Him, Dawes, and Robinson all made it here—that’s three. Fran and Isaac, too. That’s five. Beyond them, there’s a half dozen or so other residents arranged in little anxious clusters. Cooper glances over them, counting: There’s Greta Fillmore, Chet Holden, that goombah from intake day, Hannibal what’s his name. There’s Doris Agnew and Spiro Mitchum, who, God bless him, showed up in his apron with two armloads of groceries in large paper bags, in case they’re hunkered down for a while. There may be others still alive and hiding in their homes out in the town, but they’re on their own for now, Cooper thinks—he can’t do anything about that, not now, he saved everyone he could before he came here. There’s eleven of them in total in the chapel, versus six agents, so they have numbers, at least. But they don’t have a firearm between them, or even a sharp stick, and they don’t have a phone, or any way to contact the outside world, and Cooper has no idea who’d they contact if they could.
And of all the people who made it inside the chapel, he knows there are maybe two or three of them, tops, who will be of any use if the situation gets dicey. Dawes is done; with her wound, she’s barely conscious, and he’s not sure how bad it is or how long she can hold out. Robinson’s useful, and maybe the goombah. Otherwise, he looks around at these confused and panicked people in their bathrobes and dungarees and the irony of it almost makes him chuckle. Here he is, stuck in a safe house with nearly a dozen crooks, cutthroats, and infamous killers, and not a single one remembers who they are, let alone what they used to be so good at.
Cooper walks over to check on Dawes. Fran’s bandaged and swaddled Dawes’s wound as best she can with the first-aid kit on hand. Fran looks up at Cooper.
“She needs a doctor,” she says. Her face is grave.
“Well, we don’t have a doctor and our nurse is dead,” Cooper says.
“But someone’s coming, right?” comes an anxious voice from the crowd behind them. Cooper turns. It’s Doris Agnew. “Someone’s coming to save us, right?” she says. “Like, the police? If we can just wait it out?”
“Let’s hope so,” Cooper says, but he knows there’s no reason for hope. He’s tempted to be more truthful with her, with them all, but he’s already decided that if they’re going to be stuck in here awhile, with little options and limited supplies, he can’t let hope be the first thing that runs out.
Rigo hears it in the distance; it’s unmistakable: the spatter of a firefight.
“What the fuck is going on?” he says. Santayana strides ahead of him, walking in the main street, unperturbed. The streets are quiet now, abandoned. Long shadows yawn across the road as the sun clocks out on its shift and retires for the day.
Santayana stops and regards the low-slung building from about thirty yards away. “Remind me—we’ve got flashbangs. Smoke. Some tear gas. Assault rifles. Plus, our own sidearms. Anything else? Can’t we just smash those windows and smoke them out?”
“It’s a safe house,” says Rigo, behind her, exasperated. “Built for tornados. And other contingencies, apparently. Walls are bulletproof, windows shatterproof. And we’d need a tank to take out that door. You really should have read the briefing, Iris.”
“I’m sorry, but tornados were not the first fucking logistical concern on my mind.”
She turns to see Burly and Gains approaching at a slow jog, with a third person, a young woman. Burly’s got Dietrich’s semiautomatic rifle slung over his shoulder. Well, that’s something, she thinks.
“Where’s Dietrich?” asks Rigo.
“He’s dead,” Burly says.
“You took him out?” says Santayana. She’s impressed.
“No, some old guy got his hands on a gun and shot Dietrich right on his front porch,” Burly says. “He’s dead, too. The old man.”
“And who’s this?” says Rigo, looking over at Bette Burr.
“She was in the house,” says Burly.
“I have a voice,” Bette says. Then, to Rigo, “I’m Bette Burr.”
“Of course you are,” he says. “You’re staying out here with us.” He turns to Santayana. “All right. This is not so bad. This is a workable situation. We’ve got firepower, we’ve got time, and with her”—he gestures to Burr—“we’ve got some leverage. Let’s see how much the townsfolk truly care about each other.”
Santayana ignores him and says to Burly: “Anyone else in this town with a secret hidden handgun we don’t know about?”
“Shouldn’t be,” says Burly.
She signals for the semiautomatic rifle and Burly hands it over. She hefts it to her shoulder, sights it. A Bushmaster; she likes the feel of it. She targets the chapel and fires. Tight bursts. Loosing a loud rattling fusillade. The bullets clip and claw at the building, send concrete chips flying, thump dumbly at the windows but don’t penetrate.
She stops. Acrid smoke and the ear-ringing echo of the shots persist. She hoists the rifle back over her shoulder by the strap.
“Just checking,” she says.
She turns to Burly and Gains: “You two go get the rest of our weapons from the intake trailer and bring them back here.” They jog off, obedient. She says to Burr: “You—sit down in the dirt and don’t talk.” Then Santayana turns to Rigo: “No more fuckups. No more negotiations. No more happy-grab-ass. From now on, it’s just corpses and results.”
“And what about us?” says Rigo. “We gonna use our powers of persuasion to coax that boy out of that building?”
“In a way,” she says. “First, we need to find some lawn chairs.”
“Great. Then what?”
“You brought those files, right?”
“Which files?”
“You know which files.”
Rigo thinks a moment. Then it hits him. “Oh, fuck. You are so fucking devious.” He wags a finger at her, smiling. “You are one devious bitch.”
Then he scampers off without another word, and only a hint of a lingering limp.
Once he’s gone, Santayana hooks a thumb in the rifle strap that’s hung over her shoulder and turns back to further study the bullet-pocked chapel. In her gravel-dusted patent heels she walks slowly toward the dented red door. She steps to one side and puts two hands up, cupped, on the milky glass of the adjacent window. The glass is thick and cloudy. Inside the lights are out. But as she peers into the building she can make out a huddle of people, clustered together. They seem to see her, too, her small silhouette on the glass, backlit by the last of the setting sun.
She waves.
The sky darkens.
People sleep. They curl up on the carpeted floor, find corners, hunker down. Cooper sits in the gloom of the chapel, amazed at how people can get rest under such conditions. He’s never been that way. Give him a minor worry and he’s up for the rest of the week. So, naturally, he’s given up on sleep in this situation. These are his people. He brought this on them. He brought this to the gates of their town. He sits in a chair in the dark and thinks about that and keeps watch.
Dawes is sleeping. Isaac, too. Fran’s lying on the floor with her arms around Isaac, but she’s awake. When she notices Cooper watching her, she rouses herself, untangles herself from her son, and walks over and sits next to him.
“So what’s the plan?” she says, as quietly as she can.
“This is the plan. Getting us inside of here.”
“So what’s the plan to get us out of here?”
“See, now that requires another plan. No one told me I had to have two plans.”
Fran smiles, a grave smile, defiant, given the circumstance. “I can’t wait to get out of here so I can be done with you forever, Calvin Cooper.”
“I can’t wait to get out of here and be done with me, either,” he says.
He raises his fingers and strokes her cheek softly. It’s the kind of gesture they never would have allowed themselves before, not in full view of the other residents, but, fuck it, who cares now. If they get out of this alive, no one will care if he stroked her cheek. And if they don’t get out alive, he’ll be glad at least that he did it.