Theresa shifted her weight to her right. She kicked at Lucas. He ground the barrel of the handgun into her kidney. “I will shoot you, Theresa. Please don’t make me.”
Bobby shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re really alive.”
“It’s me, Bobby. Come on, let’s go.” Eric Moyers took another step toward his brother, but Cavanaugh moved up and put one hand on his arm.
“Wait here, Eric. Where are the bank employees, Bobby? The ones that are coming with us?”
“They overheard our plan,” Bobby told him. “It led to quite a squabble in there. It’s amazing what people will do or say to save themselves.”
“They only want to live, Bobby, to go on with their lives. We all do. You have dreams you want to realize, don’t you? Here is where we can start. Bring out the bank employees.”
The pressure of the gun in Theresa’s back eased. The drama outside commanded Lucas’s attention.
“Come on, Bobby,” Eric Moyers urged.
“I know I gave Mom gray hair.”
“We can talk about this later,” his brother told him.
“No, I need to say it now. I know my troubles wore on her, but she could have handled that. My going to jail, she could have handled that. But when you talked her into cutting me off, not calling, not writing, not coming to visit me-she couldn’t handle that.”
“Let’s go, Bobby.”
Theresa fought to separate her jaws, leaving a gap just wide enough for one of Lucas’s fingers to slide in. She bit, catching part of her lower lip in the crush and tasting blood. Instinct made his grip loosen.
“Run!” she screamed.
Lucas muffled her again and pulled back. Eric Moyers turned to her voice in confusion. Cavanaugh somehow understood and grabbed Eric’s arm, moving backward toward the library building. Bobby left his automatic rifle at his side but pulled a handgun from the back of his waistband, underneath his loose Windbreaker. He used this to shoot his brother in the face. Then, retreating, he shot Chris Cavanaugh.
29
3:26 P.M.
At least three snipers hit Bobby Moyers. The force of each blow pushed him back across the sidewalk, where the last shot hit his skull. A splash of red exploded over the glass of the open door, and a faint mist sprayed Theresa’s face. He fell at her feet, half in and half out of the entrance to the Federal Reserve building.
Theresa screamed something-what, she never knew, since Lucas muffled her sound to just a panicked whimper. His body tightened, but he did not move. He said nothing. He doesn’t seem surprised.
Eric Moyers lay motionless on the hot pavement. Cavanaugh’s hand twitched, and she wept to see it. No hope remained for Bobby; the lower part of the back of his skull had been shredded.
He must have hit Cavanaugh in the vest, because the man now sat up and checked Eric Moyers’s condition.
Let Eric be alive, she prayed. He was trying to save us, and enough people have died today.
But Cavanaugh did not shout for an ambulance, or even radio for one. From his demeanor she knew that Eric Moyers had passed beyond help.
Lucas maneuvered her into the doorway. Rays of light struck her, heating her clothing until it burned the skin. “Cavanaugh!” he shouted.
The negotiator looked up, squinting in the sunlight, and slowly got to his feet.
“Come in here,” Lucas commanded. “Join us.”
I’ ll bet he didn’t cover this situation in his book.
“I really need to stay out here, Lucas. I need to be able to make the arrangements you need, to get our efforts organized. I can’t get anything done from in there.”
“Let me clarify.” Lucas took the gun out from behind Theresa and pressed it to her right temple, skulking behind her so completely that her hair muffled his voice. “Come in here or I’ll blow her brains all over this nice marble.”
Theresa stood as still as if she’d been carved from that same marble. Snipers would be trying to get Lucas in their sights, waiting for him to move from her shadow just enough to squeeze off the shot. But he stayed so close. His body plastered hers from ankle to neck; she could not pull away or even sink down.
They could do it. They were trained for this. Just don’t move.
“Why?” Cavanaugh demanded. “What do you want me for?”
“Because your boys are getting desperate, and they’ll never launch an assault with their leader in cuffs on the lobby floor.”
“I’m not their leader. I’m only part of th-”
Lucas removed his hand from her mouth, placed it on her throat.
She could feel a smear of blood, heavier than sweat, along her jaw. An expression crossed Cavanaugh’s face, something dangerously close to compassion.
“Don’t!” She didn’t need to shout; he stood only ten or so feet away. Lucas’s hand squeezed her larynx, but only for show. If he wanted to silence her, he could. “Don’t do it.”
Why weren’t they taking the shot?
Worry etched lines into Cavanaugh’s face as he looked at her. “Theresa-”
“Don’t let your hero persona think for you, Cavanaugh! It’s a trick.” She wasn’t a damsel in distress-she was bait.
“Come in here or she dies. I’ve got seven other people, Cavanaugh.”
Take the shot! “He’s lying! He won’t do it.”
“What on earth makes you say that?” Lucas asked her. To Cavanaugh he raised his voice. “Do you really want to take that chance?”
The hostage negotiator echoed Theresa’s sentiments. “Enough people have died here today, Lucas.”
“You can say that again.”
The snipers were not going to risk a shot unless she wriggled away. They would need only a couple of inches and a split second.
“I’m going to count to three, Cavanaugh. One.”
“If you shoot her, what then? I’ll be back inside the library building before you can pull out another hostage.”
“Person, Chris, person. The term ‘hostage’ is so dehumanizing. Two.”
She had forgotten all of her martial arts training except for the side kick-devastating to the knee. But she would have to be very, very fast.
“All right,” Cavanaugh said. “I’m coming in.”
She kicked. Lucas exhaled with an expression lost in the fabric of her shirt as his legs buckled, pulling her backward. His gun went off. She might have been shot, but she couldn’t feel anything past the pain in her ears.
Falling backward only protected Lucas, putting more of his body against the wall and leaving her still between him and the snipers. Her plan had not worked.
From their tangle of arms and legs she saw Cavanaugh emerge from the sunlight and reach for her, saying her name. At least his lips moved; she couldn’t hear what he said.
He pulled her off Lucas, who rolled once and then jerked up the automatic. The barrel pointed up at her with an unwavering grip. Neither Theresa nor the snipers had disabled him.
There was only him now, and two of them, and Cavanaugh had a bulletproof vest. It dug into her side as he held her up. She turned to the hostages. “Run! Get out of here!”
They didn’t need to be told twice. Brad scrambled to his feet.
Lucas fired another shot, painful even to her already numbed ears. A chunk of marble leaped out of the floor, five feet to the left of the little boy, Ethan. Everyone froze.
Lucas darted against the wall on the other side of the doors, safe from the snipers and with a clear shot of everyone in the room. She and Cavanaugh were not close enough to attack. The advantage of the situation had righted itself in his favor.
“Step back,” he told them. “Go over to the desk, by the others.”