Left to his own devices, Horace would have simply sealed off the area and waited out the defenders. But pressure was coming, he believed, all the way from the White House. Get it done.
He didn’t like the combat area. The defenses looked out over flat ground with no cover. It was a killing zone.
His most practical tactic was to attack the mounds with the Blackhawks and try to drive the defenders into the pit. Or sow enough confusion to cover a landing.
Elizabeth Silvera had taken her post, with Chief Doutable and half a dozen police officers armed with rifles, on the escarpment about a quarter-mile west of the top of the access road. The position was exposed, should the Sioux begin shooting, but it offered an excellent view of the defenders across the top of the excavation. The mounds were in shadow, and Sky had erected tarpaulins on a framework of wooden parts to prevent his people from being silhouetted against the glow from the Roundhouse. But it was a clear night and there was a bright moon. A reconnaissance helicopter had been doing occasional sweeps and now hovered over the north side of the escarpment.
Doutable had been relieved to learn that the SOG team would not ask for, and did not want, armed assistance. All they needed from local police was an assurance that no unauthorized persons would wander onto the escarpment. That was shorthand for the media.
Elizabeth knew that when it came, it would be very quick. She’d been through something like this once before with Gibson. She was waiting now for a coded report that would give her the time of the assault and provide any special instructions the commander would have for her. Doutable was saying something that she wasn’t really listening to when she became aware of the sound of another aircraft.
It wasn’t one of the Blackhawks.
That was strange. There shouldn’t have been anyone in the sky over the ridge except marshals.
A gray propeller-driven plane was approaching from the south. She raised her binoculars. It carried U.S. military markings.
“What the hell’s going on?” she muttered to herself, and switched on her link to the helicopter. “Bolt One,” she said. “This is Reluctant. We’ve got an intruder.”
“I see him,” came the response.
“Warn him away.”
“Reluctant, I have been trying to talk to him for about a minute. He does not respond.”
The plane was down low and coming fast.
“Please advise, Reluctant.”
“Warn him to leave the area or be fired on.”
“That’s a roger.”
The Blackhawk was keeping pace with the gray plane, riding about a thousand feet above it.
“Reluctant, that’s an old Avenger,” said the helicopter. “World War II fighter.” Another pause. “He does not answer.”
“Who is it?” she asked. “Is there an ID?”
The helicopter relayed its tail number, which Doutable scribbled down. “Give me a minute,” he said. He gave the number to one of the cruisers.
The Avenger was coming in on the deck.
Gibson came on the circuit. “Bolt One,” he said. “Fire a warning round.”
The Blackhawk fired in front of the vintage aircraft, directly across its line of sight. The Avenger wavered slightly but kept coming.
“It belongs to a guy named Tom Lasker,” said Doutable. “The plane’s based at Fort Moxie.”
“Lasker,” she said. “I know him. He’s the guy with the boat.”
At that moment the Avenger roared over the trenches. Part of it seemed to fall away. It banked west and started gaining altitude.
“Bolt One,” she said, “break off.” She turned to Doutable. “Have someone waiting for him when he lands. I think we’ll want to talk to him.”
“It dropped something,” said one of the police officers.
Elizabeth turned her binoculars on the excavation.
“Reluctant, this is Bolt One. The Indians have come out of their hole. They’re looking for something.”
“Roger.”
“There are two of them out front, beyond the ring of ditches. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.” He nodded. “Whatever it is, I think they’ve found it.”
Elizabeth watched through her own binoculars while the Sioux retreated back into the crosswork of ditches and mounds. What was so important that Lasker was willing to challenge a Blackhawk?
Max, of course, had recognized the Avenger immediately, and he had watched the drama from his car, cringing, waiting for the helicopter to take Lasker out.
But it had not happened. And now he sat with his engine running, anxious to be away. He was angry, and his conscience was eating at him, digesting him whole. But he had already put his life on the line once for this project, had gone into that goddamn yellow light with no assurance it wouldn’t just turn him into a cloud of atoms. Now they were all looking at him as if he were Benedict Arnold. Someone not fit to be seen with.
Well, not all of them. Only April, actually. But that was the one that hurt. She’d still have been sitting on that beach if Max hadn’t gone after her.
He sympathized with Adam and the others. But this wasn’t his fight. If she wanted to throw her life away, that was up to her. He had no intention of getting killed over it. None. But the way she had looked at him when he said he was leaving—
Son of a bitch.
He turned on his headlights and started moving slowly toward the access road. He knew the police were over there, and he could assume they were armed and probably a little nervous. That was risk enough for him.
But he saw movement behind him.
Someone waving. Adam.
Max slowed down, circled, and started back.
“Max.” Adam came abreast of the car. “Can you do something for us?”
Max squirmed. “What was Tom doing here?” he asked.
Adam held out a piece of paper. “Delivering this.”
Max held it close to his map light. It was from William Hawk.
Chairman:
Your people are coming. Two charter flights inbound to Grand Forks at about 11:00 P.M. I am sending escort.
Max looked up. “What’s this? Reinforcements?”
“Some people the Chairman thinks can stop this.”
Max sighed. “I hate to say this, but the chairman’s losing it.”
“Maybe,” said Adam. “But it’s all we have. There are twelve or thirteen people coming in on the two flights.”
“The problem is,” said Max, “that even if they could help, you can’t get them here.”
“That’s right. The roads are blocked.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“Fly them in,” said Adam. “Talk to your friends at Blue Jay. Rent a couple of helicopters.”
“You’re crazy. Blue Jay’s not going to fly anybody in here. They damned near shot Tom down.”
“They’re friends of yours,” said Adam. “Offer them a lot of money. Make it worth their while.”
Max sat staring over the top of his steering wheel at the dark patch of woods that masked the access road. One of the police cruisers had turned on its blinker. Otherwise, nothing was moving.
“I’ll do what I can,” he said.
Police were waiting for him at the top of the access road. They held him while one of the cars that had been parked out on the escarpment approached and stopped. Elizabeth Silvera. “Nice to see you, Mr. Collingwood. Would you step out of the car, please?”
He complied.
“Is anyone else going to leave?”
“Don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think so.”
“How about Cannon?”
“She thinks you people are going to destroy the Roundhouse.”
“I take it that’s a no.”
“That’s a no.” Max folded his arms, defensively because he had been in the company of people who were challenging duly constituted authority, guiltily because he was abandoning his friends.
“What have they got up there?” she asked, softening her tone, adapting an almost cordial we’re-all-in-this-together demeanor.