High Noon

Angela.
    “Commander, he’s not planning on coming out of there alive. It’s a suicide mission for him, his sacrifice. And his way of paying me back. The loss of seventeen hostages, including a man who injured me. I know what he’s doing. I need time to wind this out.”
    “Com’s set—negotiation control’s in that ladies’ boutique up there.” Sykes gestured.
    “Okay, I need everything, every scrap we have on him, everything we know or think we know. I need Mike Vince sent up as soon as possible. I need you with me, Sykes. I talk. Nobody talks to him but me,” she continued as they hurried toward the boutique. “I need you to feed me information, to let me know if I go off on the wrong angle. He wants to play this out, too, so he won’t rush it if we don’t rush him. You help me interpret, help me listen, help me with every goddamn thing. Because he knows how this works, and he’s waiting for me to make a mistake. He’s salivating for just that.”
    “He’s got nothing to lose, Lieutenant.”
    “No, he’s already lost. What he wants is for me to sweat, then blow the whole thing—including himself—to pieces. This isn’t a negotiation. But the longer he believes I think it is, the longer we have to get everyone out alive.”
    “You think he knew Arnie was security there?”
    “Yes.” She stepped into the boutique where her base had been set up amid thin summer dresses, pretty accessories, high-end handbags and fashionable sandals.
    “I think it must have thrilled him to find out Arnie was on the door there. I think he saw it as a sign that he’d chosen his last stand perfectly.” She stripped off her blazer, tossed it aside. “We already know why he’s in there, what he wants. But we play it out. Start the checklist.”
    She sat at a table cleared of stock, pressed her fingers to her eyes. “He’s cold, rational, committed. He’s suicidal. He wants to die. This is another kind of suicide by cop—but a specific cop. Me. I fail, everyone dies. My failure’s his motive, but that doesn’t go for him unless we establish negotiations, unless we talk, play the game.”
    She checked her watch. Ten minutes exactly, she told herself. If she called a minute before, a minute after, he could use it as an excuse.
    She ordered herself to clear her head, to find the calm. When Liz came through the door, Phoebe was counting down the last two minutes. “Your guy Duncan’s just outside the perimeter, with his lawyer, Phineas Hector. He says he has to talk to you, right now. It’s urgent.”
    “I can’t—”
    “Phoebe, he says he’s got two people inside. He says he knows two of the hostages.”
    “Pull him in, fast.”
    One minute, fifteen seconds, she noted when Duncan and Phin came in.
    “He’s got my mother in there,” Phin blurted out. “He’s got my wife and mother in there.”
    It was like a bare-fisted blow to the throat. “Are you sure?”
    “They were going to meet me there.” The fight for control was obvious on his face as Duncan stood shoulder to shoulder with Phin. “I talked to Loo on her cell a few minutes before twelve because I was running late. They were inside. They were waiting for me. Jesus, Phoebe—”
    “They’re not hurt. He hasn’t hurt anyone but the security guard.” But her hands had gone clammy. “They’re smart, sensible women, and they won’t do anything to get themselves hurt.”
    “If he knows who they are…” Duncan began.
    “He doesn’t. He couldn’t know they’d be in there. He isn’t looking at them. It isn’t about them. I need you both to go stand back there. Don’t say anything, don’t do anything. He doesn’t know who they are, my connection to them, and that’s vital to keeping them safe. I have to call him back. He can’t hear anything but me now.”
    She signaled as Mike Vince came in. “I’m not asking you to go outside. I’m trusting you to let me do my job. You trust me to do it. Sykes, ADA Louise Hector and her mother-in-law, Beatrice Hector, are inside. I’m calling him back,” she said to Vince. “I want you to listen. You have anything, anything at all to add, to help, any question, you write it down. Don’t speak. I don’t want him to hear your voice.”
    “Christ, Lieutenant, Christ, I can’t believe Jerry would do something like this.”
    “Believe it.” She shoved a pad and pencil at him, then made the call.
    “Right on time.”
    “What can I do for you now, Jerry?”
    “How about a car,