27
2:58 P.M.
“Detective?”
Peggy Elliott skipped up a few steps to catch him. She carried a textbook that must have weighed seven pounds, easy. “I’ve been reading up on RDX.”
He paused on the landing. “That was quick.” “I’m a reference librarian. It’s what I do.” His partner had an appointment with death penciled in, Theresa sat out of reach with a gun to her head, and yet Patrick found himself wondering if Ms. Elliott had a significant other, and if not, how she might react to an offer of coffee or lunch…
Later. “Thanks. Please don’t tell anyone else-I’d get in trouble for discussing an investigation in progress. What did you find?”
“Nothing, unfortunately. There is no way to neutralize it- chemically, I mean. You could always throw it in the lake or blast it into space. Or just pull out the detonator.”
“The lake, huh?” She nodded. “Then run like hell.”
Patrick returned to the negotiator’s area like a moth to the flame, afraid to look at the television monitor but unable not to. He retook his seat just as Lucas Parrish finally answered the phone at the information desk across the street and said, “Hello, Chris.”
“Thanks for picking up, Lucas. I was getting worried about you.”
“That’s so sweet, Chris. Remind me to drop you a card on your next birthday.”
“I’m glad you have your money, but now we need to work out where you’re going to go from here.”
“I have an aunt in Chicago. I figure she’ll let me sleep on her couch for a few weeks. After that, I’ll head for Las Vegas. Ever seen the Grand Canyon, Chris?”
“I’m mostly concerned with Cleveland right now. You know there’s a whole lot of cops with guns on this block who are pretty worried that you’re going to hurt some of those hostages. You have to know they’re willing to take you out to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“I wouldn’t respect them if they weren’t, Chris.”
“We’re going to have to work together to come up with a good exit strategy, one where no one gets hurt.”
“Exit strategy. I like that. It sounds all corporatelike.”
Again Patrick felt a desperate need to travel through the wires and strangle the little shit.
“Why don’t you tell me what you have in mind?”
“I could tell you, Chris, but then I’d have to kill you.”
Cavanaugh wiped moisture from his nose, then pinched the bridge. Patrick wouldn’t say he seemed worried, exactly, but he did not speak with the confidence he had earlier that morning. It scared him. Cavanaugh had been through this process hundreds of times more than Patrick had, and something about this situation was atypical. But then, hell, from Paul to Theresa to Rachael, nothing about the day had been typical.
“I’ll go first,” Cavanaugh offered. “If you put down the weapons and come out, you have my word that you will not be harmed in any way.”
“You can go first, last, and always, Chris. It doesn’t matter, because this is not a negotiation. We’ll leave when we want to leave, and if your cops try to stop us, we’ll kill a few hostages. End of story.”
“If you hurt people, I can’t guarantee your safety.”
“We’ve already hurt people, in case you haven’t been paying attention. So I’m guessing our safety has become irrelevant. At least I can still pick the way I go.”
Patrick found himself chewing on a knuckle. Lucas had gotten it, finally-he had no way out. He could collect the money, he could keep the cops at bay by threatening the hostages, he could trade barbs with the famous negotiator-he could do everything but leave. He had two choices: He could give up, or he could go out in a blaze of glory or some other suitably dramatic ending.
Dreamy, his sister had said. Romantic.
Patrick had no doubt which choice Lucas would take.
“That’s not true.” Cavanaugh continued to work on it. “We can still salvage the situation. No one else has to die today. We can work this out as long as we trust each other.”
“See, that’s just it. As I believe Bobby and I have made clear, we are not going to trust cops, ever, ever, ever. You’re not going to negotiate us around that, Chris, do you understand? You fail. Period.”
Cavanaugh’s voice grew hard. The word “fail” had a rejuvenating effect on him. “I don’t get this, Lucas. You told me who you were, you told me what you wanted, you sent Jessica upstairs, and we let her come back. We worked together on the money shipment. Now we get to the most critical part of the day and you won’t tell me what you want?”
“I don’t believe you care what I want.”
“If you try to leave with hostages, they’ll kill you. You’ll be giving them no choice. I know you’re intelligent enough to see that.”
“I’m intelligent enough to know that your goals and my goals have never coincided. Y’all gave me the money figuring you’d get it back after we die, and we’ll die if we put these guns down. I know it. Bobby knows it. So stop wasting your breath and my time.”
He hung up.
Cavanaugh dropped the receiver into place with a clatter. “I just don’t get this guy.” He sounded almost plaintive for a moment.
“What’s he going to do?” Patrick asked, feeling worse than Cavanaugh sounded. “Keeping hostages with him is the only way to get to that car. He has no choice.”
“I know that. What makes it worse is that Theresa is an obvious choice for him. He thinks we’ll place more value on her life than on a stranger’s.”
Jason returned from the direction of the command center. “Lau-ra’s plane finally landed. She’ll be here in ten.”
“Fifteen,” Cavanaugh said, dialing the phone. “She exaggerates. I need to stall them, to let SRT figure out how to get a hook on that car. And we’ve only got one card to play… Lucas? May I speak to Bobby, please? There’s a loose end I’d like to tie up.”
“Is this about his brother again?”
“I want to show you I can be trusted, that I have told you the truth every minute of this day, and that if I tell you you won’t be harmed, you won’t be. I can prove I didn’t lie about Bobby’s brother. Will you at least give me the chance to do that?”
“No.”
“What about Bobby? It’s
The phone gave a snapping sound, which led to a low hum. Lucas had switched to speakerphone; they heard his retreating voice as he changed places with his partner. “He wants to talk to you about your brother. I don’t know, just talk to him. I want to check out the street anyway.”
Patrick said, “I thought you never-”
Cavanaugh covered the receiver while he answered him. “Use the family? This is different. I don’t expect the sight of his next of kin to fill Bobby with remorse. But I do expect it to convince him that he has based all his actions today on erroneous assumptions. If one crumbles, they all may, including his assumption that getting away scot- free is a possibility.”
Patrick dropped it. “If Lucas doesn’t want to talk to us, why does he keep picking up the phone?”
“Because deep down he wants me to find a solution for him, to find a way to make this come out all right. He’s a little boy who started out to steal an apple and instead set fire to the orchard, and now he’s scared. Most of these guys are like that.”
Patrick wasn’t so sure. Lucas seemed like the least frightened guy on East Sixth, and Cavanaugh needed a reason to keep the reins from the imminent Laura. She would only be secondary anyway-but maybe that was still too much for Cavanaugh. It didn’t matter, really. They had to do something. Maybe this would drive a wedge between the two robbers.
