Takeover - Lisa Black [75]
“What’s he talking about?” Patrick demanded, though he knew. A sniper could hit Lucas from across the street without a problem, but shooting through a window was another proposition altogether. The glass would alter the path of the bullet, perhaps a little, perhaps a lot. The glass in the antique Fed building might be particularly thick, and the two people were a good distance from it, so that any deflection would be amplified by the time the bullet reached them. The odds of its striking Theresa instead of Lucas were much too high.
They continued to move, two silent, dark figures on the screen.
“Oh, God.” Patrick heard his own voice and hated the sound, almost like a whimper. “He wouldn’t rape her, would he?”
Cavanaugh snatched up the phone, hit a button. “I’ll get him back to the phone. It’s all we can do.”
“That’s not all. SWAT has to go in.” He turned to the assistant chief of police. “Viancourt. Send in the assault team.”
“I can’t. FBI’s in charge of this operation.”
“You’re here, and they’re not. You can act before they can stop you.” What Patrick heard himself suggesting was insane, he knew. It did not even slow him down.
Viancourt gave the detective his full attention. “Sucking up to me won’t get you the Homicide chief’s slot.”
Shock silenced him, the idea that he would use Theresa’s imminent murder to get in good with the assistant chief. Patrick put one hand on the man’s shoulder to make his point. Unfortunately, he wrinkled the lapel of the expensive suit by bunching it in his fist and gave the guy a little shake while he persisted in requesting the assault team. Again, déjà vu—he now played the same scene with the chief that Theresa had played with Cavanaugh, and it would have the same effect. He’d be shut out of the operation.
The assistant chief knocked his hand away with more force and speed than Patrick would have anticipated. “Get your hands off me, Detective, and control yourself.”
Cavanaugh’s call went through. On-screen they saw the hostages glance toward the ringing phone, but Lucas did not pause until he reached the other side of the room. Then he spun Theresa around and slammed her up against the marble wall, holding her there with one hand at her throat.
Patrick swallowed hard. He would never be able to explain this to his aunt. “He’s about to kill a hostage. We have to act.”
Cavanaugh answered him. “They go in shooting, we’ll have an instant bloodbath. You told me yourself that Jessica Ludlow said exactly that. We can’t do it, Patrick. Not even for Theresa.”
“We’re just supposed to stand here and let him kill her?”
“He didn’t kill Paul.”
“But he killed Cherise, with a lot less provocation. Who knows what this guy will do?”
Patrick’s hands hurt, and he glanced at them. Bright red semi-circles appeared where his fingernails bit into the flesh of the palms.
She was in sight, and still alive. But for how much longer?
“He’s underneath the air-conditioning duct,” Cavanaugh observed.
How could the man be so damn cool? Patrick wondered, then saw the point. “Do we have a microphone in that one?”
Cavanaugh disconnected his phone call to the receptionist’s desk and dialed Mulvaney’s HQ instead. Within seconds they could hear Lucas’s low tones and Theresa’s choked replies.
“What was that all about?” the robber demanded.
Theresa gasped for air. “What?”
“Cute choice of words.”
“You wanted me to tell them about Cherise.”
“What do you know about ‘explosive,’ Theresa?”
A pause. “I can’t breathe.”
Patrick couldn’t breathe either, standing in front of the TV screen.
“She’s stalling,” Cavanaugh told him.
“How do you know?”
“She’s debating with herself. Should she tell him we know about the explosives? Will it make him more likely to give himself up, or less?”
They saw Lucas pull her slightly forward, in order to slam her head once again. Instead she knocked at his arm with her elbow, trying to twist away, and kicked him in the groin. The M4 carbine clattered to the ground.
This time it really was a whimper. “Oh, God. Tess.”
She was going to die.
CHAPTER 22