Another marshal said, “What do you mean?”
“I mean deaths. Hostage deaths. Him blowing the whole thing.”
“You gotta be shitting.”
Then something Blood couldn’t quite hear. Then:
“I hear he drinks.”
“Get the fuck out.”
“No, wait,” said a new voice, indignant. “I seen him taking brew away from some state troopers today.”
Kearney’s eyes started to glow.
“Probably got into his private cabinet.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“The selfish bastard.”
Kearney put down his fork. He placed his hands flat on the tabletop and made as though he was going to stand. Blood rose just slightly ahead of him, grasping his wrist.
“Let it go,” Blood told him. “Not your fight.”
It was just a few marshals talking. All were listening, but most of them probably only because they had to, because it was their necks on the line, not because they enjoyed gossip or wanted to hear. There was one talker who seemed to be the ringleader and Blood picked him out from among the others, set back from the bench, holding court. Blood looked around and saw Perkins too, hanging off to one side but well within listening range, not busying himself, not even moving, not doing a damn thing.
Kearney was glowering. To him it was something more than blatant disrespect, beyond outright offense.
“I heard they couldn’t can him, so they stuck him out in some dry prairie town where he wouldn’t hurt no one. They buried the fucking guy.”
“Then what the hell’s he doing mixed up in this?”
“Good question. A good fucking question.”
Another new voice, doubting. “How do you say you know all this?”
But over him, someone else snapping his fingers in emphasis, rising to the emotion. “This guy could go at any minute—”
“That’s not half of it. He did time in a fucking hospital. That’s right — but not just any hospital either.”
Kearney’s eyes were burning right through Blood.
Reactions now. Another voice. “The fuck you talking about?”
“I’m telling you, this guy’s three bricks short, he’s crazy—”
Kearney shot upright. Before Blood could stop him, he had turned and stepped over the seat bench and was now facing the wide double row of U.S. Marshals. Blood rose behind him.
“Who said that?” Kearney said. His fists were at his sides.
The marshals all stopped and looked over at him. Nobody said anything, but Kearney must have picked out the ringleader right off, probably by the slant of the man’s grin.
“Get up,” Kearney said.
The marshal just kept grinning at first and looking around at all the others. None of them grinned back. Most were still looking over at Kearney. The marshal sat a bit straighter then, his grin leveling out as he met Kearney’s stare, but still he said nothing.
“Get up,” Kearney said, voice louder now, nearly menacing.
Blood could tell that Kearney was shaking, but not from fear. He had never seen him like this. This happy-go-lucky kid. Built like a baseball player, and tall, summoning shoulders to fill out his police uniform, and the marshal was seeing this now too.
Blood looked again over at Perkins. He was pretending to be unaware of what was happening. Fagin had entered the bench area from the side, looking on with interest.
The ringleader shrugged up at Kearney. “What’s your problem?” he said.
Kearney said, “Get up.”
The marshal stood then. He had no other choice. He was grinning at being called out, making as much a joke of it as he could. “What?” he continued, half-mocking. Only the marshals’ table now separated them. “What’s it to you?”
The men sitting near him pulled gradually away, to get a better view and also to distance themselves. They were going to let this happen. The marshal sensed this and looked around.
“What do you think this here is?” he said to Kearney.
Kearney said, “I’m calling you a liar.”
“Brian,” Blood said behind him.
“I mean, what the hell do you care,” the marshal continued, “what FBI agent drinks and which one don’t? What the hell are you? Some hick-town traffic cop.”
Kearney’s breath was swirling around his head. His voice was somebody else’s now. “Take back what you said, or I’ll take it back from you.”
The marshal tried to rally his mates. “What the hell is this Okie talking about?”
Kearney was remarkably fast crashing over the table to get to the marshal. The others all leapt to their feet but not one interfered. Kearney grabbed the man by the front of his uniform and in one rough move propelled him back against the next parallel table, where the FBI agents quickly cleared out of the way. Blood hurried up and over his own table after them.
Kearney had stopped there, leaning over the marshal bent backward and flat across the tabletop.
“You take it back,” he said, breathing hard.
Blood saw the marshal reaching behind him for a glass bottle of ketchup. Blood started toward them fast, but before he could get there Fagin was standing between the two men.
Fagin backed Kearney off with one flat hand and allowed his marshal to get to his feet. The bottle remained on the table. “I like a good fucking brawl as much as the next guy,” Fagin announced. “But not here, and not now.”
The marshal said, “Sir, you—”
Fagin cut him off. “Dinner’s over. Everybody break it up, and I want my over nights up and reporting for duty ASAP.”
Kearney started away then, fast. Fagin turned and watched him go. Then he noticed Blood looking across at him. “What the fuck was that all about?” Fagin said. But Blood looked into the man’s eyes and saw that he knew.
Command Tent
Brian Kearney walked for a while, and finally when he knew where he was, the high lamps were on and cutting into the twilight falling over the clearing, and he was standing in front of the command tent. He didn’t think he’d planned on going there, but now that he was there he realized he probably had. He wanted to warn Agent Banish somehow. He wanted to warn him that lies were being spread. But as soon as Brian reached the tent, he realized that he had nothing to say. And then he felt even worse. He looked around at the lit clearing and had to ask himself what it was all for. He felt about two inches tall and half as powerful. Right about then, Agent Banish stepped out of the tent in front of him.
Agent Banish was wearing a blue FBI jacket and had a radio in his hand. He looked at Brian strangely, as though he didn’t know where he had come from, or maybe Brian had interrupted a train of thought. “What is it?” Agent Banish said.
Brian couldn’t even shake his head. He stood there kind of searching Agent Banish’s face, studying it for imperfections. It was deep-creased and shadowed, and bruised-looking under the eyes, and his lips were chapped. His shirt collar was sagged and rumpled, and he looked pale, even old. But his chin and cheeks were shaved, and the eyes themselves seemed clear. He was about to say something else, because Brian was paralyzed and simply could not speak, but then like a cat hearing something in the walls, Agent Banish became distracted. He started to glance around the clearing.
Brian looked too. He picked up on the nearby agents touching their ears and moving around, reacting. People starting to scatter throughout the gloomy clearing. Voices being raised.
Agent Banish turned on his radio. “Fagin,” he said into it.
After a moment the radio crackled with Marshal Fagin’s voice. “We have movement.”
Agent Banish’s mouth tightened. “The phone?”
“Negative. Southeast side of the compound. Escapees. Three.”