by J. S. Carol
Seth stared at the main screen, willing something to happen. The lack of activity made him edgy. Dead air was not good for business. To make matters worse, the outside of Alfie’s was so boring. The walls were painted white and had no defining characteristics. The gaps in the heavy white door grilles allowed the occasional glimpses of smoked window glass, and the black of the parking lot contrasted with all the white, but neither one made the overall picture any more interesting.
Rob was talking a mile a minute and doing his best to make a whole lot of nothing sound like a whole lot of something. He was like a man drowning in his own bullshit. Seth stared at the big screen and willed something to happen. The banner at the bottom read: ‘HOSTAGE RELEASE. ANOTHER TRN EXCLUSIVE’. He hoped he hadn’t jumped the gun there.
Another forty seconds passed. Fifty seconds, sixty. A whole minute of dead air. This was a disaster. Rob was rehashing the main points for the third time, and Seth was about to admit defeat and cut to the cell phone footage, when a movement on the monitor caught his eye. Rob broke off mid-sentence.
‘The grilles are rising,’ he said in a voice that buzzed with excitement. ‘Any second now we should see the first hostage coming out.’
14
Even though King was expecting it, the bump and grind of the rising grille still made him jump. He’d managed to tune in to some of what the bomber was saying, enough to work out that he was releasing hostages. As soon as he’d realised what was happening, his brain had gone into overdrive. This was his chance to escape. Perhaps his only chance. He couldn’t rely on Brad Carter. That much was obvious. If he was going to get out of here, then it was down to him to make it happen. He edged the restroom door open.
‘Nobody move until I tell you!’ the bomber hollered.
King froze. It took a second to work out that the bomber wasn’t shouting at him. He stepped into the corridor and turned right. He was moving as quickly as he dared, socks gliding across wood. The kitchen door was only six yards away, but it was a long six yards. The door was one of those that swung both ways. There was a rectangular stainless-steel plate at hand level, and a round porthole window at head height. The wood had been varnished to show off the grain.
King peered through the window. The kitchen was empty. He pushed on the door and it opened with a low squeak. King froze with his palm flat against the metal plate, eyes searching frantically over his shoulder. He was listening for any indication that the bomber had heard him. A shout, a footstep, the hiss of a silenced gun. But there was nothing, not so much as a whisper.
He squeezed through the gap and eased the door closed inch by slow inch, absorbing the squeak from the spring with time and patience. He looked around. The kitchen had been abandoned in a hurry. Pots and pans had been discarded, their contents cooling and congealing. All the hobs were switched off, so presumably the bomber must have ordered this to happen when he’d swept through here earlier. Despite the chaos, the kitchen still gleamed, steel shimmering and shining under the bright halogen lights.
The door to the parking lot was directly opposite. Just seeing it was enough to send a jolt of excitement shooting through him. The only thing that stood in the way of freedom was a couple of inches of wood. King crossed the kitchen in half-a-dozen bounding strides and grabbed the handle. The door wouldn’t open. He tried again, and it still wouldn’t budge. Then he saw the keyhole and it all made sense.
He rattled the handle in frustration, then remembered where he was. He let go, cursing himself for being so dumb. What the hell was he thinking? He stood there paralysed. Seconds drifted past, each one an agony of waiting. Of course the door was locked. What had he expected? The bomber might be crazy, but crazy wasn’t the same as stupid. He would have locked the door after rounding up the kitchen staff. The key was probably in his pocket for safekeeping.
But what if that wasn’t the only key? King had once worked at a restaurant where the chef kept losing his keys. His solution had been to keep a spare set hanging on a hook next to the door. The kitchen wasn’t massive, but there were still too many cupboards and hiding places. King forced himself to take a second to think things through. There was no point wasting time searching places a key would never be kept. He didn’t know how long he had. Every second counted.
He started by checking around the door, but that would have been too easy. Next, he tried the drawers to the left of the door. Both were filled with the sort of crap that had nowhere else to go. Birthday candles, a lighter, a torch, shit like that. He didn’t find any keys on his first pass, nor his second. He knelt down and checked the cupboards beneath the drawers. Nothing but pots and pans.
He turned a full circle, eyes searching. The cooking range caught his attention, but only because it was so big. It wouldn’t be practical to keep the key there. He heard a loud rasping sound and realised it was his breathing. Chill, he told himself. Another glance at the door. This went beyond frustrating. He was inches from freedom, but those couple of inches might as well have been a thousand miles.
King did the only thing he could think to do. He started searching again.
15
‘Come over here, Jody.’
Time slipped and JJ felt her heart lurch. Tom had called her Jody right from the start. It was just one of the multitude of small things that form the heart of a marriage. Her mom had been the only other person who called her Jody. After Tom’s death, even she had started calling her JJ. The fact that the bomber was calling her Jody was wrong on every level.
‘I said, come over here, Jody. I won’t ask again.’
JJ glanced left, then right, but nobody would meet her eye. Not that she blamed them. The bomber had put his mark on her. Everyone would be wanting to stay as far away from her as possible. He aimed the gun between her eyes and that got her moving. She stood up slowly and started walking.
The terror was like cement in her stomach, a solid mass of emotion just sitting there. The only reason he’d singled her out was because he planned to kill her. She was tempted to run, but a quick glance at Elizabeth Hayward made her think again. Six steps took her right up to him. She could smell his deodorant, and beneath that, she detected a musky aroma that made her think of wild animals.
For a moment they stood there toe-to-toe, eyes locked. The top of her head came up to his chin and she had to tilt her head to meet his gaze. If she was going to die, she wanted it to happen quickly. The thought came out of nowhere and made her feel ashamed. She’d never been a quitter.
Anger came next, slamming into her and steamrollering the shame out of the way. It tore into her heart and wouldn’t let go. She was furious at herself for thinking like a loser, and she was furious with this son of a bitch for putting her in this situation. She hadn’t asked for this. None of them had. If she hadn’t decided to come here for lunch on this particular day, if she had eaten somewhere else, if she’d been too busy to take a lunch break or she’d been ill, then she wouldn’t be here now. She was a random victim, and that somehow made things so much worse.
‘Get down on your knees.’
JJ stared at the bomber, defying him. Her hands were shaking and she felt sick. That last burst of adrenalin had made her head go woozy. She knew this was suicide, but didn’t care. She’d looked at the situation, and no matter how hard she spun it, she couldn’t find one single pro. The bomber was going to kill her as surely as the sun rose in the morning and set at night. As surely as it would continue to rise and set long after she was gone.
The blow caught her by surprise. One second she was standing upright, the next she was on the floor, her head feeling like it was about to explode, her jaw aching. She looked up and saw the bomber turning his gun back around the right way.
‘When I tell you to do something, you do it. Now get on your knees.’
‘No.’
‘What are you doing?’ Tony was staring at her in disbelief. ‘Come on, JJ, just do what he says.’
JJ surprised herself by laughing. ‘Don’t you get it? H
e’s going to kill me whatever I do. Isn’t that right?’
She looked back at the bomber. He stared at her for a second, then walked over to Tony, covering the distance in a couple of strides. JJ realised what was happening, but it was already too late.
‘No!’ she shouted. ‘You can’t do this!’
The bomber pushed the gun into the side of Tony’s head. ‘Darling, I can do whatever I want.’
JJ knelt. ‘Look, I’m on my knees. I’m doing what you told me.’
‘You should have done it when I asked.’
The bomber screwed the silencer in a bit deeper and Tony’s head tilted to the side. He looked over at her. ‘It’s gonna be okay,’ he whispered. There were tears in his eyes. There were tears in JJ’s, too.
‘Please don’t do this,’ she whispered. ‘Please, I’m begging you.’
16
The sound of shouting in the main restaurant stopped King in his tracks. He ran across to the kitchen door and pressed his ear against it. He couldn’t hear a damn thing. He tried pressing his ear against the window, but that wasn’t any better. He inched the door open, just enough to let the sound filter through. He recognised JJ’s voice straightaway. She was pleading and sounded desperate, two things King found impossible to comprehend. It just didn’t equate to the way he viewed her. If JJ was losing her shit then things were worse than he thought.
He closed the door, then took out the Ziploc bag and ran his thumb over the plastic like it was a lucky rabbit’s foot. As he rubbed it, he said a quick prayer for all the craziness to stop. Not that he expected it to do any good. He’d gone through a stage of praying as a kid. His prayers had never been answered back then, so why should things be any different now? The truth was that God didn’t have time for losers like him.
If things went bad, he hoped the wood would be thick enough to muffle the shot. He might blame JJ for everything that was happening here, but that didn’t mean he wanted to see her dead.
17
The bomber’s finger tightened on the trigger.
‘Please don’t shoot.’ The words came out as a sob. JJ hated herself for sounding so weak, but she couldn’t help it. She didn’t want Tony to die. Not like this. He was looking down at the floor and she was just glad that she didn’t have to look him in the eye. If she’d kept her mouth shut, none of this would be happening. That was the bottom line here.
It didn’t matter how bad things got, they could always get worse. How many times had she told her clients that? You keep your emotions in check at all times. Let them loose and it will always end badly. At work she was known for her ability to keep a cool head, no matter what. That was her biggest strength. Even during those first few months after Tom died, she’d been able to project like everything was okay. Inside she might have been going to pieces, but outwardly, it was business as usual.
She really should have known better.
Should have, would have, could have. Didn’t.
‘Give me one good reason,’ the bomber said.
JJ’s mind was a sudden blank. For the first time in her life, she couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
‘I’ll give you ten seconds.’
He started counting down and that made things worse. As soon as half a thought entered her head, it was gone again, stripped away by those relentless numbers. The bomber reached one.
‘I don’t know!’ she yelled.
The bomber snatched the gun away from Tony’s head. He straightened up and turned to face her.
‘I don’t know,’ she whispered.
He looked at her for a moment, then nodded to himself.
‘That little admission must have hurt. Looking at you, I’d say you’re the sort of person who likes to be in charge. A control freak. Is that a fair assessment?’
JJ nodded.
‘This must be tough for you. I mean, you come here thinking you’re going to have a nice quiet lunch, and then I appear out of nowhere and turn your world upside down. My guess is that you’ve got your whole life programmed into your cell phone. Am I right or am I right?’
JJ nodded again.
‘I’ll bet it not only tells you where you’re having lunch a week Tuesday, it probably tells you what you’re going to have. So, I must be a real shock to the system.’
The bomber paused as though he was thinking things over. JJ could sense her life hanging in the balance. Right now she couldn’t see past the next heartbeat.
‘Okay,’ he said eventually. ‘Promise me you’ll behave and we’ll pretend like this never happened. How does that sound?’
‘Fine. That sounds fine,’ she said quickly. She looked into his eyes for some sort of assurance that he would keep his word, but all she saw was desolation. There was a part of her that was just waiting for him to raise the gun again. A part that was just waiting for the quiet cough of a silenced shot.
The bomber grinned another of those horrible broken grins. ‘Okay, the reason I called you up here was because I’ve got a job for you. While I’m dealing with the hostage handover I want you to keep an eye on your friends. Anyone even breathes wrong, I want to know. Got it?’
JJ nodded again. She felt both relieved and stupid. Relieved because she was still alive. Stupid because she’d read the situation so wrong. She’d let her emotions cloud her judgement, something she would never have done under normal circumstances. And Tony had almost died as a result. If he had died, she would never have forgiven herself. Never. Whatever happened next, she needed to keep her emotions in check. She couldn’t afford to make another mistake like this.
‘Right then,’ the bomber said. ‘Let’s go release some hostages.’
18
There was still nothing happening and it was driving Rob nuts. What was going on in there? He heard himself repeating some stats that the viewers had already heard a dozen times, and did his best to sound enthusiastic. The problem was that there were only so many ways you could say the same old thing.
The grilles had gone up almost four minutes ago, and that was the last bit of excitement they’d had. In TV terms, four minutes was a lifetime. Jonah hadn’t contacted him for what seemed like a decade, and that was somehow worse than if he’d been hollering and screaming.
Rob’s attention kept being drawn to the patch of dried blood on the blacktop. It held the same fascination as a Rorschach inkblot, in that the more you stared, the more patterns you saw. So far he’d seen thunderclouds and desert islands and a horse’s head. Mostly, though, he’d seen death. The bloodstain was a vivid reminder of how fragile this situation was. If the bomb went off, would he feel anything? He liked to think he wouldn’t. God forbid that that happened, but if it did, he hoped the end would be quick.
Behind him was the small building that doubled as Victor Comaneci’s office and a place where the customers’ drivers and minders could hang out. It had plenty of windows, and a view of the parking lot. A large air-conditioning unit sat on the flat roof, an absolute necessity in a climate like this. The building was basically a greenhouse.
Rob glanced over at the restaurant’s entrance and thought he saw a movement. Even the tiniest movement was enough to get his adrenalin pumping. Could this be it? They’d already had a couple of false alarms. Was this another one? The door opened slowly, and Rob suppressed a smile.
‘I can see the first hostage coming out now and I’ve got to say that I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look so relieved.’
His eyes were taking everything in, his brain assimilating what he was seeing, and all that good stuff was just pouring from his mouth. The first hostage was somewhere between fifty and sixty, with a flabby stomach that hung over his white boxers. CHESTER was written on his forehead in neat red capital letters. Rob’s first thought was that it was blood, but the colour was too bright. Tears were streaming down Chester’s face. What little hair he had was a mess. He waddled over the parking lot on shaky, uncertain legs. Two cops were waiting for him. They wrapped a blanket around him and whisked
him away.
Ten seconds later the second hostage appeared. HOLLY was written on her forehead. Her long blonde hair was tied back into a ponytail and she was wearing a white bra and a red thong. Had she known when she got dressed this morning that she was going to be on national television, Rob reckoned that she would no doubt have gone for the matching set. The next person out was a short-haired brunette who was a bit older than the blonde. BETH was etched onto her forehead.
The door opened five more times and five more people came out. Three men and two women. There were tears all around. Jonah was always going on about how the best TV came from getting real-life human dramas up there on the screen. Well, things didn’t get any more dramatic or real than this.
19
The kitchen had been a mess before, now it was totally trashed. Every single cupboard lay open, every drawer. King had searched everywhere and it had all been for nothing. The voice of reason was telling him there was no key, but the voice of desperation was screaming out that there had to be one. He glanced over at the door, the one that stood between him and freedom, and wondered how much longer the grille would stay up for.
He went over to the nearest drawer and searched it again, then went to the next drawer and did the same. Nothing and nothing. He knelt down and tried the cupboards underneath. Still nothing. He was moving quicker than he should, making way too much noise, but he didn’t care. All he wanted was to get the hell out of here.
He walked into the middle of the kitchen, heart pounding, eyes searching, looking for anywhere he might have missed. He had just reached the work island when he heard the clunk and rattle of the grille coming down. He sank to the floor and put his head in his hands. His one chance had gone. The grille finished closing, the motor cut out, and the silence settled over him like a funeral shroud.
