“I’m okay, Frank — Seth, too.”
He heard Ben calling on the radio, asking for more help. He didn’t sound much steadier.
“Are any of you hurt?” Frank asked.
“The judge is hurt the worst. Seth is with him — they ended up a little farther down, but Seth and I can hear each other. Seth says Kerr is breathing, but he’s unconscious.”
“And you?”
“A little bumped around, that’s all. Were you the one who was tapping?”
“Yes. Ben and Bingle and Anna and her dogs are here. Bingle is the star of the day. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“From the moment Seth told me someone was answering his taps, I’ve been doing better and better.”
He continued to talk to her until the second technical team arrived. He moved back into the corridor then, watching as they used inflatable lift pillows to widen the opening and began the work of shoring up the space they’d use to free her.
Ben put a hand on his shoulder. Frank turned to see Anna waiting down the corridor with the dogs. “We’ve got to move along,” Ben said.
Frank glanced back at the rescue team, which was hammering cribbing in place.
“Sure,” he said.
“Oh, no, you stay here. I think we can dispense with your help.”
“I meant what I said—”
“I know you did. But if you haven’t figured out that I risked being kicked off the SAR team just because I couldn’t stand to think of you sitting out in the plaza while I looked for your trouble-prone wife—”
“I was going crazy down there, Ben. I — I don’t know how to thank you—”
“I owe the two of you too much for thanks to be due. Besides, this was good for me — it will help me with the rest of the day.”
He watched them take the dogs down the hall, Ben talking to Bingle in Spanish, Anna to Rascal and Devil in English, working up their enthusiasm, telling them to “find ’em,” knowing that the outcome would seldom be the one that others hoped and waited for.
Frank moved back toward the stairwell, as close as the workers would allow him to come.
For now, he would wait. And silently offer thanks.
54
Friday, July 14, 4:00 P.M.
St. Anne’s Hospital
The doctors said they expected Judge Kerr to make a full recovery, but he would be hospitalized for a while. As the blast hit, he had tried to shield Seth from falling objects but was himself struck on the head by a small piece of concrete. He had lost consciousness and fallen down the stairs, taking Seth with him. A rain of debris had separated them from Irene.
Seth, who had been the first to be rescued, had a few scrapes and bruises. Frank had gone down to the fourth floor again when they brought him out. He held tightly to Frank from the moment he was freed until Elena met them at the hospital.
Irene was scraped and bruised, too, and more extensively. He had winced at all the abrasions on her face and arms and legs, and especially at a swollen spot just above her left eyebrow. “I’m so disappointed. I was trying to get mine in the same place as yours,” she said, tracing a finger lightly along his stitches. “Do you mind if I tell people this happened when I kicked a bad guy’s ass?”
“With this much damage, you’d better say it was a dozen bad guys.”
He had held her gently when she was freed — neither of them able to say a word. She had been terrified, he could tell, although she had put up a brave front for Seth’s sake — talking with him, singing songs with him — Bingle had been singing in response to one of these. They got away from the building as soon as possible, and he was relieved to see the fear gradually recede as she spent time in the open air.
Frank decided to visit Bredloe while Seth and Irene talked with Elena. Although it was hard for him to let either Irene or Seth out of his sight, he was still not comfortable with Elena. He was overdue for a visit to Bredloe in any case.
Bredloe recognized him and said a slow, slurred version of his name. And something that sounded like the word “sorry.”
“No need to be, sir.”
Frank couldn’t make out the next phrase, but Miriam translated. “Yes, there is.”
Miriam told Frank that while her husband was doing much better, the long-term effects of his injuries were still uncertain.
“Hard for you to be patient with it, I know,” Frank said to him.
“Yes. Sometimes almost as frustrating as policework.”
Miriam started to translate, but Frank smiled and said, “I understood that perfectly.”
Because the captain tired quickly, and because he was anxious to return to Irene, Frank kept the visit short.
When he returned to the lobby, Irene was sitting alone. “Where are Seth and Elena?” he asked.
“Waiting outside. I asked them to give us a few minutes. I think they needed a little time to themselves, too.” She tugged him toward a small office. “I asked one of the nurses if we could come in here to talk. She said it would be okay.”
He pulled her gently into his arms, being careful of her bruises, and didn’t let her say a word for a while. “This time,” he said, “this time you really scared the hell out of me.”
“Is that some freaked-out macho-man way of telling me you love me?”
He laughed, then kissed her again. “I’ve got all kinds of ways to do that.”
His cell phone rang. He started to ignore it, but she said, “No rush — answer it.”
It was Vince.
“You want to be in for the kill?” he said. “Haycroft is here.”
“Have you arrested him?”
“Not yet. He’s holding a hostage.”
“Shit,” he said.
“A lady from the courthouse. A guard. Nice woman. Anyway, get on over here, because my money is on the SWAT boys.”
He hung up and explained the situation to Irene.
“Go on,” she said. “I’m fine. A little tired, but fine.”
“I’m not. Not after this afternoon.”
“Do you want me to go with you?”
He shook his head, then looked into those blue eyes of hers. “Tonight.”
“Maybe.”
He laughed. “You know, I nearly forgot to tell you how glad I am that you almost never obey orders.”
She looked at him for a long moment and said, “Come home as soon as you can.”
55
Friday, July 14, 4:20 P.M.
Las Piernas Airport
He was inside the Cessna. Denise, bound and gagged, was whimpering in the seat next to his. Good God, didn’t the woman understand what a privilege he had conferred on her? No one was allowed to fly with him!
He must end this standoff, if for no other reason than to be rid of her.
He started the engine, SWAT team or no. Actually, because of them. He let them know that he had set up a sort of reverse “dead-man’s switch.” If he were to be shot and killed, the plane would not shut off — it would, in fact, be uncontrolled, whether taxiing on land or flying in the air. He would smash Ms. Denise here into the side of the hangar, and she and anyone nearby would become crispy critters.
He was tired of listening to the hostage negotiator, Tom Cassidy. He knew all the tricks of Cassidy’s trade, and he wasn’t even interested in tormenting the fellow, as he well could have. As he had been tormented himself. Oh, yes, tormented.
The first thing Cassidy told him was that Harriman wasn’t dead. Cassidy announced this as if it were a good thing, as if there were any doubt he’d be charged with murder anyway. His rage over Harriman’s survival was nearly boundless.
Next he had learned that thanks to Harriman, Judge Lewis Kerr wasn’t dead, either. When he had heard this news, he began to feel a little afraid of Harriman. He could almost believe that Lefebvre had come back to haunt him.
He despised Cassidy for ruining his day in this way. And so he had struck back and lied — told Cassidy that perhaps a person who would do something so heinous as planting bombs in a courthouse wouldn’t stop at destroying just one government building. “If I were you,” he told the big Texan, “I’d wonder if such a criminal had bombs all over town.”