Stillwell was shouting into his throat mike, "No return fire! All unit commanders, no return fire!"

But there was return fire.

Dirt kicked up around Wilcox as he flung himself to the ground and with carefully placed shots shattered three police car windshields before reloading. Even under these frantic conditions Wilcox was a fine marksman. From a window of the slaughterhouse came the repeated explosions of a semiautomatic shotgun; pellets hissed through the air.

Potter remained standing, in plain view, waving his hands. "Stop your firing!"

Then, suddenly, complete silence fell over the field. The wind vanished for a moment and stillness descended. The hollow cry of a bird filled the gray afternoon; the sound was heartbreaking. The sweet smell of gunpowder and fulminate of mercury, from primers, was thick.

Gripping the phone, Wilcox backed toward the slaughterhouse.

To Stillwell, Potter called, "Find out who fired. Whoever fired the first shot – I want to see him in the van. The ones who fired afterwards – I want them off the field and I want everybody to know why they're being dismissed."

"Yessir." The sheriff nodded and hurried off.

Potter, still standing, turned the binoculars onto the slaughterhouse, hoping to catch a glimpse of the inside when Wilcox entered. He was scanning the ground floor when he observed a young woman looking through the window to the right of the slaughterhouse door. She was blond and seemed to be in her mid-twenties. Looking right at him. She was distracted for a moment, glanced into the bowels of the slaughterhouse then back to the field, terror in her eyes. Her mouth moved in a curious way – very broadly. She was saying something to him. He watched her lips. He couldn't figure out the message.

Potter turned aside and handed LeBow the binoculars. "Henry, fast. Who's that? You have any idea?"

LeBow had been inputting the identities of those hostages they had information about. But by the time he looked, the woman was gone. Potter described her.

"The oldest student's seventeen. It was probably one of the two teachers. I'd guess the younger one. Melanie Charrol. She's twenty-five. No other information on her yet."

Wilcox backed into the slaughterhouse. Potter saw nothing inside except blackness. The door slammed shut. Potter scanned the windows again, hoping to catch another glimpse of the young woman. But he saw nothing. He was silently duplicating the motion of her mouth. Lips pursed together, lower teeth touching the upper lips; lips pursed again, though differently, like in a kiss.

"We should make the call." LeBow touched Potter's elbow.

Potter nodded and the men hurried back to the van in silence, Budd behind them, glaring at one of the troopers who'd returned fire at Wilcox. Stillwell was reading the man the riot act.

Lips, teeth, lips. What were you trying to say? he wondered.

"Henry," Potter said. "Mark down: 'First contact with a hostage.' "

"Contact?"

"With Melanie Charrol."

"What was the communication?"

"I don't know yet. I just saw her lips move."

"Well -"

"Write it down. 'Message unknown.' "

"Okay."

"And add, 'Subject was removed from view before the threat management team leader could respond.' "

"Will do," replied meticulous Henry LeBow.

Inside the van Derek asked what happened but Potter ignored him. He snatched the phone from Tobe Geller and set it on the desk in front of him, cradled it between his hands.

He looked out through the thick window over the field, where the flurry of activity after the shooting had stopped completely. The front was now quiet; the errant officers – three of them – had been led off by Dean Still-well, and on the field the remaining troopers and agents stood with dense anticipation and fear and joy at the prospect of battle – a joy possible because there're thirty of you for each of them, because you're standing behind a half-ton Detroit picket line and wearing an Owens-Corning body vest, a heavy gun at your side, and because your spouse awaits you in a cozy bungalow with a beer and hot casserole.

Arthur Potter looked out over this cool and windy afternoon, an afternoon with the taste of Halloween in the air despite the midsummer month.

It was about to begin.

He turned away from the window, pushed a rapid-dial button on the phone. Tobe flipped a switch and began the recording. He hit another button and the sound of the ringing crackled through a speaker above their heads.

The phone rang five times, ten, twenty.

Potter felt LeBow's head turn toward him.

Tobe crossed his fingers.

Then: Click.

"We've got an uplink," Tobe whispered.

"Yeah?" The voice rang through the speaker.

Potter took a deep breath.

"Lou Handy?"

"Yeah."

"This is Arthur Potter. I'm with the FBI. I'd like to talk to you."

"Lou, that shot, it was a mistake."

"Was it now?"

Potter listened carefully to the voice, laced with a slight accent, mountain, West Virginian. He heard self-confidence, derision, weariness. All three combined to scare him considerably.

"We had a man in a tree. He slipped. His weapon discharged accidentally. He'll be disciplined."

"You gonna shoot him?"

"It was purely an accident."

"Accidents're funny things." Handy chuckled. "I was in Leavenworth a few years back and this asshole worked in the laundry room choked to death on a half-dozen socks. Had to've been a accident. He wouldn't go chewing on socks on purpose. Who'd do that?"

Cool as ice, Potter thought.

"Maybe this was that kinda accident."

"This was a run-of-the-mill, U.S.-certified accident, Lou."

"Don't much care what it was. I'm shooting one of 'em. Eenie meenie miney…"

"Listen to me, Lou…"

No answer.

"Can I call you Lou?"

"You got us surrounded, don'tcha? You got assholes in the trees with guns even if they can't sit on branches without falling. Guess you can call me what you fucking well like."

"Listen to me, Lou. This's a real tense situation here."

"Not for me it ain't. I ain't tense at all. Here's a pretty little blond one. No tits to speak of. Think I'll pick her."

He's playing with us. Eighty percent he's bluffing.

"Lou, Wilcox was in clear view. Our man was only eighty yards away, M-16 with a scope. Those troopers can drop a man at a thousand yards if they have to."

"But it's awful windy out there. Maybe your boy didn't compensate."

"If we'd've wanted your man dead he'd be dead."

"That don't matter. I keep telling you. Accident or not," he snarled, "gotta teach you people some manners." The bluff factor dropped to sixty percent.

Stay calm, Potter warned himself. Out of the corner of his eye he watched young Derek Elb wipe his palms on his pants and stuff a piece of gum into his mouth. Budd paced irritatingly, looking out the window.

"Let's just put it down to a mishap, Lou, and get on with what we have to talk about."

"Talk about?" He sounded surprised. "Whatta we gotta talk about?"

"Oh, lots," Potter said cheerfully. "First of all, is everybody doing okay in there? You have any injuries? Anybody hurt?"

His instinct was to ask specifically about the girls but negotiators try never to talk about the hostages if possible. You have to make the HT think that the captives have no bargaining value.

"Shep's a little bent outta shape, as you'd imagine, but otherwise everybody's right as rain. Course, ask again in five minutes. One of 'em ain't gonna be feeling so good."

Potter wondered: What did she say to me? He pictured Melanie's face again. Lips, teeth, lips…

"You need any first-aid supplies?"

"Yeah."

"What?"

"A medevac chopper."

"That's kind of a tall order, Lou. I was thinking more bandages or morphine, something like that. Antiseptic."