The Standoff

Sound Truck

Banish was sitting back in the swivel-tilt chair in the quiet low light of the van monitors, tired but not sleeping. He could hear the deep, regular breathing of the sound man, who had put his head down to rest for a moment on the console board more than two hours before. Banish realized he still did not know the man’s name. But he let him sleep, and wished he could do the same. Banish sat in the humming darkness with his arms crossed over the borrowed parka he wore, the inside of the van not noticeably cold until just then. The van roof conducted the overnight chill. He was watching his breath mist and dissipate.

He had sat up the entire night. From time to time the noise-activated tape recorder reels clicked on and began their slow revolutions, but nothing audibly significant came out of the cabin: stray noises, rustling around, an occasional distant unintelligible voice. Banish was watching the monitors. Without daylight, the black-and-white images ran hazy, like photographic negatives. Now as day was starting to break, the cabin views, the empty road, the staging area, the bridge, all began filling in clearly, as though being tuned.

“Watson.”

The sound man bucked his head and jerked awake, clattering his headphones atop the console. He sat up straight and looked around. “Sorry,” he said, reaching for his headset.

Banish shook his head to show him it was all right. He picked up his own headset and put it on, adjusting the cushion comfortably over one ear, the opposing brace above the other. The tape reels had resumed their revolutions.

“Watson.”

Patience. Control. He had spent all night waiting for this. Banish cleared his throat and fixed the connected microphone under his chin. He pushed the appropriate button, cutting off the van speakers and patching himself through.

“Mr. Ables,” he said. “How is your wife doing?”

Ables’s voice sounded strained. “She’s all right now.”

“We have an ambulance available, and two paramedics, just twenty-five yards away from your cabin door. If you look out your window, you can see them.”

“She is all right,” Ables said.

“Can you tell me where she was injured?”

“Her arm.”

Banish nodded, encouraged. If it was just her arm, then Ables with his military background could treat her for days if necessary. Banish said, “I would ask you to put her on...”

“But she lost her voice to cancer,” Ables said. “I bet you think you know a lot about us. I bet you got files and witnesses and depositions and everything. You’re probably some kind of shrink yourself.”

“I am not,” Banish said. “Mr. Ables, have you given any more thought to coming out?”

“Never.”

“What about your children, Mr. Ables? They are much too young to be going through this. Think of the effect this ordeal must be having on them.”

“I warned you, Watson. Don’t talk to me about my family. Don’t talk like you know me. You want to do my kids some good, you all go away then. Because we can outlast you here. My kids are survivors, that’s how they were raised. My kids are tough. Tougher than any man you got hiding behind a tree.”

“You may be right about that, Mr. Ables,” Banish said. “And believe me, no one is telling you how you should or should not raise your own children. But they are just children, Mr. Ables. Minors, all of them. This is a situation for adults.”

“You don’t get it, Watson. Do you. My kids want to be here. We’re a family. There’s no place else they’d rather be.”

Banish said, “I do understand that, Mr. Ables. I understand how close-knit you and your family are. I’m sure a lot of people envy that closeness. That is what I am talking about. Mr. Ables — you must know that you can never get away from here. You are completely surrounded. This entire mountain is cut off from the rest of the world. We can sit out here and wait for you forever, and you can sit in there and wait for us, but the bottom line is, you are caught. You cannot escape. For all intents and purposes, you are already in police custody. Now, you have been charged with a serious crime. And your wife, by virtue of remaining at your side through all of this, has become an accomplice.”

“You’re trying to threaten me, Watson.”

“No, Mr. Ables.” Banish was shaking his head. “I am not. I am being straight with you here. I am giving you as much information as I can so that you are able to make an informed decision. If these men have to go in and extricate you from your home by force, then both you and your wife will be arrested and charges will be brought. If you are subsequently found guilty in a court of law, then your children, as minors, will likely become wards of the social services department of the state.”

Ables said, “They would go to their grandparents.”

“The grandparents could request a custody hearing,” Banish said, nodding. “As could the Newlands or the Mellises. But there will be experts involved, child psychologists. They will likely testify that a lot of damage has been done to the children already, from the psychological effects of this situation alone. I imagine they will recommend close treatment.”

“Sons of—” Ables swallowed his anger.

“There is of course a chance that one of your in-laws could win custody, Mr. Ables. But the determination would likely be that the best way to monitor them would be to keep them away from relatives for the time being.”

Ables’s voice sputtered. “Sons of bitches,” he tripped out. “That’s what this government is. Framing people, busting up families. You’ll never arrest me, Watson—”

“If these men are forced to go into your home, Mr. Ables, your children will likely be taken away from you. I am just making you aware of this. They will be parceled out to foster homes — most of which are run by good, family people — and then, depending on the length of term of your and your wife’s sentences, and the outcome of the grandparents’ hearing, the youngest of your children will likely then be put up for adoption.”

Ables let out an angry, choked noise. “So that’s it,” he said. “The federal government establishment really got its teeth in now. Get Ables at any cost. Frame him. Kill his daughter. Shoot his wife. Smash up his family. But let the niggers and the drug dealers in the streets run free. Let the faggots bend each other over in alleyways. You tell me there’s no conspiracy, Watson. You tell me that.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about, Mr. Ables.”

“Tell me I haven’t been selected for extermination by the executive council in Washington, D.C. Tell me there is no list with my name at the top of it.” His voice was rising. “Why do they hunt me now, Watson? Because I speak the truth. Because I know what is the real situation here.”

“I don’t know what you are referring to, Mr. Ables,” said Banish. “I am merely trying to avail you of the facts—”

“So they’re the meat and I am the maggot. Right? That’s it right there. They got me lined up so goddamn good.”

A long break then, Banish sitting perfectly still. One virulent “Goddamn!” shattered the silence, followed by more labored breathing.

“Watson,” said Ables.

“Still here,” said Banish.

“You tell me this, then,” he said. “Sons of bitches” — a hissed aside. “You tell me what would happen to my family... if surrendered.”

Banish looked up from the console. Next to him, the sound man’s face broadened into a wide, winning smile.

Command Tent

The meeting took place by the glass-wall diagram inside the command tent around nine in the morning that day, whatever day it was. Brian was working the phone lines as well as doing twenty different other things, menial things, messengering papers around and such, because he was the grunt, no different there than at the police station. But he was paying as much attention to the meeting as he could. The fact that it was being held out in the tent and not inside Agent Banish’s office showed that things must have been going pretty well. Brian could feel it also in the rush of the agents, who were attuned to the morale of the place the way fish are to river currents. They carried more of a sureness of voice now, a clearer purpose in their ways, a sharper stride.

He hadn’t known what he was getting into. He did as much work as anyone else in the command tent, though on a lower level, and got no more sleep than anyone else did. They were all run ragged and operated at such a high pitch that Brian saw you either joined in right off or got trampled underfoot. Luckily he had landed running. This was the inside lane here. He would go hurrying across the clearing for something or other to do with his new assignment and see someone sitting around near the kitchens or the trailers and wonder how they found the nerve to do that here. Why everyone wasn’t moving as fast as he was, spinning, spinning. Brian’s main responsibility was the outside phone lines, so he kept trying to find a slow moment to sneak out a call to Leslie, but he couldn’t. There were none. It never did stop.

First, Agent Banish played the tape of the negotiations for Marshal Fagin, Agent Perkins, Agent Coyle, the Hostage Rescue agents, and whoever else was there. Brian missed most of it.

“Reiterate the order,” Agent Banish said afterward. “The children are to be given wide berth. Do not fire. If any doors open, it may be them coming out. Let whatever’s going to happen, happen.”

These words seemed to be directed mainly toward the Hostage Rescue agents. Brian had helped coordinate the reassignment of trailer space to accommodate them following their arrival.

“Perkins,” Agent Banish said, “form an arrest party and have them ready to take Ables into custody. I’ll script a press release saying we have begun negotiations and anticipate a break soon.”

Naturally, it was Marshal Fagin — who, the scuttlebutt said, would be eased out of his duties on the mountain now that the Hostage Rescue Team had arrived who disagreed.

“Bullshit,” he said. “He’ll never surrender.”

Agent Banish looked at Marshal Fagin, the grayed burn darkening half of his face. “I’m going to break him,” he said confidently.

Marshal Fagin said, “I know this fuck. He’s a scrapper, a back-stabbing son of a bitch. Look what he’s tried already. He won’t go down without a fight. This fucker hates to lose.”

From the way Agent Banish was looking at Marshal Fagin and clearly weighing what he had just said, Brian could tell that the watercooler talk around there was just about as accurate as it was back at the station house. Even in Brian’s distracted state, it was plain to him that Marshal Fagin would be remaining at the front lines. He was one of the few people Agent Banish seemed to listen to. As opposed to Agent Perkins, who had a knack for discovering the obvious. The command tent agents respected him about as much as they would a substitute teacher.

Agent Banish said, “It doesn’t fit his profile — all right. But we’ve got him. We’re three hundred beekeepers in charge of one bee. There is no way he can escape, even if he thinks he can. So let him toss and turn. Let him scheme himself out. I’m inside his house now and inside his head.”

Staging Area

Banish was sick of sour coffee, but that morning’s supply of fruit juice was already gone. He took the coffee black and turned to find Fagin approaching.

“I’ll say this only once,” Fagin said, standing close when they were alone. “We know where the phone is. We know when Ables is on the line. I don’t give a fuck who gets the call, me or HRT. Head shot through the window. Clean. Bang in behind stun grenades, flash entry. The whole thing, I can give you twenty seconds, in and out.”

Banish shook it off. He had already considered similar scenarios. “If you could guarantee me — guarantee — safe harbor for the wife and Mrs. Mellis and the kids, then I might be convinced to roll Ables. But you can’t, so I won’t. Besides, there’s no need now. He will come out. The question is when.”

Fagin’s steady eyes were brought out by his hard-set, deeply brown face. “Your choice,” he said sternly.

Then Fagin got that distant look again, receiving something through his ear wire. His eyes righted themselves and he glanced around, his face showing that the news was nothing important. “Here comes Tonto,” he said.

Sheriff Blood was drifting over in his laconic way, not looking at either Banish or Fagin but crossing directly toward them regardless.

“Sort of a happening going on down below,” Blood said to Banish when he reached them. “Something I thought I’d make you aware of if you don’t already know.”

“What?” Banish said.

“Kind of an event in these parts. The state troopers got called away on special detail.”

Banish looked at him. “What detail could take precedence over this?”

“Well,” Blood said. Banish could see then that the Indian was, strangely, embarrassed. “Over in Little Elk tonight.” He nodded then and came right out with it: “There’s to be a miracle, they say.”

Banish could feel Fagin turning and jumped in ahead of him. “What kind of miracle?” he said.

Blood nodded. “The religious kind.”

Fagin said, “Here we go.”

Blood said, “Jesus Christ, or Yashua if you prefer, is set to reveal Himself over at a church in Little Elk around midnight tonight. They’re expecting upward of twenty thousand. Word gets out on a thing like this, people come in from all parts. The troopers needed to keep the highways moving.”

Banish regarded the Indian. “Twenty thousand people,” he said.

Blood nodded. “Upward of.”

Banish was silent a moment. Fagin studied the both of them. “There’s this thing,” Fagin said, “on the planet where I’m from, called television. It’s what most people do at night. Keeps them pretty fucking quiet, usually.”

Banish said to Blood, “You’re telling me that all those people down there, the entire protest, has evaporated. Just like that.”

“It’s down to about thirty.” Blood nodded. “Markers, more or less, for the hundreds they represent. Quiet down there now, kind of peaceful.”

Fagin looked at both of them. “This is fucking retarded,” he said. He strode off.

Blood turned more fully toward Banish then. “How did you know about those unattended deaths?”

Banish looked at him.

“That first day,” said Blood. “You figured that most of them were Indians.”

Banish watched the sheriff’s eyes. “Indians are the only minority up here.”

“What does that imply?”

“That you believe the deaths are related.”

Blood stood fast, looking at Banish, his eyes brighter. “Four of those six were hit-and-runs,” he said.

“Which Police Chief Moody dismisses as drunken Indians. Which is why you called the FBI in here so fast. You think you might need some help.”

Banish could see Blood bracing there before him.

“The newspapers are right,” Blood said. “You are dangerous.”

There was something here. Something in the Indian’s face. Banish discovered the cup of coffee in his hand and tossed it into a nearby barrel. “I’ve got a couple of minutes while I change,” he said. “Why don’t you give me the particulars.”

Blood nodded and walked with him across the clearing.

Trailer

Blood went and stood by the bed. Banish closed the trailer door and moved to his suitcase, set on top of the table. Blood looked across to where the mirror had hung and saw only a rectangle of wall darker than the rest.

Blood had been buying time on the stroll over, secretly having trouble figuring out where to begin. This was important.

“The first two happened before I took office,” he began. “A sixty-eight-year-old Indian found on a county road after attending a powwow down in Crater, and then a floater washed up on Shoot River. He was a sixteen-year-old who had been missing for a few months, and was pretty badly decomposed, not much left.”

Banish had his back to him, rummaging through clothes. He said, “What’s the river like?”

“Wide and rough. Can be treacherous, depending on the season. Runs right through Huddleston. There have been some drownings in the past.”

Banish pulled out a pair of pants with the belt already looped. “Just tell me about the deaths you have the most information on.”

“Right,” Blood said, nodding. He had to present this clearly. “That’d be the last two. This was after my ears had perked up, and other people’s too. They — Indians around here — by then were talking amongst themselves. Speculation about a serial killer of Indians.”

“Hogwash,” Banish said, pulling out a shirt.

Blood nodded, “That is hooey. I told them that’s not how a killer like that works, but they’re just scared. The second-to-last was a twenty-two-year-old male, last name of Kowes, late-generation Shoshoni. Missing for eight days, found floating in shallow water — also in Shoot River. Last seen at a party down near Huddleston Center. Left there late and was headed home when he snagged a tire on a railroad tie while crossing the tracks out by Potter’s potato farm. That amounts to what we know for sure. From there, the official speculation is that, afraid of being caught DWI, he abandoned his car on the edge of the tracks and hiked a mile up to the river. The boy was in good shape, an athlete, and may have thought he could swim the Shoot and walk home from there. It would have amounted to a shortcut.”

“Blood-alcohol?”

“Point-one-seven. The boy did have a good shine on.”

“But people who knew him say he was too smart to try and swim the river,” Banish said, “drunk or not.”

Blood nodded. “His parents think he was forced in.”

Banish pulled his wallet from his back pocket and tossed it onto the bed, where it flopped open, then stepped into the bathroom, fresh clothes in hand. “I’m listening,” he said, turning the corner.

Blood cleared his throat, not used to talking so much at a time. He wanted to be sure to leave nothing out.

“More is known about the last one. A seventeen-year-old male, name of Darkin. Last seen at one of the local hangouts in Huddleston. Called the Bunker, a small cinder-block place set back from the road. Used to have a few swastikas decorating the back of it, been painted over since.”

“The bar Ables was pinched at,” Banish said from the bathroom. The door was open. “What the hell would an Indian be doing in a place like that?”

Blood looked at the brown leather wallet on the bed. It was worn, its faint gold stitching pulled. He could see, poking out of one of the deeper pockets, the top border of a photograph. Blood took a step closer to the bed, keeping an eye on the door.

“That is unknown,” he said. “Maybe to meet some others, there being strength in numbers. Maybe to meet a girl. Anyway, he arrived alone by taxi after midnight, stayed less than an hour. Two men at the door say they saw him leave around one, one-thirty, again alone. It’s a farm road there, tarred but unlit, a fairly main drag south of town. A motorist came across the body more than a half mile away from the Bunker. That was some time shortly after two.”

Banish’s voice said, “What did the doormen look like?”

“Shaved bald, suspenders, black boots.”

Banish said, “These are the people who place this Indian’s time of departure. These are the last people to see him alive.”

“We have no independent corroboration. We’re still trying to track down some of the patrons of the bar.”

Banish said, “Go ahead.”

Blood checked the bathroom door again. “First of all,” he said, reaching across the bed for the wallet, “why would this boy want to walk home four miles at that time of night?” Blood slid the photograph most of the way out. “It was the middle of February and twelve degrees. He told the cab driver who dropped him that he would be calling later for a ride home. He never did.” Blood lingered a moment on the wallet-sized portrait. It showed a trimmer Banish, his face thinner and ten years younger, wearing a dark suit and wide tie and standing with his hand on a chair where his wife sat, her brown hair long and flat, skirt and stockings conservative — and standing at her shoulder, smiling for all she was worth, their daughter, a dark-haired girl of no more than ten or twelve. “Nine dollars in his back pocket,” Blood said, quickly sliding the photograph back inside its pocket and setting the wallet open again on the bed, “more than enough for taxi fare. Coroner filed official cause of death as blunt head trauma of unknown cause, but I asked him to take a closer look at that, it seeming a little too speculative to me, and he came back with a fractured skull and other injuries jibing with hit-and-run.”

Banish didn’t answer right away and Blood took a step farther back from the bed. “Which side of the road was he found on?”

Blood answered, “Dead center of a two-lane tar road. Spread out in the middle of it.”

“Blood-alcohol?”

“Point-one-two-five.”

Another pause. “What did the body look like?”

“Brian Kearney was first on the scene that morning. He said that it was his feeling immediately, first thing he thought of, that the death had occurred someplace else. That it looked like a body that had been moved. Now, you know Brian. He’s a rookie and his mouth gets out in front of his mind on occasion. So I checked these things for myself.” Blood ticked off each point with the fingers of his right hand. “No automobile parts on the road. No skid marks, no glass shards. All the driveways and byroads are dirt around there, and plenty of tracks on either lane, but no dirt crossing the center strip within thirty yards. And then this. When he was found, the boy had two T-shirts on under his jacket, both rolled up from his waist to his armpits, and his back all scraped up. Like he had been dragged there. Some say a car could do it, but his back would have been torn to shreds on that tar. And then the next day, Brian comes over to me on the sly. He tells me that Moody talked him out of it. The T-shirt angle got left off the official report entirely.”

Blood heard a faucet running, then turned off. “The first one, Kowes,” Banish said. “Missing for eight days. What about his car?”

“Found the next day by the railroad tracks and impounded as an abandoned vehicle.”

“Parents weren’t notified?”

“It was registered in the boy’s name. I took his father down there myself a week after the body washed up and we found it tucked back behind some others in the tow yard. Wallet empty on the floor in front, contents scattered on the front seat, the dash, and both floorboards. Also clothes. Also shopping receipts, also check stubs.”

“And the parents insist he was a very neat kid.”

Blood nodded, now pacing a bit. “And that right there is evidence lost, because it comes out later there’s a young lady who claimed she was with Kowes in the car the night he died. Her story was that the boy thought he was being followed, which was why he got a little lost and anxious driving around and wound up blowing a tire. She said he pulled over and told her to get out of the car and hide — she’s not Indian. From where she was, deep back in the potato field, she said she heard some other car door slam, and voices.”

Banish nodded. “All right, then.”

“Problem is, she’s changed her story, significantly enough, more than once. And now she’s moved away altogether and I don’t have the faintest idea where she is.”

“So Moody’s office had the car and the missing persons report and never connected them?”

“Exactly. He said they didn’t because the body was found in the river, which is county land, my jurisdiction, and the car was found out by the tracks, which is his. But that’s damn thin to me,” said Blood, feeling the harshness in his own voice. “Damn thin.”

Banish came out then, around the corner from the bathroom, his shirt unbuttoned and pants half-open at the waist. Blood saw a raw, silver-dollar-sized scar just below his stomach, a red-pink indentation upon the white of his skin, and smaller flecks of pink around it — then looked up immediately at Banish’s face so as not to stare.

Banish tossed his dirty clothes on the bed. “It’s not Moody,” he said. “I’m sure you already looked for some connection between the victims, other than gender and race, and if there is none, then forget it. It’s only a cover-up if somebody profits. This doesn’t read like a police conspiracy. More likely, Moody just turns a blind eye, or worse, he doesn’t care. A couple of drunken Indians to him. Two drownings and some traffic accidents. That’s what others will say too. If it’s FBI involvement you want, you’ll need more than this. No paint on the hit-and-run?”

“From the car finish?”

Banish tucked in his shirt and fixed his pants. “Impact burns paint onto the skin and clothing.”

Blood nodded. “There was none of that. You see?”

“What was Darkin wearing besides two T-shirts?”

“Jeans and a leather jacket.”

“That’s good. Leather picks up paint better than anything. No paint on that jacket, then you proceed right away with an open homicide investigation. Tie in one more similarly dead Indian and you’ve got grounds for a civil rights case that bumps it up to federal. And I would also consider contracting an outside coroner, one who isn’t so quick with his knife.”

He ended nodding, seemingly reviewing his own answer. He picked his wallet up off the bed and slipped it into his back pocket. Then he was still, standing there. Then he shook his head. “How could you let something like that go so far?” he said.

Blood looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“What is the overall Indian population up here?”

Blood thought about it, realized what was being implied. “Maybe two percent,” he said. “You saying I’m not doing my job?”

“You had questions,” Banish said. “You talked to people, you developed theories. Then you did nothing. Why wait for federal help on this? How can you allow these separatists and neo-Nazis around here at all?”

Blood was hot. “They call it freedom of speech,” he said. “Lots of good people up here too.”

“Sure,” Banish said, “but there’s a fine line between good people and look-the-other-way-and-keep-quiet people. Freedom of speech works both ways.”

Blood nodded slowly. “So I should just take care of them then. The way you took care of Mellis.”

It surprised and ashamed Blood how much venom he had in him, but Banish took it, standing quietly a moment. “I’m saying that working in secret is not doing anyone a damn bit of good. Get out and meet these people head-on. They are flaunting their lawlessness and disrespect in front of you. You’ve got to confront them, you especially. Otherwise, you’re the sheriff of this county and no better than any of the rest. You have to show these people to be ridiculous. Humiliate them. Nothing else works as well.”

Blood’s face burned. The room seemed to drift a little and he looked around, his mind filling with all the things he could come back with: that he didn’t have the public’s support, that he was just a one-man office. But hearing it loud in his head like that warmed another blush of shame on his face and he realized his excuses were all just as petty as they sounded. Which was why Banish had called him a politician. Ever since the glory of his election-year upset, for some reason Blood had been tipping his hat at these frays rather than running headfirst into them. Storing his pride rather than displaying it. Blood was embarrassed, but more angry now than blushing. Angry at Moody and anyone else who was taunting him. There were shit bags laughing at him behind his back. He realized that he hadn’t come to Banish for aid at all — he had come to be talked out of something, to be told he was wrong when he knew he was right. In certain circles Sheriff Leonard M. Blood was a laughingstock. He had been elected to keep the peace. There were good people out there, not just the trash he mainly dealt with, but good, fair-minded people who had invested their trust in him when they cast a vote for change and peace and order and law.

All this put him in mind of another thing he had so willingly set aside, another thorny suspicion he had been shying away from. He brought out the letter he had been carrying around and handed it over to Banish. He waited until it was unfolded and recognized. “The letter to WAR from Ables,” Blood told him. “A man last night claiming to be Ables’s lawyer passed copies of this around, stirring up the crowd. Said ATF threatened to bring charges if Ables didn’t tattle for them, and said he could prove this in a court of law. You ignored that when I brought it to you before. Can you now?”

Banish looked at the letter. He folded it in half, running his fingers slowly along the crease. “If I told you it didn’t matter?” he said.

Blood said, “Can you now?”

Banish held the piece of paper. He didn’t say anything.

“What would you do,” Blood said, “if this whole mess turned out to be one big damn mistake?”

Banish was quiet for a while and seemingly heavy with thought. Then he folded the letter once again and slipped it into his shirt pocket. He nodded at Blood from where he was standing. “You’re a dangerous man yourself,” he said.

Dangerously inept, thought Blood. A mat for people to walk over, a statue that sometimes even talked. He had thought previously that strength and silence were enough. Chief Moody practically burgling his office. Cops parking in his space. Deke Belcher throwing up insults at him in his own car. All unanswered by him. The thought of them snickering made Blood furious. Why hadn’t he acted? Why did he keep so much in reserve? And what was the cost?

He pictured each of the Indian boys — young, drunk, and terrified — surrounded and set upon by a mob.

Banish moved to the door. “I want you up at the staging area from here on in,” he said.

“Why?” Blood said. He was mad and frustrated and trying to hide it.

“We’re getting into negotiations with Ables now. You know the character of the people, the way around here. I want you in the mix. You might pick up on something I would otherwise miss.”

“And?” Blood said.

Banish seemed to think about that. “There’s also a saying,” he said. “Keep all dangerous men closest to you.”

Blood felt much the same. For now, he was in that numb state that followed a thorough beating, the pain that falls over you heavy and starts to settling deep into your muscles and your soul. He went out behind Banish and set off across the clearing by himself.

Command Tent

[PARASIEGE, p. 66]

SA Banish returned to the command tent and instructed SA Coyle to contact the BATF office in Spokane, Washington, for the purpose of ordering the return of Agents Riga and Crimson for further questioning.

Sound Truck

Banish paced inside the cramped quarters, head bowed to avoid the van ceiling. He kept his hands busy, folding and unfolding them in front of him, wringing them, wiping them on the hips of his pants. Blood stood leaning against a wall in the corner near the closed door. The sound man sat monitoring.

The tape reels clicked and started another revolution. “He’s coming,” said the sound man, pulling on his headphones and flipping a switch. The sound of footsteps over a wooden floor came on inside the van. The footsteps approached the microphone source and stopped, and there were muffled noises, the sound of a man clearing his throat. Then a click.

“Watson.”

His voice filled the van. The sound man adjusted the broadcast volume as Banish climbed into his chair. He used the hand micro phone only, leaving Ables’s voice on the overhead speaker for Blood to hear.

“Yes, Mr. Ables.”

“You have a family, Watson?”

The very first question threw him. It would have been an easy lie, but since Banish’s aim here was to sympathize with the suspect and establish a rapport, it seemed to him that the best answer in this particular situation was, in fact, “Yes.”

“I want to talk about mine,” Ables said. “In case something happens to me.”

“What do you mean?”

“That was good,” Ables said. “That was convincing.”

Banish squinted, looking blankly at the console in front of him. “Mr. Ables, you’ve lost me here. Are you considering coming out?”

Banish would not say “surrender.” He would not say “give up.” He had to make it Ables’s choice. He waited through a short pause.

“Maybe you don’t know, then,” Ables said. “I figured you were all in this together, but misinformation is legion. Or maybe you’re just not high up enough to know.”

“Know what, Mr. Ables?”

“About the plans they have for me. How this is all going to end.”

Banish pressed him. “Who, Mr. Ables?”

“That I am going to be assassinated when I step outside my house and murdered in cold blood. I know that.”

“That is simply not true, Mr. Ables. No one here will take any hostile action, not unless you were to try something ill-advised again.”

Banish waited through another, longer pause.

“My wife,” Ables said. “If I did come out. She would go free.”

Banish paused, as though carefully considering it. “That is certainly something that could be arranged,” he said.

“Not so fast, Watson. Not so simple. I have other responsibilities. I know they want my house. They want me and they want my land. I built this house up with my own hands, me and my wife and daughters. Do you understand that, Watson?”

“I do understand, Mr. Ables.”

“You damn well should. And I paid for the land on this mountain and have worked it hard.”

“Mr. Ables — we are getting into an area here that I don’t have much control over. Legally, you forfeited your residence to the courts when you refused to appear for trial.”

“It was refused for me. Another slimy sabotage. That letter reached me two months too late.”

Again, Ables was way out ahead of him. “What letter?” Banish said.

“The letter from that courthouse. With the date for my appearance. Delivered by the federal mail, Watson. It’s all a game to you people out there, ain’t it? You sit and act like you don’t know that you’re all in on this together. You know that you have set me up and yet you will not admit it to my face. You will double-talk and triple-talk and try to fill my head with doubts.”

“Mr. Ables, all I am trying to do here is iron out some agreement between us whereby you can come out in cooperation with the proper authorities before it is too late to do so.”

“Who is Banish?” Ables said.

Banish started. His chest went cold. “What?”

“Banish. I hear his name on the radio, more than yours.”

Banish said, “There is no Banish on this mountain,” and immediately knew that it was a wild mistake.

“On the radio news they said he’s in charge.”

“He is not here now. Mr. Ables, we were talking about your home.”

“I want to talk to this Banish.”

“I told you, he is not here.”

“Where is he, then? I’m on the phone now. Who the hell’s in charge out there?”

“Mr. Ables, I think it would be best if we could work this out between the two of us rather than involving the confusion of a third party.”

“He’s Tactical, then,” Ables said. “You’re the mouth, he’s the trigger boy. Right? Sitting out there in the trees somewhere right now. Watching for me. He’s the one, then. He wants me in his crosshairs. He wants me dead so bad he can taste it.”

“Mr. Ables, no one out here, no one, wants you or your family harmed in any way. I am personally assuring you of that. Now, if you will be reasonable, we can continue talking realistically about meeting your immediate needs—”

“Does Banish have a family?”

Banish glanced away. He frowned slightly and looked back. “I wouldn’t know,” he said.

“You, then. If you knew, Watson, that something was going to happen to you in the very near future, if you knew that, wouldn’t you want to arrange things for your family in advance? Isn’t that your responsibility? Wouldn’t you want them to have their house to live in, a house they helped to build, and be allowed to stay together and not be bothered by any shits from the government once you’re good and gone?”

Banish closed his eyes. “Mr. Ables,” he said, “that does sound reasonable.”

A third pause. Banish waited patiently through it. It went on.

Banish opened his eyes. “Mr. Ables,” he said. “Mr. Ables.”

There was a click. Banish looked over at the sound man. The sound man shook his head. There were footsteps in the cabin, walking away.

Banish switched off the microphone. He sat there awhile, staring at the controls. His head was swimming. Then he stood. “Fine,” he said distractedly, without turning, feeling he had to say something before he left. “I’ll be right back,” he said.

Office

He paced in his office. The noise in the command tent outside did not intrude upon the swirling inside his head. Each time he passed his desk he looked at the telephone upon it. He was troubled. Fatigue, an unsettled feeling. A sense of moving frantically in slow motion. His face itched now, where the powder blast shadow remained, but rubbing his cheek and jaw with his dry hands only further aggravated it.

He was thinking about Molly and Nicole. He was looking at the telephone each time he passed it and he was entertaining possible approaches. He was casting off scenarios. Just friendly congratulations to start with. He could say that he heard about Nicole’s engagement from a friend of a friend. Just calling to wish her the best. That would leave the ball in their court. Nothing would happen very quickly, if at all. A few courteous phone conversations over a matter of months. An engagement gift sent by him. An invitation to the wedding. A dance. An embrace.

He quickly walked away from his desk, chastising himself bitterly. Romantic fantasies. They would never take him back. He remembered enough of it to know that. He shook his head. He had terrorized them. He had made them afraid to live in their own house, to sleep in their own beds. He had inspired fear in them. He had wanted them to fear him, to fear everything, that had been his mania. He had never physically abused them. He was nearly certain of that. It was the living environment he had created after his failure at the World Financial Center, after watching that woman and her daughter die. The guilt he felt, manifested in drunken, raving tirades alternating between open threats and manic bouts of over protectiveness He had worked to keep them off-balance. To make them ready for whatever danger might come. To make them see what he had seen and learn from what he had learned so that nothing like that, no death or random act of terror, no pain would ever touch them. Witnessing the end of that family, and bearing responsibility for it, lit off something in him that was impossible to contain. He remembered the last weekend, when he tore up the house: every appliance, fixture, wall hanging, door, room. Nothing was safe and nothing was permanent, he had decreed. That had been demonstrated to him at WFC and he was proving it to them now. He was showing them that anybody and anything — anything — could be destroyed.

And he had. And it was. The next day they left him for her mother’s and never returned. In the restraining order, Nicole had repeated to a judge the various warnings that her father, in his fits of despair, had issued to her. That she could be strangled in her sleep. That she could become anybody’s hostage. That she could be raped and killed. That her mother could be murdered. That people die suddenly and for no reason at all. That life had absolutely no meaning or purpose. That the bad received no punishment, and the good no reward.

The warnings were meant to snap her out of her everyday slumber, to make her vigilant. In reality, they were the ramblings of a diseased drunk, and of course came to be interpreted as threats. He had laid their home to waste. He had defiled something there that was sacred. There was no forgiving that. He did not even ask for forgiveness. For wrecking the house, for months of torment — he could not paper over that. Yet still he wanted them back. He was a changed man. He had served two years of penance in Skull Valley and he was better now yet it was all still not enough. At the bottom of his heart, he knew that it was simply too late.

He went to his desk and sat, wanting what he could not have. That which was once his to keep safe. He looked again at the telephone. It mocked him. He thought about calling out to the switchboard and having them open up an outside line so that he could further punish himself with pathetic dreams of reconciliation. Then Coyle pushed open the door flap and came inside. She had the itemized expenditures list from the previous day. He had to review it, checking and initialing each individual sum, then sign off on the total day’s cost. She stood watching over him as he did.

Sound Truck

The man in the headphones signaled and Banish sat up in the chair facing the panel of controls. Blood stayed where he was, again watching from the corner. It was now suppertime and neither he nor Banish had eaten lunch, but there was an urgency in the van, fully realized whenever Ables’s voice came through, that precluded the satisfying of everyday human appetites.

“Watson.”

When it came, they went into motion. Small lights came on in the electrical works and tape recorder wheels started to turn. Ables’s voice was like a fuse switch thrown on, jerking the van to life. The speakers made it sound as though he were right inside there with them.

Banish worked his microphone. “Right here, Mr. Ables,” he said into it. He kept his eyes trained ahead and down as he talked.

Ables said, “Is he there now?”

“Who, Mr. Ables?”

“Banish.”

Banish sat up a bit, resettling himself. This sort of talk clearly made him uncomfortable. “No,” he said, “he is not.”

“Even after I called for him?”

“I explained to you, Mr. Ables, that is not even an issue. I am here for you. It is just you and me talking.”

“What did he say about me?”

Banish rubbed his face. “He didn’t say anything, Mr. Ables. I have not spoken with him. What do you mean?”

“I want to know how it’s going to come.”

“Mr. Ables — I am assuring you, unless you want to try something foolish again—”

“What about your family, Watson?”

“We are not talking about my family, Mr. Ables.”

“I want to know.”

Banish said, “Have you reached any decision regarding your coming out?”

“I can guess,” said Ables. “Three boys is what I see. Close in age. Real popular boys, strong boys, all-American all-stars. Real friendly at school with their Jew professors.”

Banish said, “Mr. Ables—”

“I see a wife everybody in the neighborhood likes, who fake-kisses on the cheek all her Jewess friends. I see her in a red apron waving from a white picket fence.”

Banish said, “Mr. Ables, are you trying to insult me?”

“I didn’t think that was an insult, Watson. I used to live in America for a while, don’t forget. I saw what was out there in the suburbs. I’m saying that I bet you have the perfect all-American family. That is what I am guessing. You and a wife and three strong blond boys, all driving cars with slanty headlights, working to put money in the bearded man’s pocket.”

“Mr. Ables, we are so far afield—”

“I think you are hiding something, Watson.”

Banish relented a bit. “I have nothing to hide, Mr. Ables.”

“You do, Watson. I can tell you do.”

Banish stared ahead. After a while, he spoke. “I have no sons, Mr. Ables,” he said. “I have one daughter, who is engaged to be married.”

“How old, Watson?”

“My daughter is twenty-one.”

“Young for marriage nowadays.”

“It comes as a relief,” Banish said. “She seems to be on the right track now.”

Blood’s eyebrows were up. He couldn’t see the strategy in any of this.

Ables pressed him. “You’re saying she had some trouble.”

Banish nodded as though recalling it. “As a teenager,” he said. “Falling in with the wrong crowd. We had some rough years. She ran away from home when she was fourteen, for one day, and when she was fifteen, for three. Her mother had her hands full, and I was away a lot. I regret not being there.”

Blood even considered tapping him on the shoulder. Banish seemed to have lost himself in his candor. Blood saw the sound man turn to look at Banish as well.

Ables’s voice said, “All them schools are ghettos now. That’s what I got my kids away from.”

“Guns and violence,” Banish said.

“That’s right.”

Banish nodded. “Trouble is where you find it, Mr. Ables,” he said, the irony of the thing not lost on him. He appeared then to come up for air. “Does that satisfy you now?”

“I am not looking for satisfaction, Watson. You get to go home to your family when you are through. I won’t.”

“Mr. Ables, I am personally overseeing each and every aspect of your arrest. I am guaranteeing you that there will be no shooting, that you will not be harmed in any way.”

Ables said, “I trust you, Watson. I do. Truly. You can’t guarantee me nothing. Guarantee me the sun’ll come up tomorrow.”

“Who do you trust, then, Mr. Ables? I can arrange for eyewitnesses to be there to watch your arrest. Who do you trust?”

Ables, apparently thinking it over, said finally, “No one.”

“Your wife’s parents,” said Banish.

“No.”

“Television cameras, then. The media. I can have them film the arrest for your protection. How would you like that?”

“What about my home, Watson?”

Banish was nodding. It looked like progress here. “The only thing I can suggest,” he said, “is that you arrange to sign ownership of your property over into your wife’s name. That is my best suggestion to you. Possession is nine tenths of the law.”

“Whose law, Watson? Your law or mine? Mine says free and innocent men are left alone by their government.”

“We are making some progress here, Mr. Ables. Let’s stick to resolving the terms of your coming outside—”

“Do you think I’m a bad man, Watson? I want your view on this. You think I’m a guilty man?”

Banish let out a short breath. “Mr. Ables,” he said, “I have no opinion on the matter.”

“I’m as guilty as you are, Watson. I just tried to live my life alone up here. I minded my own business as other folks mind theirs, and if no one came up here meddling in my life, then I wouldn’t have gone and bothered anyone in theirs. But it ain’t up to me. You came up here, Watson, and you scratched me, but I don’t bleed.”

“Mr. Ables—”

“You found that out. I scratch back. If this was a fair fight, I’d win it. You might even know that I would. But nothing is fair, Watson. Resist and they will crush you. Deny them and try to stay with your own and they will rise up and make an example of you. That’s what this is right here, Watson. Maybe you can see that now. I am the example.”

It was obvious by the clattering noises over the speaker that Ables was done with them again. Banish sat back. The sound man pulled down his headphones, saying, “He’s clear.”

Banish shut his eyes and was quiet for a moment. “He’s stringing this out,” he said.

Blood said, “He’s enjoying himself.”

Banish opened his eyes and sat forward. He spoke generally, reviewing things. “Still fairly coherent,” he said. “Wants a personal relationship with the negotiator. That’s common. They all want reassurance near the end. So you use that, you figure out what they want to hear in terms of similar problems, you empathize and exploit their weaknesses, show them they are not alone in this, even get them thinking you are on their side if you can.” He turned and looked at Blood. “What do you think?”

Blood was going to say that he didn’t believe Banish for a second, that it seemed as though he had gone too far and was trying to excuse himself here. “About what?”

“Ables.”

Blood nodded at that. “I’d say he’s sizing himself up to be a pretty good martyr.”

The sound man with the Southern accent contributed to Banish’s cause. “I think it’s good how you let him flex his ego now and again. I think that works.”

Blood said, “You going to ask him about Mellis?”

Banish shook his head lightly. “Not the sort of thing I’d want to introduce into the conversation,” he said. “I don’t think he will either.”

He stood then. His shoulders looked heavy. To the sound man he said, “Call over to the command tent, have them get a printout for me. I want to review the transcripts.”

The sound man nodded. “We’re silent up top,” he reminded him.

Banish stopped. “What do you have?”

“Depends. What are you looking for?”

Banish thought. “Something new. He needs more pushing.”

The sound man ticked off his selection. “I’ve got Tibetan monks chanting, military marching music, a clock ticking, baby rabbits being slaughtered, Andy Williams Christmas carols—”

“The clock,” Banish said, starting to leave. “Good and loud.”

Command Tent

Fagin was reading the transcript when Banish walked in. He had to catch up on the negotiations on his own because nobody fucking told him anything. He looked up at Banish as he entered. “Do you need a hug?” he said.

Banish took the printed sheets out of his hands. Then he recognized Ables’s voice on the CB. Banish turned and walked a few slow steps toward it.

“Bible lessons,” chided Fagin.

Coyle told him, “It just started.”

Banish looked around. “What part is he reading from?”

He was sure to get a quick answer. Half the FBI agents kept Bibles out on top of their desks. “Psalms,” one at the switchboard said. Then Fagin saw that it was Kearney, the local cop who had stood up for Banish.

“A scholar,” Fagin said to him, wondering what the hell he was doing at the FBI switchboard.

The young cop said, “Not actually. He said the name himself when he started to read it.” Then Kearney looked past Fagin. “Agent Banish?”

Banish raised a hand to hold off Kearney. He was standing there listening to Ables on the CB, or thinking. Either way, he was just standing there.

Fagin said, “Cut him off.”

Banish waited some more. “No,” he said. “Let him go. If we cut him off mid-verse, people listening down below and elsewhere will assume the worst.” He looked over at Coyle. “When he finishes reading, jam him. If he starts to ramble on about anything other than what he’s reading, jam him. But shut him down for good when he’s through.”

“Agent Banish,” Kearney said.

Fagin spoke first. He was starving and wanted to get in what he went there for. “I’m going to eat,” he said to Banish. “You coming?”

Banish said, “Hold on.” He was hassled. Ables on the radio obviously worried him. He looked over at Kearney. “What is it?”

“Call for you, sir.”

Banish told him, “Give it to Coyle.”

“It’s the outside line,” Kearney said. “A woman.”

Fagin watched Banish’s eyes hold on Kearney then. They held there tightly, as though seeing something else altogether.

“My office,” Banish told him.

“I’m going to eat,” Fagin said, but Banish was already moving toward the back.

Office

Banish went right to the phone. He looked at the blinking light. He wiped his hands on his shirtfront and picked up the receiver.

“Hello,” he said.

“John? John Banish?”

“Yes,” he said.

“It’s Dr. Juliet Reed.”

Banish’s eyes searched.

“From the Retreat,” she said.

Banish turned and sat against his desk. “Dr. Reed,” he said. He put his hand to his hot forehead and held it lightly. After a moment he closed his eyes.

“Hello, John. I wasn’t sure I would be able to get through.”

“Yes.”

“How are you getting along?”

Banish opened his eyes. The disappointment drained him. “Fine,” he said.

“I read your name in the newspaper. You can imagine my surprise. I contacted some people at the Retreat rather on a whim. They got back to me and gave me this number. They thought it might be a good idea that I call.”

“I see,” Banish said. Hearing her voice again had triggered within him a subtle ebb of passivity. It was as though the years had not passed and he was still living in that small community of sterilized floors and broken men.

“I am no longer associated with the Retreat,” she said. “I have a private practice in Boston now. It is so rare that I come into contact with a former patient. Are you keeping up with the therapy, John?”

“Yes.”

“Poetry still?”

“Yes.”

“You excelled at that. Have you given any thought to publishing?”

“I’m working on a translation now. Just for myself, to keep my mind focused.”

“Translation of what?” she said. “If I may ask.”

“A notebook of German poems. Kept by a low-level guard at Buchenwald, recovered after the emancipation. Slipped to me by a friend of a friend from the old OSS.”

“Well,” she said, as though catching her breath. “That sounds absolutely fascinating. I can’t imagine — was he humane at all, or an ogre along with the rest?”

“I guess there’s no simple answer for that.”

“Fascinating,” she said. “How is the case progressing?”

“We are into negotiations now.” He spoke optimistically, as a matter of habit. “It should break soon.”

“An awful situation. And the dead young girl — tragic. I’ve been following it in the newspapers here. Remarkable, and terrible.”

Banish rubbed his face. “Dr. Reed, I’m sure you can understand, I am pressed for time—”

“Are you strong, John? Do you feel strong?”

Her words cut him. “Strong enough,” he said.

“You recovered fully from your wounding?”

He touched his lower torso over the scar, a gesture of remembrance. “It was kind of you to visit me in the hospital,” he said. “I do remember that.”

“An awful thing. I treated Lucy Ames myself, in another wing of the facility. After you dropped the charges. She grew to be quite strong before her discharge. Quite solid and rational.” She paused then, reflective for a moment. “I am not sure why I was so moved to call you, John. What exactly it was that compelled me. Concern, perhaps, although it is not at all professional to take an interest in a former patient. Especially, I suppose, a patient from the Retreat, due to the sensitive nature of that place. But I’ve always felt your therapy there was unfinished. That we did not have enough time. That has always concerned me.”

Banish said, “Dr. Reed, I really do have to go.”

“But I can tell by your voice, John, you are strong now. You must be to have been assigned this case. I am so encouraged by your progress. You have overcome more than anyone will ever know, John. It is a triumph, and I do hope you understand that. To have come as far as you have. You have much to be proud of.”

She went on saying a few more things like that, then they said their goodbyes and hung up. Banish remained sitting there awhile looking at the phone.

Sound Truck

Perkins was there now too. There were four of them: Perkins, Banish, the sound man, and Blood himself. The inside of the van smelled faintly like their chicken-and-gravy dinner, a picked-at plate of which sat on the control panel near Banish.

It was getting late in the day, and this fact was well known and weighed heavily upon all concerned. Banish was sitting back from the desk panel. He was brooding. “Let me hear it again,” he said.

The sound man worked the buttons and the distant, eavesdropped conversation was replayed once again.

Ables’s voice saying, “Esther. Get back here.”

A young girl’s voice, more distant. “Mommy in back room.”

Ables’s voice again, sharper, “Becca, get her back here.”

Then footsteps and off. Banish sat there thinking.

Blood said, “Which one is Esther again?”

Perkins told him, “The five-year-old.”

The sound man was puzzled. “In the back room,” he said. “Must be her post.”

“Watson.”

The voice surprised them, but most of all Perkins, who wasn’t used to being jump-started by it. He stepped up behind Banish as though they were about to meet Ables in person. Banish moved forward to his microphone. “Go ahead, Mr. Ables,” he said.

Ables said, “One: The house will be put in my wife’s name. She will not be arrested, and neither will Shelley or my kids.”

Banish sat up straighter. Perkins brought out a small notebook and pen and started scribbling. “That can be arranged,” Banish said measuredly. “Go ahead.”

“Two: I will walk off my land a free man. I will walk out of my house and down to the bottom of the mountain. TV cameras will be set up to film my arrest.”

Banish said, “That is fine, Mr. Ables. The only problem I can foresee is the location—”

“These are demands, Watson,” Ables said. “Three: I will not be placed in any handcuffs whatsoever.”

Banish sat and listened. It was obviously a snag. Perkins scribbled next to him.

“Four: I will read a speech on television at the time of my arrest. Five: The federal government will publicly admit its conspiracy and guilt in the premeditated murder of Judith Ann Ables.”

The pause told them Ables was through. Banish frowned. “No deal,” he said into the handset.

Ables said, “I didn’t offer you a deal, Watson. These are my demands.”

Banish took the list from Perkins and quickly reviewed it. “One,” he said. “Any statements you wish to make, political or otherwise, may be released through your lawyer at an appropriate time following your arrest. Two: Arresting you at the bridge could incite a riot and may risk the safety of my men; I won’t do that. Three: I am not, nor is anyone here, authorized to speak on behalf of the federal government of the United States of America.”

A loud click and clatter as the phone was slammed down on Ables’s end. Quiet for a moment, then “Sons of bitches!” heard, then booted footsteps walking away.

Banish switched off his microphone and turned around in his chair. He looked drawn and tired but, to Blood’s surprise, not disappointed. In fact, he looked pleased.

Perkins said, “The Ritual?”

Banish nodded. “He’s started to fold.”

Blood interrupted. “What is “The Ritual’?”

Perkins turned toward him like a man finding a dollar bill on the floor. “Surrender Ritual,” he said. “The suspect preparing to leave. Emptying his pockets, giving things away. Winding down.” He looked quickly at Banish, who was looking at the van floor, and then back again at Blood. “A mixed-up process they go through before giving up.”

“Like making out a will before a long trip,” Banish said, standing suddenly and moving away. “We’ve got him.”