Capitol Murder

by William Bernhardt

  “He’s taken prisoners,” Cross said. “Senator Glancy managed to escape, barely, but Bressler has at least three other hostages, maybe more. And one of them is wounded.”

  Ben’s heart raced. “Which one?”

  “Marie Glancy.”

  Ben’s eyes closed.

  “You look relieved.”

  “No, of course not. How badly is she hurt?”

  “We don’t know. Bressler has only spoken to us once, by cell, and he wouldn’t say much. All he told us was what he wants.”

  “Which is?”

  “Safe passage out of the country. And Todd Glancy.”

  “He wants to take Glancy out of the country?”

  She shook her head curtly. “He wants to kill him.”

  “Marshall,” Christina said, pleading, “why are you doing this?”

  “The time comes,” Bressler said, his voice slow and menacing, “when a man has to take action. Has to do what’s right. Stand up for the woman he loves.”

  “I’ve been working with you for months. You’ve always been logical, reasoned-the one voice of sanity in a crazy politically obsessed world.”

  He laughed bitterly. “Guess you didn’t know me as well as you thought you did. Ben’s going to have to get a new psychic.”

  “But Marshall-taking hostages? In the U.S. Senate? You can’t possibly succeed. I don’t care what you do to us-they’ll never let you leave. This is crazy.”

  “Don’t call me crazy!” he bellowed. “Don’t ever call me crazy! That’s what that damn doctor said. That’s why he kept cramming me full of those blue pills you’ve seen me taking, day after day. Well, I don’t need the doctor, and I don’t need his stupid pills.”

  “All right, all right.” Christina held her hands up, trying to placate him. Behind her, Hazel was huddled beside the copying machine, crumpled on the floor. She had totally fallen apart, melted into a useless heap, racked with sobbing. She wasn’t going to be any help. And Marie hadn’t moved since the bullet caught her in the chest. If she wasn’t dead already, she would be soon.

  “Marshall, at least let them send in a doctor for Marie. She’s seriously wounded.”

  “Serves her right. She was never any kind of wife to Todd. All she’s ever done is lay plots and plans, look ahead to when Todd would be out of the way and she could start her own political career.” He snorted bitterly. “There is some justice in that. Todd got exactly the wife he deserved.”

  “Whatever she may or may not have done, she doesn’t deserve to die. Please ask them for-”

  “No doctors!” he yelled, his gun hand wobbling with such uncertainty Christina was afraid it might fire at any moment. “If they want to send someone in, send Todd. He said in the courtroom that he’d do anything for his wife. Fine. Let him come in and get her.” A thin smile spread across his lips. “I’ll have quite a reception waiting for him.”

  In the charging bay in the left arm of his wheelchair, Marshall’s cell phone sounded.

  “They want to talk to you,” Christina said.

  “I’ve already said everything I have to say.”

  “Please talk to them. Maybe you can work something out. Some sort of compromise.”

  “No compromises! They give me what I want-exactly what I want-or I start shooting.” He raised the gun again, wheeling himself closer and closer as Christina pressed up against the wall. “And you’re next.”

  Ben listened attentively as Agent Martinez attempted to reestablish contact with Marshall Bressler. “Pick up the phone, man. Pick up the phone!”

  Finally, on the overhead speaker, they all heard the click of the call being answered. “Have you got Glancy?”

  Martinez looked down at his legal pad. Ben could see that he was reading from prepared notes, only improvising when necessary. “Mr. Bressler, I want to help you.”

  “Then bring me Glancy!”

  “I will consider any reasonable requests. And I won’t lie to you.”

  Ben realized Martinez was trying to work his way through those key negotiation steps. But Bressler wouldn’t even let him get to first base: Trust.

  “There’s only one thing I want. Todd Glancy.”

  “Be reasonable, sir. You know I can’t do that.”

  “Then I guess I’ll have to shoot someone else!”

  “Please don’t do that. You’ll only make your situation worse.”

  “Worse? How could I make things worse?”

  “Sir, I know what you’ve been going through.”

  “No you don’t. How dare you say that when you don’t. You couldn’t possibly! You can’t know what it’s like to have the only thing you ever cared about in your entire life, the only thing you ever loved or that ever loved you, taken away.”

  And that was the final piece of the puzzle. Now Ben understood. At long last he grasped what had happened, what was really going on. He wanted to kick himself in the head. He was so stupid, so slow-why hadn’t he seen it sooner? He’d become so obsessed with the trial, trying to devise some way of winning, that he’d missed the obvious. When you considered all the facts-it was the only possible answer.

  “Mr. Bressler,” Martinez continued, “I want to help. I want to give you any reasonable thing you want or need and make sure no one else gets hurt. But we can’t give you another hostage.”

  “Tell Todd his wife is dying!” the voice on the phone shouted back. “Tell him even if he doesn’t give a damn about her, his approval ratings will hit the floor if he lets her die.”

  Martinez took a deep breath. Ben could see he was struggling to maintain that benign mediator’s voice. “As it happens, sir, Senator Glancy has offered repeatedly to give himself up as a trade for his wife. But we can’t permit it.”

  “You’d better change your mind.”

  “Sir, you’ve been in government a long time. You know we can never put any private citizen in jeopardy, not under any circumstances. And certainly not a United States senator.”

  “Then you’ve doomed every woman in this room!” he hissed back, his voice so loud it made the speakers rattle.

  “Sir, wait, please, listen to me. I know you’re scared, confused. You don’t know what’s going to happen. You need someone you can trust. I’m your man. Take me as your hostage. I’ll go in, unarmed, unbugged. I won’t try anything. You have my word on that. Trade me for your hostages. Or at least for Mrs. Glancy.”

  “No deal.”

  “She needs medical attention.”

  “You’re damn right she does! And if she doesn’t get it soon, she’s gonna die. And won’t that be ironic? Won’t that be the perfect quid pro fucking quo!”

  “Sir, let me come in. Just to talk.”

  “You send Todd Glancy in here in the next ten minutes, or one of the women dies.” The line disconnected with a clatter.

  “Jesus,” Agent Cross muttered under her breath. “He’s going to kill them. He’s going to kill them all.”

  Martinez’s fists balled up with frustration. “Can someone please explain to me what this guy’s problem is?”

  “I can,” Ben said. “I get it now.”

  Martinez turned and stared at him. “Then would you please tell me what I’m supposed to do?”

  “That’s the problem,” Ben said, eyes widening. “There’s nothing we can do. It’s too late.”

  “Why won’t they give me what I want?” Bressler screamed, wheeling himself back and forth across the office lobby. “Is this so hard? All I want is one lousy senator. Hell, they’ve got a hundred of them. No one will miss one. Especially not that one.”

  “Marshall,” Christina said, “please try to stay calm.” She knew she was taking a risk, talking to him, but she had to do something. His eyes were red and inflamed, he was incoherent with rage. Christina was no expert, but it looked to her as if this previously calm, efficient man of logic was totally losing his grip. And if that was the case, there was no telling what he might do. “Maybe you should ask for something else.”


  “I don’t want anything else!”

  “They won’t give you Glancy. They can’t. Why not ask for money? Or just settle for transportation to some country that the U.S. doesn’t have an extradition treaty with. I’m sure you know more about that than I do.”

  “No!” he bellowed. “I want Glancy. And I’ll get Glancy, or they’ll see everyone in this room die!”

  “P-p-p-please…” It was Hazel, hunched down on the floor, her aged hands covering her head. “Please let me go. I don’t care what you do to Todd. I don’t care what you do to anyone. But please let me go.”

  For a moment, gazing at the broken, elderly woman he’d known for more than a decade, Marshall almost regained his usual countenance. “I regret that I must do this to you, Hazel. I truly do. But it’s necessary.”

  “I-I can’t take it any longer, Marshall. You know how bad my heart is. I’m not going to make it.”

  “If you die, you die. It happens.” His eyes narrowed. “Even to the people you love most.”

  Christina steeled herself and took a step forward. “Marshall, please. End this nightmare. Let Marie get medical attention. I know you’re not a bad person. I don’t-I don’t understand what’s happened to you. But I can’t believe you want to hurt anyone.” She held out her hand. “Give it up, Marshall. Give me the gun.”

  “You want it. Here it is.” He fired.

  Christina’s heart raced. The bullet drilled a hole in the carpet between her legs.

  “Now stand by the wall and stay put,” he growled, waving her back with the gun. “Next time, I won’t miss.”

  “What was that?” Ben asked, grabbing Agent Cross’s arm, refusing to let her go. He knew he was pushing his luck. They’d tolerated him so far because he had information that was useful to them, but they could get rid of him with a single word to one of the dozens of agents on duty. “What happened?”

  “That’s what Agent Martinez is attempting to find out.” She looked over Ben’s shoulder and saw the situation commander’s signal. “He doesn’t think anyone was hurt. Just a stray shot.”

  “This time! Marshall’s getting crazier by the minute. We have to do something.”

  “Mr. Kincaid, I assure you we are doing something. Everything we can. But we have to play this by the book.”

  “I don’t care about your book. I want Christina out of there. And the others.” He paused, desperately searching for a solution. “What about tear gas? Can’t you flood the room with gas?”

  “Not without him knowing about it. He’d have plenty of time to kill the hostages before the gas knocked him out. And he’s said if we try anything of that nature that’s exactly what he will do.”

  “What about a sniper? Doesn’t your tactical man have snipers on the scene?”

  She threw back her shoulders. Ben was obviously starting to get on her nerves. “He has tons of snipers, Mr. Kincaid-but nowhere to put them. There are no buildings or other perches that would give them a line on Senator Glancy’s office. For a reason. This is the U.S. Senate, remember? We’ve never allowed any construction that could be turned into a potential sniper’s nest.”

  “Maybe a SWAT team could rush the door. We don’t even know that it’s locked.”

  “That’s an option. But if we do that, realistically, he’ll kill at least one of the hostages before they get him. Maybe all of them.”

  Over by the phone station, Ben saw Martinez stick something in his ear. “What’s that?”

  “An aural implant. Tiny, can’t be seen. But it will allow us to talk to him-if Bressler ever gives him the okay to go in.”

  “What about over there?” Ben pointed toward three men huddled just to the side of the closed door to Glancy’s office. “What are they doing?”

  “Trying to get a fiber-optic cable inside. One of Bressler’s earlier shots went wild and put a hole in the wall. If we can get a videocam cable through it, we can at least see and hear what’s going on.”

  “But how are we going to get the hostages out?” Ben knew he sounded desperate. He was. He’d known Christina so long, had wasted so much time, and now some madman was threatening to take her away from him forever. “He gave us ten minutes.”

  “Agent Martinez is negotiating for more time.”

  “He’s not going to give you any more time!”

  “So what do you want us to do, Kincaid? Send Glancy in to be slaughtered?”

  Ben fell silent.

  “Please. Just let us do our jobs!”

  “Cross!”

  Both of them whirled around. It was Carney, the tactical commander. “Just got this tidbit from the computer geeks. Agent Martinez is on the phone with Bressler, so I thought you’d want to see it.”

  Cross rapidly scanned the document. “Oh my God.”

  “What?” Ben said. “What is it?”

  “How did you get the doctor to release this?”

  Carney looked at her stoically. “We didn’t ask. You can expect a lawsuit later.”

  “Would someone please tell me what it is?” Ben pleaded.

  Cross looked at him, thought a moment, then decided to cut him a break. “It’s about Marshall Bressler. Did you know he was seeing a psychiatrist?”

  Ben’s heart felt as if it turned to lead. “Why?”

  “According to this, the car accident that crippled him also caused damage to the bilateral lobes of his brain, making him susceptible to delusions, paranoia.” She paused. “And given to bursts of sudden uncontrollable mania.”

  “Meaning?”

  “In lay terms? He’s a walking time bomb.”

  “I’ve been working with him for weeks. I’ve seen no signs of any… mania.”

  “Because he’s been heavily medicated with psychotropic drugs. Have you seen him taking pills?”

  “Yes. He said they were pain medication.”

  “Maybe some of them were. But he was also taking a powerful antipsychotic. One little blue pill every six hours. That’s what’s kept him under control.”

  Ben took a step backward, staggering. “He lost his briefcase this morning. So he’s off his meds. Combine that with seeing Glancy acquitted-”

  “This changes everything,” Cross snapped to Carney. “Get a message to Martinez. Tell him-”

  She was cut off by the sound of a gun firing inside the office. Followed by a piercing scream.

  “What happened?” Ben asked, running toward the phone base. “That was Christina’s voice. Was someone shot? Christina!”

  It was her own fault, Christina thought, as she struggled to remain alert and rational through the blinding pain. Whoever was talking to Marshall on the phone was doing a good job; for the first time, Marshall seemed somewhat distracted. He became so angry, so intent on shouting at the man on the other end, that he lowered his gun. And that was when Christina made her move.

  It always worked in the movies, she’d thought, as she fell in a heap onto the carpeted floor. But in real life, people don’t move faster than bullets. Even before he fired, she had realized that she wasn’t going to get there in time and tried to get out of the way. But it was too late. The bullet caught her in the upper right thigh. It hurt like hell and it was bleeding like a river.

  All the times she’d watched cop shows on television, through all the westerns she’d seen as a kid, she’d always wondered what it felt like to be shot. Well, now she knew.

  It hurt.

  “Please let them send in a doctor,” Christina begged. Her voice was weak and feeble and she knew it.

  “No!” Marshall screamed. “I told you not to try anything! I told you!”

  “Then-at least let Hazel tie a tourniquet on my leg. I’m bleeding buckets.”

  Marshall looked at the elderly woman cringing beside the copying machine. “You really think she’s capable of anything like that?”

  Fine, damn you. I’ll do it myself. Christina placed both hands on opposite ends of her blouse and tore off a long strip. She just wished she hadn’t worn something so nice.
She’d made the mistake of dressing for court rather than for a bullet wound.

  Mustering every ounce of strength she had, she wrapped the strip around her leg, just above the wound, and pulled it as tight as possible. The pain was crippling; she felt lights exploding in her head and thought she might pass out. But that was not an option, she told herself. She had to stay awake. She had to. She tied the tourniquet in a knot, then lay back on the carpet, exhausted.

  Are you out there, Ben? she wondered. Because I need you. I really need you. I’ll forget about all the problems, the hesitation, the emotional blindness. I’d forget everything if I could just see you walk through that door.

  But she was being stupid. There was no way that could happen. She was trapped with a revenge-crazed lunatic. And judging by the way she felt, if the FBI didn’t do something soon, she would never see Ben again.

  “Just tell us as much as you can,” Martinez said to Marshall over the phone. He had already blown step two: Contain. So he was trying for some hope of Reconcile. “Is she hurt badly?”

  Ben felt a hollow, sick feeling in his stomach. Someone had tried to get the gun away from Bressler. And since Marie was unconscious and Hazel was in her sixties…

  “I warned her!” Bressler screamed. “I warned you all!”

  “Can you tell where the bullet struck her?”

  “I don’t know. Looks like the leg.”

  “Is she bleeding?”

  “Yeah. A lot. She’s not going to last long.”

  “Did the bullet pass through?”

  “How the hell would I know?” Marshall’s voice rose. “What does it matter? If you don’t send me Glancy, the next bullet’s going into her skull!”

  “Mr. Bressler, please let me come in. Let me be your hostage.”

  “Why should I trust you? You’ll try something, I know you will.”

  “I won’t.”

  “You have two minutes left!” Bressler screeched. “If I don’t see Glancy by then, I’ll kill them all. If they aren’t dead already.”

  “Mr. Bressler! Mr. Bressler!”

  Agent Martinez continued to argue with the man, but Ben knew it would do no good. Marshall wasn’t going to change his mind. This far off his meds, he was way past reason. The FBI was stymied. And meanwhile Christina was dying by inches, losing more blood every second.