will be PARASIEGE He spelled it out. Pens scribbled behind. Perkins hoped that his crossed arms indicated his senior position here. “Office of origin will be Butte. Faxes, memoranda, field reports, telexes, 302s — everything crosses my desk, everything sees my initials.”

Perkins disliked the case going on his field office’s books, but Banish’s initials would make it all right. The OO designation meant that all paperwork would be routed through Butte. If things were to go badly, the “special case” status and the case agent’s corresponding initials made outright failure ultimately Banish’s responsibility; but if things went right, Perkins’s office would be indicated on every relevant piece of paper, private and public, issued in relation to operation PARASIEGE.

In the meantime, Banish could expect to be initialing reports twenty-four hours a day. Perkins knew the mass of paperwork an operation like this could generate.

Banish indicated an imaginary line triangulating the rear fifth of the tent. “This area here will be partitioned off to form my private office,” he said, then went on to detail the equipment and supplies he required. Perkins recalled the first rule of reassignment: Reorganize your new office. A power trick, a way of asserting your authority — though the way Banish was describing it, he seemed more interested in having a place to hide.

“My operating name will be “Chief Negotiator SA Bob Watson.” Once communication is established, I will be the only one talking to Ables. I will be the sole negotiator and Ables’s only link to the outside. I will not, at any time, come into physical contact with Ables. I will not at any time come into contact with any released hostages either, nor will I participate in or effect any arrests.”

Perkins recognized this as Bureau negotiator standard operating procedure, though for Fagin it probably pegged Banish as a coward. Perkins, however, saw right through Banish’s fire-and-brimstone bluster to a tremendous, brassy ego.

“All Bureau reports and/or summaries will go out over my operating name, with initials JB attached. Press briefings, as and if deemed necessary by me, will be conducted by SAC Perkins.”

Perkins crossed his legs. That was a plum. He had to try hard not to let on that he was buzzed. Washington frowned upon news exposure and press conferences, but they sure as hell watched them.

“I’ve called FBI Hostage Rescue Team off alert status for now. This is not currently a rescue situation and having them here on twenty-four-hour standby could only escalate things. Marshals Service Special Operations Group under Deputy Supervisor Fagin will arrange perimeter cabin surveillance and containment, as well as staging-area security. If the curtain goes up, your men are in first.”

“That’s how we like it,” Fagin said.

“On my order alone,” said Banish.

Perkins anticipated a blowout, but Fagin was remarkably self-contained. “I will do the job I was sent here to do,” he said.

Banish continued. “As of twenty-two hundred hours, Bureau and Marshals Service radios will network on a common Justice Department frequency. Beginning at midnight, airspace within a two-mile radius of Paradise Ridge will be closed to all private and commercial aircraft. At first light I want engineers here looking over that bridge. We’re bringing in a lot of heavy equipment, so I want reassurances. Tomorrow A.M. we begin rebuilding and widening the path up the mountain to the cabin. Hire a local contractor but keep them on a short leash.” He looked up. “Now we update. Ables’s food and water supply.”

Perkins uncrossed his legs. He sat up straight and spoke first, not quickly but with assurance. “Self-sufficient,” he said. “Chickens, some animals, a garden. Water from two fifty-gallon drums.”

“Outdoor?”

“Outdoor and aboveground.”

Banish considered that. “Five young children in the residence,” he said. “We’ll hold off on taking out the water as long as we can. Plumbing?”

“Outdoor. Primitive.”

“Put a couple of rounds in the door tomorrow to remind them that we are here. We would not want anybody wandering around outside. Nearby structures?”

Perkins said, “Some barns, sheds, chicken coops. As far as we know, all run-down and all abandoned. Other than that, he owns the mountaintop. Nearest residence was seventy-five yards down, and all have been evacuated.”

Banish put on his half-glasses and picked a fax up off the table.

“I assume everyone here has seen the preliminary on Marshal Bascombe: .223 caliber, consistent with a Colt AR-15 semi. And based on field reports, and the rounds we pulled out of the trees today: .30-06s, 30-30s, 9 millimeters, grease guns, buckshot, mini M-1s, and automatic weaponry, probably submachine guns like the ones he sold to Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.” Banish stopped then and removed his glasses. He scanned the men.

Perkins explained, “ATF was supposed to be here.”

Banish frowned. “I want the arresting agents here tomorrow morning. So: confirmed stockpiled weaponry and ammunition inside. That’s an arsenal. Everyone should be aware. Now,” he said, searching through papers on the table desk, “who else do we have confirmed in there with them?”

Perkins said, “Two pairs of in-laws. The wife’s brother and sister-in-law, the Newlands. Which doesn’t check, because they feud with Ables. Mormons from Provo and reputedly unsympathetic, so they may simply have picked the wrong week to visit. We’re working on photos. Also Ables’s sister, Michelle, and her husband, Charles Mellis. The Mellises are known sympathizers and have been sharing the five-room cabin with the family for more than a year now.”

Banish found what he was looking for and read it at arm’s length. “Charles Maynard Mellis. One prior, assault on a police officer, 1990. Probation.” He put it down again, satisfied. “That’s a lot of people in a cabin with not much food or water, and no plumbing.”

Perkins raised an issue. “National Guard,” he said.

“No,” said Banish. “No weekend warriors. Amend that — I want two helicopter pilots only, not from this immediate area, and two UH-1s. We’ll need light air support.”

Perkins had something else for him. “We do have nine evacuated families who feel the Red Cross is doing more for us than for them, and didn’t mind saying as much on the local TV news last night.”

Banish frowned again. “Set them all up in campers somewhere away from the barricade. Other questions?”

Perkins sat back, satisfied, having distinguished himself here. Banish obviously was not a details man. This was a major operation in which, regardless of the outcome, Perkins’s support talents would be recognized in D.C. And appreciated. He would make certain that his name crossed AD Richardsen’s lips favorably.

To his left, Fagin sat up in his folding chair. “I have a question,” he said, speaking mouthfuls of thick smoke, then finishing off the cheroot and killing it under his boot tread. “Why all the pussyfooting around?”

Banish said, “You know why.”

“Because this guy’s hiding behind his family?”

“The children’s safety is our primary concern.” Banish addressed the entire tent. “Be advised, the children are presumed to be armed and are by all accounts unfriendly. Everything we do here is designed to avoid the kill-or-be-killed confrontation. That should be perfectly clear to everyone. This man is hiding behind his family because he knows it will work, and it is working. That is why we cannot go in and get him. That is why we must make him come out to us.”

Perkins became distracted by a low, garbled buzzing noise. It was the white wire receiver whispering in Fagin’s ear. A few other heads turned as well, while Fagin sat there impassively. Perkins decided that he must have one too.

Banish was summing up. “First step tomorrow morning is to establish communication. Ables does not have a telephone, so arrangements are being made to deliver one to him. No television either, although flyby surveillance did pick up a large antenna” — Banish pointed to the backdrop photo— “and he is believed to have an adequate in-house generator. We are as yet without encryption here, and Ables’s military specialty was electronics, so he may be monitoring our broadcasts. Radio use will therefore be kept to a minimum. Be advised, he’s a combat veteran, so he’s used to being messed with. He may even try messing with us.”

Perkins said, “We’re still holding that neighbor, Deke Belcher. The one who walked away from the Red Cross group and met Ables before the shootout.”

Banish said, “What’s his story?”

“He says he didn’t do anything. He says it’s his land up there and he’s walked that mountain every day of his life.”

Banish was impatient. “Sweat him overnight,” he said. “I’ll question him tomorrow with local law present. I want town police posted down at the bridge barricade, backed up by marshals. Familiar faces should cool off the locals for a while.”

Fagin said, “Just tell them to stay out of my way.”

Banish was done and reaching for his raincoat, inviting Fagin to follow him outside. “Tell them yourself.”

Staging Area

They were going on a half hour now in the rain and everyone was beefing. The man next to him stamped his feet and said, “This is bullshit,” but Brian Kearney was keeping quiet. Just like down at the station, it was easy to jump into these grumblings. Everyone getting united against a common evil like the town council, the lack of air-conditioning in the cruisers, or the rain. One voice started it, backed up by another, and another, like a house of cards built in the break room between shifts, and it could even get kind of fun, everybody throwing in his two cents’ worth, louder and louder, complaint upon complaint, the argument growing and growing. It was happening in this situation now. About the way things were being handled. About how Ables was just a guy with his back to the wall, and who wouldn’t have acted differently? No one liked that Haley got shot in the knee, but they blamed the sheriff for that. And on and on. Not that any of them had actually been there. Not that any of them had gotten shot at. Sometimes this griping seemed like their full-time work.

Brian had always been lucky. Taking a bullet in the hip radio like that. Those types of things always happened to him. Not lottery-lucky, just dumb-lucky. Like being let off the school bus right before that car plowed into it. Like transporting a prisoner to the hospital and Brian’s appendix bursting in the admitting room. Like going to the wrong funeral home for a wake and mistakenly offering his condolences to the dead stranger’s daughter, and then their getting to talking, and she eventually becoming his wife. And now again, here it was: two months after sending in his application to the FBI, the FBI had come to him.

So Brian was keeping quiet and waiting. It was pitch-black outside the large tent they called the command tent, and the rain was falling straight and loud and never letting up. It ran in a stream off his chin. His uniform and longjohns were soaked through and he was shivering. But the way Brian managed to stick it out quietly was by seeing it all as a test, thinking somewhat biblically now. Funny and strange how the things you pay no attention to in Sunday school stick with you.

Chief Moody was ripped, all the complaints now beginning to fall back on him — as in, Who called this meeting? He was pacing back and forth like a bear in a blue raincoat and swearing to himself, rain smacking off his lips like spit. Nobody liked to look like a fool, the chief even less so. He’d been up and down like a seesaw all day. When Brian first approached him after getting back from the hospital about needing a new radio, the chief shouted him out of his face. Then when Brian tried again before dinner, the chief straightaway handed him his. And that dinner, served off the back of a Red Cross truck — that might have been another test.

So there they were, thirty police officers standing with hands in pockets and shoulders shrugged against the rain, and all of them complaining. Maybe they had forgotten what it was to be a police officer, Brian thought, being so long into it themselves. Or maybe none of them quite saw what it was that was going on. There was no ambition in these men, none whatsoever, except to get out of that rain.

The FBI. The Federal Bureau of Investigation. Major leaguers, come to play in a weed field. Unbelievable that Sheriff Blood had called them in. The chief would surely have him for it. The sheriff was standing off to the side now, kind of as usual. The type to barely even pay attention to a thing, and wind up remembering more about it than you did. He’d glance sidelong at a tree, if at all, and then three hours later give you a leaf count if you asked for it. The only man Brian knew who could seem as though he were reclining while standing up. And even there in that rain — he might as well have been leaning back against a post fence, one foot on the low rail, arms spread wide, switching a strand of straw in his mouth and being warmed by the afternoon sun. All those lazy Indians you hear about, that type of personality, Sheriff Blood played that for his own.

The federal men finally emerged from the tent and fanned out, most walking off, busy men with specific government duties. Three remained. The chief stopped his pacing and went right over to the lead agent. He said to him, “Seven-thirty, for Christ’s sake.”

The lead agent showed no concern at all. “Have your men line up,” he said.

Brian braced himself against the rain and stepped right into what became the front line. Other grumbling officers, including those from nearby Crater and Little Elk and Simston, drifted into some order beside and behind him.

The lead agent was older, with a high, serious forehead under an FBI cap and serious lines in his face. He stood upright and tall and his pullover rain-thing hung straight down to his knees. Behind him and to his side stood the black marshal with the military cadence, the impressive one who had first gotten off that bus. His uniform and big, crossed arms were blurred under a long, transparent plastic poncho. The other FBI agent, the one named Perkins, had a plain face of lightly colored freckles, and a disappearing way about him that made him easily forgotten. They were none of them under the age of forty. They looked like ordinary men, and only the marshal seemed to be carrying a holster bulge. Nothing like you see in the movies.

The lead agent waited without expression even after the local men were all assembled and still, as though collecting his thoughts. “My name is Special Agent John Banish,” he said above the dark rain. “Before we begin, I want to make a few things clear. I understand there has been some disagreement as to our methods here. Some mitigating circumstances that some of you think we as outsiders may be overlooking. If anyone has anything to say, an opposing viewpoint or a suggestion you think might help — now is the time.”

That was a little surprising — their being so open to suggestions. There were some shifts in posture in the lines. Some turned heads.

Agent Banish said, “Speak up,” his voice clear and stern through the rain, yet mildly encouraging.

Sergeant Polchrist somehow was nudged forward without anybody actually touching him. Brian, looking straight ahead, saw the sarge only peripherally. Some un taken vote had nominated him spokesman for the corps.

“I think maybe Ables is getting a bad shake up there,” Sergeant Polchrist said. “Sure, he shouldn’ta shot a cop, but who can’t say he weren’t provoked.”

Agent Banish nodded. He was looking off somewhere else and considering this. Something about the whole thing wasn’t right, but Brian couldn’t tell yet what was happening. Agent Banish said, “Fair enough. Anyone else?” There was clear silent support for Polchrist’s statement in the form of more posture changes, but no one else actually took a step forward. Agent Banish said, “How about a show of hands.”

Polchrist’s went up into the rain — he being the leader now — and then another, then more. Agent Banish was having trouble seeing the whole group. “Hands, move out to the side,” he suggested.

One by one, a total of seven of the thirty sergeants and officers stepped out of formation to the right. Agent Banish waited until they were all gathered near the tent. Then he said, “You seven are dismissed.”

At first it wasn’t clear. Dismissed from the meeting? Then Agent Banish said, “Next. Three men in a cruiser waved to me on the mountain road earlier today.” He scanned the group and pointed out the three men. “I was dressed in civilian clothes without any outward identification. Dismissed.”

Now it was serious. It was obvious that those three were off the mountain for good. Shit, Brian thought. Shit. Shit. Like the first hour of basic training again — not knowing at all what they wanted from you, and it feeding your general fear. Whatever happened, whatever this Agent Banish was up to, Brian was keeping his head low.

“Now, married men,” he was saying, “men with families. Hands.”

Brian didn’t know. He thought it might be a trick, like some kind of reversal. Like all the married men would stay. But he didn’t know what the right answer was. His right hand ground into his thigh.

In the rain around Brian, hands went up slowly, almost timidly. He would kick himself fifty times and probably forever if he was wrong.

Agent Banish waited until everybody had made up his mind. “Negotiations could drag on for days,” he said. “No place for a man with a wife and responsibilities. All dismissed.”

Brian breathed. The general reaction of the men was stunned silence, their soaked bodies moving through the dwindling ranks and out to the side. He couldn’t tell how many of them were left in formation — many less than half — afraid even to turn his head. But it wasn’t over yet. Now Agent Banish was walking down the line, eyeing each man one at a time. He was saying, seemingly at random, “Dismissed.”

Brian straightened himself up. He tried to look as determined as he could, he tried to look impressive. Agent Banish was coming. Brian was second to last in the front line. He squared his shoulders and tipped up his chin. Then he remembered his wedding band.

This was a man who would notice a thing like that. And there were the two others, Agent Perkins and the black marshal, watching everybody at once.

Brian flicked at the ring with his thumb. It didn’t budge. He was trying hard not to be noticed. Agent Banish was coming. Brian became flushed, his mindset suddenly thrown from wanting to be chosen to not wanting to get caught. He never took the ring off. He never had a reason to.

He flicked at it again, and rubbed. The black marshal was staring right at him. Agent Banish was approaching and saying, “Dismissed. Dismissed.” Why would this FBI man really care if a cop was married or not? Brian made a fist and dug at his skin.

It budged. The ring turned on the base of his finger. He was prying at it, twisting it over and over. Agent Banish was close. Brian opened his hand and worked the ring loose and up to his middle knuckle, prying it, pulling on the thing. He wrenched it up over the joint and off his finger and slipped it into his raincoat pocket just as Agent Banish dismissed the man before him.

Then he was there. He was right there in front of Brian. The rain was loud on his shoulders and spilling off his cap brim and down into his face. Brian tried not to look at him directly, but failed. Agent Banish stood there before him like a ghost. His face was deep-lined and shadowed, breath steaming out of his nose. His eyes caught what little light there was and drilled it into Brian. These were eyes that had seen a lot. Brian felt as though he were nothing to them. He knew he was breathing too much, too fast. He feared his mouth was hanging wide open. So much steam in front of his face, he thought he might be melting. Agent Banish was looking right at him.

Then Agent Banish passed on to the last man and dismissed him. Brian did not know what to do. It took the greatest effort of his life just to remain standing there and not jump up or fall over. He was suddenly exhilarated. He had merely not been dismissed, and yet it felt as though he had been chosen. He wanted to know why. He wanted to know, who was this man Banish?

His breath created a fog around his head. Agent Banish was in front again, speaking now, and Brian fought to concentrate, his mind whirring on and on. “Like it or not, you are all here as volunteers,” Agent Banish was saying. “This is a federal matter now. I am an FBI hostage negotiator, the case agent for this operation.”

Chief Moody had been waiting along the sidelines, becoming increasingly pissed off. “Negotiator?” he said now, coming forward through the dark rain, his coat collar up around his ears. His voice was full of exaggerated disbelief. “What’s this here? We don’t truck with criminals in these parts.”

Agent Banish turned and met him with his eyes. “That’s why you are wearing a uniform and I am in charge,” he said. “You are dismissed.”

The chief double-taked him. So did just about everyone else. “The hell I am,” said the chief, more surprised than defiant. “That may be all right for the others, but this here’s the Chief of Police.”

Agent Banish said, “This mountain is off a county road. That’s Sheriff Department’s jurisdiction. The U.S. Marshals will escort you and your men to the bridge.”

The chief looked as though he had been punched in the face. He was off the mountain. Just like that. Brian could sense everyone straightening up then. It had become clear to all that Agent Banish had the power of life or death on the mountain. He didn’t have to be pleasant about it, or even fair. The chief had been dismissed. It was unreal.

Agent Banish went on, talking through the rain. “Glenn Alien Ables is a fugitive arms dealer implicated in the murder of a federal official, and it is the determination of the United States Attorney General’s Office that he be brought before the bar of justice. I have been assigned to this mountain to effect his extrication and arrest, and this is a duty from which I cannot and will not be dissuaded or distracted. Two things I do not tolerate: dissension and poor job performance. Is that clear?”

He didn’t seem to require an answer. No one offered one anyway, as the black marshal, who had been silent and mostly still throughout the whole thing, but watchful, all of a sudden started off at a brisk stride. He was holding a fingertip against the white wire in his ear.

“Something down at the barricade,” he said, passing Agent Banish but otherwise ignoring him.

Agent Banish paused a moment, then started off as well, Agent Perkins following behind. Then the sheriff started away too.

Leaving the chief with no one to yell at. Only then did Brian dare to sneak a quick look around. There were maybe five of them left. He shook his blessed head. He had always been lucky. He just hoped none of the others who knew would tell. He felt in his pocket to make sure the ring was still there and slipped it safely back onto his bare finger for now. He looked up into the rain falling out of the black sky. It all seemed pretty crucial to him. Like it could be his big chance right there. Besides, Leslie was only seven months along. And anyway, Brian figured that even if she couldn’t ever forgive him, God certainly would.

Bridge

The number of protesters beyond the barricade had grown to forty. It would continue to rise as the standoff progressed; that was expected. This was something different.

They were gathered in a knot in the center of the road beyond the bridge. Their heads were bowed in the rain and they were silent except for the one voice leading them. They were praying. Old women, skinheads, young couples, children. Individuals wearing paramilitary uniforms with red, white, and blue swastika armbands, right fists raised in Nazi-style salute. All standing reverently, lit by car headlights arranged in a broad semicircle behind them.

The four marshals posted on the bridge looked on silently, shoulders rounded under their ponchos, arms crossed.

Fagin, watching from the Jeep parked in front of Banish, said, “This is the fucking Twilight Zone right here.”

Perkins was in the driver’s seat next to Banish, shaking his head.

Banish kept both hands in his coat pockets. He was shivering a little, due in part to the rain and the cold mountain air. The sheriff’s vehicle rolled up alongside them and Banish looked over at the Indian; for some reason, he did not trust him.

“Locals?” Banish said.

The sheriff looked. “A few.”

That meant trouble. If it were just a local event, then it could be contained. But people traveling across a distance came in groups and invariably brought their own agenda. The situation was developing much more quickly than Banish would have liked.

Fagin said back over his shoulder, “The Klan?”

Perkins liked the easy ones. “The Klan is doing all their fighting in court these days,” he said. “Same barn, different animal. The town of Crater is about an hour’s drive south of here. Headquarters of the White Aryan Resistance. Then there’s a locally based splinter group, smaller, even more radical, calling themselves The Truth. Their aim is to. establish an independent Aryan homeland made up of the five Northwestern states, but we suspect them of pulling a number of recent armored car robberies south of here, and right now can only guess at what the money’s for. Both groups are factions of the pseudo theological supremacist Christian Identity Movement.”

Fagin turned back toward him. “The fuck are we talking about here?”

“A separatist network, loosely organized, but united in principle against nonwhites and Jews and others. This whole stretch of the Rockies no minorities, weak law enforcement — a refuge for outlaws, fanatics, white supremacists.”

Banish again looked at the loose web of police ribbon woven across the bridge front. He closed his eyes. His brain was heavy and felt swollen with blood that needed to be drained off. He wanted out. He needed eight hours of recuperative sleep, but his mind was running too hot already. He hoped for two hours, maybe three.

He opened his eyes. Everything was the same except that the trees seemed closer on either side.

“I want the water supply hit tonight,” he said.

Fagin needed no more than that, jerking his gearshift into first. “I’ll put my best man on it.”

Paradise Point

Fagin hiked the last few steps up the wooded mountain. The rain was stopping now but he could barely tell that from where the hell he was, the excess still dripping off the branches and down through the leaves. Fucking trees, he thought. Fucking Montana.

Taber saw him coming and snapped to attention at the rope line. Fagin recognized the fear and eager respect he was accustomed to seeing in the faces of his younger marshals. He handed Taber his Remington 700 sniper rifle and began buckling the rope harness over his shoulders, around his waist, between his legs. Tight fucking thing. Like a goddamn baby seat.

“Outhouse clear?” he said.

Taber snapped, “Yes sir.”

Fagin took the Remington back and slung it over his shoulder. He handed Taber his ball cap “Gimme your NVD,” he said.

Taber unstrapped his helmet and handed it over. Fucking unwieldy thing. But what was another four or five pounds.

Fagin let his weight stretch the rope taut, then he yanked on the give line and whoosh. The counterweight dropped and his feet left the ground and he rode the pulley rope thirty yards straight up the side of the debranched oak. The harness hit the sheave at the top and stopped with a jerk, and big drops of rain from the highest wet leaves fell on him like a flock-load of bird shit, pelting his jumpsuit uniform. Fagin swore quietly into the night. He found the wooden platform sniper’s nest beneath him with his right foot and unbuckled himself and stood free.

He was up in the tree line above the mountain. Fucking thin air, Jesus Christ. The platform was not large, but the tree trunk provided a nice brace. There was a light, chill breeze, the high branches swishing all around him, but it would not be a factor. In the jungle twenty years before, he had humped a .50-cal M-2 on a tripod and splashed down VC guerrillas in rice paddies at ranges of greater than 2200 yards. For this right here, he hadn’t even wasted his time zeroing the Remington. A 7.26 round traveling some 50 yards at 2800 feet per second just didn’t fucking care. He was there to do some damage.

He looked up overhead. Good Jesus fucking Christ. Fucking stars. All over the place, constellations of them, blinking like fireflies in a motherfucking darkroom. Obscene. And no fucking moon. What the fuck kind of place was this? There were stars in L.A. too, all they did was stop traffic. How the fuck did people get any sleep here? Maybe that’s what it was — fucking stars kept them up all night, drove them all fucking goofy. Made them dress up in Nazi costumes and stand out in the rain saying prayers for their fugitive neighbors.

He slung the bolt-action Remington down off his shoulder. In the darkness before him, a few silvery branches wagged in the dim starlight. Beyond that, nothing.

He flipped down Taber’s NVD. These night-vision devices were not like the older-generation infrared goggles, with the branch-snapping click and the whir when you turned them on, easy-target red eyes coming at you in the dark. “Passive” was the technology now. Some fifty yards beyond the highlighted, glaring green branches, the outline of the cabin compound now simmered before him in contrasting shades of spectral green. The cabin itself glowed clean, floating in his vision like a house underwater.

He checked first for movement. There was none.

The twin drums sat to the right rear of the cabin, two clear targets shaded green and black. Fagin raised the Remington and sighted the first tank. He didn’t even bother to aim carefully. Just fucking squeeze.

The shot echoed sharply off the surrounding mountains. Nice goddamn effect. Fagin watched a phosphorescent green lake spread beneath the drum.

He worked the bolt and sighted the second tank and squeezed again. This one ruptured with a distant hiss and squeal and emptied fast.

Fagin stayed with the Remington, running his sight slowly over the property. A similar piece, a .30–06 Model 70 Winchester, had been his main tour guide in Vietnam. But this new bull barrel was thicker, and floated heavier, cutting down on the kick and holding sight after the shot. A nice solid piece of wood. He liked it. He re gripped the smooth forearm. Worked the bolt. Settled into the cheek piece Banish giving him orders, he thought. He squeezed twice and double-tapped the outhouse door. Two gaping black chunks appeared, reports kicking off and ripping back into the mountains. Banish leaning on small-town police chiefs for intimidation. Cutting down the head man to show how in control he was, the oldest trick in the book. Fucking FBI taking over.

Then he was sighting the cabin itself, the boarded windows and the front door made plain in varying shades of green and black. So fucking easy, he thought. The old mastery coming over him again. In the jungle he had earned the nickname “Spider” because he was the sniper king, ice-cold and patient and super fucking stealthy. His web was whatever range he elected to zero his weapon to, cast out from his camouflaged promontory nest high atop a numbered hill, a rice paddy kill zone of unseen, whispering fucking death. Fifty-six confirmed kills in two tours of duty. A fucking game to him back then, because he was young and had been top-to-bottom reinvented, forever leaving behind the skinny black kid from Arkansas who begged his mother to sign him over to the U.S. Marines on his seventeenth birthday. The dead-on patience and bold stealth of a young black man having to prove himself in a white world burned within him no more. He was fucking proven. People snapped to his attention now.

He squeezed off one more round, ripping a large chuck of stone from the chimney top. He hoped it dropped into their fireplace, freaking out the kids, and Ables heard it rattling down and fucking choked on whatever White Power bullshit he was preaching in there. He hoped it scared them all fucking shitless.

He knew Banish would be counting shots down below. Fagin wanted to be called on the carpet for this. Fucking Banish, he thought, slinging the Remington back over his shoulder and taking up the soaked rope line harness again in the chill mountain night. Fucking Montana.