"Dolly?"
"Mm?"
"Ask him, okay, honey? Nobody's gonna hurt him, I promise him."
Dolly turned away again. The deep rumble of the voice inside again. She turned back to the window.
"He says you're full of shit, they killed a man," Dolly said.
"That was then, this is now. Let's see if we can work out the problem we got now, okay? Just ask him to ..."
He appeared at the window suddenly, huge and black in the glare of the spotlights. It was like that scene in Jaws where Roy Scheider was throwing the bait off the back of the boat and the great white suddenly came up with his jaws wide, it was as heart-stopping as that. Georgia ducked. She had spotted an AK-47 in his hand.
"Who're you?" he said.
"My name's Georgia Mobry," she said, "I'm a Police Department negotiator. Who are you?"
Negotiator was the word you used. You were here to deal, get the people out before anybody got hurt. You never used the word hostage to define the people any taker had in there with him. You never used the word surrender, either. You asked a taker to send the people out, come on out yourself, let us help you, nobody's gonna hurt you, soothing words, neutral words. Hostage was a word that gave the taker even bigger ideas, made him think he was the Ayatollah Khomeini. Surrender was an insulting kill word that only triggered further defiance.
"I'm Diz Whittaker," he said, "an' there's nothin' to negotiate here. Georgia, huh?"
She was looking up toward the window, eyes barely showing above the deck. She saw a big muscular man with a close-shaved skull, wearing a white T-shirt, that was all she could see of him in the window frame. AK-47 in his right hand. Just the sight of that gun always sent a shiver up her spine. The
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illegal, Chinese-made assault rifle - a replica of the gun used by the Viet Cong - was a semi-automatic, which meant that it required a separate pull of the trigger for each shot. But it could fire up to seventy-five shots without reloading, and its curved clip gave it the lethal look of a weapon of war, no matter how many claims the National Rifle Association made for its legitimate use as a hunting rifle.
"Stan' up, Georgia," he said.
She didn't like the way he was saying her name. Almost a snarl. Georgia. Like she was Georgia the whole damn state instead of Georgia the person. Made her nervous the way he was saying the name.
"I don't want to get hurt," she said.
"Lemmee see you, Georgia." Snarling it again. "You fum Georgia? That where you fum?"
"Yes," she said.
"Stan' up lemmee see you, Georgia."
"First promise me you won't hurt me."
"You strapped?"
"Nossir."
"How do I know that?"
"Because I'm telling you. And I don't lie."
"Be the firs' cop / ever met dinn lie like a thief," he said. "Stan' up an' lemmee see you ain't strapped."
"I can't do that, Mr Whittaker. Not till you promise ..."
"Don't give me no Mr Whittaker shit," he said. "How much you know about me, Georgia?"
"My superior told me who you and your friend are, I know a little bit about both of you. I can't help you without knowing something about..."
"What'd your boss tell you exactly, Georgia?"
You always told them you weren't in this alone, you didn't have sole authority to do whatever it was they wanted you to do, you had to check first with your superior, or your boss, or your people, whatever you chose to call the person above you. You wanted them to believe you were their partner in working this out. You and them against this vague controller offstage,
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this unseen person who had the power to say yea or nay to their requests. Most people had bosses. Even criminals understood how bosses worked.
"He said you'd done some time."
"Uh-huh."
"You and your friend both."
"Uh-huh. He tell you Sonny killed that man in the bak'ry shop?"
"He said that's what they're thinking, yeah."
"An' I was with him, he tell you that, Georgia?"
"Yes."
"Makes me a 'complice, doan it?"
"It looks that way. But why don't we talk about the problem we have right now, Mr Whittaker? I'd like to help you, but unless we . . ."
He suddenly opened fire.
The semi-automatic weapon trimmed the bushes over her head as effectively as a hedge-clipper might have. She hugged the ground and prayed he wouldn't fire through the wooden deck of the porch because then one of those high-powered slugs might somehow find her; eyes closed, she hugged the ground and prayed for the first time since she was fifteen, the bullets raging over her head.
The firing stopped.
She waited.
"Tell yo' boss send me somebody ain't a lyin' redneck bitch," Whittaker said. "You go tell him that, Georgia."
She waited.
She was afraid to move.
She took the walkie-talkie from her belt, pressed the Talk button.
"Observer Two," she said, "what've you . . . what've you got at the window?"
Her voice was shaking. She cursed her traitor voice.
There was a long pause.
"Hello, Observ . . ."
"Shooter's gone," a man's voice said. "Just the girl in it."
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"You sure?"
"Got my glasses on it. Window's clear." "Inspector?" she said. "Yeah, Georgia?"
"I think I'd better come in. I'm not gonna do any more good here." "Come on in," he said.
From where Mike Goodman stood with Brady and the assorted brass, he saw the Tac Team come up into firing position behind the inner-perimeter cars, saw Georgia sprinting back like a broken field runner toward the cover of Truck One, which Brady had set up as his command post. She was clearly frightened. Her face was a pasty white, and her hands were trembling. One of the ES cops handed her a cup of coffee when what she really needed was a swig of bourbon, and she sipped at it with the cup shaking in her hands, and told Brady and the ES commander and the chief of detectives and the chief of patrol that there were now at least two weapons in there, the nine-millimeter and an AK-47 that had almost taken off her head. She also told them the takers wanted a chopper and a jet to Jamaica . . .
"Jamaica?" Brady said.
. . . and that Whittaker didn't appreciate Southern belles doing the police negotiating, witness him having called her a redneck when her mother was a librarian and her father a doctor in Macon. The brass listened gravely and then talked quietly among themselves about the use of force. Georgia merely listened; she was out of it now.
Di Santis was of the opinion that they had probable cause for an assault. Given the priors on both perps and the strong possibility that they were the men who'd murdered the bakery-shop owner, he was willing to take his chances with a grand jury and a coroner's inquest if either of the perps got killed. Brady was concerned about the girl in there. So was Brogan.
Curran thought they should try a chemical assault, there being no gas-carrying vents to worry about the way there'd be
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in an apartment building, and anyway who cared if a fire started in an already condemned building? Brady and Brogan were still worried about the girl in there. Suppose those two punks began shooting the minute they let loose with the gas? Two assault weapons in there? The girl would be a dead duck. They decided to try another negotiator in the bushes there, see if they couldn't get somebody on that porch, talk some sense into those bastards.
Trouble was, Brady had already used up all his skilled negotiators who weren't on vacation, and the only people he had left were himself and his trainees. Ever ready to step into the role of fearless leader, Brady was willing to risk the AK-47 and whatever else they might throw at him, but Di Santis pointed out that the three negotiators who'd made the least headway there in the bushes had all been men and that it might be advisable to try another woman. Georgia agreed that a woman might have better luck with the young girl up there who, like it or not, was the mediator of choice until the two shitheads came around. That left either Martha Halsted or Eileen Burke. And since Eileen, through no choice of her own, had had previous experience on the door, it was decided they'd let her have another go at it. Brady sent Goodman over to Truck Two to fetch her.