Takeover - Lisa Black [17]
Apparently he took her silence for rebuke and explained, “Negotiations can go on for hours, sometimes days. It’s very important that everyone, including me, be comfortable. We eat, we stay hydrated, we take breaks. You’ll see how it goes.”
This disturbed her even more. What happened to home in time for dinner?
“Sit down,” Frank told her, collecting a straight-backed chair for her. “You look hot.”
She tried, unsuccessfully, not to glare at him and sat. So did Frank, Jason, and, after a brief hesitation, Ms. Elliott.
Cavanaugh, of course, sat at the head. “How’s the perimeter?”
Jason answered him. “SRT has traffic diverted. It doesn’t help that Superior is about the busiest street in Cleveland these days, since so many stores closed on Euclid. We’ve got a lot of whining middle-management types at each roadblock. We’ve corralled the press in front of the library, where the heat might convince most of them to leave. Phone service going into the Fed lobby has been shut off, except for the reception desk, because we’ll use that.”
They sounded so matter-of-fact. As difficult as it was for Theresa to believe, this was a rather routine event for everyone except her. They knew what to do, because they followed the same process for each event.
That should have comforted her, but it didn’t. This wasn’t the same as every other hostage incident. This was Paul.
“Patrick,” Cavanaugh said to the detective. “You worked that domestic at Riverview last month, right? Your partner’s in there?”
Frank nodded and summarized the early-morning murder of Mark Ludlow, adding that Paul had been present to interview the man’s coworkers when the hostage situation developed.
Cavanaugh said nothing to that, offered no consolation or words of encouragement, but Theresa did not expect him to. Cop machismo would not allow it. When you work with sharks, you don’t bleed in the water.
“Snipers are in place?”
Jason said, “We’ve got five, one on the street and four on different floors here. But there’s a problem.”
Cavanaugh took in the room once more, the outside light bouncing weirdly off his brown eyes. “The windows don’t open.”
“Nope.”
“Ms. Elliott?”
Theresa had almost forgotten that the woman was there. But then librarians were good at walking softly, and Ms. Elliott seemed versed in camouflage; her tailored suit gave only the slightest hint of what was, to judge from her shapely calves, an outstanding figure. No sense distracting male readers from their tomes. But even the resourceful librarian seemed perplexed. “I’m sorry?”
“Are there any windows in this building that open?”
“No. None.”
Theresa hated buildings like that—something to do with mild claustrophobia—but wondered why SRT snipers would show such concern for damaging library windows.
“The books need to be kept at a constant humidity,” the librarian explained. “Some are quite old. In our Rare and Antique Books section, we have some manuscripts that are two hundred and fifty years old and even in sealed display cases—I’m sorry, I’m digressing.”
“That’s all right.” Cavanaugh spoke warmly, but Theresa could see that Ms. Elliott was made of stern stuff and rather immune to dimples.
“It’s also a safety issue, since we’re open to the public every day but Sunday and holidays. But—”
Theresa broke in. “What about it? Don’t snipers go on the roof, anyway?”
“They’re too visible on a roof, silhouetted against the sky. They prefer windows, but then we have to open up every window in the building so that their positions are not obvious. They’ll just have to figure something out.”
“There are cutouts on the roof,” Peggy Elliott said. She spoke reluctantly, with a trace of guilt for suggesting a way to use her building of knowledge for violent purposes. “The roof is ringed with a short wall. It has slots at intervals, for rain and snow drainage.”
“Thank you. Jason, SRT has probably already found those,