Takeover - Lisa Black [98]
Patrick glanced at Jason and raised his eyebrows. Irene made a note. The prison in Atlanta would have records of which programs the inmates attended. Perhaps this solved the mystery of where Bobby and Lucas had met—a group-therapy session, each revealing his secret dreams and goals.
Lucas, meanwhile, continued. “I’m willing to go along with this. You bring Bobby’s brother over here—and by you, I mean you, Chris, no one else—and he will lay down his arms and leave with you.”
“What about you?”
“I stay here. I’m happy for Bobby if this is the choice he wants, but I’m not giving up my freedom for it.”
“What about all those bank employees?”
“They stay with me.”
Patrick had not expected this, but it made sense. Lucas could respect his friend’s wishes without giving himself up. He’d still have the hostages and the money.
“That might work,” Cavanaugh said, though Jason frowned and shook his head. “However, I’ve been assuring your safety all this time—are you going to assure mine?”
“Why would I shoot you, Chris? Provided you’re telling us the truth and this really is Bobby’s brother.”
“He is. But this is a highly unusual undertaking. We don’t normally make piecemeal deals like this—”
“You’d be down one robber without any bloodshed. How is that bad for you?”
He was correct, of course—so correct that it made Patrick nervous. The man needed to get a large amount of money out of a city block filled with trigger-happy cops, and he seemed too cooperative about it.
Cavanaugh proceeded with caution. “I think this plan can work, and I’m willing to escort Eric Moyers across the street to talk to Bobby. But I’m concerned about the rest of the bank employees. That’s a lot of people for you to handle by yourself.”
“That almost sounds like a challenge, Chris. I’m not worried about it. I can always tie them up, like the guards.”
Jason continued to shake his head. “The guards are tied to the teller cages, the same place we think Lucas set the explosives. That’s got to be his exit strategy—he fills the cages with hostages and then walks out with the detonator. We let him go or they get blown up.”
Cavanaugh argued, “That would last for about sixty seconds before our team got in there and freed them all.”
“With the roads cleared he could be on I-90 in sixty seconds.”
The negotiator nodded, then pressed the “talk” button on the console. “I mean this would be a good time to cut some of them loose. As a show of good faith.”
“I won’t shoot you when you show up. That should be good enough faith for you.”
They haggled a while longer but finally settled on a plan. Cavanaugh and Eric Moyers would walk across the street and converse with Bobby Moyers outside the East Sixth Street entrance. If satisfied, Bobby would leave with them, along with four hostages of Lucas’s choosing. They had ten minutes.
CHAPTER 28
3:14 P.M.
Theresa watched these negotiations closely while listening with half an ear to Jessica Ludlow. Like a child in class, the young woman took advantage of the lull in their captors’ attention. “At least I found a decent day-care situation for Ethan. Our neighbor recommended her, and she’s really good, feeds them lunch and everything, but she’s real firm on not taking any sick kids, so when he looked sniffly today, she said he couldn’t stay.”
Lucas and Bobby conferred over Cavanaugh’s offer. She expected Lucas to refuse it, but he had deferred to Bobby’s wishes. This didn’t make sense to her. Lucas had been so strong-minded all day…. Had he lost his nerve with the end in sight, figured out that it would not, could not, end well for him? Or had he been deferring to Bobby all along?
“I wasn’t real big on working at all. I’d rather be home with him. I had a part-time job in Atlanta, and that was perfect—an hour or two three times a week, enough to get me out of the house and bring in a little extra money, but not enough for Ethan to really miss me.”
Bobby returned to the phone, then handed it over to Lucas. Now Theresa could hear every word, but they still