"I have no objection at all to your presence, Captain. And if they come out, guns ablazing, I'd sure welcome your firepower. But as long as it's understood that you're taking orders from me."

Tremain relented. "Fair enough. Fact is, I told my men that we'll probably be spending three hours drinking coffee and then pack up and go home."

"Let's hope so for all our sakes. If you want to go into position as part of the containment crew, Sheriff Stillwell here's in charge of that."

The two men nodded at each other coolly and every soul within earshot knew there was no way an HRT commander would put his men under the orders of a small-town sheriff. Potter hoped this would guarantee that Tremain would hightail it out of here.

"I think we'll just hang back. Stay out of sight. If you need us we'll be around."

"Whatever you want, Captain," Potter said.

Budd and Angie appeared, striding up the hill, and stopped suddenly. "Hey, Dan," Budd said, recognizing Tremain.

"Charlie." They shook hands. Tremain's eyes took in Angie's hair and face but it was a chaste examination, one of curiosity, and when his eyes dipped downward to her chest it was simply to confirm from her necklace ID that she was in fact an FBI agent.

"You boys heard about our little situation, did you?" Budd said.

Tremain laughed. "How 'bout, anybody watches TV knows about it. Who's working the CP?"

"Derek Elb."

"Derek the Red?" Tremain laughed. "I gotta say hi to him." Now jovial, Tremain said to Potter, "That boy wanted to join HRU but we took one look at that hair on him and thought he'd be just a little too prominent in a sniper's scope."

Potter smiled agreeably, pleased that there'd been no confrontation. Usually state and federal negotiators get along well enough but there's invariably tension between negotiators and tactical units from other branches. As Potter explained in class, "There're talkers and there're shooters. That's night and day and it won't ever change."

Tremain stepped into the van. Potter eyed the dozen men. Somber, artful, and oh-so-pleased to be here. He thought of Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now and supposed these men too loved the smell of napalm in the morning. Potter finished his conversation with Stillwell. When he turned back he was surprised to find that the HRU, to a man, was gone. When he climbed into the van he saw that Tremain too had left.

LeBow entered the information about Stillwell's skiff into his electronic memory.

"Time, Tobe?" Potter was staring at the "Promises/Deceptions" board.

The young man glanced at the digital clock.

"Forty-five minutes," Tobe muttered, then said to LeBow, "You tell him."

"Tell me what?"

The intelligence officer said, "We've been playing with the infrared monitor. We caught a glimpse of Handy a minute ago."

"What was he doing?"

"Loading the shotguns."

The Kansas State Police Hostage Rescue Unit, led by Captain Daniel Tremain, slipped silently into a stand of trees a hundred yards from the slaughterhouse.

The trees, Tremain noted at once, were not unoccupied. There were a state police sniper and two or three local deputies in position. Using hand signals Tremain directed his men through the trees and down into a gully that would take them around the side of the slaughterhouse. They passed undetected through the small forest. Tremain looked about and saw – fifty yards toward the river – an abandoned windmill, forty feet high, sitting in the middle of a grassy field. Beside it were two state troopers, standing with their backs to the HRU as they gazed warily at the slaughterhouse. Tremain ordered the two men into a line of trees out of sight of both the north side of the slaughterhouse and the command post.

From the windmill, the HRU team walked into a gully and made their way closer to the slaughterhouse. Tremain held up his hand and they stopped. He tapped his helmet twice and the men responded to the signal by switching on their radios. Lieutenant Carfallo opened the terrain map and the architectural drawings. From his pocket Tremain took the diagram of the inside of the slaughterhouse that Derek the Red, Derek the trooper, Derek the spy, had just slipped him inside the van. It was marked with the location of the hostages and the HTs.

Tremain was encouraged. The girls weren't being held in shield positions by the windows or in front of the HTs. There were no booby traps. Derek reported that the men inside were armed with pistols and shotguns only, no automatic weapons, and they had no flak jackets, helmets, or flashlights. Of course the hostages weren't as far away from the takers as he would have liked, and the room in which they were being kept had no door. But still Handy and the others were twenty or so feet from the girls. It would take a full five seconds for Handy to get to the hostages, and that was assuming he'd already decided that he would kill them the instant he heard the cutting charges. As a rule, in an assault, there were four to ten seconds of confusion and indecision while the takers tried to scope out what was happening before they could take up effective defensive positions.

"Listen up." Hands tapped ears and heads nodded. Tremain pointed at the chart. "There are six hostages inside. Three HTs – located here, here, and here, though they're pretty mobile. One checks on the girls with some frequency." Tremain nodded to one trooper. "Wilson."

"Sir."

"You're to proceed through this gully along the side of the building here and surveil from one of these two windows."

"Sir, can you get them to shift that light?" Trooper Joey Wilson nodded toward the halogens.

"Negative. This is a clandestine operation and you're not to expose yourself to the friendlies."

"Yessir," the young man barked. No questions asked.

"The middle window is hidden by that tree and the school bus. I'd suggest that one."

"Yessir."

"Pfenninger."

"Sir."

"You're to return to the command van and your orders are consistent with what you and I discussed earlier. Is that understood?"

"Yessir."

"The rest of us are moving to this point here. Using those bushes and trees for cover. Harding, you take point. All officers move out now."

And they dispersed into the dusky afternoon, as fluid as the dark river flowing past, more silent than the wind that bent the grass around them.

"Let's have a smoke," Potter said.

"Not me," Budd answered.

"An imaginary one."

"How's that?"

"Let's step outside, Captain."

They wandered away from the van twenty feet into a stand of trees, the agent adjusting his posture automatically to stand more upright; being in the presence of Charlie Budd made you want to do this. Potter paused and spoke with Joe Silbert and the other reporter.

"We've got two more out."

"Two more? Who?" Silbert seemed to be restraining himself.

"No identities," Potter said. "All I'll say is that they're students. Young girls. They've been released unharmed. That leaves a total of four students and two teachers left inside."

"What did you trade for them?"

"We can't release that information."

He'd expected the reporter would be grateful for the scoop but Silbert grumbled, "You're not making this very fucking easy."

Potter glanced at the computer screen. The story was a human-interest piece about an unnamed trooper, waiting for action – the boredom and the edginess of a barricade. Potter thought it was good and told the reporter so.

Silbert snorted. "Oh, it'd sing like poetry if I had some hard news to put in. When can we interview you?"

"Soon."

The agent and the trooper wandered down into a grove of trees out of the line of fire. Potter called in and told Tobe where he was, asked for any calls from Handy to be patched through immediately.