Takeover (23 page)

However, that they were even considering jail time represented a huge concession. The brother card might actually work.

“I don’t know what kind of sentence the judge will require, Bobby. As I said, that’s not up to me. But I know what kind of sentence you’ll get if anyone else dies today, and you won’t like it better.” Cavanaugh spoke almost gently. He did not wish to threaten, his voice said. Merely inform.

They waited while Bobby went back to Lucas for another conference.

“I still can’t believe Lucas would do this,” Jason grumbled.

“I wouldn’t have either,” Patrick said, “but his sister said that Lucas learned loyalty from his mother—she’d put up with anything to keep her husband, her loved ones. Maybe he’ll act out that lesson. Or maybe it’s like you said,” he added to Cavanaugh, “an out, a way for him to give up and still save face.”

Jason did not seem reassured. “But Lucas has been the leader all this time. He’s called all the shots.”

“Or he’s just the spokesman,” Cavanaugh pointed out. “Like me.”

“He insisted on staying to get the money shipment. Bobby didn’t want to.”

Patrick’s head swam with the what-ifs and maybes. He got into other people’s heads all day long, trying to understand what skeletons they didn’t want the cops to dig up—how they broke into the apartment, why they murdered their wife. But never for so many hours at one stretch. Besides, none of their speculation seemed to help; they still wound up simply watching what the robbers did and then reacting as best they could.

“Okay.” Bobby’s voice startled them all. “We can deal on this. But we have some conditions.”

“Let’s talk about them.”

“I’m putting Lucas back on. He’s better at this.”

The two robbers changed places, careful as always not to be in sniper range at the same time.

“I don’t believe you, Chris,” he said without preamble. “I think you’re lying—”

“I’m not.”

“—but I know how important family is to Bobby. That’s all he ever talked about in therapy, so believe me, I know.”

Patrick glanced at Jason and raised his eyebrows. Irene made a note. The prison in Atlanta would have records of which programs the inmates attended. Perhaps this solved the mystery of where Bobby and Lucas had met—a group-therapy session, each revealing his secret dreams and goals.

Lucas, meanwhile, continued. “I’m willing to go along with this. You bring Bobby’s brother over here—and by you, I mean
you,
Chris, no one else—and he will lay down his arms and leave with you.”

“What about you?”

“I stay here. I’m happy for Bobby if this is the choice he wants, but I’m not giving up my freedom for it.”

“What about all those bank employees?”

“They stay with me.”

Patrick had not expected this, but it made sense. Lucas could respect his friend’s wishes without giving himself up. He’d still have the hostages and the money.

“That might work,” Cavanaugh said, though Jason frowned and shook his head. “However, I’ve been assuring your safety all this time—are you going to assure mine?”

“Why would I shoot you, Chris? Provided you’re telling us the truth and this really
is
Bobby’s brother.”

“He is. But this is a highly unusual undertaking. We don’t normally make piecemeal deals like this—”

“You’d be down one robber without any bloodshed. How is that bad for you?”

He was correct, of course—so correct that it made Patrick nervous. The man needed to get a large amount of money out of a city
block filled with trigger-happy cops, and he seemed
too
cooperative about it.

Cavanaugh proceeded with caution. “I think this plan can work, and I’m willing to escort Eric Moyers across the street to talk to Bobby. But I’m concerned about the rest of the bank employees. That’s a lot of people for you to handle by yourself.”

“That almost sounds like a challenge, Chris. I’m not worried about it. I can always tie them up, like the guards.”

Jason continued to shake his head. “The guards are tied to the teller cages, the same place we think Lucas set the explosives. That’s got to be his exit strategy—he fills the cages with hostages and then walks out with the detonator. We let him go or they get blown up.”

Cavanaugh argued, “That would last for about sixty seconds before our team got in there and freed them all.”

“With the roads cleared he could be on I-90 in sixty seconds.”

The negotiator nodded, then pressed the “talk” button on the console. “I mean this would be a good time to cut some of them loose. As a show of good faith.”

“I won’t shoot you when you show up. That should be good enough faith for you.”

They haggled a while longer but finally settled on a plan. Cavanaugh and Eric Moyers would walk across the street and converse with Bobby Moyers outside the East Sixth Street entrance. If satisfied, Bobby would leave with them, along with four hostages of Lucas’s choosing. They had ten minutes.

3:14
P.M
.

Theresa watched these negotiations closely while listening with half an ear to Jessica Ludlow. Like a child in class, the young woman took advantage of the lull in their captors’ attention. “At least I found a decent day-care situation for Ethan. Our neighbor recommended her, and she’s really good, feeds them lunch and everything, but she’s real firm on not taking any sick kids, so when he looked sniffly today, she said he couldn’t stay.”

Lucas and Bobby conferred over Cavanaugh’s offer. She expected Lucas to refuse it, but he had deferred to Bobby’s wishes. This didn’t make sense to her. Lucas had been so strong-minded all day…. Had he lost his nerve with the end in sight, figured out that it would not, could not, end well for him? Or had he been deferring to Bobby all along?

“I wasn’t real big on working at all. I’d rather be home with him. I had a part-time job in Atlanta, and that was perfect—an hour or two three times a week, enough to get me out of the house and
bring in a little extra money, but not enough for Ethan to really miss me.”

Bobby returned to the phone, then handed it over to Lucas. Now Theresa could hear every word, but they still did not make sense. Why would Lucas agree to this? Pulling off an escape with the two of them would have been extremely difficult; by himself, impossible.

Unless he had never intended to escape.

“But Mark insisted. He insisted on a lot of things. He assumed because I was born in Georgia that I was some sort of barefoot high school dropout.” She measured out a spoonful of cherry-flavored cough syrup for Ethan to take and rubbed his back. “It’s okay, honey. We’ll see Daddy again soon. Do you want another fruit roll?”

“I can’t believe this. He’s going to come here!” Theresa exclaimed softly.

“Who?” Jessica Ludlow asked.

“The hostage negotiator. He’s going to walk Bobby’s brother over here. I can’t believe that.”

“Why not?”

“They’re not supposed to get involved—the negotiators, I mean. They always stay on the phone. He’s not supposed to put anyone at risk, even himself, and
definitely
not a civilian like Bobby’s brother.” According to his book’s table of contents, Cavanaugh had devoted an entire chapter to the topic of acceptable risk. Had he become desperate for a solution? Or did he know something she didn’t, such as when the explosives were due to go off—and that the answer was
soon.

The younger woman pulled her child closer, letting him smear her sleeve with his thin sheet of strawberry gel. “Is something bad going to happen?”

Theresa tried to sound more positive for the girl’s sake. “No, it will work. Cavanaugh must believe it can save us or he wouldn’t do it.” The man had his record to think about.

“They’re going to give up?” Jessica asked.

“Only Bobby. Lucas isn’t the type to give up.” But he was the type to cut his losses. Perhaps he realized that he couldn’t fight Bobby and the cops both and so gave in to his partner’s wishes. “I wonder what they’ll do about the car.”

“What about it?”

“It’s Bobby’s car, and he made a pretty big deal about it. But Lucas will need it to escape.” She also wondered what they would do about the explosives.

“What did you say, Theresa?” Lucas’s voice cut through the air like a deadly missile. “I don’t like being discussed behind my back.”

“You said you’d release four people when Bobby leaves. Let Jessica and the baby be among them.”

“What about me?” Missy asked. “I have a baby, too.”

Lucas stood in front of Theresa, giving her the considering look she had learned to recognize. “Interesting, Theresa. You don’t ask for yourself, only for someone else. Very altruistic.”

Brad said, “What is this, women and children first? What kind of last-millennium shit is that?”

Lucas pivoted so that the barrel of the automatic rifle pointed at Brad. “You’re not much of a gentleman, are you, Brad?”

“Why does a kid have more of a right to life than an adult? Or some bitch more than me?”

How
do
you decide who lives and who dies? Had Cavanaugh decided? Had his answer prompted this new strategy?

“Let me go.” Brad would not give up, and, Theresa admitted to herself, why should he? “Just. Let. Me. Go.”

Lucas raised his hand. “How many people think I should ship Brad out of here if only so we won’t have to listen to him whine anymore?”

No one moved. The other people in the lobby had been through too much that day to joke about anything.

“Then listen up. You’re all staying. I’m going to get rid of the three goons tied to the teller cages over there, bless their little hearts.” He gestured toward the three security guards. “They’re going to suffocate if they can’t lower their arms soon anyway. And Theresa.”

She started. “Why me?”

“I have my reasons. You can thank me later.” He reached down and, with a grip like a screw clamp, pulled her to her feet in one motion. “But I need your help on something first.”

Brad continued to protest. “Come
on
!”

“Stop whining, Brad. And don’t nobody think that you can use this as a diversion. You move out of line, you get shot.”

Theresa couldn’t guess Lucas’s reasoning. He seemed to want to remove all law-enforcement personnel from the room. Did he think they—three trussed-up security guards and a science nerd—could overpower him, once left without Bobby?

He took the precaution of tie-wrapping her hands behind her
back. Though this changed very little about the situation—she still could not run without getting shot—it made her feel more vulnerable than she would have believed possible. He also slung the automatic rifle over a shoulder and pulled one of the guards’ handguns from the duffel bag; the pistol pressed easily into her spine. Then he walked her over to the small glass door, still propped open, and positioned them at an angle so that both the wall and her body blocked him from gunfire. He could see out, over her shoulder. A slight turn of his head and he could keep track of the hostages. Then Bobby skittered to the opposite side of the door, mirroring them.

No one appeared in the street outside, only wavering mirages of heat, shimmering up from the asphalt.

Cavanaugh’s book prohibited bringing family members to the scene. Would they have a cop playing Eric’s role? If so, he would never fool the man’s own brother—unless Cavanaugh only intended to get close enough to get a good shot at Bobby. The robber had kept himself out of the snipers’ scopes all day, and this ploy would draw him into the open, with Lucas nearby, and only her body blocking him from a kill shot. She began to tremble.

“What’s the matter, Theresa?”

“I’m scared.”

“Why?”

“I’m afraid they’re going to shoot at you and hit me.”

His left arm slipped around her waist, and his hips and thighs pressed against her rear end. Her bound hands were caught between them, the plastic straps biting into her flesh. He rested his chin on her shoulder, lips next to her ear. “That’s why we’re going to stick together, so close that they won’t even try. You don’t mind,
do you? I mean, about me being so close. I don’t expect you to be too happy about facing the snipers.”

Bobby rested his back against the cool marble wall. “You shouldn’t be huggin’ up some other girl.”

They sounded relaxed for two guys about to take on three different police agencies, but she could feel the tension ripple through every muscle in Lucas’s body.

“This isn’t huggin’. This is self-preservation.”

“Call it what you like, brother. I ain’t the one you’re going to be explaining it to.”

From the corner of her eye, she watched the row of hostages, but no one moved. They had nowhere to go anyway—any movement toward the employee lobby would be noisy and immediately obvious, and there was no other way out. Besides, Lucas switched his gaze between them and the street every half a second. She could feel each swipe as his chin brushed her hair.

Bobby held his automatic rifle pointed down, the folding barrel resting against his chest. Tiny glints of deep red speckled the butt. She kept her voice very low. “Is that what you beat Mark Ludlow to death with?”

Lucas’s arm tightened.

Bobby scowled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, lady.”

“He had two types of injuries—a long, rounded indentation, probably from the barrel when you swung the rifle like a bat, and an oval shape just like the flat end of that rifle stock.”

“What are you doing, Theresa?” Lucas asked her, his breath warming her ear.

“I still don’t understand why. Did he tell you about the money shipment? Give you the layout of the building? Obviously he didn’t
provide you with any special access, or you wouldn’t have spent the whole day stuck in the lobby. What did he have that you wanted?”

The very ends of Bobby’s mouth turned up, though his eyes remained cool. “That’s a good question, lady. I wish I had a good answer.”

She pondered that opaque response for a split second, getting nowhere. “Or did you screw up and kill him before he could tell you what you needed to know? I saw his body—he didn’t suffer any physical question-and-answer session. Is that why you seem to have been making it up as you went along?”

“That’s where you’re wrong. This day has gone exactly according to plan.”

That did not sound good.

How could Bobby have planned for his brother to be alive? Only if he knew all along that his brother wasn’t really dead—but why the charade? If he wanted to see his brother, there was nothing to stop him from showing up on his doorstep. Eric Moyers had said he’d changed his address and phone, but surely some old friend or relative could have clued Bobby in.

Unless Eric Moyers was part of this plot and his appearance part of what the cops had wondered about all day—the robbers’ exit strategy. Though one of the cardinal rules of hostage situations was
never
to bring family members to the scene, these two might not know that. It happened on TV all the time.

Either way, it seemed clear to her that Bobby Moyers had expected Cavanaugh to produce Eric and that Bobby had no intention of giving up afterward.

Cavanaugh was about to walk into a trap and bring a possibly innocent civilian along with him. A civilian—or a reinforcement?

She couldn’t warn Cavanaugh. She didn’t even know if she was right.

Sunlight slanted off one of the glass doors across the street as it opened. A young man in fatigues, rifle in hand, stepped out and held the door open. Cavanaugh and Eric Moyers filed out.

Cavanaugh wore the same shirt and pants she’d seen him in earlier, but a bulletproof vest covered his chest. They had put one on Eric Moyers, too. They must have been sweating in those, for all the good it would do. Even Theresa could squeeze off a head shot at this range.

“Here they come,” Lucas said.

Bobby said nothing. He seemed suspiciously unsurprised at his brother’s existence.

Theresa let her gaze roam the street without turning her head. Did a sniper have her in his sights? Trying to leave the doorway would get her a bullet through the spine, and cops and robbers alike would assume she had tried to escape, instead of tried to warn them away from the subterfuge about to take place. She looked up at the sixth floor. Surely Frank stood at the telescope, though she saw only a row of dark holes. The sun had shifted to the west.

Despite the heat, Eric Moyers’s skin shone a pasty white. He had to be terrified. Agreeing to walk across the street and talk to his brother probably didn’t sound so bad until he stepped out in front of all the guns, glanced at the barricades demarcating the safe areas from the unsafe ones, and noticed that while the hum of the city went on around them, East Sixth remained deathly silent.

I hope you’re watching, Frank.
She slowly shook her head in a one-inch arc.

“Hold still,” Lucas hissed.

Cavanaugh and Eric Moyers stepped off the curb and into the waves of heat rising from the pavement. Bobby pushed on the metal frame of the door closest to him.

Behind them Ethan let out a laugh, his high-pitched giggle bouncing off the walls.

Cavanaugh and Moyers reached the middle of the street. The negotiator spoke. “Bobby, we’re here. Come on out.”

I have to warn them. I’ll have to scream, and quickly. But if I take a deep breath, Lucas will know.

If she could even get a deep breath, he held her so tightly. She began to suck in air, slowly, steadily.

Bobby pushed the door completely open.

Now.
“Don’t—”

Lucas’s hand covered her mouth, pulling her head back against his shoulder.
Damn
,
he was fast!

She wriggled, more to keep him from slicing the insides of her lips against her teeth than to reattempt her plan. She needed only a split second to shout a warning, but the more she twisted, the tighter he held her.

On the other side of the glass, Cavanaugh waited with Eric Moyers in the street while Bobby crossed the sidewalk. Both men watched him; Cavanaugh gave no indication of noticing her struggle just inside the door.

“That’s close enough, Cavanaugh,” Bobby said to him. “Hands up, and turn around in a circle. I want to see that you’re not armed.”

She watched Cavanaugh turn slowly, fingers splayed above his head. Defenseless, unless he had a handgun underneath the bulletproof vest.

Bobby stood about eight feet from them, blatantly armed to the teeth. “Okay. You can put your hands down, but don’t come any closer.”

Eric Moyers spoke. “Hi, Bobby.”

From behind him she watched Bobby cock his head. “It don’t sound like you, bro.”

“I
told
you I have a cold.”

“What are you doing alive?”

“Why would I be dead? Who told you that anyway?”

Bobby’s shoulders slumped. The hand holding the gun fell to his side. He began to say that it didn’t matter, but then his voice trailed off and he put his other hand to his eyes.

Cavanaugh took the moment to glance her way, but she couldn’t even shake her head in Lucas’s viselike grip. Perhaps he saw the panic in her eyes, because he opened his mouth to speak, possibly to tell Lucas to let her go, before realizing the futility of it. Talking to Lucas all day had proved futile. Cavanaugh could not help her, and she could not warn him.