Hostage

He gri

'There's gotta be a million dollars here. Maybe more. Look at it, Mars! This place is a bank!'

Mars barely glanced at the money. He went to the back of the little room, looking at the ceiling and the floor, tapping the walls, then studied the monitors. He pushed the boxes aside with his feet.

'It's a safety room. Steel door, reinforced walls, all the security; it's like a bunker. If anyone breaks into your house, you can hide. I wonder if they have sex in here?'

De

'Who gives a shit, Mars? Check out this cash. We're rich.'

'We're trapped in a house.'

De

'Mars, listen, we're going to take this with us. We'll put it in something. They must have suitcases or plastic bags.'

'You can't run with a suitcase.'

'We'll figure it out.'

'It's going to be heavy.'

De

'We can carry it, we can even stuff it up our asses, but we're not leaving here without it.'

Mars nodded, rolling over just as De

'I'm glad you found the money, De

Mars was depressing him. De

He searched through the other closets in the bedroom until he found a black Tumi suitcase, the kind with a handle and wheels. De

De

'It's on every cha

De

The picture changed to an aerial view of the house they were in. De

'Yeah! Fuckin' YEAH!'

He went to the door.

'Kevin! Come see this!'

The phone rang, spoiling the magic of the television. That would be Talley. De

De

'I got it, dude. We'll use the Jaguar. We'll take the cash and the two kids, and leave their father here. The cops won't mess with us if we have those kids. We can boogie straight down to TJ.'

Mars shrugged blandly, his voice as quiet as a whisper.

'That won't work, De

De

'Why not?'

'They'll shoot out the tires, and then a police sniper will put a bullet in your head from a hundred yards away.'

'Bullshit, Mars. O. J. Simpson drove around for hours.'

'O. J. Simpson didn't have hostages. They won't let us leave with these children. They'll kill us, and we won't even see it coming.'

The picture shifted again to an aerial view of the minimart surrounded by Highway Patrol cars. The view slowly orbited the cars. The movement made De

De

'De

De

Talley was in the cul-de-sac, waiting behind his car, when De

De

'You fuck! You tell those fuckin' cops to move back! I don't like'm this close!'

'Take it easy, De

'Stop saying whatever I say back to me! You know what I mean!'

'I do that to make sure I understand you. We can't afford to misunderstand each other.'

'If these bastards try to come in here, people are go

'No one is going to hurt you, De

Talley hit the mute button on his phone.

'Jorgy, are you on with the perimeter?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Are they on the walls where we placed them?'

'Yes, sir. We've got two north on Flanders, and two more in each of the rear yards on either side. They're on the wall.'

Talley turned off the mute.

'De

'I see fuckin' cops! I'm looking right at'm. They're too close!'

'I can't see them from out here behind my car. Help me, okay? Where are they?'

Talley heard muffling sounds, as if Rooney was moving with the phone. Talley wondered if it was a cordless. Like all hostage negotiators, he hated cordless and cell phones because they didn't anchor the subject. You could fix a hardwired phone's location. Then you knew the subject's location whenever you had him on the line. If you launched a tactical breach, knowing the subject's location could save lives.

Rooney said, 'All the way around, goddamnit! These bastards over here at this white house. They're right on the goddamn wall! You make them get back!'

Talley hit the mute button again. The white house was a sprawling contemporary to Talley's left. A brushed-steel gate crossed the front drive. The house on the east side to Talley's right was dark gray. Talley counted to fifty, then opened the cell line again.