“There go your future undercover jobs,” Gabe joked, sounding calm as always, a hint of amusement in his tone.
Kyle resisted the urge to look over at his partner and roll his eyes. Hopefully someone on the FBI’s media team would stop that coverage from going anywhere, but undercover work wasn’t in his future, anyway. He planned to stay in HRT until they forced him to retire.
“I’ve got news on Jen’s car.” Greg’s voice suddenly came over Kyle’s radio and he pushed his hand over his earphone, although he could hear perfectly. The screams of the protesters seemed to fade into the background as his hands clenched his weapon too tightly.
If they’d found the car, did that mean they’d found Evelyn or Jen? Or, God forbid, a body?
“Evelyn’s cell phone was inside the SUV, but nothing else,” Greg said, his steady profiler voice giving nothing away, even though it was his closest friend in BAU who was missing. “The SUV was abandoned a couple hundred yards off the road. Someone was clearly trying to conceal it, and I doubt it was Jen or Evelyn.”
Someone from the Butler Compound had taken the SUV, probably hoping to hide the connection between the agents and the compound. Probably after they’d killed one of them. But which one?
“Mac!” Yankee yelled, and Kyle realized he’d stopped moving, that his teammates were still advancing toward the perimeter.
The Salt Lake City agents had brought in police barriers to halt the crowd, but several of them had been knocked over, and the agents and local cops had been pushed back twenty feet. The crowd was still swarming toward them.
“Where the hell is the negotiator?” Yankee demanded.
“We’ve got movement in the tower.” Wyatt’s voice came over the mic before anyone could reply about Adam’s whereabouts. “It’s not Butler, but the subject is armed. He can definitely see the protesters from there. A picture is coming at you,” he finished, and Kyle knew that last part was for the support staff in the tent, whose job it would be to try and identify the guy.
“I’m here!” a voice panted behind Kyle, and he recognized Adam an instant before the negotiator raised a bullhorn to his mouth and addressed the crowd. “We need you to move back behind the barricades. This is private land.”
“It’s not your land,” the protester closest to Kyle screamed. The Salt Lake City agents and the local cops moved backward, slipping behind the lines of HRT but staying close, some of them readying riot shields.
“Brothers!” They heard a new voice over a loudspeaker blaring from the compound. Ward Butler’s stones-on-a-grinder voice.
The crowd suddenly quieted, going still, their faces lifted toward the sound. “Thank you for showing your support today. We stand united against a tyrannical government. An illegitimate government!”
A cheer rose up from the crowd as Yankee looked back at Adam. “Get their attention.”
“We have a bigger problem,” Greg said over the mic.
“Where are you?” Yankee asked.
“Back at the tent. We identified the man in the tower. He’s small-time in the states’ rights movement, but he’s got a handful of arrests under his belt, and a very active blog.”
“And?” Yankee asked through his teeth.
“Unless Butler’s changed this guy’s tune drastically since his last blog post a month ago, he’s convinced the end times are coming. His blog is full of fictionalized accounts—Babylonians in the form of government agents storming the strongholds of the righteous and the battle to end it all. By his account, the FBI’s arrival is a sign of the apocalypse. That’s gotta be Butler’s view, too.”
Kyle glanced at his partner. If they stormed the compound, the cultists would fight to the death. And if there was a federal agent alive inside, she’d be dead as soon as that happened.
He looked back at the crowd, still waiting silently, anticipating Butler’s next words. If those words urged his followers to fight, could HRT hold them back? And even if they could, would it matter? Or would Butler begin his endgame?
The closet door opened fast, and Evelyn scrambled to her feet, her fists instinctively coming up, even though she knew it was futile.
Ward Butler stood in the doorway, a furious glower on a face that already seemed permanently bent in a sneer. “Move,” he growled, gesturing for her to come out from the corner.
She squinted; the dim light in the hallway seemed bright after the total darkness of the closet. She considered refusing, but it wouldn’t help her.
Stomach churning, she stepped slowly toward him, peering down the hall. She’d expected a crowd of cultists, begging for another try at a lynching, but it was quiet. Not even Rolfe was with Butler this time, and it made everything seem ominous in a different way.
“Let’s go,” he said, pointing with his rifle back down the hall, over the trip wire and into the main hallway, which was also empty.
“Where?” she asked, glad to discover her voice didn’t squeak. It came out strong and clear, as if she still had some say in what happened to her.
“Upstairs,” he replied, and he opened another nearly invisible door, revealing a curving staircase.
The lookout tower. She’d wondered how they accessed it. Did he plan to throw her off it?
No, she decided as he slammed the rifle barrel into her back when she didn’t immediately start climbing.
The force of it shoved her forward, and she hit the first step with her shins, then went down on her hands. Her knees hit the edge of the metal stair, shooting pain through her legs and up her spine.
She pushed herself to her feet and began climbing, sensing more than hearing Butler behind her. The rumble of his voice reminded her of driving too fast over loose gravel, but he moved silently, with stealth, like a man who was used to stalking prey in the mountains.
He wouldn’t throw her out the window; it wasn’t high enough. She might survive that fall.
He was taking her up there so the FBI surrounding the building would see her. He was showing his hand, betting it was good enough to get him whatever he wanted.
Her pace quickened. Maybe she could tell them something, give them some kind of message.
But what? Her mind blanked. What did she really know that they wouldn’t already have discovered themselves?
Before she could come up with anything, Butler was jabbing her with the rifle barrel again and she stepped into the lookout room. It was a tiny space, with barely room for two people to stand, but there were windows on all sides, and the sloping mountains toward the entrance provided a view well into the distance.
Ward didn’t climb up into the room with her. He stayed on the stairwell, just out of sight of any snipers who might be watching. He kept his rifle aimed at her, despite the fact that there was nowhere for her to run, no room to fight.
She spun in a slow circle, looking through the windows, knowing for certain that an HRT sniper was staring back at her. Probably several. But wherever they were, she couldn’t spot them.
She took in the steep mountain behind the compound, protecting the cultists on two sides. It was covered with new snow, and in other circumstances, it would have been a gorgeous view. A little stark, but this was nature in a purer form than she usually got to see, mostly untouched by man.
She turned toward the front of the compound, and saw a crowd of protesters. Their features were blurred from up here, but signs rose above them. Facing the protesters was a line of men and women, some