A Maiden's Grave

by Jeffery Deaver

  I go because I can't stop myself.

  I go because he wants me.

  She felt the chill sweeping into her from the floor, from the metal chains and meat hooks, from the cascade of slick water, from the damp walls spattered with mold and old, old blood.

  I go because I'm afraid.

  I go because he and I just killed a man together.

  I go because I can understand him . . . .

  Brutus pulled her close. "You think you're better'n me, right? You think you're a good person." She could tell he was whispering. People's faces change when they whisper. They look like they're telling you absolute truths but really they're just making the lie more convincing.

  "Why're we selling it? Honey, you know what the doctor said. It's your ears. You can still hear now some, sure, but that'll go, remember what they said. You don't really want to start something you'll have to give up in a few years. We're doing it for you."

  "See, I'm going to cut her in about three minutes, that chopper don't show up. I'd kill her I had more hostages. But I can't afford to lose another one. Least not yet."

  Emily stood, hands still clasped together, staring out at the window, shaking as she sobbed.

  "See"--Brutus closed his fiercely strong fingers around Melanie's arm--"if you were a good person, you were really good, you'd say, 'Take me, not her.' "

  Stop it!

  He slapped her. "No, keep your eyes open. So if you're not like totally good you must have some bad inside you. Somewhere. To let this little one get cut instead of you. It's not like you'd die. I ain't gonna kill her. Just a little pain. Make sure those assholes out . . . know I mean business. You won't put up with a little pain for your friend, huh? You . . . bad. Just like me?"

  She shook her head.

  His head swiveled. Stoat's too. She guessed the phone was ringing.

  "Don't answer it," he said to Stoat. "Too much talking. I'm sick and tired . . . ." He thumbed the blade. Melanie was frozen. "You? You for her?" He moved the blade of the knife one way then the other. Figure eights.

  What would Susan have done?

  Melanie hesitated though she knew the answer clearly. Finally she nodded.

  "Yeah," he said, eyebrows raised. "You mean it?"

  "Two minutes," Stoat called.

  Melanie nodded then embraced sobbing Emily, lowered her head to the girl's cheek, directed her gently away from the window.

  Handy leaned close, his head inches from Melanie's, his nose beside her ear. She couldn't hear his breath, of course, but she had the impression he was inhaling something--the scent of her fear. Her eyes were fixed on the knife. Which hovered over her skin: her cheek, her nose, then her lips, her throat. She felt it caress a breast and slide down her belly.

  She felt the vibration of his voice, turned to look at his lips. " . . . should I cut you? Your tit? No loss there--you don't have no boyfriend to feel you up, do you? Your ear? Hey, that wouldn't matter either . . . . You see that flick, Reservoir Dogs?"

  The blade lifted, slipped over her cheek. "How 'bout your eye? Deaf and blind. You'd be a real freak then."

  Finally she could take it no longer and she closed her eyes. She tried to think of the tune of "Amazing Grace" but it was nowhere in her memory.

  A Maiden's Grave . . .

  Nothing, nothing, all silence. Music can be vibrations or sound, but not both.

  And for me, neither.

  Well, she thought, do whatever the fuck you're going to do and get it over with.

  But then the hands pushed her brutally away and she opened her eyes, staggering across the floor. Brutus was laughing. She understood that this little sacrifice scene had been just a game. He'd been playing with her once again. He said, "Naw, naw, I've got other plans for you, little mouse. You're a present for my Pris."

  He handed her off to Stoat, who held her firmly. She struggled but he gripped her like a vise. Brutus pulled Emily back into the window. The girl's eyes met Melanie's momentarily, and Emily pushed her hands together, praying, crying.

  Brutus caught Emily's head in the crook of his left arm and lifted the tip of the knife to her eyes.

  Melanie struggled futilely against Stoat's iron grip.

  Brutus looked at his watch. "Time."

  Emily sobbed; her joined fingers twitched as they uttered fervent prayers.

  Brutus tightened his grip on Emily's head. He drew back a few inches with the knife, aimed right for the center of her closed right eye.

  Stoat looked away.

  Then suddenly his arms jerked in surprise. He looked straight up at the murky ceiling.

  Brutus did too.

  And finally Melanie felt it.

  A huge thudding overhead, like the roll of a timpani. Then it grew closer and became the continuous sound of a bowed upright bass. An indiscernible pitch that Melanie felt on her face and arms and throat and chest.

  Music is sound or vibration. But not both.

  Their helicopter was overhead.

  Brutus leaned out the window and looked up at the sky. With his bony fingers he dramatically unlocked the blade of his knife and closed it with what Melanie supposed was a loud snap. He laughed and said something to Stoat, words that Melanie was, for some reason, furious to realize she could not understand at all.

  9:31 P.M.

  "You're looking a little green around the gills there, Charlie."

  "That pilot," Budd said to Potter, climbing into the van unsteadily. "Brother, I thought I'd bought the farm. He missed the field altogether, set her down in the middle of Route 346, almost on top of a fire truck. Now, there's an experience for you. Then he puked out the window and fell asleep. I kept shutting stuff off till the engine stopped. This smell in here isn't helping my stomach any." The captain's exemplary posture was shot to hell; he slumped into a chair.

  "Well, you did good, Charlie," Potter told him. "Handy's agreed to give us a little more time. HRT'll be here any minute."

  "Then what?"

  "We shall see what we shall see," Potter mused.

  "When I was driving up," Budd said, his eyes firmly on Potter's, "I heard a transmission. There was a shot inside?"

  LeBow stopped typing. "Handy shot Bonner," the intelligence officer said. "We think."

  "I think Handy and Wilcox," Potter continued, "took our strategy a little more seriously than I'd expected--about Bonner cutting a separate deal. They figured him for a snitch."

  "Wasn't anything we could do about it," LeBow said offhandedly. "You can't second-guess stuff like that."

  "Couldn't have been foreseen," Tobe recited like a cyborg in one of the science fiction novels he was always reading.

  Charlie Budd--the faux U.S. attorney, a naif in the state police--was the only honest one in the group, for he was silent. He continued to look at Potter and their eyes met. The young man's gaze said he understood that Potter had known what would happen when he gave Budd the script; it'd been Potter's intent all along for Budd to plant the seed of distrust that would set Handy against Bonner.

  But in Budd's glance was another message. His eyes said, Oh, I get it, Potter. You used me to kill a man. Well, fair's fair; after all, I spied on you. But now our sins have canceled each other out. Mutual betrayals, and what's happened? Well, we're one hostage taker down, all to the good. But listen here: I don't owe you anything anymore.

  A phone buzzed--Budd's own cellular phone. He took the call. He listened, punctuating the conversation with several significant "ums," and then clamped a hand over the mouthpiece.

  "Well, how 'bout this? It's my division commander, Ted Franklin. He says there's a trooper in McPherson, not too far from here. A woman. She negotiated Handy's surrender five years ago in a convenience store holdup that went bad. He wants to know if he should ask her to come down here and help."

  "Handy surrendered to her?"

  Budd posed the question and listened for a moment. Then he said, "He did, yes. Seems there were no hostages. They'd all escaped and HRU was about to go in. A l
ot different from this, sounds like."

  Potter and LeBow exchanged glances. "Have her come anyway," the negotiator said. "Whether she can help us directly or not, I can see Henry's licking his chops at the thought of more info on the bad guys."

  "Yes indeed."

  Budd relayed this to his commander and Potter was momentarily heartened at the thought of having an ally. He sat back in the chair and mused out loud, "Any way we can get another one or two out before HRT gets here?"

  Angie asked, "What can we give him that he hasn't asked for? Anything?"

  LeBow scrolled through the screen. "He's asked for transportation, food, liquor, guns, vests, electricity . . . ."

  Angie said, "All the classic things. What every taker wants."

  "But not money," Budd said suddenly.

  Frowning, Potter glanced at the "Promises" side of the board, where the things they'd actually given Handy were recorded. "You're right, Charlie."

  Angie asked, "He hasn't?" Surprised.

  LeBow scrolled through his files and confirmed that Handy had not once mentioned money. He asked the captain, "How'd you think of that?"

  "I saw it in a movie," Budd explained.

  "It's an opportunistic taking," LeBow offered. "Handy's not out to make a profit. He's an escaping criminal."

  "So was this fellow," Budd said. Potter and LeBow glanced at the captain, who, blushing, added, "In the movie, I mean. I think it was Gene Hackman. Or maybe he was the one playing your role, Arthur. He's a good actor, Hackman is."

  Angie said, "I agree with Charlie, Henry. It's true that a lot of criminal takers don't want money. But Handy's got a mercenary streak in him. Most of his underlying raps're larceny."

  "Let's try to buy a couple of them," Potter said. "What've we got to lose?" He asked Budd, "Can you get your hands on any cash?"

  "This time of night?"

  "Immediately."

  "Geez, I guess so. HQ's got petty cash. Maybe two hundred. How's that?"

  "I'm talking about a hundred thousand dollars in small bills, unmarked. Within, say, twenty minutes."

  "Oh," Budd said. "In that case, no."

  LeBow said, "I'll call the DEA. They've got to have some buy money in Topeka or Wichita. We'll do an interagency transfer." He nodded at Tobe, who flipped through a laminated phone book and pushed in a phone number. LeBow began speaking through his headset in a voice as soft and urgent as his key strokes.

  Potter picked up his phone and rang Handy.

  "Hey, Art."

  "How you doing, Lou? Ready to leave?"

  "You bet I am. Go to a nice warm cabin . . . . Or a hotel. Or a desert island."

  "Whereabouts, Lou? Maybe I'll come visit."

  You got yourself quite a sense of humor, Art.

  "I like cops with a sense of humor, you old son of a bitch."

  "Where's my chopper?"

  "Close as we could get it, Lou. In that field just over the trees. Turned out the river was too choppy after all. Now listen, Lou. You saw that chopper. It's a six-seater. I know you wanted an eight-but that's all we could rustle up." He hoped the man hadn't gotten a very good look at it; you could fit half the Washington Redskins in an old Sikorsky. "So, I've got a proposition. Let me buy a couple of the hostages."

  "Buy?"

  "Sure. I'm authorized to pay up to fifty thousand each. There just isn't room for the six of you and the pilot. No overhead racks for carry-ons, you know. Let me buy a couple of them."

  Shit, Art, I could shoot one of 'em. Then we'd have plenty of space.

  But he'll laugh when he says it.

  "Hey, I got an idea. 'Stead of giving one of 'em to you, I could shoot her. Then we'd have plenty of room. For us and our matched sets of American Tourister."

  The laugh was almost a cackle.

  "Ah, but Lou, if you kill her you don't get any money. That'd be a bummer, as my nephew says." Potter said this good-naturedly, for he felt the rapport had been reestablished. It was solid, fibrous. The negotiator knew that the man was seriously considering the offer.

  "Fifty thousand?"

  "Cash. Small, unmarked bills."

  A hesitation. "Okay. But only one. I keep the rest."

  "Make it two. You'll still have two left. Don't want to be greedy."

  Fuck it, Art. Gimme a hundred for one. That's the best I'll do.

  "Nope," Handy said. "You get one. Fifty thousand. That's the deal."

  Potter glanced at Angie. She shook her head, perplexed. Handy wasn't bargaining. After some feigned horse trading, Potter had been prepared to turn over the full one hundred for a single girl.

  "Well, all right, Lou. I accept."

  "Only, Art?"

  There was a tone in Handy's voice Potter hadn't yet heard and it troubled him. He had no idea what was coming next. Where had he left himself exposed?

  "Yes?"

  "You have to tell me which one."

  "How do you mean, Lou?"

  The chuckle again. "Pretty easy question, Art. Which one do you want to buy? You know how it works, good buddy. You go to a car lot and say, I'll take that Chevy or that Ford. You pays your money, you takes your choice. Which one you want?"

  His heart. That's where Potter had left himself unprotected. In his heart.

  Budd and Angie stared at the agent.

  Tobe kept his head down, focusing on his animate dials.

  "Well, Lou, now . . ." Potter could think of nothing else to say. For the first time today, indecision crept into Potter's soul. And, worse, he heard it in his voice. This couldn't happen. Hesitation was deadly in a negotiation. Takers picked up on it immediately and it gave them power, deadly power. With someone like Handy, a control freak, hearing even a one-second pause in Potter's voice might make him feel invincible.

  In the delay Potter sensed he was signing the death warrants for all four hostages. "Well, that's a tough question," Potter tried to joke.

  "Must be. Fact, sounds like you're pretty damn flummoxed."

  "I just--"

  "Lemme help you, Art. Let's take a stroll through the used-hostage lot, why don't we? Well, here's the old one--that teach. Now, she's gotta lot of mileage on her. She's pretty run-down. A clunker, a lemon. That was Bonner's doing. He rode her hard, I tell you. Radiator's still leaking."

  "Jesus," Budd muttered.

  "That son of a bitch," placid Angie said.

  Potter's eyes were firmly fixed on the yellow, homey windows of the slaughterhouse. Thinking: No! Don't do this to me! No!

  "Then there's the pretty one. The blond one. Melanie."

  Why does he know her name? Potter thought. Unreasonably angry. Did she tell him? Does she talk to him?

  Has she fallen for him?

  "I myself've taken a shine to her. But she's yours if you want her. Then we have this little shit that can't breathe. Oh, and finally we got the pretty one in the dress just about became Miss One-Eye. Take your pick."

  Potter found himself looking at Melanie's picture. No, stop it, Potter commanded himself. Look away. He did. Now think! Who's the most at risk?

  Who threatens his control the most?

  The older teacher? No, not at all. The little girl, Emily? No, too frail and feminine and young. Beverly? Her illness would, as Budd had suggested, irritate Handy.

  And what of Melanie? Handy's comment about taking a shine to her suggested that some Stockholming was going on. Was it enough to make him hesitate to kill her? Probably not. But she's older. How could he ask for an adult before a child?

  Melanie, Potter's heart cried helplessly, I want to save you! And the same heart burned with rage for Handy's laying the decision in his lap.

  He opened his mouth; he couldn't speak.

  Budd frowned. "There isn't much time. He may back down if we don't pick right now."

  LeBow touched his arm. He whispered, "It's okay, Arthur. Pick who you want. It doesn't really matter."

  But it did. Every decision in a barricade incident mattered. He found himself staring at Melanie's p
icture again. Blond hair, large eyes.

  Be forewarned, de l'Epee.

  Potter sat up straight. "Beverly," he said suddenly into the phone. "The girl with the asthma." He closed his eyes.

  "Hmmm. Good choice, Art. Her wheezing's gettin' on my nerves. I was getting close to doing her on general principles 'cause of that fucking wheeze-wheeze shit. Okey-dokey, when you get the cash, I'll send her out."

  Handy hung up.

  No one spoke for a long moment. "I hate that sound," Frances finally muttered. "I never want to hear a phone hang up again."

  Potter sat back. LeBow and Tobe were looking at him. Slowly he swung to the window and looked out.

  Melanie, forgive me.

  "Hello, Arthur. This's a bad one, to hear tell."

  Frank D'Angelo was a lanky, mustachioed man, calm as a summer pond. The head of the Bureau's Hostage Rescue Team had been in charge of the hot work in fifty or sixty negotiations Potter had run. The tactical agents--pulled off the Florida and Seattle barricades--had just arrived and were assembled in the gully behind the command van.

  "It's been a long day, Frank."

  "He's got a booby trap rigged?"

  "So it seems. I'm inclined to get him out on a short leash and then apprehend or neutralize. But that's your speciality."

  D'Angelo asked, "How many hostages left?"

  "Four," Potter answered. "We're getting another one out in about ten minutes."

  "You going to make a surrender pitch?"

  The ultimate goal of all negotiations is to get the takers to surrender. But if you make your case to them just before they get their helicopter or other means of escape, they might conclude, reasonably, that an offer to surrender is actually a veiled ultimatum and that you're about to nail them. On the other hand, if you just green-light an attack there'll likely be casualties and you'll spend the rest of your life wondering if you might have gotten the takers to give up without any bloodshed.

  Then too there was the Judas factor. The betrayal. Potter was promising Handy one thing and delivering something very different. Possibly--likely--the man's death. However evil Handy was, he and the negotiator were partners of sorts, and betraying him was something Potter would also have to live with for a long, long time.

  "No," the agent said slowly, "no surrender pitch. He'll hear it as an ultimatum and figure we're planning an assault. Then we'll never get him out."

  "What happened here?" D'Angelo pointed at the burned portion of the command van.

  "Tell you about it later," Potter responded.