by Chris Mooney
‘Active duty?’
Again she nodded.
‘Where?’
‘District Three,’ she said. ‘Fenway.’
‘Homicide?’
‘Yes.’
‘Place your service weapon on the floor. Then lie down and push it over to me.’
Active duty, Darby thought. Service weapon. Cop speak. She sensed he was fighting some internal conflict. Taking a cop as a hostage maybe wasn’t part of his plan.
His attention swung back to Darby, at the nine tucked in her shoulder holster.
‘I’m not a cop,’ she said. ‘I work in the private sector.’
‘As what?’
‘I’m a forensic consultant. My name is Darby McCormick. Tell me how I can help you.’
‘Remove your handgun and slide it over to me.’
She did.
‘Now rise,’ he said.
5
– 00.04
‘What was his name?’ the gunman asked. ‘Your father?’
‘Thomas McCormick,’ Darby said. ‘Everyone called him Big Red, like the gum.’
‘Big Red. I like that. Was he a detective?’
‘No, a patrolman in Belham, where I grew up. It’s a city –’
‘I know where it is. Why was he killed?’
‘Because he was a good man. Honest.’
The cold blue eyes from the balaclava squinted at her, as if trying to decipher some hidden meaning behind her words. The pregnant woman gripped the boulder that was her stomach with both hands as if trying to hold it up. She was clearly in pain.
‘She needs a doctor,’ Darby said to him. Then, to the woman: ‘Laura, how far along are you?’
The woman gasped; the gunman had tightened his chokehold.
‘You’ll address me and only me,’ he said to Darby.
‘She’s a liability. You should take me instead.’ If he took her as his hostage, Darby could, with a few well-placed blows, have him on his knees, sobbing and begging to return to the safety of his mother’s womb.
You don’t know if he has a detonator, an inner voice added. If he does and if he reaches it before you can subdue him, they’ll be scraping what’s left of you and everyone else in here with spatulas.
‘I don’t think so,’ the gunman said. ‘You’re a dangerous woman. In more ways than one, I suspect. On the conveyor belt you’ll find a black backpack. Retrieve it for me. Please.’
The backpack weighed at least twenty pounds, the tight nylon fabric stretched to its limit.
‘Bring the bag to me and place it on the floor,’ the gunman said. ‘Now open it.’
Darby squatted on her haunches, found the zipper and pulled. When she opened the mouth of the bag, a strong, chemical odour like bleach assaulted her. Inside, she saw two rolls of duct tape, plastic zip ties, and what looked like a portable and battery-operated router – what everyone called a mobile hotspot – sitting on top of a mountain of what she assumed was plastic explosive. It had the colour and texture of dough. She suspected the gunman had crafted the explosive himself, using some homemade recipe he’d found on the internet. Terrorists loved sharing their baking secrets.
‘Remove the router and place it on the desk behind me. After you’re done, come back to me so I can see your pretty face.’
Darby reached inside the bag and used a fingernail to scrape off a piece of the explosive. It was hard, like putty, and it remained trapped underneath her fingernail as she stood with the router in her hand. The gunman, she saw, had painted the areas on the router containing its make and model.
‘My demand is simple and easy,’ he said after she returned. ‘I want to speak with Mayor Edward Briggs here, face-to-face, in the lobby. You will escort him and a cameraman and reporter to interview me live on TV. Once the interview is over, I’ll release the hostages and surrender myself to you. It’s that simple.’
‘Edward Briggs is no longer the mayor. He retired last year.’
‘Your watch,’ the gunman said, ignoring her statement, ‘does it have a timer function?’
‘It does.’
‘Good. Please set it for a three-hour countdown.’
Darby went to work, pressing the various plastic knobs on her cheap digital Casio with its scuffed-up face. She had worn it for years – the watch and the small gold crucifix under her shirt, the last gift her father had given her before he died. Over the years they felt like talismans that protected her from harm, even death.
‘My timer is set,’ Darby said.
‘Thank you. Don’t start it yet – I want you to give me your full attention, because this next part is critical. Do I have your full attention?’
‘You do.’
‘You will have exactly three hours to deliver the honorable Mayor Briggs, a reporter and cameraman into the lobby – you and only you. If they don’t arrive within the three-hour timeframe, the first bomb will go off. Another bomb will go off every three hours until Briggs arrives. Do you understand?’
‘I understand.’
‘The suicide vest I’m wearing is connected to my heartbeat. If I die, the vest and the bombs I’ve planted in and around the city will go off. If members of the Boston Police or FBI or anyone else try to infiltrate the lobby, if I see a bomb robot deliver a throw-down phone, I will detonate one of the bombs, maybe even the one strapped to my chest. Do you understand?’
‘I understand.’
‘Please repeat back what I said.’
She did.
‘I’m electing you as my spokesman – excuse me, my spokeswoman,’ the gunman said. ‘I will speak to you and only you. No one else is to enter the lobby.’
‘You have two explosive devices in here. They’re not going to allow anyone to enter.’
‘The devices will be rendered safe once I see that Briggs has arrived.’
‘And the other bombs you planted?’
‘I’ll give you their locations and the codes to disarm them.’
‘How many are there?’
‘Start your timer. Oh, and Darby? There will be no negotiation. Please remember that or there will be blood.’
6
00.00
The sample Darby had collected was still underneath her fingernail. Standing by the front doors and out of the gunman’s line of sight, she quickly used the edge of a credit card tucked in her money clip to remove the white, putty-like substance. She pinched it between her cash and then slid her money clip back inside her pocket and moved outside.
Controlled chaos. Those two words immediately flashed into her mind when she saw what seemed like hundreds of cops scrambling across the front sidewalk and across Tremont Street, which was already in the process of being shut down and evacuated. Groups of blue uniforms manned the corners, busy redirecting traffic away from the station. The civilians who worked inside the building streamed from the fire exits, all of them being herded like spooked cattle across Tremont, to Mercy Park.
The first thing she had to do was nail down the panic – not just her own but everyone else’s too. People were reading her face to see how to react. Panic acted in the same way as a contagious hot zone virus, infecting one person and then another with a deadly speed and efficiency. Instead of shutting down organs, it devoured common sense and all higher-level thinking – and nothing on earth created more panic and terror than knowing you were standing inside the blast radius of not one but two actual explosive devices, with every cell in your body telling you to run far and fast.
Darby slipped on her sunglasses to keep the wind out of her eyes as she darted to the nearest patrolman, a tall, square-jawed man who stood with the posture and confidence of a Marine. He pulled a bullhorn away from his mouth and looked down at her.
She had to yell over all the noise. ‘My name is Darby McCormick. I was –’
‘I know who you are. Tell me what’s going on.’
‘There are two improvised explosive devices inside the lobby – the vest he’s wearing and another device inside a backpack. I ne
ed you to get on the horn and tell your people to widen the evacuation area. Have you seen Agent Jackson Cooper? About your height, looks like Tom Brady’s twin brother?’
‘Don’t know who he is and, no, I haven’t seen anyone like that.’
Coop had to be somewhere inside this bedlam, but where? If she called his phone, she wouldn’t be able to hear him though all the noise and confusion.
Darby turned to the vehicles parked along the kerb. She moved to a truck, climbed onto the bed and then stood on the roof and looked around the sea of people, thinking about the other IEDs the gunman said he’d planted in the city. How many? And where?
She spotted Coop standing on the kerb at the end of the block, his cell gripped in his hand and his face impassive as he listened to the detective from the lobby, Murphy, screaming at him. Darby was too far away to hear what he was saying, and there was too much noise; but she saw spittle flying from the man’s mouth, Murphy using his index finger like a dagger as he stabbed the air in front of Coop’s face to make his point. A small crowd of Boston cops flanked him.
Darby jumped down from the truck roof and threaded her way through the fast-moving bodies, thinking about the former Boston mayor. She knew Edward Briggs only peripherally, but he seemed to have been fashioned from the same mould as former Massachusetts governor and former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney: perfect hair and white teeth, a ‘gosh, golly and darn’ man who smiled at the right times, didn’t swear, and read flawlessly from a teleprompter. Like Romney, Briggs had the charisma and personality of a teleprompter. He seemed more Manchurian Candidate than an actual living, breathing human being. A robot that needed to be plugged into a wall outlet at night to be recharged.
She was taken out of her thoughts when she heard Murphy bark, ‘You’re not the ranking officer here.’
‘I am until SAC Gelfand shows up,’ Coop replied. ‘And we’re not going to argue jurisdiction, because we all know this is now federal. What’s happening falls under ICS.’
ICS was yet another one of the Bureau’s seemingly endless stream of acronyms, this one for the Integrated Command System. Set up by the Feds in the wake of 9/11, the protocol created an immediate command hierarchy, along with an explicit list of detailed instructions to follow, in the event of a terrorist attack.
‘That guy look like an Islamic terrorist to you?’ Murphy spat. ‘His skin was white.’
‘White, black, brown, purple, we’re still talking terrorism. The gunman is wearing a suicide vest. He could be a lone wolf, or he could be Boston’s version of Timothy McVeigh.’
Murphy flinched a little at that. Prior to 9/11, Timothy McVeigh, an American Gulf War veteran and militia movement sympathizer, and his homegrown soldiers had orchestrated what was considered the single most significant act of domestic terrorism in US history: the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The chemical-fertilizer bomb he manufactured inside the van had killed 168 people and injured thousands.
But the real source of Murphy’s anger, she knew, was her. Not only had she stepped in and undermined his authority in front of his peers, effectively emasculating him, she had prevented him from being the point man in dealing with the gunman.
When she appeared by his side, Murphy’s expression turned apocalyptic. The heated and nearly bloodthirsty glares from his pack of supporters reminded her of the ending of the Shirley Jackson story The Lottery, where the townspeople, including its children, eagerly and excitedly grabbed rocks to stone the lottery winner, a woman, to death.
‘You’ve got some goddamn nerve,’ Murphy hissed.
Darby cut him off with her hand. ‘You were going to get the woman killed – maybe even yourself –’
‘Bullshit. I had everything under control until you opened those dick-sucking lips of yours with that crack about how neither I or anyone else –’
‘It’s called defusing the situation. I’ll explain the rules of hostage negotiation to you later, Murphy. Right now we have to deal with the bombs.’ Darby saw the surprise and fear bloom in his face and on the faces around her. Her gaze darted back to Coop. ‘He brought a second one with him; it’s in his backpack. I suggest evacuating the surrounding buildings and cordoning off a wider area to –’
‘You’re a civilian now, you don’t have any authority here,’ Murphy spat. ‘Remove your ass or we’ll do it for you.’
‘Shut it down, Murphy. Now,’ Coop said. ‘Darby, you’re with me.’
Coop walked away. She had started to follow when Murphy darted in front of her, his voice trembling with rage when he said, ‘You think, what, you’re gonna prove something here, get your old job back? Guess again. Nobody here would work with you.’
Darby tried to move around him. Again, Murphy darted in front of her, only this time he grabbed her roughly by the upper arm.
‘You think you’re so goddamn high and mighty, that you’re better and smarter than the rest of us – so fucking righteous.’ He pointed a finger in her face and she could feel the fingers of his other hand sinking into the meat of her triceps. ‘Your old man was the exact same way. That’s what got him killed.’
Darby straightened, her jaw set. They were standing so close together, she could see the tiny blood vessels like red worms in his heated, watery eyes.
Over the course of her professional life, she had trained herself to cut her feelings the way an electrician snipped a wire – but not when it came to her anger. She felt it vibrating beneath her skin, demanding to be fed. Her voice, though, was calm when she spoke.
‘When this is over, you and I will get together privately and discuss manners. Until then, let go of my arm and step aside, or I’ll turn your fat ass into a Jackson Pollock painting right here on the sidewalk.’
Murphy didn’t let go.
‘You want to carry your nuts home in an evidence bag? You know I can do it.’
He released his grip, seething. ‘Any other smartass comments?’
‘Yeah. Upgrade your mouthwash.’
Darby walked away, thinking about all the things she could do to him; the sounds he would make when she snapped his joints. It allowed her to put her anger up on a shelf.
Coop stood at the far end of the kerb, talking on the phone and waiting for her. She saw his expression and knew he was about to rip into her for once again jumping into the fray without thinking. It reminded her of a statement he’d made last year in a cheerless airport bar at Denver International, after their flight had been delayed for several hours. They had just finished working a particularly gruelling case in Red Hill, Colorado. He was on his third, maybe fourth, bourbon when he said, You are, hands-down, the single angriest person I’ve ever met. Then his face took on the pale, grave expression of a pallbearer. I think you’ve got a death wish.
‘She’s right here, I’ll call you back,’ Coop said to the person on the other end of the line.
Darby held up a hand, cutting off whatever he was about to say. ‘I don’t want to hear it. Murphy didn’t know what he was doing in the lobby, and you know it.’
Coop looked like he was about to argue the point; then he saw the sea of people swarming around him, the crowds getting larger, cell phones and police radios and sirens and flashing lights going off everywhere, and he gently placed a hand on her back and the two of them walked into the parking lot that annexed the station.
‘The gunman,’ he said, turning his back to the wind. ‘What are his demands?’
‘He wants a face-to-face with Mayor Briggs inside the lobby.’
His brow furrowed. ‘Briggs isn’t the mayor.’
‘I reminded him of that fact. He said he wants Briggs, and he said he wants me, and only me, to escort Briggs, a TV cameraman and a reporter inside the lobby to conduct what I’m guessing is some sort of interview on live TV. When the interview has been conducted to his satisfaction – his words – he said he’d surrender himself.’
‘And if we don’t?’
‘He’ll detonate the bo
mbs,’ Darby said, her attention swinging back to Tremont Street, to the rising tide of cops, every one of them trying to do something to control the situation, to make it stop or at least pause; and for some reason she couldn’t explain, she was thinking of a vacation with her parents in Kennebunk, Maine. It was the morning after a major thunderstorm and they were at the beach, the waves tall and angry. She went to swim with her father, the two of them had been bodysurfing when, all of a sudden, a terrible force pulled her deeper under the water, her body bouncing along the bottom of the ocean until she miraculously resurfaced, gasping for air and discovering she was what felt like miles from the shore. She was thrashing in the water when her father grabbed her and said, It’s me, Darby, I’ve got you, you’re safe.
Later, when it was all over, when they were on shore and safe and she could breathe, her father said, The riptide got you. It comes out of nowhere and drags you down to the bottom and tries to kill you. You always need to watch out for the riptide, Darby, the things you can’t see.
Coop said, ‘He didn’t give you a reason why he wants Briggs?’
Darby shook her head. The fresh air and the adrenaline had helped clear her head, put her hangover on a shelf. ‘He told me he planted bombs inside the city.’
His face drained of colour. ‘How many?’
‘He didn’t say. But we have –’ Darby glanced at her watch ‘– we have two hours and forty-two minutes to deliver Briggs, or the first bomb goes off.’
‘Oh,’ Coop said wanly, punching a number into his cell phone, ‘is that all?’
7
+00.45
Street cops, military, elite Special Forces – on day one, before you learned how to handle and shoot a weapon, you were taught the importance of combat breathing. It was the single most critical function you performed when suddenly confronted with a situation in which your every decision could not only affect your life but also the lives and safety of others. You needed to create a bulletproof mind. To do that, you needed to keep your blood pressure low and minimize the overwhelming psychological and physical side effects caused by an adrenaline dump. Ignore your breathing and you allowed the lethal cocktail of stress hormones and chemicals to devour your ability to think and act at peak and optimum levels.