Crescent City Connection

mail.
    Another fax came through, a handwritten note: “It’s set for three P.M. sharp. We’re prepared to die with her.” There was a P.S.: “By the way, it can be detonated earlier. Use gas or fire one shot—and that’s it.”
    Goerner’s face was grayish. “Fuckers. Goddamn mother-fuckin’ FUCKERS!”
    It was two-fifteen.
    The phone rang. “Did y’all get my fax?”
    Ferguson said, “Reverend, you’ve got to remember she’s just a little girl. She didn’t volunteer for this. I know you’re a Christian. Listen, I’m Irish Catholic, myself, and I know God is a merciful god. Doesn’t he expect us to be merciful as well?”
    “Penny, shut up, will you? Let me talk to Lovelace.”
    “We had to send her away for a few minutes. I’m sure you didn’t want her to see that picture, did you?”
    “I most assuredly did. I want my granddaughter to know her grandpa means business. That saving her father is completely within her power. We don’t get her, we don’t get Langdon, that bomb goes off, Shavonne dies, I die, Daniel dies, everybody in the house dies.”
    Even as his words filled the room, agents and engineers in headsets were working, calling the bomb squad, making plans to move the command post—first the people, then the machines.
    When the call was over, Goerner said, “Okay, we can’t stay here. Everybody out the window—there’s a van around the corner. Not you, Langdon. Let me talk to you. Turner, you too.”
    Skip huddled with him, not sure what to expect.
    “Look, there’s no point in calling the psychologists. They already gave us their opinion—but just the same, I’m gonna get people on the phone to ’em right away. If they say what I think they’re gonna, which is that this guy’s crazy enough to do it, I’ve either got to let him do it and kill that little girl, or gas the place and rush it, thereby getting maybe twenty people killed, or send you on what could very well be a suicide mission. Turner here says you think on your feet, and you can probably pull this thing off if anyone can. I want to know something—are you as crazy as that asshole?”
    Skip’s feet and hands were blocks of ice.
No
, she thought.
I take it all back. No way in hell am I going in there.
    She said, “Give me five minutes. Let me think about it while we move.” She was aware that her voice sounded sluggish and without enthusiasm.
    Kohler said, “Something’s coming in.” He turned up the volume. “He’s talking to the mother.”
    Jacomine was saying, “Ms. Bourgeois, you got a fax machine?”
    “We have one over at the church.”
    He was going to fax Dorise the picture. He was probably going to fax it to the New York Times after that. Tomorrow Shavonne would be dead, and Dorise and the whole world would know that the FBI and the New Orleans Police Department had done nothing to stop it.
    The world was one thing—Dorise was another.
    Skip knew Shellmire was thinking what she was and that, despite that, he’d actually be relieved if she said no.
    Goerner probably wanted her to do it. The feds would look like jerks if they relinquished control at this point; he had to do something to save his ass.
    Goddammit
, she thought.
I wish I were a Christian. Or something. Maybe I’d be braver.
    She caught Shellmire’s eye. “I think I’ve got to take a shot at it.”
    “No, you do not have to. You had to kill a man who was trying to kill you. You don’t owe that kid a damn thing just because he was her father.”
    His words had the opposite effect they were meant to have. She thought of the people she knew that Jacomine had killed, and she thought of pregnant Bettina, and she thought of the man she had killed the day before, to save Lovelace from her own grandfather.
    She said, “I want to do it, Turner.”
    They took her to the tactical command post, where the leaders of the TAC units were busy sweating bullets. Goerner outlined the plan, and as he talked, Skip watched the men’s faces screw up in dismay and worry.
    Their names were Vinterella and Piatt. Vinterella, the one from NOPD, was someone she knew slightly. She liked him and thought he liked her, but he was already shaking his head.
    “Skip, we’ve never worked together. How we gonna do this if we’re not on the same page?”
    “You and Agent Piatt have never worked together. Have you?”
    He kept shaking his head. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit.”
    “Listen, I know the risk. I’ve just spent the last ten minutes psyching