Sweet Hostage

by Leslie Jones

  Incongruously enough, there was a knock on the front doors. “We’ve placed a mobile outside the door,” the man on the bullhorn said. “Please answer it so we can talk.”

  “Ha. What the fuck makes them think we want a chin-­wag?” Crawley’s mean eyes glittered with dark humor.

  Eric’s hand tightened on the butt of his rifle. “First things first. Crawley, you and Fay search the rest of the museum. Make sure there’re no surprises waiting for us.”

  “I’ll go, too,” Trevor said. Maybe he could find a way to communicate with the outside.

  “No, I need you here with me,” Eric said.

  “I’m in,” Jukes called. “Plugged into their security. Video, no audio.”

  Trevor walked with Eric to peer at the laptop screen.

  “Coppers,” Jukes said. “Lots of them all over the car park, and Armed Response Vehicles. They can’t get too close ’cause the fountain and stairs are between us and them.”

  Eric swore under his breath. “What the hell happened? How did they know where to find us?”

  Because he’d told them, that’s why. Trevor narrowed his eyes. “What’s your play, Eric? We can’t get out.”

  “We’ll make our own way out,” Eric insisted. He turned meaningfully toward the hostages. “Through them.”

  “Not a good idea. If we have hostages, they’ll want to take us out.”

  Eric snorted. “Shoot a ­couple of them, the coppers will back off quick enough.”

  “We’re not going to start murdering ­people.”

  “We’ve been in tight spots before,” Eric snapped. “We’ve killed before. What’s your problem?”

  Trevor pulled Eric around so they were nose to nose. “We’re anarchists, not murderers. These ­people are innocent.”

  Eric shoved himself free. “We’re whatever I say we are.”

  “Bloody brilliant. So we kill them. Then what?”

  Eric glared. “You’ve gone soft, Trev.”

  Shite. He needed to be defusing the situation, not spinning Eric up until he felt he had no choice but to start shooting. Trevor forced himself to back off a step or two. “Maybe. But in Northern Ireland, we were at war. Here, we’re what, exactly? What’s the point of bombing museums?”

  Eric looked around the gallery. “I have my instructions. I tell you what, after this, I’ll catch you up.”

  He knew he needed to stop pushing. “Right. It’ll do. We need to make contact.”

  Eric looked around. “Jukes!”

  “Yeah?”

  He jerked his head. The teenager left his laptop and went to him.

  “Go get that fekking phone.”

  Jukes blanched. “Me?”

  Eric grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him forcibly toward the lobby. “Do it!”

  Jukes looked around, clearly uneasy, and lunged for a woman in her early twenties, who shrank from him. He grabbed her by the arm and hauled her to her feet. Shelby could see the whites of her eyes. Her body shook with fear as Jukes pulled her in front of him, exiting the exhibition hall into the lobby. Using her as a human shield. Every person in the gallery strained to hear. There was the screech of the metal bar lifting and the lock turning.

  “Back away!” Jukes shouted. Then, “Bend down and get it.”

  The hostage squeaked. “Help us,” she croaked.

  “Shut up, you moose.”

  The lock turned, the bar crashed down. In moments, they were back. Jukes released the woman, whose face regained some color as she scurried back to her spot on one of the benches.

  “Give it to me,” Eric ordered.

  “Sure, Eric. Whatever you say.” Jukes handed over a large-­screened smartphone. It began to ring.

  Eric pressed a button. “Clear off, or we start killing hostages . . . I don’t care what you need . . . No. Get us a helicopter with a pilot. You have one hour.”

  He tossed the phone onto a wide pedestal holding a male bust. It slid across the surface and nearly fell.

  “I can’t see what they’re doing from here,” Jukes complained. “This only gives me the front of the museum and the interior. A view of a loading door, maybe. I can’t tell what it is. They could come in, and we wouldn’t know till too late.”

  “Outer door?” Eric asked. “What’s going on there?”

  Jukes rolled his eyes. “I just told you I can’t see what’s back there. All I can see is a metal door that looks like it rolls up.”

  Eric turned his attention to the hostages. “Who works here? Who knows the back way out?”

  The hostages moaned or uttered little cries, but no one said a word.

  “Look, you lot,” Eric shouted. “We came in at closing time. Some of you work here. Speak up.”

  The cell phone began ringing again. With a curse, Eric picked it up. “Jukes, tie into the traffic cameras. We’ll be able to see better where the coppers are.” He pushed the button to answer the phone. “Why haven’t you cleared off yet?”

  He’d evidently turned on the speaker phone, because a soothing voice sounded from it. “Good morning. My name is Chief Inspector Tapley of Scotland Yard. What’s your name?”

  “You don’t need to know our names. We’re members of the Philosophy of Bedlam, that’s all you need to remember. You can call me E, though, if it makes you feel better.”

  “Well, E, you know that Great Britain does not negotiate with terrorists, right? So we have a bit of a pickle.”

  “We’re not terrorists. Bugger off.”

  “You know we can’t do that as long as you’re holding hostages. I need to know they’re all right.”

  “The government has become complacent and corrupt,” Eric said, ignoring him. “The only way to regain balance is through anarchy. Bring the government to its knees.”

  “You’ve attacked three other museums over the past six months. Might I inquire why?”

  Eric tightened his grip on the phone. “They’re symbols of the ridiculous path our society has taken. We can’t feed our hungry, but we can pay millions of pounds for some paint slapped on a canvas? Where are your priorities?”

  “I understand your position. And I know you don’t want to hurt those ­people. We can talk more about it after you let them walk out.”

  Eric laughed. “And my arse smells like rainbows. You’re part of the problem. You and the other coppers. Big yaps full of teeth and ignorance.”

  “I think we’re getting a little off track, here. I’d like to get this sorted as quickly as possible, obviously. Why don’t you release the hostages, and we can sit down and talk about your philosophy?”

  “Not going to happen.”

  “Can you at least tell me about the ­people in there with you? Are they well?”

  “They’re fine. Where’s our helicopter?”

  “We need more time for that. It’s not as easy as—­”

  “It’s as easy as you make it,” Eric said. “Things might get rough if you dick about. We’ll let the hostages go when we’re safe.”

  “That’s going to be har—­”

  “Dumb shite.” Eric pressed the button to end the call. He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it against a wall. “We do what we came to do.”

  “And what is that, precisely?” Trevor asked. “They could storm the place at any time. We need to find that back door.”

  “In my own bloody time, damn it.”

  A chill crawled down Trevor’s spine.

  “JAM YOUR HYPE, mate. Calm the fuck down.” Trevor balanced his assault rifle across his shoulders.

  Shelby shivered. In place of his normal cultured voice, harsh tones ripped from his throat. What the hell was going on?

  She’d easily identified the leader. Probably late twenties or early thirties, dark hair brushing his collar, tanned skin, the shadow of a beard da
rkening his jaw. Once he’d taken off his leather jacket, the scar running from below his ear and down his neck became visible. Good-­looking in a rough way. He swept the museum with eyes burning with some sort of fervor. She pressed her hands together. In her experience, zealots were the most dangerous human beings.

  “I don’t want to die.” The girl next to Shelby started to cry again.

  “We’re not going to die,” she said, wishing she believed her own words. She clamped her mouth closed as the tattooed woman glared in her direction, unable to control her body’s trembling or the slight quaver in her voice.

  She never thought she’d see Trevor again. She’d visited him once after their single night of passion, when he’d been wounded while stopping a group of terrorists from detonating a deadly cocktail of poisonous gases and killing hundreds of ­people. The visit had been short, and she’d left him, broken and bleeding, in the hospital on the airbase in Ma’ar ye zhad, Azakistan. Her requested transfer to London had nothing to do with the fact that he lived here. No, she’d fallen in love with London from the time she’d done a study abroad with the University of Alabama. When she’d come here, it was not with the hope of running into him. Absolutely not.

  Although, if they had run into one another, it ought to have been under better circumstances than her cowering near a pedestal with Floyd Panderson and the sobbing girl.

  Trevor seemed to tower over the hostages as he paced back and forth. Something was wrong with this picture. What the hell was Trevor doing with these terrorists? He served in Her Majesty’s Armed Forces, for God’s sake. In the Special Air Ser­vice. What had happened?

  Get a grip. You’re an analyst. Analyze.

  Special operations forces around the world worked clandestine operations. He hadn’t gone rogue. He’d gone undercover.

  The five terrorists and he made a rough-­looking group. He glowered and shouted and waved an automatic rifle around without ever really pointing it at them.

  He’d seen her. She knew that. But other than a slight tightening of his eyes, he’d betrayed no recognition. So neither did she. Until she learned his mission, the safest course for both of them was to pretend not to know one another.

  But she couldn’t stop her eyes from following him. Surely he would find a way to free them.

  Time crawled by. The police phone remained silent. The skinny, jittery teenager with the low Mohawk and big ears worked on his laptop, but she couldn’t see what he was doing. Eric, rifle slung over his shoulder, popped the magazine on his pistol and slammed it home again, over and over. Trevor paced. Fay leaned against a wall cradling her assault rifle in her arms, looking like she would relish shooting a hostage or two.

  The redhead and Crawley returned, pushing an elderly woman in front of them.

  “No one here but this old bat,” Nathan said. “Found her in the bleeding loo pulling up her knickers.”

  “Put her with the others.”

  Crawley shoved the woman toward the other hostages. Shelby leapt to her feet, catching the woman as she stumbled, and helped her to the ground.

  “Who are they?” the woman whispered. “What do they want?”

  “Shh!” Floyd motioned for her to be quiet.

  “Maybe we can reason with them. Get them to let us go.” The elderly woman squeezed the young girl’s hand, giving her a reassuring smile. Floyd remained silent, crouched behind her.

  “Somehow I don’t think they’re open to reason at the moment,” Shelby said. She swallowed several times. Floyd was the curator of the museum. He knew his stuff when it came to art, but Shelby found him less and less charismatic the longer he hid behind her. She shifted on her knees, wishing she’d worn something more practical than the close-­fitting red-­lace dress that hit her mid-­thigh and the matching strappy platform heels.

  “Trev, you and Fay collect the wallets and mobiles. You lot!” Eric shouted. “Anyone who doesn’t hand over a wallet and a mobile will be shot. Get me?”

  Trevor made a beeline for her. Their eyes met. He gave an almost infinitesimal shake of his head. She dipped hers once in response, but both remained silent as Shelby handed over her wallet and cell phone. Eyes narrowed, he glanced around before flipping open the wallet and slipping her United Nations identification from its plastic sleeve. As he made to pocket it, Fay joined him.

  “What’s that?” She snatched it from his hand. “UN? What are you, some sort of ambassador?”

  Trevor closed his eyes briefly.

  “No, nothing like that.” Shelby shook her head for emphasis. “I mostly just read things.”

  Fay snorted. “Read things? What kind of job is that? What do you read?”

  “Just . . . just reports, mostly.”

  The leader came over. “What’s the problem?”

  Fay gave him a look akin to hero worship. “We have a celebrity, Eric. This bitch works for the UN. She reads things.”

  Trevor snorted. “She’s nothing. A cog in a wheel. We have more important things to worry about.”

  Eric ignored Trevor and took Shelby’s ID, looking it over carefully. “What do you read?”

  “Reports on sweatshop conditions in third-­world countries. Substandard materials in clothing manufacturing. Child labor.”

  Eric took her wallet from Trevor, who looked like he wanted to protest, and looked through it. “Driving license, travel card for the Tube, credit cards. Starbucks gold card? You must drink a lot of coffee.”

  “She’s nothing,” Trevor said again. “A nobody.”

  The police cell phone began to ring again. With a grunt of irritation, Eric shoved her wallet into his pocket.

  “Check her phone,” he ordered Trevor. “Her contacts. See who she’s called. Fay, check the rest of them. See if we got an ambassador in here.”

  Trevor spent a few seconds pretending to look through her phone, glancing at her once or twice. Finally, he dropped the phone into the leg pocket of his cargo pants. Eric shut off the police phone without answering it. Fay went around the room, covered by the redhead, who wore an insolent half-­smile.

  “We still have the bomb. All I do is bung it, an’ Bob’s yer uncle,” Crawley said with a giggle. His high-­pitched, almost feminine voice froze Shelby’s innards. She’d never heard insanity before, but she knew she was hearing it now. The man’s bald head gleamed in the careful museum lighting, but the hair around the rest of his head bristled in all directions. Low brows pulled down over a round face highlighted small piggish eyes, made more so by the glasses he wore. Several days’ growth of beard marred his scruffy goatee. Of them all, he looked the most dangerous. His statement caused more cries and moans.

  “Shut your yaps!” growled Eric, running two fingers along his scar. “Crawley, do it.”

  Crawley stabbed his fingers inside the knuckled hilt of the knife at his waist and drew it from its sheath. The blade had a drop point and gatorback ridges, and showed signs of hard use. He started toward Memories of the Gods. Floyd sucked in a breath.

  “This one?”

  Eric slung his rifle over one shoulder and pulled a notebook from his pants pocket. He flipped through it, then pointed. “Yeah. And the one over there, too.”

  Crawley padded over to Shamblet’s Autumn in Madrid. The trees in the painting swirled with vibrant colors and shapes, leading the eye downward to a sea ablaze with fire, earth covered with water, and clouds frozen in place, icicles dripping. The painting was a masterpiece of surrealism, painted in 1932 by one of the geniuses of the period. Crawley didn’t pause to admire the brushstrokes, though, as he stabbed at the edges of the canvas with the point of his knife and sawed downward.

  “Stop it!” Shelby rose on shaking legs. “What are you doing?”

  “Shelby, get down!” Floyd reached up a hand and pulled at her wrist. The girl beside them whimpered and threw her arms over her head.

  Tre
vor whipped around to glare at her, warning clear in his eyes. “Shut up,” he growled, his voice deep and rough.

  Don’t put yourself in their path, he meant. Don’t let them notice you above any other hostage. The knowledge that he was trying to protect her warmed her.

  She had not treated him well during their last encounter. He’d been lying in a hospital bed, shot, with broken wrist and ribs. Hurt and disillusioned that he’d deserted her bed in the middle of the night to go to another woman, she’d ruthlessly squashed her budding feelings. Blurting out the first self-­preserving thing she could think of, she’d told him to forget about their unforgettable night, to pretend that magic had never happened, and to forget about her as well. She’d walked out of his hospital room, and had gone on a date with a Marine embassy guard.

  It had been a shitty thing to do. She lived with the shame of her actions every day. But she hadn’t been able to face the strength of her growing feelings in the face of his betrayal. She’d thought she’d put it all into perspective—­had almost convinced herself it hadn’t meant a thing—­until she caught sight of him. Right now, he acted like a growling, snapping dog. That didn’t change her memories one whit.

  Eric broke the frame of Autumn in Madrid and searched through the wreckage as Crawley grasped the much larger frame of Memories of the Gods and lifted it off its hanging hooks. An alarm immediately began to shriek.

  Fay put her hands over her ears. “Shut it off!”

  Jukes began tapping commands into his laptop. In about fifteen seconds, the high-­pitched noise cut off.

  “What do you intend to do after you mutilate that painting?” Shelby heard herself ask. At least her voice had stopped shaking. Although she was a political analyst, not a politician, she had acquired enough knowledge over the years to speak in a soothing yet authoritative voice. Establish a human connection. She’d used the technique often in her job to diffuse tension in a difficult situation. “If you go out the loading bay door, you can escape, right?”

  Museums always had discreet entrances where pieces of art were delivered or shipped elsewhere for special exhibits. Shelby chanced a sideways glance at Floyd. He would know. He remained silent, staring at the floor.