Roses Are Red

maybe we should scrap the whole plan and go drinking. Just kidding,” she added quickly.
    “Boo,” said one woman. “That sounds like fun, Mary. Let’s go to a real drinking bar. Where does Teddy Kennedy go for his morning wake-up shot?” Up and down the aisle everyone laughed.
    The tour bus proceeded down the driveway of the hotel at a leisurely pace, then turned onto Connecticut Avenue. A few minutes later, the bus turned onto Oliver, which was a residential street. It was a shortcut drivers often took from the Mayflower.
    A dark blue Chevy van backed out of a driveway about halfway down the block. The van’s driver obviously didn’t see the bus, but the bus driver saw the Chevy. He braked smoothly and stopped in the middle of the street.
    The driver of the van wouldn’t move even after Joe Denyeau sounded his horn. Denyeau figured that the man must have been fed up with all the trucks and buses that used the side street as a shortcut. What other reason could there be for the guy to just sit there, staring angrily at him?
    Two masked men suddenly appeared from behind a high hedge. One of them stepped directly in front of the tour bus; the other thrust an automatic weapon inside the open side window, inches from the driver’s head.
    “Open the door or you’re dead, Joseph,” he shouted at the driver. “No one gets hurt if you obey. You have three seconds to follow directions. One —”
    “It’s open, it’s open,” Denyeau said in a high-pitched, very frightened voice. “Take it easy.”
    Several of the wives stopped in the middle of their conversations and peered up toward the front of the bus. Mary Jordan slid down in the bus seat behind the driver, where she was riding alone. She could see the man with the gun, and then he winked at her.
    “Do what he says, Joe,” Jordan whispered. “Don’t play the hero.”
    “Don’t worry. It didn’t even cross my mind.”
    The armed, masked man suddenly boarded the bus. He held a Walther double automatic pointed at them. Some of the passengers began to scream.
    The masked man shouted out, “This is a hijacking! We’re only interested in getting money from MetroHartford. I promise you, no one will be hurt. I have children, you have children. Let’s make sure all of our children get to see us tomorrow morning.”

Chapter 56
    THE TOUR BUS became strangely silent. Even the small children were quiet.
    Brian Macdougall had the floor and he immensely enjoyed being the center of attention. “There are a few rules of order.
One,
no more screams.
Two,
nobody cries, not even the kids.
Three,
nobody yells for help. Okay so far? Understood?”
    The passengers stared openmouthed at the man with the gun. Another man had climbed onto the bus roof and was changing the alphanumeric indicator, which was the easiest way police aircraft could spot it on the road.
    “I said —
okay so far?
” Brian Macdougall yelled.
    The woman and children nodded and answered him in muffled voices.
    “Next piece of business. Everyone with a cell phone pass it forward — right now. As we all know, the police can track cell phones. Not easily, but it can be done. Anyone still holding a phone when we do body searches will be killed. Even if it’s a kid. Simple as that. Understood? Okay so far? We still crystal clear on everything?”
    The cell phones were hurriedly passed to the front. There were nine of them. The gunman threw them outside the bus, into the hedges. He then used a small hammer and smashed the bus’s two-way radio beyond repair.
    “Now, everybody, put your heads way down below the level of the windows. Everybody stay very quiet down there. That includes the kids. Put your heads down now and don’t look up again until you’re told. Do it.”
    The women and the children on the bus obeyed.
    “Big Joe,” the gunman turned and addressed the bus driver, “you have only one instruction —
follow the blue van.
Do not fuck around in any way or you will die instantly. You are worth nothing to us, alive or dead. Now, Joe, what do you do?”
    “Follow the black van.”
    “Very good, Joe. Excellent. Except the van is
blue,
Joe. See the
blue
van? Now follow it, and drive carefully. We don’t want any vehicular violations on our trip.”

Chapter 57
    THERE WERE THREE EXECUTIVE ASSISTANTS busily answering phones and collecting mail and faxes for the thirty-six MetroHartford directors working in the famed Chinese Room at the Mayflower Hotel. The assistants loved being out