A Maidens Grave

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.
    Inside the van D’Angelo, Potter, LeBow, and Budd looked over the architectural plans of the building and the terrain and SatSurv maps. “This is where the hostages are,” Potter explained. “That was current as of an hour ago. And as far as we know the gas bomb is still rigged.”
    LeBow searched for his description of the device and read it aloud.
    “And you’re confident you’ll get one more out?” the tactical agent asked.
    “We’re buying her for fifty thousand.”
    “The girl should be able to tell us if the trap’s still set,” D’Angelo said.
    “I don’t think it matters,” Potter said, looking at Angie, who nodded her agreement. “Bomb or no bomb, he’ll nail the hostages. If he’s got any time at all, one or two seconds, he’ll shoot them or pitch a grenade in.”
    “Grenade?” D’Angelo frowned. “Have a list of his weaponry?”
    LeBow had already printed one out. The HRT commander read through it.
    “He’s got an MP-5? With scope and suppressor?” He shook his head in dismay.
    There was a knocking on the side of the van and a young HRT officer stepped into the doorway. “Sir, we’ve completed initial reconnaissance.”
    “Go ahead.” D’Angelo nodded at the map.
    “This door here is wood with steel facing. Looks like it’s rigged already with cutting charges.”
    D’Angelo looked at Potter.
    “Some enthusiastic state troopers. That’s how he got the Heckler & Koch.”
    D’Angelo nodded wryly, brushing his flamboyant mustache.
    The trooper continued, “There’s another door on the south side, much thinner wood. There’s a loading dock in the back, here, by the river. The door’s open far enough to get a tunnel rat under if they strip. Couple of the smaller guys. Next to it’s a smaller door, reinforced steel, rusted shut. There’s a runoff pipe here, a twenty-four-incher, barred with a steel grille. Second-floor windows are all barred withthree-eighths-inch rods. These three windows here aren’t visible from the HTs’ position. The roof is covered with five-sixteenths-inch steel plates and the elevator shaft is sealed. The shaft access door’s metal and I estimate bang-to-bullets of twenty to thirty seconds if we go in that way.”
    “Long time.”
    “Yessir. If we do four-man entry on the two doors, covering fire from a window, and two men in from the loading dock, I estimate we could engage and secure in eight to twelve seconds.”
    “Thanks, Tommy,” D’Angelo said to his trooper. To Potter he added, “Not bad if it weren’t for the trap.” He asked Potter, “How Stockholmed is he?”
    “Hardly at all,” Angie offered. “He claims the more he knows somebody the more inclined he is to kill them.”
    D’Angelo’s mustache received another stroke. “They good shots?”
    Potter said, “Let’s just say they’re cool under fire.”
    “That’s better’n being a good shot.”
    “And they’ve killed cops,” Budd said.
    “Both in firefights and as execution,” Potter offered.
    “Okay,” D’Angelo said slowly. “My feeling is we can’t do an entry. Not with the risk of the gas bomb and grenades. And his frame of mind.”
    “Have him walk to the chopper?” Potter asked. “It’s right there.” He tapped the map.
    D’Angelo gazed at the portion of the map showing the field and nodded. “Think so. We’ll pull everybody back out of sight, let the takers and hostages walk through the woods here.”
    Angie interrupted. “Handy’ll pick his own route, don’t you think, Arthur?”
    “You’re right. He’ll want to be in charge of that. And it probably won’t be the straightest one.”
    D’Angelo and Potter