Hostage

'Hear what?'

'I thought I heard a bump from back there.'

De

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

De

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; De

'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!

De

De

'SHIT!!!'

De

'THEY'RE COMING!!! KEV, MARS!!! THEY'RE COMING!'

De

De

'The fuckin' cops are comin'! Talley, that fuck! That lying fuck!'

De

'Mars! Kev, we gotta get those kids!'

De

'What're we go

De

Three minutes before De

He held still, listening to Kevin and De

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 De

'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 Je

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 De

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 ti

'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!'