by Donna Ball
“Unit One, this is Dispatch.”
He unclipped his radio and spoke into it. “Go ahead, Dispatch.”
“Sheriff, have you been following the situation with the security alarm?”
The radio was on in his car but he had not been monitoring it. “Kind of busy out here, Sue Anne.”
“Yes, sir. We had a personal-alarm-activated report at 2:45. I dispatched a unit to the GPS coordinates the security company gave me, but then I realized we already have three units in that vicinity. Between 3:00 p.m. and 3:10, I got four more calls from different security companies with the same GPS. Buck, it’s right up the road from your location. Camp Bluebird. I called the camp office, and no one answered. Then I called the camp director’s private cell, but it went straight to voice mail. That’s a total of five panic buttons in less than half an hour and no way to confirm. I thought you’d want to know.”
Raine. Jolene. Willie Banks with a bullet through his head. A camp full of children pushing their panic buttons. A truck bed filled with explosives and Camp Bluebird less than a mile away. Christ, he thought. His throat went dry. Christ.
He said, “Stand by, Dispatch.”
He clicked off the radio and found Manahan on the phone only a few feet away. He walked over to him, his expression grim. He did not wait for the other man to get off the phone. “Agent Manahan,” he said, “if you’ve got a SWAT team standing by, you’d better call them in. I think that big event you’ve been waiting for is here.”
It was hot inside the building. The ceiling fans stirred the air and provided some relief, but with all the doors closed and so many bodies, canine and human, crowded inside during the muggiest part of the day, the temperature felt higher than it was. Most of the dogs had tired of barking, and lay panting in their cages. Some of the children were flushed and lethargic looking; others were just miserable and sweaty and restless. Margie had passed around a gallon jug of water for the children; there wasn’t much left for the dogs. Thunder rolled in the distance, signaling the approach of the daily rain that would begin the afternoon cooling. A few dogs began to whine and paw restlessly at their crates.
Thunder, but nothing else from outside. No wail of sirens, no megaphoned voices calling for surrender. It had been over an hour since Melanie had first gone over to talk to the children. Had our plan even worked? Maybe it had. Maybe the camp was surrounded by sharpshooters and sheriff’s deputies and SWAT teams right now, but Jolene was right, they couldn’t get to us; there was nothing they could do. Or maybe the plan hadn’t worked. Maybe no one even knew we were here.
Cisco panted beside me, his fur plastered to my sweaty leg. If we were miserable, the soldiers had to be even more so behind their face masks and goggles, carrying those heavy weapons. How long could they keep this up? They might look like soldiers and act like soldiers and, if Jolene was right, they may have trained as soldiers, but they were not soldiers. They didn’t have the stamina or the discipline or the combat skills to see a difficult job through to the end. How long before exhaustion and tension and a roomful of cranky kids and barking dogs pushed somebody over the edge and the unthinkable happened?
For a while, the soldiers had allowed Haley and Bill to take the kids, one by one and with an armed escort, to the bathroom. Some of the kids thought that was cool and had asked to go more than once, but when their requests were ignored, the novelty soon wore off. No one had asked to take the dogs out for a toilet break. I think we all knew that wasn’t going to happen.
Now that the dogs had quieted down, we were not able to talk among ourselves without being overheard. So, except for an occasional murmured word of reassurance, no one had said anything in a while. Jolene, next to me, rested her head against the wall with closed eyes. Her face was beaded with sweat, but so was mine. I hoped she was only pretending to be asleep, and not actually unconscious. She might be disarmed and disabled, but she was the closest thing to an authority figure we had.
The sun passed behind a cloud, darkening the room, and another roll of thunder boomed. Some of the dogs yipped and started to frantically paw at their cages. Steve started to get to his feet. “I can keep them quiet,” he said to the soldier who immediately swung his gun on him. “I can calm them down.”
The soldier rasped, “Sit down.”
And Steve did.
A chorus of whines and barks began to assemble from the crating area. One upset dog was all it took to incite an entire kennel. I was sure the soldier regretted his decision to quash Steve.
Beneath the cover of barking, Jolene murmured, without opening her eyes, “Funny how they let your dog run loose.”
I said, in quick defense of my dog, “Everyone knows golden retrievers are harmless. And Cisco is special. He has a way of making people like him.”
Jolene said, still without opening her eyes, “Nothing in common with his handler, then.”
I said, “Gee, and I thought we were friends.”
But my mind was working, as she had no doubt intended it to do. I thought about Cisco tracking a homeless man through the forest, destroying his provisions, and then being forgiven. I looked across the room at Melanie, who sat with her knees drawn up to her chest, frightened and forlorn. I thought about the three month stand-off in Waco, Texas. I whispered to Jolene, “What would they need to know?”
She replied, her eyes still closed, “Location, number of guns, points of access.” I saw her throat convulse as she swallowed. “That we’re alive. Mainly … that we’re alive.”
I sat there for a while longer, trying to talk myself out of what I knew I had to do. The room grew darker as the clouds built up, and the air grew thicker. When the rain came, it would be too late.
Finally, I swallowed hard and took Cisco’s leash in my hand. I pushed myself to my feet and I looked the soldier in the eye and I said, “I need to go to the bathroom.”
He didn’t move for a long time and I thought he would deny me. After all, a bunch of whiny children was one thing, but why should they care whether or not the adults were comfortable? Then he gestured with his gun toward the restroom. He said, “Leave the dog.”
“He won’t stay with anyone but me,” I said. “Besides, he has to go out, too.” I nodded toward the crated dogs. “They all will, pretty soon.”
Of course, I had no way of guessing his expression beneath the mask, but I could imagine it was annoyed. “Go,” he said.
The restroom had three stalls and I took the one farthest from the entrance, where the soldier was stationed with his gun. It was a ridiculous redundancy, since the only form of egress was the high slated windows. Even if someone could scale the twenty-foot wall, the windows were too narrow for even a child to fit through. Or a dog.
I rummaged through my fanny pack and found the items I remembered to be there: the Sharpie I had used to label the kids’ scent containers in Canine Nosework class that morning—had it only been that morning?—and the roll of white adhesive tape I had absently dropped into my pack when I took out the clicker and treats earlier. The treats were gone, but the last thing I needed was still there. Working quickly, I wrote on the tape: 911 REC HALL KIDS OK 4 GUNS INSIDE 10 OUT. I tore off the strip of tape and pressed it firmly to Cisco’s collar, fluffing out his fur to cover it. I couldn’t look into his eyes when I did that, but he panted his happy pant and grinned at me. As far as he was concerned, this was just another adventure, and as long as we were together all was right in his world. As long as we were together.
I had barely finished when the gunman shouted, “Hey! Time’s up!”
“Okay, okay!”
I flushed the toilet and emerged from the stall with my throat dry and my palms sweaty. “Can I wash my hands?” I asked.
“No.” He gestured toward the main hall. “Get back in there.”
He just wanted to refuse me a favor. That was why I had asked.
I said, “What about my dog?”
“What about him?”
“He needs to pee. Come on,” I ad
ded quickly, before he could respond, “please? He’s just a dog. He doesn’t understand. It’ll only take a minute. Please? Here, you can take him.” I thrust the leash at him, knowing he wouldn’t take it because doing so would mean lowering his rifle. “I don’t even have to go with him. Please?”
He hesitated, then strode the few feet across the hall to the back door. He pushed it open, said something to the soldier who was standing there, and then jerked his head toward me. “Make it snappy,” he said.
Training your dog to toilet on command can save time at dog shows and save misery on cold wet mornings when you’re standing in your slippers on the other end of the leash wishing your dog would hurry up. I never imagined that it might also one day save my life. I edged between the two soldiers with my heart pounding and went down the shallow steps that led from the covered porch to the expanse of open lawn that faced the path leading to the lake. On the other side of the building was the fenced exercise yard where the kids took their dogs to potty, but the soldiers didn’t know that. It was precisely to avoid the fence that I wanted to take Cisco out through this door.
I knew they wouldn’t let us go far, so I didn’t try. I walked a dozen feet away and told Cisco, “Okay, potty.” He obligingly lifted his leg on a small bush. With my back to the soldier on the porch, I unzipped my pouch and took out the sock that was still there from yesterday. The sock that would retain great memories of a long romp and jerky treats at the end. The sock that, I hoped, was still infused with scent. I offered it to Cisco and said quietly, “Cisco, track.”
“Hey.” The voice came sharply from the porch. “What are you doing?”
I didn’t turn around. “He always gets to play with his toy when he’s finished.”
“That’s stupid.” Thunder rolled. “Get back in here.”
“Okay, I’m coming.”
I dropped the sock on the ground and knelt as though to pick it up. Cisco sniffed enthusiastically. I put one hand on his neck, as though petting him, and with the other I brushed the grass with my fingers. “Cisco, track,” I said into his ear, and when I did I unclipped his leash.
The soldier shouted, “Now!”
“Okay!” I stood up and turned, still holding the leash and pretending not to notice that my good, sweet, obedient dog was galloping off in the other direction, tail waving, nose drinking in the richly scented air, heading toward the lake.
“Hey!” the soldier shouted, and took a step toward me. His gun tracked Cisco.
“What?”
I then looked down and pretended to notice for the first time that my dog was gone. I stared in pretend dismay at the stretched-out O-ring I had removed from Cisco’s Therapy Dog tag in the restroom, now attached to the leash clip and making it appear as though it had simply come loose from his collar. I spun around but all I could see of my good, brave dog was his tail, spinning for balance, as he ran down the hill. Go, Cisco. Run … Run …
But when I turned back to the soldier and held up the empty leash, my tears were not pretend.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The militants had blocked access to the camp a quarter of a mile away by two vehicles parked nose to nose across the road. Each one was wired with a clearly visible explosive device designed to detonate when the wheels rotated. The bomb disposal unit was on its way. If ever there had been a doubt about Buck’s theory, there was no longer.
Five hundred yards behind the blockade, a command post of sorts was set up. Fire and Rescue were there, along with every squad car in Hanover County. State police, FBI vans and support units were still arriving. Buck stood near the front of the blockade with Manahan and two other agents, a topographic map spread open on the hood of his car.
“There’s a logging road that goes all around the camp,” he said, tracing it with his finger. “Accessible by off-road vehicles to a point but it narrows here, and here. You’ll only get a three-wheeler or a horse through. Four buildings in a cluster, here, and five small cabins here along the stream. Two open air pavilions. All the elevation is on their side.” Which meant that, even if they could get snipers in, there would be no easy vantage point from which they could site their targets. And that the insurgents would be able to see them coming from any direction. “I checked with the Forest Service. They’ve got two choppers in the air that can be over our location in five minutes.”
“No,” Manahan said. “We’re not going to give away our position until we know what we’re dealing with. These people are known to be trigger happy.”
“What about robots?”
“We’ve got drones on the way. They’re an hour and a half out.”
Buck stared at him. “That’s too long.”
Manahan was grim. “You’re not in the most accessible area geographically, Sheriff. That may be one reason this area was targeted. Once an adversary inserts itself and takes control, they know that help will be a long time coming.”
Buck drew a breath and turned back to the map. “You could send a recon team on foot around the lake and come in from the west. There’s wooded cover the whole way. It’s going to take a while, but it’s the safest way.”
Manahan nodded. “I’ll need a couple of men who know the terrain.”
“You’ve got them.”
Manahan said, “Sheriff.” He paused and Buck looked up. “There’s something else you should know. Our last piece of intelligence from Brunner indicated that one of the cell members might be from the law enforcement community. How confident are you in the security of your department?”
Buck stared at him. “Confident.”
“You’ve never had a leak?”
“Besides the one you sent me?”
“Good enough.” Manahan’s nod was terse. “How many kids are we talking about?”
“I don’t have that number.” Buck looked around. “Wyn …”
“I’ll call the office for the permit,” she said, and started to turn away.
A hoarse voice near Buck’s shoulder said, “Twenty-five.”
Buck looked around and saw Miles Young. His face was white and strained and his eyes reflected the kind of horrified disbelief that only the shock of a scene such as this could generate: the quiet mountain road crisscrossed by fire trucks, police cars, crime scene vans and men in body armor. But he held Buck’s gaze steadily and he said, “Twenty-five children and dogs, four instructors, three counselors, a nurse, a cook and a vet tech.”
The deputy next to Miles said, “I’m sorry, Sheriff, he insisted I let him through. He said he knew you.”
Manahan turned to one of the agents. “I want a list of everybody at that camp, particularly the children, with backgrounds.”
“On it.”
Miles said, “I got a call from the security company. I couldn’t reach Raine or the camp office. I called the police but all they said was that they were investigating.”
“And that’s exactly what we’re doing,” Buck said tersely, and turned back to the map.
“What is it?” Miles demanded quietly. “What do you need?”
“We don’t know yet,” Buck said. “There may have been some kind of incident at the camp.”
Miles said, “What kind of incident?”
Buck did not want to think about what kind of incident. The kind of incident that screamed out of the headlines and scarred the heart of a nation for years, for decades. The kind of incident in which everything changed on a single breath. The kind of incident from which no one who was involved ever, ever recovered.
Buck repeated tightly, “We don’t know.”
Miles said, “I have resources. I might be able to get things done quicker than you can. If you—”
“Look, Young,” Buck interrupted shortly, “you shouldn’t be here. I know you’re worried, but the best way you can help is by staying out of the way. I may have already lost a deputy up there and you can be damn sure I’m not going to lose Raine too. So go on home. She’s my wife, not yours.”
Around him radios continued
to crackle and engines idled, voices buzzed and feet ran. But all Buck heard was the echo of his own words. And all he saw was the way the back of Wyn’s shoulders stiffened just before she walked away.
Miles Young said coldly, “My daughter is in there.”
With a shaft of pain that was almost visible, Buck tore his gaze away from Wyn’s retreating figure, but not before he saw her slip something off her finger and drop it into her pocket. He looked back at Miles, whose face was filled with a mixture of fury and contempt. Buck said stiffly, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know about your daughter. But you can’t be here.”
He turned back to the map as one of the agents said, “Mr. Young, maybe you can answer some questions for us. Do you mind walking back to my car with me so we can talk?”
And it was just about then that the skies opened up and the deluge came.
The rain roared on the metal roof of the building, drowning out the barking of the dogs. I rested my cheek on my updrawn knees and tried not to cry. The rain would have destroyed the scent. Cisco had no chance of finding Gene Hicks again. And even if he could somehow do it, what made me think Hicks was still there? And even if he was, that he would see the message, or understand it, or want to help us if he could? He was homeless. He didn’t even have a phone. It had been a stupid idea.
There might be guards around the lake. One of them might have seen Cisco running loose and shot him, or caught him and locked him up. At best, Cisco was wandering through the storm, lost and alone. At worst, I would never see him again. Ever.
I felt a punch on my shoulder. I looked up.
Jolene looked parched and feverish, and her eyes were bright. She said hoarsely, “Hey. You had to try.”
I nodded, but it was scant comfort.
The rain pounded. Neither of us said anything for a long time.
