Takeover - Lisa Black [96]
“I don’t get you.”
“I’m saying if I can produce your brother, not just on the phone but let you see him, would you put down your weapon and end this day peacefully?”
“If you can bring the dead back to life, Cavanaugh, I’ll do anything you say.”
“I’m serious, Bobby. This is a real deal we’re making here. I can only hold up my end if I can trust you to hold up yours.”
“There’s just one problem,” Bobby said. “I know you’re lying.”
“I’ll bring him down, and we’ll stand in the doorway, across the street at the library building.”
Bobby’s derisive snort exploded over the wires. “I sure hope this guy you’ve got looks more like my brother than he sounds, or you’ll have to stand in the next county to convince me.”
Cavanaugh paused, his finger off the “talk” button.
“You’re not going to have us walk Eric Moyers across the street?” Jason whispered. “That’s against the rules.”
“We’re not going to hand him over, just let his brother see him. We can break Bobby, and we have to…. Okay, Bobby, we can make this work. I can let you converse with your brother if that will satisfy you that I’m telling the truth. But what are you going to do for me?”
They heard—and saw, on the monitor—Bobby turn from the phone and explain the situation to Lucas.
Lucas sounded more strained than ever. “Give up? Are you nuts?”
“If it’s not him, we can waste ’em. But if it is—if he’s really still alive—then I don’t want to die, man.”
“What?”
They heard a clunk as Bobby dropped the phone. He moved across the tile and joined Lucas for what appeared to be a heated talk. They both stood at the corner to the entranceway.
“Snipers!” Cavanaugh barked into his radio. “Green light!” Meaning they were far enough from the hostages—take the shot.
“Negative. Out of range.” One or both were sufficiently hidden by the teller cages.
“Damn.”
The two conversed with a number of hand gestures but only an audible word here or there.
Cavanaugh next contacted Mulvaney. “Can we turn up the volume on those mikes? We really need to hear what they’re saying.”
“If we could,” the captain’s voice drawled over the radio, “don’t you think we would have hours ago?”
“True, sorry.” Cavanaugh set the radio down. “They’re keeping their voices low. They don’t want the hostages to hear.”
“What’s the plan?” Jason asked. He seemed truly worried, which didn’t make Patrick feel any better.
“They’re going to make a run for it. At least debating this issue will delay them a bit. It also seems to be breaking down the partnership—best-case scenario, they get in a fight and shoot each other.” Cavanaugh tilted his head back, drained another bottle of water. “Second best, I can make this deal with Bobby and they give up. No one else gets hurt.”
Patrick tried to loosen his tie, only to realize he had removed it hours before. “Lucas didn’t come this far just to make Bobby feel all warm and fuzzy inside.”
“But it gives him an out. He’s got to know by now that he isn’t going to drive the Mercedes into the sunset with a trunkful of cash. Giving up for the sake of his buddy is a much different animal than giving up to save his skin.”
“Altruism has drama,” Patrick agreed, though he couldn’t shake the feeling that Cavanaugh might be drawing the conclusions he preferred.
“It all depends on what’s going on in Lucas Parrish’s mind,” Cavanaugh said, as if he’d read Patrick’s.
Jason still worried. “How are you going to get Eric Moyers to go along with this? He went to great pains to avoid even a phone call from his brother, much less a visit.”
“He won’t like having those people’s blood on his hands either.” Cavanaugh straightened his collar, tucked his shirttails more tightly into the slightly wrinkled khakis. “You’ve talked to him more than we have, Patrick, what do you think?”
“Hmm?” He’d been watching the monitor, where Bobby and Lucas continued to converse with intensity but not, so far, apparent anger. “He isn’t a bad guy. He’d want to do the right thing, and he’s not afraid of his brother, more contemptuous of him.