State of Siege

TWENTY-FIVE

“They’re going to do it again.”

Brown-haired Laura Sabia was sitting on Harleigh Hood’s left. She was staring ahead blankly and shaking worse than before. It was as if she were on a bad sugar high. Harleigh placed her fingertips back on the girl’s hand to try and calm her.

“They’re going to kill him,” Laura said.

“Shhhh,” Harleigh said.

Barbara Mathis, who was sitting on Harleigh’s right, was watching the terrorists. The raven-haired violinist was sitting up straight and seemed very intense. Harleigh knew the look. Barbara was the kind of musician who got irrationally angry if someone made a noise that caused her to break concentration. Barbara looked like she was getting to that point now. Harleigh hoped not.

The girls watched as the masked men led the delegate up the stairs. The victim fell to his hands and knees on one of the steps and was crying, saying something fast and high in Italian. The masked man, the Australian, grabbed him by the back of his collar and yanked at him hard. The Italian’s arms crumpled and he fell forward. The masked man swore, crouched, and put his gun between the man’s legs. He said something to the Italian, who grabbed onto a chair and quickly struggled back to his feet. The men continued to the top of the stairs.

Near the young violinists, in the center of the circular table, a delegate’s wife was comforting another woman. She was holding her close and pressing her hand over her mouth. Harleigh guessed that this was the wife of the man who was about to die.

Laura was literally fluttering now, as though there were an electric current running through her. Harleigh had never seen anything like it. She closed her fingers around Laura’s hands and squeezed.

“You’ve got to calm down,” Harleigh said under her breath.

“I can’t,” Laura said. “I can’t breathe. I need to get out of here.”

“Soon,” Harleigh said. “They’ll get us out. Just sit back and shut your eyes. Try and relax.”

Harleigh’s father had once told her and her brother that if they were ever in a situation like this, the important thing was to stay centered. Invisible. Count the seconds, he’d said, not the minutes or the hours. The longer a hostage crisis went on, the better the chance for a negotiated settlement. The better the chance for survival. If there were an opportunity to escape, she had to use common sense. The question she had to ask herself was not, Is there a chance I’ll make it? The question was, Is there a chance I won’t make it? If the answer was yes, it was better to stay where you were. He’d also told her to avoid eye contact wherever possible. That would humanize her to her captors. It would remind them that she was one of the people they hated. She should also say nothing, in case it was the wrong thing. Above all, she was supposed to relax. Think happy thoughts, just like they did in two of her favorite musicals, Peter Pan and The Sound of Music.

“Laura?” Harleigh said.

Laura didn’t seem to have heard.

“Laura, you have to listen to me.”

She wasn’t hearing anything. The young woman had slipped into some kind of weird state. Her eyes were staring and her lips were pressed tight.

The two men had reached the top of the stairs.

On Harleigh’s other side, Barbara Mathis was the opposite of Laura, taut as a violin string. She was sneering in a way that Harleigh knew well. Harleigh felt like the statue at the Justice Department. Only instead of the scales of justice she was between emotional extremes.

Suddenly, Laura shot from her seat. Harleigh was still holding the girl’s hand.

“Why are you doing this to us?” Laura shrieked as she stood there. “I want you to stop it now!”

Harleigh tugged gently on her hand. “Laura, don’t do this—”

The leader of the gang was standing halfway up the steps. He turned and glared at the girls.

Ms. Dorn was sitting three seats away. She rose slowly but remained behind her seat. “Laura, sit down,” she said firmly.

“No!” Laura pulled away from Harleigh. “I can’t stay here!” she screamed, and ran around the table. She was headed toward the door on the other side of the chamber, the door the leader had been guarding.

The leader started down the stairs as Laura ran across the carpeted floor. Ms. Dorn ran after Laura, shouting for her to come back. The man who’d been standing on the other side of the room, guarding the other door, left his post and ran after the teacher. The Australian man at the top of the stairs had stopped and was looking down at them.

Everyone was watching Laura as the leader, Ms. Dorn, and the other man all reached the door. The other man grabbed Ms. Dorn around the waist, pulled her back, swung her around, and literally flung her on the floor. The leader reached the door as Laura was pulling it open. He threw his shoulder into it, closing it, and pushed Laura back. The girl stumbled, fell, got up, and rushed toward the stairs. She was still shrieking.

The door isn’t locked.

The thought hit Harleigh like a bright light. Of course it wasn’t locked. The men had opened the doors and they didn’t have the keys to lock them.

They’d opened the door Laura had run toward, and they’d opened the door behind Harleigh. Harleigh had watched them do it. They’d spent some time putting equipment into the hallway down here.

The door that was about twenty feet behind where Harleigh and Barbara were sitting. The door the man had just run from in order to catch Laura.

The door no one was guarding.

The leader was running after Laura. Ms. Dorn had had the wind knocked from her but was fighting with the man who’d thrown her down. The pressure must have gotten to her; the music teacher wasn’t thinking. But Harleigh was, clearly and confidently. She was thinking not only of getting out and saving herself, but of bringing what “Uncle” Bob Herbert called “intel” to the outside.

The teenager turned slowly and stole a sideways look at the door. She could run a dash like that easily. She’d blue-ribboned the fifty-yard dash in high school two out of four years. She could certainly get to the double doors before any of the men could stop her. And once she was out of here, there had to be a way to get into the Economic and Social Council chamber. She’d seen the double doors on that side during the tour they’d been given.

Harleigh used the toe of her right high-heeled shoe to slip off her left shoe. Then she slowly did the same with the right. Her fellow students were watching the struggle.

Harleigh eased the chair back. Slowly, without rising, she pivoted the chair on one leg so she could turn her body around slightly. Have a clear, straight run at the exit.

“Don’t do it,” Barbara said from the side of her mouth.

“What?” Harleigh said.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Barbara said, “because I’m thinking the same thing. Don’t go for it. I am.”

“No—”

“I’m faster than you,” Barbara murmured. “I beat you two years in a row.”

“I’m two steps closer,” Harleigh pointed out.

Barbara shook her head slowly. Her eyes were angry and her mind was made up. Harleigh didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to race Barbara for the door. They’d only trip each other up.

The girls looked over as the leader caught Laura midway up the stairs. He lifted her off the floor and threw her backward, down the stairs. Laura bounced and rolled and came to a stop at the bottom. She was moving her arms and head slowly, painfully. The leader hurried down to her.

Barbara took a few slow, shallow breaths. She put her hands on the edge of the wooden table. She waited until she was sure that no one was looking her way. Then she pushed off from the table, rose, and ran.

Her legs were hindered by the tight gown she was wearing. Harleigh heard a rip along the side, but Barbara kept running. Her arms churned, she kept her eyes on the doorknob, and she ignored whichever of the terrorists or delegates or whoever was shouting at her to stop.

Harleigh watched as she reached the door.

Go! Harleigh thought.

Barbara stopped to pull it open. She heard the latch click, the door came open, and then she heard a whip-loud crack. It stayed inside her ears, filling them, like the first blast of music when her Walkman was turned too high.

The next thing Harleigh knew, Barbara was no longer standing. She was still holding the doorknob, but she was on her knees. Her hand slipped from the knob, and her arm flopped to her side.

Barbara’s body remained upright, but only for a moment. Then she fell to the side.

She was no longer angry.