A Maidens Grave

lifted an eyebrow.
    Tobe nodded toward the slaughterhouse. “As a mouse,” he said.
    “And the food?”
    Budd said it would arrive in a few minutes.
    “Marks is outside, Henry. You find anything on him?”
    “He’s here?” LeBow grimaced. “I made a few calls. He’s a hard-line prosecutor. Quick as a whip. Specializes in white-collar crimes. Excellent conviction ratio.”
    “Take-no-prisoners sort?”
    “Exactly. But ambitious. Ran for Congress once. Lost, but still has his eye on Washington, the rumor is. My guess is he’s trying to pry some media out of the situation.”
    Potter had learned long ago that hostage situations are also public relations situations and careers were as much on the line as were human lives. He decided to play Marks carefully.
    “Oh, write down that I’ve translated the message from the hostage. ‘Be forewarned.’ Assume she’s talking about Handy.”
    LeBow held his eye for a moment. He nodded and turned back to his keys.
    Outside again, Potter turned to Marks, the second-most-powerful lawyer in the state. “What can I do for you?”
    “So is it true then? What I heard? That he’s killed one of them?” Potter nodded slowly. The man closed his eyes and sighed. His mouth tucked into a sorrowful wrinkle. “Why in the name of heaven do a crazy thing like that?”
    “His way of telling us he’s serious.”
    “Oh, my good Lord.” Marks rubbed his face with large, blunt fingers. “The AG and I’ve been talking about this at some length, Agent Potter. We’ve been in a stew about the whole mess and I hightailed it down here to ask if there’s anything we can do on the state level. I know about you, Potter. Your reputation. Everybody knows about you, sir.”
    The agent remained stone-faced. He thought he’d been rude enough on the phone to keep the lawyer out of his life. But it seemed that, to Marks, the earlier conversation had never taken place.
    “Play it all close to your chest, do you? But I’d guess you have to. It is like playing poker, isn’t it. High-stakes poker.”
    Extreme stakes, Potter thought again, and wished once more that this man would go away. “As I told you I don’t really need anything else from the state at the moment. We’ve got state troopers for containment and I’ve enlisted Charlie Budd as my second-in-command.”
    “Budd?”
    “You know him?”
    “Sure I do. He’s a good trooper. And I know all the good troopers.” He looked around. “Where are the soldiers?”
    “Hostage rescue?”
    “I thought for sure they’d be in the thick of things by now.”
    Potter was still unsure of how the wind from Topeka was blowing. “I’m not using state HRT. The Bureau’s team is assembling now and’ll be here in the next few hours.”
    “That’s troubling.”
    “Why’s that?” Potter asked innocently, assuming that the man wanted the state rescue team to handle the tactical side.
    “You’re not thinking of an assault, I hope. Look at the Weaver barricade. Look at Waco. Innocent people killed. I don’t want that to happen here.”
    “No one does. We’ll attack only as a last resort.”
    Marks’s boisterous facade fell away and he became deadly serious. “I know you’re in charge of the situation, Agent Potter. But I want you to know that the attorney general’s position is peaceful resolution at all costs.”
    Less than four months to the first Tuesday in November, Potter reflected.
    “We’re hoping things work out peacefully.”
    “What’re his demands?” Marks asked.
    Time to tug the leash? Not yet. Potter concluded that an offended Roland Marks could do much harm. “Typical. Chopper, food, ammo. All I’m giving him is food. I’m going to try to get him to surrender or at least get as many girls out as I can before HRT goes in.”
    He watched Marks’s face turn darker than it already was. “I just don’t want those little girls hurt.”
    “Of course not.” Potter looked at his watch.
    The assistant attorney general continued, “Here’s a thought—have him give up the girls and take a chopper. You put one of those clever Mission: Impossible things inside and when they land you nail them.”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “We never let them go mobile if there’s any way to avoid it.”
    “Don’t you read Tom Clancy? There’re all sorts of bugs and transponders you can use.”
    “It’s still too risky. There’s a known quantity of dead right now. The worst he can do is kill the nine remaining hostages,