Murder in Foggy Bottom - Margaret Truman [86]
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, you two keep your eyes open. No tellin’ what this might cause those bastards out there to do.”
He returned to the main house, picked up a phone, and dialed the number of a radio station in Bellingham. The call was answered by a receptionist, who put Jasper through to the news director.
“This is Zachary Jasper, head of the Jasper Project. You know all about what’s going on here at my ranch?”
The news director glanced at a recorder on his desk programmed to automatically tape all incoming and outgoing newsroom calls. The tape was running.
“Of course I know, Mr. Jasper, I’ve had reporters out there since the siege began. Why are you calling?”
“Your reporters tell you about how the FBI just shot and killed the young wife of a loyal, decent, God-fearing man at the ranch?”
“The FBI did? Our reporter just called in, said it appeared that someone at the ranch shot the woman.”
“That figures, doesn’t it? Are you running an independent news organization or one run by Jews in the government’s pocket?”
The news director, Eli Cohen, withheld the reply he was tempted to make, asking instead, “Can you verify that it was the FBI who did the shooting, Mr. Jasper?”
“You’ve got my word on it. What the hell do you think, I’d be stupid enough to kill one of my own?”
“I’ll follow up on this, Mr. Jasper. Give me a number I can reach you at.”
“I’ll call you.”
Jasper hung up.
Thinking that it was a shame that the bigoted Jasper hadn’t been the one killed, the news director contacted his on-the-scene reporter and told her what Jasper had said. “Try to get a statement from the FBI, Mindy. Maybe Jasper’s right. Keep on it.”
FBI Director Templeton got back to Joe Harris in twenty minutes.
“The attorney general and the president have given the okay, Joe, to advance the schedule. Tell that bastard Jasper he and his people have six hours to come out peacefully. If they don’t, use all necessary force to end this thing. We can’t stand by while this madman kills innocent women and children. Tell him to send out all the women and children and we’ll give him and his men more time. If he refuses, move!”
Chapter 31
That Same Night
Washington, DC
“How awful!”
Jessica watched the news in her Foggy Bottom apartment with her friends and fellow bird-watchers Cindy and Horace, who’d returned from Canada with her after spending a few days in search of uncommon species and photographing them. Upon arrival in Washington early that afternoon, Jess took everyone’s undeveloped rolls of film into a local one-hour processing service on her way home, including two rolls shot by Cindy on a similar trip six months earlier that she hadn’t gotten around to having processed.
They’d decided to extend the trip by having Chinese food at Jessica’s apartment that night and going over the pictures. A dozen envelopes containing the prints were piled on a coffee table in the living room. Jess had called in the takeout order, and they were about to begin going through the photos when their attention was diverted by a special TV report on the siege in Blaine, Washington.
“Tension has increased dramatically here with the shooting of a young woman inside the Jasper compound that’s been under siege by federal authorities since yesterday. There are conflicting reports about who killed the woman, whose name was Patty Davidson, and whose eleven-year-old son, Mark, escaped. FBI spokesman Special Agent Joseph Harris, who’s in charge of the operation here, denies vehemently that any member of the siege team killed Ms. Davidson, and insists that she was shot by someone inside the compound. At the same time, Zachary Jasper, whose Jasper Project, an antigovernment, white-supremacy group, is accused of being involved in the missile downing of three commuter aircraft almost three weeks ago, has claimed in a call to a local radio station that the woman was gunned down by FBI marksmen. Whether this incident causes the siege team to step up its announced deadline of forty-eight hours for Jasper and his people to surrender peacefully remains unknown