“I could use the help. Frankly, I’d like nothing more than to turn all this over and let you guys handle the whole thing, but we’re doing what we can, and you’re taking me away from it.”
In such situations involving several different agencies, the man with the biggest hat took charge. Ethan wore that hat, and he was done answering questions over the phone.
“Here’s the deal. You’re there and I’m here, so I’m handling it right now. We’ll talk when you show up.”
He hung up and pondered the drawing on the white butcher paper covering the table. The maintenance men from both the Posada and the courthouse had fleshed out most of the rooms and offices. The floor plan was as close as they could recall.
“They won’t be here for hours. That’s the last time I’m gonna explain what’s going on. From now on, that’s your job, Frank. Congratulations, you’re my new communications specialist.” He tapped the paper with his index finger. “Now is this the best we can do?”
“Yessir.” Deputy Frank Malone adjusted a wooden twelve-inch ruler to draw another line in pencil. “We don’t have a floor plan of the courthouse, so we’ve drawn this from memory. Sometimes there was a difference of opinion, but most of what we have here is right.”
“How the hell can we not have a floor plan of that building? Answer me this, didn’t the city put together a response plan after nine-eleven?”
“They did, Sheriff, and our copies are in our shot-to-pieces file cabinets, but there aren’t any floor plans for the courthouse. We don’t know what went with them.”
“The stinkin’ Chamber is through those doors. They don’t have blueprints or something?” The Chamber of Commerce shared one commercial corner of the Posada with gift shops and a gallery.
“Nothing. There’s a real nice layout of the hotel here on the Internet, but that’s all we’ve found.” Deputy Malone concentrated on his notes and drew another line.
“Fine.” Sheriff Armstrong caught Herman’s eye and waved him in. He left the Mayo brothers and joined them in the command center. “Herman’s been around here for years and has more law experience than I do. I want him to see this before we decide which way to jump.”
The sheriff shook his hand. “Sorry you found out about Sonny and your people the way you did, and thanks for talking to everyone out there. Most of’ em’ll listen to you better’n anyone else I know. Now, I have more bad news.”
“I already know. Kelly and the kids are in there, too. There ain’t much that these folks don’t know, or haven’t made up, and that’s the part that’s growing like a weed. We’re gonna have to move soon.”
“We?”
“Hell, Ethan. You know as well as I do you don’t have enough men to handle this. Half of those guys are ready to do whatever you say, and I suspect more are on the way. There’s a lot of experience standing out there, too, military vets and a couple of ex-cops.”
“I don’t need a posse. This ain’t the 1880s.”
“No, but what you need ain’t here. You can’t wait around, and you know it. If I’s you, I’d do something pretty quick before someone acts the fool. Gather the veterans in here at least. They’ll have calmer heads.”
Ethan figured that in other parts of the country, the folks might not do much more than wail and cry. The people in his view appeared ready to go to war. Long guns were making an appearance in the lobby, and he was sure most everyone out there had quick access to a handgun. He’d already seen the revolver tucked into Herman’s waistband.
It also worried the hell out of him because some of the hotheads might take it upon themselves to move on the courthouse. If they did, it would be a slaughter.
Ethan waved him around the table. “We’re gonna do just that, but I ain’t ready yet. We need to negotiate with these people inside and find out what they want.” He pointed to the floor plan. “Y’all’s plan, right?”
Herman joined him on the backside of the table. “Best I can tell. Who’s trying to make contact with those people?”
Deputy Malone motioned toward the front desk. “Andy Clark’s dialing every number we have for the courthouse. He’ll transfer the call in here if anyone answers.”
“Good.” Ethan tapped the map with a forefinger. “I want my men in here right now. Can somebody go out and pull in the guys who’re standing post?”
Herman waved Gabe through the door. He came in, the .243 hanging over his shoulder by the sling, muzzle toward the ceiling. “Hey, hoss, go out and gather up the lawmen that’re watching the courthouse. Tell ’em the sheriff wants to talk.”
“You want some men to take their places, to keep an eye on the palacio de justicia?”
“We better had.” Herman leaned his Winchester in the corner. He and Ethan put their heads back together over the hand-drawn map as soon as Gabe left. They stopped when Ethan’s cell rang and vibrated on the table.
Ethan spun it around to face Deputy Malone. They watched the phone as if it were alive. “Answer it.”
Malone flicked the screen and listened. Lips tight across his teeth, he held the receiver out. “I believe you need to take this.”
Ethan took his phone back. The men in the command center closed in. “This is Sheriff Armstrong. Can I ask who’s talking?”
“You can ask, but it doesn’t make any difference.”
“How’d you get this number? How the hell’d you get through?”
“That doesn’t make any difference, either.” The man spoke in a German accent. “Ve hev our veys.”
“Funny.”
A soft, muffled crump vibrated the windows. Screams erupted from the lobby. A rush of men flowed through the glass doors and into the storm.
His face tight, the sheriff put the cell phone tight against his chest. “Frank! Find out what just happened. Tell those people not to do anything stupid!” The deputy charged out of the command center. Ethan watched him disappear into the storm and turned his attention back to the phone call. “I hope to hell you haven’t blown part of the building up. What was that explosion?”
The man’s voice was different. Weaker. “Nothing of consequence.”
“Fine then. What can I do for you to let the hostages go?”
The man resumed the conversation with obvious self-confidence. “Well, for one, you can forget any plan you may have to free the detainees. We’ll release them in our own good time.”
“Good. Help me with that. When can we expect it to happen?”
“I’m talking on a drop phone, and I didn’t load it with very many minutes.” A dry, irritating snicker came through the line. “Your people are safe, as long as you stay out there, right there, right there . . .”
“You trying to be funny?”
The voice was sharp. “I’m trying to save the lives of those inside.”
“Let the women and kids go. As a goodwill act.”
“No.” The answer crackled through the speaker. “I know how hostage negotiation works, and I’m not playing your game. Capishe?”
“What is it you want then?”
“I’m calling to tell you not to worry. They are fine, and I’ll release them at the appropriate time.”
“How do I know that? When’s the right time?”
“When I say so. You’ll have to trust me.”
“I’d love to trust you, but I need something back. Release the kids as a goodwill gesture.”
Another sharp laugh. “I’m not going to get entangled in pointless negotiations, and neither should you. I will call you back in half an hour. Please be patient.”
“Pointless?’
The phone went dead.
Ethan calmed himself as a flood of questions washed over him. The guy on the phone didn’t know about the explosion until Ethan made him aware, and he said “not to worry about those inside,” meaning he wasn’t in there with them.
And he didn’t like the phrase “pointless negotiations.”
Deputy Malone was back. Cold radiated off his snow-covered coat and hat.
“I got as close as I thought I could without getting shot. The building is still standing, and there’s no smoke or fire. I can’t tell if anything is going on inside. The boys watching said they can’t tell if anything happened. Ethan, those people out there are about to torque off. They want their kids.”
“So do I.”
A loud voice cut across the Posada lobby. “We’ve waited long enough! Ethan!”
The Mayo brothers pushed through the crowd. Luke Mayo rolled into the command post as if he belonged there. Danny followed. Luke leaned over the table. “They’re blowing things up in there. Why haven’t you gone in to get them people out?”
Armstrong felt the heat rise in his face. “Because we’re outgunned and there’s no good way in. Now, get out and let me—”
“Go in through the tunnel.”
The activity around the table stalled.
“What tunnel?”
“Why hell, Ethan, the one from that house across over there on Bayless Street.”
“I’ve heard that story. It’s nothing but a myth.”
Danny unbuttoned his coat. “Bullshit. My daddy said he’d been in it.”
Armstrong reached a decision. “Somebody close the glass doors.” His deputies pushed inside and gathered around the table as melting snow dripped off their clothes. “That call was from one of the men who said he was inside. He said to disregard the explosion and that everyone is all right.” His gaze roamed over the grim-faced men around the table.
“Said he’d call back in half an hour. Well, he’s a lyin’ sonofabitch. He’s no more in there than I am, so listen up. Things have changed.” He addressed the Mayo brothers. “Now, boys, tell me about that tunnel.”
Chapter 44
Marc Chavez paced through his luxurious house, worrying about the explosion the sheriff mentioned, while Lucille Banks stirred cream into her coffee. It wasn’t the bold coffee-shop blend, but plain old Yuban. No one ever drifted completely away from their roots, and hers were anchored in the dry, rocky ground of Benjamin, Texas. “Dear, you said yourself there would be unanticipated events.”
“There are too many, too many, too many. The storm has caused all kinds of problems. There’s no television footage and I need those images. Now explosions, and DeVaca isn’t updating me. What exploded? I need information!”
Taking a sip, Lucille smiled. “I understand, but it could have been anything, or nothing. Maybe the sheriff’s smarter’n you think he is and he was trying to unsettle you. If that’s the case, it worked.”
“No, no, no. He thought I was calling from inside the courthouse.”
“Well.” Lucille flipped a page of the Texas Monthly magazine on the counter before her, pausing on a Vera Wang advertisement.
A voice spoke in Chavez’s ear. “Oz.”
Chavez raised a hand to his earpiece and pressed three times. “You’re not coming through.”
His fingers flicked over the keyboard. “Are you there, Wicked?”
“Right here.”
“About time you checked in. What happened?”
“We’re maintaining control.”
“I want to know about the explosion.”
DeVaca’s answer was immediate. “That issue has been rectified. There was an attempted breach.”
“I haven’t heard anything about that.”
“Because I just now told you.”
“I was on the phone with the sheriff when it happened. He asked me what blew up.”
“You called early.”
While planning the mission, they’d discussed the need for updates on the hour, but Chavez couldn’t stand not knowing every detail in an ever-evolving situation.
“Yes. I hadn’t heard from you, and then I hear an explosion in the background and the sheriff discussing it. I think it’s something you should have told me.”
“We’re supposed to be on a schedule. You of all people understand the need to maintain a proper timetable.”
Chavez didn’t like being scolded, especially by someone under his command. He collected himself. “The schedule has been abandoned. I was able to call the sheriff’s phone and was surprised when he answered. How did that happen? The scrambler should have been activated and what blew up?”
“Are you testing me?”
He knew the accusatory tone irritated DeVaca, but he didn’t care. Calling Sheriff Armstrong’s phone was another of Chavez’s control techniques to make sure the plan was on track. “You know how I am.” Chavez’s tone was that of a petulant child.
“We’ve had issues with setting up the jammer and lost a man. There was a little uprising from some of the male hostages and one of our brave partisans used a grenade to . . . alleviate the situation, giving his own life for the Cause.”
“Why didn’t you say that in the first place?”
“I was trying to do my job. I can’t call in and tell you every time we pull a trigger.”
Chavez’s face closed. He touched each finger of his right hand to the tip of his thumb, and repeated the process to calm himself, a throwback to when he was a child in bed with his mother, touching her fingertips with his own until he dropped off. He slept with her until he was twelve.
“The congressman has less than an hour to respond to our demands. I’m confident he’ll comply, and when he does, you know what to do.”
“Yes. I’m out.”
Chavez figured that DeVaca would let the extremists make their own decisions. It would serve to satisfy DeVaca’s ongoing needs, however defined. Sated, he’d be ready for the second part of Chavez’s stratagem a month down the road.
Chavez didn’t mind if everyone died. It would add even more horror to what he believed was a rapidly growing bubble of American vulnerability. “Out.” He licked his lips. “Out, out, out.”
Chavez rubbed his hands together, as if washing them clean, then gave Lucille a brilliant smile as he felt himself stir.
She sighed, closed the magazine, and left her coffee to get cold.
Chapter 45
The deputies and emergency responders who took turns watching the courthouse told Sheriff Ethan Armstrong that nothing moved on the streets except for groups and individuals struggling on foot toward the Posada Hotel and the high school.
Harp Webster brought his portable CB base unit to the command center and set it up on an empty table. They heard from other radio-heads that beyond the town limits, the highways for a hundred miles in all directions were impassable.
Half a dozen grim, snow-covered apparitions pushed through the hotel’s eastern doors, bringing a wave of frigid air behind them. Every one of the hard-eyed men carried weapons ranging from bolt-action hunting rifles, to vintage World War II carbines, to more modern semi-automatic AR-15-style weapons.
He suspected they wore pistols under their heavy coats, because he knew for a fact that at least three of that group had their License to Carry permits. The others were a toss, but almost everyone he knew had a pistol. They were as common as water bottles in West Texas. It wasn’t the right time to start asking questions, and besides, licensed Texans had every right to carry both concealed and in the open.
Sheriff Armstrong drew a deep breath when he saw the anxious men. He knew most by name, and had gone to school with many of them. They stopped to take stock of the busy lobby.
Armstrong picked out Ernie O’Neal as the leader when he cast around, located the command center, and pointed. Quick to anger and just as quick to cool off, Ernie was an impatient city councilman who never liked to wait on anything. He pushed through the anxious crowd, followed by Clay Burke, Dale Haskins, Concepción Cuevas, Blair Rogers, and Rafael Hernandez.
As the last name ticked off in Armstrong’s head, he realized they all had children in the courthouse. The sheriff left the floor plan and met them in the lobby, keeping the lounge area clear to maintain his “no-man’s-land.”
“Keep them long guns pointed up, boys.”
Not one of them shifted the weapons they carried.
One part of Ethan’s mind wondered if the raw, cold wind had reddened Ernie’s face, or the hypertension he’d been fighting for years. From the tone of the councilman’s voice, he decided it came from pure anger. “We’re working on it.”
“We need to know what you’re gonna do to get our children out.” Concepción seldom spoke more than two or three soft words at a time. Thirteen words strung together was a speech for him.
Ethan crossed his arms and held his ground. He angled his head to address Concepción, the most restrained of the group. His words were calm. “Guys, right now we’re getting the layout of the building down to try and figure out where they have your kids. Once that’s done, we’ll see what it’ll take to get in if we can’t talk to the people who have the courthouse.”
“You don’t need a floor plan.” Ernie swept the room with an arm. “We’ve all been inside.”
“Do you know where all the offices are, or the conference rooms?”
“Well, no, but most of them.”
“That’s not enough. We need to know where every closet is.”
“Why don’t you call ’em and ask ’em to let our kids go?”
The last man to speak was Clay Burke. Maintaining his composure, Ethan met his moist eyes and knew Clay’s impaired son, Matt, was heavy on the man’s mind.
“Don’t you think we’ve already thought of that, Clay? They haven’t answered any of the phones in there.”
Rafael Hernandez jerked his chin toward the courthouse. “Send somebody over.”
Ethan understood their frustration and choked down a sharp response. “Boys, my guys and a civilian who were too close to the courthouse got shot down like dogs. Right now, y’all need to be patient and let us work this out.”
Ernie O’Neal took half a step forward. “We’re going to help you.”
“I appreciate the offer, but right now I don’t need a posse.” That archaic word had surfaced twice in the last hour.
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