Where to start and what to say. “Look,” I said, “this is a federal sort of thing, and we have one FBI agent up here with us. He’s on the second floor, kind of a lookout. He’ll be down here soon as it gets dark. We’ve got three of us in the basement area. Limestone on three sides, hillside on the side facing west.”
“Okay.”
“Me and two female officers. One is a DCI agent, and she’s been hit by a fragment.”
“That wouldn’t be Hester Gorse?”
“Yeah, it would.”
“Sonofabitch,” he said. “Tell her this is Marty, and we’ll make sure we get her out.”
“Okay, Marty. Mind if the rest of us come, too?”
“Sorry about that. You’re all invited.” He paused. “Feds still aren’t here. What we got up there, anyway?”
“What you’re gonna be dealing with is some people who have AK-47s. Some explosives, too. Okay?”
“Yeah?”
“They don’t seem too…well…too capable. Don’t get that wrong; they’ll kill you if you screw up. But they don’t seem all that aggressive to me. You know?”
“Okay…”
“Some of these guys, they got guts. Just not all that sharp. Be careful.”
“Got it.”
“We’re getting a little concerned about it being dark real soon. I think they might try to get away. Watch the perimeter.”
“We must have fifty cops out this way. Most of ‘em are surrounding the area.”
“Good.”
“I gotta talk to my supervisor,” he said. “Lieutenant Granger. He ought to be here shortly. But what I’d like to do is get you guys out of there, and put my people in your place as the cork.”
“Sounds good to me.” Boy, did it.
“Okay, I’ll get back to you real quick, soon as the lieutenant gets here and I have a chance to talk to him. But be careful yourself,” he said. “Instead of making a break for it, they might go for you in the dark.”
This had occurred to me. “Right. Sounds like you got a good plan going there,” I said. “Go for it.”
“We just have to be real heads-up until they get up to us,” I said to Hester and Sally. “We don’t want a fuck- up at this stage.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Sally.
“The TAC team leader’s a guy named Marty,” I said to Hester. “He says hello and that he’ll get us out.”
“Marty’s all right,” she said. She sounded encouraged.
About two minutes later, my cell phone rang again. I answered, surprised that Lieutenant Granger had gotten to the perimeter so quickly.
“Hello!”
“Deputy Houseman? Is that you?”
It took me a second. “Hector? Is this Hector?”
“Yeah, you betcha,” he said, brightly, in his best Norske accent.
“Hector, I’m kinda busy right now…”
“I know, man. I just heard about the cops trapped in the barn out there. It’s all over TV. I thought I might have some information for you to tell them…”
“To tell the cops in the barn, Hector?”
“That’s right. About some people. The ones I think might be up there with them.”
“I’m one of the cops in the barn,” I said. “I’m really busy.”
“Holy shit,” he said. “You are in the barn?”
“Yeah.”
“Right now?”
“Hector…”
“Look, you gotta be really busy,” he said, speaking very fast, “so I’ll make this really quick. There are four people I have never seen before, they been asking questions around town today, about Linda, man, and Cheeto, and all of them. They wanted ‘specially to know where the farm was, man. They ask lots of people. They ask me while I am in the Pronto getting cigarettes.”
“They cops?” I asked.
He laughed. “No fuckin’ way, man. They ain’t exactly TV personalities, either.”
“You don’t know who they are?”
“No, but they look to me like they were in a hurry. You know? No hanging out. Right to the questions.”
“Hey…what kind of car, you know?”
“Sure. I am your best informant. You know I know. It is a green Dodge van, pretty new, with Nebraska license plates. I don’t have the numbers; I gotta admit I missed the numbers.”
“Plenty good enough,” I said. I thought Hector was on to something. If so, we now had the identity of the people who were shooting at us. Just to firm that up, I asked him what time he’d seen them.
“One o’clock or so,” he said.
That pretty well fit in with what had happened. I figured they must have gotten to the farm just before we did. I thought I had what they call a “high probability” of being right on this one. “Excellent,” I said. “Very good. Tell you what: give it about three minutes, okay? Then call nine-one-one and give the information to the dispatcher, okay? I can’t get the information to everybody from here. Okay?”
“Sure, man. Three minutes. Tener cuidado, Mr. Houseman. You be careful. I see the barn on the TV, and it looks pretty fuckin’ lonesome up there where you are.”
“We’ll be careful,” I said. “Just make that call.” I broke the connection. “That was Hector,” I said to Hester and Sally. “Just a sec…” and I called the office private line and gave the information that Hector was going to call 911.
Then I called One on the walkie-talkie and asked him to check the chopper broadcast for a green van parked somewhere on the farm, outside my view.
“I don’t know for sure,” I said, “but it looks like it might be the vehicle that brought these guys.”
“Ten-four, Three.”
“Call the office on a phone, One, and they can give you the background.” I was still not convinced the men in the shed didn’t have a scanner.
“Will do.” I heard his breathing change. “I’m goin’ over to the TV truck right now. They got everything on tape.”
“Ten-four. How we comin’ with the TAC team?”
“The lieutenant is here…just got here.”
“Ten-four.”
About five minutes later, Marty, the TAC team leader, called me on my cell phone. He was pissed off.
First, there was a question about watching the tapes. The technician in the TV truck said that, as far as he knew, anything that went out over the air could be shared with the “authorities.” He just wasn’t sure how much of the chopper footage had actually been broadcast by the station.
“You gotta be kidding.”
“Negative. We got a call in to the station manager. He’s gonna call.”
“Right. Okay. Well, that’s great.”
“That’s not so bad. I was watchin’ most of it as it came in, before it got ‘official,’ and I didn’t see a van. But,” Marty asked, “you ready for this?”
“What?”
“Things are kinda stalled on this end.”
The lieutenant, apparently, had decided that, since this-was a federal matter, his TAC team would act in support, but not take any overt action until the federal agents in charge were at the scene and could assess things for themselves.
“Policy,” said Marty. “I can’t change it.”
“Right.” Crap. I really didn’t need this.
