A man in an FBI windbreaker was kneeling in the dark at the edge of the kill zone and Fagin thought at first that it was Banish, but upon closer examination saw that it was someone else, an agent in headphones mounting a microphone gun with a parabolic dish. Banish was crouched just beyond him, finishing his bullshit bullhorn spiel. “... lay down your weapons and come out with your hands clasped firmly behind your head.” He lowered the bullhorn and waited then. “Anything?” he said.
The agent in the headphones was kneeling perfectly still, staring at the ground. “Some scurrying,” he said, in inflected Virginian, the accent of preference both for FBI agents and astronauts. “But nothing clear. Those walls may be thicker than we thought.”
Fagin squinted into the dark distance. Somewhere among the trees in the starlight before the black cutout of the cabin sat the black plastic phone briefcase, like a big fat fucking piece of cheese.
“So here we are,” said Fagin, implying the scope of things. No use fucking around anymore. “You turned a dog-and-pony act into a fucking three-ring circus. Now what?”
Banish stood without turning to look back at Fagin. “Have your men switch off their NVDs.”
Fagin scowled. He shook his head in disgust, but it was wasted because all he had was Banish’s back. He flicked on his shoulder radio. “This is Fagin,” he said. “Everybody click off. Repeat, everybody. We’re gonna have a show here.”
Banish remained looking straight ahead, waiting another good half a minute, looking for the cabin through the black trees or maybe just watching the night sky. If he wasn’t doing it solely to piss Fagin off or to prove how in charge he was, then he was a mope pure and simple. Finally Banish turned his head. He raised his left hand.
Loud metallic clanks sounded all around the mountaintop as switches were thrown and six big stadium lights flashed on, showering the cabin in near daylight. Fagin squinted and raised a gloved hand as his pupils contracted. The lights appeared to be evenly spaced in a wide half-circle, set on raised standards around the convex perimeter of the no-man’s-land, and humming. The lit area was washed out and nearly shadowless, the cabin now made plain through the trees.
“That’s good,” Fagin said. “You’re pissing into the fucking wind. And you got me standing right behind you.”
Banish’s back was in silhouette, the trees and the super bright cabin beyond him, as though he were standing in front of a picture. “Has he broken the phone?” Banish said.
Fagin was still squinting.
“Has he shot at the phone?” Banish said.
Fagin frowned. “Not yet.”
Banish nodded. “He’ll talk,” he said. “They always do.”
Then Perkins came up behind Fagin in a hurry. He had run up the mountain and was trying to mask the fact that he was sorely out of breath. “More trouble down at the barricade,” he huffed.
Banish stood there, thinking about it some more — fucking mope. He turned finally and looked back at the agent wearing the headphones. “We’ll have some more music,” he decided. Fagin watched him start back down the mountain with desk agent Perkins. Then the fucking music started up again. Jesus fucking Christ—
Bridge
Used to be, news happened and then it was reported. And that had seemed fair. If a person caught a big fish, there’d be a picture in the newspaper the next day of that person standing on the dock next to his strung-up prize. Before-and-after seemed like the natural progression of a story.
Sheriff Blood looked at the scene being played out beyond the narrow creek bed not twenty yards away. He had always detested the local Montana news programs. Didn’t favor the network news much either, but they had less time for shenanigans. He bristled at the idea of creating news, but that’s what these people did and that’s what they were doing now. They used cameras like sticks, turning them on people and prodding at them. And satellite dishes like sirens. Just after nightfall they had turned their camera lights on the protesters gathered on the far side of the bridge. They wanted a show and they were going to get one. No sense waiting around to see if any fish swam by. They were chumming the waters. They were scooping out blood and guts and dragging a wide net.
There was, of course, another ingredient going here. Whiskey and beer made instant problem-solvers out of the most irascible characters. The Great Clarifier imparted to them the strength and conviction to act decisively upon solutions which just that moment were themselves revealed. That was when your bar fight or homicide or domestic disturbance was most likely to occur.
Some words rose up distinctly above the din. “Get out of our backyards!” they yelled. “Pigs!” And again and again, from one gang of young, angry, swaying men: “The Truth! The Truth!”
“Jesus Christ,” said Brian Kearney, watching the crowd all of a sudden surge toward the bridge again. He was gap-mouthed. The marshals who had relieved him of his position on the bridge front were fast-talking into their shoulders, rifles drawn and ready. The convention of protesters had become a legitimate mob.
Lights, people, noise. It was all a great big carnival freak show The federal government was the Man with One Hundred Arms, and Glenn Ables was the barker. Kearney could have been holding a pink beehive of cotton candy as he pointed in amazement to a person by the left side of the bridge. “Sheriff,” he said. “That guy just chained himself to a tree.”
Near the man were a group of people holding up a banner:
“Environmentalists,” explained Blood.
Kearney was staring at the scene. “Is everybody gone completely off their nut?”
Blood took another sip of coffee and waved away a whirring buffalo fly. A thrown egg landed near them with a dull splush. Blood admired the slanted shape it made, and the manner of its oozing.
“Yep,” he said.
Headlights sprayed the crowd then. A Jeep pulled up behind and Kearney turned and so did Blood. It was Banish and Perkins, Perkins driving. Perkins’s eyes stayed wide and on the crowd as he stepped out of the Jeep. Banish watched them with more detached concern, sizing up the crowd like a shop owner watching a big sale going on across the street.
Kearney met them first. “There’s been some drinking,” he explained. He might also have let slip that the earth was round. He handed Banish some of the handbills and newsletters being distributed behind the lines, racist things home-printed under such jagged headings as The Covenant.
Perkins surveyed the swelling mob scene. “Jackals,” he said. “Brownshirts.”
Banish barely glanced at the handbills Kearney had given him. “What set them off?” he said.
“I’d say it was what just happened with the Mellises,” said Kearney. When the agents didn’t respond immediately, he added, “Charles Mellis’s parents.” But they were just waiting. They weren’t looking for a conversation. Banish seemed to be counting heads.