Agent Banish turned and met him with his eyes. “That’s why you are wearing a uniform and I am in charge,” he said. “You are dismissed.”
The chief double-taked him. So did just about everyone else. “The hell I am,” said the chief, more surprised than defiant. “That may be all right for the others, but this here’s the Chief of Police.”
Agent Banish said, “This mountain is off a county road. That’s Sheriff Department’s jurisdiction. The U.S. Marshals will escort you and your men to the bridge.”
The chief looked as though he had been punched in the face. He was off the mountain. Just like that. Brian could sense everyone straightening up then. It had become clear to all that Agent Banish had the power of life or death on the mountain. He didn’t have to be pleasant about it, or even fair. The chief had been dismissed. It was unreal.
Agent Banish went on, talking through the rain. “Glenn Alien Ables is a fugitive arms dealer implicated in the murder of a federal official, and it is the determination of the United States Attorney General’s Office that he be brought before the bar of justice. I have been assigned to this mountain to effect his extrication and arrest, and this is a duty from which I cannot and will not be dissuaded or distracted. Two things I do not tolerate: dissension and poor job performance. Is that clear?”
He didn’t seem to require an answer. No one offered one anyway, as the black marshal, who had been silent and mostly still throughout the whole thing, but watchful, all of a sudden started off at a brisk stride. He was holding a fingertip against the white wire in his ear.
“Something down at the barricade,” he said, passing Agent Banish but otherwise ignoring him.
Agent Banish paused a moment, then started off as well, Agent Perkins following behind. Then the sheriff started away too.
Leaving the chief with no one to yell at. Only then did Brian dare to sneak a quick look around. There were maybe five of them left. He shook his blessed head. He had always been lucky. He just hoped none of the others who knew would tell. He felt in his pocket to make sure the ring was still there and slipped it safely back onto his bare finger for now. He looked up into the rain falling out of the black sky. It all seemed pretty crucial to him. Like it could be his big chance right there. Besides, Leslie was only seven months along. And anyway, Brian figured that even if she couldn’t ever forgive him, God certainly would.
Bridge
The number of protesters beyond the barricade had grown to forty. It would continue to rise as the standoff progressed; that was expected. This was something different.
They were gathered in a knot in the center of the road beyond the bridge. Their heads were bowed in the rain and they were silent except for the one voice leading them. They were praying. Old women, skinheads, young couples, children. Individuals wearing paramilitary uniforms with red, white, and blue swastika armbands, right fists raised in Nazi-style salute. All standing reverently, lit by car headlights arranged in a broad semicircle behind them.
The four marshals posted on the bridge looked on silently, shoulders rounded under their ponchos, arms crossed.
Fagin, watching from the Jeep parked in front of Banish, said, “This is the fucking Twilight Zone right here.”
Perkins was in the driver’s seat next to Banish, shaking his head.
Banish kept both hands in his coat pockets. He was shivering a little, due in part to the rain and the cold mountain air. The sheriff’s vehicle rolled up alongside them and Banish looked over at the Indian; for some reason, he did not trust him.
“Locals?” Banish said.
The sheriff looked. “A few.”
That meant trouble. If it were just a local event, then it could be contained. But people traveling across a distance came in groups and invariably brought their own agenda. The situation was developing much more quickly than Banish would have liked.
Fagin said back over his shoulder, “The Klan?”
Perkins liked the easy ones. “The Klan is doing all their fighting in court these days,” he said. “Same barn, different animal. The town of Crater is about an hour’s drive south of here. Headquarters of the White Aryan Resistance. Then there’s a locally based splinter group, smaller, even more radical, calling themselves The Truth. Their aim is to. establish an independent Aryan homeland made up of the five Northwestern states, but we suspect them of pulling a number of recent armored car robberies south of here, and right now can only guess at what the money’s for. Both groups are factions of the pseudo theological supremacist Christian Identity Movement.”
Fagin turned back toward him. “The fuck are we talking about here?”
“A separatist network, loosely organized, but united in principle against nonwhites and Jews and others. This whole stretch of the Rockies no minorities, weak law enforcement — a refuge for outlaws, fanatics, white supremacists.”
Banish again looked at the loose web of police ribbon woven across the bridge front. He closed his eyes. His brain was heavy and felt swollen with blood that needed to be drained off. He wanted out. He needed eight hours of recuperative sleep, but his mind was running too hot already. He hoped for two hours, maybe three.
He opened his eyes. Everything was the same except that the trees seemed closer on either side.
“I want the water supply hit tonight,” he said.
Fagin needed no more than that, jerking his gearshift into first. “I’ll put my best man on it.”
Paradise Point
Fagin hiked the last few steps up the wooded mountain. The rain was stopping now but he could barely tell that from where the hell he was, the excess still dripping off the branches and down through the leaves. Fucking trees, he thought. Fucking Montana.
Taber saw him coming and snapped to attention at the rope line. Fagin recognized the fear and eager respect he was accustomed to seeing in the faces of his younger marshals. He handed Taber his Remington 700 sniper rifle and began buckling the rope harness over his shoulders, around his waist, between his legs. Tight fucking thing. Like a goddamn baby seat.
“Outhouse clear?” he said.
Taber snapped, “Yes sir.”
Fagin took the Remington back and slung it over his shoulder. He handed Taber his ball cap “Gimme your NVD,” he said.
Taber unstrapped his helmet and handed it over. Fucking unwieldy thing. But what was another four or five pounds.
Fagin let his weight stretch the rope taut, then he yanked on the give line and whoosh. The counterweight dropped and his feet left the ground and he rode the pulley rope thirty yards straight up the side of the debranched oak. The harness hit the sheave at the top and stopped with a jerk, and big drops of rain from the highest wet leaves fell on him like a flock-load of bird shit, pelting his jumpsuit uniform. Fagin swore quietly into the night. He found the wooden platform sniper’s nest beneath him with his right foot and unbuckled himself and stood free.
He was up in the tree line above the mountain. Fucking thin air, Jesus Christ. The platform was not large, but the tree trunk provided a nice brace. There was a light, chill breeze, the high branches swishing all around him, but it would not be a factor. In the jungle twenty years before, he had humped a .50-cal M-2 on a tripod and splashed down VC guerrillas in rice paddies at ranges of greater than 2200 yards. For this right here, he hadn’t even wasted his time zeroing the Remington. A 7.26 round traveling some 50 yards at 2800 feet per second just didn’t fucking care. He was there to do some damage.
He looked up overhead. Good Jesus fucking Christ. Fucking stars. All over the place, constellations of them, blinking like fireflies in a motherfucking darkroom. Obscene. And no fucking moon. What the fuck kind of place was this? There were stars in L.A. too, all they did was stop traffic. How the fuck did people get any sleep here? Maybe that’s what it was — fucking stars kept them up all night, drove them all fucking goofy. Made them dress up in Nazi costumes and stand out in the rain saying prayers for their fugitive neighbors.