by J. S. Carol
Tara was nodding. ‘Do you know what this reminds me of? A reality show. Granted, it’s the world’s most screwed up reality show, but that’s what it is nonetheless.’
‘Exactly. But what’s motivating this guy? So far we’ve ruled out the political angle. And we can rule out the idea that he’s doing this for money. So where does that leave us? There needs to be a reason. You don’t just wake up one morning and decide that today’s a good day to strap a bomb to your chest and hold a restaurant full of people hostage.’
‘Back up a second. What if the motivation is financial?’
‘In that case, you’re not going to give away six million bucks.’
‘You would if you stood to make more than six million.’
‘And how does that work?’
‘You told Jonah earlier that Internet gambling was a billion-dollar business, right? Maybe he’s after a slice of that.’
Rob shook his head. ‘It doesn’t work. The bomber’s in there dealing with his hostages, dealing with the cops, and he still finds time to go online and post bets. Sorry, I’m not buying that. It takes multitasking to a whole new level.’
‘I’m telling you, it could work, Rob.’
‘It can’t. What’s he going to do? Put a million on Kevin Donahue and walk away fifty million bucks richer?’
‘That’s exactly what he’s going to do.’
Tara had grown an inch taller and had a look on her face like she was daring him to argue. As a general rule, he didn’t argue with her. The fact was, she’d won every argument they’d ever had.
‘Okay, let’s say you’re right. So the bomber puts a million bucks down at fifty-to-one. He can control the outcome, so why not? It’s a sure thing, right?’
Tara said nothing.
‘Okay, problem number one: he has to get out of Alfie’s without being killed or captured. Problem two: he needs to collect his winnings. Do you think the Russian mob, or the Serbians, or whoever the hell he made his bet with is just going to hand over fifty million bucks? Don’t you think they might be just a little bit suspicious? Suspicious enough to put out a contract on him?’
‘You’re assuming he’s going to place one massive bet. Of course he’s not going to do that. That would be stupid. He’s going to spread those bets around. He’s going to use false names and multiple accounts. He’s going to fly under the radar. He’s going to gamble with the Russians and the Serbians and anyone else who’ll take his money. If he plays this right then he can make six million bucks look like pocket change.’
Rob shook his head again. ‘Still not buying, and I’ll tell you why. It comes back to multitasking. There’s no way one person can keep that number of balls in the air.’
Tara smiled the sort of smile you sometimes saw when you’d laid down a straight flush and were reaching for the chips. It was the sort of smile that said, not so fast buddy. ‘What’s the biggest assumption we’ve made here? And by we I mean you, me, the cops, everyone?’
‘No idea, but I’m guessing you’re about to tell me.’
‘What if he isn’t working alone?’
5
JJ watched in horror as the bomber firmed his grip on the gun. His finger curled around the trigger, applying a fraction more pressure. Everyone had shuffled away from Kevin Donahue. The producer was standing completely alone, stranded on his own patch of floor, three feet of empty parquet stretching out in all directions.
‘Please God, don’t shoot me,’ he pleaded. His accent was from somewhere up north. Chicago was JJ’s best guess. There was no such thing as an LA accent. Everyone in LA was an immigrant to one degree or another.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ the bomber asked.
‘What’s wrong?’ Donahue replied incredulously. ‘What’s wrong is that you’re pointing a goddamn gun at me and you’re about to blow my head off.’
‘No, what’s wrong with you? You’re sick, right? Either that or Halloween’s come early.’
‘It’s cancer. I’m riddled with it.’
‘How long have you got?’
‘According to the doctors I should have been dead six months ago.’
‘But what do they know, eh?’
Donahue gave a death’s-head grin. ‘Yeah, what the hell do they know?’
‘So, if I was to shoot you, I’d be doing you a favour, right?’
‘That’s one way of looking at it.’
‘Convince me there’s another way.’
Donahue glanced down at his feet and let out a long sigh. When he straightened up he looked like he was one breath away from being laid out on a mortuary slab. ‘Shoot me or don’t shoot me. I don’t really care anymore. If murdering me means you won’t kill someone else, then maybe that’s for the best. You know, when I wake up in the morning the first thing I do is thank God that I’ve lived to see another day. The second thing I do is curse him for exactly the same reason.’
‘Then you have a cigarette and a coffee and head to the office.’
Donahue grinned another of those death’s-head grins. ‘I had to quit the smokes. Doctor’s orders. But, yeah, that pretty much covers it. I might have a month left. Then again, I might have a day. These people, on the other hand, they’ve got years ahead of them.’
‘Nice speech. What are you? A screenwriter?’
Donahue laughed. ‘You think they’d let a screenwriter in a place like this? Not a chance. I was one once upon a time, though, when I first arrived in town, but that was a century ago.’
‘Do you know what I think? I think you’re full of shit.’ The bomber reaffirmed his grip on the gun, his finger tightening on the trigger. ‘Come on, Kev. Do you really expect me to believe that someone in this town is capable of a truly selfless act? Selfish acts, I can believe, but not selfless ones. You’re a survivor, which means you’re not about to willingly roll over and die anytime soon, not if you can help it. As for all that crap about praising God. Give me a break. Your first thought when you wake up is that all those doctors with their fancy educations and big houses don’t know diddlysquat. So how does this work, Kev? You tug at my heartstrings and I don’t shoot you? Is that it?’
Donahue lowered his head and said nothing, The way he was standing there made JJ think he was just waiting for the bullet. And the way the bomber’s whole body had tensed made her think that he was about to deliver it.
‘Here’s what I don’t understand,’ the bomber went on. ‘Your life’s hell, right? You’re in constant pain and the pills are getting to be less and less effective with every passing day. The fact you’ve lasted this long means you’ve had chemo, probably more than once, which I’m betting was no picnic. So, I’m asking myself why you wouldn’t want to die, and the only reason I can come up with is that whatever’s waiting for you on the other side must be pretty bad.’
‘I don’t expect you to understand.’
‘Try me. You might be surprised.’
‘I’ve got a boy and a girl. Well, I say a boy and a girl, but they’re both in their thirties now. Anyway, I wasn’t around while they were growing up, and now I’m dying they’re not around. Last time I saw them was five years, two months and thirteen days ago. It was at their mother’s funeral. I tried to talk to them but they didn’t want anything to do with me.’
‘And they haven’t talked to you since. That’s why you’re so determined to hang on in there. You’re waiting for that Hallmark moment. The big reunion, tears all around.’
‘Something like that. I don’t blame them, though. It’s my own fault. I should have been there. But I wasn’t, and now it’s too late.’
‘You know, Frank got a lot of things right, but he was off the mark with all that stuff about regrets in ‘My Way’. When you get to the end, it’s not the things you achieved in life that you focus on, it’s all those things you didn’t do. All those missed opportunities. All those regrets. And the truth is that everyone’s got more than a few. Every last one of us. Let’s face it, nobody lies on their death bed and wishes
they’d spent more time at the office. Nobody.’
The bomber shifted his feet to get more comfortable and reaffirmed his stance. His fingers relaxed then tensed, relaxed then tensed. He inhaled, exhaled. Another inhalation and JJ knew this was it.
‘Bang!’
Donahue crumpled to the floor and it took JJ a second to realise he hadn’t been shot. The lack of blood was the first giveaway. The fact Donahue was on his knees weeping was the clincher.
‘Okay, folks, on to round two.’
The bomber hit a key on the laptop.
‘The wipers on the bus go swish, swish, swish.’
6
A replay of the last hostage handover was playing on the main screen, but Seth wasn’t watching it. His attention was fixed on one of the smaller screens. CNN had wasted no time whisking Carrie Preston through make-up and getting her in front of a camera. She was wearing a grey sweatshirt with LAPD in big black letters on the front, which was a nice touch. A big public thumbs-up for the cops always went down well when there was a disaster unfurling. Her long red hair had been brushed through and tidied up and was pulled into a neat ponytail.
The interviewer was reeling off her credentials, stretching her thin résumé to make it sound like she was a double Oscar-winning heavyweight rather than a two-bit actress who’d managed to grab her fifteen minutes of fame by appearing in a sitcom and a couple of mediocre movies. He asked his first question and Preston took a moment to compose herself, a moment she’d no doubt been rehearsing in her mind since she’d got out of Alfie’s. She looked down at her hands lying in her lap. When she looked back up there were tears in her eyes.
Seth figured she was probably thinking about that pet kitten who’d died when she was a little girl, anything to get the waterworks going. It was so contrived, but nobody at home would care about that. They’d just love her all the more because she was showing her “human” side. If she’d been in front of TRN’s cameras, Seth wouldn’t have given a damn, but she wasn’t, so he did. Just hearing the actress’s affected, whispery voice was enough to get his blood boiling.
He cast a dirty look in the direction of his assistants. The white lesbian and the black kid had their heads down and were studiously avoiding his gaze. The Asian kid was staring at him, but not saying anything. The impression Seth had was that he’d drawn the short straw and wasn’t sure where to begin.
‘Spit it out. I don’t have all day.’
‘Rob’s on the line.’
‘Well, what are you waiting for? Patch him through.’
Something clicked in his headset, then Rob was there.
‘What if the bomber’s not working alone?’ he asked without preamble.
‘A conspiracy theory. Fantastic. I love it. Okay, I’m listening.’
‘It’s actually Tara’s idea. She thinks this could be some sort of gambling sting. She reckons there could be a whole gang working this thing.’
‘And this is happening on the Internet?’
‘Got it in one. She thinks this gang’s putting bets on everything from who’s going to be the next person out to who’s going to be the last person standing.’
‘How many people do you reckon are involved?’
‘Including the bomber, Tara reckons a minimum of three. They need to keep the bets small and they need to spread them around so it doesn’t appear suspicious. However, the more people involved, the more chance there is that someone’s going to say the wrong thing and screw the whole thing up, so they’re going to want to keep the numbers as small as possible.’
‘Okay, you’ve told me what Tara thinks. What do you think?’
Rob hesitated. ‘The truth is, I don’t know. It makes as much sense as anything else that’s happened today. To start with, everyone’s saying it’s a terrorist attack. I mean, the guy’s got a bomb strapped to him, what else are we going to think?’
On the small screen, Carrie Preston was describing how the bomber had forced them to play Russian roulette.
‘I think we can definitely rule out the terrorist angle,’ Seth said.
‘And then he threw us a curveball when he donated six million dollars to charity.’
‘Which is why I’m not convinced by this gang theory. Why give away six million bucks if you’re doing this for the money?’
‘It’s all about maximising your earning potential.’
‘And that’s the sort of bullshit I’d expect to hear from an economist. You’re a journalist, Rob. At least, that’s what you keep telling me. Start talking like one.’
‘That donation has given his public image a huge boost. Yes, he’s the bad guy, and yes, he’s killed hostages, but you’d better believe that there are people sitting out there glued to their TV sets right now who are actually rooting for him. You’ve heard what everyone’s calling him. He’s the new Robin Hood.’
‘All well and good, but how does that help him “maximise his earning potential”?’
‘Simple. It makes it easier to drag the situation out. The longer this goes on, the more bets his buddies can place, and the more money they can make. If they play it right then six million will look like nothing.’
‘Again, all well and good, but why does it make it easier to drag the situation out?’
‘And, again, the answer’s simple. The police and the FBI are going to be treading on eggshells. Can you imagine the PR fallout from killing Robin Hood?’
7
Five down, five to go.
Each round had ended the same way. The music had stopped and the bomber had called out a name. He’d aimed his gun and shouted ‘bang!’. Everyone had flinched even though they were expecting it, then the loser had dropped to the floor and joined all the other losers.
Ed Richards had gone out after Kevin Donahue, then Tony, then Jen. Simone had been number five. The supermodel had been devastated when she’d lost. She’d cursed herself under breath. At least, that’s what JJ had thought she was doing. She’d been speaking in Norwegian, so it was difficult to be sure. Simone knew that Alex King was probably hiding out in the restroom, and that still worried JJ. What was to stop the model trading that information for her freedom? JJ had talked to her a couple of times and wouldn’t put it past her. Simone was so self-obsessed she made Dan Stone look as selfless as Mother Teresa. The only real surprise was that she hadn’t tried to trade the information already.
JJ shuffled from foot to foot, her arms and legs working as stiffly as everyone else’s. ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ had been replaced by ‘Camptown Races’, but the same woman was singing, and that sugary voice was like fingernails on a blackboard. JJ had positioned herself so she could see the other dancing hostages. She needed to make this look good. If the bomber thought for a second that she was deliberately trying to lose, then she’d end up like Elizabeth Hayward. The music stopped and JJ froze to the spot. She was watching the other four carefully. They were all doing their utmost to stay completely still. She did a slow count to three then made her left hand tremble.
‘Frank, you’re out.’
JJ had been watching Frank. He hadn’t moved a muscle. None of the others had. Frank hadn’t moved and she had. It should be her going out, not him. The bomber aimed his gun and everyone shuffled out of the way. This time JJ was ready and waiting for the shouted ‘bang!’, so she didn’t jump. The suppressed phht didn’t really register, but the sound of Frank’s body hitting the ground did. So did Simone’s scream.
‘Damn, these triggers are sensitive. Guess I’m going to have to be more careful in future.’
JJ barely heard him. She was staring down at Frank. There was a small dark hole in the middle of his forehead, and the back of his head was a mess of blood and gore and brain tissue. She kept staring, one thought going around her head. It should have been me.
She’d planned on being the sixth person out, and if that had happened it would have been her lying there with half her head blown away. Her hands started shaking for real, her breathing sped up to the point where
she was almost hyperventilating. So what now? Did she play it so she was the next person out and end up dead like Frank? Or did she play to win even though she was sure the winner would never be set free?
‘Tony and Ed, clear away this mess,’ the bomber said.
Richards and Tony got up slowly. Both of them were moving like they were sleepwalking. Tony grabbed Frank under the shoulders, Richards got the feet, and they dragged the body to the side of the room. The restaurant owner was walking awkwardly and doing his best to avoid the mess spilling from the hole in Frank’s head.
‘And then there were four.’
The bomber hit play, and JJ started to dance.
8
Up in Mission Control, Seth watched the big screen and quietly seethed. Alison Trevane, TRN’s showbiz editor, was sitting at the side of a funky-looking pink desk. She had short black hair, bright blue eyes, and was possibly the most annoying person he’d ever met. She was originally from North Carolina but she had that whole Valley Girl act down to a fine art. Nothing was ever just good in Alison’s world, it was super-fantastic. The woman had mastered the knack of being able to open her mouth and fill a silence with absolutely nothing. Vacuous didn’t even begin to cover it.
A thirty-second conversation was exhausting, which was why Seth avoided her. Unfortunately, the viewers loved her, and that was why she was on screen now. The suits upstairs had decided that things were getting “a little on the heavy side” and they’d wanted Alison brought in to lighten the mood.
When Seth had heard this he’d almost choked on his coffee. Heavy! Of course it was heavy. It was a goddamn siege, for Christ’s sake. A major news story. A major international news story. This thing wasn’t just heavy, it had the weight and gravity of a black hole. He’d said no. He’d said no in a number of interesting and colourful ways. But the suits had been adamant, and Seth was savvy enough to realise that this was one battle he wasn’t going to win.