Standoff (20 page)

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Authors: Sandra Brown

Tags: #Contemporary, #Crime, #Suspense, #Fiction, #Psychological, #Kidnapping, #Thrillers, #Women journalists, #Runaway Teenagers, #Action & Adventure, #Hostage Negotiations, #New Mexico, #Adventure stories, #Suspense Fiction

BOOK: Standoff
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matter of her career taking precedence over other areas of her life; it was her life. Was her mad, singular desire to succeed a self-inflicted penance for those few ill-chosen words spoken in the heat of anger? Was guilt her propellant?

They lapsed into silence, each lost in his own troubling thoughts, grappling with the personal demons they'd been forced to acknowledge.

"Where in New Mexico?"

"What?" Tiel turned to him. "Oh, my destination?

Angel Fire."

"Heard of it. Never been there."

"Mountain air and clear streams. Aspen trees. They'd be green now, not gold, but I hear it's beautiful."

"You hear? You haven't been there either?"

She shook her head. "A friend was lending me her condo for the week."

"You'd be there by now, all tucked in. Too bad you placed that first call to Gully."

"I don't know, Doc." She glanced at Sabra, then looked at him. Closely. Taking in every nuance of his rugged face.

Plumbing the depths of his eyes. "I wouldn't have missed this for the world."

The urge to touch him was almost irresistible. She did resist, but she didn't break eye contact. It lasted a long time, while her heart thudded hard and heavily against her ribs and her senses hummed with a keen, sweet awareness of him.

She actually jumped when the telephone rang.

Clumsily she scrambled to her feet, and so did Doc.

Ronnie grabbed the receiver. "Mr. Galloway?"

He listened for what seemed to Tiel an eternity. Again she curbed the impulse to touch Doc. She wanted to take his hand and hold on to it tightly, as people are wont to do when waiting to hear life-altering news.

Finally Ronnie turned to them and placed the earpiece against his chest. "Galloway says he's got the district attorney of Tarrant County, and whatever this county is, plus a judge, himself, and both sets of parents, agreed to meet and hammer this thing out. He says if I admit to wrongdoing and submit to counseling, maybe I'll get probation and not have to go to jail. Maybe."

Tiel nearly collapsed with relief. A small laugh bubbled from her throat. "That's great!"

"It's a good deal, Ronnie. If I were you, I'd grab it," Doc told him.

"Sabra, is that okay with you?"

When she didn't respond, Doc nearly knocked Tiel off her feet as he brushed past her and knelt beside the girl.

"She unconscious."

"Oh, God," Ronnie cried. "Is she dead?"

"No, but she's got to get help, son. And I mean fast."

Tiel left Sabra in Doc's care and moved toward Ronnie.

She was afraid that in his despair, he might yet turn the pistol on himself. "Tell Galloway you agree to the terms.

I'm going to cut the tape binding them," she said, gesturing to Cain, Juan, and Two. "Okay?"

Ronnie was transfixed by the sight of Doc lifting Sabra into his arms. Blood immediately saturated his clothes.

"Oh, Jesus, oh, God, what've I done?"

"Save the regrets for later, Ronnie," Doc said in a stern voice. "Tell Galloway we're coming out."

The dazed young man began mumbling into the mouthpiece.

Tiel quickly retrieved the scissors they'd used earlier and knelt down beside Cain. She sawed through the tape around his ankles. "What about my hands?" His tongue seemed thick. The man probably had two concussions.

"When you get outside." She still didn't trust him not to try and be a hero.

His eyes narrowed to slits. "You're in deep shit, lady."

"Usually," Tiel quipped, and moved to the Mexican men.

Juan was enduring his leg wound stoically, but she could feel resentment emanating from him like heat from a furnace. Keeping as much distance as possible between him and herself, she cut the tape around his ankles. It took some effort. Vern had done an excellent job.

She felt even more aversion for the one she'd nicknamed

Two. His dark eyes roved over her with unconcealed malevolence and an intentionally demeaning, sexual suggestiveness that made her feel in even more need of a shower.

That chore completed, she said, "Doc, go first," and motioned him toward the door. "Right, Ronnie?"

"Right, right. Get Sabra to someone who can help her,

Doc."

Tiel moved to the door and held it open for him. Sabra looked like a faded rag doll in his arms. She looked dead.

Ronnie lovingly touched her hair, her cheek. When she didn't respond, he moaned.

"Hang in there, Ronnie, she's alive," Doc assured him.

"She'll be okay."

"Dr. Giles," Tiel told Doc as he moved past with the girl.

"Got it."

In a blink, he was gone, running across the parking lot carrying the unconscious girl.

"You next," Ronnie said to Tiel.

She shook her head. "I'm staying with you. We'll go out together."

"You don't trust them?" he asked in a voice made high and thin by fright. "You think Galloway will try and pull something?"

"I don't trust them." She hitched her head back toward the other three hostages. "Let them go first."

He contemplated that, but only for an instant. "Okay.

You. Cain. Go."

The vanquished FBI agent skulked past them. Because his hands were still bound, Tiel once again held the door open. More injurious than the two clouts to his head was the blow his pride had sustained. No doubt he dreaded facing his fellow agents, particularly Galloway.

Ronnie waited until Cain had been swallowed up by a crowd of paramedics and officials before he motioned

Juan and Two toward the door. "You next."

After trying twice to escape, they now seemed reluctant to leave. They shuffled forward, muttering to one another in Spanish.

"Come on," Tiel said, impatiently motioning them through the door. She was frantic to know how Sabra was faring.

Juan went first, limping noticeably. He hesitated on the threshold, his eyes darting to various points on the parking lot. Two, she noticed, was practically on Juan's heels, standing belly to butt as though using the other man as a shield. They stepped through the door.

Tiel had turned to speak to Ronnie when suddenly the front of the store was seared with blinding light. The

SWAT team, looking like black beetles, came scurrying from every conceivable hiding place. Their number amazed her. She hadn't seen a third of them when she'd gone out to confer with Galloway.

Ronnie cursed and ducked behind the counter. Tiel screamed, but from outrage, not fear. She was too livid to be afraid.

Oddly, however, the tactical officers surrounded Juan and Two, ordering them to lie facedown on the ground.

The injured Juan had no choice but to comply. He practically crumpled.

Heedless of the warnings shouted at him, Two took off at a dead run but was almost immediately tackled and knocked to the concrete. Before Tiel could assimilate what had happened, it was over. The two men were shackled and dragged away by the SWAT team.

The lights went out as suddenly as they'd come on.

"Ronnie?" His name was bellowed through a bullhorn.

"Ronnie? Ms. McCoy?" It was Galloway. "Don't be alarmed. You've been in the company of some very dangerous men. We saw them on the videotape and recognized them. They're wanted by the authorities here and in

Mexico. That's why they were so eager to escape. But they're in our custody now. It's safe for you to come out."

Far from being calmed by this information, Tiel was furious.

How dare they not warn her of the potential danger!

But she couldn't vent her anger now. She would take it up with Galloway and company later.

With as much composure as she could muster, she said to Ronnie, "You heard him. Everything's okay. The lights, the SWAT team had nothing to do with you. Let's go."

He still looked afraid and uncertain. In any case, he didn't move from behind the counter.

God, please don't let me make a deadly mistake now, Tiel prayed. She couldn't push him too hard, but she had to push hard enough to get him moving.

"I think it would be best if you left the pistols here, don't you? Lay them there on the counter. Then you can walk out with your hands up, and they'll know that you're sincere in wanting to work things out." He didn't move. "Right?"

He looked tired, depleted, defeated. No, no, not defeated, she corrected. If he looked upon this as a defeat, he might not leave. He might take what would seem to him the easier way out.

"You did an exceptionally brave thing, Ronnie," she

said conversationally. "Standing up to Russell Dendy. The

FBI. You've won. What you and Sabra wanted all along was an audience, someone to listen and play fair with you.

And you've got them to agree to do just that. That's quite an achievement."

His eyes strayed to her. She smiled, hoping it didn't look as phony and wooden as it felt—indeed, as it was.

"Set the guns down and let's go. I'll hold your hand if you like."

"No. No. I'll go out by myself." He placed the two pistols on the counter, and as he wiped his damp palms on the legs of his jeans, Tiel exhaled the breath she'd been holding.

"Go ahead. I'm right behind you."

She hesitated, worried about the handguns, which were still within his reach. Was his seeming compliance a trick?

"Okay. I'm going. Coming?"

He licked his bruised lips. "Yeah."

Nervously she turned toward the door, opened it, and stepped through. The sky was no longer black, she noticed, but dark gray, so that the silhouettes of all the vehicles and people showed up against it. The air was already hot and dry. There was a light wind, carrying sand that abraded her skin as it blew across her.

She took a few steps before glancing back. Ronnie had his hand on the door, ready to push it open. There was no sign of a weapon in his hand. Don't do anything harmful now, Ronnie. You're home free.

Ahead, waiting for her, she could make out Galloway.

Mr. Davison. Gully. Sheriff Montez.

And Doc. He was there. Standing a little apart from the others. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Hair lifting in the wind.

From the corner of her eye she saw the SWAT team herding Two into the back of a van under heavy guard.

The door was slammed closed and the van sped from the parking lot with a screech of tires. Juan had been confined to a gurney, where paramedics were tending to him.

Tiel's glance had just moved past him when she did a double take. He began wrestling against the paramedic trying to insert an IV needle into the back of his shackled hand. Like a madman in a straightjacket, he twisted his body, his head, his arms. His mouth was moving, forming words, and she wondered why she found that so puzzling.

Then she realized that the words he was shouting were in English.

But he didn't speak English, she thought stupidly. Only

Spanish.

Furthermore, the words made no sense because he was yelling at the top of his lungs. "He's got a rifle! There!

Somebody! Oh, Christ, no!"

The words registered with Tiel a split second before

Juan sprang off the gurney, executed a horizontal body dive off the concrete, and went airborne. He launched himself into the man, his shoulder landing hard against the other's torso and knocking him to the ground.

But not before Russell Dendy got off a clean shot with a deer rifle.

Tiel heard the shattering sound and spun around to see the door of the convenience store raining glass onto Ronnie's prone form. She didn't remember later if she screamed or not. She didn't remember later crossing the distance back to the entrance of the store at a full-out run, or dropping to her hands and knees despite the glass.

She did recall hearing Juan shout—to save his life— "Martinez, undercover

Treasury agent! Martinez, Treasury agent, working undercover!"

CHAPTER

15

The antiseptic the paramedic was dabbing onto her hands and knees made them sting. The broken glass had sliced through the fabric of her trousers, which had been cut off above her knees.

Tiel hadn't noticed the cuts at all until the paramedic began removing splinters of glass with tiny tweezers. Only then had they begun to hurt. The pain wasn't significant, however. She was more interested in what was going on around her than in the superficial wounds she had sustained.

Seated on a gurney—she had refused to climb inside the ambulance—she tried to see around the woman who was treating her. It was a chaotic scene. In the pale dawn, the lights of a dozen police and emergency vehicles created a dizzying kaleidoscope of flashing, colored lights.

Medical personnel, those who hadn't rushed to Ronnie's aid, were seeing to her, Treasury Agent Martinez, and

Cain.

The media had been denied access to the immediate

area, but news helicopters buzzed overhead like brute insects.

Parked on a mesa overlooking the depression known as Rojo Flats was a convoy of television vans. The satellite dishes mounted on their roofs reflected the new sun.

Ordinarily this would be the kind of scene on which

Tiel McCoy thrived. She would be in her element. But the customary rush of adrenaline just hadn't been there when she stared into the lens of the video camera to do her live report.

She had tried to work up her usual level of enthusiasm, but she knew it was lacking and only hoped that the viewing audience wouldn't notice, or that if they did that they would assign her lack of verve to the ordeal she had endured.

The report certainly had a dramatic backdrop. She had shouted into her microphone as the CareFlight helicopter lifted off, bearing Ronnie Davison to the nearest emergency center, where a trauma team was standing by to treat the gunshot wound in his chest. The fierce winds created by the whirling blades whipped sand into her eyes. It was the blowing sand to which she attributed her unprofessional tears.

As soon as she concluded her ad-libbed summary of the events that had transpired over the past six hours, she listlessly passed the wireless mike back to Kip, who kissed her cheek, said, 'Terrific," then rushed off to shoot more B-roll, taking advantage of the access he had to the scene because of his association with her.

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