Barn: Wednesday: 1/10/06: 10:17 a.m.
Talking to the HT's wives/girlfriends"Hi, I'm Emily," she told them, choosing to use only her first name as a way of establishing trust. "I'm a negotiator with the FBI. I understand two of the men in that barn are your husbands?" She asked the women.
The younger of the two women was wearing a cream-color, flutterly syle blouse, with huge purple flowers all over it, and a skirt that went just to her knees, that was the same shade as the flowers. Her finger nails were long, fake, and fuchsia, a shade that almost matched her lipstick, and her blond hair, which hung loose, was obviously a product of bleach.
The older of the two was wearing more conservative clothing, blue jeans and a light blue top, both of which seemed to be covered in white powder. Her hair was pulled up into a bun, and covered in a black net, and she wore very little makeup. A baker, was Emily's first thought upon seeing her.
"I'm Christie Fields, can you tell us what's going on in there? Nobody will tell us anything. They just dragged us out here!" The older woman was clearly distressed, and Emily became concerned that they weren't told anything.
"I'm Andrea Baker. I got dragged out of work, and nobody will tell me why all these men have guns trained on that barn when our husbands are inside." She looked pissed more than distressed, and Emily wished she only had to talk to Christie Fields.
"Your husbands, along with two other men, took eight people hostage." Emily said simply, not knowing a more gentle way to explain it.
"What? Archie just wouldn't do that!" Christie exclaimed in horrified shock.
"Tommy would." Andrea simply said. Upon seeing the surprised looks from her companions she explained, "Tommy is an idiot, he is always screwing up. How else would I have ended up with three babies?" She said as if that explained everything. Emily didn't point out that that made her an idiot also, but she suddenly felt sudden sympathy for Tommy Baker.
"Do either of you have an ideas what might have set off Tommy and Archie?" Emily asked them gently.
"Tommy told me the factory was canceling child-care assistance. We'd hafta pay our kids tuition all on our own. He screwed up again." Andrea said bitterly, attributing fault to Tommy over something he couldn't control.
"What! Archie never said anything about that!" Christie Fields was getting very distressed, and making Emily very nervous.
"Do you use the same daycare for your children?"
"Tiny Tot Childcare." Andrea stated, while Christie nodded her head vigorously in agreement.
"Are either of you familiar with Jimmy Donovan or Lucy Ackerbee, ages three and one year?" Emily read off the names of the other HTs youngest children.
"I know there is a baby named Lucy at Tiny Tots, she's just the most beautiful child." Christie told her, eager to help, and still obviously upset.
"Tony, my three-year asked to have a Jimmy over once, but I don't recall the kid. Why?"
"The other two men in there with your husbands might have children at Tiny Tots."
"That's it?" Andrea was clearly not impressed with Emily.
"Could you both describe to me your financial situations?" Emily said, writing notes while she talked.
"Archie and me, we didn't make too much money, but we got by. We love our babies, but we just can't afford to have anymore. I'm working now too, so we can pay the bills…We try real hard it's just…it's just hard to live today." Christie told her, looking away, embarrassed that she was poor.
"We're dirt poor, Tommy can't do a damn thing right, so I had to get a job. Barely make enough to buy groceries and pay the electric bill though. Three kids can get very expensive." Andrea was suddenly uncomfortable with the topic, and spoke much softer.
"So losing that tuition assistance, that's going to be hard on you?" Emily coaxed them gently.
"His parents live up north near Sacramento and mine are dead, we don't have anything to do with our babies. If I quit my job, then we won't be able to afford our house." It would have come out as an anguished wail if Christie had spoken louder.
"Yeah, we're pretty much screwed too. I don't know what I'm gonna do with two kids who ain't in school. Damn it Tommy." She looked off distracted as she cursed her husband.
Emily smiled at the women, "Thank you for your help Christie, Andrea, we'll do our best to keep you posted, but right now, if you wouldn't mind, this officer," she motioned a trooper to come to her, "is going to escort you to that van across the street."
"What the hell are we supposed to do in there?" Andrea's question forced Emily to grit her teeth to keep smiling.
"Just hang out for now, we don't want you to close for safety reasons, and you'll be comfortable in the van while we keep you updated. Thank you again for your help." She said smiling as she sent them off, and then went to find Matt.
"Matt!" She called to him where he was studying something with a bored looking trooper.
"Hey, how'd it go?"
"Andrea Baker is a shrew." She simply stated as she studied what he was looking at, a plan of the barn (not that there was much to it).
"That bad?" Matt noticed she looked less than pleased.
"Worse, but I did find out that the plant just canceled their day care tuition assistance, which means these people have no place to put their children while they work, and if the wives quit their jobs, they can't afford to live."
"Good, we have our answer. I guess we can expect a ransom demand from these guys then?"
"I don't know, have we identified the hostages yet?"
"Yeah, Meredith Cannon and her 7 year-old daughter, Carrie, her husband owns the plastics plant, so that ransom demand should be coming for her. The others don't seem to have a connection, just that they were in the park at that time. Henry and Gale Evans, married couple, she's a waitress, he's a carpenter, their son Bobby, he's four; Mike Gable, a farm worker, and his girlfriend, Bridget Coewl, she's a student at county college; and our last hostage is Hope Carson, an 80 year-old woman enjoying a nice warm day in the park." Matt finished reading the information they had.
"So we have two little kids, an old lady, and five adults…great."
"I'm about ready to try calling again, I don't know what their waiting for to make that demand."
Emily shrugged, "Um, how trigger-happy are those troopers?"
"Very, but they'll wait till we give it the go, I've got them busy trying to track down thermal imaging equipment. And while I'm on that, this is nuts, we have no equipment, if we can't talk these guys out, we're screwed."
"We'll just have to talk them out then." She told him, handing him the phone and watching him dial the number of Donovan's cell.
"What?!"
"It's Matt, Roy, I'm just checking on things."
"There fine in here. Are you ready to hear our demands." It really wasn't a question, more like they better be ready.
"Well, I'm thinking you want me to bring a number to Bill Cannon, as payment for his wife an child."
"$500,000, that's all we want."
"That's pretty reasonable of you Roy."
"We're not greedy men, we just want to take care of our families."
"I understand that. We know that the factory took away your tuition assistance, that's tough."
"Don't pretend like you have any clue man. Do you have kids? Huh? Do you make less than $35,000 a year. I do, and it sucks. We can't afford to live."
"I don't have kids, and the bureau pays a little better than that, but I remember what it was like growing up without a lot of money, and you're right, it sucks."
"Yeah, I'm sure you were really poor growin up." Roy said sarcastically.
"Hey Roy, can you tell Tommy and Archie that we were just talking to their wives, who are actually across the street now."
"Why?"
"Well, yours and Andy's girlfriend are on their way here too."
"You keep our girls outta this." He threatened.
"I can't do that Roy, not unless you let those hostages go." He could hear talking on the other end, the other HTs asking about their wives.
"Fine then, get me $500, 000 and will all be happy."
Barn Crime Scene: Thursday: 1/11/07: 4:24 p.m.
Cheryl turned her head slowly, swallowing the lump in her throat as she took in the scene before her. Blood spatter was literally everywhere, covering the walls, the floor, and the six bodies strewn about. She could pick out some of soft-chunked mash of organ spatter too. Bullet holes dotted the walls, where several had landed after either missing, or cutting cleanly through their target. Thin beams of light shown through the holes from the afternoon sun blazing outside. She could see where two dozen people had lain before they were carded off to the hospital or the morgue, pools of blood lay stagnant on the ground. They were fresh, so the only smell in the air was an almost overwhelmingly metallic bitterness.
The FBI crime scene unit was processing was still processing the scene, which could take days. Normally they would have let the local PD CSU process the scene, but this was considered an FBI screw-up at the moment, and the FBI cleaned up their own messes. The ME's had long gone, but the absence of the dead didn't make the scene any less horrific. Cheryl turned her head slowly to where Frank stood at her side, trying to distract herself from the carnage so she wouldn't get sick. Frank looked like he might throw up himself, macho man or no. On her other side stood the OPC agents, who they'd accompanied to the crime scene after the doctors told them that everybody still living was stable, Matt and Emily included.
Cheryl didn't know what she'd expected, but this wasn't it. She knew she should have, she knew how many people died, but how can you prepare for a scene like this?
"Did you guys get the recordings from the state police yet?" Cheryl asked Alex, her eyes still glued to the carnage in front of her.
"Uh no, seems they've miss placed them." Alex told her, a bitter tone in her voice.
"Great…" Cheryl's sarcastic tone trailed off as she watched the forensic techs process the room.
"What have you guys found so far?" Mark asked the people milling about the room.
"Not too much yet, bodies are still being autopsied, evidence still being retrieved. Got some of the ballistics back though. About of third of it, because man, I have never seen a case this many guns in one rooms." A tech close to them explained.
"So what did the ballistics say?" Mark asked impatiently.
"According to Samson, you've got at least one case of friendly fire." The tech told him solemnly.
"What?" Cheryl blurted out.
"One of the troopers on team B hit one of the troopers on team A."
"Whose team A and team B?" Frank asked.
"Uh, Flannery led B, Lehman led A. Her team went in first. Best we got now is that it was dark and filled with smoke from the shots, they all just aimed and fired." The tech said with a shrug.
Frank looked angrily toward his three companions. "And that is why you don't leave two negotiators with all a bunch of State Troopers. They don't have a fucking clue what their doing."
"Why didn't they call in Woodbridge? Or call you, Cheryl?" Alex asked curiously.
"I don't know. Something obviously went very wrong after I talked to them, made they had to make split second decisions." She suggested, defending her friends.
"Well, they made bad ones then." Mark commented.
"Agent Edwards have you ever negotiated with an irrational gun-wielding idiot?" Cheryl asked through her clenched teeth.
"No, always been OPC."
"Between them Matt and Emily, they have negotiated with over two hundred, 99 of those successful, and both of them are under forty, do you know how remarkable that is?"
"No, but I'm sure your just aching to tell me." He commented sarcastically, receiving a glare from his partner.
"The Bureau hasn't had a team like them paired together since Griggs and Carter in the seventies. If you had any experience in the CNU, you might know what I'm talking about. The fact is you don't. You people come in and muscle around, trying to find a little crumb on agents who you say screwed up. But neither of you have been on the front lines, not in the CNU, not in Terrorism, Behavioral, OC, or any other department. You don't know what it's like. You've never had the lives of a dozen people in your hands, and it's never been you voice, your words, as the only thing between them and death. So when you find yourself in that position, and I hope you do, you'll probably piss yourself, I'd love for you to come and tell me more about bad decisions. Until then you don't get to judge my agents." Cheryl was seething by the end of her diatribe, and Frank was reminded why nobody messed with Cheryl.
"With all due respect Agent Carrera, judging your agents' actions is our job." Alex tried to diffuse the situation her tactless partner had created. This was why she did all the talking.
"Then how about you wait until they are conscious." She spat.
The two OPC agents looked very uncomfortable, squirming slightly.
"I'm going back to the hospital," she turned to Frank, "you coming?"
"Oh yeah, right behind." He told her eager to leave the blood and guts covered barn.
Once they were in the car and driving, Frank looked over to Cheryl. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, they just pissed me off." She offered.
"I caught that. I think you scared them, but I don't know how much that helped Matt and Emily." The two OPC agents may take out their indignation on their investigation targets.
"I know. Damn it. Frank, we don't even know what happened in there. We don't know that they didn't screw up. Why the hell did they go in there with a bunch of state troopers?"
"Like you said, maybe they were given a bad choice."
"How could it have come to that so quickly, unless they screwed up negotiations?"
"Alright, Cheryl I'm going to say this once, so listen to me. Nobody except Matt and Emily knows what really went on there, why it came to this. Those useless troopers they questioned didn't even know, they didn't pay much attention to the negotiations after the first few hours. They had a lot to deal with out there, okay? If they couldn't diffuse that crisis, then do you really think any other two people could have? Remember we don't know what happened, so lets not crucify them before we have reason to?"
"Didn't I just give that speech?" She asked trying to lighten the mood, miserably.
"What you think I could actually come up with that on my own?" He asked her with a grin.
Ten minutes of nervous, but companionable silence later, they pulled up to the ER, now surrounded by reporters. Upon getting out of the car they were swarmed. Now the real circus would begin.
Due to the end of the semester crunch, updates will be scarce for a while, but I'll try to get up what I can, when I can. My eternal gatitude for reading and reviewing!