make a move, it was about now.
“Sally…”
“Yeah?”
“See if you can contact George. Our visibility here is going to be crap until the sun goes behind that hill. Maybe he can see better.”
The sunlight also meant that it was clear. Clear at night meant colder. Crap. This was probably the warmest part of the day in the barn, and I thought it was probably about twenty degrees. I could see my breath in the shafts of sunlight.
“Hang on,” said Sally. “Lamar’s here.” Again, she handed me the mike.
“You there, Three? “It was good to hear his voice.
“Ten-four, One. Alive and kickin’.”
“Is everybody all right?”
“Ah, negative. I 388 has been hit with a fragment.”
“Is it ten-thirty-three? Do we have to get in to you now?”
“Ah, negative, One. Negative.” I looked over at Hester. “How you feeling?”
I could just make out her answer. “No problem.”
I thought for a second. “We need to get her out, but not urgently. I don’t recommend anybody coming down the drive or across the yard. Not in daylight.”
“Ten-four,” said Lamar. “I got about a dozen state troopers ten-seventy-six. Should be here in less than ten minutes.”
That was reassuring. “Glad to hear it. TAC team?” I was hoping. The TAC unit would be equipped with M - 16s.
“Negative, not yet. They’ve been notified.”
That was too bad. A standard issue state trooper would have a shotgun and a handgun. Shotguns, especially over several hundred yards of open ground, would be hopelessly outranged by the AK-47s our opponents seemed to have.
“Ah, ten-four. One, these guys have AKs. You ten-four on that?”
“Ten-four.” He was. Lamar wasn’t a ballistics expert, but he knew enough about 7.62mm rounds. He’d been hit just above the ankle with one fired by a barricaded suspect in 1996. He hadn’t been able to walk well since, and hadn’t had a single day without pain. He was lucky he still had a foot.
“Where you at, Three?”
Now there was the question. I felt the chances of the opposition listening in on our radio traffic were probably not too good. Nonetheless, I wasn’t certain I wanted to reveal our exact position. I looked up at Sally, at the other end of the mike cord.
“What do you think? Should we just go ahead and tell?”
“I’d really like to get out of here.”
That wasn’t what I’d asked. But there was no rescue possible if they went to the wrong building.
“We’re in the barn, One. The basement.”
“Ten-four.”
“Except George-he’s in the loft. He’s lookout.”
“Ten-four,” said Lamar, and as he spoke, I heard a siren over his mike. The troopers were beginning to arrive.
“We think most of the suspects are in the shed. The one on the other side of the barn from you.”
“The one with the metal roof?”
“That’s it. As far as I can tell. We haven’t seen any movement in the last few minutes.”
“Okay, Carl. I’ll be back up on the radio in about five minutes.”
“Ten-four, One. Glad to have you here.”
Sally called George. He was fine, and hadn’t seen any movement for several minutes. He thought he might be able to see fairly well to our front, as soon as he could finish up moving moldy hay bales away from the walls. He’d been unable to get even close to the front wall because they’d been stacked almost to the ceiling.
Sally and I both gave our full attention to peering out through the gaps in the boards and trying to see if there was anybody moving around the tin shed. Nothing.
“You ‘spose they left?” she asked.
“Might have,” I said. I didn’t think so, though. “I think there’s a better chance they’re just gettin’ reorganized.”
We waited. About ten minutes after he’d said he’d be back in five, Lamar called.
“Go ahead,” said Sally. She started to move closer to me, to hand over the mike again.
“You relay,” I said. “I think I see something moving.”
She just paused for a moment, and then said, “Go ahead for Three. He can hear you.”
“We got people on the road on the other side of the valley, and in the bottom, and up on the hill past the farm,” said Lamar. “More comin’ all the time.”
“Good,” I said. That meant that the area was being surrounded, to cut off the escape of just whoever was shooting at us. But as I looked, I was certain something was moving, to our left, behind a screen formed by an old woven wire fence and a bunch of scrub that had grown up entangled through it.
“Three advises ‘good,’ One,” said Sally.
“Tell him to stand by,” I said, and brought my rifle up to my shoulder.
“Stand by,” said Sally. I heard her move away to my right.
“Left,” I said. “Behind the old wire fence. Really down low…”
As I spoke, a figure rose up, threw something, and disappeared back into the scrub.
There was a loud thump, as though a heavy rock had struck the barn above our heads.
“He throw a rock? “asked Sally.
Then the “rock” exploded.
CHAPTER 03
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2001 18:11
Just as soon as Lamar was able to round up enough deputies and reserves to secure the crime scene, Hester and I headed for Battenberg. We took the scenic route, because we had to go back the way we’d come to avoid driving through the area where the lab crew was working. Or, as Lamar put it succinctly, “Don’t go traipsin’ through the scene.”
The six miles to Battenberg, therefore, turned into fourteen. It gave me time to think, and I needed it. Our primary objective was an interview with our rural mail carrier, one Hank Granger. The tire track, which was being cast in plaster even as we drove, might allow us to ID the getaway car. The emphasis was on “might.” Regardless, it was one thing to identify a car, and another thing altogether to identify the people in it. I was counting on Granger for at least a number of occupants. Assuming that the car had caught his eye, of course.
Great.
Then we were going to have to talk with Norm, the Battenberg chief. He had my sympathy, but it would have been really nice if he’d gotten out soon enough to give us at least an idea of some of the cars that might have come into town from the north.
He might, though, have some ideas regarding suspects.
Battenberg, in the late 1980s, had been a town of about fifteen hundred people-pretty much minding its own business, and trying to go gracefully through the decline that was hitting most of the rural areas. Then they got lucky. A meatpacking plant in town had changed hands and really started taking off. The plant was bought by a Jewish family, who started producing kosher meat products and shipping them to the East Coast. It was an excellent move on their part. Not having to build a plant from the ground up, they were able to produce for less, transport for less since they did their own shipping, and maintain complete quality control over the entire operation. Smart. And when asked why they’d chosen Iowa, one of the corporate officers had replied, “There wasn’t a plant
