Talley knew that the television cameras would be trained on the firefighters. He wanted everyone’s attention on the front of the house, not the rear. He didn’t want the Watchman seeing this on television.
“What’s going on?”
“Do it!”
Talley pushed Jones and the surviving man to the rear of the house. The fire was consuming the house; wallpaper was peeling off the walls and chunks of drywall fell from the hall ceiling. When they reached the French doors, Talley changed his radio to the Sheriff’s command frequency and told the officers on the back wall to kill their lights. The backyard plunged into darkness. Talley pushed the two men outside and hustled them straight to the wall. When the Sheriff’s sergeant-supervisor saw that Talley had two FBI agents bound, he said, “What the fuck’s going on?”
“Help me get these guys over.”
Mikkelson and Dreyer were climbing out of their car by the time Talley jumped to the ground.
The SWAT officers stared at Jones and the other man. Here they were, the backs of their vests blazoned with a huge white FBI, cuffed and dragged over the wall. The sergeant again asked Talley what was happening, but Talley ignored him.
“Martin’s inside. The second floor. She’s been shot.”
Talley got the response he wanted. The SWAT cops poured over the wall and rushed toward the house.
Talley shoved his prisoners toward Mikkelson’s car.
Jones said, “You’re finished, Talley.”
“I’m not the guy with his hands tied.”
“You know what he’s going to do, don’t you? You understand that?”
“I’ve got the disks, you motherfucker. We’ll see how much your boss wants them now.”
When Mikkelson saw the two FBI agents, she pooched out her lips in confusion.
“Jesus. Did I miss something here?”
“These people aren’t FBI.”
Talley pushed the first man into the backseat of their car, then shoved Jones against the fender.
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know. I’m not part of that.”
“Then where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s his name?”
“It doesn’t work like that, Talley. He’s a voice on the phone.”
Talley searched Jones’s pockets as he spoke, and found Jones’s cell phone. He pressed star 69, but nothing happened.
“Shit!”
He pushed the cell phone in Jones’s face.
“What’s his number?”
“I don’t know any more than you.”
Talley kneed him in the stomach.
Dreyer said, “Holy shit.”
Talley slammed Jones into the car.
“You fucking well know his number!”
“I want to talk to an attorney.”
Talley kneed him again, doubling Jones over. Mikkelson and Dreyer squirmed uneasily.
“Ah, Chief …”
“These bastards have my family.”
Talley cocked the .45 and pressed it into Jones’s cheek.
“We’re talking about my wife and daughter, you sonofabitch. You think I won’t kill you?”
Talley wasn’t on Flanders Road anymore; he had stepped into the Zone. It was a place of white noise where emotions reigned and reason was meager. Anger and rage were nonstop tickets; panic was an express. He had been all day coming to this, and here he was: The SWAT guys used to talk about it. You went to the Zone, you lost your edge. You’d lose your career; you’d get yourself killed, or, worse, somebody else.
Talley bent Jones backward across the trunk of the car. He had to reach the Watchman, and this man knew how. He didn’t have time to wait for the Watchman to call. He needed the Watchman off guard. Time was his enemy.
“He calls me. Just like with you.”
Talley’s head throbbed. He told himself to shoot the sonofabitch, put one in his shoulder joint and make him scream. Mikkelson’s voice came from far away.
“Chief?”
The white noise cleared and Talley stepped back from the Zone. He lowered his gun. He wasn’t like them.
Jones glanced away. Talley thought he seemed embarrassed.
“I don’t call him. He calls me, just like with you. That’s how they stay safe. Just hang on to the phone. He’ll call.”
Talley stared at Jones’s phone, then dropped it to the street and crushed it. He had the Nokia, but if it rang, he would not answer it. If the Watchman placed the call, the Watchman would expect him to answer. Talley didn’t want to do what the Watchman expected.
“Put him in a cell with the others.”
Everything seemed like it was ending even before it began. He couldn’t stop now. Once you breached the structure, you pressed on until the end. If you stopped, you died.
Smith would know. They trusted Smith with their closest secrets. It had all come back to Smith again.
“Where are the kids?”
“Cooper has them with the paramedics. They’re okay. We finally got the mother, Chief. She’s flying back from Florida.”
“Tell Cooper to meet me at the hospital. Tell him to bring the children.”
Talley wiped the smoke from his eyes as he looked back at the house. The fire was eating its way through the roof. Tongues of flame lapped beneath the eaves even as silver rainbows of water arced over the house. Talley could smell the fire on his skin and in his clothes. He smelled like a funeral pyre.
KEN SEYMORE
Seymore was trading Adderall for cold dim sum with a news crew from Los Angeles when a string of dull pops snapped from the direction of the house. The Los Angeles remote producer, a skinny kid with a goatee and no life experience, stopped his discourse on news selection as a political vehicle.
“What was that?”
Ken Seymore recognized the sound right away: gunfire.
Seymore knew that Howell hadn’t launched the breach, because Howell would have told him. He trotted to the nearest news van to find out what was happening. The tech there monitored a police scanner tuned to the Sheriff’s tactical frequency.
“You guys get anything on that?”
The tech waved him silent. He listened to the scanner with a bug in his ear, because their news director didn’t want anyone else to hear.
“They called up the fire company. The goddamned house is on fire.”
“What was the shooting?”
“That was gunfire?”
“Hell, yes.”
The tech waved Seymore quiet again and tuned his receiver, working through the frequencies.
“The SWAT team went in. Shit, they got casualties. It sounds like they got the kids. Yeah, the kids are coming out.”
The technician pulled the plug from his ear and shouted for his producer.
A heavy column of smoke rose into the light from the helicopters, and then another string of pops echoed over the neighborhood.
Seymore took out his phone.
GLEN HOWELL
The local stations resumed live coverage because of the fire. Flames lapped from the windows on the left side of the house, but the fire at the rear, back by the pool, was going pretty good. Fire crews hosed the roof and shadows ran along the perimeter, but the aerial shot was so murky that Howell couldn’t tell who was who or what was happening, just that everything was going to hell.
“You sure Jones’s people got hit?”
“They said it was FBI, so it hadda be Jones’s guys. We’re getting this shit off the scanner.”
“They get the disks?”
“I don’t know. It’s happening right now; no one’s talking to us.”
“Why the fuck did they go in?”
“I thought you gave’m the green light.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“Hang on a sec; there’s more traffic on the scanner. Okay, they’re saying two FBI agents came out and both kids. The kids are out.”
Howell tried to stay calm.
“Who’s in the fuckin’ house?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is Jones still in the goddamned house?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where’s Talley?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re paid to know, goddamnit. That’s why you’re there.”
Howell broke the connection, then punched in Jones’s number. The phone rang once, then a computer voice came on telling him that the user had left the service area or turned off his phone. Howell called Martin. He let her phone ring fifteen times, and finally hung up.