A Maidens Grave

works in our favor. We don’t establish any deadlines. We want to stretch this out longer than any of us can stand. And then longer. And then longer still.
    “When HRT gets here we’ll prepare for a tactical resolution but that’ll still be our last resort. As long as Handy is still talking to us there won’t be any rescue attempt. We’ll call it the pork belly approach to hostage rescue.” Potter smiled toward Stillwell, then continued, “Delay is the name of the game. It wears down the HTs, makes them bored, brings them and the hostages closer together.”
    “Stockholm syndrome,” one of the commanders said.
    “Exactly.”
    “What’s that?” another one asked.
    Potter nodded to LeBow, who said, “It’s the psychoanalytic process of transference as applied to a hostage taking. The term comes from a bank robbery in Stockholm about twenty years ago. The robber forced four employees into the bank vault. They were later joined by a former prison-mate of the taker. They all stayed together for over five days and when they finally gave up, several of the hostages were madly in love with their captors.They’d come to feel that it was the police who were the bad guys. The robber and his cellmate had formed strong feelings of affection for the hostages too and wouldn’t think of hurting them.”
    “Time to get to work,” Potter announced. “Sheriff, you’ll proceed with containment. I’ll make initial contact with the takers.”
    Bashful Dean Stillwell motioned to the commanders. “If you all’d come outside, maybe we’ll move some of those troopers of yours around a bit. If that’s all right with you. What do you say?”
    “Pork belly” was the only response, but it was said very softly. Potter believed he was the only one who heard.
     
    The water poured like a shower, a silver stream falling through gaps in the ceiling high above them, probably from rank pools of old rainwater on the roof.
    It dripped onto rusting meat hooks and chains and rubber conveyor belts and disintegrating machinery, just outside the killing room, where Melanie Charrol sat, looking over the girls. The seven-year-old twins, Anna and Suzie, huddled against her. Beverly Klemper brushed her short blond hair from her face—round with baby fat still, though she was fourteen—and struggled to breathe. The others were clustered together at the far side of the killing room. Ten-year-old Emily Stoddard rubbed frantically at a rust stain on her white tights, tears running down her face.
    Melanie glanced at Mrs. Harstrawn and Susan Phillips, crouching together, speaking in abrupt sign. The teenage girl’s pale face, framed by her stark hair, was still filled with anger. Her dark eyes were the eyes of a resistance fighter, Melanie thought suddenly. Their conversation had to do with the students.
    “I’m worried they’ll panic,” Susan said to the older teacher. “Have to keep them together. If somebody runs, those assholes will hurt them.”
    With the audacity of an eight-year-old, Kielle Stone signed, “We have to run! There’re more of us than them. We can get away!”
    Susan and Mrs. Harstrawn ignored her, and the little girl’s gray eyes flashed with anger.
    All the while Melanie agonized: I don’t know what to do. I don’t know.
    The men weren’t paying much attention to the girls at the moment. Melanie rose and walked to the doorway. She watched them pull clothes out of canvas bags. Brutus stripped off his T-shirt and with a glance at her walked under the stream of water, letting it cascade over him as he gazed up at the murky ceiling, eyes closed. She saw his sinewy muscles, his hairless body, marred by a dozen pink scars. The other two men looked at him uncertainly and continued to change clothes. When they pulled off their workshirts she could read the names stenciled on their T-shirts. Stoat’s said S. Wilcox. Bear’s, R. Bonner. But still, seeing Bear’s fat, hairy body and Stoat’s lean one, his slippery eyes, she thought of them only by the animal names that had instinctively occurred to her.
    And, seeing the look of amused malice on his face as he stood under the cascading water, arms outstretched like Christ’s, she understood that Brutus was a far better name for him than L. Handy.
    He now stepped from the stream of water, dried off with his old shirt, and pulled on a new one, dark green flannel. He picked the pistol up from the oil drum and gazed at his captives, that curious smile on his face. He