recommendations had begun. And they had continued, until Kate was beginning to regret that the investigation was as high-key as it had turned out. Normally, a father kidnapping a daughter would not merit two FBI agents, a sheriff and his deputy (who knew the land like the backs of their sun-beaten hands), and two highly qualified psychiatrists, experts in the field of kidnapping (one speaking for the mind of the villain, the other, the only woman in the room aside from Kate, sharing her expert opinion on the mental state of the child victim). The experts were there as spillover from the Lavalle case, having been sent down because they were more or less in the neighborhood; the others were there because of Al, and because it had begun as a highly visible case in the media. One of the agents was unhappy about being in the sticks rather than in Portland, and both of the experts were tired and just a bit bored. Al was present because he was, after all, experienced in the field, and Kate had a seat at the table because he wanted her to. Various other people had been in and out of the boardroom during the last two days, from Jani (for an uncomfortable time, causing a collective sigh of relief when she left) to D'Amico (who shuttled back and forth a few times from one end of Oregon to the other before it was decided that he was best used on his home ground in Portland) and a handful of technicians and other law-enforcement personnel, who came and went as they were needed.
Two things had justified the cautious and high-tech approach they were taking: Kimbal had a well- documented tendency toward violence, and the girl's stepfather was a cop. There was no way they could use the standard approach, which would have been to take a couple of sheriff's deputies and bring the girl back. The core eight people had spent the last two days discussing evidence and options, and by now they were thoroughly fed up with one another.
'Look,' Al was saying tiredly, 'even you guys aren't allowed just to take the guy out without even giving him a warning.'
'We're not suggesting that,' began the FBI man at the head of the table.
'Sounds to me like you are. You just said you couldn't go in at night because of his dogs and because he and Jules are always in the cabin together, but during the day you can't get in fast enough to separate them without alerting him. Short of cold-blooded murder with a sniper scope, what're you going to do, disguise yourselves as rocks?'
Several angry voices spoke up at once, and Kate half-listened to the argument, her eyes drawn to the enlarged photos of the small cabin where Jules had been taken by her father.
It was literally out in the middle of nowhere, in an expanse of knee-high scrub and rock, five miles from the nearest neighbor. For a paranoid ex-con with survivalist leanings out to save his only daughter from the wicked world, it was perfect: He could see the enemy coming, miles away.
Other photos tacked up on the carpeted walls showed fuzzy images of Marsh Kimbal, lanky and black-haired. In several of them, Jules followed behind, but the pictures, taken over a considerable distance with lenses like telescopes, were too hazy to give a hint of the girl's expression. To Kate, though, the girl's body language told of her confusion and doubt.
The argument was coming around again, and it was time for Kate to say her bit. She stirred, waited for an opening, and spoke up.
'I still think you're wrong. I know kidnap victims always fall in love with their captors, but I don't believe Jules would fall for his crap, not in the long run. I mean, look, the man's a fascist.'
'He's a survivalist,' corrected the male psychiatrist, and Kate went on hurriedly before he could present a lecture on political niceties.
'Same thing,' she said. 'He's a sexist and a swine, and Jules would never go for it. You won't have any trouble separating her from him.'
'She's only a child,' he insisted.
'She's got more brains than any three adults, present company not excluded.'
'She may be bright,' commented the woman expert, 'but that doesn't mean she is not gullible.'
'Okay,' Kate conceded. 'Granted, intelligent people can be really stupid. But not Jules, not in this case. I know that if I go in there all by myself, let her see me, just ease in and out again, she'll read it as a warning, so that when you come in with force, she won't panic. She'll be ready to come to us. On the other hand, if you just descend on her with guns blazing, then she probably would hang on to Kimbal, because she wouldn't know what the hell was going on. An adult wouldn't, either.'
At this point in the argument's cycle, the head man normally either redirected the flow or called for a break, but this time, before he could do more than place his hands on the table preparatory to shifting his chair back, the woman expert sat forward and placed her gold pen onto the glossy wood with an authoritative click.
'Inspector Martinelli may be right,' she stated. The room went still in surprise. 'If she did succeed in going in, making contact with the child, possibly even conveying a message, and coming away, then we would be in much the stronger position: Jules would be forewarned, and we would have had a direct look into Kimbal's defenses. If she failed, one of three things would have happened: She would be driven off, taken hostage herself, or shot outright. In the first case, we would not be much worse off than we are now, nor in the second, which would also give us the thin advantage of having a trained adult present to oppose Kimbal. As to the third possibility, I don't know that there is much to say, other than noting that Inspector Martinelli is clearly aware of the risks involved, has had a good deal of field experience with decoy situations, and does not appear to me suicidal.'
Well, thought Kate, feeling her mouth go dry, it's always good to have a clear mind to tell us how matters lie. She glanced at Hawkin, but he was not looking at her.
'I still think I should be the one to go,' he was saying.
Both psychiatrists began immediately to shake their heads. Even the man agreed that, with this particular hostage taker, any casual intruder would have to appear blatantly harmless. Were they in a city, an aged drunk might do, but not miles from the closest bar. The analysts knew enough about Marsh Kimbal to feel certain that he would take an adult male intruder as a threat. He might believe that a woman was harmless, though, and that she was stupid enough to get lost among the dirt roads of eastern Oregon.
For once, Kate agreed with the experts.
And for once, to everyone's astonishment, the disparate law-enforcement personnel assembled in the room seemed on the verge of agreement, as well. So tired of waiting that they were willing to go along with any proposal actually involving forward motion, they found themselves, with varying degrees of reluctance, agreeing to Kate's proposal.
The rest of the morning was spent laying out plans and fallbacks, and then Kate was excused so that she could put on her fancy-dress costume.
Kate sat, clenching and loosing her hands on the wheel of the little Japanese car, staring through the streaked windshield and over the carefully dirtied hood at the bare road that stretched out into the distance.
Beside her, Al Hawkin rubbed his hand over his mouth, grimacing at the scratchy sound, and broke the silence.
'You don't have to, you know.'
'Al, the sooner you get out of the car, the sooner I can get on with this.'
'I could go.'
'Al,' she said warningly.
'All right.' He made no move toward the door handle. 'Are you scared?'
'Of course I'm scared. I'm always scared when I dress up as a decoy. It's gotten so I start to sweat whenever I pick up a tube of lipstick.'
He smiled dutifully at the feeble joke. 'Christ, I hate sending you out there without a backup.'
'You're not sending me out anywhere,' she said, bristling slightly. He turned to look at her for the first time since they'd left town an hour before.
'I wonder if Jules will actually recognize you.'
'My new look,' she said. 'I thought the lace on the collar was a really nice touch.' With her tired blond curls, light pink lipstick, trim brown penny loafers, and tan polyester trousers - she'd drawn the line at the flowered skirt that had been offered - she looked like a conservative young woman, the sort who could easily get lost out here in the middle of nowhere.
'In my youth, they used to call that a Peter Pan collar.'
'Did they? Funny. Jules told me once she hated Peter Pan - the idea of lost boys made her furious. This was when we were looking for Dio,' she explained.
