The Branch Davidians: Oh, My God, They're Killing Themselves!

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Reno continued to press about the dangers of exposing people to gas. Anesthetic gases might knock people out, but there was no guarantee that they would wake up, ever, especially the small children. Strong men would be knocked out last, or not at all. The FBI brought in a leading specialist on the toxicology of tear gas, whom Reno debriefed for hours. She approved the use of tear gas only after being assured that the form the FBI was using was not permanently harmful, carcinogenic or a possible cause of birth defects.

The idea, officials said, was not to provoke one major showdown, but to gradually increase the pressure. Even as the debate in Washington progressed, the Hostage Rescue Team was sending in Abrams tanks to close in on the compound, closer and closer. Anything lighter, Koresh had threatened to blow "40 feet in the air." Then the FBI began removing the fence. "Everyone on scene said that's the most provocative thing we can do," says an official. "If we touch that fence, we stand a chance that there will be some kind of violent response. So we thought long and hard. But we removed it, and there was no action." The only rise the FBI managed to get out of Koresh was last Sunday, when an armored vehicle towed his precious black Camaro to make room for the next day's attack.

Above all Reno needed to know how Koresh would react to being pushed and whether the others inside would follow him, even unto death. Koresh held over them all the power of the Apocalypse; he was the Lamb of Revelation, who alone could open the seven seals and foresee the end of the world. FBI agents made some effort to get a handle on the theology at work, but scholars have been trying to explain these passages for centuries with little success. Among those they consulted was Phillip Arnold, a specialist in apocalyptic faiths whom Koresh respected. He was happy to serve as theological bait, a means of helping Koresh get his message out to the world and thereby bring about a peaceful resolution.

In the crucial sixth chapter of Revelation, Koresh found his timetable. The bloody raid on Feb. 28 signaled the opening of the fifth seal. The Bible instructed that they "rest a little longer, until the number would be complete both of their fellow servants and of their brothers and sisters, who were soon to be killed as they themselves had been killed." Which merely meant that after a short time had passed, their time to die would be upon them. So Arnold and his colleague James Tabor from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte worked to sell Koresh on a less threatening interpretation.

$ On April 8 the theologians went on a Dallas radio show and tried to persuade Koresh that the prophecy had not yet been fulfilled. They dwelt on a verse in Chapter 10: "You must prophesy again about many peoples and nations and languages and kings." That was probably where Koresh got the idea of writing his own explanation of the meaning of the seven seals. His final letter was in sharp contrast to the earlier fire and brimstone. This one was addressed to DeGuerin and dwelt more on distribution rights and other bookkeeping matters. "I hope to finish this as soon as possible and to stand before man to answer any and all questions regarding my actions," he wrote. On the night before the immolation, the FBI sent in milk for the children and typewriter ribbons for the author.