06 Every Three Hours

by Chris Mooney

  Coop was standing in the aisle, near Hill. She could see his head and shoulders above the others. His face had been cleaned up a bit, but most of his clothes were still covered in Murphy’s blood. Coop was looking at the mother holding her son. The kid was fine, maybe a little rattled by the gunshot, probably needed a new diaper; but chances were he’d never remember what had happened when his mother or someone else brought it up, because the only people inside the store were cops, not a single asshole holding up his or her phone to capture the moment to post on YouTube.

  Coop’s head turned to Darby, and their eyes locked for a moment, the two of them so close now they shared their own language.

  I’m giving you some space but I want you to know I’m here, his expression said.

  She nodded and something inside him seemed to relax, and he returned his attention to Hill, who was sitting up on the floor with his hands cuffed behind his back and hissing back pain from the gunshot wound and ignoring the EMTs working on him. Darby had shot him in the top-right part of his collarbone and the round exited cleanly, or as cleanly as being shot could. There was no need to shoot again, as much as she wanted to. Hill had dropped his weapon and, by the time his addled and pickled brain had registered what had just happened, she was already on him. When she pinned him on the floor he decided to projectile vomit – away from her, fortunately.

  Hill, Darby saw, had started to cry. Not just a few stray tears but actually bawling. She didn’t like it when men cried. A sexist thing to admit, sure, but there you go. Men, she believed, should always be the strong and silent Clint Eastwood types, men like her father, men of few words but plenty of action. Men who could size up a situation and know how to handle it. And if a situation turned to shit, or if they got hurt, they’d suck down their pain and get back to the business of life, because they knew that life didn’t care about anyone or anything. Or maybe it bothered her because of the way men cried, reduced them to little boys who just had something vital and critical torn from them, something they needed to hold on to the face they presented to the world. Hill was crying that way now, his body wracked with sobs; and maybe because of the weight loss and the angle of light inside the store, the distance she now had from him, she thought Hill looked incredibly old and frail, a man who no longer had any command over his physical body and mental faculties and was terrified of having to deal with the knowledge trapped inside his head.

  Darby’s phone vibrated inside her pocket. When she reached into her pocket, she looked down and saw that her shirt and jacket were sprayed with blood. She touched her face with her free hand and her fingertips came back with faint traces of red.

  Gelfand was calling. ‘Coop gave me the rundown,’ he said.

  Darby could barely hear him. She increased the phone’s volume to its maximum. ‘Say that again?’

  ‘Coop told me what happened. You okay?’

  ‘Fantastic.’ She filled in Gelfand on what Hill had told her.

  ‘Good,’ he said after she finished. ‘That’s great.’

  ‘You don’t sound too excited about it, Howie. Does that have anything to do with the fact that everything, as usual, points back to the Bureau being a bunch of –’

  ‘You’re not going to get any argument from me,’ Gelfand said wearily. Something about his tone took the fight out of her. ‘I don’t know the players involved, probably never will; they’re either dead or so buried in documents that were more likely than not shredded.’ He sighed. ‘There are times that I feel like I’ve got these invisible strings on me and someone’s pulling them and I’m either too blind or stupid to see it. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’m off this.’

  ‘BPD took over?’

  ‘No. Hostage Rescue. The HRT is about to touch down. I’ve got orders to step aside.’

  ‘They’re going to take him out,’ Darby said.

  ‘Yep. The pregnant woman and the building will be written off as collateral damage. Feds will pick up the tab.’

  ‘All because they don’t want Torres to testify to what he did for you guys.’

  ‘That about sums it up, yeah.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘Just wanted to give you the lay of the land. Of course, if there was some indication that Torres was ready to surrender …’

  Darby said nothing, watched the flurry of activity around her.

  ‘Briggs is here, boasting that he would’ve gone in there to talk to him.’

  ‘He said that to you?’

  ‘To me and to the press,’ Gelfand said. ‘He issued a statement. Now HRT is taking over and he gets to look like the good guy. You will too when this is all over and done with. Come back to the campus and you can talk to the hostage he just released, Linda Amos. She said she was there to meet a colleague – she’s a trooper – and they were both heading up for a job in Vermont, financial crime.’

  ‘No tie to Torres or Ellis?’

  ‘Not according to her. But I didn’t talk to her that much. You can take a run at her, if you want. Or you can go home. Either way, the United States would like to thank you for your very valiant and courageous service, et cetera, et cetera.’

  Then he was gone and then Darby found herself walking towards the front door.

  The automatic doors slid open, the front area blocked off by the same carnival of flashing vehicles, and behind them cops keeping back people, almost every single one of them with their phones out, talking to someone or snapping pictures or recording video. And Darby just wanted to find a quiet corner to sit, someplace where no one would talk to her or take pictures or video. She was so sick and tired of it all.

  She found what she was looking for; a patrol car with the engine already running. She opened the door and the young cop behind the wheel flinched slightly when he saw her face.

  ‘They need you in there,’ she said.

  He nodded. Got out of the car carefully, like she was preparing to shoot him.

  ‘Something wrong?’ Darby asked.

  ‘You might want to get cleaned up. You’ve got pieces of brains in your hair.’

  ‘You mind leaving the keys in your car? I need to warm up and to, you know, be alone for a bit. Sort my head around what just happened.’

  ‘Sure. Sure, no problem.’

  When the young cop disappeared through the store’s front doors, Darby slid behind the wheel.

  60

  +09.16

  Darby had been in plenty of patrol cars, but she had never driven one of the new models, the Ford Inceptor, and ten minutes after driving out of the parking lot she had to pull over to figure out the switches for the sirens and lights, how to shut off the police radio.

  As the traffic parted in front of her and the wails pounded through the glass and against her ears, the wipers cranked to their maximum setting and working furiously to clear the windshield of the snow, Darby had an odd and completely irrelevant thought: this was the first time she had ever stolen something. Her father, when he was alive, told her how much he detested liars and thieves, and he had exploded in a rage – the only time he had ever gotten angry at her – when, at seven, she took a pen with a pink flamingo, of all things, and stuck it inside her pocket just because she thought it was pretty. She didn’t know why she was thinking of this now as she drove, didn’t have the time or the inclination to analyse it. She needed to focus on the road.

  It also occurred to her that, technically speaking, she wasn’t law enforcement, which meant she had zero legal authority. A private investigator had more leeway and rights than she did. And, legally speaking, she had technically stolen not just a car but a police car, and now she was going to break at least a dozen more laws, state and federal.

  Let the good times roll, Darby thought, killing the lights and sirens as she hooked on to Tremont. She realized she was not herself. And why should she be? She had just shot a man who had used a kid – a baby – as a human shield. And not just some nameless scumbag, either, but someone who she’d respected and thought w
as stand-up. She knew she was physically and emotionally exhausted, maybe not of sound mind or body, a lawyer would say, but the root of her numbness had to do with the plain and simple fact that she’d had enough of being the victim of people who cared only about their base desires and personal agendas and sacrificed people’s lives and families like they were nothing more than pawns on a chessboard. And the thing was, if she didn’t stop it – if she didn’t take a stand – then who would? If she didn’t stop it or take a stand, she couldn’t live with herself.

  A mile and a half later, she saw a pair of cruisers parked at a sideways angle in the middle of the street. Beyond them, in her headlights and through the curtains of falling snow, she saw the bright reflective orange paint of sawhorses parked in the street and along sidewalks, the entire area deathly quiet. If this were a movie, she’d slam her foot on the gas and rocket forward, turning the sawhorses into splintered wood. But this was real life, and when she sped up a bit, the tyres slipping, trying to seek purchase through the snow, and casually drove through the space between the cruisers. She navigated her way around the sawhorses and then she was driving to the station, no one shouting at her to stop, no one following. The snow continued to fall, the streetlights continued to glow, everything quiet and soft, like something captured in a tranquil postcard or nature picture.

  Darby pulled up to the front doors and put the car in park, then left the engine running. She went in feeling stronger and more confident than she had to. She stepped up to the marble column, the ferns in the planter rubbing up against her shirt that was splattered with blood. Darby knew he was watching her through his NV scope and seeing the blood-coloured black against her clothes and face and shirt.

  She spoke into the cold darkness. Her voice didn’t waver and she didn’t feel afraid, or maybe her brain had simply gone numb from shock.

  ‘Briggs landed in Boston.’

  ‘And you came all the way here to tell me in person. How thoughtful.’

  ‘No, I came to tell you Bob Murphy is dead.’

  ‘Did you kill him?’

  ‘No. I’m just wearing his blood.’ Darby moved up to the edge of the marble planter. ‘Danny Hill blew his brains out in aisle six at the Lowe’s in Quincy. It appears Danny wasn’t inside his house this morning after all, when the bomb went off. It’ll be all over the six o’clock news, I’m sure.’

  ‘He’s alive? Detective Hill.’

  ‘Yes. We have him. And I talked to him. He told me about Sean Ellis, the FBI, all of it. But not about the agents involved in the cover-up.’

  Again the gunman’s robotic tone: ‘They’re all dead. And Detective Hill will make some sweetheart deal, request immunity in exchange for a reduced sentence. I’ve seen it happen before, too many times.’

  ‘The FBI told me Walter Karl Torres is dead.’

  ‘Did they now?’

  ‘Said he was shot in El Paso, Texas, and buried there.’

  ‘The wonderful thing about money is that it allows you to purchase all sorts of promises and lies. My new life came at a hefty price. Have you ever been shot?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you’ve been close to death, I know, I’ve read about the things that happened to you. It’s ugly, that moment. You’re praying. Begging. I turned to God and said if He let me live I’d make restitution.’

  ‘That’s what this is all about? Restitution?’

  ‘I accepted Jesus as my personal lord and saviour. He has forgiven me for the things I’ve done, and I swore to Him I would make things right. Did the FBI tell you it was my bullet that killed Anita Barnes’s grandson?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It was an accident, of course. I’m not a monster. I was protecting myself.’

  ‘From what?’

  ‘I was supposed to meet my FBI handlers when Detectives Murphy and Ventura appeared and suddenly started shooting. I survived and ran, and my handlers made arrangements with certain Boston police officers so I wouldn’t be found. I was too valuable an informant.’

  ‘And Officer Fitzpatrick?’

  ‘I shot him. Tried to kill him, but he survived.’

  ‘And now you have his daughter. Laura Levine.’

  Big Red – Torres – said nothing.

  ‘Why now?’ Darby asked. ‘Why wait two decades?’

  ‘It took me all that time to gather my courage. Pathetic, isn’t it?’

  ‘Briggs isn’t coming here.’

  ‘I told you he wouldn’t.’

  ‘That’s why you called the political reporter, Dave Carlson, isn’t it? To make sure the public knew about your demand about wanting to talk to Briggs so no one could twist it. No matter how this ends, you know Carlson will keep digging. Only he’s not going to find anything.’

  ‘Mr Carlson is very resourceful.’

  ‘The FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team landed in Boston,’ Darby said. ‘Do you know what HRT does?’

  ‘They’re assassins. Did they send you here?’

  ‘No, I came on my own. I wanted you to know what you’re up against now. I wanted you to know the truth – especially about Clara Lacy and her family. They’re dead. Bob Murphy killed them, if Danny Hill is to be believed. We’ll have to wait and see how it shakes out.’

  The gunman didn’t respond. In the silence that followed, Darby heard the pregnant woman, Laura Levine, whimpering.

  ‘It’s over,’ Darby said. ‘They’ve won.’

  ‘I’ll blow the bombs and kill –’

  ‘They don’t care. Don’t you get it? They’re going to sacrifice you, the hostage and this building. Me. They’ll write the story any way they want to. I’m breaking all sorts of laws by telling you this, by being here – I stole a police car to get here. When I leave, they’ll arrest me. It’s over.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘To let you know the score.’

  ‘I could kill you right now.’

  ‘You could. You can do anything you want. It’s not going to change the outcome. But you’ve got one final play.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Dave Carlson.’

  ‘They won’t let him come in here.’

  ‘You’re right; they won’t. They won’t let you speak to him. But they may let me speak to him.’

  ‘In exchange for what? What do you want?’

  ‘For Briggs to come here, for the truth to come out. And you’re making me do it. That’s what I’m going to tell them. You’ve taken me as a hostage.’ Darby nodded with her chin to the throw-phone. ‘May I?’

  61

  +09.35

  ‘Make the call,’ Torres said.

  The phone was connected to the unit by a long wire. Darby grabbed it and pulled the receiver to her.

  Grove answered on the third ring, and she immediately asked to speak to Gelfand.

  Gelfand didn’t hide his contempt. ‘What are you doing in there?’

  ‘I need to speak with Dave Carlson.’

  ‘Are you out of your mind?’

  ‘We can still resolve this peacefully.’

  ‘That’s not going to happen.’

  ‘Resolving this peacefully or talking to Carlson?’

  ‘Darby, you –’

  ‘I have a gun to my head,’ Darby lied. It wasn’t a lie, per se; the man did have a gun, that was a fact, and he could very well be pointing it at her head, she had no way of knowing. ‘If you don’t patch Carlson through and put him on the line, he’s going to kill me.’

  Gelfand said he’d call her back.

  Darby waited in the cold silence, sweating beneath her jacket and telling herself that she had made the right play. The line for the hostage phone was being recorded. Everything she said would become part of the record.

  When the phone rang, Dave Carlson was on the other end of the line.

  ‘Mr Carlson, can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did they inform you this line is being recorded?’

  ‘They did. And I should inform you th
at I’m not alone. I have three federal agents with me right now. One of ’em is listening in on this conversation.’

  ‘The gunman’s name is Walter Karl Torres. He’s a former federal informant. He has assured me he will surrender his suicide vest and the remaining bombs right now provided you accompany the former mayor Briggs inside the lobby and conduct the TV interview. Will you do that?’

  His response was swift, but he was nervous, too: ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I will.’

  ‘Mr Torres wants to speak to the former mayor Briggs about his possible involvement with the Sean Ellis case. After the interview is finished, he will surrender himself. He wants you to publish that now on your Twitter feed to make sure the public knows that he wants to resolve this peacefully, without bloodshed.

  ‘Howie, call building management and tell them to turn on the lights for the lobby. Once the devices have been disarmed, I’ll contact you.’

  Darby hung up.

  ‘It’s done,’ she told the gunman. ‘The rest is up to you.’

  Karl Torres didn’t reply.

  She could hear movement in the darkness. Whimpering.

  Now she heard footsteps.

  The lobby lights came on, her eyes burning from the sudden brightness. When they finally adjusted, she didn’t see Torres or Laura Levine anywhere.

  ‘The vest and backpack are on the conveyor belt,’ Torres said, still using the voice modulator. ‘They’ve been disarmed.’

  ‘And your jamming unit?’

  ‘Turned off. It’s in the backpack.’

  ‘The bomb robot will have –’

  ‘No. You take them out. I don’t want anyone else in here.’

  ‘They’re made with TATP. It’s –’

  ‘I know what it is. They have a stabilizer in them. The bombs won’t blow unless you throw them in the air. Carry them and place them gently on the ground and you’ll be fine. Don’t come back in here until Briggs arrives, please. I need some time to prepare.’

  ‘For what?’

  Karl Torres refused to answer.