Winterkill - C. J. Box [29]
“Spread out not more than twenty feet from each other and form a skirmish line as we approach,” Barnum said. “I want Agent Brazille on the left end and I’ll be on the right. I want this Romanowski perp to think a thousand men are advancing on him. As we approach the cabin, Brazille and I will close on it and flank it from both sides in a pincer movement. I want everyone in the line to move from cover to cover, but keep moving forward. Imagine you’re kick-returners in football. No lateral movements. Keep advancing up the middle toward that cabin.”
Barnum sounds impressive in these kinds of situations, Joe thought. This was Joe’s first raid of this kind, however, so he couldn’t compare Barnum’s orders or plan to anything he had experienced before. Watching the DCI agents, Saddlestring police officers, and sheriff’s deputies loading and checking weapons, he was reminded of Barnum’s theory of addressing every situation with overwhelming firepower, which they certainly had.
“I’ll take the point, if you want,” Deputy McLanahan offered, slamming the clip into a scoped M-16 semiautomatic rifle. As if for maximum effect, McLanahan worked the bolt as well, sliding a cartridge into the breech.
“No way, McLanahan,” Barnum said, sounding tired. “We don’t need cowboys.”
Joe watched McLanahan carefully, noting the sting as McLanahan’s eyes narrowed in embarrassment and anger.
“No firing unless it’s in self-defense,” Brazille interjected, eyeing McLahanan as well as his own men.
“I’ve heard he has some kind of big fucking handgun,” McLanahan said. “If he goes for it—the party’s over.”
Barnum and Brazille exchanged worried glances. “If he goes for his big gun,” Barnum said, “we turn him into red mist.”
Joe grimaced. “Red mist” was a term prairie-dog hunters used when they hit the indigenous rodents with high-powered rifle bullets and the impact reduced the animals, literally, into puffs of spray.
“I’ve got some questions for him when you’ve got him in custody,” Melinda Strickland said, speaking for the first time since they had arrived.
Again, Joe wryly noted that although Strickland seemed to want to be in charge of something, she had no apparent experience with tactics or strategy. And she seemed more than willing to stay out of danger.
“That’s fine,” Barnum agreed. “But please stay back here since you’re not armed.”
“That won’t be a problem,” Strickland chortled.
Oddly, Joe Pickett thought of his children as he approached the stone house in the skirmish line. He thought of his girls getting ready for the Christmas Eve church service; trying on dresses and tights, asking Marybeth what she thought of their outfits, furtively checking out the brightly wrapped presents under the tree. It was a Pickett family tradition that, after a supper of clam chowder and a trip to church, the children could choose one present to unwrap. Except for Lucy, the girl with style, it was a catastrophe if the present they chose turned out to be clothing. Sheridan, especially, wanted games or books to tide her over until Christmas morning. April claimed she wanted a toaster oven. (She wasn’t getting one.) She had explained that she used to warm up her own meals when she was with her mother and father, and would like to be able to do that again. Marybeth had assured her that there would be plenty to eat, but April didn’t seem to completely understand.
Joe shook his head to clear it knowing he needed to focus on the situation at hand. He snapped his shotgun’s safety off, and tried to keep the recommended distance between himself and two DCI agents as they neared the crest. A stand of cottonwoods crowned by snow provided the only “cover” he could see.
He approached the crest as he would if he were hunting or patrolling—inch by inch. He saw the snow-covered roof of the stone house, then the ragtop of the Jeep. Above them was the bloodred rim of the wall on the other side of the river.
Then he rose far