A Maiden's Grave (29 page)

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

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

"Single-file?"

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

"It's -"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Alpha. Armed."

''Bravo. Armed."

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

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

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

If he lived to later.

No time, no time at all…

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

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

Sixty yards, fifty.

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

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

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

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

No movement inside the slaughterhouse.

Oh, please…

"Lou!"

Silence. Except for the urgent wind.

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

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

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

Nothing… silence.

Somebody please…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The electronic sound of a ringing phone filled the van.

No answer.

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

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

Answer the damn phone!

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

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

"He
what
?"

LeBow explained.

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

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

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

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

"Captain!" Marks roared.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What?" Tremain stared at the newscast.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ever done anything bad, Art?

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

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

"Downlink," Tobe called.

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

"Lou?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes, we do, Lou."

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

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

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

Or go totally nuts.

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

Angie was frowning.

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

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

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

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

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

Only too well.

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

Emily?

Donna Harstrawn?

Beverly?

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