A Maidens Grave

sides of the river.”
    “What?”
    “Put five or six officers in four-by-fours and start cruising. You find any reporter in that zone—anybody with a camera—you arrest them and confiscate the camera.”
    “Arrest a reporter? We can’t do that. Can we? I mean, look at ’em all out there now. Look at ’em.”
    “Really, Arthur,” Henderson began, “we don’t want to do that, do we? Remember Waco.”
    Potter smiled blandly at the SAC. He was thinking of a hundred other matters, sorting, calculating. “And no press choppers. Pete, could you get a couple Hueys down here from McConnell in Wichita? Set up a no-fly zone for a three-mile radius.”
    “Are you serious, Arthur?”
    LeBow said, “Time’s awasting. Inside for two hours, seventeen.”
    Potter said to Budd, “Oh, and we need a block of rooms at the nearest hotel. What’d that be?”
    “Days Inn. It’s up the road four miles. In Crow Ridge. Downtown, as much as they’ve got a downtown. How many?”
    “Ten.”
    “Okay. What’s the rooms for?”
    “The parents of the hostages. Get a priest and a doctor over there too.”
    “Maybe they should be closer. If we need them to talk to their kids, or—”
    “No, they shouldn’t be. And station four or five troopers there. The families are not to be disturbed by reporters. I want anybody harassing them—”
    “Arrested,” Budd muttered. “Oh, brother.”
    “What’s the matter, Trooper?” LeBow asked brightly.
    “Well, sir, the Kansas state song is ‘Home on the Range.’ ”
    “Is that a fact?” Henderson asked. “And?”
    “I know reporters, and you’re gonna be hearing some pretty discouraging words ’fore this thing’s over.”
    Potter laughed. Then he pointed to the fields. “Look there, Charlie—those troopers’re all exposed. I told them to stay down. They’re not paying attention. Keep them down behind the cars. Tell them Handy’s killed officers before. What’s his relationship with weapons, Henry?”
    LeBow typed and read the screen. He said, “All indictments have involved at least one firearms count. He’s shot four individuals, killed two of them. Fort Dix, M-16 training, he consistently shot low nineties on the range. No record of sidearm scores.”
    “There you have it,” Potter told Budd. “Tell them to keep their heads down. ”
    A light flashed toward them. Potter blinked and saw, in the distance, a combine had just turned on its lights. It was early of course but the overcast was oppressive. He gazed at the line of trees to the right and left of the slaughterhouse.
    “One other thing, Charlie—I want you to leave the snipers in position but give them orders not to shoot unless the HTs make a break.”
    “HTs—that’s the hostage takers, right?”
    “Even if they have a clear shot. Those troopers you were telling me about, with the rifles, are they SWAT?”
    “No,” he said, “just damn fine shots. Even the girl. She started practicing on squirrels when she was—”
    “And I want them and everybody else to unchamber their weapons. Everybody.”
    “What?”
    “Loaded but not chambered.”
    “Oh, I don’t know ’bout that, sir.”
    Potter turned to him with an inquiring look.
    “I just mean,” Budd said quickly, “not the snipers too?”
    “You can pull the bolt of an M-16 and shoot in under one second.”
    “Not and steady a scope you can’t. An HT could get off three shots in a second.” The initials sat awkwardly in his mouth, as if he were trying raw oysters for the first time.
    He’s so eager and talented and correct, Potter mused.
    What a day this is going to be.
    “The takers aren’t going to come out and shoot a hostage in front of us before we can react. If it comes to that, the whole thing’ll turn into a firefight anyway.”
    “But—”
    “Unchambered,” Potter said firmly. “Appreciate it, Charlie.”
    Budd nodded reluctantly and reiterated his assignment: “Okay, I’m gonna send somebody down to give a statement to the press—or not to give a statement to the press, I should say. I’ll round up reporters and push ’em back a mile or so, I’ll get us a block of rooms, and tell everybody to keep their heads down. And deliver your message about not loading and locking.”
    “Good.”
    “Brother.” Budd ducked out of the van. Potter watched him crouching and running down to a cluster of troopers. They listened, laughed, and then started herding the reporters out of the area.
    In five minutes the captain