The phone started ringing.
"You take it," Alena told me. "You must convince them to wait, that they do not need to storm the room."
I hopped down from the bureau. Alena had risen, replacing her laptop in her bag, and I gave her a lift up to where I had just been standing. She resumed widening the hole I'd made in the ceiling, working slowly to keep her efforts silent as I went to answer the phone.
"What?"
"Mr. Morse? This is Bobby Galloway with the Lynch Police Department. I'm here to help you."
"You're what?" I asked.
"I'm here to help you."
"What makes you think I need your help, Mr. Galloway?"
"Well, Chris, it seems there are some people who think that there was this incident in Montana a few days ago involving some law enforcement officials," Bobby Galloway told me, using his best hostage-negotiation voice. It wasn't bad, pleasant and with a definite promise of friendship. "We'd really like to get that sorted out. There's a lot of confusion about what happened back there."
"Not from where I'm standing."
"That's the thing, there are always two sides to every story."
"You want to help me so much, why do I think that if I open my curtains and look out the window I'm going to be seeing the SWAT team surrounding this hotel?"
"Well, Chris, unfortunately things have gone beyond where I can just come over there and chat with you. We're going to need to bring you down to the station, try to sort this out there."
"You're going to arrest me?"
"I'm not going to lie to you, we do have a warrant for your arrest, Chris. We also have a warrant for Danielle's arrest. We've been told that she may have been wounded, is she doing okay, does she need any medical attention, anything like that?"
I took a second, trying to get my thoughts ordered as quickly as possible. So far, Bobby Galloway was proving himself to be a very good negotiator, better than I'd expected given the circumstance and the location, and that meant I was going to have to be very careful in what I said to him. Asking about Alena was mining, trying to gather intelligence.
Galloway had the potential to become our greatest ally, if I could convince him that he had control of the conversation, that he could keep me talking, and more, keep me willing to talk to him. That would be ideal, because it would allow him to turn to his superior, his chief of police or whoever, and say the same, that he could keep us from being a danger to ourselves and the community, that he could keep us stable until HRT or whoever arrived. That maybe he could get this resolved peaceably, without needing to storm the room.
He could buy us the time we needed to get away.
"Chris? Is Danielle doing okay?" Galloway asked.
"She's fine," I told him. "She's more than fine, she's never been better."
"How about you? Are you injured at all? Do you need any medical assistance?"
"I'm doing fine," I said. Then I added, "I've got everything I need right here with me."
It was a deliberate opening, and he took it, but he took his time. A worse negotiator would have jumped on the line like a politician on a vote, but Bobby Galloway waited almost three seconds before speaking.
"Yeah? What do you have in there that's so helpful, Chris?"
"Don't you worry about what I have or what I don't," I snapped. "I've got everything I need, that's all you need to know."
"All right."
I let a pause start, then, trying to sound pissy, said, "Can I ask you a question? Am I allowed to ask questions, here?"
It was as calculated on my part as anything he had said on his, because I was giving him exactly what every good negotiator wants to hear: I was giving him power. Three minutes into the conversation at the most, and psychologically-at least from where Galloway was standing with his headset and his paper cup of coffee at the mobile command post across the street-I'd turned the first corner he wanted me to take. I had asked his permission, and that meant that I'd put him in control.
"Sure, Chris," Galloway said. "Go ahead."
"You guys want to arrest me, why don't you just come up to the door and come and get me?"
"Thing is, the information I've been given says that you two have some dangerous stuff up there. That you've got some firearms and ammunition, like that, maybe even something that could make a lot of people really sick."
"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, coming up here would probably be a bad idea, Bobby. It would probably make a whole lot of people a whole lot more than just sick."
"There you go, that's what's got us where we are, here," Bobby Galloway said. "You want to tell me about what happened in Montana? You want to talk about that?"
"No."
"This is a good opportunity, Chris, this is a good chance for you to tell your side of things, you hear what I'm saying? There are always two sides, it's like I said, and from where we're sitting out here, I mean, it looks like you're the bad guy, so it would be good to hear your side. You sure you don't want to talk about it?"
"I'm sure," I told him. "I've got nothing to say about Montana."
To my side, Alena had finished clearing the hole in the ceiling, just wide enough now that I could fit through it. She quietly dropped from the bureau, took the last chunk of debris and set it on the floor, then began clearing off the other pieces she'd pulled from where they rested on the bed.
"All right, Chris," Galloway said, after a moment. "I'm going to take a couple minutes here and consult with my superiors, maybe use the bathroom, get another cup of coffee. You should think about what I've said, see if we can't work this out."
"Sure," I said, but it went into dead air, he'd already disconnected. I did likewise.
"He hung up?" Alena asked.
I nodded. "He's pretty good."
She motioned to the remote control. "Shall we?"
"Yeah, let's see if that brings him back."
I handed Alena the remote and she moved to the window, crouching down to one side before sliding it between the fabric and the glass. She pressed several of the buttons together, as if trying to control some distant television.
The phone began ringing again.
"Guess they're wearing night-vision," I said.
"I guess they are." She came off her haunches and set the remote back on the dresser beside the television. Remote controls use infrared light to send their commands to whatever it is they're commanding. By its nature, it's outside the visible spectrum, but not when using night-vision. When using night-vision, it shows up like what it is-a nice, bright pulse of light. Multiple buttons meant that there had been multiple pulses at multiple frequencies.
Seen by someone on the perimeter, maybe by several someones, it had made an unexpected and potentially alarming light show, because there was a very good chance they had no idea of its source. Galloway, maybe getting himself his cup of coffee, but just as likely reviewing his notes and consulting with his bosses, had been urged to get back on the phone and find out just what the hell we were doing in there.
"Goddammit," I said when I answered. "What?"
"Just checking that everything's all right in there," Galloway said. "You two still okay? Something happen?"
"Why wouldn't we be?" I demanded. "This is bullshit. I want to talk to somebody in charge. That's what I want. You put your boss on. I want to talk to him."
Over the phone I could make out voices speaking in the background. None of them sounded like Galloway.
"Don't ignore me, Bobby," I said sharply. "Don't ignore me, man, you don't want to do that."
"I'm not ignoring you," he said. "I'm afraid you're stuck with me, Chris, there's no one else available. You're sure everything's all right in there?"
"Everything's just fine. Everything's just great, why are you asking, you think everything's not fine and great?"
"Just checking with you, that's all."
"We've got everything we need in here, I told you that. Don't play games with me, Bobby, I don't like it. I don't want you playing games with me."