by J. S. Carol
‘Swap to the photograph on my mark,’ Seth said. ‘Three, two, one.’
The TRN logo disappeared from behind Caroline and was replaced with a picture of Ted Marley. Seth glanced over at the two small screens on the left. One was tuned to Fox, the other to CNN. A millisecond after the picture had appeared on TRN, similar pictures had appeared on the other two channels. Good. TRN’s was out there first, which meant they were still ahead of the game. It didn’t matter that it was only by a fraction of a second. A fraction of a second was the difference between gold and silver, and nobody ever remembered who won silver.
Both Fox and CNN had gone with photos that made Marley look like a criminal. They weren’t prison mugshots, but they might as well have been. In both pictures, Marley’s head was turned to the left so that your eye was drawn immediately to the ragged scar on his right cheek. The impression these photographs gave was that this was someone who’d lived life on the wrong side of the law. If you saw this version of Ted Marley walking down the sidewalk, you’d definitely cross the street and hide the kids.
Portraying the bomber like this was understandable, but it was a mistake. Like Rob had pointed out, a large section of the public actually liked this guy. They were more than happy to buy into the whole Robin Hood act, while conveniently forgetting that he was a murderer. This didn’t surprise Seth. He’d stopped being surprised by the sheer stupidity of Joe Public decades ago. The sad truth was that violence and death had become such an integral part of everyday life that the shock value had eroded away to nothing. The irony was that he was partly responsible. It was an irony that had not escaped him.
By contrast, TRN’s photograph showed Ted Marley in full dress uniform. He was standing to attention, medals pinned to his chest, and he looked every bit the hero. His head was turned to the right so the scar was hidden. If the viewers wanted Robin Hood, then who was he to deny them?
Marley was handsome in a rugged, outdoorsy sort of way. He had strong features and piercing grey eyes. His skin was tanned to the colour of mahogany. Seth could imagine him walking to the South Pole, or heading out into the wilderness to hunt deer and sleep under the stars. He could also imagine him living in one of those communes in the Midwest, holed up with enough guns and ammunition to start a small war, waiting for the End of Days. It was the eyes. Those were the eyes of someone who had everything to prove and nothing to lose.
On the big screen, Caroline looked straight and serious at the camera. ‘The latest from the siege at Alfie’s is that the bomber has been named as Sergeant Ted Marley, a forty-nine-year-old former army bomb disposal expert. Marley is originally from Tennessee, but since retiring in 2005 he has been living in Twin Falls, Idaho.’
Usually, this would be the point where Caroline would give a rundown of the headlines in a series of easily digestible bullet points. The number of dead, their names, that sort of thing. Seth glanced over at the screens on his left. The sound was muted, but he didn’t need sound to confirm that Fox and CNN were heading down that old familiar route.
‘Okay, Caroline,’ he whispered into his microphone. ‘We’ve got the exclusive. It’s show time.’
On the big screen, Caroline touched her earpiece. ‘I’m just getting a report coming in of a new development. This is another world exclusive for TRN, the station that’s always first with the news.’
2
Simone put her hand up and everyone turned to look. The bomber responded immediately. It was almost as though he’d been waiting for this.
‘Can I help you?’
‘I need to go to the bathroom.’ Her Norwegian accent was more pronounced than JJ remembered. Probably the stress.
‘Well, go on then. No one’s stopping you.’
Simone broke eye contact and stared at the floor. The bomber walked over slowly. The sound of his boots hitting the parquet sounded like a series of small explosions. He levelled his gun and aimed at her head.
‘Is there a problem?’
Simone glanced down at the diaper and said nothing.
‘I said, is there a problem?’
Just do it, JJ thought. Put on the goddamn diaper. She could see where this was headed. Simone was going to keep sitting there, and the bomber was going to give her maybe one more chance, and then he was going to blow her head off. She didn’t particularly like the model, but she did feel responsible for her. The bottom line: she was the reason that Simone was here.
‘Let me make this real simple, sweetheart. You want to go pee-pee, you put on the diaper. You mess up the floor, you die. “Diaper” and “pee-pee” aside, that’s words of one syllable. Are we understanding one another here?’
Simone nodded, then picked up the diaper. Everyone except the bomber turned away. JJ could see him from the corner of her eye. He’d lowered his weapon and had his head cocked slightly to the side, watching. Everything went quiet for a long time.
‘All done?’ the bomber asked.
Simone didn’t say anything, but she must have made the right response because she was still alive.
‘Anyone else need to go? And before you decide to keep your legs crossed, remember what I said about making puddles.’
Jen and DeAndre Alexander put their hands up, and JJ turned away again. She could hear them shuffling around. She could sense their embarrassment. She needed to go as well, but not that badly.
‘Okay, Jen, you’re on clean-up duty. Collect the dirty diapers then dump them over there in the corner.’
There was more shuffling as the diapers were removed, then footsteps. JJ chanced a glance and saw Jen walking across the room. She was in her fifties, but wearing the years well. Dye to keep her hair golden and regular workouts at the gym to keep in shape. The pressure was getting to her, though. It was there in the stiff way she moved and the worry lines cutting deep into her face. Jen put the used diapers on a table, then walked back over and sat down.
‘Anyone else need to go?’
This time there were no takers. The bomber gave it another second then walked over to the laptop. JJ glanced around the room. There was death everywhere she looked. Look left and there was Elizabeth Hayward. Look down at the lower level and there was the accountant. She didn’t dare look to her right because that was where Dan Stone and Kevin Donahue’s bodies had been dumped. Even thinking about Stone was enough to bring a wave of guilt crashing in on her.
Donahue’s death took the total number of hostages to six. Tony, Simone, Ed Richards, DeAndre Alexander, Jen, and herself, of course. They were the only ones left now. A quick look confirmed that they were all in pretty bad shape. Ed Richards was handling it the worst. He looked like a man who’d fallen over the edge and was tumbling into the abyss. If they got out of this it was going to take a lot of therapy to put him back together again. Simone worried her, too. Not because she was about to do something stupid, but because she was such a cold-hearted bitch. If she had to sacrifice every single person in this room to get out of here alive, she wouldn’t think twice about it.
Keeping positive was hard. Less than five minutes had passed since Ed Richards and Tony had dragged Donahue’s corpse away and dumped it unceremoniously on top of Stone’s. Five minutes filled with guilt, recriminations and doomsday scenarios. JJ was more convinced than ever that she was going to die. Here, now, today. The only person who had any control over this situation was the bomber, and it seemed that he was on course to self-destruct. What she didn’t know was how many people he’d end up taking with him.
But what was motivating him? People didn’t do things without a reason. Whether that reason was good or bad was irrelevant. Junkies knew they were pumping poison into their veins, but they kept using because the alternative was the hell of withdrawal. That was all the motivation they needed. Likewise, a Hollywood A-lister would do or say anything to save their precious career because the alternative was a hard, cruel slide into infamy, followed by an equally cruel slide into obscurity.
JJ had made it her business to work out what made p
eople tick. She’d got real good at it, too. Usually she could suss someone out within seconds of meeting them, but the bomber had her baffled. By now they must be fast approaching the three-hour mark and she still had no idea what was motivating him. Money was the obvious reason, but even though he’d just taken three million from Donahue, she still wasn’t convinced.
And if money wasn’t the motivator, what was?
She’d ruled out a political agenda back at the start, but had she been too hasty there? She knew how the media worked. They were almost three hours into the siege, which meant the story would have gone global. Nothing could have stopped that happening. A story like this would have gone global by the end of the first hour. Was that what the bomber wanted? Was he waiting for the stage to get big enough before he outlined his agenda? The idea had merit, but, again, JJ wasn’t convinced. Something about this theory just didn’t sit right. From what she’d seen, the bomber wasn’t an activist or a militant. He didn’t seem to have any sort of political axe to grind.
He was a sadist, though. That much was evident from the way he’d been toying with them. He was also a psychopath, which was evident from the way he could kill an innocent person without batting an eyelid. Maybe he just got off on killing people. Maybe that was all the motivation he needed. It was possible she was just trying to over-complicate a situation that was, in fact, very simple. Maybe he killed for the sake of killing.
But something must have happened to cause him to snap and go on a killing spree. You didn’t wake up one morning and decide to do something like this. There was usually a trigger, and, if that was the case, then things were even worse than she’d thought. He’d crossed the line and there was no turning back. The only way this could end was with his death.
JJ looked up from the patch of floor that had been holding her hypnotised. Everyone was looking more terrified than ever. Faces were pinched, eyes were darker and deader, and those thousand-yard stares just kept getting longer with each passing minute. Then there was that smell to contend with. Given enough time you were supposed to be able to get used to any smell. Bullshit. JJ knew she’d never get used to this one. Not in a day, or a week, or even a century. This was a smell that got right inside you and wouldn’t let go.
The bomber was at his laptop, watching the news headlines on TRN. JJ couldn’t see the screen, but she could hear everything the anchorwoman was saying. The first thing that jumped out was a name. Ted Marley. The name meant nothing to her. The only Marleys she could think of were Bob and Jacob. If the news networks had got hold of his name, you could guarantee they’d got hold of a photograph. She was wondering what he looked like. She liked to have faces to go with names. That was why she was such a big fan of video conferencing.
The anchorwoman fell silent, and when she spoke again her voice was edged with excitement.
‘I’m just getting a report coming in of a new development. This is another world exclusive for TRN, the station that’s always first with the news. According to our sources, Ted Marley is suffering from an inoperable brain tumour. When the tumour was diagnosed six months ago, doctors gave him less than a year to live.’
It took less than a second to process this, and then the implications hit. JJ had thought things were bad before, but they’d just got a whole lot worse.
3
King had been careful to make sure he didn’t overdo it when he cleared up. If the kitchen looked too tidy that would be as bad as it being too messy. Anything out of the ordinary would stand out. And standing out was bad, because it led to questions. Questions like who was hiding back here? Those were the sorts of questions that got a person killed. King had seen enough hostage movies to know that much.
He glanced around, trying to decide if he’d gone too far. Everything looked all right, but the problem with all right was that it might be a whole world away from right. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t remember what state the kitchen had been in before he’d trashed it. He took out his phone and stared at the dead screen. He’d give anything to talk to Stuart right now, even if it was for the final time. Stuart had been his first serious relationship, and the way things were going it could well be his last.
The relationship had happened before Killing Time, and it had happened before his agent signed him up with the promise that he would make him the biggest action movie star in the world. His agent had made it clear that long-term romantic relationships were bad for business. Any sort of relationship. King had said he understood, and since then he’d been discreet. And he had understood. He was an action hero, and action heroes did not go out with other men. That was not how things worked in Hollywood.
Then there were his female fans to consider. They had to believe he was romantically available. That was one of the things that made him so marketable. It didn’t matter that it was never going to happen, the illusion just needed to be out there. One-night stands and short-term relationships were okay, so long as the person he was dating was female. His fans would expect to see him going out with someone like Simone hanging from his arm. It would be weird if he wasn’t. It was all part of the image. All a part of the act.
JJ had spent a long time explaining this to him. Even when he’d told her for the millionth time that he’d got it, she’d still kept on, browbeating him until he’d wanted to strangle her. Thinking about JJ made him feel bad, so he stopped thinking about her. He still couldn’t believe she was dead.
He looked around the kitchen again. Had he gone too far? Stuart used to call him a neat freak, which was crap. The truth of the matter was that he was tidier than Stuart, that was all. Being tidy did not make you a neat freak, it just meant that you didn’t want to live in a mess. A picture of Stuart filled his mind. His ex was so good-looking, and the really cool thing was that he had no idea how handsome he actually was. But what King loved most about him was his sense of humour. Stuart was always laughing and joking. It didn’t take much to set him off, and sometimes when he got started laughing, it was like he’d never stop.
Remembering the good times made King’s heart shrink. He’d traded love for fame, and, at the time, he’d thought he was getting a good deal. That had been back when the whole of his golden future had been stretching out in front of him. There would be more Stuarts, he’d told himself, and he’d really believed that, too.
When he’d signed his pact with the devil, he’d thought he fully understood the terms and conditions. Now he knew differently. Money and fame could never equate to happiness and love. In hindsight, he could see that where he thought he’d traded up, he had in fact traded down. He’d swapped stability for a series of one-night stands, each one sapping a little more of his heart and soul.
Had Stuart received his text and, if so, what had he done? There was a good chance he’d taken one look, then deleted it. King wouldn’t have blamed him. Then again, there was a slim chance that Stuart had sent a reply, and the reason he hadn’t received it was because his cell phone was dead. Even though it was unlikely, King still clung to the idea. Thinking that there was someone he loved reaching out to him, even if it was just by text, made things slightly more bearable.
He sank down onto the floor with his back to the door. The key was pulsing inside his pocket and the knife was pushing against his hip. It was so frustrating. That door was only a couple of inches thick. He was two inches from freedom, and two inches was the length of his little finger. It was nothing. Yet, at the same time, it was everything.
If he got out, he was going to make some big changes. Firstly, he was going to get himself into therapy so he could deal with his demons once and for all. Secondly, he was going to come out. His agent could go to hell. If he didn’t like it, tough. King would just find a new one. He couldn’t live a lie anymore. That was why his life had got so screwed up in the first place. Well, it was one of the reasons. His childhood had obviously played a part, but he’d let the shrinks help him to unravel that mess.
Last, but not least, he was going to apologise to St
uart. He wasn’t expecting them to get back together. After the way he’d treated him, there was no way that was going to happen. He just wanted to be able to look him in the eye and say sorry.
Big changes.
King pressed his fingers against the throat mike, then remembered he didn’t have to do that. He took his hand away and whispered through his tears, ‘Brad, if you’re listening, please, please, please just get me out of here.’
4
‘Relax,’ Tara said.
Rob looked up from his cell phone. Caroline Bradley was on the small screen and getting all the glory, and that just made the frustration worse. He was standing a hundred yards from the Mobile Command Unit, closer to Alfie’s than any other member of the media, yet he might as well not exist. This was the part of the job he hated. The waiting. It drove him nuts. Basically, he was stuck here until the next hostage came out. That could happen in the next couple of minutes, or the next couple of hours.
‘I am relaxed.’
‘Honeybun, if you were any more wound up you’d snap.’
Rob nodded towards the Mobile Command Unit. ‘What do you think’s going on in there?’
Tara shrugged. ‘No idea. Why not knock on the door and ask?’
‘Yeah, right.’
‘I’m serious.’
Rob studied her face carefully, and realised she was.
‘And what good’s that doing to do? Walters will just say he’s too busy, or that he doesn’t have anything for us.’
‘Or maybe he’ll give us the story of the century. Look, right now I’m in favour of anything that’s going to turn your frown upside down, even if it is temporary. The truth is, I don’t care what you do, so long as I get my happy, smiley Rob back.’
