Takeover (20 page)

“Go where?” Moyers asked.

“That’s the hard part.”

Somewhere behind the books, Patrick heard the voice of a very young woman: “—don’t care. I don’t give a
crap
whether they like it or not. That’s my
mother
—”

He hadn’t thought that the situation could get much worse. He’d been wrong.

Cavanaugh started to turn toward the noise and caught the look on Patrick’s face. “What’s the matter?”

Patrick pinched the bridge of his nose between forefinger and thumb. “If you thought Theresa was a handful,” he told Cavanaugh, “you’re not going to believe her daughter.”

2:10
P.M
.

“Okay,” Lucas said, surveying his motley brigade. “Are we clear on this?”

Theresa stood in front of the open door, feeling the cruel heat and the even crueler glimpse of freedom. Flowing in as a wave of hot air that pricked her pores into sweating before her skin even felt the warmth, it beckoned to her, a slice of paradise more irresistible than a glittering canyon or a Caribbean beach. The street stood empty, her path unencumbered except by an armored truck and a group of armored men.

The blinding sun reflected from slowly moving automobiles along St. Clair, two streets over; the secretary of state’s luncheon had finally ended. Metal barriers along Rockwell kept back the curiosity seekers, people who had left their offices for lunch and wanted to see what would happen. People who were free to come and go. Free.

She could make it if she ran. The guards wouldn’t stop her.

I have to live,
Theresa thought.
Rachael
might
forgive me for this risk if I live. If I die, never.

But did that mean she should dart through the door in front of her if she saw an opening, leaving the other hostages to their own fates? Lucas would almost certainly start shooting, start a firefight with seven innocent people in the way.

Or should she stay calm, stay in place, pass him his money and hope he’d take it and run?

Out at the reception desk, the phone rang. Lucas merely nodded at Bobby, and by craning her neck she could see the other robber cross the floor to pick it up. Lucas, against the northwest wall, must have been out of the line of sight of the clear windows, or he would never allow Bobby to walk into it.

Bobby held a lengthy conversation, then put the receiver down with what sounded like enough force to break it. A minute later it rang again, but this time Bobby kept the chat brief and didn’t slam down the phone. He told Lucas that the cops were ready to start moving the money. Everyone in the lobby sighed.

“Missy, you have to unwrap all the money packs before putting it in the bags. No dye packs, no GPS, no booby traps. I’ll be watching you.”

Brad, behind Theresa, groaned. “Is this day ever going to end?”

“Sooner or later,” she told him. “Though the circumstances of ‘sooner’ might not make it the best choice.”

“Shut up,” Lucas told them. He had Jessica and Ethan Ludlow in front of him, against the wall on the other side of the door. He used them as human shields to protect him from invading security guards, but also, he explained aloud, because Jessica could not both
hold her son and pass packages of money to and fro, and he didn’t want the little boy running around loose.

The phone rang again.

“Answer it,” Lucas called to his partner.

“I don’t want to. It’s some nut who says he’s my brother, like I’m going to believe that. Those cops must think I’m a total wack job.”

“I told you they’d try anything. But you’re right, stay where you are.”

Should she tell Bobby that she’d spoken with his brother earlier?

“Okay, Theresa.” Lucas gestured at her with the tip of the automatic rifle, which she really wished he wouldn’t do. “Step up to the opening. After that, your feet do not move, not even an inch, right?”

And there she stood. In front of her, there were at least ten aggressive, heavily armed men. Behind her, there were two aggressive, heavily armed men.

Theresa found herself face-to-face with a stocky guy of about thirty, with brown skin and an SRT uniform that had been crisply starched when he put it on that morning. It had since wilted in the heat, leaving circles of wetness under both arms.

“Hi. I’m Sergeant Filmore, CPD. Everything’s going to be all right.”

Part of her found that very sweet. Part of her thought that Sergeant Filmore might not be the best judge of future events.

“Mrs. MacLean?” he went on. They must have told the young sergeant her name. “You with me?”

“Yeah.”

“Everyone okay in there?”

“So far,” she told him. “How’s Paul?”

He blinked. “Who’s Paul?”

“Less chatting, Theresa,” Lucas called from behind Jessica Ludlow. “I want to see some money start changing hands.”

Sergeant Filmore turned, and most of the other guards did as well. Theresa followed their gaze to the open doors of the armored truck. A neat pile of plastic-wrapped squares occupied a space about five feet by five feet.

“Is that it?” she asked.

“That’s it. Let’s
go,
” the sergeant called, and the guard closest to the pile plucked the top package from its perch. He handed it down the line until Sergeant Filmore put it in her hands. She could see the green-printed pieces of paper through the thin wrap. It weighed about twenty pounds. She handed it to Brad, who trotted up the few steps to the main lobby floor to toss it at Missy and the duffel bag. Then Theresa accepted another from the sergeant.

She could only think of it as surreal, to pass down packets of money as if they were sandbags and the hostages were concerned citizens awaiting a flood.

But if the tenuous calm were breached and all the armed men in this city block began shooting, the room
would
be flooded—with the blood of people. The image sickened her. Better to concentrate on her actions, grab the package, hold it firmly. She couldn’t let it drop, didn’t know what might set Lucas off.

The phone rang.

“Don’t answer it!” Lucas shouted to, she assumed, Bobby.

“But—”

“He’s trying to distract us. Stay where you are.”

Lucas seemed to think Cavanaugh had an assault planned but
needed to lure Bobby into the open. Would they try it with Jessica and her son standing in front of Lucas, his gun in her back? Theresa hoped not. Cavanaugh seemed too proud of his no-fatalities record.

“We’re going to get you out of there,” the sergeant said to her, very quietly. “Just keep everyone calm. Did you see the explosives?”

“No.”

“But you think they’re behind the teller cages.” He spoke when he turned to accept another package from the man behind him, so Lucas could not see his lips move. If Brad heard them, he gave no sign.

“I’m guessing.” She kept her head down, as if focusing on the money, and chin pointed slightly away from Lucas and Jessica.

“Do they have anything strapped to them? Chest? Waist?”

“No. Not that I see.”

“Bobby keep his hand in his pocket a lot?”

She tried to think over the past hour. Lucas always held their attention; she glanced at Bobby only when he did something to warrant it. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Any other ordnance besides the guns? Any grenades? Any idea what’s in those bags?”

“Don’t know.”
Hell, Theresa,
a voice in her head asked,
exactly what
have
you been doing? You’re supposed to be on our side, you know.
The lives of seven other people at stake, and she’d spent the past hour admiring the architecture. “Investigate Cherise. He’s lying about why he killed her.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re not chatting, are we, Theresa?” Lucas called, making
any pores that weren’t producing sweat suddenly shove it out in waves.

She paused to wipe her forehead. “This stuff’s heavy.”

It didn’t answer his question, but he did not ask another. She could feel his eyes on her, hotter than the summer air and just as suffocating.

“What do you mean?” the sergeant repeated. She could barely hear him, so Lucas couldn’t—she hoped.

But she had once taken Rachael to a museum in Cincinnati where you could stand at one corner of a busy, cavernous room and whisper and someone standing elsewhere could hear every word. She hoped the lobby had not been similarly constructed.

“Mom!”

Theresa almost dropped the package of money in her sweating hands. Had her brain snapped? She could have sworn that was Rachael’s voice and not just the memory of that day in the museum. But it did not sound like a whisper this time.

“Mom!”

Past all the guards and the money and the expanse of hot asphalt, across Rockwell where the sawhorses held back the Cleveland office workers watching the show, her daughter waved her arms. “Mom!”

Theresa froze.

Rachael stood with her stomach pressed against a metal barrier with
CAUTION
! stenciled on its side. She wore the same clothes she’d worn to school that morning, pencil-thin jeans and a black V-neck T-shirt that Theresa felt was too tight for a buxom seventeen-year-old. Rachael’s boyfriend, Craig, who must have been pressed into service to drive her downtown, flanked her. On
her other side, Frank had a hand on each of her shoulders, almost certainly to keep her from leaping the barricade and rushing to her mother’s rescue. That would be Rachael.

“Who’s that?” the police sergeant asked.

Theresa’s shock instantly ceded to fury. What was in Frank’s mind, to let Rachael get this close? If bullets started to fly, who knew how far they could go, not to mention allowing her a ringside seat to her mother’s potential murder? Wasn’t this traumatic enough—did she have to be an eyewitness as well? Had he lost his mind? She was seventeen bloody years old! He should have locked her in the back of a police car if he had to, just
get her out of there.

And she would throttle Craig, if she lived through the day.

But the two men hadn’t told her to sacrifice herself for her fiancé. They did not create this situation.

If I run, I could make it. The cops wouldn’t stop me. I’d be halfway up the street before Lucas could react, and he couldn’t hit me. He might shoot everyone else, but not me.

And he might not shoot anyone. He’d have seven hostages left, it’s not like he couldn’t spare one. Unless everyone else tried to run out, too. Then he’d shoot. He’d have to.

“Mom!”

If she ran, she could make it.

“Lucas.” She spoke calmly and clearly. “My daughter is out there. I’m going to wave to her, just wave my hand. I won’t move.”

“She’s out where?”

“Behind the barriers.”

“Really.” His head poked out from behind Jessica Ludlow’s, just an inch. “Invite her in.”

She snarled an obscenity at him, startling in its ferocity.

Perhaps it startled him as well, or merely amused. “Okay, okay. Relax, Theresa, I was just kidding. Your feet don’t move. Go ahead and wave—once. Then get back to my money.”

She gazed at her daughter, so far away that her face was not clear, just the shape and the hair and the voice. Was she crying? Was she angry? Which would be worse?

If she ran, she could make it.

Theresa waved, two swipes of her right arm. Rachael saw it; she stopped her frantic movements, and as her body stilled, it seemed to deflate.
It’s hitting her now,
Theresa thought. She came there, she saw her mother, and now she was figuring out that that was all she could do. That was all anyone could do. Theresa was stuck, and no one could help her.

Unless she ran.

“Don’t take one step forward, Theresa,” she heard Lucas say. “If you do, I’ll kill half the people in this room. I’ll still have the other half.”

Then you’d give the authorities no choice but to take you out, no matter the cost,
she thought, but she knew it didn’t make any difference. Her decision had been made, and she felt almost grateful to him for helping her make it.

She kept moving packages but could not take her eyes off her daughter.

Craig put his arm around Rachael’s waist, and Theresa wished he wouldn’t. The girl might pass out in the heat. But Rachael must have calmed some, since Frank had removed his hands from the girl’s shoulders.
Maybe it did her good to see me,
Theresa thought.
Maybe then the whole thing won’t seem so bad.
If she survived.

The sergeant interrupted her thoughts. “Any of the hostages seem to be working with them?”

She thought of Jessica Ludlow. Where had she been last night, if not at home to notice her husband’s dead body on the sidewalk? Or had he been killed early that morning, after she left? Theresa hadn’t seen the least sign of familiarity with the robbers, and the young woman could not have faked her terror on Ethan’s behalf. “No.”

“Either of them seem to have any medical problems?”

The cops wanted to know anything that might cause the situation to become unstable—a heart attack, asthma attack, psychotic behavior. “No.”

Suddenly his questions worried her. They could have gotten this information from Paul, surely better versed than she was in observing criminals for behavior and armaments. If they had not, that meant Paul was unconscious. Or dead.

“How is Paul?” she asked again. “The cop that got shot in here.”

He hesitated. She switched her gaze back to him from Rachael, and knew she should have done it sooner, because now he was molding his face into that blank, “I know nothing” calm that meant he didn’t want to tell her. She had done it herself when family members intercepted her outside a crime scene, wanting to know if the body underneath the overturned vehicle was their husband or son or brother.

She stopped, holding a heavy bundle of money. “Is he dead?”

“I don’t know, ma’am.”

“Is he
dead
?”

“I don’t know.” Now he spoke clearly, since Lucas must have heard her question. “Really, I’ve been upstairs all morning. I don’t know anything.”

“Keep going, Theresa,” Lucas said. “We’re almost full up.”

She didn’t believe the sergeant, but she wanted to, so she didn’t ask again. She couldn’t tell Jessica Ludlow that her husband was dead, because she might freak out, get hysterical, upset the fragile calm until Lucas and Bobby killed her to shut her up or panicked and began firing at everyone. And now this man wouldn’t tell her that Paul was dead, for exactly the same reason.

“Anything else you’ve observed?” the sergeant asked.

“Lucas was abused as a child.” She hadn’t intended to say that; she didn’t see how it could help them, and if Cavanaugh brought it up, Lucas would know she had passed information to the sergeant. But childhood trauma had some real relevance to her at the moment. How would Rachael deal with this? Eventually fear would turn to resentment, an anger at her parent for bringing her that close to grief.