Takeover - Lisa Black [54]
“Are you on speakerphone, Lucas?”
“Why, yes, Chris. I kind of need my hands free at the moment.”
“Can you pick up? I need to talk to just you.”
Theresa saw Lucas hesitate, glance at the phone, consider his options. Perhaps curiosity won out.
Into the receiver he said, “Trying to cut Bobby out?”
“No, no. I don’t care if Bobby’s in on this conversation, but I don’t want the hostages to be able to hear us.”
Theresa watched as Lucas turned, glanced at Bobby, then picked up the receiver. He stood at the side of the information desk, slightly behind the hostages but not totally exposed to the employee lobby.
“Please just listen to me for a minute, and don’t say anything. There’s a woman there who’s going to be very upset if she hears what we’re going to discuss, and I don’t want anyone in there getting bent out of shape. You with me?”
“I haven’t shut the timer down, Chris, so you may want to get to the point.”
Water trickled down the back of Cavanaugh’s neck.
“He’s sweating,” Theresa whispered to Frank.
“He’s calling an armed killer’s attention to a young woman and a baby. It’s a hell of a risk. I’d be sweating, too.”
“I suppose that’s why he just said ‘a woman,’ no specifics. She’s one of two, if Lucas doesn’t know what she looks like.”
“He hasn’t given any indication of it so far.”
On the phone Cavanaugh spoke quietly but clearly. “Do you want to tell us why you killed Mark Ludlow, Lucas?”
Lucas said nothing. But on the screen Theresa saw him turn away from the reception desk, phone receiver still to his ear, and gaze in the direction of his partner. He said nothing, and the video did not give sufficient clarity to show if they exchanged some sort of signal. Then Lucas said, “Never heard of him.”
“He was a bank examiner for the Fed, previously worked in Atlanta. We found him murdered this morning.”
“Never heard of him.”
“There’s an off chance he’s telling the truth,” Frank whispered to her. “It would explain why he’s not paying any attention to Mrs. Ludlow. You’d think if he knew Mark Ludlow enough to try to extort inside information about the Fed, he’d know about his wife and kid.”
“And we still can’t be sure Cherise is even dead. What if she was in this with him? What if she was the inside connection, not Ludlow?”
“Then why is Ludlow dead?”
“Maybe he found out, or maybe he had access to something she didn’t.”
Cavanaugh, meanwhile, continued, “You have to understand our point of view, Lucas. We found a man dead this morning, and now Cherise has been killed. To let you take people out of that bank…well, how can we have confidence that you wouldn’t hurt them?”
“You’re going at this all wrong, Chris.” Lucas set down the receiver and punched a button to turn the speakerphone back on. Unencumbered by the cord, he moved back to the young man in the tie, Brad. “I want you to have confidence that I will hurt them. And time’s up.”
He had left the phone line open. He wanted them to hear this.
The M4 carbine came up.
As Theresa watched, Paul stayed on the floor but brought his sidearm out and upward in one fluid motion.
“Stop.” His voice sounded light-years away, but still she heard the strength of it, the clarity of purpose. “Police.”
Two shots, in quick succession.
Paul fell back, both hands to his right leg. He dropped the gun, and the janitor kicked it across the tile, shoving it away from himself as if it were a live grenade.
Someone screamed, “He’s hit!” When Theresa’s throat tingled from the effort, she realized who it had been.
“Anyone else?” Cavanaugh scanned the monitor, his face flushed as if with heat and fear. “I heard two shots.”
“No one else acts hurt.” Frank squinted at the scene. “Not Lucas. Bobby—No, there’s Bobby, he just darted out to pick up Paul’s gun.”
“He’s hit.” Theresa didn’t know what to say, and she didn’t have enough breath in her lungs to say it anyway.
Frank tried to guide her to a chair. “Just in the leg, Tess. He’ll be okay.”
“Just in the leg?”
Cavanaugh punched the phone’s numbered buttons with savage force, nodding at Frank. “Get her out of here.”
She voiced