So neither Corey nor Bigelow is what you’d call alarmed as they watch Dietrich at work. In fact, they both regard his display of cold skill with a kind of professional envy. Dietrich is alert yet relaxed, his movements efficient, his aim unerring, and his results inescapable. Both agents, at various times, have been involved in tasks that required certain proficient and lethal resolutions, so killing, per se, does not unsettle them. They are struck, however, by Dietrich’s peculiar strain of passionate competence—how he moves with the air of a man who is expert at, and deeply loves, what he is doing. The agents comment on it to each other in low tones. Neither Corey nor Bigelow is concerned in the least that they’ll be able to take down Dietrich when the time comes: there’s two of them; they’re well trained and well armed; and, as best they know, Dietrich has no idea what’s coming. Which allows them to regard his movements through the town as a kind of performance. A seminar, of sorts. Professional development.
They aren’t worried at all, even when they momentarily lose sight of him at fifty yards when he seems to circle behind a distant bungalow. They aren’t concerned when they travel down the road a bit farther and he’s not on the opposite side of the bungalow or, as expected, in the yard of the house adjacent. They’re not frightened, not yet, as they realize that Dietrich seems to be actively trying to evade them, though, at this point, Bigelow has the presence of mind to unholster his gun. Corey, for his part, does start to wonder, with an almost clinical curiosity, if maybe they, too, should have come armed with assault rifles. They’d discussed it but decided against it. But they’re not scared, not really, as they instinctually separate from each other and scan the yards of the clustered houses, looking for signs that he’s ducked inside somewhere, both of their pistols now drawn—and by the time they’re both beginning to feel the first invasive tendrils of cold fear, almost simultaneously, the crisp shots from Dietrich’s rifle, one-two, have felled them. After that, whatever they might have been feeling is left to pool in the dirt.
Dietrich makes a show of stepping over their bodies as he walks back to the middle of the thoroughfare. The AR-15 is held lightly in his hands. He looks at the dying agents with contempt. He wonders just how stupid Rigo is.
Stupid enough to give him an assault rifle, apparently.
No one’s coming out to their porches to investigate the noises anymore. Everyone’s hiding behind closed doors and drawn curtains, or running in the shadows for shelter like frightened children.
So it’s just Dietrich walking down the middle of the road like death come calling. Periodically raising his rifle and squeezing the trigger and pop pop pop into doors, into windows. He likes to watch the doors splinter, the windows buckle.
He walks up the steps of a porch to a house. Fires the rifle through the door four times.
Pop pop pop pop.
Watches the door blister. He reloads the rifle. Then kicks in the door.
Why this house? Why not this house? he thinks, as he steps inside.
He walks into the living room. Finds it empty.
So he walks into the kitchen. Finds a woman crouching in the corner, by the cabinets, crying. He recognizes her. It’s that librarian.
“What horrible thing did you do in your past, I wonder,” Dietrich says, “that you wound up living in this place?”
She looks up at him. Says nothing. Just cries.
He hefts the rifle.
Pop pop.
Canned hunting, just like Rigo said.
“You need to come with us,” says Santayana. “Both of you.”
“No,” Fran says.
“Ma’am, I’m not asking.”
“No,” Fran says again.
Then they all hear the noise in the distance.
Pop pop.
Everyone knows what it is.
Santayana looks at the boy, then back at his mother. She opens her blazer, giving the mother a glimpse of her holstered pistol. She’d rather not pull it out in front of the boy, but she will, if need be. That’s the message. She closes the blazer.
“We can protect you both. Think of the boy.”
Pop pop pop, still in the distance.
Fran’s voice catches so hard as she says what she says that she barely nudges out the words. “He’s the only thing I ever think about.”
“Ma’am, please,” says Santayana. The two other agents form a solid wall behind her.
There’s nowhere to run, and nothing to do, and Fran knows the world has come for her. No matter what, the world will find her. If not here, then at the next place, or the next place after that. Her eight years of hiding out are over and it’s all coming for her now. She wonders what she should have done differently, until her wondering is interrupted.
Pop pop.
“Really, this is what’s best for everyone—” says Santayana.
“No, I don’t think so,” comes a different voice. Santayana turns toward the street to look. They all do.
And there, in the street, is Dawes. Holding a revolver. Leveled at the agents on the porch. She’s wearing a puffy brown winter coat, too, for some reason, even though it’s got to be ninety degrees in this sun. She keeps the revolver steady. Dawes has never held a gun before, let alone held one on a person. Santayana can tell that. Even Fran can tell.
“Fran, bring Isaac and come down here with me,” Dawes says.
“Where are you planning to go?” Santayana asks, with a contemptuous barb in her voice.
Pop pop pop in the distance again. Dawes does her best not to flinch at the sound. “Come on, Fran.”
Fran grabs Isaac’s arm and they start toward the steps, and Santayana grabs her by the elbow and Fran yanks her arm free and slaps Santayana, hard, with the back of her hand, as hard as she has ever hit anyone. Santayana falters, then straightens, and yanks her weapon free, and turns it on Fran, then sees the boy’s eyes widen. In anger, she swings her gun toward Dawes in the street and fires. A loud shot in the quiet of the afternoon, much louder than those distant pops.
Dawes’s brown puffy jacket coughs a small burst of white feathers, and then is stained suddenly red. Dawes yelps like a kicked dog, her cry chasing the loud bark of the shot.
Santayana turns back to Fran. “Now let’s go—”
“No.” Dawes is still standing. Her gun leveled again. She knows not to pull the trigger, not yet. She only has one bullet, after all.
The other two agents pull their guns now and draw them on Dawes.
Fran bolts, dragging Isaac. They scramble down the steps to stand with Dawes. The three of them, in the street. Other neighbors have come to their windows now, drawn to the source of the nearby shot. Dawes struggles to keep the three black-suited agents on the porch all clustered together in her gun sight. Her arm is shaking badly. She can’t tell how bad the gunshot is, but she’s still standing, so that’s something. As an EMT, she learned about trauma, and how gunshots are the worst, because they have no regard for their surroundings. They’re not polite. They tear everything up.
She keeps her eyes on the agents. Her arm shakes. The gun dances.
“Santayana, stand down.” Another voice now. A new one, from behind them all, farther down the street. Dawes can’t turn to look, she doesn’t dare to, but she knows who that voice belongs to.
Cooper.
Fran turns to see him walking slowly toward them all. No gun. His hands held up, palms out, in surrender. Speaking calmly. “The four of us, we’re going this way, to wait out what’s coming,” Cooper says, pointing a thumb back over his shoulder. “Back to the chapel. Me, Dawes, Fran, and the boy. It’s not safe for any of us out here.”
“I can’t let you do that,” Santayana says. “He’s coming with us.”
Pop pop pop, in the distance. The intermittent sound makes their tiny tableau seem comical, inconsequential.