“Great. Where did you want to eat? I saw a pizza joint up the block.”
“Let’s look at the video, and then we’ll discuss dinner,” said Jackson, opening his car door. “I’ll drive.”
CHAPTER 111
Karr sidled up next to the door of the barn, the shotgun in his hand. The pungent odor of manure mixed with the smell of gas, diesel, and fertilizer, though the nearby fields had not been plowed in at least a year. Two of the ground teams had joined Karr’s group, surrounding the barn. The FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team was poised near the door, ready to enter.
Koch, the HRT leader, adjusted his radio to act as a public address system and broadcast a warning, telling the people inside the barn to come out with their hands up. Karr tensed, expecting the answer would be gunfire.
They waited a minute, then Karr motioned for the agent to make the call again.
“You have a chance to come out peacefully,” said Koch. “This is your last warning.”
The large door had a chain that pulled down to release it; once released, the door would swing outwards. The HRT members had rigged a rope so they could open the door from the distance.
“We can toss flash-bangs in through the windows on the side,” said Koch. “Pull the door open when they pop, throw more flash-bangs, secure the interior.”
“I’d like to get them out alive,” said Karr. “That’s kind of a high priority.”
“We can try tear gas. Barn this old, there’s a good chance of a fire, especially with that gasoline I smell.”
“Maybe we can get a better idea of where they are inside.” Karr rubbed his chin, examining the side of the building. There were no windows or other openings, just the main door and a closed hayloft door on the second floor. When he was eight or nine, he’d spent weekends at his Uncle James’ house, playing hide-and-seek with his cousins. They had an old barn just like this. Once used to store onions, it was slowly disintegrating; one winter holiday they’d taken some boards off it and used them as snowboards. He walked around the side of the barn, looking at the boards, but none seemed loose enough to pull off.
Then he got another idea.
“Start haranguing them on the loudspeaker,” he told Koch. Then he grabbed hold of a nearby tree and shimmied up the trunk. Koch, realizing the loudspeaker was supposed to cover any noise Karr might make, explained in loud detail that there was simply no hope of escape and that it was possible and even very likely that the judge and jury would go easy on whoever was inside if they surrendered peacefully.
Karr stepped onto the roof as gently as he could, then climbed up to the top, where a large, louvered cupola provided ventilation to the antique structure. Handmade, the cupola measured at roughly four feet by four feet square. Karr slipped the barrel of his shotgun into the top slot and pried; rather than pulling off the roof of the cupola as he thought, he lifted the entire structure.
“Give me some noise,” Karr told Koch. “Couple of flash-bangs. Don’t go in yet though.”
The grenades, designed to produce a very loud boom and flash of light but not harm anyone, went off in quick succession near the barn door. As they did, Karr yanked the cupola off the roof and threw it to the ground. Then he peered in over the side.
He couldn’t see anyone. The problem was, the floor was a good nine or ten feet below the opening; if he jumped, the people downstairs would hear him. He put a pair of video bugs on the rafter and sat back.
“Anyone stirring?” Karr asked Koch.
“Not that we’ve seen or heard,” said Koch from the ground.
“Put two ropes together and toss one end up to me. Then anchor it against a tree.”
“You’re going inside?”
“Nah. Just playin’ Tarzan.”
Lia checked on the state police units, making sure they were in position as the helicopter circled above the plantation. She hated the fact that she was up here, useless.
Not useless, exactly, but up here, away from what was going on. She heard Karr and his plan to climb onto the barn roof and thought
“Rockman, how does the video from the surveillance plane look?”
“Clean. All the action’s at the barn.”
“Yeah.”
By the time the rope had been tossed to him, Karr had swapped his shotgun for the submachine gun. He wanted the people inside alive, but not at the expense of his life.
“You watching that top floor for me, Rockman?”
“No one came up.”
“All right, FBI, here’s the story,” Karr told Koch, testing the rope. “Give them one more chance again, as loud as you can. Toss some feedback screeches in, sirens, anything you got. I’ll climb down, get near the stairs at the far end, have a look at the interior. I say go, hit the flash-bangs and come on in. Don’t fire too high, all right? I’m the only guy who’s going to be on the top floor.”
“Are we still trying to take them alive?”
“Not if it means our guys get hurt.”
“Thanks.”
“Lia, have the chopper make a couple of passes near the field to add to the noise level. Starting now.”
“Roger that.”
Karr eased himself into the barn as the helicopter came overhead. Landing a little heavier than he wanted, he opted for speed rather than stealth, sprinting to the open landing. He pushed back against the nearby wall, then slid around so he could cover the stairway.
Empty.
He bent down and leaned forward, looking first in the direction of the door to the left of the stairs. There was no one near it. A sheetrocked wall separated the barn interior in two.
“There’s a wall on your right as you come in,” Karr whispered to the FBI team. “I’m at the top of the steps on your left. There’s no one in the middle of the barn but I can’t see below me. Go!
The interior flashed bright white and the air snapped as the door to the barn flew open. In seconds, the team was inside the barn. No shots had been fired.
No terrorists had been spotted either.
So where were they?
The logical explanation was behind the metal door in the sheetrocked wall. The HRT lined up, ready for the next phase.
“Door opens out,” said Koch. “We can blow off the hinges and go in.”
“You’re assuming it’s locked,” said Karr. He went to the wall and nudged one of the agents aside. Then he got down on his hands and knees as he crawled next to the door opening. There was about a half-inch clearing between the door and floor, just enough for a video fly to peer through. He took one out, activated it, and held it between his thumb and forefinger, sliding it across the opening.
“Whatchya seein’, Rockman? Besides my thumb?”
“Nothing. Shadows.”
Karr put the fly level on the floor and then tapped it through the opening with his finger.
“Anything?”
“I can see a table. There’s no one by the door.”
The stench of manure practically choked him as he got back to his knees. Karr remembered the downside of visiting his uncle’s farm — mucking the horse stall.
Though it had never smelled quite this bad.
