“Hey, George?”
“Yes?”
“Can I have my walkie-talkie back?”
He tossed it to me. “Sorry about that.”
“No problem.” I checked the frequency setting and keyed the mike.
“One, Three?”
There was a momentary wait, and then, “Three, go ahead!”
“Yeah, One, get Marty on the TAC team to call me on my phone, and you try to listen in, okay?”
My phone rang about two minutes later.
“Houseman,” I said.
“Anything new we should know about?”
“Marty, we been thinking up here, and we tend to believe that they’re keeping us out, rather than us keeping them in.”
After about a two-second pause, Marty said, “No shit?”
“Yeah.”
“Hang on for one.”
If we were right, it meant that the allocation of personnel out there could drastically change. Rather than concentrate on preventing the remaining shooters from leaving, they could concentrate on advancing and go at them more aggressively. I hoped.
“Okay, Carl. Could be. We’ll check it out. Okay. Look, about the van…we got the station manager to let us look at all the footage, and we can’t see any van parked up there.” He paused, and then said, “But that really don’t mean shit, because we think it could be parked in one of the sheds.”
“Oh. Sure.”
“We see two, ah, objects, about fifty feet west of you, along a fence. They might be people, we aren’t sure, but they didn’t move.”
“I believe they’re dead,” I said.
“Say again?”
“If those are the two I shot,” I said, “they’re dead.”
“Way to go!” Marty sounded genuinely pleased.
“That’s the location where they toss grenades,” I told him. “You might want to keep an eye on that area.”
“You bet! Okay. We got two choppers headed up: one from CRPD, and the other is a National Guard bird, an OH-58. Both have FLIR, so we can check the heat from the shed and see if we can maybe find that van.”
“Great.”
“And once they get here, we’re gonna be able to see the whole area like it was daylight, so we can keep you advised of movements. And the feds just got here. A whole bunch, and a chunk of the FBI Hostage Rescue Team is already in Cedar Rapids.”
Things were looking up, and I said as much.
“You got that right,” said Marty. “Okay, now, about them bein’ there to keep you out? Is that right?”
“That’s what we think, yeah.”
“Any idea why?”
“Nope. None. But you might ask the feds.”
Ten minutes later, I was concentrating even harder on trying to see in the dark. My eyes were getting used to the shadow, pretty much, and I thought I could discern individual things like rocks and scrub. But try as I might, I couldn’t see that fence where the two dead men were.
I thought about calling Sue. She wasn’t the sort to watch the news all that much, but I thought it might be a good idea to let her know I was okay. Just in case somebody called her and told her there was something up. On the other hand, if she didn’t know anything was going on, and I called, then she’d start watching for TV spots, and God only knew what kind of speculation she’d be hearing then. Well, now was the best opportunity I’d had to do it, and I thought I shouldn’t waste it.
I dialed home.
“Hello?”
“Hi, there.”
“Carl, oh my God, what’s going on? Oh, I’m so glad you called. Are you all right? We’re watching the news… are the officers in the barn all right?”
It all came out in a rush.
“Well, yeah, I’m fine. Really good, in fact. Who’s the ‘we’ watching TV?”
“Phyllis came over about ten minutes ago, and told me that Nation County was on CNN.”
“Oh, okay.” Phyllis is our next-door neighbor.
“You’re sure you’re all right?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m fine. Really.” Maybe, I thought, she won’t ask about the barn again.
“Who’s in the barn? Lamar?”
“Well, no, actually. Ah, it’s George, and Hester, and Sally, and, well, me.”
“You!!!!”
“Yeah, but I’m fine. Really.”
“My God!”
“Now look, I didn’t call to worry you. I’m really sorry about that. We’re going to be fine.” Now would be about the worst time for one of those damned grenades, I thought. All I needed was a loud bang in the background.
“Can’t you get out?” A reasonable question.
How to put it. “Well, we probably could. But Hester’s been hurt a little, and we think we’re much safer in here. Mostly we’re going to wait for an ambulance…”
“Hester? Oh, Lord.”
“Hey, don’t tell anybody anything about that. Nobody knows that except us folks, okay?”
“Yes.”
“Look, I called to tell you that everything is going to be just fine. Really.”
“Okay.”
“I’m gonna have to go in a sec, but I just wanted you to know.”
“Oh, I’m so glad you called,” she said.
“Me, too. Look, don’t worry. If I thought I was in really serious shit, I wouldn’t call. You know that.”
She didn’t. But she said she did. “Yes.”
“Okay, well…”
“I love you.”
“And I love you, too. I’ll be home as soon as I can.” That, for sure, was absolutely true.
Now, however, I had an additional problem. Prior to talking with Sue, it honestly hadn’t occurred to me that I might not be going home after this one. I pushed that thought to the back of my mind, but the new awareness was now there. Damn.
Sally was back at her lookout. “Can you see anything, Carl?”
“Nope.”
“Me, either,” said George.
After a second of unnatural silence, I glanced back at Hester. She was just taking a good swig from a water bottle. When she finished, she said, “No!”
Well, that had been enlightening. Either there was truly nothing moving, or it was just too damned murky out there to see anything.
“Where’s the Mr. Heater?”
George turned. “I’ll get it, Hester. You’re right, it’s getting cold in here.” He went to his heap of luggage, turned on a pocket light, and hustled the portable heater over to Hester. “I’ll have it lit in just a second,” he said. “How are you getting along?”
As the two of them talked, I kept peering into the gloom. Ah. Over by the left edge of the shed, just where the fence started, and where the two dead men were, I thought I caught movement.
