Hostage (11 page)

“That’s a fire alarm,” said Bradley, standing up from behind the camera.

“Now what?” snapped Clariton.

Todd suggested, “Maybe something caught fire in the kitchen.”

“Oh, my God!” gasped Carol, pointing to one of the vents. “Smoke!”

A thick, dark waft of smoke came pouring out of the vent, and Lyle said, “Mr. Clariton, if you’ll come with me, sir!”

The very next instant a single sprinkler kicked in, spraying water down on the equipment.

“Oh, Christ, my camera!” snapped Bradley.

Before he could be shocked Todd yanked off his mike, then lunged at Congressman Clariton and did the same. Working as speedily as possible, Bradley shut down the lights, next turned to the camera and started detaching it from the tripod.

“Bradley, give me the tape!” demanded Todd, for whatever happened he couldn’t lose that very special tape of Clariton’s comments.

Bradley popped open the camera and threw the videotape at Todd, who caught it and stuffed it in his briefcase. Quickly getting soaked, Todd returned to Bradley’s side, the two of them dismantling the equipment and throwing it in the nylon bags.

“You all go ahead!” shouted Todd to Clariton. “We’ll be right behind you! Go out the door and take two rights. The escalator’s right there and then it’s a clean shot to the front door!”

Lyle took the congressman by the arm and said, “This way, sir!”

“Come on, Carol!” called Clariton.

Just as they were heading to the main doors, though, three people burst in: two men, one of them skinny, one of them with a shaved bald head, and a woman with big blond hair. Wearing smoke masks, they were pushing a large cart, and the skinny guy turned around, took a chain, and padlocked the door shut behind them. The woman and the bald guy dug into the cart and pulled out two guns, which they trained on Todd and the others. Lyle immediately stepped in front of Clariton.

“Get down on the floor!” screamed the bald man, his voice only slightly muffled by the mask.

“Facedown, now!” seconded the woman.

Clariton half-emerged from behind Lyle and blurted, “You can’t do this!”

“Just watch, dumbo!”

“I’m a U.S. congressman.”

“Really?” said the skinny guy as smoke poured in through all the vents and water rained down on the far side of the room. “I thought you were Julia Child.”

“That includes you, big guy! On the floor,” shouted the bald man, training his gun on Lyle, “before I start blasting the shit out of you!”

Todd glanced at Lyle, saw his right hand ever so slightly begin to rise up the side of his sport coat. Would he resist or—

A small door at the end of the curtains was suddenly thrown open, and a woman came charging right into the room. Of all people, thought Todd, staring at her in total disbelief.

“Holy shit!” yelled the woman as she rushed into the room, completely panic-stricken, “there’s a fire in the kitchen! You—” She suddenly froze, surveyed the situation, spotted Todd. “What’s going on?”

Todd stared at his Channel 7 nemesis. “Cindy, where the hell did you come from?”

As the leader, the guy with the shaved head, rushed toward her brandishing his gun, Lyle reached beneath his sport coat and pulled out a pistol. With three bold steps he charged across the room, lunging at the woman with the gun. He batted the pistol from her hand, then grabbed her, spinning her around and pinning her from behind as if she were as weak as a paper doll.

Pressing his pistol against her temple, Lyle shouted at the other guy, “Put down your gun!”

“Fuck you, Rambo!”

And with that the bald guy in the smoke mask grabbed Cindy Wilson, jabbing his gun at her head. For a weird moment everything was oddly still as the alarm shrieked on and water poured from the lone sprinkler. Staring at the men and the women they each held, Todd and the others were completely still.

Knowing he held trump, the guy holding Cindy Wilson calmly declared, “Go ahead and shoot my friend. It doesn’t make any difference, right?”

Not even struggling in Lyle’s grasp, the skinny blonde calmly said, “Yeah, do it. I’m next to dead anyway.”

“But this one…” He yanked on Cindy Wilson’s arm, poked the barrel of his gun into her cheek. “This one doesn’t want to die, do you, darling?”

“No!” Cindy struggled, then froze. “No, please… please!”

“Shoot her!” ordered the skinny blonde.

“No!” screeched Cindy, starting to buck.

“I’m going to do it!” yelled the leader. “On the count of three she’s a goner unless you throw down your gun!”

“Please, no!” begged Cindy.

“One…”

Cindy’s terrified eyes turned to Todd. “Oh, my God!”

“Two…”

Todd shouted at Lyle, “For Christ’s sake, he’s going to do it!”

The leader steadied the gun, smiled, opened his mouth as if to speak. And Lyle lowered his pistol, then tossed it aside.

“Very good,” said the leader. “Now, let go of my friend.”

As she was released and started picking up the weapons, the skinny blonde said to Lyle, “I wasn’t bluffing. An early ticket out of here would’ve been just fine with me.”

“Now all of you get down on the floor!” shouted the leader, still pressing his gun to Cindy Wilson’s head. “Get to work!”

“Right-o,” the scrawny guy said. “Better do just like he says, campers!”

Todd led the way, dropping to his knees and lying down on the now-soaking carpet. Carol and Bradley quickly followed his example, but Clariton hesitated and glanced at Lyle, who wasn’t budging either.

Yanking on Cindy’s hair, the head guy shouted, “I’d still be real happy to shoot this one!”

“That won’t be necessary,” replied Clariton, sounding very authoritative. “Now, Lyle, please do as they say. We don’t want to aggravate the situation any further.” Clariton looked at the masked leader. “But I would like to discuss this and perhaps come to some sort of—”

“Shut the fuck up! If you’re not down on the floor in two seconds, she’s dead meat!”

“Okay… okay. Let’s not be hasty.”

The two men lay down, and Todd wondered if this was it, the beginning of an execution-style assassination. Of course this was about Clariton. Of course he, the controversial politician, was their target. But his assistant? His bodyguard? And what about Bradley and Todd, not to mention Cindy Wilson, whom the bald guy still held at gunpoint? Would any of them be left as witnesses, or would they all be eliminated?

His heart surging, Todd’s eyes darted about. Think. Fall back on your training, fall back on what you know. You’ve interviewed hundreds of people who’ve been through something like this. What did they do? How did they react? How did the police say they should have reacted?

Okay.

Yes, just three. Yes, one woman. Two men. Take it in. When he’d worked on the CrimeEye team he’d seen enough to know that you only had a few precious moments to get the most important facts, details that would be gone in an instant. Look at it all carefully. Record it in your mind. Masks. They’re all wearing big black smoke masks. The woman has thick blond hair. She’s wearing a black wool coat. Running shoes. Long legs. Skinny. One of the guys is kind of gangly. Torn jeans, ripped sweatshirt. Short, short hair. The other guy, the leader, is also thin and has a shaved head.

“Facedown now!” the leader shouted at Todd, aiming a pistol at him.

One last glance to the side told Todd that Bradley was on the floor by the tripod, while Carol was lying by a table.

Clutching Cindy Wilson and pressing a gun to her head, the bald leader shouted, “Hands behind your backs! Any troubles and this lady here gets a nice surprise!”

Smoke now gushed out of all the vents, and two of the intruders started dashing around, strapping everyone’s hands with plastic strips.

“Do the big guy first!” ordered the leader. “Strap his feet too!”

Lyle shouted, “You—”

“Shut up, asshole!”

They were flex-cuffs, quick handcuffs made of plastic, realized Todd, the kind the police could strap on in seconds. Working like a pro, the woman bound up Lyle, hands and feet, then Carol and Bradley. The skinny guy put the cuffs on Todd, and then less than a minute later he and the blonde were grabbing Clariton and forcing him to his feet.

“I don’t think you want to do this,” began Clariton, trying to control his voice. “I am a United States congressman, you see, and the FBI’s not going to like this. Perhaps we could talk. You’re getting into a lot more trouble here than you may realize. We could talk and I could help you. I’m sure there’s something I can do for—”

“Do you know how full of shit you are?” snapped the woman.

And with that she pulled out a roll of duct tape and ripped off a piece. She dragged her sleeve over his mouth to dry his face, slapped the tape over his lips, then turned to the cart and pulled out a few sheets.

“Get in the laundry basket!”

His clothes soaked from the wet carpet, Clariton blurted a muffled plea.

“Get in!” shouted the woman.

She and the gangly guy grabbed Clariton and dumped him into the basket. They then piled the sheets back on top of him. Next the two of them ran around the room, first to Carol, then Todd, the bodyguard, and finally Bradley, strapping tape over each one’s mouth.

Above the screaming alarm the leader shouted, “We’re going to go in the other room. We’re going to be right in there, and if we hear so much as a peep from any of you, I’m going to shoot both this lady and Clariton in the head! Got it? Don’t any of you move and don’t any of you try anything stupid!”

“Oh, my God…” begged Cindy. “Just leave me! Don’t take me! Please, I won’t cause any trouble!”

“Shut the fuck up!” he shouted, pressing his gun so hard against Cindy Wilson’s skull that her head tilted to the side. “Now, listen carefully so you can spread the word. We are Americans, we are acting independently, and we are all three dying of AIDS. We are appalled by Congressman Clariton’s position on the AIDS epidemic. After we give the congressman a small dose of our lives, so to speak, we intend to release him. So tell the cops to leave us alone unless they really want him dead. You’ll be hearing from us very soon.”

“Ta-ta, kids,” said the gangly one. “It’s been a real… blast!”

His mouth covered with tape, Todd twisted on the floor. The leader was shoving Cindy Wilson along, and the other two were wheeling the cart loaded with Congressman Johnny Clariton through the back door, the one Cindy had used.

“Get down, asshole!” shouted the leader at Todd. “And don’t do anything stupid or this chick’s dead!”

Todd dropped his head, his right cheek sinking into the wet carpet. The fire alarm kept on shrieking, water from the single sprinkler rained down, smoke continued to pump into the room, and somewhere in the distance he could hear the cry of the fire trucks. But all of this seemed almost inconsequential, for the one thing that had seized Todd’s mind was the image of the guy with the shaved head.

What the hell was so incredibly familiar about him?

They turned a sharp
corner and Matthew slammed Cindy Wilson into the waiting freight elevator. Once the cart and the others were in, he released the STOP button, hit another, and as soon as they started to descend they ripped off their smoke masks. Matthew then slumped against the wall of the lift. His heart was pounding, to be sure, but his head felt as if it would explode. He closed his eyes, opened them, saw only dancing ribbons of light. He shook his head, tried to focus on something, anything, and saw the pile of linens shifting.

Jabbing his gun into the cart, he shouted, “I’d love to kill you right now, Mr. Johnny Clariton!”

The lump muttered an indistinguishable string of words and froze.

The elevator slowly stopped on the ground floor, the doors eased back. Matthew stepped out first, again saw no one, then seized Cindy Wilson by the wrist and started dragging her along. Not wasting a second, Elliot and Tina shoved the cart out, charging after Matthew down the long hall until they reached the service area, where a red light was flashing and an obnoxious alarm was honking. Their blue vehicle sat undisturbed, though, backed up against the loading dock.

Matthew, still clutching Cindy Wilson, looked at Elliot and snapped, “Open the goddamn van!”

“Yes, boss man.”

Elliot hurled open the rear doors of the van, jumped in, and grabbed a piece of plywood. Using the wood to bridge the gap between the dock and the vehicle, Elliot then jumped out. As planned and practiced, he and Tina rolled the cart into the rear of the van, then climbed in the back, crouching on either side of the laundry cart.

Nodding at Cindy Wilson, Elliot asked, “So, what are we going to do about the weathergirl?”

“I…” Matthew began.

He clenched his eyes shut as a searing blade of pain stabbed his head. For a second Matthew was sure he was going to pass out. Then he opened his eyes, tried to say something, but no words passed his lips. Shit, he didn’t need this, not now, and they didn’t need her, not anymore.

With great effort he forced himself to speak, saying, “Let’s… let’s just get rid of her.”