Ava was surprised by the request and grateful. The woman seemed to charm everyone she met, but her attitude toward Ava had cooled considerably. Ava had no idea why.
“I’ll arrange it.” The IC puffed out his chest. “HRT will be billeted in an old aircraft hangar nearer the airport.”
The negotiators exchanged cell numbers with the Incident Commander.
Sheridan said, “If we could meet up with the Tactical Team Commander at eighteen hundred hours, we can discuss best options to proceed. In the meantime, I want to listen to the negotiator in there and see what the risk assessment is.”
The IC nodded. “I’ll send someone to fetch you at six.”
When he left, Dominic knocked on the glass and waited until someone let them inside. He held her gaze and pressed his finger to his lips before they entered. She understood. No talking.
She braced herself as she entered, knowing she was going to see and hear the voice of the man who’d murdered her father in cold blood and who’d smashed her across the face with a pistol before leaving her for dead.
She squeezed behind Dominic and found a chair in the corner of the room with a small desk. She sat down and drew in a long breath and settled herself. She’d faced the bastard in court, she could do this. But probably best if Gino Gerbachi didn’t know she was here—considering she was the reason he was serving consecutive life sentences and would die in prison.
* * *
Dominic checked his email as he listened to Joe Booker and saw that Mallory Rooney had written to him. He didn’t read it, just forwarded it to Kanas. He couldn’t afford to get distracted.
Joe—the Bureau of Prisons’ negotiator—was doing a great job, slowing everything down, telling the hostage-takers that “nobody wanted to hurt them” and asking “how can I help you?” over and over again.
Time was a negotiator’s friend.
Dominic watched on the TV screen as the hostage-takers paced the large kitchen area. Frank Jacobs and Gino Gerbachi took it in turns to rant their demands into the speaker phone but so far, Milo Andris hadn’t talked to them at all.
The four hostages had their hands bound behind their backs and sat on the floor beside the double-locked, heavy duty door that formed the rear exit of the kitchen. The rear exit led through a corridor to an exercise yard. There was the warden, a prison guard, a cook from a private company, and another inmate who clearly wanted nothing to do with this situation.
The trouble with prisons from a siege perspective was they were so secure it was hard to do a full-on tactical assault without a lot of people dying in the time it took for the security forces to gain access. No one wanted that to happen, but should the hostage-takers start hurting people then the authorities would have no choice except to act.
Dominic wondered what the Black Swans of this situation were—the unknown unknowns. Information so far outside expectations that no one even imagined they existed. Black Swans could give the negotiators the leverage they needed to end this thing, or it might cause the situation to blow up in their faces. The whole point was they couldn’t know what these Black Swans were until they were revealed and that was why the FBI had people digging into every aspect of the hostage-takers’ and hostages’ lives.
Dominic wrote a note to Joe. “Ask Gino to put Milo on the phone. We want to know what his demands are.”
“Hey, Milo, get your freak-ass over here,” Gino yelled after Joe relayed the message.
Joe held the headphones from his ear for a moment. Gino was an old-style, bullish mobster who used bullying and intimidation techniques to try to get his own way.
Milo ignored the guy and continued sharpening a kitchen blade on a wet stone. Every dull scrape of that blade was like a chalk drawn down a dry board and made Dominic’s teeth fuse.
Why Milo was sharpening that knife was anyone’s guess, but Dominic didn’t like it. Each of the hostage-takers carried a weapon and he noticed neither Frank nor Gino ever turned their backs on Milo.
“He doesn’t want to talk,” Gino said finally, moving closer to the speaker phone and talking loudly. “When do we get our helicopter?”
“Gino, I can’t even begin arranging for a chopper until I have assurances from all three of you that the hostages aren’t going to be hurt.”
Dominic watched Gino face Milo again.
The man pulled an ugly face that bunched up his mustache. “Milo promises not to hurt anyone as long as you get us what we want.”
A helicopter with enough fuel to get them to Canada.
Apparently Canadian authorities welcomed escaped felons much more readily than the US. Someone better inform the RCMP.
Joe looked at him, and Dominic circled his finger.
“Can you get Milo on the phone to confirm that for me, Gino? I need to hear it from him,” Joe persisted.
“He doesn’t want to talk to you motherfuckers!” Gino screamed into the phone.
Joe didn’t react. “Gino, we just want to make sure everyone gets out safely and unharmed. Tell me what I can do for you right now to make you more comfortable.”
Dominic nodded his approval. Joe was good.
The problem was a lot of the usual tactics didn’t work with inmates in these sorts of desperate situations. These types of prisoners had very little to lose.
Negotiators were stalling for time, waiting for the tactical team to come up with a viable assault strategy and to practice it enough to be able to pull it off blindfolded. Alternatively, they’d settle in for the long haul. Talk them down for weeks until the prisoners gave up all hope of freedom and surrendered.
Obviously, the helicopter was never going to happen unless they used it as bait to get these fellas out into the open.
Milo’s constant knife sharpening made Dominic anxious for the safety of everyone in that kitchen. The man had raped, murdered, and dismembered six people in rapid succession ten years ago showing little or no remorse when he’d been caught. Since being incarcerated he’d been a model prisoner, but who knew what cravings lurked in the mind of this sort of sadistic killer? Dominic was waiting on psych reports.
Video of how the situation had unfolded suggested the three men hadn’t planned the event beforehand. Gino and Frank had exchanged a look when the rival gangs started fighting and headed into the kitchen. Milo seemed to simply tag along.
The talk continued, but that was good news. As long as hostage-takers were talking, they weren’t hurting hostages.
Dominic rolled his sore shoulder. Although his body still hurt, and his face looked like he’d taken a beating, he was getting better.
A tap on the glass had him looking up. Charlotte. Dominic checked his watch. Midnight already. It was time to rotate shifts. He muted the mic and told Joe to tell the hostage-takers he was going off shift in a few minutes but that other people were going to be here if they had anything at all they needed to make them more comfortable.
Dominic glanced at Ava who was staring at the TV screen with a look of intense concentration. She’d spent the last few hours poring over documents in the corner of the room. He wondered if she’d come up with any suspects for the serial killer stalking FBI agents, or if Rooney had got anything out of the waitress.
Ava caught him looking at her. Dark shadows painted the hollows beneath her eyes. He wondered if she was hungry. Neither of them had eaten since breakfast.
“Time to go,” he mouthed.
She nodded and began quietly gathering her stuff together. Technically she didn’t have to be here but at least this way he could keep an eye on her the way Van would have wanted him to, and she could work the case without getting into any more trouble. Plus, if she helped figure out who the killer was, she could get back into the Bureau’s good books.
They stepped into the adjoining room to update Charlotte and Eban on the situation before they started their shift. Despite the initial promises from the Incident Commander they were still in the main prison building. The guy said maybe tomorrow, but Dominic knew better
than to hold his breath or get hung up on stuff he couldn’t control. That way lay lunacy.
“We’ve set up two beds with a makeshift curtain between them for some privacy.” Charlotte told him. “Took the plastic off the mattresses ourselves. I persuaded one of the local agents to drive me to Walmart and picked up some cheap bedding. Who knows how long we’ll be here. Eban and I also ordered Chinese food and left some for you guys in the fridge there.”
“Appreciate it, Char.” Dominic edged her and Eban over to one side of the room to talk privately. “It’s quiet in there right now. Joe is doing a great job calming them down and beginning to win their trust. I’m trying to get Milo on the phone, but he doesn’t want to talk and doesn’t seem to have any demands. I think the other two had considered this breakout plan in the past and they are as surprised as anyone to have ended up with Milo for company.”
Which made for a volatile situation. Milo was a serial murderer and there was no telling what he might do. “Have someone in the room assigned to watching Milo at all times. I’ll talk to the IC before I grab some food and sleep.”
“Think they’d want to talk to a woman?” Charlotte asked.
Dominic pressed his lips together, considering. “I think at this stage Eban should try to keep the continuity Joe had going. Keep reassuring them we want to help them, want a peaceful resolution and don’t want anyone to get hurt. They keep asking for a chopper. See if you can get Milo to agree not to hurt anyone and then we can start to talk about a chopper.”
“Might be the best way of getting them out of there,” Charlotte agreed.
“But not until we have Milo saying he won’t hurt the hostages,” Dominic emphasized.
“Got it, Dom,” Eban assured him. “You two go get some rest.”
Dominic let out a long breath. He was so keyed up but knew that he needed rest to stay sharp. “I’ll see you at eight.”
He stopped briefly to talk to the tactical commander in the hallway. HRT had a team in place should they need to move fast, another team resting and a third team practicing an assault.
The hostage-takers had stored water in containers and had enough food to last for weeks in those big refrigerators. Dominic had a horrible feeling that these prisoners had so little to lose—especially Milo—that the tactical response might be the only way to end this thing.
He hoped not. The chances of hostages dying in those circumstances increased greatly.
Finally, he headed outside the prison building to the trailer. Tension buzzed through the air from the huge numbers of heavily armed personnel milling around, having low, murmured conversations.
He ignored the curious looks and walked around the corner to where the trailer was situated. He opened the door, relieved it appeared clean, had a working air conditioner, and small kitchenette. Compared to some places he’d stayed in over the years this was a palace.
“Rooney identified a body pulled out of the Rappahannock this morning as that of the waitress from the Mule & Pitcher.” Ava pulled the door shut behind her and dumped her bags on the bench seat.
He stopped and turned, immediately too close to the woman in this enclosed space. He hadn’t thought about the fact they’d be stuck in here together. Alone. Hadn’t had to time to think about anything except getting those hostages to safety.
He was sweaty and dirty, and his body ached from the car accident, but mostly he was starving and determined not to be attracted to Kanas. He grabbed the cartons of Chinese food out of the fridge and threw them all in the microwave. “What else?”
He found two beers in the fridge and popped the lids off both and handed her one. For once she didn’t argue with him about drinking it.
“Caroline Perry’s shoe size is comparable to those we found outside Van’s window. A man’s seven or woman’s size nine.”
“They run Perry’s DNA next to any found at any of the other scenes?”
“It’s being done but the lab is backed up.”
He scratched his forehead and caught sight of his black eyes in the microwave door. “The lab is always backed up. How’d the waitress die?”
“ME hasn’t said yet.”
“Any sign of a gun at her place?”
Ava shook her head. “Mallory was going to visit Karl Feldman with the sketch artist this afternoon. I assume we’ll get a sketch in the morning.” She sounded dubious.
“Except…” he encouraged.
“Except if he was in cahoots with the waitress, he’s hardly likely to admit it so we’ll have no idea if the image is real or an attempt to throw us off the scent.”
“I assume someone is retracing Caroline Perry’s steps to see where she was during Van’s funeral, and at other key times when agents died?”
Ava nodded. “Rooney said they were also tracing her background to see if there were any connections to any of the NYFO cases you guys worked.”
“All the other agents who worked in the squad have protection?”
Ava undid the band that kept her hair tied up and ran her fingers through the long tresses as they fell around her shoulders. He tried not to watch.
“Bunting and his wife went to a safe house. Gil Reiz in San Antonio has an agent assigned with him at all times to act as backup. Fernando Chavez has a team assigned to him and his family.”
Dominic wondered if Reiz’s bodyguard was half as attractive as Ava Kanas. He tried to push the thought away. The fact that he was even thinking it made him feel like a lecherous, old goat. And even though the age difference was less than a decade, his superior rank made the situation ethically wrong. He didn’t want to take advantage of anyone and could only imagine how bad a relationship between the two of them would look on paper.
Relationship?
Shit!
Desire was not a basis for anything except sex. He did not do relationships in general, and he definitely didn’t do them with fellow agents. He had to stop thinking of Ava as anything except a colleague.
He grabbed disposable chopsticks and divided the food equally onto plates. Then he started shoveling food into his mouth like a starving man.
Ava ate more delicately. He just needed enough fuel to get him into the shower and then collapse into bed for a few hours’ sleep and hope no one interrupted him in the meantime.
“Alex Parker get anything from the DEA?” he said between bites of Kung Pao chicken.
“He said the DEA isn’t storing the surveillance online. Lincoln Frazer put in a formal request to see the footage. Parker had better luck with the camera on the ATM across the street but he said the footage was grainy as hell.”
She paused, and he could tell she was thinking something through.
“It seems likely our waitress roofied your water after she found out we were agents—otherwise why is she dead?”
“Maybe the drug dealers saw her talking to us and thought she was snitching on them,” Dominic suggested.
“I guess.” Compliant and agreeable, Ava was obviously tired.
He polished off his food and restrained himself from licking the plate. Ava put her food down, half eaten. He eyed it. “Are you finished? Can I have that?”
She gave him a smile. “You gave me cave man portions so sure. I’m going to grab a shower and pass out.”
“Don’t use all the hot water. I’m next.”
She nodded and hit the minuscule bathroom while he finished his beer and her food, and forced his mind away from the knowledge a wet, naked Ava was standing just a few feet away.
He thought about the siege. Milo was the unknown factor in this dynamic. The guy could start killing the others as soon as his knives were sharpened to his satisfaction. Dominic had requested all the files from Milo’s prosecution. The prison psychiatrist had prescribed medication to help control his paranoid fantasies and they claimed the results had been extremely effective, but Milo wasn’t getting his meds while they were barricaded inside that kitchen. Who the hell knew what that would do to his mental state.
The d
oor to the bathroom opened a crack. Ava poked her head out, fingers curled tight around the door.
“Sorry. Could you pass me a towel, please?”
Dominic started. So much for getting his overactive imagination under control. Her wet hair was dripping water onto the floor and her naked shoulder taunted him like a fourteen-year-old boy.
“Of course.” He went over to Ava’s bag and pulled out a towel. He grabbed his while he was at it, and fresh boxers and a t-shirt to sleep in.
He held the towel out so she could take it. “Here you go.”
She let go of the door to grab the towel, but the damn thing started to swing open. Dominic stuck his foot to stop it.
God. Even the idea of seeing her naked was stirring his blood. Dammit. “If you’re finished in there, how about you get dried and dressed out here while I grab a shower?”
“Good idea. Just give me a second.” She came out wrapped in a towel that hit mid-thigh. Her shoulders were bare. Perfect collarbones emphasized a long, slender neck and pointed chin. She was brushing her wet hair completely unaware that she looked absolutely stunning. “It’s all yours.”
If only.
Dominic hated himself for being turned on by this woman, this rookie agent. But there was nothing he could do about it right now except not get involved. They were stuck with each other.
He went inside the tiny bathroom, stripped off and turned on the cold water before stepping under the freezing spray. Anything to get his body under control and his blood cooled.
Chapter Sixteen
Ava woke in the middle of the night disorientated and confused as to where she was and why she was sleeping on the floor. Slowly her night vision made out the slivers of light coming through cheap venetian blinds. Muted sounds of police radios crackled in the distance.
She was in the trailer near the prison just outside Buffalo. She rolled over and tried to get comfortable, but no matter what, she was wide awake.
Yesterday had been traumatic, but she’d got through it without Sheridan suspecting anything was amiss. Hearing Gino-the-snake’s voice had whipped her back to the night her father died. The long, tedious months of living in safe houses with a team of US Deputy Marshals protecting them from threats of intimidation and death before she’d been called to testify against the man.
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