He said the last of it as he was sloshing off. Blood put the silly papers back into his coat and met the marshal, related the instructions, then continued on to his original, dry destination, the Bronco. He climbed inside and pulled the door shut on the rain, removing his plastic-covered hat and shaking it out over the passenger floorboard. The rain thumped on the roof and hood. He sat watching the various umbrellas collapsing and figures disappearing into cars, wet parkas and hunting mac ks and raincoats retreating.
He unzipped his coat and switched on the CB. He worked the squelch. He started up the Bronco for the heat, to keep the car un fogged and warm. Then it hit him again that Mellis was dead.
The realization, the truth of it, came like shivers, in waves. That Blood had helped to kill him. That Mellis had tried to kill Blood. These feds were probably used to killings and death, living with it as they did from time to time. But Blood had never before been a part of anything like that. He had never felt so bad or so stained. He sat there and wondered what would become of him.
This swirl of increasingly troubled thought was broken by the crackling of the car radio. “Watson,” it said his singly Blood recognized the voice from the mountain woods. That seemed like years and years ago.
Command Tent
Banish sat down at the console and Coyle called for quiet in the tent. Banish reached for the handset and flipped the switch. “This is Special Agent Bob Watson,” he said.
“Watson,” Ables said. “You son of a bitch.”
“Mr. Ables?”
“You bastards shot my wife.”
Banish stared at the radio. When he looked up, he found Fagin standing nearby, his stern face mouthing curses. Banish tightened his grip on the handset. “Mr. Ables,” he said, “someone stepped outside your house and warning shots were fired. It was never our intention—”
“Your assassins missed their mark.”
“How bad is she wounded, Mr. Ables? Can you give me some indication of where she was shot?”
“You sound concerned now, Watson.”
Banish licked his lips and took a steadying breath. “Mr. Ables,” he said, “why don’t you just come out now? We can end this thing right here before anyone else gets hurt. Your wife will receive immediate medical attention.”
There was a pause then, brief but unmistakable. “No,” Ables said.
Perkins, behind Banish, said “He hesitated” as Banish’s left hand darted out to shut him up.
“Mr. Ables, I can have an ambulance at your front door within thirty seconds. We have emergency medical technicians here, and helicopters equipped to airlift your wife to the hospital of your choosing.”
“No.”
“Then why don’t you just release her, Mr. Ables? Let your wife go.”
“Release her to the men that want to murder her? The men that slaughtered her daughter? You listen to me, Watson. I want bandages. I’m run out. Gauze and disinfectant and antiseptic and tape. And Percocet, something for the pain. And fresh water. Or do you want more blood on your hands?”
Banish removed his thumb from the handset. Fagin was already moving toward the tent exit. He did not need to be told where to go. The protesters down below were getting this word for word.
Banish resituated himself, fighting for concentration. It was still a negotiation like any other. He asked himself what he wanted most.
“Mr. Ables,” he said, “first of all, for your own protection, until and unless you are ready to come out for good, I would advise you and your family not to leave the cabin again under any circumstances. Now, I am most certainly willing to provide your wife with the medical attention she requires, right away.”
“No doctors,” Ables said. “Just supplies.”
“Whatever you want. But it has to be a two-way street. Mr. Ables, I know you know that I cannot simply give you something for nothing.”
Another short pause. “Sons of bitches,” he said.
“Perhaps through a fair and equitable exchange, Mr. Ables, we can begin on a course of reestablishing trust. Why don’t you release one of your daughters?”
“No.”
“The youngest, Esther. She can be properly cared for out here. We have a nurse standing by, and food, toys.”
“No.”
“Your infant son, then. Amos. His grandparents are here.”
Ables said, “You will never tear this family apart.”
Banish released the handset then, instituting a pause of his own. He waited deliberately. Behind him Perkins swallowed and cleared his throat noisily, small sounds of impatience and doubt. Banish turned the handset on again.
“The telephone, then, Mr. Ables,” he said. “I want to privatize our conversations in the interest of public safety. If you can give me your word that you will use it to communicate with me, rather than this broadcast channel—”
“I told you, Watson. No men on my porch.”
“Your word, Mr. Ables.”
“No men on my porch!”
Banish nodded, satisfied. “Mr. Ables,” he said, “I think we can work around that.”
No-Man’s-Land
Fagin took a Humvee and drove himself right up the side of the mountain. The dirt road was cleared and completed, but blocked near the top by a traffic jam of ambulances and fire equipment, mainly caused by a Bradley fighting vehicle being loaded off a flatbed truck. The one vehicle that Fagin could not ID was a small white unmarked van, open in back, a metal ramp leading down and footprints and other tracks in the wet ground around it.
He parked and stepped out into the mud. The rain had let up after midday, leaving a hanging dampness that brought out the fucking bugs again. Fagin crossed the short distance to the no-man’s-land through the thinning tree cover, swatting flies.
No music now, no recorded messages. Just the hushed voices of agents hiding in the trees. He found them spread out along the edge of the no-man’s-land, crouching behind tall, folding bulletproof shields set up like bedroom screens people dress behind. Banish was peering over one, looking through the shredded tree cover across thirty short yards to the cabin.
A robot, maybe three feet in height, a six-tractor-wheel base supporting a raised metal spine and a long, jointed mechanical arm, was wandering through the trees toward the phone. A remote console was set on the ground next to Banish, operated by a pale-looking agent with a dark crew cut. A monitor showed the machine’s camera-eye view.
“The fuck is this?” Fagin said, though he knew full well. He was a practical man with a natural aversion to technology.
Banish did not answer. He wanted to know what had happened down below.
“We took away some guns and rifles, then stumbled onto something big. A cache of plastic explosives and egg cartons of hand grenades, souvenirs from the jungle.”
Banish turned. “Veterans?”
“A counteroffensive. They were planning on taking out our microwave communications equipment. They see another brother being screwed by the government all over again. We were very fucking lucky this time, practically falling over them. Sixteen total arrests. But it raises a major concern.”
“Post guards around the generators,” Banish said. “If an attack comes, it will come there first.”
Fagin nodded. “Already done.”
It was too crowded behind the shield, so Fagin stepped out into the open and looked on with arms crossed. Severed tree limbs lay dead on the ground, the woods ripped apart, trunk bark scarred with ivory and greenish-white wood showing through. That had been a serious demonstration of artillery.
The robot had the phone case handle in its claw now and was grinding toward the cabin. Two containers were strapped to its base. “He’s getting everything he wanted?” Fagin said.