by Robert Crais
Dennis thought he was kidding.
“Okay, dude. Mars, you’re creeping me out.”
“The police have no reason to deal with us unless they take us seriously. All they have to do is wait until we get tired, and then we’ll give up. They know that, Dennis. They’re counting on it.”
Dennis felt his chest expand against a tight pressure that filled the room. Mars continued to watch him, his eyes now focused into hard, dark beads. Dennis had the vague feeling that somehow the power between them was shifting, that Mars was leading him somewhere and waiting to see if Dennis would follow.
“So how do we convince them?”
“Tell them we’re going to let the fat boy go as a sign of good faith.”
Dennis didn’t move. He could see Kevin from the corner of his eye, and knew that Kevin was feeling the same awful pressure.
“We send the fat boy out the front door. We don’t go with him, we just open it and tell him to go. He just has to walk across the yard here and out to the cars, and he’ll be fine. Your pal, Talley, he’ll probably call the kid over, saying something like, ‘C’mon, son, everything is fine.’”
Dennis’s back felt wet and cold.
“We wait until he’s about halfway across the yard, then we shoot him.”
Dennis heard his own heartbeat. He heard his breath flow across his teeth, a faraway hiss.
Mars spread his hands at the simple beauty of it.
“Then they’ll know we mean business, and we’ll have something to trade.”
Dennis tried to tell himself that Mars was kidding, but he knew that Mars was serious. Mars meant every word.
“Mars. We couldn’t do something like that.”
Mars looked curious.
“I could. I’ll do it, if you want.”
Dennis didn’t know what to say. Overhead, the helicopters beat louder. He went to the shutters and pretended to look out, but the truth was that he couldn’t look at Mars any longer. Mars had scared him.
“I don’t think so, dude.”
“You don’t?”
“No. We couldn’t do that.”
The bright intensity in Mars’s eyes faded like a candle losing its flame, and Mars shrugged. Dennis felt relieved. He told them to watch out for the cops, then he once more walked through the house. He went into every downstairs room around the perimeter of the house, checking each window to see if he could use it to sneak out, but all of the windows were in plain view of the cops. Dennis knew that his time was running out. If he was going to get out, he had to do it soon, because more cops were on the way. He moved along the rear of the house, through the family room and into the garage. He hoped to find some kind of side door, but instead he came to a small utility bathroom at the end of a workshop off the garage. A sliding window with frosted glass was let into the wall above the sink. Dennis opened it, and saw the heavy leaves of an oleander bush, dark green and pointed, thick against the dusty screen. He pressed his face to the screen and peered out, but it was impossible to see very much in the growing darkness. The window was on the street side of the wall that enclosed the backyard, but was hidden by the oleander. If the oleander wasn’t there the cops out front would be able to see him. Dennis pushed out the screen, taking care to do it quietly. He opened the window wider, crawled up onto the sink, and leaned out. He would never have done this in the daylight, but the darkness gave him confidence. The ground was four feet below. He worked his shoulders through the window. The row of oleanders followed the wall, but he couldn’t tell how far. He was growing excited. He pushed himself back into the house, then turned around so that he could step through feet first, one leg and then another. He lowered himself to the ground. He was outside the house.
Dennis crouched on the ground beneath the oleander, his back pressed to the high stucco wall, listening. He could hear the police radios from the cars parked at the front of the house. He caught tiny glimpses of the two cars through the leaves, glinting in the streetlight. He couldn’t see the cops, but he knew they would be watching the front of the house, not the row of shrubs along the side wall. Dennis lay down at the base of the wall and inched along its length. The oleanders were thicker in some places and thinner in others, but the police didn’t see him. He came to the end of the wall and saw that the oleanders continued into the neighbor’s front yard. Dennis grew more excited. They could bag the cash, drag it along behind the oleanders, then slip away while the cops were watching the house, right under their noses!
Dennis worked his way back to the window and climbed into the house. Dennis was pumped! He was going to beat this thing! He was going to beat Talley, beat the murder rap, and cruise south to TJ in style.
He ran back to the office to tell Kevin and Mars that he had found the way out.
MARION CLEWES
The planet Venus hung low in the blackening western sky, racing toward the ridge of mountains and the edge of Talley’s roof. The stars were not yet out, but here in the high desert, away from the city, the sky would soon be washed with lights.
Talley’s condominium was one of forty-eight stucco and stained-wood units spread over four buildings arranged like the letter H. Mature eucalyptus and podocarpus trees shouldered over the buildings like drunks leaning over a rail. Marion guessed that the condos had at one time been apartments, then converted and sold. Each unit had a small fenced patio at ground level, and centered between the four buildings was a very nice pool; small, unprotected parking lots were on either side of each building for the residents. It seemed like a pleasant place to live.
Marion walked through the grounds, hearing music and voices. Cars were turning into the parking lots, men and women still arriving from work; an older woman was methodically swimming laps, the pool’s lone occupant; charcoal grills were smoking on several of the patios, filling the air with the smells of burning flesh.
Marion circled the building with Talley’s unit. Because the buildings were of older construction (Marion guessed they had been built in the seventies), the gas meters, electric meters, and junction boxes for both telephones and cable TV were clustered together at an out-of-the-way spot opposite the parking lots. Any individual security systems would be junctioned with the telephone lines. Marion was pleased to see that the building had no alarms. Marion was neither surprised nor shocked; being a sleepy small town so far from LA, the greatest security the condo association might buy would be having a rent-a-cop cruise the parking lots every hour. If that.
Marion found Talley’s unit, let himself through the gate to the front door. He clenched his jaw so as not to laugh; the patio and door were hidden by a six-foot privacy fence. He couldn’t have asked for anything easier. He rang the bell twice, then knocked, already knowing that no one was home; the house was dark. He pulled on latex gloves, took out his pry bar and pick, then set to work. Four minutes later, the deadbolt slipped. Eighty seconds after that, he let himself in.
“Hello?”
He didn’t expect an answer, and none came. Marion shut the door behind him, but did not lock it.
The kitchen was to the left, a small dining room to the right. Sliding glass doors offered a view of the patio. Directly ahead was a large living room with a fireplace. Marion looked for a desk or work space, but saw none. He unlatched the glass doors, then crossed the living room to open the largest window. He would relock everything if he left at his leisure, but for now he arranged fast exits. Howell did not want Talley dead, so Marion would try not to kill him even if Talley surprised him.
Marion climbed steep stairs to a second-floor landing with doors leading to a bathroom and two other rooms, the room to his right the master bedroom. He turned on the light. Marion expected to search every closet and drawer in the house for something that could be used as leverage, but there it was as soon as he entered, right there, waiting. It happened that way, sometimes.
A desk rested against the far wall, scattered with papers and bills and receipts, but that isn’t what caught Marion’s eye. Five p
hotographs waited at the back of the desk, Talley with a woman and girl, the woman and Talley always the same, the girl at different ages.
Marion kneeled, brought the frame to his face.
A woman. A girl.
A wife. A daughter.
Marion considered the possibilities.
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. Peña’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 & 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 clos
e, 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. Peña’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.”
