Hostage

9

Friday, 8:06 P.M.

TALLEY

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Crisis Response Team came around the corner like a military convoy. A plain Sheriff’s sedan led the file, followed by a bulky Mobile Command Post vehicle that looked like a bread truck on steroids. The Sheriffs wouldn’t need Mrs. Pena’s home; the van contained its own power generator, a bathroom, uplinks for the Intelligence Officer’s computers, and a communications center for command and control coordination. It also had a Mr. Coffee. The Sheriff’s SWAT team followed in two large GMC Suburbans with a second van containing their weapons and support gear. As the convoy stopped, the SWAT cops un-assed, already geared out in dark green tactical uniforms. They hustled to the second van, where a senior sergeant-supervisor passed out radios and firearms. Four radio cars followed the tactical vehicles with uniformed deputies who clustered around their own sergeant-supervisor. Talley heard a change in the helicopters’ rotor turbulence as they repositioned to broadcast the Sheriffs’ arrival. If Rooney was watching television, his stress level would soar. During periods like these the possibility of the subject panicking and taking action increased. Talley hurried to the lead car.

A tall, slender African-American officer climbed out from behind the wheel as a blond officer with thinning hair climbed from the passenger side.

Talley put out his hand.

“Jeff Talley. I’m the chief here. Are you the team commander?”

The tall man flashed a relaxed smile.

“Will Maddox. I’ll be the primary negotiator. This is Chuck Ellison, my secondary. The commander would be Captain Martin. She’s back in the van.”

As Talley shook their hands, Ellison winked.

“She likes to ride in the van instead of with us negotiators. Lots of pretty lights in there.”

“Chuck.”

Ellison looked innocent.

“Something I said?”

The energy on the street changed dramatically; Talley had felt that he was hanging from a ledge by his fingers, but now an organized military weight was settling over York Estates. A brilliant pool of white light swept over them on its way along the convoy. All three of them held up their hands to cut the glare. The different teams breaking up into their components with well-rehearsed efficiency felt comforting. Talley no longer felt alone. In a matter of minutes, this man Will Maddox would take the responsibility of other lives from his shoulders.

Talley said, “Mr. Maddox, I am damned glad to see you here.”

“Will. Mr. Maddox is my wife.” Ellison laughed loudly.

Maddox smiled absently at the lame joke, glancing at the mouth of the cul-de-sac a half-block away.

“The barricade up there?”

“Up at the end. I’ve got two men directly out front, three men spread across the property on either side, and another three beyond the back wall on Flanders Road. We have two people on each entrance here into York and three with the media. We could use more with the media right away before they start leaking through the development.”

“You can brief the Captain on those kinds of things, but there are a couple of points that I need to hit before we get into all that.”

“Go.”

Talley walked with them back toward the control van to find the Captain. He knew from his own experience that Maddox and Ellison would want a virtual replay of his conversations with Rooney.

“It’s you who’s had direct contact with the subjects?”

“Yes. Only me.”

“Okay. Are the innocents under an immediate threat?”

“I don’t believe so. The last contact I had with Rooney was about twenty minutes ago. Way I left it, he’s in there thinking that he has outs both for Kim’s murder and the attempt on the officer. You know about that?”

While inbound, the Sheriffs had received a radio briefing on the events leading up to the barricade situation. Maddox confirmed that they knew the bare bones.

“Okay. Turns out Kim had a gun, and more than one of the subjects besides Rooney fired upon the officer. I left him thinking that a sharp lawyer could cut a deal on both counts.”

“Has he made any demands?”

Talley told him about Rooney demanding that the perimeter be pulled back and the deal that they’d made, the hostage names for the pullback. Getting the first concession was often the most difficult, and how it was gotten could set the tone for everything that was to follow.

Maddox walked with his hands in his pockets, his expression knowing and thoughtful.

“Good job, Chief. Sounds like we’re in pretty good shape. You used to be with LAPD SWAT, weren’t you?”

Talley looked more closely at Maddox.

“That’s right. Have we met?”

“I was on LAPD as a uniform before I went with the Sheriffs, which put us there about the same time. When we got the call here today, your name rang a bell. Talley. You did the nursery school.”

Talley felt uncomfortable whenever someone mentioned the nursery school.

“That was a long time ago.”

“That had to be something. I don’t think I would’ve had the balls.”

“It wasn’t balls. I just couldn’t think of anything else.”

On a bright spring morning in the Fairfax area of Los Angeles, a lone gunman invaded a Jewish day-care center, taking an adult female teacher and three toddlers hostage. When Talley arrived, he found the gunman confused, incoherent, and rapidly dissociating. Fearing that the subject had suffered a psychotic break and the children were in imminent danger, Talley offered himself in trade for the children; this was against direct orders from his crisis team captain and in violation of LAPD policy. Talley approached the day-care center unarmed and unprotected, surrendering himself to the gunman, who simultaneously released the children. As the gunman stood in the door with one arm hooked around Talley’s neck and a 9mm Smith amp; Wesson pistol pressed to Talley’s head, Talley’s best friend during those days, Neal Craimont, dropped the subject with a sixty-yard cortical brain shot, the 5.56mm hypervelocity bullet passing only four inches to the left of Talley’s own brain stem. The newspapers had made Talley out to be a hero, but Talley had considered the events of that morning a failure. He had been the primary negotiator, and for a negotiator, it is always a failure when someone dies. Success only comes with life.

Maddox seemed to sense Talley’s discomfort. He dropped the subject.

When they reached the rear of the command van, a woman wearing a green tactical uniform stepped from among a knot of sergeants to meet them. She had a cut jaw, smart black eyes, and short blond hair.

“Is this Chief Talley?”

Maddox nodded.

“This is him.”

She put out her hand. Now closer, Talley saw the captain’s insignia on her collar. She had a tough grip.

“Laura Martin. Captain. I’m the field commander in charge of the crisis response team.”

Where Maddox and Ellison were relaxed and loose, Martin was as taut as a power cable, her manner clipped and humorless.

“I’m glad you’ve met our negotiators. Sergeant Maddox will take over as the primary.”

“We were just discussing that, Captain. I think we’re in pretty good shape with that. The subjects seem calm.”

Martin keyed the radio transceiver strapped to her harness and called for a communications check of her supervisors in five minutes, then looked back at Talley.

“Do you have a perimeter in place around the house?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“How many men?”

“Eleven. A mix of my people and the Highway Patrol. I put the men in close, then pulled them back to get things going with Rooney, so you’ll have to be careful with that.”

As Talley spoke, Martin didn’t seem to be paying attention. She glanced both ways along the street, leading Talley to think that she was measuring the scene and more than likely sizing up his officers. He found himself irritated. The command van was being repositioned farther down the block over an access point to the underground power and phone lines that ran under the streets. If they wanted to tap into the phone lines that ran to the house, they could do it from there. They could also tap power for the van. Talley had already called PacBell and the Department of Water and Power to the scene.

“I’ll get my supervisors together so you can brief everyone at once. I want to rotate my tactical people into the perimeter as soon as we’ve stabilized the situation.”

Talley felt another flash of irritation; it was clear that the scene was stable. He suggested that Martin assemble her supervisors in Mrs. Pena’s home, but Martin thought that would take too much time. As she called her people together under a streetlight, Talley radioed Metzger for copies of the floor plan. He passed them out as everyone assembled, and gave a fast overview of his conversations with Rooney, describing what he knew of the house and the people within it.

Martin stood next to him, arms crossed tightly, squinting at him with what Talley began to feel was a critical suspicion.

“Have you cut the power and phones?”

“We blocked the phones. I didn’t see any reason to cut the power until we knew for sure what we were dealing with.”

Martin told her intelligence officer, a sergeant named Rojas, to have someone from the utility companies standing by if they needed to pull the plug.

Metzger pointed up the street.

“They’re already standing by. See that guy in the Duke cap? That’s him.”

The tactical team supervisor, a veteran sergeant named Carl Hicks, studied the floor plan sketches, and seemed irritated when Talley couldn’t produce actual city floor plans.

“Do we know where they’re keeping the hostages?”

“No.”

“How about the location of the subjects?”

“The room immediately to our right of the front door is the father’s office. Rooney is usually in there when he talks to me, but I can’t say if he sticks. I know he moves through the house to keep an eye on the perimeter, but he’s buttoned up pretty well. The shades are down over every window except the French doors overlooking the pool in back. They don’t have drapes back there, but he’s got the lights off.”

Hicks frowned at Martin.

“Sucks for us, but what can you do? We might be able to get heat images.”

If they had to breach the house, it was safer for everyone if the breaching team knew the location of everyone in the environment.

Maddox tipped his chin toward Talley.

“The Chief here worked Rooney into admitting that all three perps are inside. I might be able to work him for the locations.”

Martin didn’t look impressed with that.

“Hicks, float two men around the perimeter to find out exactly what we’re dealing with here. Let’s make sure this place is secure.”

Talley said, “Captain, be advised that he’s hinky about the perimeter. I pulled back the line to start the negotiation. That was part of the deal.”

Martin stepped away to stare up the street. Talley couldn’t tell what she might be looking at.

“I understand that, Chief. Thank you. Now, will you be ready to hand off the phone to Maddox and Ellison as soon as we’re in place?”

“I’m ready right now.”

She clicked her tongue curtly, then glanced at Maddox.

“Sounds good, Maddox. The three of you should get into position at the front of the house.”

Maddox’s face was tight. Talley thought he was probably irritated with her manner, also.

“I’d like to spend some time going over the Chief’s prior conversations with these guys.”

Martin checked her watch, impatient.

“You can do that while we rotate into the perimeter; I want to get the show on the road. Chief Talley, I have seven minutes after the hour. Do I now have command of the scene?”

“Yes, ma’am. It’s yours.”

Martin checked her watch again. Just to be sure.

“Then log it. I now have command and control. Sergeant Maddox, get into position. Sergeant Hicks, you’re with me.”

Martin and Hicks trotted away into the milling SWAT officers.

Maddox stared after her for a moment, then looked at Talley.

“She’s wound kinda tight.”

Talley nodded, but said nothing. He had thought that he would feel relieved when he turned over command of the scene.

He didn’t.

THOMAS

Alone in his dark room, Thomas held his breath, better to hear past the changing whup-whup-whup of the helicopters. He feared that Mars might pretend to leave, then creep back to see if he was trying to get untied. Thomas knew every squeak in the upstairs hall because Jennifer liked to spy on him; one squeaky spot was right outside his door, the other about halfway to Jennifer’s room. So he listened.

Nothing.

Thomas was spread-eagle on his lower bunk, face up, his wrists and ankles tied so tightly to the corner bedposts that his feet felt numb. After Mars had finished tying him, he stood by the bed, towering over him like some kind of retard with his slack jaw hanging open like one of those public-bathroom perverts his mother always warned him about every time he went to the mall. Then Mars had taped over his mouth. Thomas was SCARED; sweat gushed from him like he was a lawn sprinkler and he thought he was going to suffocate. He struggled and pulled at the wires that held him, straining to get free until he felt Mars’s breath on his cheek. Then he couldn’t move at all, like his mind and body had disconnected and all he could do was just lie there like a turtle waiting for a car to squash it flat.

Mars placed a hand on his chest, and now the breath went to his ear. Warm and moist. Then, a whisper.

“I will eat your heart.”

Thomas’s body burned from the inside out, a kind of wet heat that grew hotter and hotter. He messed his pants.

Mars went to the door, shut the lights, and left, pulling the door closed. Thomas waited, counting slowly to one hundred. Then he set about working his way free.

Thomas was good at working his way free. He was also good at sneaking out of his house, which he had done almost every night this summer. He would sneak out after his parents had gone to bed to hook up with Duane Fergus, who lived in a big pink house on King John Place. Sometimes they threw eggs and wads of wet toilet paper at the cars passing on Flanders Road. When that got old, they would sneak across Flanders to a development that was still under construction where teenagers parked to make out. Duane Fergus (who was a year older and claimed to shave) once threw a rock at a brand-new Beemer because (he said) the lucky turd behind the wheel was getting “road head.” They both shit a brick when the car roared to life, bathing them in its lights. They ran so hard back across Flanders that a monster 18-wheeler had almost turned them into blacktop pie.

Thomas had perfected the art of moving through his home without being seen because he had changed some of the camera angles. Just a bit, just a nudge, so that his mom and dad couldn’t see everything. He knew that most people didn’t live in houses where every room was watched by a closed-circuit television system. His father explained that they had such a system because he handled other people’s financial records and someone might want to steal them. It was a big responsibility, his father had said, and so they had to protect those records as best they could. His father often warned both Thomas and Jennifer to be careful of suspicious characters, and to never discuss the alarms and cameras with their friends. His mother was fond of saying that she thought the whole mess was nonsense and just their father’s big toy. Duane thought they were da bomb.

The wire holding his left wrist was slack.

When Mars was tying Thomas’s right wrist to the post, Thomas had scrunched away just enough so that now the cord held a little bit of play. Now he worked harder at it, pulling the knots tighter but creating enough slack to touch the knot that held him to the post. The knot was tight. Thomas dug at it so hard that the pain in his fingertips brought tears, but then the knot loosened. He worked frantically, terrified that Mars or one of the others would throw open the door, but then the knot gave and his left hand was free. The tape hurt coming off his mouth worse than getting a cavity filled. He untied his right hand, then his feet, and then he was free. Like Duane said, you had to risk being street pizza if you wanted to see a guy getting road head.

Thomas stayed on the bed, listening.

Nothing.

I know where Daddy has a gun.

Thomas felt calm and certain in what he needed to do. He knew exactly what the cameras could see and what they couldn’t. He wanted to go to his bathroom to clean himself, but knew he would be visible on the monitor if he did. He pulled off his pants, used his underwear to clean off the poo as best he could, then balled the underwear and pushed them under the bed. He slipped to the floor and crawled along the wall toward his closet, passing under his desk. Someone had ripped his phone out of the wall, leaving the plug in the socket but tearing free the wires. Turds.

In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the children found a secret door at the rear of their wardrobe that let them escape the real world into the magical land of Narnia. Thomas had his own secret door at the back of his closet: an access hatch to the attic crawl space that ran beneath the steep pitch of the roof. It was his own private clubhouse (his and Duane’s), through which he could move along the eaves to the other access hatches dotted around the house.

Thomas pulled open the hatch and wiggled into the crawl space, being careful not to bump the rafters with his head. The heat in the closed space of the attic enveloped him like a gas. He found the flashlight that he kept just inside the hatch, turned it on, then pulled the hatch closed. The crawl space in this part of the house was a long triangular tunnel that followed the back edge of the roof. Where windows were cut into the roof, the triangle became a low rectangle, forcing Thomas to crawl on his belly. He worked his way along until he came to a second access hatch, this one in Jennifer’s closet. He listened until he grew satisfied that the turds weren’t in her room, then he pushed it open, knocking over a tumble of shoes.

The closet was dark, its door closed.

He eased his way out over the shoes and through a rack of her dresses, then turned off his flashlight. He listened at the closet door, and again heard nothing. He eased open the door. The lights in Jennifer’s room were off; that was good because he knew that most of her room could be seen on the monitors. He opened the door so slowly that it seemed to take forever to get it open enough for him to stick out his head. The room was lit by pale blue moonlight. He could see Jennifer bound to the chair near the front of the room, her back to him.

“Jen?”

She lurched in the chair and mumbled. He called to her, his voice low.

“I’m in your closet. Just relax, okay? If they’re watching, they can see you on the monitors.” She stopped struggling.

Thomas tried to remember what the camera saw of Jennifer’s room. He and Duane sometimes went into the security room when his parents were away so that Duane could see her naked. He was pretty confident that if he crept out of the closet on his belly, then hugged the wall beneath the windows where the shadows were darkest, he could get pretty close to the chair. If he heard Mars or those other turds coming, he could haul ass back into the crawl space, then go back to his room or run for the garage.

“Jen, listen up, okay? I’m going to come over there.”

She shook her head wildly, mumbling frantically into the tape.

“Be QUIET! I can untie you.”

He pushed open the closet a few inches wider, then edged forward on his elbows into the shadows. As he passed her desk, he saw that her phone had also been torn from the plug. Turds.

Thomas worked his way around the perimeter of the room, and soon he was stretched out beside her bed, using deep shadows as cover. He was about four feet from her now, and could see that her mouth was taped. He looked up at the corner of the ceiling where the camera was located. These cameras didn’t hang down visible to anyone in the room; they were what his father called “pinhole cameras,” set in the crawl space behind the wall where they peeked out through tiny holes. He slithered out to the chair and worked his way behind her. He figured that the camera could probably see her from the waist up, but not very well in the darkness. He decided to take a chance. He snaked his hand up behind her, then quickly yanked the tape from her mouth before ducking down to the floor again.

“Shit! Ow!”

“Be quiet! Listen!”

“They’re going to catch you!”

“Shhhh! Listen!”

Thomas strained his ears again, concentrating past the helicopters and the sounds of the police outside.

Nothing.

“It’s okay, Jen. They didn’t see, and they can’t see me now. Don’t look around. Just listen.”

“How did you get in here?”

“I used the crawl space. Now listen and hold still. I’m going to untie you. They nailed the windows shut, but I think we can use the crawl space to get downstairs. If we sneak to the garage, we can open the garage door and run for it.”

“No!”

Thomas worked frantically at the knots binding her. The cords weren’t that tight around her wrists and ankles, but the knots had been pulled hard.

“Thomas, stop! I mean it! Don’t untie me.”

“Are you on dope? We might be able to get away!”

“But Daddy will still be in here! I’m not going to leave him.”

Thomas settled back on his heels, confused.

“But, Jen-”

“No! Thomas, if you can get out, then go, but I’m not leaving without my father.”

Thomas was so angry he wanted to punch. Here they were, locked in the dark with three psychokillers who probably drank human blood, one maniac who wanted to eat their hearts for sure, and she wouldn’t leave. But then, as Thomas thought about it, he knew she was right. He couldn’t leave their father, either.

“What are we gonna do, Jen?”

She didn’t answer for a time.

“Call the police.”

“The house is surrounded by police.”

“Call them anyway! Maybe they have an idea. Maybe if we tell them exactly what’s going on in here it will help them.”

Thomas glanced toward her desk, recalling the wires ripped from the plug.

“They broke the phones.”

Jennifer fell silent again.

“Then I don’t know. Thomas, you should get out.”

“No!”

“I mean it. If you can get to the police, maybe you can help them. You know all about the alarms and the cameras. You know that Daddy is hurt. That asshole, Dennis, lied to them about Daddy. He’s telling them we’re all fine.”

“Let me untie you. We can hide in the walls.”

“No! They might hurt Daddy! Listen, if they find out that you’re not in your room, I’m going to tell them that you got out. They won’t know you’re still in the walls. They’ll never even think of that! But if both of us are gone, they’ll take it out on Daddy. They might hurt him!”

Thomas thought about it.

“Okay, Jen.”

“Okay, what?”

“We’re not going to leave him. I’m going to get us out of here.”

Jennifer jerked so hard against the cords that she almost tipped over the chair.

“You leave that gun alone! They’ll kill you!”

“Not if I have the gun! We can hold them off long enough to let in the police, that’s all we have to do.”

She twisted hard in the chair, trying to see him.

“Thomas, don’t you dare! They’re adults! They’re criminals and they’ve got guns, too!”

“Don’t talk so loud or they’ll hear you!”

“I don’t care! It’s better than you getting killed!”

Thomas reached up, pulled the tape back over her mouth, and rubbed it hard so that it would stick. Jennifer squirmed, trying to shout through the tape. Thomas hated the thought of leaving her tied, but she just didn’t see that he had no other choice.

“I’m sorry, Jen. I’ll untie you when I get back. Then we can get Daddy out of here. You’ll see. I won’t let them hurt us.”

Jennifer was still struggling as Thomas worked his way back through the shadows. When he reached the closet he could still hear her trying to shout through the tape. She was shouting the same thing over and over. He could understand her, even though her words were muffled.

They’re going to kill you.

They’re going to kill you.

Thomas slipped back into the crawl space, working his way carefully through the dark.

DENNIS

The little bathroom off the garage was as dark as a cave when Dennis showed them the window, telling Mars and Kevin that they could work their way into the neighbor’s yard and then around the side of that house to slip past the cops. Mars seemed thoughtful, but Dennis couldn’t be sure with all the dark shadows.

“This could work.”

“Fuckin’ A, it could work.”

“But you never know what the police are doing or where they might be. We have to give them something to think about besides us.”

“They’ll be watching this house. They got nothing else to do.”

Kevin said, “I don’t like any of it. We should give up.”

“Shut up.”

Mars went into the garage and stood by the Range Rover. Dennis was scared that Mars would suggest killing the kid again.

“C’mon, Mars, we’ve got to get goin’ here. We don’t have all the time in the world.”

Mars turned back to him, his face lit by the dim light from the kitchen.

“If you want to get away, we should burn the house.”

Dennis started to say no, but then he stopped. He had been thinking of putting the kids in the Jaguar and opening the garage door with the remote as a diversion, but a fire made better sense. The cops would shit their pants if the house started to burn.

“That’s not a bad idea. We could start a fire on the other side of the house.”

Kevin raised his hands.

“You guys are crazy. That adds arson to the charges against us.”

“It makes sense, Kevin. All the cops will be watching the fire. They won’t be looking at the neighbor’s yard.”

“But what about these people?”

Kevin was talking about the Smiths.

Dennis was about to answer when Mars did it again. His voice was quiet and empty.

“They’ll burn.”

The back of Dennis’s neck tingled as if Mars had raked a nail across a blackboard.

“Jesus, Mars, nobody has to burn. We can put’m here in the garage before we take off. We’ll figure somethin’ out.”

They decided to use gasoline to start the fire. Dennis found a two-gallon plastic gas can that the family probably kept for emergencies, but it was almost empty. Mars used the plastic air hose from the family’s aquarium to siphon gas from the Jaguar. He filled the two-gallon can, then a large plastic bucket that was stained by detergent. They were carrying the gasoline into the house when they heard the helicopters again change pitch and more cars pull into the cul-de-sac.

Dennis stopped with the bucket, listening, when suddenly the front of the house was bathed in light, framing the huge garage door and spilling into the bathroom window even through the oleanders.

“What the fuck?! What’s going on?”

They hurried to the front of the house, gasoline splashing from the bucket.

“Kevin! Watch the French doors!”

Dennis and Mars left the gasoline in the entry, then ran into the office where Walter Smith still twitched on the couch. Spears of light cut through the shutters, painting them with zebra stripes. Dennis opened the shutters and saw that two more police cars filled the street. All four cars had trained their spotlights on the house and a great pool of light from the helicopters burned brilliantly on the front yard. More cars arrived.

“Holy shit.”

The television showed the L.A. County Sheriffs rolling through the dark streets of York Estates. Dennis watched a group of SWAT assholes trot through an oval of helicopter light as they deployed through the neighborhood. Snipers; stone-cold killers dressed in ninja suits with rifles equipped with night-vision scopes, laser sites, and-for all he knew-motherfucking death rays. Mars had been right; these bastards would drop them cold if they tried to drive away with the kids.

“This is fucked. Look at all those cops.”

Dennis peeked out the shutters again, but so many floodlights had been set up in the street that the glare was blinding; a thousand cops could be standing sixty feet away, and he wouldn’t know.

“Fuck!”

Everything had once more changed. One minute he had a great plan to slip away, but now all sides of the house were lit up like the sun and an army of cops were filling the streets. Overhead, the helicopters sounded as if they were about to land on the house. Sneaking through the adjoining neighbor’s yard would now be impossible. Dennis turned back to the television. Six patrol cars filled the cul-de-sac, washed in brilliant white light from the helicopters, as many as a dozen cops moving behind them.

Dennis went to Walter Smith, and inspected his wound. The bruising had followed his eye socket under the eye to his right cheek, and moved across most of his forehead above the eye. The eye had swollen closed. Dennis wished now that he hadn’t hit the sonofabitch. He turned away and went to the door.

“I’m going to check the windows again, okay? I gotta make sure Kevin isn’t falling asleep. Mars, you keep an eye on the TV. If anything happens, yell.”

Mars, leaning against the wall with his face to the shutters, didn’t respond. Dennis wasn’t sure if Mars heard him or not, but he didn’t care. He trotted back to the family room to find Kevin.

“What’s going on? Aren’t we leaving?”

“The goddamned Sheriffs are here. They’re crawling all over the goddamned neighborhood. They got snipers out there!”

Dennis was consumed with the sudden notion that he would be assassinated. These cops would want to pay back the bastard who had wounded one of their own, and that was him. If he passed a window or showed himself in the goddamned French doors, those sniper bastards would bust a cap and put one right through his head.

Kevin, of course, made it worse by putting on the pussy face.

“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know, Kevin! They got so many lights out there I can’t see a goddamned thing. Maybe I can see better on those televisions back there in the safety room.”

Kevin suddenly turned toward the rear of the house.

“Did you hear that?”

Dennis listened, scared shitless that SWAT killers were even now slipping into the house like a tapeworm up a cat’s ass.

“Hear what?”

“I thought I heard a bump from back there.” Dennis held his breath to listen more closely, but there was nothing.

“Asshole. Just let me know if Mars is coming. I might be with the money.”

Dennis left Kevin at the mouth of the hall, then trotted back to the master bedroom, and into the safety room.

He hadn’t checked the monitors since the sky was rimmed with red. Now he saw Mars standing by the shutters; the front entry with bullet holes in the door; and the girl tied to a chair in her upstairs room. He couldn’t see the boy, but didn’t think twice about it; Dennis searched the monitors for angles outside the house, but those views were shadowed and unreadable.

“Shit!”

He spun away from the monitors, frustrated and pissed. He jerked an armful of hangered jackets from the clothes rack and threw them at the far wall. If there was any way to get fucked, he could find it!

Dennis turned back to the monitors. He considered the buttons and switches beneath the monitors. Nothing was labeled, but he didn’t have anything to lose. If it was up, he pushed it down; if it was out, he pushed it in. Suddenly a monitor that had shown nothing but shadows on the dark side of the house filled with a lighted view. He pushed a second button, and the pool area filled with light. A third, and the side of the house by the garage was lit. He saw the cops at the front of the house pointing at the lights that suddenly blazed at them.

Dennis pushed more buttons, and the wall at the rear of the property beyond the pool was bathed in light. Two SWAT cops with rifles were climbing over the wall.

“SHIT!!!”

Dennis sprinted back through the house, shouting.

“THEY’RE COMING!!! KEV, MARS!!! THEY’RE COMING!”

Dennis raced to the French doors in the dark beyond the kitchen. He couldn’t see the cops past the blinding outside lights, but he knew they were there, and he knew they were coming.

Dennis fired two shots into the darkness, not even thinking about it, just pulling the trigger, bam bam. Two glass panes in the French doors shattered.

“The fuckin’ cops are comin’! Talley, that fuck! That lying fuck!”

Dennis thought his world was about to explode: They would fire tear gas, then crash through the doors. They were probably rushing the house right now with battering rams.

“Mars! Kev, we gotta get those kids!”

Dennis ran for the stairs, Kevin shouting behind him.

“What’re we gonna do with the kids?”

Dennis didn’t answer. He hit the stairs three at a time, going up.

THOMAS

Three minutes before Dennis Rooney saw the SWAT officers and fired two rounds, Thomas lowered himself through the ceiling into the laundry room. It was so dark that he cupped his hand over the flashlight and risked turning on the light, using the dim red glow through his fingers to pick his footing. He let himself down onto the top of the hot-water heater, felt with his toe to find the washing machine, then slid to the floor.

He held still, listening to Kevin and Dennis. The laundry room turned a corner where it opened into the kitchen; the pantry was off that little hall. He could hear them talking, though he couldn’t understand what they were saying, and then the voices stopped.

Thomas crept through the laundry room to his father’s tiny hobby room at the end opposite the kitchen. Both rooms were at the rear of the garage, though you could only get to the garage through the laundry. That’s how everyone came into the house from their cars: through the laundry room and into the kitchen.

When Thomas reached the hobby room, he eased the door closed, then once more turned on his flashlight. His father’s hobby was building plastic models of rocket ships from the early days of the space program. He bought the kits off eBay, built and painted them at a little workbench, then put them on shelves above the bench. His father also had a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol in a metal box on the top shelf. He had heard his mom and dad fighting about it: His dad used to keep it under the front seat of the Jaguar, but his mom raised such a stink that his father had taken it out of the car and put it in the box.

On the top shelf.

A long way up.

His hand cupped over the bell of the flashlight, Thomas spread his fingers enough to let out a shaft of light. He figured that he could use the stool to climb onto the bench, and, from there, he could probably reach the box.

He climbed. It was so quiet that every creak from the bench sounded like an earthquake. He turned on the flashlight again for a moment to fix the box in his mind’s eye, then reached for it, but the box was too high. He stretched up onto his toes. His fingers grazed the box just enough for him to work it toward the edge of the shelf.

That’s when he heard Dennis.

“THEY’RE COMING!!! KEV, MARS!!! THEY’RE COMING!”

Thomas didn’t waste a moment thinking about the gun; he had come so close, but now he didn’t have time. His only thought was to get back to his room before they discovered him. He jumped down from the bench and ran to the laundry as two fast gunshots exploded in the house, so loud that they made his ears ring.

He wasn’t thinking about Jennifer’s purse. It was on the folding table by the door to the garage, that convenient place where everyone in the family dropped their stuff when they came in from the garage. Jennifer’s purse was there, a Kate Spade like every other girl in her high school owned. Thomas grabbed it.

He scrambled up onto the washing machine, from there to the top of the hot-water heater, then through the access hatch into the crawl space. The last thing that he heard before closing the hatch was Dennis shouting that they had to get the kids.

TALLEY

Handing off the role of primary negotiator was never easy. Talley had already forged a bond with Rooney, and now would pull away, replacing himself with Maddox. Rooney might resist, but the subject was never given a choice. Having a choice was having power, and the subject was never given power.

Talley brought Maddox and Ellison into the cul-de-sac where they hunkered behind their car. Talley wanted to go over his earlier conversations with Rooney in greater detail so that Maddox would have something with which to work, but they didn’t have time. The gunshots from the house cracked through the summer air like a car backfiring in a distant canyon: poppop.

Almost instantly, a storm of transmissions crackled over their radios:

“Shots fired! Shots fired! We are under fire from the house, west rear at the wall! Advise on response!”

All three of them knew what had happened the instant they heard the calls.

“Damnit, she moved in too close! Rooney thinks he’s being breached!”

Ellison said, “We’re fucked.”

Talley felt sick; this is the way it went bad, this is how people got dead, just this fast.

Maddox clawed for his radio as other voices checked off positions and status. The tinny voice of Carl Hicks, the tactical supervisor, came back, calm over the strained voices of his men.

“Will advise, stand by while we assess.”

Talley didn’t wait; he dialed the tactical team’s frequency into his own transceiver.

“Pull back, pull back, pull back! Do NOT return fire!”

Martin’s voice cut over his, short and clipped.

“Who is this?”

“Talley. I told you to respect that perimeter!”

“Talley, get off the freq.”

Maddox finally had his radio, cursing as he keyed the mike.

“One, Maddox. Listen to him, Captain. Do not breach that house. Pull back or we’re going to have a mess!”

“Clear the frequency! Those people are in danger.”

“Do not breach that house! I can talk to him!”

Talley had his cell phone out. He punched redial to call the house, praying that Rooney would answer, then ran to Jorgenson’s car, still there in the street, and turned on the public address system.

THOMAS

Thomas scrambled across the joists like a spider. He slammed his head into the low-hanging rafters so hard that his teeth snapped together, but he didn’t stop or even think about the noise he was making. He scurried through the long straight tunnel of the crawl space past Jennifer’s room, under her window, past her bathroom, past his, and then to the access hatch in his closet. He didn’t pause to see if they were in his room, but scrambled through the hatch and ran to his bed. He wanted to retie himself; to pretend that he hadn’t moved. He pulled the ropes back over his ankles, working frantically, his hands slick with sweat, as shouts and footsteps pounded toward him through the hall.

He looped the ropes and slipped his hands through, realized in a flash of fear that he had forgotten the tape that had covered his mouth, but then it was too late.

DENNIS

Dennis threw open the door. He saw that the boy had damn near untied himself, but he didn’t care.

“C’mon, fat boy!”

“Get away from me!”

Dennis jammed his pistol into his waist, then pinned the fat boy with a knee to untie him. Outside, Talley’s voice echoed over his P.A., but Dennis couldn’t make out the words. He pulled the fat boy from his bed, hooked an arm around his neck, and dragged him back toward the stairs. If the cops crashed through the front door, he would hold his gun to the kid’s head and threaten to kill him. He would hide behind the kid and make the cops back down. He had a chance. He had hope.

“Hurry up, Kevin! Jesus! Bring the girl!”

Dennis dragged the fat boy down the stairs and into the office where Mars was waiting by the window. Mars looked totally calm, as if he was killing time in a bar before going to work. He tipped his head when he saw Dennis, that stupid tiny smile on his calm face.

“They’re not doing anything. They’re just sitting there.”

Dennis dragged the kid to the shutters. Mars opened the shutters enough for Dennis to see. The cops weren’t storming the house. They were hunkered behind their cars.

Dennis realized that the phone was ringing just as Talley’s voice came over the P.A. again.

“Answer the phone, Dennis. It’s me, Talley. Answer the phone so I can tell you what happened.”

Dennis scooped up the phone.

TALLEY

Martin and Hicks ran into the cul-de-sac without waiting for a cover vehicle, Martin hitting the ground beside Talley so hard that she almost bowled him over, shouting, “What in hell do you think you’re doing, interfering with my deployment?”

“He’s shooting at your people because he thinks they’re assaulting the house, Martin. You’re violating my agreement with him.”

“This scene now belongs to me. You handed off control.”

“Pull back your people, Martin. Just relax. Nothing is going on in there.”

Talley keyed the P.A. mike again.

“Dennis, take it easy in there. Please. Just pick up the phone.”

“Hicks!”

Hicks leaned into the car past Talley and jerked the mike plug from its jack.

Talley’s head was throbbing. He felt caught in a vise.

“Let me talk to him, Captain. Order your people to stand down, and let me talk to him. If it’s too far gone you can breach, but right now let me try. Tell her, Maddox.”

Martin glared at Maddox, who nodded at her. He looked embarrassed.

“He’s right, Captain. Let’s not get too aggressive here. If Talley made a deal, we have to honor it or this guy isn’t going to trust me any further than a cat can shit a walnut.”

Martin glared at him so hard that she seemed to be trying to cook him with her eyes. She glanced at Hicks, then bit out the words.

“Pull back.”

Hicks, looking uncomfortable, plugged the P.A. plug back into its jack, then mumbled orders into his tactical mike.

Talley turned back to the house.

“Pick up the phone, Dennis. We made a screwup out here, but we are not coming into that house. Check it out. The perimeter is pulling back. Check it out and talk to me.”

Talley held the cell phone to his ear, counting the rings. It rang fourteen times, fifteen …

Finally, Rooney answered, screaming.

“You fuck! You fuckin’ lied to me! I’ve got a fuckin’ gun to this kid’s head right here! We’ve got these people! We’ll fuckin’ kill’m, you fuck!”

Talley spoke over him, his voice loud and forceful so that Rooney would hear him, but not strident. It was important to appear in control even when you weren’t.

“They’re pulling back. They are pulling back, Dennis. Look. You see the officers pulling back?”

The sounds of movement came over the phone. Talley guessed that Rooney had a cordless and was watching the tactical team at the rear of the property.

“Yeah. I guess. They’re going back over the wall.”

“I didn’t lie to you, Dennis. It’s over now, okay? Don’t hurt anyone.”

“We’ll burn this fuckin’ place down, you try to come in here. We’ve got gasoline all good to go, Talley. You try to come in and this place is going to burn.”

Talley locked eyes with Maddox. Rooney booby-trapping the house with gasoline was a bad turn; if he was creating a situation dangerous to the hostages, it could justify a preemptive breach of the house.

“Don’t do anything to endanger yourself or those children, Dennis. For your own sake and for the sake of the innocents in there. This kind of thing can create problems.”

“Then stay on the other side of that wall. You assholes try to come get us and this place is gonna burn.”

Talley muted the phone while Dennis answered to warn Maddox about the gasoline. Maddox relayed the information to the tactical team. If Rooney was telling the truth about the gasoline, firing tear gas or flash-bang grenades into the house could ignite an inferno.

“No one is coming in. We screwed up, is all. Some new guys came out and we got our wires crossed, but I didn’t lie to you. I wouldn’t do that.”

“You fuckin’ well did screw up, dude! Jesus!”

The tension lessened in Rooney’s voice, and, with it, Talley felt the vise ease its grip. If Rooney was talking, he wouldn’t shoot.

“What’s the status in there, Dennis? You didn’t hurt anyone, did you?”

“Not yet.”

“Those shots you fired, they were out of the house?”

“I’m not saying I fired anything. You’re saying that, not me. I know you’re recording this.”

“No one needs a doctor?”

“You’re gonna need a doctor, you try this shit again.”

Talley took a deep breath. It was done; they were past the crisis. Talley glanced at Martin. She looked irritated, but attentive.

Talley muted the receiver again.

“He’s calming down. I think now would be a good time for the handoff.”

Martin glanced at Maddox.

“You ready?”

“I’m ready.”

Martin nodded at Talley.

“Go.”

Talley uncovered his phone.

“Dennis, have you been thinking about what we talked about earlier?”

“I got a lot on my mind.”

“I’m sure. It was good advice, what I said.”

“Whatever.”

Talley lowered his voice, trying to sound like what he was about to say was just between them, guy to guy.

“Can I tell you something of a personal nature?”

“What?”

“I gotta piss real bad.”

Rooney laughed. Just like that, and Talley knew that the handoff would work. He made his voice relaxed, putting a friendly spin on it, indicating that everything that was about to happen was the most natural thing in the world and beyond all objection. Rooney was just as relieved to be past this hump as Talley.

“Dennis, I’m going to take a break out here. You see all the new people we have?”

“You got a thousand guys out there. Of course I see’m.”

“I’m going to put an officer named Will Maddox on the line. You scared me so bad that I’ve gotta go clean my shorts, you know? So Maddox will be here on the line if you want to talk or if you need anything.”

“You’re a funny guy, Talley.”

“Here he is, Dennis. You stay cool in there.”

“I’m cool.”

Talley handed the phone to Maddox, who introduced himself with a warm, mellow voice.

“Hey, Dennis. You should’ve seen ol’ Jeff out here. I think he crapped his pants.”

Talley didn’t listen to any more. The rest of it would be up to Maddox. He slumped down onto the street and leaned against the car, feeling drained.

He glanced at Martin, and found her watching him. She duck-walked over, and hunkered on the pavement beside him, then searched his eyes for a moment as if she were trying to find the right words. Her face softened.

“You were right. I got in a hurry and screwed up.”

Talley admired her for saying it.

“We survived.”

“So far.”

THOMAS

After the screaming, after those frantic moments when Thomas thought that Dennis would shoot him in the head as he was threatening, Jennifer glared at him and said one word.

“Don’t.”

No one heard but Thomas; Dennis was pacing and talking to himself, Kevin following Dennis with his eyes the way a nervous dog will watch its master. They were in the office, the TV on, just now reporting that shots had been fired in the house. Dennis stopped to watch, suddenly laughing.

“Jesus, but that was close. Jesus Christ.”

Kevin crossed his arms, rocking nervously.

“What are we going to do? We can’t get away now. They’re all around the house. They’re even in the neighbor’s yard.”

Dennis’s face darkened, and he snapped.

“I don’t know, Kevin. I don’t know. We’ll figure out something.”

“We should give up.”

“Shut up!”

Thomas rubbed his neck, thinking he might yak. Dennis had carried him down to the office by the neck, an arm hooked around his throat in a headlock, squeezing so hard that Thomas couldn’t breathe. Jennifer came over and knelt by him, making as if to help him, but pinching his arm, instead, her whisper angry and frightened.

“You see? You see? You almost got caught!”

She went to their father.

Mars returned from elsewhere in the house, his arms filled with big white candles. Without saying a word, he lit one, dripped wax on the television, seated the base in the wax. He moved to the bookcase, did it again. Dennis and Kevin were coming apart, but Thomas thought that Mars looked content.

Dennis finally noticed.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Mars answered as he lit another candle.

“They might cut the power. Here, take this.”

He stopped with the candles long enough to toss a flashlight to Dennis. It was the one from the kitchen utility drawer. He tossed a second to Kevin, who dropped it.

Dennis turned on the light, then turned it off.

“Those candles are a good idea.”

Soon, the office looked like an altar.

Thomas watched Dennis. Dennis seemed inside himself, following Mars with a kind of watchful wariness, as if Mars held something over him that he was trying to figure out. Thomas hated them all, thinking that if he only had the gun he could kill them, Mars with the candles, Dennis with his eyes on Mars, Kevin staring at Dennis, none of them looking at him, pull out the gun and shoot every one of them, bangbangbang.

Dennis suddenly said, “We should stack pots and pans under the windows in case they try to sneak in, things that will fall, so we’ll hear.”

Mars grunted.

“Mars, when you’re back there, do that, okay? Set up some booby traps.”

Jennifer said, “What about my father?”

“Jesus, not that again. Christ.”

Her voice rose.

“He needs a doctor, you asshole!”

“Kevin, take’m back upstairs. Please.”

Thomas didn’t care. That was what he wanted.

“Do you want me to tie them again?”

Dennis started to answer, then squinched his face, thinking.

“It took too long to cut all that shit off, you and Mars tying them like a couple of fuckin’ mummies. Just make sure they’re locked in real good, not just with the nails.”

Mars finished with the candles.

“I can take care of that. Bring them up.”

Kevin brought them, holding Jennifer’s arm, almost having to drag her, but Thomas walking in front, anxious to get back to his room though he tried to hide it. They waited at the top of the stairs until Mars rejoined them, now with a hammer and screwdriver. He trudged up the steps, thump thump thump, with the slow inevitability of a rising freight elevator, dark and dirty. Mars led them to Thomas’s room first, the end of the hall. It was spooky without light.

“Get in there, fat boy. Pull your covers over your head.”

Mars pushed him inside hard, then knelt by the knob, the one Thomas would use to get out. He hammered the screwdriver under the base, popped it off, unfastened three screws, then pulled the knob free, leaving only a square hole. He looked at Jennifer then, no one else, Jennifer.

“You see? That’s how you keep a child in its room.”

They left Thomas like that, pulling the door, then hammering the door closed. Thomas listened until he heard the crash of Jennifer’s knob coming free and her door being nailed, and then he scrambled for his closet. He was thinking only of the gun, but as soon as he turned on his flashlight he saw Jennifer’s purse. He had dropped it just inside the hatch when he scrambled back into the room. He clawed it open and upended it.

Out fell her cell phone.