"Please. Speak frankly."

The corner of a sheet of paper peeked out from under the governor's repulsively blue sweater. Tremain recognized it as his own re'sume. He was proud of his record with the state police though he wondered if he wasn't here now because the governor had read the brief paragraph referring to a "consulting" career, which had taken Tremain to Africa and Guatemala after his discharge from the Marines.

"The Rand Corporation study is pretty accurate as far as it goes. But there's something else that bears on this situation, sir. That if there's a killing early in the barricade, negotiations rarely work. The HT – the hostage taker – has little to lose. Sometimes there's a psychological thing that happens and the taker feels so powerful that he'll just keep upping his demands so that they can't be met, just so he'll have an excuse to kill the hostages."

The governor nodded.

"What's your assessment of Handy?"

"I read the file on the way over here and I came up with a profile."

"Which is?"

"He's not psychotic. But he's certainly amoral."

The governor's thin lips twitched into a momentary smile. Because, Tremain thought, I'm a mercenary thug who used the word amoral?

"I think," Tremain continued slowly, "that he's going to kill more of the girls. Maybe all of them ultimately. If he goes mobile and gets away from us I think he'll kill them just for the symmetry of it."

Symmetry. How do you like that, sir? Check out the education portion of my resume. I was cum laude from Lawrence. Top of my class at OCS.

"One other thing we have to consider," the captain continued. "He didn't try very hard to escape from that trooper who found them this afternoon."

"No?"

"There was just that one officer and the three takers, with guns and hostages. It was like Handy's goal wasn't so much to get away but to spend some time…"

"Some time what?"

"With the hostages. If you get what I'm saying. They are all female."

The governor lifted his bulky weight from the chair. He walked to the window. Outside the combines combed the flat landscape, two of the ungainly machines slowly converging. The man sighed deeply.

Fucking symmetrically amoral life, ain't it, sir?

"He simply isn't your typical hostage taker, Governor. There's a sadistic streak in him."

"And you really think he'd… hurt the girls? You know what I mean?"

"I believe he would. If he could keep an eye out the window at the same time. And one of the fellows in there with him, Sonny Bonner, he's doing time for rape. Well, interstate transport. But rape was at the bottom of it."

On the governor's desk were pictures of his blond family, a black Labrador retriever, and Jesus Christ.

"How good is your team, Captain?" Whispering now.

"We're very, very good, sir."

The governor rubbed his sleepy eyes. "Can you get them out?"

"Yes. To know how many casualties, I'd have to do a preliminary plan of the tactical operation and then run a damage assessment."

"How soon could you do that?"

"I've asked Lieutenant Carfallo to obtain terrain maps and architectural drawings of the building."

"Where is he now?"

Tremain glanced at his watch. "He happens to be outside, sir."

The governor's eyes twitched again. "Why don't you ask him in?"

A moment later the lieutenant, a short, stocky young officer, was unfurling maps and old drawings.

"Lieutenant," Tremain barked, "give us your assessment."

A stubby finger touched several places on the architectural drawings. "Breachable here and here. Move in, use stun grenades, set up crossfire zones." The young man said this cheerfully and the governor seemed to grow uneasy again. As well he ought to. Carfallo was a scary little weasel. The lieutenant continued, "I'd estimate six to eight seconds, bang to bullets."

"He means," Tremain explained, "it's six seconds from the time the door blows until we acquire all three targets – um, have guns pointed at all the HTs."

"Is that good?"

"Excellent. It means that hostage casualties would be minimal or nonexistent. But of course I can't guarantee that there'd be none."

"God doesn't give us guarantees."

"No, He doesn't."

"Thank you, Lieutenant," the governor said.

"Dismissed," Tremain snapped, and the young man's face went still as he turned and vanished.

"What about Potter?" the governor asked. "He is in charge after all."

Tremain said, "And the related issue – there'd have to be some reason to green-light an assault."

"Some excuse," the governor mused, very carelessly. Then he stiffened and picked at a renegade powder-blue thread on his cuff.

"Say something happened to sever communications between Potter and Handy and the men in the field. And then say someone in my team observed a high-risk activity inside the slaughterhouse, some activity that jeopardized troopers or the hostages. Something Potter wasn't able to respond to. I'd think that – well, even legally – we'd be fully authorized to move in and secure the premises."

"Yes, yes. I'd think you would be." The governor lifted an inquiring eyebrow then thought better of saying whatever he'd been about to say. He slapped the desktop. "All right, Captain. My instructions: You're to move the state Hostage Rescue Unit to Crow Ridge and provide any backup assistance you can to Agent Potter. If for some reason Agent Potter is unable to remain in command of the situation and the convicts present an immediate threat to anyone – hostages or troopers or… just plain anyone – you're authorized to do whatever's necessary to neutralize the situation."

Entrust that to tape if you want. Who could argue with the wisdom and prudence of the words?

"Yessir." Tremain rolled up the maps and diagrams. "Is there anything else, sir?"

"I know that time is of the essence," the governor said slowly, applying his last test to the solemn trooper, "but do you think we could spend a moment in prayer?"

"I'd be honored, sir."

And the soldier took the sovereign's hand and they both dropped to their knees. Tremain closed his piercing blue eyes. A stream of words filled the room, rapid and articulate, as if they flowed straight from the heart of an Almighty worried sick about those poor girls about to die in the corridors of the Webber amp; Stoltz Processing Company, Inc.

So you'll be home then.

Melanie watched the lump of a woman and thought: it's impossible for someone to cry that much. She tapped Mrs. Harstrawn's arm but all the teacher did was cry even harder.

They were still in the little hellhole of the killing room. Scummy water on the floor, ringed like a rainbow from spilled oil. Filthy ceramic tile. No windows. It smelled of mold and shit. And decayed, dead animals in the walls. It reminded Melanie of the shower room in Schindler's List.

Her eyes kept falling on the center of the room: a large drain from which radiated spider legs of troughs. All stained brown. Old, old blood. She pictured a young calf braying then struggling as its throat was cut, the blood pulsing out, down the drain.

Melanie started to cry and once again heard her father's voice from last spring, So you'll be home then. You'll be home then you'll be home then…

From there her thoughts leapt to her brother, lying in a hospital bed six hundred miles away. He'd have heard by now, heard about the murder of the couple in the Cadillac, the kidnaping. He'd be worried sick. I'm sorry, Danny. I wish I were with you!

Blood spraying through the air…

Mrs. Harstrawn huddled and shook. Her face was a remarkable blue and Melanie's horror at Susan's death was momentarily replaced by the fear that the teacher was having a stroke.

"Please," she signed. "Girls are scared."