Hidden ( CSI Reilly Steel #3) (35 page)

Reilly and
Jacobs had to run the gauntlet of TV vans and parked cars lining the narrow lane, while the detectives headed to the CC command post. They arrived just in time to see O’Brien addressing the gathered reporters.

Reilly
groaned as she saw the media scrum ahead of them. ‘How did they find out?’

‘
How does anyone ever find out anything,’ Jacobs replied quickly. ‘It’s human nature – a secret is only really interesting if you can share it with someone who shouldn’t know about it.  There has got to be at least a hundred people who know about this – that’s a hundred people with the chance to make a buck and feel important.’

They climbed slowly out of the car, grateful that O’Brien was
garnering all the attention.  ‘Are you going to have to say something?’ Reilly asked him.

Jacobs
grinned, and shook his head.  ‘Not in the contract. My name isn’t mentioned, and I don’t do press interviews.’ He was wearing a Gore-Tex rain jacket –he pulled the hood up tight around his head, and grabbed Reilly’s arm.  ‘Let’s leave O’Brien to do what’s in
his
contract…’

Reilly followed
his lead, and they skirted around O’Brien and the media, sticking to the grass verge, mostly hidden by the line of parked vehicles.

They reached the police cordon, and flashed their ID
s to get past. Jacobs paused a moment.  He turned back to the officers blocking the road.  ‘Who’s in charge on the ground here?’

They nodded up the road to a tall
cop talking into a radio. ‘Stokes.’

Jac
obs nodded and they strode over to the man. He saw them approaching and gave Reilly a nod of recognition – their paths had crossed previously. He finished speaking on the radio and turned to them. ‘Reilly, nice to see you again.’

She
smiled. Daniel Forrest had taught her to always go out of the way to be polite and friendly to people whose help you need – secretaries, maintenance workers, the often unrecognized people who make things happen.  She had added uniformed officers to her list when she’d started in police work.  ‘Hello, Sergeant Stokes. Good to see you too. How are you?.’

‘
Great, thanks. That being said, I always know things are going to be, how shall I say…interesting when you’re around,’ he replied with a grin.

‘
I’ll take that as a compliment.’ She turned to Jacobs. ‘This is Steve Jacobs, our hostage negotiator. He’s going to be working with us to try and resolve this and get those kids back safely.’

‘
What can we do to assist, Mr Jacobs?’ Stokes asked.

Jacobs
looked around.  ‘Press are out in force here. Is the perimeter sealed? I gather it’s quite a big site.’

‘
It’s good and tight.  The fact that it backs onto the old quarry and is surrounded by the old slag piles means there no getting in or out from the west or north end of the site.’ He pointed in each direction. ‘The rest is bordered by the fence and we have a cordon set up at each end.’

‘Excellent.
How close are your men to the gateway?’

‘
As per request, we’ve tried to keep the men at least seventy yards away, and behind any natural cover,’ Stokes informed them.

‘
Great. Just one more question – who’s my liaison?’

‘
Sergeant Lee should be inside waiting for you.’ He indicated a small white trailer nearby.

Jacobs
led the way to the trailer. Several uniforms were inside, drinking tea and chatting. One of them jumped up when they entered.

‘
Which of you is Sergeant Lee?’ Jacobs asked.

The lia
ison officer was clean shaven, with dark hair graying slightly at the temples.

‘T
ell me what we’ve got.’

‘
This guy is going to take some convincing,’ Lee said, looking toward the building. ‘We’ve been talking options, and feel it would be best to try and get him a radio. We’ve a short wave rig – the base is here, we can give McAllister a handset. You too.’

Reilly looked – there was a bank of radio handsets plugged in and charging on a counter at the back of the
trailer.

‘
We’ve also got a handful of mobile phones,’ Lee continued.

‘
They all call into the same number?’

Lee nodded. 
‘That’s the only number they can call. Everything else is blocked.’

Jacobs
looked at Reilly and raised his eyebrows. ‘Will we load up?’

Lee started busying himself grabbing phones and r
adio receivers. ‘There’s also some more vital equipment here,’ he informed them, pointing to a kettle and some tea bags. ‘Could be a long night.’

Chapter 35

‘Are you ready?’ Reilly nodded as she and Jacobs started to move closer to the gateway, picking their way through the puddles.

‘So you walk just in
front of me, and let him see you first,’ he said. 

She swallowed
hard, her throat dry at the realization that what she was doing was fraught with danger. One wrong move and she could mess up everything. ‘What do I tell him?’

‘
Tell him that your bosses are insisting that you talk to the kids, just to check on them.  Don’t give him any deadlines, no pressure. We want him to think, not panic.’

‘
What about you?’

‘Don’t say anything.
He’ll ask.’

Reilly
looked up at the negotiator’s face. He looked calm and relaxed, as though they were a couple out walking the dog in the country on a weekend afternoon.  ‘Will you tell him why you’re here?’

He
nodded.  ‘If he asks.  Never lie to people, they always find out.  We have to establish trust – build on the familiarity he already has with you and try and extend that to me.’

Reilly let out a sharp breath.
‘OK, let’s do it.’

He
smiled at her. ‘Trust me. You’ll be just fine.’

They reached the gateway.
Reilly stood before the gates with Jacobs slightly off to one side – simply having him with her gave her confidence.  He was one of those people who exuded positive energy.

‘How long do we stand here?’

He stayed focused on the gates
.  ‘As long as it takes.’

‘
Do you think he’s watching us?’

‘
We have no way of knowing, but my hunch is, yes. He’s a smart guy, I’m sure he’ll want to check us out a little before he shows.’ They had now been waiting for around ten minutes. ‘Either he’s testing us, waiting to see if we persist or...’

‘
Or?’

‘
Or he’s trying to decide what to do.’

Any further speculation was cut short by the sound of footsteps
approaching on the gravel.

‘
Here we go,’ whispered Jacobs. ‘Showtime.’

McAll
ister slowly walked into view with a grim look on his face, and much to Reilly’s horror, a shotgun nestled in the crook of his arm. He stopped a few yards from them, gate inbetween like a safety barrier. ‘Your friends may think they’re being very clever out there, hiding behind the trees and bushes,’ he began, ‘but they stand out like blood on snow.’

‘
They are there to keep people out, not you in,’ Reilly replied shakily.

He
looked puzzled. ‘People? 
What
people?’

‘
The press.’

The scowl on his
face deepened. He thought for a minute. ‘Tell them they can stay – but don’t get any closer.’

‘
I’ll let them know.’

He peered at
Jacobs. ‘Who’s that?’ 

‘
My name is Steve Jacobs.’

‘
I don’t give a damn what your name is, what are you doing here?’ he growled.

Jacobs
stayed quiet, forcing McAllister to dictate the encounter. As long as he was still there talking to them, Reilly thought, they were making progress.

He glared at
Jacobs, then back at Reilly. ‘You lied to me, you said you were checking soil and rocks, you said you wanted to protect the beauty of this earth from men.’

Reilly
hesitated a moment. ‘That was no lie. I’ve dedicated my whole life to protecting the beautiful things from the evil you and I know this world contains.’ She was thinking on her feet, trying to appeal to his way of thinking.

He didn’t respond,
and she thought he looked tired, weary from trying to protect his crumbling fairytale.  ‘I would like to see the children,’ she continued.  ‘My boss says I need to see them, make sure they are OK.’

‘
They’ve been “OK” for years without your help,’ he snapped, ‘so why do you need to see them now?’

‘
Ms Steel is simply doing her job,’ Jacobs quickly replied. 

He turned his attention back to
the negotiator.  ‘What did you say you were doing here?’

‘I’m just here to talk, to help.’

‘Ah …’ McAllister gave a bitter smile. ‘So I’m the crazy guy holed up with a bunch of prisoners, and you’re here to talk me out of it, is that it?’

Reilly held her breath, wondering how
Jacobs would reply.

‘You’re
the one holding the gun,’ he pointed out calmly.

‘
What do you expect?’ McAllister snapped.  ‘There’s an army of people harrying me for simply doing the right thing, and they are just waiting for me to relax my guard.’

‘
Who do you think they are more likely to shoot?’ responded Jacobs. ‘An unarmed man, or one pointing a gun at two officers?’

McAllister considered this for a moment.

‘Why don’t you just place the gun on the ground at your feet?’ suggested Jacobs, ‘so that we can have a polite conversation.’

‘
Show me you’re not armed.’

Jacobs
slowly unzipped his rain jacket, held it out above him, turned a slow circle in front of McAllister. ‘I’m not a policeman. I just talk to people.’

He
looked past Reilly and Jacobs, nervous glances darting in every direction.  Finally he seemed to relax. ‘No tricks?’

‘
No tricks,’ Jacobs reassured him in a steady voice.  ‘You have my word.’

McAllister
gave a last suspicious glance around them, then slowly set the shotgun down at his feet.  ‘Now what do you want?’

‘
Now we talk,’ replied Jacobs. ‘We talk about whether we can see the kids.’

‘
And if I say no?’

‘
Let’s cross that bridge if we come to it.’ McAllister was focusing his attention on Jacobs now. Reilly was impressed at how the negotiator had used her to bring McAllister out, then deftly taken the focus away from her. ‘If we wanted to use force, we could have done so already. We could have ordered up a sniper to shoot you the second you pointed that gun at us, or sent in a  team in the early hours of the morning to overwhelm you … that’s not what we want.’

‘
So what
do
you want?’  He was still suspicious, but Jacobs had got him thinking.

‘
To talk,’ Jacobs answered. ‘To check on the kids and reassure the boss that everyone is safe.’

For a moment Reilly thought
McAllister was about to agree, then suddenly he bent and picked up his shotgun. ‘I need to think about it.’

Jacobs
nodded, his face a picture of understanding. ‘Of course. It’s a big step for you.’

He
glanced back towards the buildings. ‘I need to go and see how the children are. They have been through a lot this last few weeks. They miss me when I’m gone.’

‘
Of course they do,’ said Jacobs. ‘But before you go, can I give you something?’

McAllister
hesitated.  He was getting twitchy. ‘Give me something?’

‘
So you can call us when you want to talk more.’

‘
What?  I don’t like phones. Nasty intrusive things.’ 

‘
How about a walkie-talkie then, a radio?’ suggested Jacobs.  ‘No one will call and bother you, but when you want to talk, you can contact us from inside the house.’

He
nodded, keen to be on his way. ‘Throw it here then.’

Jacobs
pulled the walkie-talkie from his coat pocket, and took a few steps forward.

McAllister
instinctively raised the barrel of the shotgun.

‘
Can I show you how to work it?’ asked Jacobs.