Handy stared at the room – the older woman, lying curled into a ball. The gasping girl and the pretty girl. And then there was Melanie, who stared back with eyes that tried to be defiant but were just plain scared. Then he realized something.
"Where," Handy said softly, "are the little ones?"
He gazed at two empty pairs of black patent-leather shoes.
Wilcox spat out, "Son of a bitch." He ran into the hallway, following the tiny footprints in the dust.
Melanie put her arms around the girl with the asthma and cowered against the wall. Just then Bonner came around the corner and stopped. "Hey, buddy." He blinked uneasily, looking at Handy's face.
"Where are they, you fuck?"
"Who?"
"The little girls. The twins?"
"I -" Bonner recoiled. "I was watching 'em. All this time. I swear."
"All this time?"
"I took a piss is all. Look, Lou. They gotta be here someplace. We'll find 'em." The big man swallowed uneasily.
Handy glared at Bonner, who started toward Melanie, shouting, "Where the fuck are they?" He pulled his pistol from his pocket and walked up to her.
"Lou!" Wilcox was calling from the main room. "Jesus Christ."
"What?" Handy screamed, spinning around. "What the fuck is it?"
"We got a worse problem than that. Look here."
Handy hurried back to Wilcox, who was pointing at the TV.
"Holy Christ. Potter, that lying son of a bitch!"
On the screen: A newscast, showing the perfect telephoto image of the front and side of the slaughterhouse. The reporters had snuck through the police line and had set up the camera on something close and tall – maybe that old windmill just to the north. The camera was a little shaky but there was no doubt that they were looking at a fucking SWAT trooper at a front window – only twenty feet away from where Handy and Wilcox now stood.
"Is that more there?" Wilcox cried. He pointed to some bumps in a gully to the north of the slaughterhouse.
"Could be. Shit yes. Must be a dozen of them."
The newscaster said, "It looks like an assault could be imminent…"
Handy looked up at the fire door on the north side of the factory. They'd wedged it shut but he knew that explosive charges could take it down in seconds. He shouted to Bonner, "Get that scatter gun, we got a firefight."
"Shit." Bonner pulled the slide back on the Mossberg, let it snap back.
"The roof?" Wilcox asked.
Those were the only two ways a hostage rescue team could get in quickly – the side door and the roof. The loading dock was too far back. But as he stared at the ceiling he saw a thick network of ducts and vents and conveyors. Even if they blew through the roof itself they'd have to cut through those utility systems.
Handy glanced out over the field in front of the slaughterhouse. Aside from the trooper by the window – hidden from the police lines by the school bus – no other cops seemed to be approaching from that direction.
"They're coming through that side door there."
Handy moved slowly toward the window where the trooper was hiding. He gestured to Wilcox's gun. The lean man grinned and pulled his pistol from his belt, pulled the slide, chambering a round.
"Go behind him," Handy whispered. "Other window. Get his attention."
Wilcox nodded, dropped suddenly to his belly, and crawled off to the far window. Handy too crawled – to the open window outside of which the trooper was hiding. Wilcox put his mouth next to a hole in a shattered pane and gave the warble of a wild turkey. Handy couldn't suppress his smile.
When Wilcox warbled again Handy looked outside quickly. He saw the trooper, only two feet away, turning toward the sound in confusion. Handy reached out the window, grabbed the trooper's helmet, and, jerking hard, lifted him off the ground. The man let go of his machine gun, which dangled from his shoulder by a leather thong, and grasped Handy's wrists, struggling fiercely as the helmet strap choked him. Wilcox leapt to Handy's side and together they muscled the trooper through the window.
As Handy held him in a full nelson Wilcox kicked him in the groin and pulled his machine gun, pistol, and grenades away. He crumpled and fell to the floor.
"You son of a bitch," Handy raged, kicking the man violently. "Lemme look at you!" He ripped off the trooper's helmet, hood, and goggles. He bent his face low. Handy pulled his knife from his pocket and flicked it open, held the blade against the young man's cheek. "Shoot me in the back? That's the kind of balls you have? Come up behind a man like a fucking nigger!"
The trooper struggled. Handy slashed the knife downward, drawing a streak of blood along his jawline. He slammed his fist into the man's face once, then again, a dozen times, stepped away and turned back, kicking him in the belly and groin.
"Hey, Lou, take it -"
"Fuck him! He was going to shoot me in the back! He was going to shoot me in the fucking back! Is that what kind of man you are? That's what you think of honor?"
"Fuck you," the trooper gasped, rolling on the floor, helpless. Handy turned him over, slugged him in the lower back, handcuffed him with the boy's own cuffs.
"Where are the rest of 'em?" Handy poked the knife into the trooper's thigh, a shallow cut. "Tell me!" he raged. He pushed further. The man screamed.
Handy leaned his face close, inches away from the trooper's face.
"Straight to hell, Handy. That's where you can go."
The knife slipped further in. Another scream. Handy reached out and touched a tiny sphere of the tear. It clung to his finger, which he lifted to his tongue. Pushed the knife into the thigh a little bit more. More screaming.
Let's see when this boy breaks.
"Oh, Jesus," the man moaned.
Have to happen sooner or later. Just work our way north with this little bit o' Buck steel and see when he starts squealing. He begun to saw slowly with the blade, working his way toward the trooper's groin.
"I don't know where the rest of 'em are! I'm just fucking reconnaissance."
Handy suddenly got tired of the knife and beat him again with his fist, angrier than ever. "How many? Where're they coming in through?"
The trooper spat on his leg.
And suddenly Handy was back years ago, seeing Rudy sneer at him – well, it was probably a sneer. Seeing him turn away, Handy's two hundred dollars in his brother's wallet – he thought it was there, probably was. Seeing Rudy walk away like Handy was a piece of dried shit. The anger cutting through him like a carbon-steel blade in somebody's hot belly.
"Tell me!" he screamed. His fist rose again and again and smashed into the trooper's face. Finally, he stood back. "Fuck him. Fuck 'em all." Handy ran into the killing room and tipped the pot containing the gasoline over. The room filled with the chill liquid, splashing on the women and girls. Melanie the scared mouse-cunt pulled them into a corner but still they were doused.
Handy held the trooper's submachine gun toward the side door. "Shep, they're gonna come through there fast. As soon as they do I'm going to shoot a couple of 'em in the legs. You pitch that" – nodding at the grenade – "into the room, set off the gas. I want to keep some of them cops alive to tell everybody what happened to those girls. What it looked like when they burnt up."
"Yo, homes. You got it." Wilcox pulled the pin out of the smooth black grenade and, holding the delay handle, stepped into the doorway of the killing room. Handy pulled back the bolt of the H amp;K, aimed it at the door.
"Arthur, we have some movement by the window," Dean Stillwell said over the radio. "The one second to the left from the front door."
Potter acknowledged his transmission and looked out the window with field glasses. His vision of that window was blocked by the school bus and a tree.
"What was it, Dean?"