“What I can do, though, is deploy my people on both sides of the lane. We can give you supporting fire toward the silo and in the main yard right up to the edge of the barn.”
“Right.” I didn’t say anything more for about two breaths. “I guess that’s what we get, then.”
“We can give you covering fire if you can make a break for it,” he said.
“We’ll keep that in mind.”
“Does that yard light up there work, do you know?”
“It did the last time we were here in the dark,” I said. “Two, three days back.”
“Then we’ll take it out. We’ve got night-vision goggles. No problem.”
“Don’t do that! Jesus, we’re gonna have little enough light here anyway. You take that out, we’ll be blind.”
“But then they can see my people as soon as they break cover.”
It was hard not to tell him how little that bothered me. “Just don’t do it, okay? If that light has to go, it’s on our request only, understand?”
This time, he was the one who paused. “Okay. You bet. Look, man, this wasn’t my idea. If I had my way, we’d be up there right now. But they tell me it ain’t an active shooter situation.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I know. They sure as hell were pretty active a little while ago.” I thought I’d try to lighten it up a bit. “Do we have anybody on scene that can promote you to captain?”
“Let me ask around,” he said, after a pause. “I like that.”
“Okay. Gotta go. Call as soon as you have a change of orders, okay?”
“You bet. Be careful up there.”
“Hey!”
“Yeah? “I caught him just before he terminated the call.
“I don’t know if anybody told you or not, but there’s only one uniform here in the barn. Female sheriff’s officer. The rest of us are in street clothes. Just like the bad guys.”
“No, nobody told me that. Thanks.”
“My pleasure,” I said.
“Okay. You be careful up there, now.”
I was getting a little tired of people telling me to be careful.
Not five seconds after I broke the connection, there was a really weird sound that came floating down from the area of the shed. It was a human voice, no doubt about that, and it sounded kind of like…well, a rebel yell with lyrics covers it pretty well. I certainly didn’t understand the words, if that’s what they were, but it sounded as if it were meant to be intimidating.
At that moment, for some strange reason, it occurred to me that I’d very likely killed two men. I thought about that. I didn’t feel any remorse. None at all. I didn’t feel different. I didn’t feel happy, either. It was weird. I’d never killed anybody before, and I’d always thought it would affect me strongly. Whatever the effect it was having, I was pretty sure it wouldn’t stop me from shooting the next guy who lobbed a grenade at me.
There was a loud thud against the barn, and then another. Having learned my lesson with the first grenade, I hunkered down and yelled “Get down!” just as the two explosions went off, not more than a second apart.
I caught a lot more dust this time as the blast wave whipped through the gaps in the boards and cleaned off the top of the foundation stones.
Like I say, I’d learned my lesson. I got my head up as high as I had to in order see out my little peephole, stuck my rifle through the boards, and looked for a target. Nothing. Nothing in sight, no movement, nothing. And it was getting really dark there in the shadow of the hillside.
I fired three shots in the general direction of the shed, just to discourage whoever was thinking about throwing some more at us. Sally, who apparently thought, “If Houseman has a reason to fire, so do I,” blasted one twelve-gauge round from her position a split second after I stopped. Silence.
“How damned many of those things you think they got?” asked Sally.
“I dunno,” I said. “A bunch, I guess. You okay?”
“Yeah.”
I turned to Hester. “How about you?”
She nodded and gave a wave of her hand.
I looked up through the stair opening and toward the hayloft. “Why don’t you give George a try,” I said to Sally. As she began to talk, I squinted out my peephole again.
The light had gone, and if I were going to be able to see anybody, they’d have to be wearing white.
“George is on his way down,” said Sally. “Look sharp!”
I looked as hard as I could, for all the good it did me. About ten seconds after she spoke, there was a loud thump on the floor above us, and then George came clattering down the steps.
Not a shot was fired. In the gloom, that didn’t surprise me.
“Boy, it’s dark down here.” George took a deep breath. “How’s Hester?”
“I’m fine,” she said, from her post near the rear wall.
“Oh, there you are… Boy, I don’t have a clue where those last two bombs came from. I couldn’t see shit up there.”
“It’s no better down here,” I said, “but at least we can act as a unit again.”
“Right. Is there a TAC team up yet?”
“Well, yes and no,” I said. I thought I heard a radio squawk. “Anybody hear that?”
CHAPTER 13
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2001 10:40
While I tried for Hector and Ben, Hester was on the phone to her headquarters in Des Moines, checking for assistance. There was just too much to do for us to be able to get it done in a timely fashion.
Hector wasn’t answering his phone. He virtually slept with the thing next to his ear. There was only one place where he’d turn it off. While Hester was still contacting her boss, I said, “I’ll be over at the library.”
I walked the two blocks. Normally I would have driven, for the sole purpose of having the cop car immediately available if I needed it. You learn to appreciate wasted time when somebody calls for help. This time, though, I thought it might be better if I were to keep it out of sight. My car was unmarked, but in a rural area, an unmarked cop car becomes very well known very quickly, and I was pretty sure just about anybody who I didn’t want to recognize it would do so immediately. Hector, being the nervous sort, might appreciate that.
The big electronic thermometer outside the savings and loan read twenty-two degrees. It would get worse in the next thirty days, so I tried to enjoy the twenty-two degrees as I walked toward the new library. I met two rabbis walking toward me. Both were dressed in black hats and ankle-length black coats. Quite a contrast to the blue jeans and brightly colored down vests I was accustomed to encountering.
“Hi,” I said as we passed.
I got looks of complete incomprehension. They were probably New York born and raised, and strangers just didn’t say hi out of the blue. I chuckled to myself as I walked. Sooner or later, they’d be greeting me back. Well, if they stayed long enough. Like Ben had told me, “You can take the rabbi out of New York, but it’s very hard to take the New York out of the rabbi.”
I walked another fifty feet toward the library, toward the building the rabbis had left. Meier’s Deli. It hit me as soon as I saw the sign. I stood outside, and called the sheriff’s department on my cell phone.
“Nation County Sheriff,” said Sally.
“Hi. It’s Houseman. Can you do me a favor?”
“What a unique request,” she said.
“Just a fast one. We have any more reports of sick or dead people? Anybody been in the ER, or the clinic, or anything?”
“Beats me,” she said.
“That’s the favor. Call Henry. The unlisted cell phone number he gave us. Ask him. It’s really important.”
“On TV once,” she said, and I could hear the keyboard clicking in the background as she called up Henry’s
