Something moving again in the greenness. He blinked several times, scoping the area.
A figure outside, an adult, standing just beyond an open door at the right side of the cabin where the land began to drop off. Something in its hands, maybe a gun, but impossible to confirm. Fagin heard the helicopter coming faster, the treetops starting to bend. He cursed the glare of the spotlight. The side door was still wide open. He fired once more, another generous warning, this time low and wide to the figure’s right. Whoever it was, Fagin wanted the person back inside pronto.
Banish’s voice again in his ear, “Fagin.”
The Huey roared and whupped right overhead, cruising in on a low sweep. Fagin saw the figure looking up. He saw it raising the object in its hands as the Huey floated over the trees.
He saw a burst pattern of gunfire from the dark figure.
Fagin said, “What the fuck—”
The helicopter was bailing out. Fagin tapped on his radio. “Fucker’s shooting at the Huey.”
Banish’s voice came back. “Who?”
Fagin dropped two more rounds and watched two patches of green ground jump black near the figure’s legs.
The figure ducked and swung around toward Fagin, returning fire. The Huey was gone and Fagin could hear the shots accompanying the fire burst as the figure moved back toward the open door. “Stupid fuck,” he said. He took aim and paced the running figure with trailing shots.
Rounds strafed the leaves above Fagin’s head. He ducked and re aimed “Mother fucker,” he said, angry, squeezing the trigger, plugging away.
Banish said, “Fagin.”
Fagin picked surgically at the ground by the figure’s feet, chasing it back to the door. It let go one final volley and then ducked inside. Fagin came up on the last one, depositing a single black chip hole in the glowing green door.
The door was slow to close.
“Fagin.”
He pulled the Remington off his cheek and clicked back on. “What the fuck!” he said.
Banish said, “Sit-rep.”
Fagin was near breathless with anger, but Banish wanted control on the network, a concise situation report. “Hostile gunfire, unprovoked,” Fagin said. “One individual. I moved it back inside and left a round in the fucking door. That’s all.”
Banish said, “This is for everyone: we’re hitting the lights.”
Fagin pulled off his NVD and slammed the helmet down against the wood planking of the perch. “Fuck!” he said. He was thinking about how long it had taken that fucking door to close.
When the stadium lights clanked on and bleached the cabin, there was nothing left to see.
Sunday, August 8
Command Tent
Banish entered from the light morning rain and wiped the bottoms of his shoes on two muddied towels set down inside the flap door. Kearney was there already, seated at the switchboard and wearing a telephone receiver headset, manning the outside lines. He did not look up. Banish turned to Coyle, who was ready for him.
“The road should be finished later today,” she reported. “Nothing yet on the CB. Do you want to try and raise him?”
“No,” Banish said. “We have to get him on that phone.”
“Excuse me.” It was Kearney’s voice. He was swung toward them, the single earphone pulled off his ear. “A woman on the telephone just said, “Stand by for Alpha Four’?”
Banish looked at him a moment, then told Coyle to order everybody out of the tent.
Coyle made the announcement, moving with the rest of them up and out of their chairs, setting down coffee cups and pencils, leaving work unfinished on desks and filing out past him through the door. Kearney looked around and followed suit without question, removing the headset and leaving it on the console and walking out with the rest.
Banish moved to Coyle’s desk. He punched the button on her telephone and took up the receiver, standing and waiting patiently through the silence. Alpha Four was the transmission code name for the Director of the FBI.
“Jack,” the Director said, his rich, senatorial voice coming on the line without a click. “What’s the good word?”
“We finally made contact with the individual last night.”
“I know,” said the Director. “I read the transcript in this morning’s Post. It’s not going very textbook, Jack, is it.”
“No, sir,” Banish said.
He envisioned the Director nodding on the other end. “A funny world sometimes, Jack. What the general public will latch on to. What the media will pursue. But you know there’s great interest in a case when you’re at a breakfast meeting and the President asks you how it’s going in Montana.” A pause then, but not dramatic; the Director was a deliberate man. “I know things are escalating out there, Jack. Administration tells me you’re up over a million dollars a day. People are watching this very closely.”
Banish said, “Yes, sir.”
“I’ve already had the Governor of Montana on the phone this morning. He’s going to declare a state of emergency. He was also ready to call out the National Guard, but I scotched that. I was able to convince him how serious a mistake that would be. Just to give you some idea of what’s going on out here, Jack. People are beginning to lose their heads over this. I’d say it’s the death of the girl, chiefly.”
Banish nodded. “Yes, sir.” He saw then what was coming.
“Jack, Sam Raleigh’s just gotten off that Port Authority situation in L.A. You may know, he was with the first negotiating team in Waco, the one that had so much success in getting the children out before Tactical took over. I know that he was your number two in New York before SOARs was established, and Carlson says he still speaks very highly of you.”
Banish nodded. “Yes, sir.”
The Director said, “I have a decision to make here, Jack. I was wondering if you could make it any easier for me.”
Four days after his reassignment, here it was finally. The arrow pointing home. A few quiet words to the Director, as smooth as an easy handshake, and he would fade back into the woodwork again, perhaps walk off the mountain that very afternoon, without fear of penalty and without disgrace. The Director was making it very easy for him. He could return to Skull Valley and continue the regimen he had set for himself there, and ride out his last few years to retirement and a full government pension.
But the situation. Recently, and in spite of himself, ever since hearing from Ables the day before, he had been thinking more and more about the children inside the cabin. Not so much as hostages, but as children. Three girls and an infant boy. He wanted them safe. Perhaps more than he should have. He wanted them well. It was a new sensation for him, seeing a hostage as anything other than a marker to be bargained for and won, although it was a common enough affliction and something he had witnessed numerous times before. Like a fever, it would strike even the most disciplined of men in the heat of a negotiation, becoming a hindrance only when manifested in the form of desperate acts committed out of frustration or anger misdirected at fellow agents. Either case warranted immediate dismissal. But other than that, this syndrome, Banish’s affliction, now seemed to him entirely reasonable. You don’t ask a man to carry around plutonium for a week, then have him hand it off to the next man and walk away and wait for the poison. Banish looked around at the vacated command tent. He felt strongly the drag of the small community he had created there. Its purpose had become his purpose. Leaving was no longer a viable option. He must not merely remain on the mountain; he must succeed.