To her surprise and intense relief, Cavanaugh said, “All right. But consider yourself on probation. Now let’s get this party started.” He reached for the handset.
Theresa clapped her palm down on his wrist. “Wait.”
6
9:10 A.M.
Paul’s body tensed, waiting for the shot. Nothing. Just the woman’s scream, cut off. Then Bobby’s voice, raised and peremptory. Then footsteps over the polished marble tiles.
He turned his head to see two more hostages join them. Three- one of the two women carried a small boy. He had huge eyes and clung to his mother, and Paul recognized him from a photo seen just that morning, in a dead man’s house.
“They were hiding under a desk,” Bobby reported to his partner.
The tall robber barely glanced at them. “On the floor. Anyone else?”
“Negative.”
“Take care of that door.”
Bobby headed toward the north wall of the lobby. The tall robber kept his gun aimed at the three security guards and the dog. The two women sank into a sitting position, aligned in a row with the other hostages. The little boy didn’t make a sound, simply clutched a small stuffed animal to his face. His mother dropped her oversize handbag beside her to put both arms around him, all without taking her eyes from the robber-or perhaps his gun.
So this was what was left of the Ludlow family. The woman almost certainly didn’t know that her husband was dead and must have come here looking for him. She hadn’t been home since early in the morning, at a minimum, or else how could she miss a corpse on her front step? Where had she been?
And now the hostages included a baby. This had gone from bad to worse.
Bobby returned. “I used a shelf to wedge that door. I don’t know how long it will hold. They’d be nuts to come in there anyway- we’d see them long before they’d reach us.”
“I don’t want them even tempted. You’d better hang out in this half of the lobby and keep these people between you and that door and that hallway, in case they decide to come in all commando-like.”
Bobby zipped quickly past the vulnerable center section. “What about the elevators?”
“They probably turned them off. But if you hear a ‘ding,’ dive for cover and come up shooting.”
“Now what?”
“Get the tie-wraps.”
Bobby laid aside the automatic rifle to dig in his duffel bag. Dust motes danced in the sunbeam above him as it slanted down from the high windows.
“You, in the pink,” the tall robber said to the woman next to Paul. “Stand up.”
The young woman trembled.
“Come on, get up. I’m not going to hurt you, I just need to borrow you for a minute. Now turn around. I’m going to put my hand on your shoulder, like this. That’s all you have to do. Now you three.” He nodded at the three security guards, who knelt in a line between the rest of the hostages and the two new women. “Now that Bobby has relieved you of your weapons, he’s going to cuff you to the teller cages there. Don’t get nervous. No one’s going to get hurt as long as you do what I say.”
The three young men gazed at him, and Paul could see them working out various methods of attack in their minds. They had been trained for exactly this-which was no doubt why this guy had to neutralize them.
“But if you try to rush me, this girl- What’s your name, sugar?”
It came out in a whisper. “Missy.”
“That’s a pretty name. Missy here is going to stay between me and you three. And if you get in a scuffle with my partner, the next sound you will hear is Missy’s guts spattering all over these other folks. On the other hand, if you come along real nice, Bobby won’t make the cuffs too tight. We’ll take some money, and then we’ll leave, and everyone, even Missy, gets to keep their guts. Do we understand each other?”
Silence.
“I asked if we understand each other.”
The three nodded, one at a time, ever so slightly.
“Okay. You with the dog. Take him with you and tie-wrap the leash to the cage. Make it secure. If he gets loose, I will be able to shoot him before he ever makes it to me.”
Paul watched as Bobby and each guard moved slowly, carefully, down the iron grillwork wall to the south end of the lobby. The metal bars made a handy thing to tie people to and appeared as solidly constructed as the rest of the building. From there the guards faced the savings-bond teller cages and the opaque windows hiding East Sixth Street from view. Missy, her brown eyes seething with both fear and anger, didn’t seem to breathe at all. Paul thought of the gun at his hip. What should he do with it?
It occurred to him that he had to live. He had a wedding to attend. Theresa would not forgive him if he missed it.
He shifted slightly, as if his legs were getting stiff-which they were. The tall robber’s eyes flicked to him, watched for a moment. It could have been a trick of the light on the sunglasses, but Paul didn’t think so. The man’s finger only had to twitch against the trigger of that M4 carbine he held and Missy would be cut in half before Paul could blink.
His gun would stay in its holster for now.
Odd as it seemed, what he longed to do more than anything was call Patrick and tell him the dead man’s widow and child were here. It seemed relevant to the investigation.
And what about the Nextel? If it went off, it could startle the two men. But if he tried to turn it off, he would attract attention, and he did not want attention from these guys. If they had gotten anything more than a speeding ticket in their lifetime, they would know a cop when they saw one. Ex-cons always could. Besides, he couldn’t bear to deaden his only connection to the outside.
Bobby finished tie-wrapping the security guys to the grillwork, arms up, facing out. It looked uncomfortable, not to mention embarrassing, and Paul felt for them. It was now all up to him, as the last loose law-enforcement person in the room. Training mantras came back to him: Watch for an opening. Wait until they’re both distracted, then fire quickly. Take out whoever’s closest to the hostages first. Don’t risk a civilian.
He assumed that either the police or the Fed security force, probably both together, were planning a response. The door at the north end had been closed off, according to Bobby. That left the hallway behind them and the street entrance. The ceiling was out-too high, and no handy acoustic tiles to hide behind, only ornate artwork and gilt edges.
“Nineteen twenty-three,” the black guy in the uniform whispered when he noticed Paul’s gaze. “They’re the original paintings.”
“Beautiful,” Paul told him, though he would rather have had ugly white tile that SRT guys could creep through.
“Yeah.” The man sighed. “You should see the executive offices. One has a Picasso and a collection of Murano glass.”
The tall robber watched them over Missy’s shoulder but said nothing. Still, Paul piped down. No sense pressing his luck.
When the dog’s leash had been secured to the grating, Bobby returned to the southwest corner of the lobby, where sniper fire through either the Superior or East Sixth windows would require an impossibly sharp angle. “Okay, Lucas.”
Another name. Either these guys weren’t very good at this or they didn’t intend to leave witnesses.
Lucas ordered the rest of them to slide down toward the two women, and Paul inched across the floor. It felt good to let his arms down and even better when Lucas did not tell them to put them up again. Clamping his left arm
