Takeover (14 page)

“I’m sorry.”

“Calm down. It’s all right.”

“I’m sorry. Tell Oliver I’m sorry.”

“Just calm down, okay? I will get you out of there.”

“Shouldn’t make promises you don’t know you can keep,” Lucas observed.

Theresa choked out, “Is Paul all right?”

“He’s in the ambulance now. They’re—”

Lucas interrupted. “Okay, you spoke. Now the lady is going to sit down and you’re going to hang up, Chris, because, like I said, I don’t need you no more.” He gave Theresa a small shove. She walked with leaden feet to join another woman who had lost her other half.

Perhaps Paul would live.

Perhaps she would not.

Was it worth it? Would Rachael agree? Would the girl ever forgive her mother for taking the risk, even if she lived? Even if Paul lived?

Ultimately it didn’t matter. She couldn’t stand by and do nothing while he died. She could not.

It was too late now anyway.

Stick to it.

Across the street Cavanaugh ripped off his headset and turned to Patrick. “Who the hell’s Oliver?”

12:35
P.M
.

“Listen up, people.” Lucas addressed them as a group while Bobby hovered nearby, out of sniper range.

Theresa took in her surroundings; the room she’d been watching in black and white had suddenly blossomed into reality, like Dorothy’s Technicolor Oz. The polished granite and the soaring, painted ceilings were quite beautiful. Pity to turn it into a mausoleum, a place for the dead.

“It’s twelve-thirty,” Lucas said. “I don’t want to hang around here waiting for that afternoon shipment, do you?”

He didn’t get a response but didn’t seem to expect one.

“So let’s forget that, and let’s forget the computerized vaults downstairs and their uncooperative robots. Where else is there money in this building? Anyone? Brad—jeez, relax, Brad, I’m not going to shoot you. I’ve got my car, so you’re safe. Where is the money?”

“If I tell you, will you let me go?”

Lucas studied him. “You getting cute on me, Brad? You think
because Theresa and I made a deal that the table is suddenly open?”

The young man swallowed hard. “Yes. I’ll tell you if you let me walk out of here.”

“That doesn’t sound like a bad deal. I’d still have six of your coworkers, right?”

Brad nodded, his head bobbing quickly; his fellow hostages were on their own.

Next to him Missy clenched her fists as if restraining herself from slugging him. “Thanks a lot.”

“Don’t blame Brad because he’s less than altruistic. Some people are. Okay, tell me where the money is. When I have it in my bag, you can leave.”

The man opened his mouth, shut it again. He frowned in thought.

“You don’t really know, do you, Brad? You figured I’d take your word for it and shove you out the door. There’d be no one around but your fellow hostages by the time I found out you lied.”

“No, really, I just need to think a minute. I’m usually guiding little kids around….”

“You work on it, Brad.”

“But I’m only twenty-four!”

“And that’s relevant to me…why, exactly?”

“I can’t
die.
”

“I thought that once, too, Brad. Anyone else? And before you ask, no, I won’t let you walk out. But once I have enough cash, I’ll leave, and then you can all go.”

No response. Theresa’s breath had finally steadied, and the
white spots had disappeared from her vision. Next to her, Jessica Ludlow fidgeted, her son shifting in her lap.

“Missy? I’ll bet you can tell me. Receptionists know everything. They’re almost as good as janitors.”

“I don’t.”

“The way I figure it, if I can pick up another million dollars, I’ll just go on my merry way. Or I can hang out here and continue to shoot people. Which do you think is a better idea?”

“I thought you wanted to leave,” Theresa said. “You said you didn’t want any more money.”

Lucas barely glanced at her. “I only said that to get my car in place before the next stage of wealth accumulation commences, because that sort of activity makes cops antsy. Missy?”

“If I knew where a million dollars was, you think I’d be working as a receptionist?”

“Yes, I do. Because you’re an honest girl, Missy. And also because you’d never get it out of here without one of these.” Lucas gestured with the automatic rifle, its barrel drawing a loop in the air. “Neither condition restricts me.”

He stood in front of them, in scuffed Timberland hiking boots, a crisp black T-shirt under the nylon Windbreaker. His jeans seemed crisply new as well, but they had already been stained. Dark droplets made a vertical line on his right leg, difficult to see against the dark fabric. Their tiny tails pointed toward his head, indicating that the liquid had been cast off by a soaked object traveling upward. He had been doing something messy before entering the bank.

“I’m always down here,” Missy said. “That’s it. I don’t have the run of the building.”

“We’ll go logically. What’s on the second floor?”

“Research.”

“And the third?”

“Check Services. Verifying and correcting.”

“No cash?”

“That’s the beauty of checks,” Missy pointed out. “All electronic.”

“Where are the security guards?”

“Sixth. No cash there either.”

They stared at each other.

“What’s in the security offices?”

“Desks. File cabinets. Lots of food.”

“Food?”

“For the dogs. Monitors. A meeting room.”

“Monitors showing what?”

“The building.”

“What parts of it?”

“All of it. There’s cameras on every floor.”

“This lobby?”

Why did he ask? As Cavanaugh had pointed out, the cameras were clearly visible.

“Sure, this lobby. The vaults. The loading dock. Third floor. The—”

“What’s on the third floor?”

Missy hesitated. She had erred somehow, and the knowledge showed clearly on his face. “Bank Loans.”

“What’s that?”

“How would I know?”

“I’m willing to bet you could run the department if you had
a fancy degree after your name. I’m willing to bet you know all about it. So don’t make me shoot Brad after all, okay? What’s in the bank-loan department?”

The girl sighed. “If banks are having a shortfall, or some other temporary crisis, they come in here and get a loan to tide them over. They get a certain interest rate and—anyway, most of it is done by electronic transfers.”

“But some isn’t?”

“Some cash,” Missy admitted, less reluctant now that the subject had been broached, “is kept on hand in case of an old-fashioned run, where customers come in and want to withdraw all their funds. Never used to happen before 9/11. Now, with terrorism scares and worries about another blackout—”

“Thank you for the financial analysis, Missy. Where is this money kept?”

“Don’t know,” the receptionist told him, with a trace of smugness. “I’m always down here, like I said.”

“How much cash?”

“I wouldn’t know that either.”

Lucas watched the young woman, his stare on a slow simmer. “Well. We need to get that money.”

Missy shook her head.

“You got a problem with that, sugar?” Lucas asked.

“No, but you might. There’s still security in the rest of the building. You won’t make it.”

“Of course not. It’d be suicide even to try. That’s why I’m going to send someone else.”

His eye fell on Theresa, producing a mixture of feelings. She’d be more than happy to wander around the Fed, more than happy to
be anywhere except in this lobby. She could probably find a phone to check on Paul’s condition and call Rachael.

Lucas said, “Jessie.”

All eyes swiveled to the young mother, so that Theresa could openly study the recently widowed woman. Jessica Ludlow had luminous blue eyes and washed-out blond hair that hung, without much form, past her shoulders. Her body type fell between average and chubby, and her hunched-over posture did not help. Like Theresa, she wore a silk blouse, and it clung to her perspiring sides.

The little boy clutched to her chest had the same hair, though with a few darker blond streaks. He dozed now, his eyelids lifting momentarily, then closing again. His mouth and nose had reddened, and his breath came out in small wheezes, ruffling a wrinkle in his mother’s sleeve. Her arms tightened around him.

“You’re going to go to three and find the bank-loan cash.”

“Me?” She squeaked the word. “I work down here. I print certificates and send out interest statements, that’s all.”

“You don’t have to join the staff on three, just bring the cash back here.”

“How?”

“Excuse me?”

She pressed the child closer to herself. Theresa wondered how the kid could breathe. “How? I don’t even know where it is. If it’s locked up, how do I get it out?”

“You’ll figure something out.”

She seemed surprised at the idea. “I will not!”

“Now, Jessie.” Lucas being soothing sounded even more terrifying than Lucas being threatening. “You’re not cooperating.
Do you remember what happened to the last person who didn’t cooperate?”

Jessica Ludlow bent her head over her child’s and closed her eyes.

“I’ll go,” Theresa said.

Lucas regarded her coolly. “I don’t recall asking for volunteers.”

“How much can she do with a baby in tow? I can do it.”

“You don’t even work here.”

“I’ve only been here a month,” Jessica pointed out, much to her captor’s displeasure.

His scowl deepened when Brad raised his hand as if in class. “No, I’ll go. I can get it—I have the combination.”

“You? You’re a tour guide. Why would you have access to bank-loan money?”

The man hesitated for only a moment. “I used to date a girl who worked for the auditor. She knew everything about every department here. I can get you as much as you want.”

Theresa didn’t believe him, and she tended to believe everybody. Lucas didn’t either. “This is not up for discussion. I’ll even explain my reasoning, to make it perfectly clear. You”—the barrel of the automatic rifle tipped toward Brad—“have no reason to come back to this lobby and every reason not to. Same goes for you, Theresa—you got your man out of here. If you get out of this room, you can go hold his hand in a hospital somewhere and not give a thought to all these people I’m going to shoot because you didn’t come back. Why not? You don’t know them.”

“I wouldn’t do th—”

“I’m not casting aspersions on your character, now, just assembling the facts from my point of view. Jessie, on the other hand, has
that maternal-instinct thing going. She’s going to go and get the cash, but her baby will stay here.”

She gasped, cupping the boy’s head against her shoulder.

“That makes her the only person in this room I
know
will come back. Isn’t that right? Even if you’re scared. Even if the cops tell you not to. Even if you have to smash down the bank-loan department chief’s door with a desk chair. You’ll do that, and you’ll come back here, won’t you?”

She nodded, with horror in her eyes.

Lucas winked at Theresa. “Motherhood. Never underestimate it. You can hold the kid while she goes on this scavenger hunt. Hand the kid to Theresa, Jessie. She’ll take care of him.”

The young woman couldn’t make herself relinquish her child, not until Lucas aimed the automatic rifle at her head. Then she shifted the small, warm body to Theresa with the solemnity of a death knell and an expression to match. Her hand lingered on his back until Lucas told her to stand up.

Theresa accepted the boy almost as reluctantly as his mother had given him up. The situation was about to deteriorate even more.

She watched as Lucas picked up the red backpack off the floor and dumped its contents into the oversize duffel at Bobby’s feet. He brought the bag, a simple red nylon sack with a Spider-Man logo, over to them; his passage set off another volley of barking from the K-9 unit’s dog, so that he had to raise his voice to instruct Jessica Ludlow, “Take this. Fill it up. Do not let the cops add any dye packs, GPS devices, et cetera. As soon as you get back, I’m going to unload this pack into another bag, so anything planted in here will be found. Every item I find in this bag that isn’t money is one bullet that goes into your boy there.”

The young woman paled.

“You’ve got twenty minutes. Every five minutes after twenty minutes, I put a bullet in your boy. You don’t come back at all, then neither does he. Got it?”

“But how…?”

“I’m sure security is running all over this building. They can help you. They’ll want to use you to get to me, but I’ve got a gun pointed at your little boy’s head and they don’t, so who wins here? Hmm?”

Jessica didn’t take long to think about that one. “You do.”

“Right.” He handed her the empty backpack. Then, with a hand on her shoulder, he turned her around and gave her a slight shove toward the elevators in the employee lobby. She did not take her eyes from her son until she disappeared around the marble information desk.

The boy twitched violently in his sleep, as if rocking in the wake of her departure. Theresa rubbed his back and wished the dog would pipe down. She didn’t relish the thought of having to explain to a two-year-old that his mother had gone on a bank robber’s errand. She had no faith that the security force would allow Jessica’s maternal instinct to overcome her self-preservation. They certainly would not have allowed Theresa to trade herself for Paul. If they could have stopped her, they would have.

The baby stirred.
They always know,
Theresa thought,
a parent from a nonparent. I don’t smell like her, I don’t pat his back like she does. My shoulder is bonier.
A host of subconscious clues were telling him that he’d been abandoned to a stranger, and they would prod his conscious into investigating. And she doubted that Lucas would
have much patience with a crying child. She rubbed his back again.
Please sleep.

“You,” Lucas said to her again. “Scientist lady. What are they doing at the command center?”

“Watching you.”

“Through the windows?”

She nodded.

“And the cameras here?” Lucas gestured at the walls, where the lobby cameras nestled in the corners.

She nodded again.

That didn’t satisfy him. “Answer me when I ask you a question.”

She pointed at the small boy’s back. “He’ll wake up. My voice isn’t familiar.”

“I don’t care much about baby’s naptime, Theresa. I can handle cryin’ kids. What do they know about us, me and Bobby? Ah, you’re hesitating. That’s not a good idea, Theresa. It makes me nervous. It makes me think you’re lying to me.”

Again she gestured at the small boy in her arms, keeping her voice as quiet as possible. “I don’t want to wake him. They know that Bobby’s last name is Moyers and that he just got out of jail in Atlanta.”

Bobby moved closer, listening.

Lucas had been standing still, but somehow he became even more so, a change minute enough that it could have been a trick of the light. It prompted her to explain, “They traced the car. It’s registered to him.”

“Uh-huh. And what do they know about me?”

“Nothing.” The child stirred in her arms.

Did he relax just slightly? “Nothing at all?”