“I wouldn’t do th-”
“I’m not casting aspersions on your character, now, just assembling the facts from my point of view. Jessie, on the other hand, has that maternal-instinct thing going. She’s going to go and get the cash, but her baby will stay here.”
She gasped, cupping the boy’s head against her shoulder.
“That makes her the only person in this room I know will come back. Isn’t that right? Even if you’re scared. Even if the cops tell you not to. Even if you have to smash down the bank-loan department chief ’s door with a desk chair. You’ll do that, and you’ll come back here, won’t you?”
She nodded, with horror in her eyes.
Lucas winked at Theresa. “Motherhood. Never underestimate it. You can hold the kid while she goes on this scavenger hunt. Hand the kid to Theresa, Jessie. She’ll take care of him.”
The young woman couldn’t make herself relinquish her child, not until Lucas aimed the automatic rifle at her head. Then she shifted the small, warm body to Theresa with the solemnity of a death knell and an expression to match. Her hand lingered on his back until Lucas told her to stand up.
Theresa accepted the boy almost as reluctantly as his mother had given him up. The situation was about to deteriorate even more.
She watched as Lucas picked up the red backpack off the floor and dumped its contents into the oversize duffel at Bobby’s feet. He brought the bag, a simple red nylon sack with a Spider-Man logo, over to them; his passage set off another volley of barking from the K-9 unit’s dog, so that he had to raise his voice to instruct Jessica Ludlow, “Take this. Fill it up. Do not let the cops add any dye packs, GPS devices, et cetera. As soon as you get back, I’m going to unload this pack into another bag, so anything planted in here will be found. Every item I find in this bag that isn’t money is one bullet that goes into your boy there.”
The young woman paled.
“You’ve got twenty minutes. Every five minutes after twenty minutes, I put a bullet in your boy. You don’t come back at all, then neither does he. Got it?”
“But how…?”
“I’m sure security is running all over this building. They can help you. They’ll want to use you to get to me, but I’ve got a gun pointed at your little boy’s head and they don’t, so who wins here? Hmm?”
Jessica didn’t take long to think about that one. “You do.”
“Right.” He handed her the empty backpack. Then, with a hand on her shoulder, he turned her around and gave her a slight shove toward the elevators in the employee lobby. She did not take her eyes from her son until she disappeared around the marble information desk.
The boy twitched violently in his sleep, as if rocking in the wake of her departure. Theresa rubbed his back and wished the dog would pipe down. She didn’t relish the thought of having to explain to a two-year-old that his mother had gone on a bank robber’s errand. She had no faith that the security force would allow Jessica’s maternal instinct to overcome her self-preserva-tion. They certainly would not have allowed Theresa to trade herself for Paul. If they could have stopped her, they would have.
The baby stirred. They always know, Theresa thought, a parent from a nonparent. I don’t smell like her, I don’t pat his back like she does. My shoulder is bonier. A host of subconscious clues were telling him that he’d been abandoned to a stranger, and they would prod his conscious into investigating. And she doubted that Lucas would have much patience with a crying child. She rubbed his back again.
Please sleep.
“You,” Lucas said to her again. “Scientist lady. What are they doing at the command center?”
“Watching you.”
“Through the windows?”
She nodded.
“And the cameras here?” Lucas gestured at the walls, where the lobby cameras nestled in the corners.
She nodded again.
That didn’t satisfy him. “Answer me when I ask you a question.”
She pointed at the small boy’s back. “He’ll wake up. My voice isn’t familiar.”
“I don’t care much about baby’s naptime, Theresa. I can handle cryin’ kids. What do they know about us, me and Bobby? Ah, you’re hesitating. That’s not a good idea, Theresa. It makes me nervous. It makes me think you’re lying to me.”
Again she gestured at the small boy in her arms, keeping her voice as quiet as possible. “I don’t want to wake him. They know that Bobby’s last name is Moyers and that he just got out of jail in Atlanta.”
Bobby moved closer, listening.
Lucas had been standing still, but somehow he became even more so, a change minute enough that it could have been a trick of the light. It prompted her to explain, “They traced the car. It’s registered to him.”
“Uh-huh. And what do they know about me?”
“Nothing.” The child stirred in her arms.
Did he relax just slightly? “Nothing at all?”
“Not a thing. About that car-they didn’t want me to take it. I sort of stole it.”
Now Lucas actually grinned. “A car-stealing scientist lady. I’m so glad you decided to join us, Theresa.”
“My point is, they don’t want you to have it. You might want to leave sooner rather than later, in case they move it away again.”
He threw a glance over his shoulder, but said, “I’m not too worried about that. Bobby and I can shoot one or two of you before any cop could even make it to the car.”
“Unless they use an armored vehicle,” she persisted-perhaps unwisely, but she so desperately wanted them to leave. Now, so she could get to the hospital and see Paul before she was fired and possibly jailed for interfering with a police operation. “They could just push the car out of the way without exposing anyone to your fire.”
“Damn,” Bobby said. “That would screw up the transmission for sure.”
“Relax,” Lucas told him. “We see anyone or anything come near the car, we shoot one of these fine people here. That will get them to back off. No one’s going to do anything to your pearl.”
“They probably already have,” his partner grumbled. “You can’t trust them.”
The little boy gave one more convulsive shudder, lifted his head from Theresa’s shoulder, looked directly into her eyes, and screamed.
18
12:36 P.M.
“I don’t know any Oliver,” Patrick said. The idea of Theresa’s trying to pass them a clue made him nervous. He wondered what the hell she was doing-first she walked into the lion’s den to save Paul Cleary, his partner, whom he should have been saving, and then she starts playing Nancy Drew? If she got out of this alive, he would kill her.
The FBI special agent in charge had been and gone, shaking his head in disbelief at Theresa’s actions. Assistant Chief of Police Viancourt had wandered back in and taken a seat at the small desk, his gaze ping-ponging between Patrick and the hostage negotiator.
“She must have said that for a reason,” Cavanaugh insisted. “Who might know what she meant? Jason, get us through to that ambulance. Maybe the wounded cop knows.”
“Or the lab,” Patrick said. “Her boss, Leo, or Don might know.”
In five minutes Jason reported that Paul had lapsed into unconsciousness and the medics didn’t think he would be coming around soon. In fact, the medics didn’t sound too enthusiastic about his overall condition, Jason added to Patrick, using a gentle tone that only grated on the older cop’s nerves.
All Patrick needed to know was that Paul was still alive. Though he wondered why… Why hadn’t Lucas taken a second shot, finished him off? Sure, Paul had been incapacitated and was no longer a threat, but still, most guys kept shooting once they began. Maybe Lucas thought of Theresa’s idea even before she did. Bargaining over Paul had certainly gotten him what he wanted.