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Chapter One

"They're all set," said Burnett. "Wired and vests."

Parker and Ben turned. Ben knew the reporter on sight as most people would. Chuck Heynes was rumored to be next in line for a national anchor slot at NBC if he could keep his visibility up. The videographer, Ben had never met before.

."Gentlemen," Parker's voice was a deep rumble. "Understand that we've only agreed to let you folks from the media in to appease this fool long enough to walk him out of the barn. You operate under our orders. You do not ask him questions that will incite him, do you understand me?"

"I know I speak for all of us, when I say we'll cooperate," Heynes said.

Ben turned back to look at the open door, scratching distractedly at his beard. He felt scruffy. Suddenly aware that in that small barn, he would be part of the news, too. On the other side of the lens. That had only happened once before in his career, and it had been a distinctly unpleasant experience. Ben had let his beard grow in long the past few years, and he wondered what he looked like underneath it now. He looked down at himself. His jeans were dirty from the past few days of lying on the ground peering through the camera at that barn door. His shirt was damp with sweat. He yawned, feeling that curious combination of sleepiness and excitement that he'd felt whenever he was waiting for something to start. Like high school football, back in Portland, Maine. Later, it was waiting with his camera in hand, ready to jump out of an armored car with the Marines in Sarajevo, or capturing images of young Zapatista rebels in Mexico.

Ben knew he usually did fine once things got started. But at the moment, he couldn't help but wish he was back at the motel, taking a shower, the exposed rolls of film tucked in his bag.

The two television guys were talking between themselves. The same nervousness was apparent in their voices, but Heynes was trying to hide it under bluster. "Just be damn sure that thing is on the whole goddamn time," he was saying to the cameraman.

"Got it, got it, got it," said the cameraman.

Ben glanced back, smiling. Heynes was a big, good-looking guy with just the right amount of gray at the temples. But he didn't have a reputation for brains.

Heynes saw Ben's smile and he snapped, "Don't get in our way, clear? We're capturing this live."

Ben laughed, shortly, and didn't answer the man. Instead, he looked over at Parker. He thought of the Newsweek issue that had just been distributed behind the sandbags that morning. Under the headline, "Collision Course," the cover had depicted high school photos of Johansen with a winning smile, Parker solemn and serious.

"Nervous?" Parker said.

"Hell, yes."

Both of them started slightly when the telephone on the Burnett's belt sounded. He flipped it open. "All right, Mr. Johansen. Give us a second to secure everybody here."

He nodded to Parker, who spoke rapidly into his radio to the SWAT team. "The girl's coming out. Everybody be goddamn sure you hold fire."

Katy was shoved into the doorway. Around Ben, he could feel everyone relax slightly. This was the first they'd seen of her in the whole stand, and although she seemed terrified, she looked all right otherwise.

"I've got one her age at home," Parker said. He clapped Ben lightly on the arm. "Swap with her."

Ben started across the grass. He lifted his camera slowly to his eye and captured a shot of her standing in the doorway. Her lower lip was trembling. "Hey," he said, as he got closer. "Hey, Katy."

Johansen spoke around the door. "Keep on coming. Once you're in, she goes."

Ben stepped into the gloom of the barn. In an instant, he took it all in: Johansen standing by the concrete wall, the gun on him; the mother and boy, bound and tied to a farm tractor. A shaft of light revealed the mother's face, looking imploringly between Johansen and her daughter. "Please now, can she go?"

"I don't want to," the girl said. "I want to stay with you, Mommy."

"Move it," Johansen snapped.

Ben did a mild doubletake when he looked at Johansen again. Somehow, the man had shaved and cleaned himself up. Ready for the cameras. "Can I?" Ben said, gesturing to the girl.

Johansen nodded abruptly.

Ben knelt down next to her. "Hey, I've got a girl your age." He pointed to Parker. "So does he." Ben looked back at the phalanx of men with guns and he understood her hesitation. He flapped his hand down to Parker and the agent got his point immediately and knelt down to child level. "Run to him, honey. He knows you're scared."

The girl looked at Ben closely, and then abruptly ran to Parker.

Without thinking, Ben raised the camera and captured two shots of the little girl with dirty blue coveralls and pigtails, running for the kneeling FBI agent.

"Never miss a shot, do you, Ben?" Johansen said. "Now come here, and take off that vest."

Ben hesitated, but Johansen simply raised his gun to Ben's right eye. "You'll miss that, in your business."

Ben took off the vest and Johansen had him kneel with his hands on his head while he put the vest onto himself. "Open your shirt and your pants and show me where the wires are—and then pull them."

After a moment's hesitation, Ben did.

"All right. You go against that wall and you can keep shooting. Just save a shot or two for me.

And that's what Ben did. He took shots of the twelve year-old boy, looking back at his mother as Heynes and the cameraman walked toward him. After that, of Parker and Burnett filling the barn doorway, silhouetted by bright light. Johansen had all of them pull their wires. "You'll forgive me, I'm sure," he drawled. "I had a bad experience with these once."

Johansen's diatribe took a surprisingly short time to complete. "I make no apologies for my actions," he began, looking into the videocamera. "Although I was saddened that Thad Greene was pressed so violently into service in the war against the disintegration of America, I am delighted to hear the news that he'll recover..."

And so on.

A self-serving monologue that placed all of Johansen's acts of terrorism into "the larger context." This, with a gun jammed against Mrs. Greene's neck. Most of it had a singsong, practiced sound. Johansen kept his eyes on the video camera, except when he would discuss the "institutions of entropy" which had "softened and weakened this great country in the name of equality."

Then he would look at Parker.

When he did that, Johansen's mouth turned ugly and his voice shook just slightly. Ben almost raised his camera to capture it, and then decided against it.

Johansen might read it as encouragement.

Finally, he was done.

Johansen bowed his head, and then waved the two television guys back.

Parker and Burnett stared at the newscaster, and he backed off, but didn't look too happy about it.

Abruptly, Johansen shoved the woman away. "Thank you, Mrs. Greene. You may leave now. I'm sorry for the trouble." He waved the gun at Burnett. "Walk her out, see that your guys don't kill her."

She seemed stunned, and then her face flushed crimson. She looked as if she were going to say something, but then looked to the gun and the other men, and simply turned away.

"What's going on here?" Burnett asked.

"Do it," Parker growled

Burnett took the woman away.

"Now how about these guys?" Parker said. "It's time for them to walk."

Johansen shook his head. "The fourth estate stays. If I've learned anything, it's that leadership is all a matter of making the right symbols. Well, I'm going to make one right now."

Faster than Ben could have imagined, Johansen lashed out with the gunbutt and cracked Parker on the head. The agent staggered, and Johansen did it again. Blood gushed from a scalp wound. "Get on your knees, nigger."

Ben started forward and Johansen swung the gun to him. "Time for your picture, you whore. Get over here!"

Ben's hands were shaking, but in a glance, he doublechecked everything. He had already put the flash on a coil cord so he could hold it off camera. The power light on the flash was glowing red. He zoomed the lens back to its widest setting.

"You about ready there, Ben?" Johansen smiled slightly as he placed the gun inches from Parker's head.

"Just about." Ben stepped closer.

"You got my flag waving in the background? I looked through a crack in the barn, so I know it's still flying out there."

"I've got it all." Ben's voice was shaking, too.

"Maybe you'll win some more awards here. The niggers have been good for you, haven't they?"

"You're cold, Ben," the cameraman said, letting his videocamera down.

"Keep rolling," Heynes snapped.

The cameraman shrugged and lifted it up, the red light gleaming above the lens.

"Don't do this, Mr. Johansen," Heynes said, his voice conveying just the right sense of urgency and dismay. "I'm asking you--the world is asking you--not to do this."

The audio was, of course, rolling too.

Johansen struck a pose and, indeed, a part of Ben knew it was a hell of a shot: the powerful black man staring up at Johansen. Parker was bloodied and confused, but still defiant. Out of focus, the running SWAT team, clearly too late. Johansen held the big gun rigidly in his right arm, his entire body conveying self-righteous judgment.

"Look at me," Ben said, with the assurance of years.

Damned if Johansen didn't comply, the gun moving just slightly as he did so. Ben reached over with the flash and jammed it mere inches away from Johansen's eyes.

And took the picture.