fact, be uncontrolled, whether taxiing on land or flying in the air. He would smash Ms. Denise here into the side of the hangar, and she and anyone nearby would become crispy critters.
He was tired of listening to the hostage negotiator, Tom Cassidy. He knew all the tricks of Cassidy’s trade, and he wasn’t even interested in tormenting the fellow, as he well could have. As he had been tormented himself. Oh, yes, tormented.
The first thing Cassidy told him was that Harriman wasn’t dead. Cassidy announced this as if it were a good thing, as if there were any doubt he’d be charged with murder anyway. His rage over Harriman’s survival was nearly boundless.
Next he had learned that thanks to Harriman, Judge Lewis Kerr wasn’t dead, either. When he had heard this news, he began to feel a little afraid of Harriman. He could almost believe that Lefebvre had come back to haunt him.
He despised Cassidy for ruining his day in this way. And so he had struck back and lied — told Cassidy that perhaps a person who would do something so heinous as planting bombs in a courthouse wouldn’t stop at destroying just one government building. “If I were you,” he told the big Texan, “I’d wonder if such a criminal had bombs all over town.”
That one had been worth the price of admission!
Now the game grew tiresome, though. It was time he got away, created a new and better life, a whole new identity. He had no difficulty believing he’d get away once he was airborne. Denise would be released only after he had completed his disappearance.
And who was she, really? A little nobody.
But he knew they would allow him to escape — all in order to protect a woman who didn’t know how to put a proper English sentence together. They would never want to be accused of causing her death. That’s what he loved most about their rules. They had to play by them.
Their rules were what kept them from succeeding against crime in the spectacular way he had succeeded. If he were in Tom Cassidy’s position, he would order the snipers to take him out immediately. To hell with anyone killed on the ground as a result.
There was some sort of commotion, and he realized that he had a new guest at his little bon voyage party. Frank Harriman.
When Frank met Vince outside the hangar, he handed him a brown bag. “This is all you need,” he said.
“For what?”
“To catch Haycroft. I’m starting to get to know this son of a bitch.” He told him his strategy.
“Cassidy will never go for it,” Vince said.
“He will. It’s all in the presentation. You ready to put on a show?”
Vince smiled. “Not much of a part, but yeah, sure.”
“Frank Harriman,” Cassidy drawled. “You amaze me. You have a couple of crazy-ass days — fifteen minutes of which would have been enough to get most of us served up on a marble slab — and instead you walk up to me looking ornery.”
“Have a favor to ask, Tom.”
“Yeah?”
“Let him go.”
Cassidy laughed. He ran a hand over his short hair, which — although he was not much older than Frank — was mostly gray. “Oh, brother. You were out in the sun way too long today.”
“Let Haycroft take off with the woman. Just let me say something to him as he taxis to the runway. I think he’ll come back with her.”
“‘Think’ is not good enough. But tell me what you have in mind.”
“You’re about to let him go anyway, aren’t you, Tom?”
“We’ll be following him.”
Frank rolled his eyes.
“He says he’s got more bombs planted around town,” Cassidy said.
“Do you believe him?”
“To be honest, no, I don’t.”
“Your instincts are still good then, Tom, because it doesn’t fit with his obsession with Kerr. And that’s what this guy is all about — that, and protecting his own ass.”
Cassidy calmly studied him for a moment. “So what’s your idea?”
Haycroft watched as the discussion between Cassidy and Harriman became more and more acrimonious. In the end, Cassidy looked utterly defeated.
“Mr. Haycroft?”
God, how he hated that damned drawl!
“Detective Harriman has just informed me that you may have your wish. He claims the district attorney refuses to file against you — I guess the D.A. is saying our department has no real physical evidence against you. Can that possibly be true?”
Haycroft hesitated. This could only mean they hadn’t found anything at the house and had not discovered the problem with the computer program in the property room. Managing a hostage meant that he had not had time to check on his diaries, and with all of the department watching him now, he was not about to reveal where he had hidden them on the plane.
Did they know about the diaries?
