"News from Paris?"
"Regrettably not yet, but we hope to hear something soon. There is still time." Bellow's voice adopted a quiet intensity that he hoped would be taken for desperation.
"Time and tide wait for no man," One said, and hung up.
"What's that mean?" John asked.
"It means he's playing by the rules. He hasn't objected to the caps he can see on the TV, either. He knows the things he has to put up with." Bellow sipped his coffee. "He's very confident. He figures he's in a safe place, and he's holding the cards, and if he has to kill a few more kids. that's okay, because it'll get him what he wants."
"Killing children." Clark shook his head. "I didn't think-hell, I'm supposed to know better, right?"
"It's a very strong taboo, maybe the strongest," Dr. Bellow agreed. "The way they killed that little girl, though… there was no hesitation, just like shooting a paper target. Ideological," the psychiatrist went on. "They've subordinated everything to their belief system. That makes them rational, but only within that system. Our friend Mr. One has chosen his objective, and he'll stick to it."
The remote TV system, the park engineer saw, was really something. The objective lens now affixed to the castle window was less than two millimeters across at its widest point, and even if noticed, would be mistaken for a drop of paint or some flaw in the window glass. The quality of the image wasn't very good, but it showed where people were, and the more you looked at it, the more you understood what initially appeared to be a black-and-white photograph of clutter. He could count six adults now, and with a seventh atop the castle, that left only three unaccounted for-and were all the children in view? It was harder with them. All their shirts were the same color, and the red translated into a very neutral gray on the black-and-white picture. There was the one in a wheelchair, but the rest blended together in the out-of-focus image. The commandos, he could see, were worried about that.
"He's heading back west again," Johnston reported. "Okay, he's at the west side now."
"Let's go," Noonan told Vega.
"The ladder?" They'd taken it down and laid it behind the bushes on its side.
"Leave it." Noonan ran off in a crouch, reaching the concession structure in a few seconds. "Noonan to Command, time to do the cameras again."
"It's off," the engineer told Clark.
"Camera twenty-one is down. Get moving, Tim."
Noonan popped Vega on the shoulder and ran another thirty meters. "Okay, take down twenty-three."
"Done," the park engineer said.
"Move," Clark commanded.
Fifteen seconds later, they were in a safe position. Noonan leaned against a building wall and took a long breath. "Thanks, Julio."
"Any time, man," Vega replied. "Just so the camera gadget works."
"It will," the FBI agent promised, and with that they headed back to the underground command post.
"Blow the windows? Can we do that, Paddy?" Chavez was asking when they got there.
Connolly was wishing for a cigarette. He'd quit years before-it was too hard on the daily runs to indulge-but at times like this it seemed to help the concentration. "Six windows… three or four minutes each… no, I think not, sir. I can give you two-if we have the time."
"How sturdy are the windows?" Clark asked "Dennis?"
"Metal frames set into the stone," the park manager said with a shrug.
"Wait." The engineer turned a page on the castle blueprints, then two more, and then a finger traced dawn the written portion on the right side. "Here's the specs… they're held in by grouting only. You should be able to kick them in, I think."
The "I think" part was not as reassuring as Ding would have preferred, but how strong could a window frame be with a two-hundred-pound man swinging into it with two boots leading the way?
"What about flash-bangs, Paddy?"
"We can do that," Connolly answered. "It will not do the frames any good at all, sir."
"Okay." Chavez leaned over the plans. "You'll have time to blow two windows-this one and this one." He tapped the prints. "We'll use flash-bangs on the other four and swing in a second later. Eddie here, me here. Louis here. George, how's the leg?"
"Marginal," Sergeant Tomlinson replied with painful honesty. He'd have to kick through a window, swing in, drop to a concrete floor, then come up shooting… and the lives of children were at stake. No, he couldn't risk it, could he? "Better somebody else, Ding."
"Oso, think you can do it?" Chavez asked.
"Oh, yeah," Vega replied, trying not to smile. "You bet. Ding."
"Okay, Scotty here, and Mike take these two. What's the exact distance from the roof?"
That was on the blueprints. "Sixteen meters exactly from the level of the roof. Add another seventy centimeters to allow for the battlements."
