06 Every Three Hours

by Chris Mooney

  ‘He didn’t mention it, but I’m assuming he does.’

  ‘My recommendation is not to bother. If one or both of the lobby bombs go off, all the suit will do is ensure we’ll find your corpse in one place. The pressure wave will liquefy your organs. You’ll be dead before you hit the floor.’

  Darby saw Coop shift in his chair. The thought of being in there when the bomb went off made her break out in a cold sweat.

  She said, ‘The idea of going back in there, frankly, sets my teeth on edge. But I can’t just sit back, either, and do nothing. I’m not a hostage negotiator, so if you think it’s best that you go in –’

  Grove held up a hand, cutting her off. ‘Ego has no place in hostage negotiation,’ he said. ‘Dr McCormick, you and I –’

  ‘Darby.’

  ‘Darby, you and I are after the same thing, so let’s talk one professional to another, and then you can make your decision.

  ‘We need to establish a line of communication with the gunman,’ Grove said. ‘That’s our first priority. Our man seems to know a lot about police matters, so I think one of us should go in with a satellite phone instead of the typical throw-phone. It’s less threatening, and since the commander of the Massachusetts State Troopers’ Bomb Squad Unit, Ted Scott, isn’t jamming any satellite frequencies, we can talk to the gunman without Scott having to drop his jamming capabilities. Scott told me about the router.’

  ‘I don’t know if it was a router,’ Darby said.

  ‘Until we know more, we’ll have to assume it is. Be on the lookout when you go in there, see what you can find.’ Grove got to his feet and slid a thick black Mont Blanc pen inside the small breast pocket of her leather jacket. ‘The pinhole camera is installed inside the front, near the small clip. It records DVR quality audio and video to its hidden USB drive.’

  Then Grove turned to the SWAT agent sitting in the passenger seat. ‘How’s the picture looking, Charlie?’

  ‘Crystal clear.’

  ‘We know he’s using a jamming device,’ Grove said to her, ‘so we set the pen to a low radio frequency. If his device is blocking radio high frequencies, then the video won’t work – but the camera should. You don’t have to operate it manually. It’s already been programmed to take a picture every fifteen seconds. As a backup, I’d like you to use this.’

  Grove picked up a small recordable audio device, what the FBI called a FBIRD. ‘It’s digital and not susceptible to any commercial jamming units,’ he said. ‘We can tape it underneath your clothes if you want, but it’s thin enough to slip it in your breast pocket too, where it will be out of view. Fresh batteries, I’ve already tested it, it’s good to go. Just stick it in your pocket and forget about it.

  ‘I’m aware of your impressive background and credentials, but we still need to go over this next part.’

  ‘Okay,’ Darby said.

  ‘Remain calm and nonjudgemental at all times. The key is to make him believe – to keep him believing – that you’re on his side. Gather as much information as you can. He’ll be expecting that, so whatever you do, don’t push. I forgot to ask earlier: did he appear in any way under the influence of drugs or alcohol?’

  ‘He disguised his voice, so I couldn’t get a read on his tone. His pupils weren’t dilated.’

  ‘Body language?’

  ‘Calm and controlled,’ Darby said. ‘Gives the impression he has every angle covered.’

  ‘Like he’s rehearsed this moment?’

  She nodded. ‘He also seems resigned to the fact that he might die – but not, I think, before he gets his message out. Could be law enforcement, I don’t know. He strikes me as intelligent, as a cold and rational pragmatist, which is the worst kind of person to negotiate with.’

  ‘You’re right – which is why I’m reluctant about letting you or anyone else go back into the lobby without Briggs. He may decide to make a display of power to make sure his demands are taken seriously.’

  ‘Killing a hostage.’

  ‘It’s a very real possibility. But if he’s as intelligent as you say he is, then he’ll know that killing a hostage now will effectively destroy any opportunity of us allowing the former mayor to enter the lobby. Briggs is the carrot. You go in there and deliver the phone, saying he can talk to Briggs in exchange for a hostage and for disarming the first IED.’

  Darby nodded, thinking, He’ll never agree to that.

  ‘We have to try,’ Grove said, as if reading her mind. ‘We just can’t sit back and do nothing with a bomb supposedly about to go off.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Do you still want to go in?’

  Darby nodded.

  ‘But?’ Grove prompted, reading something in her face.

  ‘I was just thinking of what he told me as I left.’

  ‘ “There will be blood.” ’

  Darby nodded.

  ‘In these situations,’ Grove said, ‘there usually is.’

  12

  +02.01

  An Explosive Ordnance Disposal truck made the approach to the building.

  Darby rode in the back, standing on the diamond-plated nonslip flooring, one hand holding on to a grab-rail bolted into the ceiling. The door and window-breaching equipment rattled in their wall compartments. Coop stood beside her, Darby knowing he wanted to talk her out of this. He said nothing, though, knowing it was pointless. She had already made up her mind.

  The floor thundering beneath her feet and the engine vibrating against her ears, Darby retreated inside her head and went through the script she had quickly rehearsed with Grove. She conjured up various scenarios she might encounter with the gunman, went over her responses and reminded herself to watch her body language. This wasn’t a confrontation. She needed him to think, and keep thinking, she was on his side.

  The satellite phone vibrated inside her jacket pocket. Grove must be calling with an update, Darby thought.

  The caller wasn’t Alan Grove. A light and airy female voice said, ‘Dr McCormick?’

  ‘Who’s this?’

  The woman didn’t answer. Then another person got on the line: Edward Briggs. She recognized the nasal but affable voice, with its thick Boston accent, right away.

  ‘Dr McCormick? Edward Briggs.’

  ‘Hello, Mr Briggs,’ Darby said, her gaze bouncing up at Coop.

  Briggs said, ‘I’m glad I caught you. How you holding up? You okay?’

  ‘I’m fine. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I’m told you’re going back inside the lobby.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I just wanted to call and thank you for doing this. The city owes you a tremendous debt.’

  Darby said nothing, trying to figure out the true reason for the man’s last-minute call.

  ‘Anything you can tell me about this guy?’ Briggs asked. ‘What his angle is?’

  ‘Nothing beyond what I told the FBI. Did they brief you?’

  ‘They did. Anything you need – and I mean anything – you get on the line to either me or Christine.’

  ‘Christine?’

  ‘My personal assistant. Woman who made the call, she’s sitting next to me, helping me out. Thank you, Darby. And good luck.’

  And then the former mayor was gone.

  Darby pulled the phone away, stared at it.

  ‘What was that about?’ Coop asked.

  ‘Damage control.’

  City police and state troopers had cleared a direct route from Northeastern to BPD headquarters. They made the drive in nine minutes flat.

  It felt like nine seconds. Darby blinked, and then the truck had stopped, the driver looking over his shoulder at her, wondering why she was still standing there.

  Coop opened the back door to grey light and cold air. He got out, which confused her; he wasn’t accompanying her into the lobby. Then he did something that both surprised and shocked her: he offered her a hand. Coop knew she had never cared for displays of male chivalry; she could open her own damn doors and carr
y her own luggage, thank you very much. So why was he standing there, waiting for her to take his hand and help her down like she was some delicate creature that might topple?

  Then she saw his face and knew why: Coop was afraid this was the last time he was going to see her alive. He wanted a moment alone with her, maybe even a quick display of physical affection to let her know how much he cared for her, but he didn’t want to embarrass her or diminish her authority with so many eyes watching. He wanted to touch her in case this was goodbye.

  She took his hand and a memory resurfaced, one that seared her: gripping her father’s baseball-mitt-sized hand as he lay in a hospital bed in a coma. She squeezed his thick fingers and she dug her nails into his calloused palms, waiting for a return signal, some piece of evidence that he was still inside there, fighting to come home, back to her. He lingered in a biological purgatory for three weeks until her mother made the decision to ‘let him go’. Right then, at twelve, she had learned that at any moment, and without any warning, love could turn toxic and exile you inside a colourless landscape of grief and pain that would be with you until you drew your final breath. Right then, at twelve, she refused to ever be that vulnerable again.

  Coop squeezed her hand and let his grip linger for just a moment before he let go. ‘When you’re done, come back out to the street and wave,’ he said. ‘We’ll be watching for you.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Make sure you come back to me in one piece, okay?’

  ‘You got it, Cap.’

  Darby began to walk. Her legs felt steady, and she didn’t look over her shoulder at Coop. She heard the EOD vehicle turn and then drive back the way it came, to get outside the projected blast radius in case the lobby bombs blew.

  All the vehicles on this part of Tremont were gone. She didn’t see a single soul but knew there were dozens of eyes watching her through sniper scopes and binoculars; through the TV cameras aimed at her from the hovering news copters.

  She took the satellite phone out of her jacket pocket and hit the pre-programmed number.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ Darby asked.

  ‘Loud and clear,’ Grove replied. ‘I have Briggs waiting on the other line.’

  ‘I spoke to him a few minutes ago. He called while I was inside the truck.’

  ‘I know, he asked me to speak to you. Gelfand wanted me to tell you he located an OBGYN willing to go inside the station – a woman from Mass. General. She’ll be delivered to your location in about two or three minutes, along with a pair of paramedics. One of them is a member of the bomb squad. He’s hoping to get a look at the bomb, provided the gunman allows this group in.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘Just deliver the phone and I’ll take it from there,’ Grove said. ‘One last thing, and this isn’t hype or bullshit: you know what you’re doing. Trust your instincts and you’ll come out of this just fine.’

  Just fine.

  She didn’t want to die, but the idea of dying didn’t frighten her; Darby had come to grips with that business a long time ago. She had been shot and beaten. She had been chased through a nightmarish maze of locked and unlocked doors and shifting rooms while a madman stalked her with an axe, a place buried so deep in the earth that not even God himself could hear her prayers. What terrified her – what made her arms shake and her stomach turn to lead when she stepped inside the lobby – was standing there helpless if the gunman decided to kill an innocent.

  It could happen.

  Might happen.

  Don’t let that happen, an inner voice said.

  In times of great stress, the voice, she noticed, sounded an awful lot like her father.

  Darby drew in a deep breath and held it as she opened the door.

  13

  +02.07

  The first part of the lobby felt eerily quiet. She moved to the raised marble planter, her footsteps announcing her, and looked inside the main lobby. From this angle, she could only see the rear part of the reception desk. She didn’t see anyone, heard nothing.

  Something caught her attention from her right, the side of the building facing the street. She looked at the wall, the blocked-shaped squares of bevelled glass that would prevent a sniper from being able to see inside the lobby.

  Then she saw it, a circuit board with an attached nine-volt battery fixed against one of the blocks of glass by a suction cup: a laser microphone surveillance defeater that would prevent the surveillance techs from trying to listen in on their conversations. You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?

  Then came the mechanical voice: ‘For your sake I hope you brought Briggs. If not, turn around and leave before I do something I regret.’

  She had discussed this with Grove. Time to roll the dice.

  ‘I have him,’ she replied, blood pounding in her ears and her heart leaping high in her chest. ‘We’re coming in.’

  Darby had taken only a few steps when the gunman ordered her to stop.

  She was still standing behind the raised planter when the gunman turned the right corner, near the X-ray machine. He had the pregnant woman gripped in a chokehold, using her as a human shield. He had duct-taped her mouth and bound her hands behind her back with plastic zip ties. He had also traded his Glock 40 for a hunting knife with a curved blade, the tip pressed against the thin skin below the woman’s ear, near her jugular. One swift cut and she’d bleed out in less than two minutes. The baby, deprived of blood, would slowly suffocate in the womb.

  The gunman, still wearing the balaclava and the voice-altering device, stood, with his hostage, a few feet behind the body scanner. She wore a new piece of clothing – a bright red fleece scarf tied in a casual knot around her neck – and Darby noticed the coat had been buttoned. The woman’s eyes were puffy and wet, the strips of tape across her mouth shiny with tears and snot. Darby could hear the woman slurping saliva and sucking air behind the tape.

  ‘It will be okay, Laura,’ Darby said. ‘We have doctors standing by who will help –’

  ‘You lied to me,’ the gunman said, again speaking through the voice modulator, in the same deep and rumbling robotic monotone

  ‘I have Briggs right here.’ Darby held up the satellite phone. Don’t look at Laura, keep your focus on him, an inner voice urged. ‘He’s in upstate Vermont with his family, skiing. We’re making arrangements to bring him to Boston as we speak. Until he arrives –’

  ‘Remove the battery from the phone.’

  ‘He’s agreed to speak to you and he will –’

  ‘Agreed? He’s agreed ?’ The mechanical voice shrill at the end, distorted, and the woman flinched and screamed from behind the tape.

  Calm. Stay calm. ‘Poor choice of words on my part,’ Darby said. ‘I’ve never been in a situation like this.’

  ‘Remove the battery or I’ll slit her throat.’

  Darby turned the phone over in her hands and found the battery compartment. ‘Briggs wants to speak with you – and he will, for as long as it takes, until he arrives here,’ she said as she went to work. ‘Vermont is getting hit with a major nor’easter – the same one that’s going to hit us later this evening. All they’re asking for is some additional time.’

  ‘Drop the phone and take off your clothes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s what I want.’

  Darby hesitated.

  The tip of the knife pierced the woman’s neck, her cry muffled behind the tape. Darby saw blood and her hands flew to her jacket.

  After she kicked off her boots, she slid out of her jeans and then unbuttoned her shirt and dropped it to the floor. She straightened, dressed in her white tube socks and matching white Hanes bra and underwear.

  ‘Take off everything,’ he said.

  She did, without hesitation or complaint, saving the watch for last and noting the time until the first bomb went off: fifty-one minutes.

  ‘Now take your clothes and the phone and throw everything out of the front door. Then come through the bod
y scanner.’

  When she passed through the scanner, she didn’t try to cover herself. She stood tall and faced him, the marble floor cold and gritty beneath the soles of her feet, her skin prickling in the cooling air, her nipples involuntarily hardening.

  The gunman’s gaze flicked across her body – not in a sexual way, she noticed, but cold and clinical. He’s checking me for listening devices, possibly a concealed weapon, she thought. He had traded the knife for the TEC-9. He had also removed his overcoat. His suit jacket was unbuttoned, and she could see the shoulder strap for the suicide vest.

  ‘That’s an interesting tattoo you have on the side of your chest. It looks like a surgical suture.’

  It was. The tattoo was eight inches long and subtle, at least in her opinion, and ran along her ribcage and ended just under her breast. The blue, red and black ink covered a scar left by a man who had tried to kill her inside a dungeon of horrors – the same man who was responsible for the faint hairline scar along her cheek.

  She had had the tattoo done last year, at a place in Las Vegas. She gave the artist strict instructions. The black sutures and the tiny initials next to it belonged to the name of the killer. The red sutures and the tiny numbers next to it belonged to the number of victims he had claimed. Darby had found that transforming the scar into a permanent work of art – a reminder of the things she had endured – had acted as some sort of talisman that helped keep away the ghosts of the victims who had often visited her in her sleep.

  ‘Do you feel self-conscious?’ the gunman asked.

  ‘About the tattoo?’

  ‘Standing before me naked?’

  ‘Mostly I feel cold,’ Darby said.

  ‘You’re not afraid of me, are you?’

  Darby said nothing.

  ‘Tell me the truth,’ he said.

  ‘No. I’m not afraid of you.’

  ‘I could kill you right now.’

  ‘You could.’

  ‘I could also make you get down on your knees, maybe bend you over the reception counter and have my way with you.’