Takeover

Theresa. You don’t ask for yourself, only for someone else. Very altruistic.”

Brad said, “What is this, women and children first? What kind of last-millennium shit is that?”

Lucas pivoted so that the barrel of the automatic rifle pointed at Brad. “You’re not much of a gentleman, are you, Brad?”

“Why does a kid have more of a right to life than an adult? Or some bitch more than me?”

How do you decide who lives and who dies? Had Cavanaugh decided? Had his answer prompted this new strategy?

“Let me go.” Brad would not give up, and, Theresa admitted to herself, why should he? “Just. Let. Me. Go.”

Lucas raised his hand. “How many people think I should ship Brad out of here if only so we won’t have to listen to him whine anymore?”

No one moved. The other people in the lobby had been through too much that day to joke about anything.

“Then listen up. You’re all staying. I’m going to get rid of the three goons tied to the teller cages over there, bless their little hearts.” He gestured toward the three security guards. “They’re going to suffocate if they can’t lower their arms soon anyway. And Theresa.”

She started. “Why me?”

“I have my reasons. You can thank me later.” He reached down and, with a grip like a screw clamp, pulled her to her feet in one motion. “But I need your help on something first.”

Brad continued to protest. “Come on!”

“Stop whining, Brad. And don’t nobody think that you can use this as a diversion. You move out of line, you get shot.”

Theresa couldn’t guess Lucas’s reasoning. He seemed to want to remove all law-enforcement personnel from the room. Did he think they-three trussed-up security guards and a science nerd-could overpower him, once left without Bobby?

He took the precaution of tie-wrapping her hands behind her back. Though this changed very little about the situation-she still could not run without getting shot-it made her feel more vulnerable than she would have believed possible. He also slung the automatic rifle over a shoulder and pulled one of the guards’ handguns from the duffel bag; the pistol pressed easily into her spine. Then he walked her over to the small glass door, still propped open, and positioned them at an angle so that both the wall and her body blocked him from gunfire. He could see out, over her shoulder. A slight turn of his head and he could keep track of the hostages. Then Bobby skittered to the opposite side of the door, mirroring them.

No one appeared in the street outside, only wavering mirages of heat, shimmering up from the asphalt.

Cavanaugh’s book prohibited bringing family members to the scene. Would they have a cop playing Eric’s role? If so, he would never fool the man’s own brother-unless Cavanaugh only intended to get close enough to get a good shot at Bobby. The robber had kept himself out of the snipers’ scopes all day, and this ploy would draw him into the open, with Lucas nearby, and only her body blocking him from a kill shot. She began to tremble.

“What’s the matter, Theresa?”

“I’m scared.”

“Why?”

“I’m afraid they’re going to shoot at you and hit me.”

His left arm slipped around her waist, and his hips and thighs pressed against her rear end. Her bound hands were caught between them, the plastic straps biting into her flesh. He rested his chin on her shoulder, lips next to her ear. “That’s why we’re going to stick together, so close that they won’t even try. You don’t mind, do you? I mean, about me being so close. I don’t expect you to be too happy about facing the snipers.”

Bobby rested his back against the cool marble wall. “You shouldn’t be huggin’ up some other girl.”

They sounded relaxed for two guys about to take on three different police agencies, but she could feel the tension ripple through every muscle in Lucas’s body.

“This isn’t huggin’. This is self-preservation.”

“Call it what you like, brother. I ain’t the one you’re going to be explaining it to.”

From the corner of her eye, she watched the row of hostages, but no one moved. They had nowhere to go anyway-any movement toward the employee lobby would be noisy and immediately obvious, and there was no other way out. Besides, Lucas switched his gaze between them and the street every half a second. She could feel each swipe as his chin brushed her hair.

Bobby held his automatic rifle pointed down, the folding barrel resting against his chest. Tiny glints of deep red speckled the butt. She kept her voice very low. “Is that what you beat Mark Ludlow to death with?”

Lucas’s arm tightened.

Bobby scowled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, lady.”

“He had two types of injuries-a long, rounded indentation, probably from the barrel when you swung the rifle like a bat, and an oval shape just like the flat end of that rifle stock.”

“What are you doing, Theresa?” Lucas asked her, his breath warming her ear.

“I still don’t understand why. Did he tell you about the money shipment? Give you the layout of the building? Obviously he didn’t provide you with any special access, or you wouldn’t have spent the whole day stuck in the lobby. What did he have that you wanted?”

The very ends of Bobby’s mouth turned up, though his eyes remained cool. “That’s a good question, lady. I wish I had a good answer.”

She pondered that opaque response for a split second, getting nowhere. “Or did you screw up and kill him before he could tell you what you needed to know? I saw his body-he didn’t suffer any physical question-and-answer session. Is that why you seem to have been making it up as you went along?”

“That’s where you’re wrong. This day has gone exactly according to plan.”

That did not sound good.

How could Bobby have planned for his brother to be alive? Only if he knew all along that his brother wasn’t really dead-but why the charade? If he wanted to see his brother, there was nothing to stop him from showing up on his doorstep. Eric Moyers had said he’d changed his address and phone, but surely some old friend or relative could have clued Bobby in.

Unless Eric Moyers was part of this plot and his appearance part of what the cops had wondered about all day- the robbers’ exit strategy. Though one of the cardinal rules of hostage situations was never to bring family members to the scene, these two might not know that. It happened on TV all the time.

Either way, it seemed clear to her that Bobby Moyers had expected Cavanaugh to produce Eric and that Bobby had no intention of giving up afterward.

Cavanaugh was about to walk into a trap and bring a possibly innocent civilian along with him. A civilian-or a reinforcement?

She couldn’t warn Cavanaugh. She didn’t even know if she was right.

Sunlight slanted off one of the glass doors across the street as it opened. A young man in fatigues, rifle in hand, stepped out and held the door open. Cavanaugh and Eric Moyers filed out.

Cavanaugh wore the same shirt and pants she’d seen him in earlier, but a bulletproof vest covered his chest. They had put one on Eric Moyers, too. They must have been sweating in those, for all the good it would do. Even Theresa could squeeze off a head shot at this range.

“Here they come,” Lucas said.

Bobby said nothing. He seemed suspiciously unsurprised at his brother’s existence.

Theresa let her gaze roam the street without turning her head. Did a sniper have her in his sights? Trying to leave the doorway would get her a bullet through the spine, and cops and robbers alike would assume she had tried to escape, instead of tried to warn them away from the subterfuge about to take place. She looked up at the sixth floor. Surely Frank stood at the telescope, though she saw only a row of dark holes. The sun had shifted to the west.

Despite the heat, Eric Moyers’s skin shone a pasty white. He had to be terrified. Agreeing to walk across the street and talk to his brother probably didn’t sound so bad until he stepped out in front of all the guns, glanced at the barricades demarcating the safe areas from the unsafe ones, and noticed that while the hum of the city went on around them, East Sixth remained deathly silent.