“It was intended to kill Jews,” he said. “Of course.”
17:03 AFTER THE SHADOWY FIGURE YELLED AT US, it got very quiet for what seemed a very long time.
When we looked back, later, and tried to piece together the moment when everything went to shit, we decided it was about now, when George’s, Hester’s, and my cell phones all rang at the same time.
There was a moment’s confusion, because nobody was really sure just whose phone was ringing.
Sally helped Hester with hers, while George and I tried to talk, understand the messages, and keep lookout at the same time.
“Yeah,” I said, after fishing mine out of my pocket.
“Carl,” said Lamar, “call the office. They just got a 911 call from somebody they think is up there at the shed area west of you. Caller says he has something to negotiate.”
“What?” I was totally surprised.
“Yeah. They’ve got a call-back number, and we got a federal agent who’s a negotiator, and he’s callin’ that number right now.”
“Okay…”
“And the CRPD chopper is gonna be makin’ a pass over you real shortly with the FLIR. So make the call to the office. Then contact the chopper on AID.”
The Forward-Looking Infra-Red viewer in the helicopter would enable them to see just about anything that would be visible in the daytime, and some things that wouldn’t be. It measured the heat differential to about a tenth of a degree, and that made for some very high-definition viewing, indeed.
“Sheriff’s Department,” said the harried but familiar voice of Patty Neuman. She wasn’t yet up to the standard we’d come to expect from Sally, but she’d do the job.
“Hi. It’s Houseman. Lamar said to call-”
“Jesus, are you guys all right? Is Sally okay?”
“So far. What you got?”
“Just a sec.” I heard her rummaging around on her desk. “God, Houseman, I got pictures of where you are on the TV in front of me. Okay, here you go… Okay, so the call came in at 18:22:09, from the Battenberg OMNI, and the caller said that his name wasn’t important, but that he wanted to arrange a truce so they could get a male subject treated for a wound.” She was reading the E911 printout.
“No shit?”
“Yeah, no shit is right. You want the number?”
“Can’t write it down just now. What is it, though?” I really wanted to know who the hell it was that had called.
“Okay…that’s area code 781, 555, 8811.”
“Where’s area code 781?”
“Minneapolis. For mobile phones.”
“Well.”
“I think the FBI is talking to that line now.”
“That’s what Lamar said. Okay, I gotta go, unless you have more on that…”
“That’s it. Oh, boy, you all be careful down there, now.”
“Oh, we will,” I said. “We will.”
After I terminated my call, Sally came over. “That was Hester’s boss. It looks like we might have a deal where we get an ambulance up here for one of the wounded assholes, and they’re going to try to get Hester out at the same time.”
Ah. “Not in the same ambulance,” I said. “We need two ambulances. And we load Hester first.”
George came over. “That was Volont. They’ve got a negotiator talking to one of them now, I guess. They want to get an ambulance up for one of their wounded.”
“That’s what I hear. DCI wants to get Hester out then, too.”
“That would be good,” said George. “She’s got to be wearing down.”
“I want to call Lamar. I don’t want her going out in the same ambulance with some terrorist. Too risky.”
“I agree,” he said. “Oh, and Volont says they didn’t get anybody in Michigan or Nebraska. He thinks something might have gone wrong… that the informant might have had the wrong date, or something. At any rate, it doesn’t look like the other operation is going until later.”
“Their informant a liar?”
“Possible,” he said. “But Volont and Hawse and Gwen are here. The HRT is in a helicopter right now, and on the way. We wait for them, then we go.”
The FBI Hostage Rescue Team was rightly considered to be the best tactical team ever invented. I was as happy to know they were on the way as I would have been to have the Marines. Well, close. HRT doesn’t come with artillery, tanks, and integral air support.
My phone rang. It was Lamar.
“Carl, it looks like we’re gonna have to get an ambulance up there in the next five or ten minutes. They insist, and the negotiator says it’s bad for us to play with the times for a wounded subject. The press is all over us. We gotta be prompt, I guess.”
“Okay. Make it two ambulances, though. We don’t want Hester in with them.”
Apparently nobody else in the whole damned world had thought of that. “Oh. Oh, yeah. We’ll do that.”
“Let us know when to move,” I said.
George’s phone rang next. It was Volont. The FBI negotiator had tried to delay the pickup of the wounded terrorist until the HRT arrived. No such luck. Whoever was on the other end of that negotiation was aware that there were two or three ambulances stacked up on the gravel road south of the farm. Volont suspected it meant that the bad guys had a vantage point that was pretty high up.
After George told me, we both looked in the direction of the silo. Even money said there was somebody up there, although we couldn’t see anyone.
“I told Volont that we thought the terrorists were trying to block us, not the other way around,” said George, never taking his eyes off the area around the silo.
“What’d he say to that?” I asked.
“He thinks it’s possible,” said George. “But he said that they might just be so fanatical that they just want to sucker more of us up there to be killed, before they die for the cause.”
“You think they’re that fanatical? I haven’t seen any of that.”
“Not particularly, no,” said George. “But Volont would tend to think they were. That sort of thing appeals to him, I think.”
As we were talking, my walkie-talkie announced, “Nation County Three, 918.”
Just from the background noise, I could tell it was a helicopter. I twisted the knob on the top of my walkie- talkie to channel 4, the AID channel, and cut off the scan function. I didn’t want any interruptions at this point.
“Nation County Three, go ahead 918,” I said.
“Stand by for one, Three. TAC Six from 918?” TAC 6 answered, and I recognized Marty’s voice. “Yeah, Three and TAC Six, we’re just about overhead, now. We can see two people moving behind the shed closest to the barn. Two people near the base of the silo, on the ground and stationary, and one on the ladder on the west side. He’s stable at about three-fourths of the way to the top. All those are stationary, repeat, stationary. We have a strong IR signature in the other shed, the one more northerly, and it looks like they’ve got a car running in there, possibly to keep the injured subject warm. Three, maybe four subjects in that immediate area. We’ve got a strong glow in your barn itself, and four individuals. Do you guys have a heat source in there?”
“Ten-four,” I answered. “We do.”
“Right. We got the TAC team members spotted, and one, no, two deer in the wooded area to the northeast about a hundred yards.”
“Ten-four. Can you tell if that’s a car in the shed, or is it a van?”
“Nope, not a van. That’s definite. It’s a warm enough target to give us an outline of the vehicle. Wrong shape all the way. It’s a confirmed passenger car, mid-sized, maybe.”
“Ten-four.”
“We’ll be working the area, but we’re gonna avoid being overhead. Advise when you want close watch.
