investors condone?”
Mooney looked down at their blank faces.
“I was like you. I slaved for the corporate machine, protecting it from the law in ways regular people will never be privy to. Protected illegal price fixes and unethical policies against millions of regular working-class people. I saw crimes of unthinkable magnitude. I saw pristine waterways irrevocably befouled with pollution. No one was held responsible. No one went to jail. Why is that? Can anyone tell me?
“By the way, I can see that many of you here are grossly overweight. But what percentage of the world’s population is starving as we have our little talk here? Anyone have the answer? Don’t be shy.”
Chapter 93
IT TOOK US five minutes to confer with my boss and the Hostage Rescue Team chief Tom Chow. Chow made the final arrangements over his tactical mic as Emily and I pulled on ceramic bomb vests.
“What’s the story now, Detective?” Howard Parrish said as we emerged from the bus. “We’re not going in now? What about my boy?”
“Something new has come to light. It’s our best chance to resolve this thing without any more innocent people getting hurt. We’re going to do the best we can, sir,” Emily said.
“That’s not good enough. Fuck that! I want my son alive. If you can’t guarantee that, then I want to go instead of him. I demand to!”
I stopped and held the executive by his elbow.
“Listen to me, Mr. Parrish,” I said. “I guarantee you that I will bring your son back to you alive.”
We walked away.
“What the hell are you doing, Mike? How can you make a promise like that?” Emily said under her breath as we headed down Wall Street toward the Stock Exchange entrance.
“Easy,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “If things go south, I won’t be around for him to yell at me.”
Chow met us at the security barricades and briefed us a final time while we walked through the maze of steel.
“Everything is in place,” he finally said, stopping by the Exchange’s door. “The rest is up to you two.”
Emily and I passed the metal detectors in the huge empty lobby. We walked silently, thinking our own thoughts as we stepped down the hall.
“Good luck, Detective Bennett. This works, I’ll buy you dinner,” Emily said as I stopped by the door that led to the balcony stairwell.
“Hope you brought your American Express card, Agent Parker,” I said as she continued on, heading for the trading floor. “Because if this works, I’m planning on about fifteen before-dinner drinks.”
Chapter 94
COMING DOWN THE hall, Parker was grateful for the speed with which all this was happening. There was no time to think. Which was good. If she’d had to think about things, she knew she’d be walking in the opposite direction.
A couple of Stock Exchange cops were crouched by the last security station, staring through the window of the entrance to the trading floor. Parker badged them.
“Where is he?”
A couple of brokers cringing behind the trading desks whispered loudly.
“Watch it, lady. That guy’s nuts.”
“He’s got a gun,” a pudgy white guy with thinning black hair told her.
She stepped out into the space.
“You actually thought you’d get away with it, didn’t you, shit for brains! Yes, I’m talking to you, scumbag!”
“Who are you?” Mooney called over the microphone.
“Me? I’m a moral person who went to work today,” Emily screamed. “You, on the other hand, are a common murderer, a killer of children, a serial killer, and probably a pervert.”
“Hey, lady!” one of the brokers said. “Shut up! You’re going to get us all killed!”
“I am not!” Mooney yelled.
“I am not!” Emily said, mimicking him. “Who are you kidding? You got off on killing every one of those kids.”
“Those kids, as you call them, were worthless, useless. They deserved to die!” Mooney screamed. “Their parents should have educated them better. Should have taught them the importance of being human.”
“Oh, you’re teaching all of us humanity?” Emily screamed. “My mistake. I thought you were just killing children!”
CHECKING MY WATCH, I knelt down next to the tactical “mouse hole” the HRT guys had already made into the hallway wall to avoid the explosives. At the top of the narrow stairs, I unscrewed the fluorescent light and laid it down carefully on the dusty, worn marble tiles and slowly opened the door.
About twenty feet away with his back to me, Mooney stood at the front railing of the balcony with his captives, yelling down at Emily. Between us, dividing the balcony in half at an angle, was a five-foot-wide stripe of bright sunlight that fell from the Stock Exchange’s front window. I stared at the light intently for a moment before I opened my mouth.
“Francis! Over here! Hey, don’t listen to her!” I called to him.
Mooney swung around toward me, angry and confused. He shook the detonator at me.
“You’re sneaking up on me? Try something, and I’ll do it!” he screamed. “Right now. I’ll do everyone! Where are the fathers? Why is no one listening to me?”
I stared fearfully at the two high school kids and the security chief’s son, all of whom Mooney had bound himself to. They were pale, listless, sweating, eyes glazed with stress and shock. I thought of my oldest boy, Brian, only a few years younger. I wanted them to live. I wanted us all to live. I had to make this happen. Somehow.
“Francis! Calm down, man! It’s me, Mike Bennett,” I said, raising my hands slowly above my head. “I’m not sneaking up on you. I have the fathers in the hall here behind me, like you said. I’ll let them in. You let the boys go. Will you work with me?”
Mooney took a step toward me. His eyes behind his glasses were gleaming now, filled with an unsettling intensity. His taped-together hands holding the detonator were shaking now. I watched his right-hand index finger twitch as it hovered over its trigger.
I struggled to come up with something to calm him down. Emily’s tirade was supposed to be just a distraction, but it had gotten him so riled up, he might set the plastic off by accident.
“Where are they?” Mooney demanded, peering into the darkened doorway at my back.
“At the bottom of the stairwell, Francis. They’re waiting to come up,” I said.
“You’re lying,” Mooney said.
“No,” I said, making eye contact with him as I shook my head. “No more lies, Francis. We just want what’s best for everybody. For you. For those kids. The fathers really want to take their sons’ places. They appreciate that you’ve given them the option, in fact.”
“Yeah, like I believe that,” Mooney said. He took another step closer, his eyes squinting as he tried to peer deeper into the dim stairwell.
“I won’t let anyone go until the fathers come up those stairs and stand in front of me. That’s the deal, Mike. No negotiating. Bring them up here right now.”
I turned around as if I heard something behind me.
“Okay, Francis,” I said. “They’re on the stairs right behind me now. Why don’t we do this? Why don’t you come forward a little and look in the doorway first. You can verify that it’s them. Then you can untangle one of the kids. I don’t want you to think it’s a trick.”
Mooney stood there, thinking about it.
“Okay,” he said, taking another step.
As he came forward, I watched the sunlight from the window glance off his shoe. The light came up his leg, his torso, his two hands grasping the detonator as if in prayer.
“Got him,” the FBI sniper across the street said into the radio in my ear.
I dove to the floor.
Chapter 96
STANDING IN THE dusty light, Mooney looked at me in confusion as I hit the deck. Then he turned toward the window I’d lured him in front of.
The shattering of the long front window of the Exchange seemed to happen after Mooney was hit. One second, he was standing there, and the next, the window
