A lot was riding on what he did in the new few minutes. The decisions he made now—or didn’t make—could haunt him for years. “We’re going to do this right, understand?” he said to Weston. “This operation is not going to become another Waco or Ruby Ridge. I’m not about to become the subject of a Senate investigation.” And now that it was time to break the standoff between the FBI and the religious crazies down in the compound, Silva was wondering for the first time in his career if he was the right man for the job. Using a nightscope, he was looking across that open stretch of field, thinking the complex looked like something from an old prison movie. A sprawling, flat-roofed collection of rectangular buildings quarried from a dirty gray stone. The windows were tall and narrow, set with iron bars. The grounds were barren, the perimeter wrapped up in a high chain-link fence topped with coiled barbwire.
