Worst Case - James Patterson [81]
Chapter 95
CHECKING MY WATCH, I knelt down next to the tactical “mouse hole” the HRT guys had already made into the hallway wall to avoid the explosives. At the top of the narrow stairs, I unscrewed the fluorescent light and laid it down carefully on the dusty, worn marble tiles and slowly opened the door.
About twenty feet away with his back to me, Mooney stood at the front railing of the balcony with his captives, yelling down at Emily. Between us, dividing the balcony in half at an angle, was a five-foot-wide stripe of bright sunlight that fell from the Stock Exchange’s front window. I stared at the light intently for a moment before I opened my mouth.
“Francis! Over here! Hey, don’t listen to her!” I called to him.
Mooney swung around toward me, angry and confused. He shook the detonator at me.
“You’re sneaking up on me? Try something, and I’ll do it!” he screamed. “Right now. I’ll do everyone! Where are the fathers? Why is no one listening to me?”
I stared fearfully at the two high school kids and the security chief’s son, all of whom Mooney had bound himself to. They were pale, listless, sweating, eyes glazed with stress and shock. I thought of my oldest boy, Brian, only a few years younger. I wanted them to live. I wanted us all to live. I had to make this happen. Somehow.
“Francis! Calm down, man! It’s me, Mike Bennett,” I said, raising my hands slowly above my head. “I’m not sneaking up on you. I have the fathers in the hall here behind me, like you said. I’ll let them in. You let the boys go. Will you work with me?”
Mooney took a step toward me. His eyes behind his glasses were gleaming now, filled with an unsettling intensity. His taped-together hands holding the detonator were shaking now. I watched his right-hand index finger twitch as it hovered over its trigger.
I struggled to come up with something to calm him down. Emily’s tirade was supposed to be just a distraction, but it had gotten him so riled up, he might set the plastic off by accident.
“Where are they?” Mooney demanded, peering into the darkened doorway at my back.
“At the bottom of the stairwell, Francis. They’re waiting to come up,” I said.
“You’re lying,” Mooney said.
“No,” I said, making eye contact with him as I shook my head. “No more lies, Francis. We just want what’s best for everybody. For you. For those kids. The fathers really want to take their sons’ places. They appreciate that you’ve given them the option, in fact.”
“Yeah, like I believe that,” Mooney said. He took another step closer, his eyes squinting as he tried to peer deeper into the dim stairwell.
“I won’t let anyone go until the fathers come up those stairs and stand in front of me. That’s the deal, Mike. No negotiating. Bring them up here right now.”
I turned around as if I heard something behind me.
“Okay, Francis,” I said. “They’re on the stairs right behind me now. Why don’t we do this? Why don’t you come forward a little and look in the doorway first. You can verify that it’s them. Then you can untangle one of the kids. I don’t want you to think it’s a trick.”
Mooney stood there, thinking about it.
“Okay,” he said, taking another step.
As he came forward, I watched the sunlight from the window glance off his shoe. The light came up his leg, his torso, his two hands grasping the detonator as if in prayer.
“Got him,” the FBI sniper across the street said into the radio in my ear.
I dove to the floor.
Chapter 96
STANDING IN THE dusty light, Mooney looked at me in confusion as I hit the deck. Then he turned toward the window I’d lured him in front of.
The shattering of the long front window of the Exchange seemed to happen after Mooney was hit. One second, he was standing there, and the next, the window shattered spectacularly, and he was down, sitting on the floor.
The blood pumping from Mooney’s wrists looked black on the bright faded marble. I scrambled up as Mooney fruitlessly tried to squeeze the detonator trigger. He was having trouble because his blown-apart