their appreciative remarks after the game was won, until he was standing in front of Dulcie, looking down into her dancing, worshipful eyes with something very near a smile on his face.
God almighty, Ana mused. What the hell has that boy been through, to turn him into what he is now?
Chapter Twelve
You are all law enforcement professionals. You have all been trained in what to do in a hostage situation. You talk, right? Sure, you're also finding out the shape of the building where the people are being held, who the hostages and their takers are, what weapons are involved, all that. However, you also have to know what the beef involves--if it's terrorism, well, that's something very different from a kidnapping for ransom gone bad, and still farther from a dispute over custody of the kids or a guy who lost his job, his wife, and his car all in the same week. And the only way of finding this out, while you're also trying to let the situation come off the boil, is to let the people talk.
But what if you're not speaking the same language? We've all heard the stories about cops who have pulled over an erratic driver who didn't speak English and couldn't understand the order to 'Get out of the car, sir' and reached into the glove compartment and got shot. A terrible accident, maybe; the cop had no choice but to suspect the driver was going for a gun. Of course, the truth of the matter is, it probably never happened, it just makes a great story. [laughter]
But you see what I'm saying? Sure, there are times when the only response is the immediate one; but the great majority of times the situation can be resolved peacefully, if only you have enough time, and if only you can find the key to the situation.
A group of religious believers speaks a different language from the majority of citizens. It sounds like English, but you will be making a real mistake if you assume that it is. To take a fairly obvious example, when David Koresh talked about 'the lamb', he didn't mean what he ate for dinner; he meant 'Jesus Christ, Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world.' What I want to do today is give you some suggestions for dealing with a so-called 'cult' situation, in the early hours before the
Excerpts from the transcription of a lecture by Dr. Anne Waverly to the Northern California Sheriffs' Association, January 16, 1992
It had become clear that nothing could be done, no decisions made concerning Ana's presence until Steven returned. She could be given no permanent position, nor even a room in the central compound, until he had approved her sincerity. She wanted to work in the school, had come prepared for it, and knew there was a need for the skills Ana Wakefield brought, but she had to settle for drudgery in the kitchen and around the barn and buildings.
Two days after the basketball game, on Ana's fourth day at Change, she drove into Sedona to order the switch for Rocinante's heater and to fill a shopping list of incidentals that Amelia gave her. 'Just a few odd things' nearly filled the bus, and Ana could only be grateful she hadn't been asked to do a week's shopping.
She also mailed a packet of photocopied pages from her journal, sent a roll of film off to a mail order film developer that was actually a branch of the FBI, arranged at the post office to have general delivery mail forwarded to Change, and finally wrote a note to the mail service in Boise to give them her new address.
She had found it disconcertingly difficult to write in her journal about Jason, knowing the attention Glen and others would devote to it. She was very aware of how her unexpurgated reaction to the boy would sound: like some strange, distasteful, even bizarre infatuation of a middle-aged woman for a handsome young boy. Leaving him out entirely would have made for a suspicious gap, but writing about him naturally, about an interesting young male person the age of a grandson, was remarkably difficult.
In truth, though, Jason was interesting, even intriguing; the fact that she was a woman on the brink of menopause did not negate who he was. Still, she downplayed the intensity of her reaction to him, took care to include descriptions of the other boys as well, and trusted that neither Glen and his people nor any potential snoop sent by the Change community to look through her things would notice the difference.
She took dinner in Sedona, in a quiet restaurant with white linen on the tables. She had red meat and red wine, and two cups of dark coffee with her dessert, then she drove back down the long, narrow, unlighted road to the Change compound.
At the first hint of morning, Ana rose and set off for her red-rock viewing post.
It had rained the day before, and the morning felt soft against her face. Her footprints had been wiped clean from the sand, but she had been this way several times now and she knew the places where she needed to walk around rather than go straight and be forced to turn back, and she remembered the narrow break between the shrubs that seemed to go down but then turned and took a shortcut to the top.
The last part was a bit of a scramble, around the back of the flat boulder and pulling herself up the top: it was there that she met Steven. She came up, puffing and grunting with the effort, to find a man sitting on the other side of the rock—seated in
'Good heavens,' she said breathlessly. 'You startled me.'
'I apologize,' he said in a voice as calm as his posture. 'You're just in time for the sun.'
It had been light for some time, but the high rocks to the east of the compound kept the sun at bay for twenty minutes or so after the shadows stretched long across the adjoining desert. Ana had discovered this her first morning, and had come to anticipate this second, private sunrise into the compound below. Slightly disappointed, but reassured that this man was not a threat, she took a seat at the other edge of the rock from the stranger and waited for the show.
The first thing to light up was the three-bladed wind-powered electrical generator on the ridge of hills west of the compound. The light traveled steadily down the metal struts of the tower until it hit the base and spread, flowing along the low hills and bringing to life the brilliant red rock and dark vegetation, and for a couple of minutes a bright spot of light reflecting a piece of discarded glass.
Now the compound itself was touched. The first part of Change to be illuminated was the peak of the glass dome that capped the hub building. Sunlight spilled gradually down it, round and full and red as the hills, and then the other buildings were lit, and the paths, and the darkness crept away, loosing its hold on the parking area, the square guest quarters, and finally retreating to the very foot of the hill below them. The sun was up. Ana let out a small sigh of satisfaction. The man seemed inclined to agree.
' 'Truly the light is sweet,' ' he said in a voice that rolled the syllables, ' 'and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun.' '
Beginnings are crucial, first impressions far-reaching, and Ana was alive to the knowledge that her success or failure in the Change community began at this moment. A quotation from Ecclesiastes, that crusty Old Testament compiler of epigrams and wisdoms, was not what Ana would have expected, and she ransacked her memory for a worthy reply. She decided on Psalms, to be safe.
' 'Light dawns for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart.' '
'The righteous?' the man said in what she hoped was mock disapproval, and called on Luke,' 'There were certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others.' '
' 'When one rules justly over men,' ' she told him, ' 'he dawns on them like the morning light, like the sun shining forth upon a cloudless morning.' '
'You're Steven, aren't you?' she added.
It was the man's turn to sigh, and although his was a noise of faint regret, as if at a burden resumed, there was a smile at the corners of his eyes. His voice changed as he dropped the game of quotations, becoming lighter and more clearly American.
'I am. And you, I believe, are Ana Wakefield.'
'How did you get up here?' she asked curiously. 'I didn't see any footprints.'
'I levitated.'
Ana could not tell if he expected her to believe this flat statement or if he was making some subtle joke. She
