“Sure thing,” said Theo.
He pushed the last customer out, locked the door, and ran to the back office. His uncle was sound asleep on the couch, snoring like a grizzly bear. Theo shook him till he woke.
“Cy, I need your help.”
His eyes blinked open, but he was still half asleep.
“Jack’s in trouble,” said Theo.
Cy yawned into his fist. “What else is new?”
“I’m serious. I need you to close up for me.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes! Can you do it?”
Another yawn. “Yeah. I guess so.”
Theo grabbed his car keys and ran from the room before Cy could change his mind. He went out the front, locked it with his extra key, and started toward the parking lot. A voice in the darkness stopped him in his tracks.
“Mr. Knight?”
It was a woman’s voice, definitely not Mia from Miami. He turned, but it was too dark to see anything but a silhouette.
“Who are you?”
She stepped out from the shadows, and the face fit the voice-that of an older woman.
“My name is Sofia,” she said, “and I want to help your friend.”
Chapter 51
The television screen closest to Jack suddenly went gray.
The news set remained lit, and the ceiling lights and computer monitors still glowed in the newsroom. But each of the half dozen flat-screen televisions mounted on the walls throughout the newsroom was without a picture, and the audio was silent, as if someone had literally pulled the plug on the broadcast.
“What’s happening?” shouted Demetri.
It wasn’t clear whether he was talking to someone or thinking aloud. His gaze quickly swept the newsroom- up into the open catwalks above the lights, then across the newsroom to the barricaded doors. He walked completely around the news desk, then over to the weather set, then back to the sports desk. It was purely adrenaline-driven motion-short spurts of energy and panic that put the hostages even more on edge.
“I said what’s going on!”
“I have no idea,” said Pedro.
Jack cringed at the sound of Pedro’s voice, knowing that all of the hostages would have been better off to remain silent and let Demetri vent.
Demetri hurried toward the cameraman, almost frantic in his approach, and pressed the muzzle of his pistol up under Pedro’s chin.
“What did you do?”
Pedro went white, fumbling for a response. As far as Jack could tell, the camera appeared to have electrical power, and Pedro looked as befuddled as anyone as to the cause of the interrupted broadcast.
“I didn’t do anything,” said Pedro.
“Fix it!”
“I–I don’t know what happened.”
Demetri whacked him in the head with the butt of his gun, knocking Pedro to his knees.
“I said
Blood ran from the gash above Pedro’s eye, and the left side of his face was quickly streaked with crimson rivulets that ran to his chin and dripped onto the floor. Pedro didn’t answer, either too stunned or too scared to speak.
Jack leaned closer to Shannon and said, “Did you two somehow cook up a plan with the camera?”
“No,” she whispered. “I don’t know what’s going on either.”
“Fix the damn camera!” said Demetri. Another swift kick to Pedro’s ribs left him flat on the floor.
“Stop!” Jack shouted.
Demetri ignored him, or perhaps he was too enraged to hear Jack’s voice. He was suddenly caught up in destroying Pedro, as if each and every setback of the night mandated its own blow to the defenseless man’s torso.
“Stop, or you’re going to kill him!” said Jack.
A telephone rang in the newsroom, and Demetri froze. It was the same phone that Andie had called on earlier. Slowly, Demetri seemed to pull himself together long enough to process things. A final kick to the kidney elicited a deep groan from Pedro. Then Demetri went to the phone and snatched it up, his voice filled with contempt.
“What the hell are you trying to pull?” he said, his voice booming throughout the newsroom.
Andie bristled, not sure what to make of Demetri’s accusation. She adjusted her headset and spoke into the microphone from her command center.
“We have a little situation here,” she said. “I need you to take a deep breath and calm down, all right?”
“Get me back on the air-
“I was about to tell you the same thing,” said Andie.
“Don’t mess with me. Get this show back on television, or the blood of one of these hostages is on your hands.”
Andie glanced at Guy Schwartz, who was seated beside her and listening to every word. The initial word from their technical unit was that the cause of the broadcast interruption was internal, not of the FBI’s doing. Schwartz scribbled a quick note on a scrap of paper and slid it toward her.
“Demetri, listen to me,” said Andie.
She exchanged another glance with Schwartz, making sure that he wanted to go this route. He took back the note and double-underlined the word
Andie said, “I am being totally straight here, Demetri. I told you before that there is a tactical team on-site. SWAT is ready to bust down the door if you don’t turn the cameras back on.”
“Aren’t you listening, damn it? It wasn’t me who turned them off!”
“It wasn’t me, either,” said Andie. “Obviously we have some kind of technical difficulty beyond our control.”
“Oh, what bullshit! I knew you were a liar, I absolutely knew it.”
“I’m being totally honest with you, Demetri.”
“I’m not going to listen to your excuses.”
“Wait,
“Wait for what? More lies?”
“I’m telling you the truth. Come on, you’re a very smart man, Demetri. Think about it this way: Why would I
There was silence on the line, and instinct told Andie that her point was registering.
“Doesn’t that make sense, Demetri?”
He didn’t answer, but he didn’t hang up, either. She was definitely getting through to him.
“Okay, I’ll tell you what,” said Andie. “We are going to do our best to fix this problem. But you have to stay on the line with me until you’re back on the air. If you hang up before that happens, SWAT will move in. That is not a threat. I don’t want that to happen, but if you break off contact now, I won’t be able to stop them. That’s just the way it is.”
He still didn’t speak, but Andie heard a cross between a grunt and a shriek, and she envisioned him pulling
