A Maidens Grave

“Deceptions.” On it LeBow would record everything Potter offered to Handy and every lie he told the man. This was standard procedure in hostage negotiations. The use of the crib sheet could be explained best by Mark Twain, who’d said that a man needs a good memory to be an effective liar.
    Surprised, Budd asked, “You really going to lie to him?” LeBow smiled.
    “But what exactly is a lie, Charlie?” Potter asked. “The truth’s a pretty slippery thing. Are any words ever one hundred percent honest?” He tore pages from his notebook and handed them to LeBow, who took the small sheets, along with the faxes that were spewing from the printer, and began typing on the keyboard of the computer that was labeled “Profiles,” the word written long ago on a piece of now dirty masking tape. The label on the second computer read “Chronology.” The latter screen contained only two entries:
    0840 hours. Hostages taken.
    1050 hours. Threat Management Team—Potter, LeBow—in place.
    The backlit liquid-crystal screens poured eerie blue light onto the man’s round face; he looked like an Arthur Rackham rendering of the man in the moon. Charlie Budd gazed at the man’s fingers, flying invisibly over the keys. “Lookit that. He’s worn off half the letters.”
    LeBow grumbled to Potter, “Saw the building. Lousy situation. Too well shielded for SatSurv and not enough windows for infrared or mikes. The wind’s a problem too.”
    As in most barricades the bulk of information here would have to come from traditional sources—released or escaped hostages and the troopers who took food and drinks to the HTs and stole a glance inside.
    LeBow tapped computer buttons and created a small window on the chronology computer. Two digital stopwatches appeared. One was headed “Elapsed”; the other, “Deadline.”
    LeBow set the elapsed time clock to two hours, ten minutes and pushed a button. It began moving. He glanced at Potter with a raised eyebrow.
    “I know, Henry.” If you don’t contact the hostage takersoon after the taking they get nervous and begin to wonder if you’re planning an assault. The negotiator added, “We’ll give Tobe a few minutes then have the briefing.” He looked out over the fields behind them, the tall pale blanket of grass waving in the chill breeze. A half-mile away the combines moved in gentle, symmetrical patterns, cropping the wheat fields like a new recruit’s scalp.
    Potter examined a map of the area. “All these roads sealed off?”
    “Yessir,” Budd said. “And they’re the only way in.”
    “Set up a rear staging area there, Charlie.” He pointed to the bend in the road a mile south of the slaughterhouse. “I want a press tent set up near there. Out of sight of the barricade. Do you have a press officer?”
    “Nup,” Budd said. “I usually give statements ’bout incidents around here if somebody’s got to. Suppose I’ll have to here.”
    “No. I want you with me. Delegate it. Find a low-ranking officer.”
    Henderson interrupted. “This is a federal operation, Arthur. I think I should make any statements.”
    “No, I want somebody state and without much rank. That way we’ll keep the press in the tent, waiting. They’ll be expecting somebody with the answers to show up. And they’ll be less likely to go poking around where they shouldn’t.”
    “Well, I don’t exactly know who’d be good at it,” Budd said uncertainly, looking out the window, as if a trooper resembling Dan Rather might just wander past.
    “They won’t have to be good,” Potter muttered. “All they have to do is say that I’ll make a statement later. Period. Nothing else. Pick somebody who’s not afraid to say ‘No comment.’ ”
    “They won’t like that. The press boys and gals. I mean, there’s a fender-bender over on Route 14 and reporters here’re all over the scene. Something like this, I’ll bet they’ll be coming in from Kansas City even.”
    SAC Henderson, who’d served a stint in the District, laughed.
    “Charlie—” Potter controlled his own smile—“CNN and ABC networks are already here. So’s the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the L.A. Times. Sky TV from Europe, the BBC, and Reuters. The rest of the big boys’re on their way. We’re sitting in the middle of the week’s media big bang.”
    “No kidding. Brokaw, too, you think? Man, I’d like to meet him.”
    “And set up a press-free perimeter one mile around the slaughterhouse, both