Breaking Point

Batista had received coaching from someone with experience in hostage negotiations who had told him to be calm, friendly, and reasonable . . . to try to establish a relationship with the gunman. Keep him talking. It didn’t sound like it was working.
    Butch said, “I need you to shut up and listen. I know you’re probably trying to find me right now, so quit dragging this out. Joe, are you still there?”
    “Yes, Butch,” Joe said.
    “I wanted to tell you yesterday, but I just couldn’t. You know what they did to me, right?”
    “I know some of it,” Joe said. “I talked with Pam last night, and she told us. Man, I wish you would have let us know. We had no idea you were going through this.”
    “Pam?” Butch said, his voice softening. “Was Hannah there, too?”
    “Both of them were at our house,” Joe said. “Hannah was there when I left this morning.”
    “Are they okay?”
    Joe paused for a moment. “They seem okay, Butch, considering the situation. I think they miss you.”
    “I miss
them
,” Butch said, in a way that broke Joe’s heart.
    “You
can
see them again, Butch,” Batista cut in with a salesman-smooth voice.
    “Shut the fuck up, Batista,” Butch growled. “I’m talking to Joe.”
    Joe was relieved Batista complied. He imagined him shrugging his shoulders with an
I tried
gesture to the hostage negotiator.
    Joe said to Butch, “So Dave Farkus and Sheriff McLanahan are sitting right there with you, huh?”
    “Yeah. They tried to collect the reward. Instead, they shot a hunter thinking it was me.”
    Joe was startled and said, “They shot a hunter?”
    “Yeah, the idiots. They saw an archery hunter and gut-shot him. They brought some idiot long-range shooter along with them.”
    “Oh, man,” Joe said. “I’ll guess the hunter didn’t even know what was going on.”
    “No shit,” Butch said. “The poor guy.”
    “Is he dead?”
    “Yeah, but it took a while.”
    “You know,” Joe said, “for a while there I was wondering if McLanahan was really up there with you. But now I know he is because nobody else would be that much of a moron.”
    Butch snorted a laugh and said, “I’ll tell him you said that.”
    “Please do,” Joe said.
    There was a beat of silence. Joe hoped Batista wouldn’t feel compelled to fill it. But he did.
    “Butch, there’s really no reason to keep running. We can bring your wife and daughter up here and you can see them before we take you into custody . . .”
    “Stay away from them!”
Butch yelled. “Don’t bring them into this again or I’m punching off and I start shooting.”
    Joe closed his eyes and sighed. The rapport he’d been establishing with Butch Roberson had been blown up. Joe glanced up at Underwood and Underwood rolled his eyes in reaction.
    Through the earpiece, Joe heard a gunshot. Instinctively, he pulled down the phone and closed his eyes to find out if he could hear it echo through the mountains. Silence, meaning they were a long distance away. When he raised the handset, he heard:
    “That was Farkus,” Butch said. “I got him right between the eyes. Will you shut up and listen now, Batista?”
    Joe couldn’t believe it. Butch had killed Farkus in cold blood.
    Joe knew Farkus, and had run into him several times over the years. The guy was a loser but had an uncanny ability to find himself in the middle of things through no fault—or ambition—of his own. It had seemed strangely unsurprising to hear he’d been with McLanahan when Butch Roberson captured them. Farkus sold a few flies to the fly shops, fancied himself a guide, and lived off disability checks, even though he didn’t seem disabled in any way. Still . . .
    “I’ve got three demands,” Butch said to Batista. “You meet them and McLanahan can go on living. If you screw me around, the sheriff gets popped just like Farkus. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
    “Yes,” Batista said, his voice hushed this time as if he, too, were stunned by the sudden turn in developments.
    “Joe,” Butch said, “I’m trusting you to make sure they follow through. You’ve always been straight with me. Don’t let them fuck me over again, okay?”
    “I hear you,” Joe said, feeling a knife of shame being thrust into his heart.
    “First,” Butch said, “I want a helicopter sent for me. I’ll give you the coordinates for where it can land. It won’t be around where I am now because the terrain’s too steep and I don’t want to sit here like a