“Rifle Two-One in place, Six. I have a good perch here. I can see the whole roof of the castle and the doors to the elevator and stairwell. Good line of sight to the back, too. Not a bad spot, sir.”
“Good. Keep us posted.”
“Roger that, boss. Out.” Sergeant Johnston propped himself up on his elbows and watched the area through his 7×50 binoculars. The sun was warm. He’d have to get used to that. Johnston thought for a moment and reached for his canteen. Just then the car he’d ridden up wheeled forward and then dropped from sight. He heard the steel overhead wheels roll along the metal tubing and wondered what it was like to ride the damned thing. Probably right up there with skydiving, something he knew how to do, but didn’t much care for, airborne-ranger training or not. There was something nice about having your fucking feet on the fucking ground, and you couldn’t shoot a rifle while falling through the air at a hundred thirty knots, could you? He directed his binoculars at a window . . . they were flat on the bottom but curved into a point at the top, like in a real castle, and made of clear glass segments held together with leaded strips. Maybe hard to shoot through, he thought, though getting a shot at this angle would not be easy . . . no, if he got a shot, he’d have to take it on someone outside. That would be easy. He got behind the rifle scope and punched the laser-rangefinder button, selecting the middle of the courtyard as his point of aim. Then he punched a few numbers into his calculator to allow for the vertical drop, came up with an adjusted range setting, and turned the elevation knob on the scope the right number of clicks. The direct line of sight was three hundred eighty-nine meters. Nice and close if he had to take a shot.
“Yes, Minister,” Dr. Bellow said. He was sitting in a comfortable chair-Mike Dennis’s-and staring at the wall. There was now a pair of photographs for him to stare at they were unknowns, because Tim Noonan didn’t have them in his computer, and neither the French nor the Spanish police had turned either into a name with a history attached. Both had apartments a few miles away, and both were being thoroughly tossed now, and phone records checked as well, to see where they’d called.
“They want this Jackal fellow out, do they?” the French Minister of Justice asked.
“Along with some others, but he would seem to be their primary objective, yes.”
“My government will not negotiate with these creatures!” the Minister insisted.
“Yes, sir, I understand that. Giving over the prisoners is generally not an option, but every situation is different, and I need to know what leeway, if any, you will give me as a negotiating position. That could include taking this Sanchez guy out of prison and bringing him here as . . . well, as bait for the criminals we have surrounded here.”
“Do you recommend that?” the Minister asked.
“I am not sure yet. I haven’t spoken with them, and until I do I cannot get a feel for what they’re all about. For the moment, I must assume that we are dealing with serious, dedicated people who are willing to kill hostages.”
“Children?”
“Yes, Minister, we must consider that a real threat,” the doctor told him. That generated a silence that lasted for a full ten seconds by the wall clock Bellow was staring at.
“I must consider this. I will call you later.”
“Thank you, sir.” Bellow hung up the phone and looked up at Clark.
“So?”
“So, they don’t know what to do. Neither do I yet. Look, John, we’re up against a number of unknowns here. We do not know much about the terrorists. No religious motivation, they’re not Islamic fundamentalists. So I can’t use religion or God or ethics against them. If they’re ideological Marxists, they’re going to be ruthless bastards. So far they haven’t been really communicative. If I can’t talk to them, I got bupkis.”
“Okay, so, what’s our play?”
“Put ’em in the dark for starters.”
Clark turned: “Mr. Dennis?”
“Yes?”
“Can we cut the electricity to the castle?”
“Yes,” the park engineer answered for his boss.
“Do it, doc?” John asked Bellow, getting a nod. “Okay, pull the plug now.”
“Fair enough.” The engineer sat at a computer terminal and worked the mouse to select the power-control program. In a few seconds, he isolated the castle and clicked the button to turn their electricity off.
“Let’s see how long this takes,” Bellow said quietly.
It took five seconds. Dennis’s phone rang.
“Yes?” the park manager said into the speakerphone. “Why did you do that?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. The lights went off.”
Dr. Bellow leaned over the speaker. “I am Dr. Bellow. Who am I talking to?”
“I am One. I am in control of Worldpark. Who are you?”
“My name is Paul Bellow, and I have been asked to speak with you.”
“Ah, you are the negotiator, then. Excellent. Turn the lights back on immediately.”
“Before we do that,” Bellow said calmly, “I would like to know who you are. You have my name. I do not have yours.”
“I told you that. I am One. You will call me Mr. One,” the voice replied evenly, devoid of excitement or anger.
“Okay, Mr. One, if you insist, you can call me Paul.”
“Turn the electricity back on, Paul.”
“In return for which you will do what, Mr. One?”
“In return for which I will abstain from killing a child for the moment,” the voice added coldly.
“You do not sound like a barbarian, Mr. One, and the taking of a child’s life is a barbaric act-and also one calculated to make your position more difficult, not less so.”
“Paul, I have told you what I require. Do it immediately.” And then the line went dead.
“Oh, shit,” Bellow breathed. “He knows the playbook.”
“Bad?”
Bellow nodded. “Bad. He knows what we’re going to try to do, on my side, I mean.”
“Andre,” Rene called from his desk. “Select a child.”
He’d already done that, and pointed to the little Dutch girl, Anna, in her wheelchair, wearing her special-access button. Rene nodded his approval. So, the other side had a physician talking to him. The name Paul Bellow meant nothing to him, but the marl would be a Spanish psychiatrist, probably one experienced or at least trained in negotiations. His job would be to weaken their resolve, ultimately to get them to surrender and so condemn themselves to life in prison. Well, he’d have to see about that. Rene checked his watch and decided to wait ten minutes. Malloy eased back on the cyclic control, flaring his helicopter for landing where the fuel truck was parked. There were five soldiers there, one of them waving orange-plastic wands. In another few seconds, the Night Hawk touched down. Malloy killed the engines, and watched the rotor slow as Sergeant Nance opened the side door and hopped out.
“Time for some crew rest?” Lieutenant Harrison asked over the intercom.
“Right,” Malloy snorted, opening his door to climb down. He walked to what looked like an officer standing a few yards away, answering his salute when he got there to shake hands. Malloy had an urgent request to make.
“The trick will be to get close enough,” Covington said.
“Yeah.” Chavez nodded. They’d circulated carefully to the other side of the castle now. They could hear the Dive Bomber ride running behind them. There was a good forty meters of open ground all around the castle, doubtless planned by the main architect of the park to give the structure primacy of place. It did that, but it didn’t give Ding and Peter much to work with. Both men took their time, examining everything from the little man-made streams to the bridges over them. They could see the windows into the command center where the terrorists were, and the line of sight was just too damned good, even before they considered the task of racing up the interior stairs-and those were probably covered by men with guns.
“They don’t make it easy for us, do they?” Covington observed.
“Well, that’s not their job, is it?”
“How’s the recon going?” Clark asked over the encrypted radio circuit.
“Pretty well done, Mr. C,” Chavez replied. “Malloy in yet.
“Just landed.”
“Good, ‘cuz we’re gonna need him if we gotta go in.”
“Two groups, up and down,” Covington added. “But we need something to tell us about that room.”
The Spanish officer, an army major, nodded instant agreement and waved to some people in the helicopter hangar. they trotted over, got their orders, and trotted back. With that done, Malloy headed to the hangar, too. He needed a men’s room. Sergeant Nance, he saw, was heading back with two thermos jugs. Good man, the Marine thought, he knew how important coffee was at a time like this.