A Maiden's Grave

by Jeffery Deaver

  As soon as this happened HRU's three teams would move into the slaughterhouse. Charlie team would use Model 521 cutting charges to blast a hole in the roof and drop two stun grenades onto the takers. Alpha and Bravo would blow the side and loading-dock doors simultaneously and enter the building while Charlie dropped the second--the flash--grenades, which would explode in a huge burst of blinding light, and then rappel through the opening in the roof. Bravo team would head straight to the hostages, and Alpha and Charlie would advance on the HTs, neutralizing them if there was any resistance.

  They were now waiting for three troopers who'd gone to check out the side door, the loading dock, and the roof.

  Dan Tremain lay prone beside the steely Lieutenant Carfallo and gazed at the slaughterhouse, which rose above them like a medieval castle, toothy and dark. The captain said to his troops, "You'll be using four-man entry. The first two men will be the key shooters. Machine guns first, followed by shotgun backup. This will be a dynamic shooting entry. You will proceed until all hostile targets have been successfully engaged and neutralized and the premises have been secured. There are six hostages inside, located where I indicated on the map. They're all female, and four are young girls, who may panic and run. You will exercise absolute muzzle control of your weapons at all times you are inside. Do you copy?"

  Affirmative answers.

  Then came the bad news.

  One by one the surveillance troopers called in. The reconnaissance revealed that the side door was far thicker than the diagram indicated: three-inch oak with a sheet steel face. They would have to use four cutting charges. For safety, Alpha team would have to be farther away when it blew than originally planned. That would add as much as six seconds to the time it would take to get to the girls.

  It turned out too that there'd been some construction on the roof not reflected in the original architectural drawings--a series of steel plates, covering virtually the entire roof, had been bolted into place years ago. The men on the roof would have to use a large amount of C4 to cut through them. In an old building like this, that much plastic explosive could bring down girders--possibly even major portions of the roof.

  Tremain then learned from the third scout that the loading-dock door was jammed open only about eight inches. It was a huge steel sheet, too large to blow.

  The captain conferred with Carfallo and they revised their plans. They decided they'd have to forgo the roof and loading-dock assaults and go with a two-team, single-door entry through the north door. Wilson, standing by the front window, would toss in a stun grenade, followed by the flash. This was risky because it would expose him to both the police line and the HTs; he might get shot by either. But Tremain concluded there was no choice.

  He needed another hour, he decided, for an effective attack--time to find another unbarred door or window and time to weaken the hinges on the fire door so they could use smaller charges.

  But he didn't have an hour. He had twenty minutes until the next deadline.

  Until the next girl would die.

  Well, then, a single-entrance assault it would be. Tremain said, "Code word 'filly' means green light. Code word 'stallion' means stand down. Acknowledge."

  The men responded. Tremain led them into the gully beside the slaughterhouse. There they plastered themselves against the damp earth and fell into absolute stillness and silence, for so they had been instructed, and these were men who lived by their orders before anything else.

  6:40 P.M.

  Joe Silbert had taught himself to type with two fingers on an Underwood upright that smelled of oil and ink and the bittersweet scent of eraser shavings clogging the carriage.

  Technology hadn't changed things for him much and he now pounded away with only his index digits thudding loudly on the large portable Compaq. The orange light of the screen illuminated both him and Ted Biggins, made them look jaundiced and depleted. Silbert supposed that, being almost double Biggins's age, he looked twice as bad.

  Philip Molto stood his diligent guard, as instructed by nervous Captain Budd.

  "What do you think?" Silbert asked Biggins.

  Biggins looked over his colleague's shoulder at the dense single-spaced type on the screen and grunted. "Mind if I take over?" He nodded at the screen.

  "Be my guest."

  Biggins could touch-type like a demon and his fingers moved quietly and invisibly over the keys. "Hey, I'm a fucking natural at this," he said, his hair perfectly coiffed although he was only an engineer and Silbert was in fact the on-camera reporter.

  "Hey, Officer," Silbert called to Molto, "our shift's almost up. We're just going to leave the computer here for the next team. They'll pick up the story where we left it off."

  "You guys do that?"

  "It's a cooperative thing, you know. You'll keep an eye on the computer?"

  "Sure thing, yessir. What's the matter?"

  Silbert was frowning, looking out into the stand of trees and juniper bushes behind the police line. "You hear something?"

  Biggins was standing up, looking around uneasily. "Yeah."

  Molto cocked his head. There were footsteps. A snap of branch, a shuffle.

  "There's nobody behind there," the lieutenant said, half to himself. "I mean, nobody's supposed to be."

  Silbert's face had the cautious look of a man who'd covered combat zones before. Then he broke into a wry grin. "That son of a bitch. Lieutenant, I think we've got a trespasser here."

  The trooper, hand on his pistol, stepped into the bushes. When he returned he was escorting two men in black jogging suits. Press credentials bounced on their chests.

  "Well, look who it is," Silbert said. "Walter Cronkite and Chet Huntley."

  Biggins said to Molto, "If you're going to arrest them, forget trespassing. Charge 'em with being first-degree assholes."

  "You boys know each other?"

  One of the captives grimaced. "Silbert, you're a son of a bitch. You blow the whistle on us? And don't even let that little shit with you say a word to me."

  Silbert said to Molto, "They're with KLTV. Sam Kellog and Tony Bianco. They seem to've forgotten that we're press-pooling."

  "Fuck you," Bianco snapped.

  Silbert spat out, "I gave up an exclusive just like you did, Kellog. You would've had your turn."

  "I'm supposed to arrest you," Molto said to Kellog and Bianco.

  "Bullshit, you can't do that."

  "I'll think about it on the way back to the press tent. Come on."

  "Look, Officer," Kellog said, "as long as we're here . . ."

  "How'd you get here anyway, Kellog?" Biggins said. "Crawl on your belly?"

  "Fuck you too."

  Molto led them away. As soon as the squad car vanished Silbert barked to Biggins, "Now. Do it."

  Biggins unhooked the casing of the computer monitor and pulled it open. From it he took a Nippona LL3R video camera--the subminiature model, which cost one hundred and thirty thousand dollars, weighed fourteen ounces, and was equipped with a folding twelve-inch parabolic antenna and transmitter. It produced a broadcast-quality picture in virtual darkness and had a telescopic lens as smooth as a sniper's riflescope. It had an effective range of three miles, which would be more than enough to reach the KFAL mobile transmitting center, where Silbert's colleagues (Tony Bianco and Sam Kellog, as it turned out, not too coincidentally) would soon--if they weren't actually under arrest--be waiting for the transmission. In case they were in fact sacrifices to the First Amendment other technicians were ready to wade into the breach.

  Silbert opened his attache case and took out two black nylon running suits--identical to those that Kellog and Bianco had been wearing, except for one difference: on the back were stenciled the words U.S. Marshal. They pulled these on.

  "Wait," Silbert said. He bent down to the screen and erased the entire file that Biggins had written--which consisted of the sentence The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog, written about three hundred times. Shift-F3. He switched screens to th
e generic cop-on-a-stakeout story, which Silbert had filed about three years ago and had called up tonight as soon as they got the computer booted up. The story that prick Arthur Potter had admired.

  The two men slipped into the gully behind the command van and hurried through the night in the direction that Dan Tremain and his silent Hostage Rescue Unit had gone.

  The gas can.

  This was the first thing in her thoughts as she opened her eyes and looked around the killing room.

  Emily, on her knees, playing good Christian nurse, brushed the blood away from Melanie's eye. It was swollen, though not closed. The girl ripped the hem of her precious Laura Ashley dress and wiped more of the blood away.

  Melanie lay still, as the terrible pain in her head lessened and her vision improved. One of the twins, Suzie (she thought it was Suzie), brushed her hair with her tiny, perfect fingers.

  The gas can. There it was.

  Finally Melanie sat up and crawled over to Beverly.

  "How are you?" she asked the girl.

  Sweat had plastered Beverly's blond Dutch-boy hair to her face. She nodded, though her chest continued to rise and fall alarmingly. She used the inhaler again. Melanie had never seen her this sick. The device seemed to be having no effect.

  Mrs. Harstrawn still lay on the floor, on her back. She'd been crying again but was now calm. Melanie gently worked the woman's colorful sweater over her shoulders. She muttered some words. Melanie thought she said, "Don't. I'm cold."

  "I have to," Melanie signed. Her fingers danced in front of the woman's face but she didn't see the message.

  A minute later Mrs. Harstrawn's sweater was off. Melanie looked around and pitched it casually against the wall of the killing room, near the place where the arched opening met the floor toward the rear of the slaughterhouse. Then she scooted forward until she could look into the main room. Bear glanced toward them occasionally but the men were concentrating on the television. Melanie looked at the twins and in faint gestures signed to them, "Go over to gas can."

  They looked uneasily at each other, their heads moving identically.

  "Do it. Now!" Her signs were urgent--sharp, compact stabs of her fingers.

  They rose and crawled slowly toward the red-and-yellow can.

  When Suzie looked at her she told the girl to pick up the sweater. Mrs. Harstrawn's mother in Topeka had knitted it. The colors were red and white and blue, very visible--bad news for now; good news once the girls got outside. But Suzie wasn't moving. Melanie repeated the command. There was no time for caution, she explained. "Move! Now!"

  Why is she hesitating? She's just staring at me.

  No, not at me. . . .

  Then the shadow fell over her.

  She gasped as Brutus took her by the shoulders and spun her around.

  "You think . . . a fucking hero, do you? Why, I've shot people for a lot less'n what you did."

  She thought for a terrible moment that Brutus could actually read her mind, had an animal's sixth sense, and knew what she was planning with the gas can. But then she understood he was talking about her pitching Kielle out the door. Maybe being pistol-whipped wasn't enough punishment. He pulled his gun and rested it against her head.

  Filled with a burst of rage that shocked her, she pushed the gun aside, stood, and walked into the main room of the plant, feeling the vibrations of his shouts on her back. She ignored him and continued to the oil drum that served as a table. Bear rose and stepped toward her but she ignored him too. She picked up the pen and paper and returned to the killing room.

  She wrote: You work real hard to prove you're a bad guy, don't you? Thrust it in his face.

  Brutus laughed. He ripped the pad from her hands, tossed it on the floor. He studied her for a long, long moment, then, eerily calm, he said, " . . . you and me chew the fat. I don't talk much . . . not many people I can talk to. But you I can. Why's that? . . . you can't talk back, I guess. It's good when a woman don't talk back. Pris, she's got a mind of her own . . . . I approve of that. But sometimes she's off someplace else, you know? . . . I just don't get what she's saying. You, I look into your face and I can understand you. You seem like a little mouse, but maybe there's more to you. There is, ain't there?"

  Melanie was horrified to find, somewhere in her heart, a splinter of pleasure. This terrible, terrible man was approving of her. He killed Susan, he killed Susan, he killed Susan, she told herself. He'd kill me in an instant if he wanted to. These things she knew but all she sensed at this moment was his approval.

  He put the gun away and fiddled with his shoelaces. "You think I'm bad for . . . to your friend. Well, by your thinkin' I am bad. I ain't . . . smart and I don't have no particular talents. But the one thing I am is bad. I'm not saying I don't have a heart or that I haven't cried in my day. I cried for a week when somebody shot my brother. Yes, I did." Brutus paused, his pointy teeth rising from his thin lips, "Now, that sonofabitch out there . . ." He nodded toward the phone.

  De l'Epee? Does he mean de l'Epee?

  "Him and me, we're in a battle right now. And he's going to lose . . . . Why? Because bad is simple and good is complicated. And the simple always wins. That's what everything comes down to in the end. Simple always wins. That's just nature and you know what kind of trouble people get into ignoring nature. Look at you, all you deaf people. You'll die out before people like me. I need something, I can say, 'Give it to me.' I open my mouth and somebody does what I want. But you, you have to do funny things with your hands. You have to write it down. That's complicated. You're a freak . . . you'll die and I'll live. It's nature.

  "Me, I'm taking that girl over there, that flower-dress one, and shooting her in about ten minutes if . . . helicopter don't get here. Which I don't think it will. To me, that's no worse'n scratching an itch or buying a soda pop when you're thirsty."

  He looked at Emily, his mouth curling into that faint smile of his.

  And in his glance, Melanie suddenly saw much more than a look of a captor toward his victim. She saw all the taunts of her classmates, the grinding frustrations of trying to understand what can be understood only by the miracle of hearing. She saw an empty life without a lover. She saw the cover of a piece of sheet music entitled "Amazing Grace" and inside, merely blank pages.

  God's will . . .

  Brutus's glance . . .

  And so it made sense that she went for his eyes.

  Melanie leapt forward, her perfect fingernails clawing at his face.

  He gave a gasp of surprise and stumbled backwards, groping for his gun. He pulled it from his belt and she lunged for it. The pistol flew from his grip and slid across the floor. She was out of control, crazed, driven by a consuming anger unlike any she'd ever experienced. An anger that poured from her too quickly, ripping her open, hurting the way the fever had burned her skin when she was eight and took away the simple and made her life so terribly complicated.

  Her long fingers, muscular from years of signing, tipped with pearl nails, ripped into his cheek; she slapped his nose, she dug for his eyes. As he fell onto his back she leapt upon his chest, her knee crunching into his solar plexus. He gasped as the breath was forced from his lungs. He struck her once in the chest and she recoiled from him but he had no leverage and his blow was painless.

  "Jesus Christ . . .!" His wiry hands reached for her throat but she punched them aside and got a grip on his windpipe, her strong arms fending off his; he couldn't quite reach her. Where was this strength coming from? she wondered, as she banged his head into the concrete and watched his face turn blue.

  Perhaps Stoat and Bear were running toward her, perhaps they were aiming their guns at her. Or maybe because Brutus had no air in his lungs he was silent, maybe he was too proud to call for help. She didn't know--or care. Nothing existed for her but this man and his evilness--not the other girls, not Mrs. Harstrawn, not the soul of Susan Phillips, who agnostic Melanie believed floated above them at this moment, a beautiful seraph.

  She was going to k
ill him.

  Then suddenly he went limp as a towel. His tongue protruded from his pale lips. And she thought, My God, I've done it! Exultant and terrified, she sat back, looking at the twins, sobbing Emily, gasping Bev.

  When his knee rose fast she had no time to deflect it and it caught her between the legs, crashing into her with a raging pain. She inhaled fiercely and cradled her groin as Brutus's fist drove into her chest just below the breastbone. Melanie doubled over, breathless.

  He rose easily and she saw that, aside from the scratches on his cheek, he wasn't hurt at all. He'd been playing with her. Roughhousing.

  Then he had her by the hair and was dragging her into the front room.

  She dug her nails into his hand and he slapped her face hard. Her vision exploded with light and her arms went limp. The next thing she knew she was in the window of the slaughterhouse, staring out at the windy field and the brilliant lights trained on the building.

  Her face was against the glass and she thought it might break and slice through her eyes. No, no, not that kind of darkness. Permanent darkness. No, please . . . .

  Stoat stepped forward but Brutus waved him off. He pulled his pistol out. He spun her around so she could see him speak. "If you could talk like a normal person, maybe you could say something to save yourself. But you can't. No, no. You're a freak of nature and if they don't come through with that chopper you're going to be even more of a freak. Shep, how much time . . . ?"

  Stoat seemed to hesitate and said something she didn't understand.

  "How much fucking time?" Brutus's bloody face was distorted with rage.

  He received the answer and lifted the gun to her cheek. Then slowly his hand entwined in her hair and turned her around so that she was facing into the blinding white lights once again.

  Melanie. Potter saw her face through his thick field glasses. Melanie was the next victim.

  Budd, LeBow, and Frances stared out the window. Stillwell came on the radio and said, "One of my snipers reports that Handy's bleeding. Doesn't seem serious but his face is cut."

  "Twelve minutes to deadline," Tobe said. "Downlink coming in."

  The phone rang and Potter answered at once. "Lou, what--?"

  "I've got a new one, Art," Handy's voice raged. "She's got some spirit. I was gonna forgive her after she gave you that little troublemaker. But the slut got it into her mind she wanted to have a little fun. Go for a roll in the hay with me."