Takeover (19 page)

“His car. It needs new carpet—he said that about a million times. His friends, how it was going to be just like old times. You know how that goes, you can’t ever go home again because you just ain’t the same person, you know what I mean? But I didn’t say anything. I felt the same way after I got out of the army, so free I could bounce off the walls. Oh, and his family.”

“What did he say about his family?”

“That they’re all dead and he’s the last of his line. Like in that book about the Mohicans, you know? He seemed to think this was important in the grand scheme of things, that there weren’t nobody
left but him. I’m not making fun of him, mind, though he did get on my nerves a bit. But family’s important, so I could see why he felt bad about it.”

“What happened to his family?”

“Cops.”

“Cops?”

“That’s what he said, cops killed them. No, actually he said ‘the damn justice system of the United States of America’ killed them, that’s what he said.” Cornell’s voice faded for a moment as he said to someone there with him, “Shut the door, will you? It’s freezing in here.”

“You’re cold?” Patrick couldn’t remember what cold felt like.

“June in the mountains. Anyway, I told Bobby to find a nice girl and have some sons, and then the whole bloodline thing won’t bother him so much. He just laughed.”

“What about Lucas? Did he mention his family?”

“He’s only got a sister. He said he called her and she didn’t answer, but she’s in the service, too, so she might have been transferred. They never seemed to be too tight anyway.”

“Did either one of them mention the Federal Reserve Bank?”

“Nothing about no bank, no.” He seemed firm on that, but then he had seemed firm on everything so far.

“Did they pay you for the guns? Or were they a gift?”

Silence. Then, “Guns?”

“Two M4 carbines?”

More silence before he said, “They stole them.”

“They stole the guns from you?”

“They were part of my private collection, like, not for sale.
When I woke up yesterday morning, Lucas and Bobby were gone, and so were the guns.”

“They never asked you for them.”

“Nope.”

Patrick didn’t believe him. Apparently the Tennessee police captain didn’t either, because Cornell’s voice continued, muted, as if he had turned away from the receiver. “I didn’t tell you, Johnson, because I didn’t want to get the guy in trouble. He’s my friend. We took enemy fire together.”

Patrick heard the Tennessee cop asking: “In
Germany
?”

“Well, sort of.”

“But the guy stole from you. What sort of a friend is that?”

“I don’t believe he did.” Jack repeated this into the receiver for Patrick’s benefit. “I think it was that Bobby. He and I got on okay, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t know him. I don’t know what he’d do or not do.”

“Cornell,” Patrick put in.

“Hmm?”

“Any other guns—missing? Besides the two M4 carbines?”

No hesitation this time. “Nope.”

“What about the RDX?”

Another pause, but when he spoke, he had none of the prior sheepish tones. “Say what, now?”

“The plastic explosives. Did Lucas or Bobby get those from you, too?”

“I don’t have no plastic explosives, I don’t know nothing about no plastic explosives, and I don’t want to know about no plastic explosives. That shit’s wicked. Some of it exploded at our base in
Germany. Lucas took some shrapnel, and another guy got his hand blown off. They say it’s so safe, but not if the guy with the detonator don’t know what he’s doing.”

“You don’t know where Lucas would get some?”

“Lucas wouldn’t fool around with that stuff either. He’d wanted to go Special Forces, underwater demolition, until that injury. And he knew the guy that lost his left hand, too. Combat engineer.”

Patrick straightened his spine, stretching the vertebrae. Cornell sounded positive again, truthful. “Where is he now? This combat engineer?”

“He’s not in the army, I can tell you that. They shipped him out on permanent disability.”

“Where does he live?”

“Hell, I don’t know. Michigan? Montana? I heard he went to work for a civilian contractor—demolition work—and got blown up his second week. You can’t tell me it wasn’t on purpose. It broke his heart to leave the army. He was weird that way.”

“He’s dead? You sure?”

“I heard that from someone. I forget who, though.”

“What was his name?”

“I don’t think I ever knew that. He was just the guy who got his hand blown off, you know what I mean?”

“Did Lucas know anyone else who worked with explosives?”

“Not that I know of. But it’s a big army.”

“Yeah.” Patrick could not think of anything else to ask. No doubt a million questions would occur to him as soon as he hung up, but he couldn’t help that. He thanked Cornell, asked to speak to the police captain again, and thanked him as well.

“I believe him,” Captain Johnson said. “For the most part. I
think he’s fudging a bit on the two guns—he might have given those to Lucas, for old times’ sake—but whatever you asked about plastic explosives, he told you the truth. I’ve known Cornell a long time. He don’t lie too often and he’s transparent as hell when he does.”

“Thanks for the help. We appreciate it.”

“Good luck up there, Detective.”

“Thanks.” Frank Patrick sighed. “We’re going to need it.”

1:25
P.M
.

Theresa sat with her knees to her chin, hugging her damaged ribs, and watched her captor. His actions had been quick and brisk before, but now he moved with a sense of real urgency. She wondered if he’d been stalling all this time, waiting for the two o’clock shipment while convincing everyone else that he neither knew nor cared about it. Why?

He conversed with his partner, both of them tucked out of the snipers’ line of fire, in front of the teller cages on the southwest side of the lobby. They seemed to be arguing.

Bobby had the detonator, Lucas had said. Bobby wanted to blow up the building. Maybe that was all Bobby wanted, because he certainly didn’t seem interested in the large amount of cash due to arrive at 2:00
P.M
. He wanted to leave, and he wanted to leave
now.

Lucas murmured for a few minutes. Bobby interrupted, and Theresa heard him say, “—not the way it was supposed to go. My opinion counts, too—” before they lowered their voices once more.

Did the explosives have a timer? Perhaps Lucas planned to cut things too close for Bobby’s comfort?

“Are you okay?” Jessica Ludlow whispered to her.

“I guess.”

“I can’t believe he really killed Cherise.”

“Who was she?” Theresa asked. “What did she do here?”

Jessica shifted her little boy, now gnawing on a Pop-Tart; apparently his mother had found a way to extract his snacks and his cough medicine from her oversize purse. A juice box with a tiny white straw sat on the floor between them. Theresa felt like asking if she had a spare. “Cherise was a savings-bond teller. She was really nice, sort of took me under her wing when I first came here.”

“You worked together?”

“In the same department. I’m a secretary, not a teller, but Cherise and me would eat lunch together every day. I didn’t know anyone else here, and I’d talk her ear off. I talk a lot.”

“Did your husband join you?”

Jessica stroked her child’s hair, the skin on her fingers roughened and peeling slightly—she probably needed to go easier on the bleach while scrubbing her floors. “He usually worked through lunch. Or he had to go out with other bank examiners or executives in order to get acquainted with them. He was so busy, trying to learn everyone’s names and titles and, you know, sort of get on their good side right away.”

“I see.” Perhaps Mark Ludlow had been conscientiously trying to get a handle on his new job. Perhaps he had been a snob. “Had Cherise worked here long?”

“Yeah, about ten years.”

“Eleven,” Brad added. He sat with his back against the cool
marble. All three conversed without moving their gaze from the two robbers, watching for any sign of agitation. But Lucas and Bobby did not seem to care if they spoke among themselves. Perhaps they had larger concerns.

Bobby’s voice rose enough for them to hear: “Brian said—” Theresa wondered who that might be.

“Had Cherise always worked in Savings Bonds?” She intended the question for Brad, but Jessica answered.

“No, before that she was an administrative assistant to the vice president for public relations. She worked up in the fancy offices on the ninth floor.”

“How’d she get to be a teller?” Brad asked, his voice tinged with curiosity despite the circumstances. “Quite a switch from an admin assistant.”

“She was too outspoken, I guess. She wouldn’t call a mule a horse even for a sack of gold.”

“She sounds like a handful.” Theresa felt angry all over again that such a vital woman had been snuffed out so carelessly.

“Top dogs don’t care for that,” Brad groused. “You should see how they live up there—Karastan rugs, bone china coffee sets.”

“Our tax dollars at work, huh?”

“It belongs to the building,” Jessica clarified. “This is a historic landmark.”

“Of course.” Theresa had no interest in debating the ethics of executive perks. She cared only that the sound of their soft voices had made Ethan’s eyes close, and he dozed against his mother. She also wanted to know why Cherise had died, but no detail so far could explain that.

“Landmark, my ass,” Brad went on. “The first vice president’s
Picasso and his original Monet sketch and the Egyptian cartouche are all in storage on eight because he had to have new carpeting. The stuff being replaced was only a year and a half old.”

“There’s a firm line between the townies and the po’ folk here,” Jessica agreed.

“The vice pres for research isn’t as showy,” Brad admitted.

Jessica sniffed. “But his taste runs more to Thomas Kinkade.”

Theresa interrupted the watercooler talk. “Did Cherise resent that? Moving to Savings Bonds?”

“No, she liked it. She said it was real work, where she could see a result instead of a pile of useless memos designed to stroke her boss’s ego. Cherise was sort of a Communist.”

“Did she have any worries on her mind lately? Here at work, or in her personal life?”

“No. Her last boyfriend broke up with her just before I came, but she figured that was just as well…. Why?” Jessica turned from the robbers long enough to stare at Theresa. “You think she
knew
about this?”

“No, I don’t…. I’m just trying to figure out why she’s dead, her in particular.”

“Knowing Cherise,” Jessica said, sighing, “she probably refused to give him the money.”

“And it wasn’t even hers.” Brad shifted his legs, rubbing one knee.

“That’s what Lucas said,” Theresa told them. “But I don’t believe him, not the way he told it to me.”

Jessica brushed some dark flakes off her pants onto the marble tile. Ethan woke up enough to play with them, pushing the specks around to create a pattern. “What do you mean?”

“When he described robbing the teller cages, he spoke in the past tense. That’s consistent with describing an event from memory. But when he spoke about shooting her, he switched to present tense and said, ‘She waves the screwdriver’ around and ‘She starts to argue.’ That’s more consistent with a fabrication.”

Jessica patted her little boy’s back, furrows between her eyebrows. “Always?”

“Almost always. Especially when there’s a change in tense for only part of a story. The part that stands out is most likely untrue.”

“Wow.”

“It’s called forensic linguistics, analyzing the probable truth of people’s statements from the words they use.”

“But if you think he’s lying, does that mean someone else killed her?”

“No one else could have. I think he’s lying about
why.
”

They broke off as Lucas returned. Bobby stayed in the back, as usual.

“This is how it’s going to work, people. Listen up.” With his brisk manner, he could have been one of the SRT commanders. “Theresa’s going to wait at the door. The Fed cops will form a line outside to pass you the money, which you’re going to hand off to Brad and him to Missy and my roomy duffel bag. I will have Jessie and Ethan between me and them. If they try to come in, Bobby and I can shoot a bunch of you first. If they throw in tear gas, knockout gas, a smoke bomb, or put same in the bundles of cash, Bobby and I can shoot all of you before we’re incapacitated. If they try to pull one or two out, Bobby and I can shoot the rest of you. Do you understand that?”

No one nodded or spoke, but he did not press them.

“And though I know you all deserve a tip for your hard work today, no skimming. Don’t let a few bundles get pocketed before they make it to the end of the line. And you, Theresa.”

She felt as if a spotlight had picked her out in a dark room, blinding her with a sudden glare.

“You’re going to be my front man. My sights will be on you the whole time. If you go through that door and keep going, I’ll kill half the people in this room, starting with the security guards. I figure I can count on you, since you stood up for little Ethan there. Am I right?”

She nodded her head to confirm it. He had spared Paul, so perhaps he did not prefer to kill, but she had no doubt that Lucas would do so whenever he thought it prudent. The sight of Cherise’s body had taught her that.

The phone rang, piercing the stillness of the warm air. “That must be your buddy Chris.”

1:35
P.M
.

Across the street Patrick told Chris Cavanaugh everything he’d learned from Jack Cornell. The hostage negotiator listened. He did not mention Patrick’s earlier agitation or express any relief at Patrick’s current calm. He did ask about Paul.

“The doctor seems to think he’s going to die.”

Cavanaugh said, “You don’t have to stay here, you know. You can leave someone here in your place if you’d rather be at the hospital.”

Diplomatic as hell, Patrick thought. Cavanaugh knew he didn’t have to be there at all—Patrick was a flippin’ Homicide detective, not an SRT member, and surely the negotiator could work better without his emotions taking up space in the room. Yet he didn’t say that, nor even imply it.

Still, Patrick felt grateful. “No. Selfish, maybe, but I couldn’t stand sitting there next to a guy who’s out cold, without any idea what’s going on here. You talked to Parrish’s sister?”

“Yeah. She’s not in North Carolina anymore. She went army,
too, and is stationed out in New Mexico. She hasn’t seen her brother in five years; they write each other at Christmas, that’s about it. No surprises in the family history. Mom was a schoolteacher, Dad knocked her and the kids around regularly and then took off on Lucas’s fourteenth birthday.”

“Great guy. And this was in Atlanta?”

“Outside Columbia, South Carolina.” Cavanaugh’s pager made a buzzing sound.

Patrick waited while Cavanaugh took his phone call. After Cavanaugh’s quick discussion of foreign rights and hardback editions, Patrick asked him, “What’s his plan for getting away? He
must
have a plan.”

“Oh, yeah. Every vibe from this guy says he has a plan. Unfortunately, he’s really good at keeping it to himself. I need another phone conversation before this shipment exchange happens. If he’ll talk about his ideas for a getaway, I can make him see how unrealistic they are.”

“Look, something else keeps sticking out. Bobby seems to believe that his brother is dead.”

“He could mean dead to
him.
Didn’t the brother turn him in?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know if Bobby knows that.” Patrick patted his shirt pocket but didn’t bother to remove the pack of cigarettes from it. “I can ask the brother.”

“It’s interesting. It could be the only psychological advantage we can get. Neither of them has anyone else we could use for leverage, no close family, no job, no political agenda. And it might be a way to drive a wedge between Bobby and Lucas if we need to.”

“Bobby will put family over friends.”

“Exactly. If they’re going to take the money and run, fine. But
if they’re going to take some hostages with them—and they’d be insane not to—then we have to stop them before they reach the curb.” He watched the monitor, where Lucas slowly herded his captives toward the front of the lobby. “They’re getting ready to receive the money shipment. Maybe now I can get Bobby on the phone.”

“He’s never let us talk to Bobby before,” Patrick observed.

“We’ve never asked to, and Bobby has expressed his opinion throughout. He’s no flunky.”

“In that case there’s something else you should know.” Patrick scanned the area for Jason and didn’t see him. “I know we’re not supposed to tell you everything, but if you do happen to get Bobby on the phone and he really does believe that his brother is dead…”

“What is it, Detective?”

“His brother—Eric—is here. He was getting off work at the airport, and I thought he might come in handy.”

Cavanaugh absorbed this. “We usually try not to do that. I know in old movies they always bring the beloved mother or long-suffering wife in to talk the guy down, but in real life that backfires more often than not. Hostage takers tend to blame everyone else for their troubles, and the people closest to them most of all.”

“I know that.”

“However, when Lucas hit Theresa, he said that Bobby wants to use the RDX on the building because he blames the government for losing his family. If you’re right and he really does believe that his brother is dead, discovering that he’s not could change everything.”

“We’ve got nothing else,” Patrick reminded him. “Lucas doesn’t
seem to
have
an Achilles’ heel. At least Bobby has this family hang-up. We could use it to distract him at an opportune moment, if nothing else.”

“I’ll keep it in mind. Otherwise we’ll have to continue doing what we always do.” Cavanaugh picked up the receiver and punched a few buttons. “We pick our way through the minefield wearing a blindfold, using nothing but a toothpick and some chewing gum.”

They watched the TV screen. Lucas apparently did not want to give up his surveillance of the street and called to Bobby, who approached the phone. The stocky blond adjusted the position of the M4 carbine, finally tucking the butt onto his hip so that he could keep his finger on the trigger while leaving his left hand free.

They waited, letting the phone ring. Patrick felt as if they were trying to tempt a smallmouth bass by jiggling the hook.

“Hello?” Bobby said at last.

Cavanaugh introduced himself again, then asked, “This is Bobby Moyers, right?” as if he didn’t know.

Bobby ignored the question. “Is the money here?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, where is—”

“The truck is tied up in the traffic around the convention center. You know, that luncheon for the secretary of state. It will just be a few more minutes. If you stay on the line, I can keep you up to date.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I wanted to ask you something anyway—you said you don’t trust cops. I need to ask why, because if we’re all going to go home today without having shed any more blood, we need to establish
a little trust between you and me, at least in some areas. You see what I mean?”

“Trust really isn’t an option here,
Chris.
”

“Why not?”

“You killed my family. I mean the Cleveland Police Department killed my family.”

“No one told me about this.” His voice dripped with sincerity and concern. Not for the first time, Patrick wondered how he did it. He
had
to feel like crawling through the wires and choking the life out of the scumbag. “How did it happen?”

Bobby didn’t waste time with sarcastic preambles as Lucas would have. “First of all, my dad had to skip town when I was a kid because you guys were going to arrest him for robbing a jewelry store, which he didn’t do. It was some other guy who lived on the same street and kinda resembled my father. So he had to leave town and never come back.”

“I suppose that’s what Mommy told him,” Patrick muttered. Cavanaugh glared at him, and he shut up.

“Then you guys could barely get your charges to stick the first time, so you sent me as far away for as long as you could on a probation violation.” He made buying drugs sound akin to jaywalking, and in his mind it probably was. “My mother had a heart attack after a month. You put my mother in her grave over a damn
probation violation.
”

Bobby sounded agitated, and on the monitor they could see him pacing back and forth in front of the reception desk. They did not want a hostage taker agitated. Cavanaugh’s voice seemed to walk a precipice, sympathetic without falling over the edge into a valley of schmaltz. “That must have been very hard on you.”

“I couldn’t even go to her funeral.”

“What about your brother?”

A pause. “My brother turned me in. He was the one who called you guys.”

Cavanaugh waited. On the screen Bobby had stopped pacing, and now he leaned on the desk, hanging his head as if worn out. Jason returned and took a seat but did not speak.

“I hated him when they sent me to Atlanta.”

“Do you still hate him?”

“How could I? He was right. I was destroying our mother—her hair went gray during my first term. She worried about me day and night. I would have killed her eventually if you guys hadn’t beaten me to it. He was right.”

“So now you think he did the right thing?”

“He tried to protect Mom. I can’t blame him for that. But I never got a chance to tell him, because you bastards killed him, too.”

Cavanaugh exchanged a frown with Patrick. “What do you mean by that?”

“What do you think I mean? He got picked up on a DUI charge, and two guys in the holding cell with him beat him to death. The guards threw him in with the biggest psychos they could find and then looked the other way.”

“When did this happen?”

“A few weeks after you sent me to Atlanta.”

“Your brother was arrested for DUI?”

“My brother never drove drunk in his life—the jail cops wanted to get back at me, and I’d been sent out of reach. So they took the only person I had left.”

Patrick retreated between the stacks and pulled out his Nextel.
He had already called Records for a criminal history on Eric Moyers—clean—but wanted to double-check. He listened to Cavanaugh and Bobby’s conversation while he waited.

“How did you find out about this?”

“A buddy of mine, the guy who drove my car down to Atlanta and put it into storage for me—he told me.”

“What’s your friend’s name?”

“I’m not going to tell you! You’d go and harass him, too. Forget it, he’s got nothing to do with this. What?” He spoke this last word away from the receiver, but loudly, apparently shouting to Lucas. The response sounded like a distant murmur to Patrick. “Lucas wants to know if the truck is here yet.”

Cavanaugh looked at Jason, who nodded a yes.

“It will pull up any minute now—that’s why you need to stay on the line with me. You obviously feel very bad about your mother and brother.”

“I’m alone now. How would you feel if I came into your house tonight and took out everyone but you?”

“At the moment I’m very confused, though, because as far as I know, your brother is not dead.”

“Yeah, sure. Did you wave your hands over his grave and bring him back to life?”

“Have you been to his grave?”

“No-o-o.”

“Is there any chance your friend was mistaken?”

“You’re just playing with my head. You think I don’t know that? I should believe you over a friend? You’d tell me the sky was orange if it made me toss down my guns and let your sniper take me out.”

“What if I could let you talk to your brother? That would show you that I’m not lying, right, that I can be trusted?”

“What are you going to do, hold one of those séance things?”

“Your brother is not dead, Bobby.”

“Sure.”

“I know this for a fact. One of our officers interviewed him this morning. He works for Continental Airlines, right?”

A pause. Bobby started pacing again, within the length of the phone cord, back and forth, back and forth. He had room, since Lucas had moved their hostages away from the desk.

Patrick retook his seat. “Records has nothing on Eric Moyers. No arrest for DUI. Neither does Lakewood. They’re checking the other suburbs as well.”

“Bobby? Your brother was never arrested for DUI. I don’t know why your friend told you that. He must have gotten Eric confused with someone else.”

“He knew who my
brother
was.”

“Well, so do we, and he’s very much alive and well. More than that, he’s here with us, in the library across the street from you. If I get him on the phone, then you’ll have to admit that I told the truth, right? That if I say I can get something to happen, then I can. Right?”

It didn’t take a Ph.D. to see where Cavanaugh was heading. He needed Bobby and Lucas to believe that they could come out, give up, and not be killed or even mistreated. And they wouldn’t do that unless they trusted him.

“Sure,” Bobby said at last. “Go ahead, get him on the phone.”

“Okay. It will take a few minutes. He’s downstairs.”

“Is that truck here yet?”

“I don’t see it.” Of course he didn’t, unless he could see through stone walls.

“Then we got time.”

He covered the mouthpiece and whispered to Patrick, “Go get him.”

Patrick returned in four minutes with Eric Moyers in tow. The man seemed considerably less enthusiastic about the idea than his brother had. “What am I supposed to say to him?”

“Just tell him you’re not dead,” Cavanaugh said. “Otherwise just keep it neutral and calm. Don’t be judgmental or tell him he’s screwed up.”

“Even though he has.”

“But we’re trying to make him calm and sentimental here, right? Don’t get drawn into an argument. I’ll be right here listening to every word, but we’re not going to be on speakerphone, in case you and I need to consult. Are you ready?”

Moyers couldn’t have looked gloomier if he had been in line for the guillotine. “I suppose.”

“Bobby? I have your brother here.”

“Sure you do.”

Cavanaugh plugged a second receiver into his console and handed it to Eric Moyers. He put it to his ear, carefully, as if he might need to pull it away again in a hurry. “Bobby?”

“Is this supposed to be Eric?”

“It
is
Eric, Bobby. I don’t know why you think I’m dead, but I’m not.” No answer. He looked at Cavanaugh, who made a rolling motion with one finger—
keep it going.
“I see you’re in a jam over there. I want to help you out of it.”

“I’ll just bet you do.”

Eric Moyers glanced at Cavanaugh again. The hostage negotiator said, “Talk about something only you would know.”

“Bobby, listen to me a minute,” Eric tried. “For Mom’s sake.”

“Don’t say a word about my mother!
You cops will stoop to anything to blast me out of here! I don’t know who you are, pal, but you’re not my brother Eric, so get off the phone and put Cavanaugh back on so I can tell him to go to hell.”

“Bobby, it’s
me.
”

“You don’t sound anything like Eric.”

Calm and nonjudgmental had been thrown out. “I have a cold, you idiot!”

“Call back when the truck is here,” Bobby said. A clicking sound came from the phone’s speaker.

“Did he hang up?” Eric Moyers asked. “I can’t say I’m surprised. Listening never was a specialty of Bobby’s.”

Cavanaugh rolled his head from side to side, stretching neck muscles. “It was worth a try. Maybe he’ll think about it. In the meantime I can’t stall them about the money anymore, and there’s no reason to try. There is the possibility that he’s telling the truth, that they’ll just take it and go.”