State of Siege - Tom Clancy [64]
"Soon," Harleigh said. "They'll get us out. Just sit back and shut your eyes. Try and relax."
Harleigh's father had once told her and her brother that if they were ever in a situation like this, the important thing was to stay centered. Invisible. Count the seconds, he'd said, not the minutes or the hours. The longer a hostage crisis went on, the better the chance for a negotiated settlement. The better the chance for survival. If there were an opportunity to escape, she had to use common sense. The question she had to ask herself was not, Is there a chance I'll make it? The question was, Is there a chance I won't make it? If the answer was yes, it was better to stay where you were. He'd also told her to avoid eye contact wherever possible. That would humanize her to her captors. It would remind them that she was one of the people they hated. She should also say nothing, in case it was the wrong thing. Above all, she was supposed to relax. Think happy thoughts, just like they did in two of her favorite musicals, Peter Pan and The Sound of Music.
"Uura?" Harleigh said.
Laura didn't seem to have heard. "Laura, you have to listen to me." She wasn't hearing anything. The young woman had slipped into some kind of weird state. Her eyes were staring and her lips were pressed tight.
The two men had reached the top of the stairs. On Harleigh's other side, Barbara Mathis was the opposite of Laura, taut as a violin string. She was sneering in a way that Harleigh knew well. Harleigh felt like the statue at the Justice Department. Only instead of the scales of justice she was between emotional extremes.
Suddenly, Laura shot from her seat. Harleigh was still holding the girl's hand.
"Why are you doing this to us?" Laura shrieked as she stood there. "I want you to stop it now!" Harleigh tugged gently on her hand "Laura, don't do The leader of the gang was standing halfway up the steps. He turned and glared at the girls. Ms. Dom was sitting three seats away. She rose slowly but remained behind her seat. "Laura, sit down, was she said firmly. "No," Laura pulled away from Harleigh. "I can't stay here!" she screamed, and ran around the table. She was headed toward the door on the other side of the chamber, the door the leader had been guarding.
The leader started down the stairs as Laura ran across the carpeted floor. Ms. Dorn ran after Laura, shouting for her to come back. The man who'd been standing on the other side of the room, guarding the other door, left his post and ran after the teacher. The Australian man at the top of the stairs had stopped and was looking down at them. Everyone was watching Laura as the leader, Ms. Dom, and the other man all reached the door. The other man grabbed Ms. Dom around the waist, pulled her back, swung her around, and literally flung her on the floor. The leader reached the door as Laura was pulling it open. He threw his shoulder into it, closing it, and pushed Laura back. The girl stumbled, fell, got up, and rushed toward the stairs. She was still shrieking.
The door isn't locked.
The thought hit Harleigh like a bright light. Of course it wasn't locked. The men had opened the doors and they didn't have the keys to lock them.
They'd opened the door Laura had run toward, and they'd opened the door behind Harleigh. Harleigh had watched them do it. They'd spent some time putting equipment into the hallway down here. The door that was about twenty feet behind where Harleigh and Barbara were sitting. The door the man had just run from in order to catch Laura.
The door no one was guarding.
The leader was running after Laura. Ms. Dom had had the wind knocked from her but was fighting with the man who'd thrown her down. The pressure must have gotten to her; the music teacher wasn't thinking. But Harleigh was, clearly and confidently. She was thinking not only of getting out and saving herself, but of bringing what "Uncle" Bob Herbert called "intel" to the outside. The teenager turned slowly and stole