Agent McCoy’s eyes hardened, and the lines in his face grew deeper as he frowned. In that instant, he actually seemed human as opposed to just the detached automaton I’d been watching for several moments.
“That wasn’t much of a conversation now was it, Eldon?” he said into the microphone. “Okay… Calm down, he’s right here… Yes, I’m going to put him on the line. Hold on.”
McCoy twisted back a half turn to the box and pulled out a handset. When he turned back to me, he held it down to his side and fixed his stare with mine. “All right, this is how we need to play this, Mister Gant…”
I shot him a concerned glance, looking first at the handset by his side then at his headset. He noticed it immediately. He turned the handheld phone up so I could see it. “We’re fine, there’s a talk button on this, and right now my headset is muted.”
I nodded, feeling a little chagrined at having questioned him.
“Now, I’m going to put you on the line with Porter,” he continued. “We will be listening in. The only thing I want you to do is calm him down. Once you’ve done that, we take over again. It may sound crass, sir, but you just became a carrot for us to dangle in front of him.”
“That doesn’t bother me,” I returned. “But you probably aren’t going to like how I calm him down.”
He shook his head at me. “Mister Gant,” he said. “We heard your conversations with him earlier so we get the picture. Truth is I don’t particularly care what you have to do as long as you don’t make him any promises. I just want that hostage out of there alive.”
“Believe me, the feeling is mutual,” I replied.
He held the handset out to me. “Press the button to talk, and let it go if you want to say something to us without him hearing. Remember, NO promises. I’ll handle the negotiating. Understood?”
“Yeah,” I affirmed. “You negotiator. Me carrot. No promises.”
I stepped forward and took the device out of his hand then drew in a cleansing breath. I let it out slowly from my mouth in a thin cloud of steam and then felt myself join with a solid ground. I placed the handset to my ear and squeezed the talk button.
“Listen up you sonofabitch,” I said with more than just a hint of sincere anger. “You are really starting to get on my nerves.”
CHAPTER 34:
I turned to face the building as I spoke. It didn’t exactly tower over us, but at five stories, it definitely required a rearward tilt of the head to see the top. Large windows were spaced at regular intervals across the brick face, vertically rectangular with a slight arch at the top of each. Unfortunately for us, every one of them was securely boarded over with aging plywood.
I had to lean from side to side as I inspected the scene before me because for some reason, Agent Kavanaugh had placed herself between the structure and me. I was at once reassured and at the same time annoyed by what I considered to be an inexplicably overprotective gesture.
“You tell them not to even think about coming in here, or she’s dead” came Eldon’s frantic response from the earpiece. “I know every move they make. Do you hear me?”
“I think we all do.” I gave a terse response.
He didn’t even acknowledge my comment, moving straight into a demand instead. “Where have you been?”
“On my way here,” I responded. “Why? Are you getting lonely?”
“Shut up, Gant,” he spat. “Just shut up!”
“Fine,” I answered. “I really didn’t want to talk to you anyway.”
I loosened my grip on the handset, keeping it to my ear, but allowing the talk button to release, effectively muting my side of the conversation.
“Gant!” his screaming voice issued from the earpiece. “Don’t you hang up on me, Gant!”
I took a moment to gaze up and down the street. The semicircle of squad cars I’d seen on the television earlier had now been rearranged into a strategic perimeter. I immediately spotted police officers from at least two departments, not counting the highway patrol. That isn’t even to mention the FBI agents that were clustered around me.
Paramedics were already on the scene, preparing for the worst or maybe even the best. Who could say? I guess it just depended upon which side of the fence you were standing on. At any rate, I noticed that at the moment, one of them was closely inspecting Ben’s injured hand.
“GANT!” Eldon screamed again.
I continued holding the handset but simply listened. My fingers would tend to twitch as he spoke, and an angry retort was caught somewhere in the middle of my vocal chords. I consciously forced myself to remain quiet and several times found myself willing my fingers to loosen before they could connect with the switch.
Several steps to my right I saw a small group of plainclothes officers. I assumed them to be detectives attached to the Major Case Squad; primarily because at the center of the huddle was Lieutenant Albright giving instructions with animated thrusts of her hands. They were close enough for me to hear her talking but too far away for anything to be intelligible. As I stared at the clutch of officers, Albright’s gaze met mine. She paused and frowned severely, fixing me with the proverbial look that could kill. After a pair of seconds, she looked away and continued her briefing.
“Gant!” Porter’s voice came again. “I know you’re there! Gant!”
I kept waiting. I was banking on the fact that his attention would focus directly on me and that he would forget about Star. As long as he was ignoring her, he wasn’t hurting her. At least, that was my simplistic theory.
I could feel the tension rapidly increasing around me. Some of it was mine, but the majority was coming from the lead hostage negotiator and his team. They couldn’t say that they hadn’t been warned. For all intents and purposes, they knew what I was going to do once I got on the phone—even if my current ploy was somewhat off my previously traveled path. Still, I had to give them credit for their level of patience. Even with the mounting pressure, no one jumped the gun, and they let me continue playing it out my way.
I’m sure they were all speculating on whether or not I knew what I was doing, and if I had to guess, I would bet that someone was standing by to pull the plug on me at any moment. What I wasn’t about to tell them though, was that I was dwelling on that very same issue myself. I was making this up as I went along, and my imagination was getting very weary, very fast.
“Goddammit, Gant! I’ll kill her! I will!”
I looked up at the building once again. I didn’t know if he was watching me at the moment, but based on the earlier exchange between him and Agent McCoy, I gathered he was able to see me if he wanted to. For me, the façade was a visual connection, so I continued to scan the boarded-over windows in search of his face.
I slowly depressed the talk button and then began speaking. “Goddammit? Did I hear you right? My, my, my, Eldon. Taking your Lord’s name in vain?”
“Don’t push me, Gant!” he shot back.
“Isn’t there a commandment about that or something, Eldon? You know what? I think there is. Seems to me it goes: Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain.”
“Don’t you dare pass judgment on ME, Gant.”
“Why not?” I asked with mock surprise. “Turn about fair play, Eldon.”
“Goddammit, Gant! I said…”
“Again, Eldon?” I cut him off. “What happened? Don’t tell me that somehow the devil got behind you.”
“I told you I’ll kill her!”
“Yeah, you keep saying that,” I spat. “So what’s stopping you?”
“I will, Gant! I’ll do it!”
“You talk a good game, but I don’t think so, Eldon. Not this time, and let me tell you why.” I continued with my explanation, ignoring his insistent commentary. “You need Millicent. You need Millicent to get to me. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it, Eldon?”
I waited for him to reply and heard only labored breathing at the other end, so I pressed forward.
“See,” I told him. �
�What you really want is to kill me, not her. We both know that. Hell, everyone here knows that. You’ve made no secret of it. But there’s something else we both know: if you kill Millicent, about two seconds later a team of heavily armed SWAT guys is going to screw up your little world.
“If that happens, Eldon, it’s all over. There’s no way you’ll ever get to me. How do you think your God is going to feel about that?”
“My God is a compassionate God,” he snarled.
“No, Eldon,” I countered. “I’ve read your book. I know what it says. Your God is a vengeful God.”
“Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live, Gant,” he finally replied. “And she’s a Witch. She must be punished for her sins.”
“Are you still stuck on that?” I admonished. “You know, when I read that particular passage, there was a lot more to it than that. Are you using some kind of abridged edition?”
“Vengeance is mine,” he returned.
“Saith the Lord, Eldon,” I came back immediately. “Let’s get the quote right if you are going to use it. Or, is it maybe that you’re trying to tell me that YOU are the Lord? If you are, then I think we are talking about a major sin here. Hubris, idolatry, the whole nine yards.”
A quiet lull followed my observation, and I listened closely to the sounds coming from the handset. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was hearing at first. As the noise began, it sounded like sobbing, but after a moment, it inched up in volume and started taking on the properties of a throaty chuckle.
“Glad you find this all so entertaining, Eldon,” I chided.
“You’re good, Gant.” Porter finally eked out the words through the insane laugh. “I’ll give you that, you’re really good. But I’m not fooled. Maybe a man without true faith would have fallen for your lies but not me.”
“Well, Eldon,” I answered in a pseudo-friendly tone. “You know how it is. Satan has an agenda, and he expects me to keep it.”
“Don’t mock me, Gant.”
“Who says I’m mocking you, Eldon? You’re the one who keeps telling me that I’m doing Satan’s bidding.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Do I?”
“Stop trying to mess with my mind, Gant.” He hardened his voice. “It won’t work. You know my path is clear, and nothing you say can shake my belief.”
“Fine,” I replied. “You’re right, let’s just quit screwing around.”
“Yes, let’s.”
The conversation had moved through a series of levels since it had begun. In my mind, I seemed to have accomplished the task given me by Agent McCoy, but he had yet to assume control of the phone. I decided I would just keep going until someone took the device away from me.
I wasn’t really interested in chitchatting with Porter, to be honest. There were several things I wanted to say, but they didn’t fall under the heading of pleasant conversation. I mentally scrolled through the list but realized quickly that the majority of them might very well undo what I had just accomplished.
I wasn’t sure what my next comment should be. I didn’t quite know how fragile the calm was that I had reached with Porter. I suppose what finally came out of my mouth was as much a surprise to me as it was to anyone else. What’s more, the calm with which I made the comment was actually startling.
“Come on out and get me, Eldon, I’m waiting right here.”
“With a small army,” he spat.
“Hey, you invited them when you kidnapped Millicent,” I chided. “Don’t lay that one at my feet.”
“I’m not coming out,” he replied.
“Okay, then what do you suggest we do about this?”
There was a heavy pause before his voice issued from the earpiece. “You come in here.”
“You see, now, Eldon, I’d love to do that,” I offered. “Really I would, but I don’t think the gang down here is going to allow it.”
“It’s heresy for them to protect you that way.”
“Protect me?” I responded with feigned surprise. “They aren’t protecting me. They’re protecting you. You see, Eldon, everyone down here knows that I have every intention of killing you.”
His next words came as an even hiss. “You come in, and I send the Witch out.”
As I’d been expecting, someone took the phone away. Not physically from my hand, but in a sense, the method was just as unceremonious. This time there was no warning click as there had been when I was back at the apartment. No rush of static. No beep. No nothing. The handset simply retreated into the all too familiar thickness of electronic death as the line was instantly severed by the HNT.
“Eldon, Mister Gant isn’t here to negotiate with you,” I heard Agent McCoy begin. “Now, I gave you something you wanted. It’s time for you to give something in return…”
I turned back to face the team and held the now-useless phone out in front of me. Agent Kavanaugh appeared by my side and took the device from my hand then settled it carefully into the large gadget box. When she had said I was her responsibility, she had apparently been serious.
“Don’t trust me?” I quipped, keeping my voice low.
“It’s not a trust issue, Mister Gant,” she returned.
I answered with a shake of my head, “Could’ve fooled me.”
She took me by the arm and began guiding me away from the group. “You’ve been very helpful, Mister Gant, and you did very well on the line. Especially using the hostage’s first name repeatedly.”
“Yeah, I read about that somewhere,” I replied. “But it won’t work with him. He doesn’t care about her identity.”
“That remains to be seen,” she returned. “As well as you did, however, I would question the wisdom of that last ploy.”
“You mean when I told him I was going to kill him?”
“Yes sir,” she acknowledged.
I glanced over at her as we walked, and I spoke with absolute sincerity, “Who says it was a ploy?”
* * * * *
“I know this is an unpleasant situation for you to be in, but we need to ask you for some more help,” Agent Kavanaugh told me.
We were sitting in the back of a large panel van, the inside of which looked like a compact conference room, communications center, and armory all rolled into one. I was holding a thermos cup that was half-filled with coffee. I had accepted it when it was offered but after a couple of sips, came to the conclusion that I didn’t really want it. Not that it was bad or anything, I was just far too wired to even think about drinking it.
As it was, the only reason I was still holding the container was that I didn’t seem to be able to find a place to put it down. Any space that appeared like it would fit the cup was already supporting something else far more important looking and in the case of the electronics, far more expensive.
“Forgive me for asking then,” I replied, fighting to keep the shortness from my voice, “but if you need my help, shouldn’t I be out there instead of in here?”
The entire day, right up to a very few moments ago, seemed to have been built around an ever-increasing urgency. Now, suddenly that imperative had slammed face first into an invisible wall. That barrier had presented itself in the form of the standard operating procedures for hostage negotiation.
“There’s no rush,” she told me. “This is standard procedure. It takes several hours at least before Stockholm Syndrome starts taking hold.”
“I already told you this wacko doesn’t care about her identity,” I remarked. “You aren’t going to get any Stockholm Syndrome. He doesn’t play by your pat psychological profile.”
“We know what we are doing, Mister Gant.”
“I’m sure you do under most circumstances, but you’re wrong this time.”
“How do you know that?”
“Long story. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
She looked back at me and frowned then absently drummed the end of a ballpoint pen on the notepad she was holding.
“Be that as it may, you’re
safer in here,” she finally replied.
“From what, Agent Kavanaugh?” I asked as I motioned in what I thought was the general direction of the warehouse. “He’s hiding out in the building. What’s he going to do to me?”
She pointed toward the opposite corner of the van. “The building is that way.”
“Sorry,” I snapped. “It’s been a really freaking long day.”
“I understand that.” She nodded sympathetically. “But as I told you earlier, we don’t know for sure what Porter has in there with him, and now that the urgency of the moment has passed, we want you to stay out of sight.”
“Unless you expect him to throw loose bricks at me, I doubt you have anything to worry about.”
“Mister Gant,” she said. “Apparently, I am not making myself clear. While we do not know this for a fact, we do have every reason to believe that Porter is armed.”
“You mean with a gun?” I shook my head and asked the question with an overabundance of incredulity in my voice. “No way. That’s not his style.”
“Style or not, Mister Gant,” she contended. “The second victim this morning was shot once in the back of the head. That tells us he has a gun.”
It took a moment for what she had said to register. When it did, I’m sure the look of confusion on my face had to be textbook.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I waved my free hand at her. “Back up for a second. What second victim? What are you talking about?”
“At the scene on Locust where Mister Harper was found, a second body was discovered. The victim was male, approximately mid-sixties and apparently homeless. The current theory is that he entered the warehouse in search of shelter and stumbled upon Porter in the act of… Well, you know.”
“How do you know it was Porter who killed him?”
“Fingerprints on the body,” she returned matter-of-factly. “Porter apparently had Mister Harper’s blood on his hands already.”
The image of Randy’s corpse imprinted itself on my retinas, dancing in the air before me like a three-dimensional movie. I stopped for a moment and fought back a wave of nausea.
The Law Of Three: A Rowan Gant Investigation Page 28