Virgil sat in the open door of the barn's hayloft, feet dangling, eating a bologna sandwich provided by the taxpayers, two other agents chewing along with him, talking about the fight, when Gomez walked up on the ground and called, "Let's go to town. TV is waiting."
"Fuck you," Virgil called back.
"I knew you'd say that. I talked to Davenport, and he says he wants to see your happy face on all channels, thanking the governor for this opportunity to take crime fighting into the sticks."
"Fuck Davenport," Virgil said.
"Get your ass down here. I'm too tired to fool around." Gomez walked away, stopped to talk to Stryker. Virgil stood up, dusted off the seat of his pants, picked up a half-drunk bottle of Pepsi, and stepped toward the ladder.
One of the agents, the Latino-looking New Yorker who'd given Virgil a hard time about his T-shirt, said, "Virgil. We owe you. Puttin' those guys in the truck and taking them out of the yard. We pay. You ever need help on anything… you call us. No bullshit."
The other agent nodded, said through a mouthful of Wonder Bread and bologna, "Anything."
GOMEZ AND STRYKER rode to Bluestem with Virgil, in the shot-up Ford, trailed by two more agents in one of the north-crew trucks. They'd both been back and forth since the killing of Feur. The two badly wounded DEA agents were still alive. One would probably make it, the other probably not; two more, whom Virgil didn't know, were less seriously wounded, and almost everybody was scratched and pitted by rocks, dust, and pieces of metal.
Pirelli was screwed up, but not terminally. A slug had busted up his shoulder joint, and putting that back together would be tough. His broken arm was another problem, and would take a while to heal.
"AND JUDD," Stryker said. "Where is that asshole?"
A DEA arrest team had gone after Judd as the raid on the farm was taking place, but hadn't been able to find him. His car was at his office, the door was unlocked, but there was no sign of Judd.
"This bothers me," Virgil said. "Why would he be gone?"
"Tipped?" Gomez asked.
"By who? One of your guys? When Pirelli called me, Jim and I were together, and we were together every inch of the way. Neither one of us called anyone."
Stryker nodded; Gomez said, "Maybe…I don't know."
GOMEZ ASKED, "You got a better shirt than that?"
"And another jacket," Virgil said. "We can stop at the motel."
"Keep the jacket; I don't want you guys washed up," Gomez said. "I want you looking messed up, but the T-shirt is too much. Looks crazy, given all the dead people."
"I got a black AC/DC shirt that should be perfect," Virgil said.
"Virgil."
"I take care of myself," Virgil said. "Stop worrying about it."
They stopped for two minutes at the hotel, Virgil pulled on a plain olive-drab T-shirt that gave him a vaguely military look, and Gomez said, "Not bad."
Stryker said, "Hell of a day." He had three little pockmarks on his left cheek, showing blood. He wasn't cleaning that up, either.
A DEA INFORMATION specialist had flown in from the Twin Cities and set up the press conference at the courthouse, the same room where Virgil and Stryker had been after the killing of the Schmidts.
More media this time: a half-dozen trucks, including freelance network feeds going up from satellite trucks parked in the courthouse yard. Too late for the evening news, but the late news would get it, the cable channels, and the morning network shows.
Gomez led the way: gave a terse, five-minute briefing, using the satellite photo of the farm, an outline of the fight, starting with the attack of the dogs-compressed the time a bit between the first shots at the dogs, and the fire from the house-and ending with the shootings of Feur and the man they still called John. He showed off a gas can full of glass tubes of methamphetamine, and allowed the best-looking media lady to handle one of them, holding it up to the lights for the cameras.
While she was doing it, Virgil noticed Joan and Jesse at the back of the room, looking at him and Stryker with deep skepticism. They were standing next to Williamson, who turned repeatedly to Jesse, talking at her, teeth showing.
At the very end, Gomez pulled Virgil and Stryker in front of the cameras and said, "We'd particularly like to thank Sheriff James Stryker, who as you can see was mildly wounded while suppressing the fire from the farmhouse, and Virgil Flowers, of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, who risked his own life to save the lives of two of our wounded men. Damnedest thing I ever saw, when Virgil backed that truck out of the yard. These are two good guys."
Virgil was genuinely embarrassed, but the media were happy, given local heroes in what otherwise might have been interpreted as a fuckup, with six or seven people dead, and five in the hospital.
After the briefing, the questions started, a few of them hostile, but Gomez was a pro. He turned the hostility back on the questioners, pointing out that they'd seized enough meth to save several hundred lives, "including that of young men and women; methamphetamine is one of the drugs of choice in our public schools."
Williamson had one question for Virgiclass="underline" "Is this the end of the murder epidemic in Bluestem? Were the Gleasons, the Schmidts, Bill Judd Sr., were they all killed by Feur and his men? And what was the connection?"
"I'd like to answer that question, but I can't, because I don't know the answer," Virgil said. "As far as I'm concerned, the investigation continues."
Davenport called on Virgil's cell as he was shouldering his way out of the press conference: "You did good," Davenport said. "Now-when are you going to collect the nut job?"
JESSE AND JOAN were waiting on the sidewalk outside, along with Laura Stryker and a dozen people from the town. Joan said, "What the heck were you guys doing out there?"
Stryker snapped at her: "Our job. I'm the sheriff of this county. They didn't hire me to catch a bunch of dogs."
There was a murmur of approval from the crowd, and Joan said, fists on her hips, "So now there are dead people everywhere and you've got blood all over you…"
Jesse was as angry as Joan, and it occurred to Virgil that they'd make good sisters-in-law. Virgil said, "I've got to go," and he walked past them out to his truck, did a U-turn, and drove over to the hospital. A couple of sheriff's cars were still parked outside the emergency entrance, cops on the lookout for any further trouble. Inside, Pirelli was out of it, sound asleep, one arm and shoulder encased in fiberglass, one leg bandaged and elevated.
A DEA guy in the hall said, "Virgil," and Virgil asked, "How are they?"
"Hangin' in there. I think…Doug made it this far, I think he's going to hold on."
"Prayin' for them," Virgil said, though he wasn't, because he didn't think prayer would help. He went back to the motel.
JOAN WAS COMING down the hall from the direction of his room, saw him, and asked, "Are you pissed at me?"
"Mildly," he said. "I don't need to take any shit about what happened today. Either to Jim or me or even the dead guys. It just happened-it's nobody's fault but Feur's, and he paid for it."
"We were scared," she said.
"That's okay. I don't want to hear about it. Tomorrow, you can tell me all about being scared."
She touched his hair, with the matted blood. "I could wash your hair out for you. That's going to hurt."
"You could do that," he said.
THEY SNUGGLED UP on the bed, no sex, just snuggling, Virgil full of Aleve, his hair wet, and she said, "In the press conference, when you said you didn't know if the killing was all done…what you meant was, it isn't."