Takeover - Lisa Black [52]
“It’s slim.”
“Everything we have is slim.” She could not keep the bitterness from her voice.
“Good point. Okay, Jason, call whoever you have to call to get Parrish’s military history. I’ll try to keep him occupied talking about Cherise.”
Theresa’s Nextel rang. The caller ID read OLIVER TOX. She moved to the window seat facing Superior and cupped the tiny phone with her hand, to keep from disturbing the negotiations.
“Here’s the thing,” he said without preamble. “The dirt from your victim’s shoulder?”
“Yeah?”
“Vaseline. With cyclotrimethylene trinitramine.”
The vast library felt airless all of a sudden. “Shit.”
“Yep. Whatever the hell you’ve gotten yourself into down there, don’t bring it back here.”
She snapped her phone shut. Apollo and Hyacinthus rested stiffly in their painting overhead, aware that Hyacinthus would die from a misdirected discus. His lifeblood would drain out at the feet of someone who loved him.
Who the hell decided to put that on the library wall?
She went back to the reading table, where the conversation between hostage taker and hostage negotiator continued. “I’ll pick one from the middle of the row this time,” Lucas was saying, “if I don’t see that car outside the door in five minutes.”
“What’s your hurry? I thought you wanted more money,” Cavanaugh pointed out.
“I did. But I’ve decided I can live with what I’ve got. I’m tired of this place, and I need a drink. I want my car, and I want to get out of here.”
The scribe, Irene, made a note, which Theresa read over the girl’s shoulder. “Drinks?”
“This guy goes back and forth,” Frank groused.
Cavanaugh said into the phone, “I thought it was Bobby’s car.”
“You’re nitpicking, Chris. Does that mean you’re out of ideas?”
“I’ll be happy to give you the car, Lucas. But you can’t take any of those innocent people away in it.”
“There you go with the ‘innocent’ bit again.” The robber paused, perhaps to think. “Tell you what. The hostages will walk to the car with us but won’t get in. That will protect us from the snipers, at least until we drive away. Then they’ll riddle us with bullets, like Bonnie and Clyde or something, but it will just be us criminals.”
“That doesn’t sound like a good plan for you two.”
“Hardly your problem, is it?”
“It is. I don’t want you to die any more than I want one of the bank employees to die. If we can come to some agreement, some conditions under which you’d turn yourselves in, then we could be sure to avoid the whole ‘riddled with bullets’ thing.”
Bobby said something in the background.
“The bullets sound better than trusting you cops, that’s what Bobby thinks.”
“What do you think?”
“Trying to create a difference of opinion over here? It’s not going to work. We’re a team, me and Bobby.”
“Then decide as a team. Under what conditions would you consider letting those people go and turning yourselves in?”
Lucas did not hesitate. “The team answers: None. We are driving away from here under our own power, no matter what. So let’s get back to the central point, because I think we’ve digressed. I want the car outside, keys in, engine running, in ten minutes.”
“Can’t do it. Not like this.”
“The middle of the line this time. I’m thinking Brad. I don’t really like Brad. He looks like the kind of pencil-necked little geek who cashes postdated checks a day early just to watch them bounce.”
“I don’t cash checks!” they heard the young man’s distant protest. “I’m just a tour guide!”
Appropriating Jason’s binoculars, Theresa could see the left half of Brad and his crisp white shirt. He held his hands up to his shoulders, palms out, and even without high resolution she could see the look of horror on his face as the barrel of Lucas’s gun came to rest a few inches from his nose.
Paul sat no more than five feet away. He would not let Lucas shoot another hostage. Theresa knew that. He would die, and they would not be married. This did not surprise her. She could be a good mother, a good daughter, a good employee, and be happy in those