They saw Lucas pull her slightly forward, in order to slam her head once again. Instead she knocked at his arm with her elbow, trying to twist away, and kicked him in the groin. The M4 carbine clattered to the ground.
This time it really was a whimper. “Oh, God. Tess.”
She was going to die.
22
1:10 P.M.
The kick to his groin worked. Lucas doubled over. Unfortunately, he bent right into her and kept going, throwing her to the hard floor and knocking every molecule of air from her lungs. As soon as she sucked a few back, she pushed him off. The automatic rifle lay on the other side of him.
She reached over him, and he punched her in the rib cage. It hurt, but not as badly as it would have if he’d hit the stomach. She struck back, but she had about one-third his weight and muscle. She sank her knee into his groin once more, but he pressed his thighs together, deflecting most of the blow.
She reached again for the gun.
He bucked and rolled, and suddenly she felt the cool stone floor against her back and a sharp pain at the base of her skull. He sat on top of her, suffocating her, hands and legs pinning her down in a tidy spread-eagle.
What was that about taking somebody out again?
“You really shouldn’t hit me, Theresa.”
“Can’t breathe.”
His weight shifted upward as his face came down to hers. She felt his hot breath against her ear. “You know, if I didn’t have so much on my mind right now, I might enjoy the position I find myself in. How about you, Theresa? You enjoying this?”
Her fingers stretched toward the gun and found nothing but smooth marble. “Get off me.”
“Not until you explain your choice of words to Cavanaugh just now.”
She was out of air and out of ideas. “They know about the explosives.”
His mood got unsexy in a hurry. He sat up, with the unfortunate result of again settling his weight on her slight body. “What?”
“Can’t breathe.”
“What explosives?”
“My ribs are going to break.”
He lifted himself off her, just enough to let her lungs expand. “What explosives?”
“The stuff you have. The homemade RDX. We know you brought it in here and set it where you killed Cherise.”
His face loomed over hers. “What else?”
“That’s it. We don’t know why.”
“I don’t like conflicting with you, Theresa. Of anyone here, you ought to understand what I’m doing.”
She wouldn’t be sidetracked. “What’s back there worth blowing up?”
“You’ll have to ask Bobby. He’s the one with the detonator.” He stood, yanking her to her feet by the front of her shirt. She felt the stitching come loose beneath the arms.
It felt better to be standing under her own power. At least it did until he swung her against the wall again, the barrel of the gun under her chin. This time he had his finger on the trigger. She tried not to breathe, but her lungs ached for it, to keep up with the demands of her pounding heart.
“My balls are going to hurt for a week now. I help you out by releasing your boyfriend, Theresa, and this is how you repay me.”
He hadn’t killed her for asking once, so she tried again. “What’s back there worth blowing up?”
“I told you to ask Bobby. But consider this: When the government has killed your whole family, there’s no part of it
“What do you mean?” she gasped. “What happened to his family?”
“He’s got nobody left, that’s what I mean. But I do, and here’s where you come in. As soon as that three million arrives, it’s going to be moved into my car. And you, Theresa, will be at the head of the assembly line, with me on your back like a remora. The snipers try to take me out, they’re going to hit you instead.”
With that, he escorted her to the reception desk, not gently, but at least he clutched the back of her shirt instead of her hair. She collapsed next to Jessica Ludlow and wiped her sweating face on her sleeves. She could only hope that one of SRT’s microphones had been dropped behind that particular air-conditioning grate.
The phone was still ringing.
Patrick collapsed onto one of the upholstered chairs. The clock read 1:12, and yet he felt as if he’d pulled an all-nighter.
But Theresa still lived. He could breathe again, maybe quell the tremors in his legs.
“Detective Patrick?”
Peggy Elliott stood next to him, still as fresh and neat and she’d been hours earlier. She’d removed the suit jacket to reveal a tailored white blouse with a gold Summer Reading Club pin on the breast pocket. “Are you all right?”
“Oh, sure. Fine.”
She waited for more without comment, then gave up. “There’s a phone call for you.”
He followed her to a communication system set up on a reading table in the map room, where other staff could make calls without disturbing the negotiator. Kessler spoke to someone, apparently his wife, telling her not to worry. Jason trotted toward them, listening to his cell phone while devouring another sandwich. Once upon a time, Patrick could eat all day and all night like that. Once upon a time, he’d had that kind of enthusiasm for his job as well.
The librarian handed him a receiver. “It’s the hospital.”
A doctor at the Metro General trauma center introduced himself and asked Patrick if he was Paul’s partner.
“Yes. Thank you for calling me, Doctor. How is he?”
“We tried a plastic graft. It took thirty units of blood, but it’s in place.”
“Is he awake?”
“Off and on. Not much.”
“Can we ask him a few questions, do you think?” Who knew what the two guys might have discussed in front of Paul, when they took him for another bank employee? They might have mentioned their exit strategy, assuming they had one.
“I’m not calling to tell you to come and interview him,” the doctor said with a tougher edge to his voice. “I’m saying if you want to speak to him again, you might want to come here now.”
It wasn’t as if the possibility hadn’t occurred to Patrick. He had been to the full-dress funerals of too many cops killed in the line of duty for that. But he hadn’t really believed it. “He’s going to die?”
The doctor didn’t pause. “He’d be dead already if the nick hadn’t been at the lower end of the femoral and someone hadn’t gotten that belt around his thigh immediately. He
