Jason still worried. “How are you going to get Eric Moyers to go along with this? He went to great pains to avoid even a phone call from his brother, much less a visit.”
“He won’t like having those people’s blood on his hands either.” Cavanaugh straightened his collar, tucked his shirttails more tightly into the slightly wrinkled khakis. “You’ve talked to him more than we have, Patrick, what do you think?”
“Hmm?” He’d been watching the monitor, where Bobby and Lucas continued to converse with intensity but not, so far, apparent anger. “He isn’t a bad guy. He’d want to do the right thing, and he’s not afraid of his brother, more contemptuous of him. But he also strikes me as having a well-developed sense of self-preserva-tion. Look, they’re done talking.”
Cavanaugh leaned over the communication set just as Bobby, on the monitor, swept up the phone receiver. The robber’s first words came as something of a surprise.
“Tell me again what you have in mind,” he asked.
Patrick noticed the slight breath of relief Cavanaugh let out before going back into the dance.
“If I produce your brother-so that you can see him and talk to him, long enough and close enough to satisfy you that he is your brother, Eric Moyers, then you and Lucas put down your guns and come out. You will not be harmed by the officers.”
“That sounds like weasel words. Who will we be harmed by, then?”
“No one. No harm will come to you from anyone, as long as you put down your weapons and come out, leaving those people safe. We’re not interested in shooting you, Bobby, or hurting you or Lucas. We just want to get those bank employees back to their families and all these police officers back to their families.”
Patrick thought he laid the family emphasis on a bit thickly, but it kept Bobby talking.
“One condition,” he said. “We don’t serve any time. Lucas and me, we’ve already seen the inside of prison for longer than we ever cared to.”
Jason shifted in his chair and muttered to himself. “This part is always sticky.”
“That’s not really up to me, Bobby, but I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that you can both walk off free after this has ended. You know that’s not how it works. But if you give up peacefully, without hurting anyone else, it will count in your favor with the courts.”
“Meaning we’ll go to jail and you’ll throw away the key.”
This could lead to several more hours of negotiation. Hostage takers never wanted to go to jail, but all knew that they would. Just like escaping with the money-the trick was to keep them talking until they accepted the reality of the situation. It had to be so tempting to lie to them, Patrick thought, to tell them anything they’d like to hear just to end this. But unless they were completely insane, they’d know you were lying, and further discussions would be pointless.
However, that they were even considering jail time represented a huge concession. The brother card might actually work.
“I don’t know what kind of sentence the judge will require, Bobby. As I said, that’s not up to me. But I know what kind of sentence you’ll get if anyone else dies today, and you won’t like it better.” Cavanaugh spoke almost gently. He did not wish to threaten, his voice said. Merely inform.
They waited while Bobby went back to Lucas for another conference.
“I still can’t believe Lucas would do this,” Jason grumbled.
“I wouldn’t have either,” Patrick said, “but his sister said that Lucas learned loyalty from his mother-she’d put up with anything to keep her husband, her loved ones. Maybe he’ll act out that lesson. Or maybe it’s like you said,” he added to Cavanaugh, “an out, a way for him to give up and still save face.”
Jason did not seem reassured. “But Lucas has been the leader all this time. He’s called all the shots.”
“Or he’s just the spokesman,” Cavanaugh pointed out. “Like me.”
“He insisted on staying to get the money shipment. Bobby didn’t want to.”
Patrick’s head swam with the what-ifs and maybes. He got into other people’s heads all day long, trying to understand what skeletons they didn’t want the cops to dig up-how they broke into the apartment, why they murdered their wife. But never for so many hours at one stretch. Besides, none of their speculation seemed to help; they still wound up simply watching what the robbers did and then reacting as best they could.
“Okay.” Bobby’s voice startled them all. “We can deal on this. But we have some conditions.”
“Let’s talk about them.”
“I’m putting Lucas back on. He’s better at this.”
The two robbers changed places, careful as always not to be in sniper range at the same time.
“I don’t believe you, Chris,” he said without preamble. “I think you’re lying-”
“I’m not.”
“-but I know how important family is to Bobby. That’s all he ever talked about in therapy, so believe me, I know.”
Patrick glanced at Jason and raised his eyebrows. Irene made a note. The prison in Atlanta would have records of which programs the inmates attended. Perhaps this solved the mystery of where Bobby and Lucas had met-a group-therapy session, each revealing his secret dreams and goals.
Lucas, meanwhile, continued. “I’m willing to go along with this. You bring Bobby’s brother over here-and by you, I mean you, Chris, no one else-and he will lay down his arms and leave with you.”
“What about you?”
“I stay here. I’m happy for Bobby if this is the choice he wants, but I’m not giving up my freedom for it.”
“What about all those bank employees?”
“They stay with me.”
Patrick had not expected this, but it made sense. Lucas could respect his friend’s wishes without giving himself up. He’d still have the hostages and the money.
“That might work,” Cavanaugh said, though Jason frowned and shook his head. “However, I’ve been assuring your safety all this time-are you going to assure mine?”
“Why would I shoot you, Chris? Provided you’re telling us the truth and this really is Bobby’s brother.”
“He is. But this is a highly unusual undertaking. We don’t normally make piecemeal deals like this-”
“You’d be down one robber without any bloodshed. How is that bad for you?”
He was correct, of course-so correct that it made Patrick nervous. The man needed to get a large amount of money out of a city block filled with trigger-happy cops, and he seemed too cooperative about it.
Cavanaugh proceeded with caution. “I think this plan can work, and I’m willing to escort Eric Moyers across the street to talk to Bobby. But I’m concerned about the rest of the bank employees. That’s a lot of people for you to handle by yourself.”
“That almost sounds like a challenge, Chris. I’m not worried about it. I can always tie them up, like the guards.”
Jason continued to shake his head. “The guards are tied to the teller cages, the same place we think Lucas set the explosives. That’s got to be his exit strategy-he fills the cages with hostages and then walks out with the detonator. We let him go or they get blown up.”
Cavanaugh argued, “That would last for about sixty seconds before our team got in there and freed them all.”
“With the roads cleared he could be on I-90 in sixty seconds.”
The negotiator nodded, then pressed the “talk” button on the console. “I mean this would be a good time to cut some of them loose. As a show of good faith.”
“I won’t shoot you when you show up. That should be good enough faith for you.”
They haggled a while longer but finally settled on a plan. Cavanaugh and Eric Moyers would walk across the street and converse with Bobby Moyers outside the East Sixth Street entrance. If satisfied, Bobby would leave with them, along with four hostages of Lucas’s choosing. They had ten minutes.