Andie checked her cell phone. Still no return call from Jack’s father. She wondered if he’d gotten her messages. Andie was big on vibes, and she didn’t like the one she was getting at the moment. It had been almost an hour since Figueroa had last stopped by the FBI mobile command center to tell her “I told you so, I knew you’d get nowhere in negotiations.” She sensed that something was afoot, and that she wasn’t part of it.
She was about to dial Harry’s cell again when a car door slammed and Guy Schwartz stepped out.
“Good news and bad news,” he said as he approached.
An ASAC spending this much time on-site wasn’t the norm, but this was a standoff with some very long tentacles, ones that reached all the way back to Washington. Schwartz was showing every intention of remaining hands-on from start to finish.
“Okay, I’ll bite,” said Andie. “What’s the good news?”
“We have approval to deliver five hundred thousand dollars in marked bills to Demetri.”
“Can it be here before the six A.M. deadline he gave us?”
“That’s the bad news. He specified old bills, not new bills. That makes it impractical to track by serial numbers. Only reliable way to mark it is with fluorescent ink, and we don’t keep half a million dollars sitting around, premarked.”
“What am I supposed to tell him? Headquarters is concerned that there’s a one-in-a-million chance that he might actually escape with the money after we deliver it to him, so we need more time to mark the bills?”
“It’s Sunday morning. You need to make him understand that we need additional time to pull that much cash together.”
“How much additional time?”
“Keep it open-ended.”
Andie shook her head and said, “I worry about this.”
Schwartz took a half step closer, showing his concern. “Are you okay?” he said.
“Yes. Why?”
“I shouldn’t have to tell a Quantico-trained negotiator that you don’t let the hostage taker set the timetable, that you never agree to deadlines. I’m beginning to think that your initial reluctance to get involved has some validity. Maybe you are too personally invested to exercise proper judgment.”
“Jack is not the issue,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. My concerns are based solely on maintaining credibility as a negotiator. Demetri is holding the future vice president’s son hostage, he’s broadcasting the whole thing live on television, and he must be thinking that he’s dealing directly with the president. He isn’t going to accept an excuse as lame as ‘Sorry, the bank is closed.’”
“Then lower his expectations. You have to convince him that the president isn’t watching and doesn’t care. Television or not, you can’t let him believe for a minute that he has a direct line to the White House.”
Tires screeched as a Florida highway patrol car flew around the perimeter-control barricade and cut toward the mobile command center. The brakes grabbed, and the front bumper nearly kissed the pavement as the car came to an abrupt halt just a few feet away from Andie. The trooper jumped out of the car, and the single gold bar on his uniform told Andie that he was a lieutenant.
“I just got word that Air Force One touched down at Miami International.”
Schwartz said, “That’s not possible. There’s no way Air Force One would fly into Miami without the FBI knowing about it.”
“Well, maybe the rest of the FBI just didn’t bother to tell you folks. All I know is that I have to take about half my troopers and my entire tactical response unit off this site to assist with the motorcade.”
“Is the president on board?” said Andie.
“That’s what I’m told,” said the lieutenant. “Harry Swyteck is with him.”
“How do you know that?” said Schwartz.
“That part was on the news.”
“The news?” said Schwartz.
Andie raced inside the command center and checked the television monitor. Jack and the anchorwoman were still on the left side of the Action News split screen. But sure enough, Air Force One was on the other side. The banner below it read, PRESIDENT AND V.P. NOMINEE LAND IN MIAMI.
Schwartz came up behind her, and Andie’s heart sank.
“So much for convincing Demetri that the president isn’t watching.”
“The hell with that,” said Schwartz. “I wasn’t just puffing my rank when I said Air Force One couldn’t land in Miami without me knowing about it.”
“So what do you make of that?”
“I want to know who’s keeping you and me out of the loop,” he said. “And why.”
Andie paused. Thursday’s telephone conversation with Stan White, the ASAC from the Washington field office, was replaying in her mind-when he told her “there is something you need to understand about Harry Swyteck.” It suddenly made perfect sense to her that Miami was “out of the loop,” so to speak.
“Were you about to say something?” said Schwartz.
Again she paused. If Schwartz didn’t know what Washington knew about Harry, it wasn’t her place to tell him.
“No,” said Andie. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”
Chapter 49
“Yesssss!” said Demetri, clenching his fist like a tennis star who’d served an ace.
Jack glanced across the news set to see him standing in front of the flat-screen television mounted on the wall.
Shannon leaned closer to Jack and whispered, “Is that Air Force One?”
The television was a good forty feet away, too far for Jack to read the news banner at the bottom. But the red, white, and blue Boeing 747 was unmistakable.
“It sure is,” said Jack.
“Do you see that?” said Demetri, as he stepped toward his hostages. “You see how seriously they are taking this?”
Shannon whispered, “He’s delusional.”
Jack knew that he wasn’t, but he didn’t argue with her.
Every half hour or so, Demetri had been doing fifty push-ups at a time to keep alert as the night wore one, and he definitely had renewed energy in his step as he crossed the set and looked into the camera.
“All you doubters out there who have been watching on your televisions at home, do you understand how important this is? How important I am? The president of the United States has just landed. Do you think he flies into Miami at”-he checked his watch-“two thirty on a Sunday morning for just any old reason?”
Shannon said, “If he thinks the president flew down here to negotiate with him, we’re in bigger trouble than I thought.”
“Just don’t panic,” said Jack.
Demetri’s television address was gaining momentum, his excitement growing. “Now we are seeing some action!”
Shannon leaned closer and whispered, “I have a nail file.”
“What?” said Jack. He was trying to hear Demetri talk.
“It’s the metal kind with the pointy tip, like a knife. I found it in the bathroom and hid it in my hair.”
Jack checked her hairdo. It was full enough to hide a machete.
Shannon said, “All we have to do is get Pedro to step out from behind the camera and come over here. He can take it from me and then he can-” She paused, as if it were difficult for her to speak of such things. “Pedro can slit his throat.”
“That’s a suicide mission.”
“You got a better idea?”
Jack’s gaze swept toward Demetri, who was still speaking to his television audience.