Good God! Lee thought, a whole busload killed! That’s terrible! She wondered if the police had anything to do with it.
Steven Buckels introduced himself to the sergeant, and explained that he and his father weren’t part of the tour crew. “But my sister is,” he said, indicating Jenny. “We drove out from North Carolina to see her. We’ll follow you.”
“I’m afraid that won’t work, Reverend Buckels. Your sister needs to come along with the rest of Mr. Aran’s folks, and the escort isn’t to let anyone follow.” The sergeant frowned. “Now my orders don’t say anything about—guests of the tour. So if Mr. Lu is willing to call you that, and if you’re willing to leave your car here . . .”
Steven hesitated for perhaps a second, then—”I’ll be right back, sergeant,” he said. His eyes found Lor Lu, who was ushering the last few crew members aboard the bus; Jenny was the last of them. Steven strode over to them, and briefly they talked. Two minutes later, Steven and Edmund Buckels were aboard with the tour crew, carrying only a small bag each.
The sergeant took a seat halfway back in the bus, and sent the remaining two of his men farther to the rear. The trooper-driver seemed familiar with buses. After warming it up briefly, he drove from the lot, preceded by a patrol car and followed by others.
* * *
The TV hadn’t been turned back on, so Duke Cochran booted up his laptop. Protective custody, he said to himself. And the pope is Presbyterian. He wondered where they were taking Dove, and if they’d be stupid enough to do anything to him. Jail him perhaps. It occurred to him that might be what Dove intended; they might be playing into his hands. Although what possible purpose that could serve . . . He’d already rejected the idea that the state patrol might have shot up the other bus. He was no lawyer, but it seemed to him the FBI would assert its jurisdiction over murders aboard an interstate commercial carrier. And if the state police were guilty of the killings, the feds would stick it to them ruthlessly.
His thoughts were interrupted by a patrolman collecting laptops and cell phones. Without them, Cochran felt naked.
* * *
Lor Lu turned on the television, which as usual was set to CNN. The picture gave them an aerial viewpoint. The TV chopper had accompanied the captain’s cruiser, keeping the prescribed distance, but telephoto shots showed Dove visible through a window. A radar readout showed the cruiser’s speed—87 miles per hour. The pilot increased his speed, moving to a position perhaps a half mile ahead of the cruiser. The bus was not in sight. From a seat next to the pilot, a newswoman provided commentary.
Abruptly the shot changed to show one of the police choppers moving toward the camera. Via a radio-camera hookup, the viewers could hear the police chopper ordering the TV chopper back to Little Rock. They could also see a gun of some sort, seemingly an assault rifle, being used to gesture from the door. The view swung away westward as the TV chopper started for home, shepherded by one of the other police aircraft.
* * *
Race played little or no part in Governor Marius Cook’s hostility toward Dove. He’d grown up in his parents’ church, an Ozark Baptist congregation with an old antislavery tradition. They may not have considered blacks as good as whites, but even then they’d regarded them as human beings, God’s children, not to be bought or sold.
Today he sat in his office with his aide and his pastor, watching the wall screen intently. “Everett,” the governor said to his aide, “what is that stupid sonofabitch doing, waving that gun out the helicopter door like that for the whole world to see? I explicitly ordered that everything was supposed to look cool!”
It seemed to Everett Miller the answer was obvious: in an operation involving that many people, some were likely to screw up. He did not, however, point this out. He was worried, wondering if Marius Cook hadn’t bitten off more than he could chew. For two weeks, Everett had been keeping up with the TV highlights of what the newspeople were calling “the Messianic Procession,” and he couldn’t help wondering if Dove wasn’t what so many people now claimed he was. Or hoped he was.