A Maiden's Grave

by Jeffery Deaver

  "Lou, I don't think you want to kill anybody."

  "How d'you figure?"

  Potter managed a chuckle. "Well, if you start killing hostages I'll have to conclude that you're planning to kill them all anyway. That's when I send in our hostage rescue team to take you all out."

  Handy was laughing softly. "If them boys was there."

  Potter and LeBow frowned at each other. "Oh, they're here," Potter said. He nodded at the "Deceptions" side of the bulletin board and LeBow jotted, Handy told that HRT is in place.

  "You're asking me to hold off killing her?"

  "I'm asking you not to kill anyone."

  "I don't know. Should I, shouldn't I? You know how that happens sometimes, you just don't know what you want? Pizza or a Big Mac? Just can't fucking decide."

  Potter's heart stuttered for a moment, for it seemed to him that Handy was being honest: that he really couldn't decide what to do, and that if he spared the girl it wouldn't be Potter's reasoned talk that saved her but whim, pure and simple, on Handy's part.

  "I'll tell you what, Lou. I'm apologizing to you for the gunshot. I'll give you my word it won't happen again. In exchange for that, will you agree not to shoot that girl?"

  He's smart, calculating, always thinking, the agent concluded. There wasn't a thing psychotic about Handy that Potter could identify. He wrote on a sheet of paper IQ? and pushed it toward LeBow.

  Don't have it.

  Handy's humming came through the phone. It was a song that Potter had heard a long time ago. He couldn't place it. Then through the speaker the man's amplified voice said, "Maybe I'll wait."

  Potter sighed. LeBow gave him a thumbs-up and Budd smiled.

  "I appreciate that, Lou. I really do. How's your food situation?"

  Are you for real? Potter speculated.

  "What're you, first you play cop, then you play nurse, now you're a fucking caterer?"

  "I just want to keep everybody real calm and comfortable. Get you some sandwiches and sodas if you want. What do you say?"

  "We're not hungry."

  "Could be a long night."

  Either: silence or Won't be that long at all.

  "Don't think it's gonna be that long. Listen here, Art, you can chat me up 'bout food and medicine and any other crap you can think of. But the fact is we've got some things we're gonna want and we better have 'em without no hassles or I start killing. One by one."

  "Okay, Lou. Tell me what they are."

  "We'll do some talking here between us. And get back to you."

  "Who's 'us,' Lou?"

  "Aw, shit, you know, Art. There's me and Shep and my two brothers."

  LeBow tapped Potter's arm. He was pointing to the screen. It read:

  Handy is one of three brothers. Bench warrant out on Robert, 27. LKA, Seattle; failed to appear for grand larceny trial, fled jurisdiction. Eldest brother, Rudy, 40, was killed five years ago. Shot six times in the back of head by unknown assailant. Handy was suspected; never charged.

  Potter thought of the delicate lines on his genealogy charts. What would Handy's look like; from whom did his blood descend? "Your brothers, Lou?" he said. "Is that right? They're inside with you?"

  A pause.

  "And Shep's four cousins."

  "That's a lot of folk you got there. Anybody else?"

  "Doc Holliday and Bonnie 'n' Clyde and Ted Bundy and a shitload of the gang from Mortal Kombat, and Luke Skywalker. And Jeffrey Dahmer's hungry ghost."

  "Maybe we better surrender to you, Lou."

  Handy laughed again. Potter was pleased at the sliver of rapport. Pleased too that he managed to say the magic word "surrender," plant it in Handy's thoughts.

  "My nephew collects superhero comics," the agent said. "He'd love an autograph. Spider-Man wouldn't be in there too, would he?"

  "Might just be."

  The fax machine whirred and a number of sheets scrolled out. LeBow snatched them up and flipped through them rapidly, paused at one and then scribbled on the top, HOSTAGES. He pointed to a girl's name, followed by a block of handwritten text. It was preliminary data from Angie Scapello.

  Hostage negotiation is the process of testing limits. Potter read the fax and noticed something. He said casually, "Say, Lou, like to ask you a question. One of those girls in there's got some serious health problems. Would you let her go?"

  It was surprising how often direct requests of this sort worked. Ask a question and go silent.

  "Really?" Handy sounded concerned. "Sick, huh? What's the trouble?"

  "Asthma." Maybe the joking and the cartoon-character chat was having an effect on Handy.

  "Which one is she?"

  "Fourteen, short blond hair."

  Potter listened to the background noise--just hollowness--as Handy, he assumed, looked over the hostages.

  "If she doesn't get her medicine she could die," Potter said. "You release her, you do that for me, and when we get down to the serious negotiating I'll remember it. Tell you what, release her and we'll get you some electricity in there. Some lights."

  "You'll turn the power on?" Handy asked so suddenly it startled Potter.

  "We checked into that. The place is too old. It's not wired for modern current." Potter pointed to the " Deceptions" board and LeBow wrote. "But we'll run a line in and get you some lights."

  "Do that and then we'll talk."

  The balance of power was shifting subtly to Handy. Time to be tough. "All right. Fair enough. Now listen, Lou, I have to warn you. Don't try to get out of the building. There'll be snipers sighting on you. You're perfectly safe inside."

  He'll be angry, Potter anticipated. A mini tantrum. Obscenities and expletives.

  "Oh, I'm perfectly safe anywhere," Handy whispered into the phone. "Bullets pass right through me. I have strong medicine. When do I get some lights?"

  "Ten minutes, fifteen. Give us Beverly, Lou. If you do--"

  Click.

  "Damn," Potter muttered.

  "Little eager there, Arthur," LeBow said. Potter nodded. He'd made the classic mistake of negotiating against himself. Always wait for the other side to ask you for something. Understandably he'd pushed when he heard Handy's hesitation and upped the stakes himself. But he'd scared off the seller. Still, at some point he'd have to go through this exercise. Hostage takers can be pushed a certain distance, and bribed a certain amount further. Half the battle was finding out how far and when to do which.

  Potter called Stillwell and told him he'd warned the takers about leaving the slaughterhouse. "You're green-lighted to contain them, as discussed."

  "Yessir," Stillwell said.

  Potter asked Budd, "What's the ETA on that power truck?"

  "Should be just ten minutes." He was looking out the window morosely.

  "What's the matter, Charlie?"

  "Oh, nothing. I was just thinking that was good what you did there. Talking him out of shooting her."

  Potter sensed there was something else on Budd's mind. But he said only, "Oh, Handy was the one who decided not to shoot. I had nothing to do with it. The problem is, I don't know why yet."

  Potter waited five minutes, then pushed speed dial.

  The phone rang a million times. "Could you please turn that down a little, Tobe?" Potter nodded at the speaker above his head.

  "Sure . . . . Okay, uplink."

  "Yeah?" Handy barked.

  "Lou, you'll have a power line in about ten minutes."

  Silence.

  "What about the girl, Beverly?"

  "Can't have her," he said abruptly, as if surprised that Potter hadn't figured this out yet.

  Silence for a moment.

  "Thought you said if you got power--"

  "I'd think about it. I did, and you can't have her."

  Never get drawn into petty bickering. "Well, have you done any thinking about what you fellows want?"

  "I'll get back to you on that, Art."

  "I was hoping--"

  Click.

  "Downlink te
rminated," Tobe announced.

  Stillwell brought the trooper in, a short, swarthy young man. He leaned the offending weapon by the door, its black bolt locked back, and walked up to Potter.

  "I'm sorry, sir, I was on this branch and there was this gust of wind. I--"

  "You were told to unchamber your weapon," Potter snapped.

  The trooper stirred and his eyes darted around the room.

  "Here now," Stillwell said, looking faintly ridiculous with a bulky flak jacket on under his Penney's suit. "Tell the agent what you told me."

  The trooper looked icily at Stillwell, resenting the new chain of command. He said to Potter, "I never received that order. I was locked and loaded from the git-go. That's SOP for us, sir."

  Stillwell grimaced but he said, "I'll take responsibility, Mr. Potter."

  "Oh, brother . . . ." Charlie Budd stepped forward. "Sir," he said formally to Potter, "I have to say--it's my fault. Mine alone."

  Potter lifted an inquiring hand toward him.

  "I didn't tell the snipers to unchamber. I should've, like you ordered me to. The fact is, I concluded that I wasn't going to have troopers in the field unprotected. It's my fault. Not this man's. Not Dean's."

  Potter considered this and said to the sniper, "You'll stand down and assist at the rear staging area. Go report to Agent-in-Charge Henderson."

  "But I slipped, sir. It wasn't my fault. It was an accident."

  "There're no accidents in my barricades," Potter said coldly.

  "But--"

  "That's all, Trooper," Dean Stillwell said. "You heard your order. Dismissed." The man snagged his weapon then stormed out of the van.

  Budd said, "I'll do the same, sir. I'm sorry. I really am. You should have Dean here assist you. I--"

  Potter pulled the captain aside. He said in a whisper, "I need your help, Charlie. But what you did, it was a personal judgment call. That, I don't need from you. Understand?"

  "Yessir."

  "You still want to be on the team?"

  Budd nodded slowly.

  "Okay, now go on out there and give them the order to unchamber."

  "Sir--"

  "Arthur."

  "I've got to go home and look my wife in the eye and tell her that I disobeyed an FBI agent's direct order."

  "How long you been married?"

  "Thirteen years."

  "Get hitched in junior high?"

  Budd smiled grimly.

  "What's her name?"

  "Meg. Margaret."

  "You have children?"

  "Two girls." Budd's face remained miserable.

  "Go on now. Do what I asked." Potter held his eyes.

  The captain sighed. "I will, yessir. It won't happen again."

  "Keep your head down." Potter smiled. "And don't delegate this one, Charlie."

  "No sir. I'll check everybody."

  Stillwell looked on sympathetically as Budd, hangtail, walked out the door.

  Tobe was stacking up audiocassettes. All conversations with the takers would be recorded. The tape recorder was a special unit with a two-second delay built in, so that an electronic voice added a minute-by-minute time stamp onto the recording yet didn't block out the conversation. He looked up at Potter. "Who was it who said, 'I've met the enemy and he is us'? Was that Napoleon? Or Eisenhower, or somebody?"

  "I think it was Pogo," Potter said.

  "Who?"

  "Comic strip," Henry LeBow said. "Before your time."

  12:33 P.M.

  The room was growing dark.

  It was only early afternoon but the sky had filled with purple clouds and the windows in the slaughterhouse were small. Need that juice and need it now, Lou Handy thought, peering through the dimness.

  Water dripped and chains hung from the gloomy shadows of the ceiling. Hooks everywhere and overhead conveyors. There were rusted machines that looked like parts of cars a giant had been playing with and said fuck it and tossed down on the floor.

  Giant, Handy laughed to himself. What the hell'm I talking about?

  He wandered through the ground floor. Wild place. What's it like to make money knocking off animals? he wondered. Handy had worked dozens of jobs. Usually sweat labor. Nobody ever let him operate fancy equipment, which would have doubled or tripled his salary. The jobs always ended after a month or two. Arguments with the foreman, complaints, fights, drinking in the locker room. He had no patience to wait it out with people who couldn't understood that he wasn't your average person. He was special. Nofuckingbody in the world had ever caught on to this.

  The floor was wood, solid as concrete. Beautifully joined oak. Handy was no craftsman, like Rudy'd been, but he could appreciate good work. His brother had laid flooring for a living. Handy was suddenly angry at that asshole Potter. For some reason the agent had brought Rudy to mind. It infuriated Handy, made him want to get even.

  He walked to the room where they'd put the hostages. It was semicircular, sided in porcelain tile, windowless. The blood drain. He guessed that if somebody fired a gun in the middle of the room it'd be loud enough to shatter eardrums.

  Didn't much matter with this buncha birds, he thought. He looked them over. What was weird was that these girls--most of 'em--were pretty. That oldest one especially, the one with the black hair. The one looking back at him with a go-to-fucking-hell expression on her face. She's what, seventeen, eighteen? He smiled at her. She stared back. Handy gazed at the rest of them. Yep, pretty. It blew him away. They're freaks and all and you'd think they'd look a little gross, like retards do--like no matter how pretty, there's still something wrong, the corners don't meet even. But no, they looked normal. But damn, they cry a lot. That was irritating . . . that sound their throats make. They're fucking deaf--they shouldn't be making those fucking sounds!

  Suddenly, in his mind, Lou Handy saw his brother.

  The red dot appearing where Rudy's skull joined his spine. Then more dots, the tiny gun bucking in his fingers. The shudder in his brother's shoulders as the man stiffened, did a spooky little dance, and fell dead.

  Handy decided he hated Art Potter even more than he'd thought.

  He ambled back to Wilcox and Bonner, pulled the remote control out of the canvas bag, and channel-surfed on the tiny battery-powered TV that rested on an oil drum. All the local stations and one network were reporting about them. One newscaster said this would be Lou Handy's fifteen minutes of fame, whatever the hell that meant. The cops had ordered the reporters so far back from the action that he couldn't see anything helpful on the screen. He remembered the O. J. Simpson case, watching the white Bronco cruise down the highway, park at the man's house. The choppers were close enough to see the faces of the guy who was driving and the cop in his driveway. Everybody white in the prison rec room thinking, Blow your fucking brains out, nigger. Everybody black thinking, Go, O.J.! We're with you, homes!

  Handy turned down the sound on the TV. Fucking place, he thought, looking around the slaughterhouse. He smelled rotting carcasses.

  A voice startled him, "Let them go. Keep me."

  He wandered over to the tiled room. He crouched down and looked at the woman. "Who're you?"

  "I'm their teacher."

  "You can do that sign language stuff, right?"

  "Yes." She gazed at Handy with defiant eyes.

  "Uck," Handy said. "Freaky."

  "Please, let them go. Keep me."

  "Shut up," Handy said, and walked away.

  He looked out the window. A tall police van sat on the crest of a hill. He bet that was where Art Potter was sitting. He took his pistol from his pocket and aimed at a yellow square on its side. He compensated for the distance and the wind. He lowered the gun. "Coulda nailed you, they wanted to," he called to Wilcox. "That's what he told me."

  Wilcox too was gazing out a window. "There's a lot of 'em," he mused. Then: "Who was he? Th'asshole you were talking to."

  "FBI."

  Bonner said, "Oh, man. You mean we got a Feebie out there?"

&nbs
p; "Was a federal prison we broke outta. Who the fuck you think they'd have after us?"

  "Tommy Lee Jones," Bonner said. The big man kept his eyes on the teacher for a moment. Then on the little girl in the flowered dress and white stockings.

  Handy saw his eyes. That cocksucker. "Nup, Sonny. Keep it inside them stinky jeans of yours, you hear me? Or you'll lose it."

  Bonner grunted. When accused of doing just what he was guilty of Bonner always got pissed. Fast as a hedgehog rolls up. "Fuck you."

  "Hope I gave one of 'em a new asshole," Wilcox said, but in his lazy-as-could-be voice, one of the reasons why Handy liked him.

  "So what've we got?" Handy asked.

  Wilcox answered, "The two shotguns. And close to forty shells. One Smitty only six rounds. No, make that five. But we've got the Glocks and beaucoup de ammo there. Three hundred rounds."

  Handy paced around the slaughterhouse floor, dancing over the pools of standing water.

  "Damn cryin's getting on my nerves," Handy snapped. "It's fucking with my mind. That fat one, shit. Lookit her. And I don't know what's going on out there. That agent sounded too slick. I don't trust his ass. Sonny, you stay with our girls. Shep 'n' me're gonna poke around."

  "What about tear gas?" Bonner looked out the window uncertainly. "We shoulda got some masks."

  "They shoot tear gas in," Handy explained, "just piss on the canisters."

  "That works? To stop it?"

  "Yep."

  "How 'bout that."

  Handy glanced into the tiled room. The older teacher gazed at him with her muddy eyes. Sort of defiant, sort of something else.

  "What's your name?"

  "Donna Harstrawn. I--"

  "Tell me, Donna, what's her name?" he asked slowly, pointing to the oldest student, the pretty one with the long black hair.

  Before the teacher could answer, the girl lifted her middle finger toward him. Handy roared with laughter.

  Bonner stepped forward, lifting his arm. "You little shit."

  Donna scrambled in front of the girl, who drew back her fists, grinning. The little girls made their fucking spooky bird noises and the scared blond teacher held up a pitiful, pleading hand.

  Handy grabbed Bonner's hand and pushed him away. "Don't hit 'em 'less I tell you to." He pointed at the teenager and asked the teacher, "What's her fucking name?"