My headache was rallying once again and every inch of my body ached. I had too much on my mind to cope with this sudden outburst of bickering, and I felt like my head was about to explode. Being a part of an investigation was one thing, but everything hinging on me alone was unnerving.
I took in a deep breath and closed my eyes. I could feel the aircraft roll slightly to the side, and I tensed in the seat. When I reopened my eyes, I could see riverfront now occupied the side window, and the bright, red anti-collision light atop the Gateway Arch was winking in measured pulses, warning us to keep our distance. We completed our veer through a shallow turn and then continued on a straight course.
“Listen,” I continued speaking, now that they had both shut up. “Miz Street, I need you to do me a favor. Just get me to the scene, and I promise I’ll give you guys an exclusive once this is all over.”
“Rowan!” Ben admonished.
“Let me talk, Ben,” I shot back and then continued with a qualification. “Whatever I can legally discuss with you, Miz Street, I will.”
“An exclusive.” She restated the words with an air of suspicion. “You’ll talk to our station only?”
“I’ll go you one better,” I returned. “I’ll talk to you and you alone. It will be your story. No strings attached. Deal?”
I could hear the combination of excitement and mild disbelief in her voice when she replied, “Are you serious, Gant?”
“You ever see the TV show Bewitched?” I asked.
“Sure, but what’s that got to do with anything?” she asked.
I twisted in my seat and turned my face to her. When I was certain she could see me, I splayed out my left hand and placed the index and middle fingers on either side of my nose, pointing in toward my eyes, then said, “Witches honor.”
“Here we are,” the pilot’s voice came over the headset.
I turned my eyes back forward and then immediately gripped the edges of my seat as the aircraft rolled up on its side without warning. We hooked around in a steep, semicircular turn before the pilot brought us back upright. With a smooth hover, we began settling earthward with the nose tilted slightly up.
While I struggled to force my stomach back into its proper place, I shot a glance over at the pilot and noticed for the first time that as years went he was wearing better than a decade more than I was.
“Vietnam?” I uttered the single word query as I felt the skids bump against pavement once again.
“One ninety-second AHC” was all he said.
*****
The aircraft had come briefly to rest on a small, private parking lot for one of the riverboat casinos that occupied dock space in front of Laclede’s Landing. The lot itself was an asphalt plateau situated between Second and Third Streets, ringed by a tall, chain link fence, and under normal circumstances, manned by a security guard at a glassed-in booth. Because of its location along the tiered rise, it actually looked down into the front of the building where Porter was holed up.
The large, paved section of the short city block was almost completely devoid of any vehicles, having been cleared earlier by the authorities. In fact, the only cars up here were a few police cruisers parked at strategic points and a single, official-looking sedan.
Behind us on the next block was an enormous electrical sub-station that serviced a large portion of the city. Flanking the building on the left was another portion of the substation, and on the right was an open lot that butted against Biddle Street. A second vacant warehouse sat behind the one before us with aging railroad tracks in between.
Upon initial inspection, there didn’t really seem to be any place for Porter to go where he wouldn’t be spotted immediately-even if he was able to get past the local perimeter. I found a small amount of solace in that fact considering that I had left Felicity essentially alone.
I was just pulling the headset off and handing it back to the pilot when my door swung open. The roar of the helicopter’s engine, which had leapt in volume the moment my ears were uncovered, now vaulted up the scale even farther. I turned quickly, somewhat startled.
“MISTER GANT?!” A voice managed to make its way to me from the parka-wearing young woman who was holding the door wide.
I nodded at her, fiddled about with the release in my lap until the belt came free, then pulled myself out of the seat and through the opening. Ben was already climbing out of the back and levering the door shut when I set foot on the pavement.
I turned back and gave the pilot a quick nod as I shut the front door and felt it latch. The three of us then hunched over beneath the rotor wash and scurried away toward the dark sedan several yards to the south.
I heard the repetitious thump growing behind me as the collective once again tilted the rotating blades and applied lift to the aircraft. The whine of the engine rose, and the helicopter hovered upward.
“I’m Agent Kavanaugh with the hostage negotiation team,” the young woman told us as we came to the rear of the four-door vehicle, carefully modulating her voice against the sound of the aircraft. She quickly popped the lid on the trunk and after reaching in, withdrew a Kevlar flak vest. “Before we go down to the street, Mister Gant, you need to put this on.”
“What for?” I asked. My voice was starting to go hoarse from all the yelling. “Eldon Porter doesn’t use a gun.”
“Standard operating procedure, sir,” she returned.
“I don’t need it.”
She started to respond then paused as the helicopter rose past us and nosed off into the night sky, taking with it the brunt of the noise. As it faded into the background, she dropped her volume several notches and spoke. “Mister Gant, let me explain this briefly. Number one: you are a civilian, and from this moment on, you are my responsibility. Number two: the simple fact is we have no way to know for certain what he has with him in the way of weapons. Number three: as long as you are on the scene, you go by our rules. And, finally, number four: we don’t have time for this. So put the damn vest on now!”
“Fine.” I gave my reluctant agreement and started shrugging off my coat. “Give it to me.”
I had been subject to wearing one of these before, and I’d hated every minute of it. Granted, it had been right at the end of a muggy Saint Louis summer. The temperature had been hovering around ninety even though it was the middle of the night. And, on top of that, I’d been plagued with an aggravating itch that the vest had rendered unreachable for the duration.
Still, even discounting all of those factors, body armor had been one of the most uncomfortable things I’d ever worn.
I slipped into the vest and in the process realized just exactly how sore I was. My body creaked like an old, wooden sailing ship, and I suspected I had bruises forming on top of bruises. I grimaced and forced my torso into the armor then wrestled with the Velcro straps. I wriggled about inside the somewhat bulky protective garment as I smoothed them down. Agent Kavanaugh inspected the closures, taking a moment to rip several of them open and pull them tighter.
“I was thinking I might like to breathe,” I declared with a sarcastic bite as she tightened the last one.
“I was thinking I might like you to walk away alive,” she retorted without looking up. “You’re no good to us dead.”
“Thanks for the compassion,” I scoffed.
She didn’t miss a beat with her own acerbic reply. “You’re welcome.”
Ben handed me my coat, and I struggled to pull it back on over the vest.
Agent Kavanaugh was already climbing into the driver’s seat of the sedan when she called to us. “Come on!”
We followed suit; Ben took the front passenger seat while I jumped into the back. I was still pulling my door shut when Kavanaugh spun the tires against the slushy pavement and expertly whipped the vehicle around in a tight half-donut.
I rocked inward and felt the door partially latch then sat up and looked forward. I happened to catch a quick glimpse of Ben’s injured right hand as he twisted to look back at me. He w
as holding it balled up in a tight fist and cradled against his chest. Even in the dark, I could tell it was covered in blood, and when I looked up at his face, I saw immediately that he was mutely coping with severe pain.
“You really need to have that hand checked out, Ben,” I told him. “It doesn’t look very good.”
“What? You a doctor all of a sudden?” he retorted.
“Ben…”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll get it taken care of when this is over.”
We rocked to the side as Agent Kavanaugh whipped the vehicle out of the lot at a sharp right angle, sped forward, and then made another ninety degree turn to the right. She accelerated down the hill, only to quickly apply the brakes, fishtail the sedan through another right hand turn, and bring it skidding to a halt diagonal to the curb.
“Well, that was fun,” Ben quipped as he turned back to the front and reached across with his left hand to open his door.
Our no-nonsense escort already had my door open and was hustling me from the back of the vehicle. Once I was out, she led me toward a small clutch of very serious-looking individuals.
A trim man, looking to be in his late forties or early fifties, was at the center of the activity. He was wearing a headset that appeared to be connected to a large, gadget-laden, black box. Upon close inspection, the container looked to me like a deep suitcase. The hinged clamshell of the case was wide open, displaying a patch panel and compact recording equipment, as well as an array of switches and dials.
He fixed his gaze on me and gave a questioning raise of his eyebrow. He must have received a response from Agent Kavanaugh as he immediately executed a satisfied nod of his head and continued talking.
“Yes, Eldon,” he said into the headset microphone. “He’s here. I’m looking right at him. Can’t you see him from the window?”
He grimaced for a moment, and I wondered what Eldon was saying to him. His response that followed a few seconds later gave me a clue.
“No, Eldon, I’m not trying to trick you into giving away your position. I just want to make sure you know I’m telling you the truth. Yes… Yes, I know. Yes, that is him. Okay, fine. Now, according to my watch, we came in well under your deadline.”
He continued staring at me with that as his only acknowledgment of my presence. Around us, members of the team appeared to be taking notes while others seemed to be in the process of arranging them on a large board.
“All right, Eldon,” he said. “I can let you talk to him for a minute, but I’m going to need something from you… Hey, Eldon, I kept my end of the bargain. You wanted Mister Gant here, and I made good on my promise. He’s on site. This is all give and take, Eldon.”
I studied the man as he worked, wishing I could apply the same detachment that I was witnessing in him. At the same time, I wondered if that detachment was merely a stoic front and that perhaps he internalized these things even more than I did.
“Okay then. I want you to put Miss Sullivan on the line, so I know she is okay. Simple, right?” He paused for a moment. “Give and take, Eldon, give and take. Right now it’s your turn to give… Okay… That’s good… Thank you.”
He paused again, and I waited.
“Miss Sullivan?” the man suddenly said with a questioning note in his voice. “This is Special Agent Scott McCoy with the FBI. Have you been harmed in any way? Miss Sullivan? Miss Sullivan?”
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 ti
mes 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 facade was a visual connection, so I continued to scan the boarded-over windows in search of his face.
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