Under the Beetle's Cellar (44 page)

Molly was so wrought-up, so jittery, she couldn’t stand in one place. She’d been pacing back and forth between Holihan at his post and Lattimore at the gate, bugging them for updates. She had actually found
herself wringing her hands. Now, as she approached Lattimore, an agent from the entry team jogged out of the barn and joined him. Molly hurried so she could catch what he was saying.

The agent had pulled his black hood down so it dangled around his neck along with his gas mask. He was very young with a sand-colored crew cut and mustache. “Yes, singing,” he was saying with a grin. “I swear to God. They’re all huddled in the back singing. Some annoying song about a bus. And we’re calling out to them, ‘It’s all over, kids. Come on out. Everything’s fine. Your families are waiting for you.’ ”

He unzipped his vest, revealing a sweat-soaked black shirt underneath. “One of the kids says they aren’t coming out until Mr. Demming tells them to or they see a badge that says FBI on it. Kroll tells them Demming is on his way to the hospital in a helicopter, but he’s got a badge to show them. He can slip it between the seat and the doorframe if one of them will come get it. Well, the kids have to talk this over, lots of yammering and arguing.” The agent tapped the fingers and thumbs of each hand together to pantomine jabbering mouths.

“Finally this kid comes to the barricade at the door and says, ‘Do it, man.’ Tough little kid. So Kroll slides his badge through and the kid has to take it back to confer with the other kids. And I guess they finally agree it’s authentic ’cause he comes back and says okay, they’ll come out. But then they can’t move the seat that’s wedged against the seat that’s blocking the door. And, from outside, we can’t do it either.”

“Amazing,” said Bryan Holihan, who had joined them. “The kids must have done it themselves. Demming was outside the bus.”

“Yeah. But you’d swear that barricade was done by a bunch of engineers. Anyway, we told ’em, ‘Don’t worry. The fire department is here. They’ve got the gear to get you out.’ While we’re waiting for the fire guys to come, Kroll asks them if they’re all okay, and yeah, they’re okay, but they’re worried about Mr. Demming. What happened to him? We say we aren’t sure, but it looks like he’s got a gunshot wound.” His grin faded. “Of course, we don’t tell them there’s a pool of blood an inch deep seeping into the dirt at the bus door, or that the guy barely had any life signs when the paramedics put him in the copter.” He wiped his sweating face with his sleeve. “I guess they can hear about that later.

“So now the firefighters are down there in the hole, bending the bus door back like they’re opening a can and—”

Lattimore held a hand up for silence. “Here they come.” Everyone turned toward the double doors of the white barn. They were coming out. At last.

Molly hooked her fingers in the chain link and watched. Her mouth felt dry as ashes.

The first one out was a blond girl, closely flanked by two agents. Molly thought it was Heather Yost. The little girl held a hand up to shield her eyes from the glare of the lights. “One,” Molly said out loud. “That’s number one. Walking under her own steam.”

The second was a tiny dark-haired boy in shorts. He was holding an agent’s hand and carrying a white doll. Bucky DeCarlo, the youngest, the boy with the cowlicks. His hair was much longer now, the cowlicks flattened down. “Two.”

The third to emerge was Kim Bassett, her face pale as skimmed milk, her pink hair darkened with dirt. She stopped in the barn door, seemingly stunned by the lights and commotion around her. The agent next to her put his arm around her shoulders and encouraged her to keep walking. “Three,” Molly said.

The next was a black-haired kid with huge dark eyes talking animatedly to one of the agents. His hands moved rapidly as he talked. Hector Ramirez. “Four.”

The next three came in a group and her view of their faces was blocked by the beefy agents surrounding them. She continued to count aloud: “Five. Six. Seven.”

Two more came out. A thin dark-skinned girl wearing glasses and carrying a book clutched to her chest. Sandra Echols. “Eight.” Next to her walked a shorter boy who was covering his face with his hands, crying, Molly thought. She wasn’t sure which one he was. “Nine.”

And the last one—a small pixielike girl with curly brown hair. Lucy Quigley. “Ten.”

Molly let out the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.

All of them accounted for. All alive and walking on their own. All except Josh Benderson, of course. And Walter Demming.

Molly had seen Demming rushed out on a stretcher. By the light of the flames of the burning compound, she’d glimpsed the face of the man on the stretcher speeding by—a man with scraggly gray hair pulled into a ponytail, a grizzly beard, and a blue headband.

They had whisked him off in the Star-Flight helicopter that had been standing by with its engines running.

The report she’d pried out of Bryan Holihan was that Demming was critical, with a gunshot wound in the back. He was in shock from blood loss. They were flying him to Brackenridge Hospital in Austin, which was equipped to deal with serious gunshot wounds.

Molly watched the children gather and stand huddled together in a tight, silent group behind the ambulances.

The plan was to take them to Memorial Hospital in Georgetown, where their families were waiting. Molly wondered what the families
would find when they finally took their children home. Whatever it was that had happened to them during these past forty-nine days, these children would not be the same children their parents had sent off to school on February 24; they would never be the same children again. Of that she was certain.

Molly squinted to try to see better. There seemed to be a problem at the barn door. The kids were not getting into the ambulances. They were standing around, and it looked like they were arguing with the agents and the EMTs. Molly was too far away to hear their voices, but she could tell from their body language that they were arguing.

Lattimore spoke into his radio. “Tell them it’s just a ten-minute ride. And there’s an attendant in each ambulance.”

Molly tugged his sleeve. “What’s going on?”

He kept the radio pressed to his ear as he answered her. “Oh, the kids want to ride together in one ambulance. But it’s against the ambulance service’s policy, so they’re arguing about it.”

Molly felt hot indignation rising in her throat; it was the first time all night she’d been warm. “Pat! Those kids have been crammed together like puppies in a litter for weeks. To separate them so suddenly is outrageous. You’re the ASAC. Use your power. Tell Kroll to let them ride however the hell they want.”

“Molly, calm down. It’s being taken care of. Kroll is trying to work out a compromise to divide them into two ambulances. They won’t fit in one. Poor Stan. I’ve never known him to get rattled before. He’s used to handcuffed bank robbers at the end of a maneuver, not opinionated little kids.”

After a few minutes, three of the children climbed into one of the ambulances, but the others seemed to be hanging back. And they were arguing again.

Lattimore said into the radio, “But their parents are waiting at Memorial Hospital. Do they know that?” He listened and then said, “He’ll be going right into surgery. They won’t be able to see him anyway. Tell them that.” He waited.

Molly watched Stan Kroll leaning over and listening to Hector Ramirez, who was shaking his head forcefully.

“Okay, okay,” Lattimore muttered. “Hold on, Stan. I’m coming in.
I’ll
talk to them.”

He lowered his radio and said, “The kids insist on going to the same hospital where Demming is. I need to talk to them. Come on, Holihan. You’ve got kids that age.”

Molly stepped to his side. “I’m coming, too.”

He shook his head. “No. It’s better—”

She said in a low voice, “Pat, you owe me. Big time. I’m coming.” The intensity of her need to see the children up close surprised her. Now that she was involved, she wanted to know everything about them.

Lattimore shrugged, and walked through the gate. Holihan followed. It was not a graceful acquiescence, but Molly took it as a yes. She had to jog to keep up with the two men as they strode across the weedy packed-dirt path that led to the barn. Stan Kroll was still leaning over talking to the kids. As Molly neared them, she could see he was looking red-faced and unhappy. Lattimore was right: Apparently this was proving more stressful to him than the assault.

The three kids inside the ambulance were crowded into the open rear door with their heads sticking out. Bucky DeCarlo had his thumb stuck in his mouth. The other seven were huddled around them. They were very thin and very dirty, and they kept blinking at the lights. Surrounded by black-clad agents, they looked as pale and vulnerable as featherless birds fallen from a nest.

Hector Ramirez took a step to meet Molly and the two agents. “Who’s in charge?” he asked, raising his chin aggressively.

Lattimore looked down at him. “I am. Patrick Lattimore, assistant special agent in charge.” He smiled. “You must be Mr. Ramirez.”

Several of the kids giggled.

Hector glanced back at them, then turned to Lattimore. “Yeah, that’s me. We want to go to the hospital where Mr. Demming is. They said he was going to Austin and we were going to Georgetown. We want to go where he is.”

“Your families are waiting for you ten minutes away from here,” Lattimore said gently. “In Georgetown. They’ve been waiting for you and worrying about you for forty-nine days. Let’s not keep them waiting any longer.”

Hector turned around and looked at Kim. She set her lips tight and gave a single shake of her head.

Hector turned back to the adults. “Mr. Demming might need us. We want to go there.”

From behind him, Kim said, “Our parents can come there—to the hospital where Mr. Demming is. That way, we can see them and be there for him, too. You could call them now and tell them to meet us.”

Several of the kids nodded at that.

Molly studied Kim Bassett’s dirty, freckled face and the firm, stubborn chin that was so similar to her mother’s. She felt a flood of relief. Terrible things had happened to this child, but she seemed to be … intact.

“But everything’s set up for you in Georgetown,” Lattimore said.
“The doctors are all ready to take care of you there. We just talked to them on the phone.”

“Man,” Hector said, with a dismissive wave of his hand, “we don’t need no doctors. We ain’t sick. Just hungry. Sandra has the runs, but she’s okay.”

“Well, I—we need to have you looked at,” Lattimore said, appealing to the whole group. “It’s all—set up. You can’t just—” He stopped when he saw the kids’ lack of response. This was the first time Molly had seen him not in control of the situation. She looked at Hector with admiration—a formidable person, standing his ground against the awesome authority of the federal government.

“Come on now, kids,” Lattimore said. “Just hop in the ambulances, and we’ll talk about this some more when we get to Georgetown.”

Bryan Holihan, who had been watching the interchange with his radio to his ear, suddenly tensed and moved away several yards. He turned his back and said something low into his radio. Alarmed by his expression, Molly walked back to join him. He listened with his eyes closed. “Okay,” he said. “Ten-four.” He lowered the radio and looked at Molly. His eyes were wet with tears.

She put her hand on his arm and whispered, “What is it, Bryan?” But she knew.

“Demming. He died before they could get him on the operating table.” A tear broke loose and trickled down his cheek. He used his radio to swipe it away. “Goddamn. If we’d gotten in just a minute faster—”

The news sucked Molly’s breath right out of her lungs. Her whole body felt deflated with loss and disappointment. She didn’t even know the man, had seen him only once, as he was dying, but the loss felt huge and very personal.

Patrick Lattimore appeared behind Molly. “What is it?”

Holihan glanced toward the children. “Demming’s dead,” he said in a low voice.

“Oh, dear God,” Lattimore said, “what are we going to do about these kids?”

Molly glanced over at the children, who were whispering and arguing among themselves. Kim Bassett broke away from the group and walked toward them. “Is it about Mr. Demming?” she asked.

The three adults looked down into her pale, smudged face without answering. Molly felt her mouth dry up. She was relieved to leave this to Patrick Lattimore.

Kim’s shrewd, calm glance moved from face to face. “It
is
about him, isn’t it?”

Hector hurried to join them, his black eyebrows raised in alarm. The other kids started to drift forward.

Kim turned to Hector and said, “Oh, Hector, he died and they don’t want to tell us.”

Hector looked up at the adults. “He
died?
Is that right?”

Patrick Lattimore nodded. “He died just now, at the hospital. I’m so sorry to have to say it. I know that you kids—”

“Is there someone there with him?” Kim asked, dry-eyed. “Or is he alone?”

Bryan Holihan said, “His old friend Jake Alesky is there with him.”

Kim nodded and turned to the other children. “Something bad has happened,” she told them. “Let’s go back to the ambulance, y’all.” She pointed to where Sandra, Bucky, and one of the other boys were still hanging out of the back. “Then we can hear it all together.”

Lattimore turned to Molly with a look of anguish. “What do you think? Should we leave them alone? I wish one of the psychologists was here. I want to get them to their parents.”

Molly watched as all ten children huddled together at the back of the ambulance. Kim put an arm around Bucky and started to talk in a voice so low Molly couldn’t make out the words. The kids leaned forward to hear.

“I think it would be an intrusion for us to interfere right now,” Molly told Lattimore. “Let’s give them some time alone.” She lowered her eyes, feeling that it was an intrusion even to watch.

One of the children let out a wail, and others began to cry.

Lucy and Heather leaned together weeping on one another’s shoulders. One of the boys sat on the ground and wept soundlessly.