“Come in here,” Lucas commanded. “Join us.”
“I really need to stay out here, Lucas. I need to be able to make the arrangements you need, to get our efforts organized. I can’t get anything done from in there.”
“Let me clarify.” Lucas took the gun out from behind Theresa and pressed it to her right temple, skulking behind her so completely that her hair muffled his voice. “Come in here or I’ll blow her brains all over this nice marble.”
Theresa stood as still as if she’d been carved from that same marble. Snipers would be trying to get Lucas in their sights, waiting for him to move from her shadow just enough to squeeze off the shot. But he stayed so close. His body plastered hers from ankle to neck; she could not pull away or even sink down.
They could do it. They were trained for this.
“Why?” Cavanaugh demanded. “What do you want me for?”
“Because your boys are getting desperate, and they’ll never launch an assault with their leader in cuffs on the lobby floor.”
“I’m not their leader. I’m only part of th-”
Lucas removed his hand from her mouth, placed it on her throat.
She could feel a smear of blood, heavier than sweat, along her jaw. An expression crossed Cavanaugh’s face, something dangerously close to compassion.
“Don’t!” She didn’t need to shout; he stood only ten or so feet away. Lucas’s hand squeezed her larynx, but only for show. If he wanted to silence her, he could. “Don’t do it.”
Why weren’t they taking the shot?
Worry etched lines into Cavanaugh’s face as he looked at her. “Theresa-”
“Don’t let your hero persona think for you, Cavanaugh! It’s a trick.” She wasn’t a damsel in distress-she was
“Come in here or she dies. I’ve got seven other people, Cavanaugh.”
“What on earth makes you say that?” Lucas asked her. To Cavanaugh he raised his voice. “Do you really want to take that chance?”
The hostage negotiator echoed Theresa’s sentiments. “Enough people have died here today, Lucas.”
“You can say that again.”
The snipers were not going to risk a shot unless she wriggled away. They would need only a couple of inches and a split second.
“I’m going to count to three, Cavanaugh. One.”
“If you shoot her, what then? I’ll be back inside the library building before you can pull out another hostage.”
“Person, Chris, person. The term ‘hostage’ is so dehumanizing. Two.”
She had forgotten all of her martial arts training except for the side kick-devastating to the knee. But she would have to be very, very fast.
“All right,” Cavanaugh said. “I’m coming in.”
She kicked. Lucas exhaled with an expression lost in the fabric of her shirt as his legs buckled, pulling her backward. His gun went off. She might have been shot, but she couldn’t feel anything past the pain in her ears.
Falling backward only protected Lucas, putting more of his body against the wall and leaving her still between him and the snipers. Her plan had not worked.
From their tangle of arms and legs she saw Cavanaugh emerge from the sunlight and reach for her, saying her name. At least his lips moved; she couldn’t hear what he said.
He pulled her off Lucas, who rolled once and then jerked up the automatic. The barrel pointed up at her with an unwavering grip. Neither Theresa nor the snipers had disabled him.
There was only him now, and two of them, and Cavanaugh had a bulletproof vest. It dug into her side as he held her up. She turned to the hostages. “Run! Get out of here!”
They didn’t need to be told twice. Brad scrambled to his feet.
Lucas fired another shot, painful even to her already numbed ears. A chunk of marble leaped out of the floor, five feet to the left of the little boy, Ethan. Everyone froze.
Lucas darted against the wall on the other side of the doors, safe from the snipers and with a clear shot of everyone in the room. She and Cavanaugh were not close enough to attack. The advantage of the situation had righted itself in his favor.
“Step back,” he told them. “Go over to the desk, by the others.”
Cavanaugh shoved her slightly behind him, out of either chivalry or convenience-she couldn’t do much with her hands still tied behind her back. “It’s over, Lucas.”
“It’s nowhere near over,” he said. “Chris.”
30
3:39 P.M.
The plastic tie-wrap around her wrists must have stretched during the tumble, because she could now, painfully, slide one hand free of the other. She stayed pressed to Cavanaugh, their bodies so close she could smell his sweat; her hands swiped the back of his vest, searching for the hard outlines of a concealed weapon. If she found one, she would shoot Lucas without the slightest hesitation. She knew this as clearly as she knew her own name.
Of course he had none. Cavanaugh had promised to come unarmed, and he could not lie.
“Go. Sit with the others.”
Theresa shifted sideways to get to the desk rather than turn her back on him and collapsed almost gratefully to the cool tile. Both her wrists bled from shallow cuts. Cavanaugh sat next to her. Lucas sped past the doors to tuck himself into the L of the teller cages and the exterior wall; he favored his right knee with the slightest limp.
“Well.” He retrieved his automatic rif le and switched the handgun to his left hand. “That was exciting. I’ll be taking that vest, Chris. I think I’ll need it more than you will.”
Theresa tried to picture the thoughts crashing about in Cava-naugh’s mind. His perfect record had been shot to hell-no pun intended-and he found himself on the wrong side of the phone lines. Would he try to do his job from the inside or give up, let Jason take over? Assuming that his mind hadn’t shut down from the shock, how would he play this?
“This has gone from bad to worse, Lucas.” She heard him plainly over the ringing in her ears. She had not gone deaf.
“Tell me about it.”
“Who are you?” Jessica Ludlow asked of the man who had just dropped down next to her.
“He’s the negotiator, Jessie,” Lucas told her. “Though he hasn’t done such a great job so far. That dog don’t hunt, as we say at home.”
Cavanaugh asked, “What are you going to do now? Do you have a plan?”
“You know me, Chris. I always have a plan.”
“Mind if I ask what it is?”
“I don’t mind. Unfortunately, we don’t have time to discuss it. Let me have that vest.”
Cavanaugh pulled at the Velcro straps and removed the bulletproof vest. The shirt underneath had a circle of blood above the right pocket, and the whole thing dripped with sweat. He slid it across to Lucas but spoke to Theresa. “I’m a little damp.”
“You don’t smell too good either,” she observed.
His dimples appeared, as if he found her attempt at humor reassuring. “We’re still alive. We’ll make it.”
