There was a young trooper I didn’t know guarding the Winnebago’s door. He stopped me.
‘‘Excuse me, but this is a restricted area.’’
I smiled. ‘‘That’s okay, I’m in charge.’’
‘‘I doubt that very much,’’ he said evenly. ‘‘Why don’t you just move along.’’
I reached in my back pocket and pulled out my badge and ID. ‘‘Carl Houseman, senior officer present for the Nation County Sheriff’s Department. Like I said, I’m in charge.’’
‘‘I wasn’t told that,’’ he said, not budging.
‘‘Well,’’ I sighed, ‘‘things have been pretty busy around here today. I suspect nobody thought to tell you. Until now. I just did.’’
‘‘I’m sorry, Deputy. I have no instructions to let you inside.’’
I looked over my shoulder for Hester and Al. Nobody.
‘‘Look, son. I’m really tired, and I want to talk to Roger in there about something very, very important. I know you’re doing your job as well as you can. I’m not pissed off at you, but I’m gettin’ a little testy at whoever put you here. Understand?’’
No answer, just a determined look.
‘‘So,’’ I said, ‘‘before I wander off and kill the first thing I see with stripes on its sleeve, maybe you could just ask Roger if it’s okay with him if I come in?’’
He paused just a second, and then opened the door, stuck his head in, and asked. Two seconds after that, I was climbing into the air-conditioned comfort of the Winnebago Command Center. In my soaked condition, it was freezing cold. It felt wonderful, and I had visions of ice-coated mosquitoes falling off my raincoat. Uttering little gaspy screams.
Roger was toward the rear, with a phone board, three TV monitors, and a large cup of coffee. He smiled when he saw me.
‘‘Sorry you had a problem there,’’ he said.
‘‘This is heaven,’’ I replied, ‘‘and I can see why you don’t want a crowd.’’ I looked the place over. ‘‘So what’s up with Herman?’’
‘‘Well, not a lot right now. Most of them are asleep, I believe.’’
‘‘Good idea.’’ I reached over to the pot, and poured some coffee into a cup. I heard the door open, and felt as much as saw Hester and Al climbing into the camper.
‘‘So,’’ I said, more to get my mind working than anything else, ‘‘just where are we at here?’’
‘‘Well,’’ said Roger, ‘‘these things come in stages. Right now, it’s in the ‘after the fact’ stage, and we have Herman experiencing dullness and disappointment. Things just aren’t happening the way he wants, and he’s exhausted, in other words.’’
‘‘Sure,’’ I said.
‘‘We have to be careful right now, so that he doesn’t progress to despair and dismay. That’s dangerous.’’ He sipped his coffee. ‘‘Or it can be.’’
‘‘I see.’’ I took a drink too. ‘‘So what’s the plan?’’
‘‘We have to try to maneuver him into defeat and debilitation. The stage where he feels like he has to just give up.’’
‘‘Of course. Is that going to be hard to do?’’
‘‘Not with enough time. Or if something else happens that affects his outlook.’’
‘‘Like?’’ I asked, sipping more coffee.
‘‘It’s hard to tell,’’ he said. ‘‘Could be anything. I read about a case once where a barricaded suspect’s mother’s picture just fell off the wall. He gave up immediately.’’
‘‘No shit?’’
‘‘Yeah. I read about another one where the suspect felt that he was getting all bound up, you know, with his bowels. Thought it would kill him, so he gave up.’’
‘‘Just so he could take a crap?’’
‘‘Yep,’’ he said, grinning. ‘‘Neat, isn’t it?’’
‘‘Sure is.’’
‘‘But you have to be very careful,’’ he said, his voice getting serious. ‘‘They can go right into denial and distress. If that happens, they get really violent sometimes.’’
‘‘Oh.’’
‘‘Then, sometimes, they go into a phase where they’re just doubtful and distant, and they sort of…’’
‘‘Dither?’’ I asked.
‘‘Sort of. But they’re vulnerable then, if you can get to them.’’
‘‘Fascinating business, isn’t it?’’ I asked. I was waking up. Probably just the coffee.
‘‘Oh, yes, it is,’’ he said, all enthused.
I noticed a little sign above his TV monitors. ‘‘Display Dominance.’’ Cute.
‘‘So,’’ asked Hester, ‘‘where are you going with this?’’
‘‘I intend to try to convince him to surrender tomorrow,’’ said Roger. ‘‘I think we have a chance here. This Herman isn’t really… well, quick, you know? Not dumb, but not too sharp. Certainly not a career violent criminal, that’s obvious.’’
‘‘You’ve got him to a T,’’ I said. ‘‘Although you do have to start somewhere with any career…’’
‘‘If he stays sober, we should have him pretty soon.’’ Roger tapped a six-inch ring binder that was filled to overflowing. ‘‘Everything we need.’’
‘‘Good,’’ I said. ‘‘Good.’’
Hester, Al, and I left the Winnebago a few seconds later. We’d gotten about ten steps when I said, ‘‘Roger’s new at this, isn’t he?’’
Well, yes, Roger was. It seemed that the state of Iowa had three trained negotiators. One was in Florida at school, one had been rather severely injured in a car wreck about two weeks ago, and Roger had just gotten out of negotiator’s school last week.
‘‘Well,’’ I said, knowing it was a foolish question, ‘‘how about the FBI? I’m sure they’ve got somebody they’d be more than happy to lend us…’’
They probably had. The Iowa Attorney General’s office, however, had decided that Iowa would handle it. All of it. Period. They’d mentioned something to the Feds about screwing up a couple of cases. No names. But they seemed to have burned my bridge before I ever knew I’d crossed it.
‘‘Well,’’ said Al. ‘‘We said we’d have a statement for the press before they went to bed, and here it is almost 0215.’’
The three of us squished through the mud to the press area, which consisted of an impromptu site made from storm fencing and patrol cars, where the members of the local fourth estate had gathered. Most of them were waiting, hoping somebody else would get killed. Another cop or two would be all right, but what they really wanted was to see a TAC team go in. What bothered me the most, I guess, was that another Waco would be just fine with most of this group. I picked out Nancy Mitchell and Phil Rumsford right away, sitting in their little gray car. Maybe knowing them made a difference. But I was sort of glad they were there.
All we could tell any of them was pretty much what we had told them before.
‘‘Are you going in to get them tonight?’’ That was from WUNR-TV’s roving correspondent from Des Moines. Known to one and all as ‘‘Wunner Boy.’’
‘‘Negotiations,’’ I said, ‘‘are being conducted. We have no intention of ‘going in’ and ‘getting’ anybody. We’re simply going to take our time, and convince the suspect to surrender.’’ Yeah, right.
‘‘Any evidence of a possible suicide pact?’’ asked a woman reporter with some other TV outfit.
‘‘A what?’’
‘‘A suicide pact. You know, when they…’’
‘‘I know what one is,’’ I said loudly, cutting her off. ‘‘What on earth makes you think there might be a suicide pact?’’
She didn’t answer, but a reporter for a newspaper shouted in my face, ‘‘Is this a headquarters for a militia group?’’
‘‘Beats me. I don’t think so, though.’’ I held up my hand. ‘‘You’ll be getting a written handout in about ten minutes.’’ I lie pretty well under pressure.
