A Maiden's Grave (13 page)

"There's nothing I can do. Security at the barricade site has to be perfect."

"I have to tell you that if you suppress too much, those youngsters're going to try some pretty desperate things to get inside your perimeter. They're going to be using descrambling scanners to intercept transmissions, they're going to be impersonating officers -"

"All of which is illegal."

"I'm just telling you what some of them have been talking about. There are rumblings out there. And I sure as hell don't want to lose an exclusive to some little asshole law-breaking journalism school graduate."

"I've given orders to arrest any non-law-enforcement personnel within sight of the plant. Reporters included."

Silbert rolled his eyes. "Arnett had it easier in Baghdad. Jesus Christ. You're a negotiator, I thought. Why won't you negotiate?"

"I should be getting back."

"Please! Just listen to my proposal. I want to start a press pool. You allow one or two journalists at a time up near the front. No cameras, radios, recorders. Just typewriters or laptops. Or pen and pencil."

"Joe, we can't risk the takers' getting any information about what we're doing. You know that. They might have a radio inside."

An ominous tone slipped into his voice. "Look, you start suppressing, we'll start speculating."

A barricade in Miami several years ago went hot when the takers heard on their portable radio a newscaster describing an HRT assault on the barricade site. It turned out the reporter was merely speculating as to what
might
happen but the takers thought it was real and began firing at the hostages.

"That's a threat, I assume," Potter said evenly.

"Tornadoes are threats," Silbert responded. "They're also facts of life. Look, Potter, what can I do to convince you?"

"Nothing. Sorry."

Potter turned toward the car. Silbert sighed. "Fuck. How's this? You can read the stories before we file them. You can censor them."

This was a first. Of the hundreds of barricades Potter had negotiated, he'd had good and bad relationships with the press as he tried to balance the First Amendment versus the safety of hostages and cops. But he'd never met a journalist who agreed to let him preview stories.

"That's a prior restraint," said Potter, fourth in his law school class.

"There've already been a half-dozen reporters talking about crossing the barriers. That'll stop if you agree to let a couple of us inside. They'll listen to me."

"And you want to be one of those two."

Silbert grinned. "Of course I fucking want to be one of them. In fact I want to be one of the first two. I've got a deadline in an hour. Come on, what do you think?"

What
did
he think? That half the problem at Waco had been press relations. That he was responsible not only for the lives of the hostages and troopers and fellow agents but for the integrity of the Bureau itself and its image, and that for all his negotiating skills he was an inept player of agency politics. He knew too that most of what Congress, senior Justice officials, and the White House learned about what happened here would be from CNN and the
Washington Post
.

"All right," Potter agreed. "You can set it up. You'll coordinate with Captain Charlie Budd."

He looked at his watch. The food was due. He should be getting back. He drove to the command van, told Budd to set up a small press tent behind it and to meet with Joe Silbert about the pooling arrangement.

"Will do. Where's the food?" Budd asked, gazing anxiously up the road. "Time's getting close."

"Oh," Potter said, "we've got a little flexibility. Once a taker's agreed to release a hostage you're past the biggest hurdle. He's already given Jocylyn up in his mind."

"You think?"

"Go set up that press tent."

He started back to the command van and found himself thinking not of food or helicopters or Louis Handy but rather of Melanie Charrol. And not of how valuable she as a hostage might be to him as a negotiator nor of how much of a benefit or liability she might be in a tactical resolution of the barricade. No, he was mulling over soft information, dicta. Recalling the motion of her mouth as she spoke to him from the dim window of the slaughterhouse.

What could she have been saying?

Speculating mostly about what it would be like to have a conversation with her. Here was a man who'd made his way in the world by listening to other people's words, by talking. And here she was, a deaf-mute.

Lips, teeth, lips.

He mimicked her.

Lips, teeth…

Got it, he thought suddenly. And he heard in his mind: "Be forewarned."

He tried it out loud. "Be forewarned."

Yes, that was it. But why such an archaic expression? Of course: So
he
could lip-read it. The movement of the mouth was exaggerated with this phrase. It was obvious. Not "Be careful." Or "Look out." Or "He's dangerous."

Be forewarned.

Henry LeBow should know this.

Potter started toward the van and was only twenty feet from his destination when the limousine appeared silently beside him. It seemed to the agent that as it eased past it turned slightly, as if cutting him off. The door opened and a large, swarthy man climbed out. "Look at all this," he said boisterously. "It looks like D-Day, the troops have landed. You've got everything under control, Ike? Do you? Everything well in
hand?''

Potter stopped and turned. The man walked up close and his smile, if a smile it had been, fell away. He said, "Agent Potter, we have to talk."

But he didn't talk just at that moment.

He tugged his dark suit closed as a burst of chill wind shot through the gully and he strode to the rise, past Potter, and looked over the slaughterhouse.

The agent noted the state license plate, unhappily speculating as to who the visitor might be, and continued on to the van. "I'd step back," he said. "You're well within rifle range."

The man's large left hand reached out and gripped Potter's arm as they shook. He introduced himself as Roland Marks, the state's assistant attorney general.

Oh, him. Potter recalled the phone conversation earlier. The dusky man gazed at the factory again, still a clear target. "I'd be careful there," Potter repeated impatiently.

"Hell. They have rifles, do they? With laser scopes? Maybe phasers and photon torpedoes. Like
Star Trek
, you know."

I don't have time for this, Potter thought.

The man was tall and large, with a Roman nose, and his presence here was like the blue glow of plutonium in a reactor. Potter said, "One moment please." He stepped inside the command van, lifted an eyebrow.

Tobe nodded toward the slaughterhouse. "As a mouse," he said.

"And the food?"

Budd said it would arrive in a few minutes.

"Marks is outside, Henry. You find anything on him?"

"He's here?" LeBow grimaced. "I made a few calls. He's a hard-line prosecutor. Quick as a whip. Specializes in white-collar crimes. Excellent conviction ratio."

"Take-no-prisoners sort?"

"Exactly. But ambitious. Ran for Congress once. Lost, but still has his eye on Washington, the rumor is. My guess is he's trying to pry some media out of the situation."

Potter had learned long ago that hostage situations are also public relations situations and careers were as much on the line as were human lives. He decided to play Marks carefully.

"Oh, write down that I've translated the message from the hostage. 'Be forewarned.' Assume she's talking about Handy."

LeBow held his eye for a moment. He nodded and turned back to his keys.

Outside again, Potter turned to Marks, the second-most-powerful lawyer in the state. "What can I do for you?"

"So is it true then? What I heard? That he's killed one of them?" Potter nodded slowly. The man closed his eyes and sighed. His mouth tucked into a sorrowful wrinkle. "Why in the name of heaven do a crazy thing like that?"

"His way of telling us he's serious."

"Oh, my good Lord." Marks rubbed his face with large, blunt fingers. "The AG and I've been talking about this at some length, Agent Potter. We've been in a stew about the whole mess and I hightailed it down here to ask if there's anything we can do on the state level. I know about you, Potter. Your reputation. Everybody knows about you, sir."

The agent remained stone-faced. He thought he'd been rude enough on the phone to keep the lawyer out of his life. But it seemed that, to Marks, the earlier conversation had never taken place.

"Play it all close to your chest, do you? But I'd guess you have to. It
is
like playing poker, isn't it. High-stakes poker."

Extreme stakes, Potter thought again, and wished once more that this man would go away. "As I told you I don't really need anything else from the state at the moment. We've got state troopers for containment and I've enlisted Charlie Budd as my second-in-command."

"Budd?"

"You know him?"

"Sure I do. He's a good trooper. And I know all the good troopers." He looked around. "Where are the soldiers?"

"Hostage rescue?"

"I thought for sure they'd be in the thick of things by now."

Potter was still unsure of how the wind from Topeka was blowing. "I'm not using state HRT. The Bureau's team is assembling now and'll be here in the next few hours."

"That's troubling."

"Why's that?" Potter asked innocently, assuming that the man wanted the state rescue team to handle the tactical side.

"You're not thinking of an assault, I hope. Look at the Weaver barricade. Look at Waco. Innocent people killed. I don't want that to happen here."

"No one does. We'll attack only as a last resort."

Marks's boisterous facade fell away and he became deadly serious. "I know you're in charge of the situation, Agent Potter. But I want you to know that the attorney general's position is peaceful resolution at all costs."

Less than four months to the first Tuesday in November, Potter reflected.

"We're hoping things work out peacefully."

"What're his demands?" Marks asked.

Time to tug the leash? Not yet. Potter concluded that an offended Roland Marks could do much harm. "Typical. Chopper, food, ammo. All I'm giving him is food. I'm going to try to get him to surrender or at least get as many girls out as I can before HRT goes in."

He watched Marks's face turn darker than it already was. "I just don't want those little girls hurt."

"Of course not." Potter looked at his watch.

The assistant attorney general continued, "Here's a thought – have him give up the girls and take a chopper. You put one of those clever
Mission
: Impossible
things inside and when they land you nail them."

"No."

"Why not?"

"We never let them go mobile if there's any way to avoid it."

"Don't you read Tom Clancy? There're all sorts of bugs and transponders you can use."

"It's still too risky. There's a known quantity of dead right now. The worst he can do is kill the nine remaining hostages, possibly one or two of the HRT." Marks's eyes widened in shock at this. Potter the cold fish continued, "If he gets out he could kill twice that. Three times, or more."

"He's just a bank robber. Hardly a mass murderer." And how many bodies does it take to qualify somebody as a mass murderer? Potter gazed past the silent combines working their way over hills several miles away. Winter wheat was planted in November, he'd been told by the helicopter pilot, who added that the white man's way of busting sod for wheat planting had mortified the Potawatomi Indians and helped bring on the Depression's dust bowl.

Where was the damn food? Potter thought, now nervous that minutes were slipping past.

"So that's what those girls are then?" Marks asked, none too friendly now. "Acceptable casualties?"

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that."

The door opened and Budd looked out. "That food's almost here, Arthur. Oh, hello, Mr. Marks."

"Charlie Budd. Good luck to you. Tough situation. You'll rise to meet it, though."

"We're doing our best," Budd said cautiously. "Mr. Potter here's really an expert. Agent Potter, I should say."

"I'm going to call in," Marks said. "Brief the governor."

When the limo had vanished, Potter asked Budd, "You know him?"

"Not too well, sir."

"He have an agenda?"

"Suppose he has his eye on Washington in a few years. But he's pretty much a good man."

"Henry thought he might be running for office this fall."

"Don't know 'bout that. But I don't think there's any politics here. His concern'd be the girls. He's a real family man, I heard. A father himself a few times over, all daughters. One of 'em's got some bad health problems so I guess he's feeling this is pretty close to home, those girls being deaf and all."

Potter had noticed Marks's well-worn wedding ring.

"Will he be a problem?"

"I can't imagine how. That way he is, joking and everything, it's kind of a front."

"It's not his sense of humor I'm worried about. How connected is he?"

Budd shrugged. "Oh, well, you know."

"It won't go any further than me, Charlie. I have to know if he can cause us any damage."

"Well, him saying he was going to call the governor? Like they were best buddies?"

"Yes?"

"Doubt the man'll even take his call. See, there're Republicans and then there are
Republicans
."

"Okay, thanks."

"Oh, hey, look, here we go now."

The state police car bounding over the rough road squealed to a stop. But it was not Handy's Big Macs and Fritos. Two women climbed out. Angie Scapello was in a mid-length navy suit, her weapon jutting from the thin blazer and her abundant black hair tumbling to her shoulders. She wore pale sunglasses in turquoise frames. Behind her emerged a young, short-haired brunette in a police uniform.

"Angie." Potter shook her hand. "Meet my right-hand man, Charlie Budd. Kansas State Police. Special Agent Angeline Scapello."

They shook hands and nodded to one another.

Angie introduced the other woman. "Officer Frances Whiting, Hebron PD. She'll be our sign language interpreter." The policewoman shook the men's hands and stole a fast glance at the slaughterhouse, grimaced.

"Please come inside," Potter said, nodding toward the van.

Henry LeBow was pleased by all the data Angie had brought. He rapidly began inputting the information. Potter had been right; the minute she'd heard about the barricade – before the DomTran Gulf-stream was even fueled – she'd spoken with officials at the Laurent Clerc School and started compiling the profiles of the captives.

"Excellent, Angie," LeBow said, typing madly. "You're a born biographer."

She opened another folder, offering the contents to Potter. "Tobe," he asked, "could you please tape these up?" The young agent took the photographs of the girls and pinned them to the corkboard, just above the CAD diagram of the slaughterhouse. Angie had written the names and ages of the girls in the bottom margin in black marker.

Anna Morgan, 7

Suzie Morgan, 7

Shannon Boyle, 8

Kielle Stone, 8

Emily Stoddard, 10

Jocylyn Weiderman, 12

Beverly Klemper, 14

The picture of Susan Phillips remained face-up on the table. "You always do this?" Frances waved at the wall.

Potter, eyes on the pictures, said absently, "You win by having better knowledge than the enemy." He found himself looking at the adorable twins, for they were the youngest. Whenever he thought of children he thought of them as being very young – perhaps because he and Marian never had any – and the image of the son or daughter that might have been was thus frozen in time, as if Potter were perpetually a young husband and Marian his bride of, say, twenty-five.

Look at them, he told himself.
Look at them
. And as if he'd spoken aloud, he realized that everyone except Derek and Tobe, who were hunched over their dials, had paused and was gazing up at the pictures.

Potter asked Angie for information about the girl who was about to be released, Jocylyn Weiderman.

Speaking from memory, Angie said, "Apparently she's a troubled girl. She was postlingually deaf – deaf after she learned to speak. You'd think that would make things easier and it
does
help with learning development. But psychologically what happens is people like that don't take to Deaf culture easily at all. You know what that means? 'Deaf' with a capital D?"

Potter, eye on the slaughterhouse, looking again for Melanie, said he didn't.

Angie lifted an eyebrow to Frances, who explained, "The word 'deaf,' small
d
, is the physical condition of not being able to hear. Deaf, upper-case
D
, is used by the Deaf to signify their community, their culture."

Angie continued, "In terms of Deaf status it's best to be born deaf of deaf parents and to shun all oral skills. If you're born hearing of hearing parents and know how to speak and read lips, you don't have the same status. But even that's a notch above someone deaf trying to pass for hearing – which is what Jocylyn's tried to do."

"So the girl has one strike against her to start with."

"She's been rejected by both the hearing and Deaf worlds. Add to that she's overweight. And has pretty undeveloped social skills. Prime candidate for a panic attack. If that happens Handy might think the girl was attacking him. She might even do it."

Potter nodded, thankful as always that Angie Scapello was assisting the threat management team. Her specialty was hostage psychology – helping them to recover and to remember observations that might be useful in future barricades and preparing former hostages to be witnesses at the trials of their takers.

Several years ago it had occurred to Potter to bring her along during ongoing barricades, analyzing the data that hostages reported and evaluating hostages and takers themselves. She often shared the podium with him when he lectured on negotiation strategy.

Potter observed, "Then we've got to try to keep her calm."

Panic during a hostage exchange was infectious. It often led to fatalities.

The negotiator asked Frances, "Could you teach our trooper something to tell her? Something that might help?"

Frances moved her hands and said, "That means 'Stay calm.' But signing's a very difficult skill to learn quickly and to remember. Slight mistakes change the meaning completely. I'd recommend if you have to communicate, use everyday gestures – for 'come here,' 'go there.' "

"And I'd suggest having him smile," Angie said. "Universal language, smiling. That's just what the girl needs. If he has to say something more complex, maybe write it down?"

Frances nodded. "That's a good idea."

"The reading age of prelingually deaf is sometimes below that of their chronological age. But with Jocylyn being postlingual and" – Angie stole back her notes from Henry LeBow, found what she sought – "and having a high IQ, she can read any commands fine."

"Hey, Derek, got any pens and writing pads?"

"Got 'em both right here," Elb replied, producing a stack of pads and a fistful of big black ink markers.

The agent then asked Angie if she happened to have a picture of the teachers. "No, I… Wait. I think I have one of Melanie Charrol. The younger of them."

She's twenty-five, Potter reminded himself. "We're past the food deadline," Tobe announced.

"Ah, here it is," Angie said, handing him a picture.
Be forewarned
…