“I’m not letting anyone go a minute before I get my money.”
“I hear what you’re saying, but let me be straight with you. This is not a threat. All I’m trying to do is give you an accurate picture of what you’re up against. The police have surrounded the entire building. The FBI is here. Miami-Dade Police Department is here, too. They have shut down the entire area. It’s going to be really difficult for you to escape with or without your money. So let’s make a deal here and now, all right? You let one of the hostages go, and I’ll tell the boys in the SWAT van to back off. We cool with that?”
Demetri didn’t answer. Andie saw that as a good sign. Immediate rejection punctuated with profanity would have been a bad sign.
Andie said, “You just take a deep breath and think about letting one of those hostages go. It would count for a lot if you did, Demetri. A little goodwill goes a long way.”
“Who the hell are you to be talking about goodwill?”
The sudden change of tone took Andie aback. “Take it easy, Demetri.”
“No, you just shut up and listen to me. I know it was you who tried to set me up when your boyfriend went to the Smithsonian. I watched the whole thing go down. I saw you come running out to get Swyteck on the museum steps. I know who you are, and I know you’re a liar.”
“Things are going to be handled different this time.”
“No they aren’t. You are no different from any cop I’ve ever met. You will lie to get whatever you want.”
The mood swing was startling. Despite that brief display of humor at the top of the phone call, Demetri was obviously starting to feel the pressure.
Andie said, “I won’t lie to you.”
“Like hell you won’t. Liars always lie. And you are a fucking liar!”
“Demetri, calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down! I’m in control here, not you. Just get me my money, and stop stalling.”
“I’ll call you in an hour.”
“Don’t. Just don’t-unless you’re calling to tell me you got my money.”
“Let’s work this out together. You’ve got two hostages. Why not let one go?”
“I ain’t letting nobody go.”
“Demetri, listen to me. Let one of the hostages go. You don’t need three. You only need one.”
“That’s exactly right. All I need is one. So get me my money, or somebody’s gonna die-live on television.”
Demetri hung up.
Andie breathed deep and let it out.
“You okay?” said Schwartz.
Andie felt her hand shaking just a bit as she put the phone down. “Yeah, I’m good.”
Figueroa said, “It’s time to consider a breach.”
“No,” said Andie.
“He’s this close to snapping. Can’t you hear it in his voice?”
“It’s his accent. Greek uses a narrower pitch range than English, and to our ear, he can sound angrier than he really is.”
“How do you know that?” said Schwartz.
She’d learned it while watching the 2004 Summer Olympics from Athens on TV, but that wouldn’t have impressed anyone. “I just know these things,” she said. “Just like it’s time to work something out with the money.”
Figueroa said, “The director has made MDPD’s position on this crystal clear: We don’t give money to hostage takers. Period.”
“Why not, if it gets the hostages released? We have two SWAT teams here. He isn’t going to leave the building with it.”
Figueroa said, “We can’t let the entire television world see us hand over a half million dollars in exchange for three hostages.”
Andie looked at her boss. Schwartz said, “He has a point there, Andie. We don’t want copycats across the country.”
“Use marked bills. That won’t encourage copycats.”
“It just won’t work,” said Figueroa.
“We have to try,” said Andie. “He’s already killed a security guard, at least one and maybe two Russian mobsters, and two sisters in Washington. He has absolutely nothing to lose by killing again. If we can get the hostages out of there in exchange for a suitcase full of marked bills, I say that’s a good deal.”
Figueroa looked as if he were going to explode. “You think maybe your judgment is clouded because your boyfriend is one of the hostages inside? The FBI conveniently failed to mention that little detail to me.”
“Nothing is clouding my judgment,” said Andie.
“If you think that, I say you’re out of your mind.”
“I say it isn’t your call,” said Andie.
His eyes were like lasers.
“We’ll see about that,” he said.
Figueroa turned on his heel and slammed the door on his way out.
Chapter 46
“Swyteck, get over here,” said Demetri.
Jack was sitting alone on the floor in front of the news desk. Shannon had talked Demetri into letting her use the nearest bathroom, which was just off the back of the set. Two untied hostages-the anchor woman and the cameraman-were clearly making Demetri edgy, not to mention the constant threat of SWAT bursting into the newsroom at any moment. He stood by the weather-forecast green screen, where he could keep one eye on the barricaded entrance to the newsroom and the other on the bathroom door behind the set.
“What do you want?” said Jack.
“I said come here.”
Jack climbed to his feet and walked to the back of the set. Demetri had been extremely quiet since his last performance in front of the camera, and as 2:00 A.M. approached, he was looking tired. He’d been mumbling about his back hurting until he found a first-aid kit with some pain reliever inside. The red box was sitting on the news desk. Jack wondered if there was a pair of scissors or maybe a knife inside.
“What now?” said Jack.
Demetri turned off his wireless microphone. Whatever he was going to say, it wouldn’t be for the television audience.
“I need your help,” he said.
“My help?” said Jack, almost smiling at the absurdity of the situation. “Look, you’ve got three guns by my count, which clearly puts you in the driver’s seat. But I’m not interested in helping you do anything that could get someone killed. Especially me.”
“This isn’t going to hurt anyone. I just need you to help me draft something.”
“You mean like a demand letter?”
“No,” he said, pausing for a moment. “It’s something legal.”
“A confession?”
“No-hell no. I need a will.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?”
Jack studied those dark, piercing eyes. Being held hostage was bad enough. Getting stuck with a hostage taker who was so prepared to die that he seriously wanted a will was enough to ruin your whole damn day.
“I’d have to say you look pretty serious to me.”
“You’re a lawyer. I assume you do wills, right?”
“Well, not really. I’m a trial lawyer.”
“Are you trying to tell that me you’ve never helped anyone with a will?”
Jack could have told him about the time he’d represented Theo’s older brother Tatum-a reformed hit man who had stood to inherit millions in a six-way battle of survival of the greediest-but that probably wouldn’t have helped matters.
“I could do a will if I had to,” said Jack.
“You have to,” he said, pointing the gun at Jack’s forehead. Demetri called down the hall to the bathroom. “Hey, hurry it up in there, princess.”
The toilet flushed. A minute later, the door opened, and Shannon emerged.
Demetri said, “Hands up over your head where I can see them.”
She complied, walked straight to Demetri, and stopped.
“Facedown on the floor,” he said.
She did as he told her. Demetri quickly retied her hands behind her back, and then he directed both her and Jack back toward the news desk.
“You,” he told Shannon, “get on the floor.”
Jack remained behind the news desk. Demetri found a pad and paper in the drawer.
“Here’s the deal,” said Demetri. “When I get this five hundred thousand dollars in cash, I want it all to go to Sofia. I have some other personal things I want to leave to her, too.”
“It’s a nice sentiment,” said Jack. “But that’s not going to work.”
“Why not?”
“You can’t steal money and leave it to your heirs.”
“I have friends who do it all the time. Hell, how else do you expect an entire generation of baby boomers to leave something to their kids?”
Jack glanced toward the camera. “The problem is, you’re trying to do it on television.”
“Just tell me what to write. I promise I won’t sue you for malpractice.”
Jack suddenly had visions of Body Heat and Kathleen Turner saying that she liked him because he was “not too smart.”
“It would be a lot easier if you just untied me and let me write it for you.”
Demetri gave it some thought, and to Jack’s surprise he called the cameraman over, whose hands were free.
“Untie Swyteck,” said Demetri.
He did so at gunpoint, and then Demetri ordered him back behind the camera. Jack took the chair at the news desk, pen and paper before him. Demetri stood off to the side, where he could keep the gun trained on Jack and still read what he was writing. Jack took a deep breath. He’d become a trial lawyer for many reasons, and disdain for drafting legal documents of any kind was one of them.
“I need your last name,” said Jack.
“Pappas.”
Jack inked out some language he recalled from law school. It was probably archaic, but clients expected that kind of stuff.
I, Demetri Pappas, being of sound mind and body…
“What’s Sofia’s last name?” said Jack.
He started to answer, then checked his words. “Pappas,” he said.
“You understand that Sofia remarried, right?”
Demetri’s eyes narrowed. “Her name is Sofia Pappas.”
Jack sensed another opening, an emotional point of leverage that could shift the balance of power. It was a skill he had honed on death row, where careful navigation through his clients’ personal demons could spark connections with men who were beyond reach.
Jack put down the pen and said, “Why are you doing this?”
“Keep writing.”
“You’re doing this for Sofia? Is that it?”
He looked angry for a second, but if Jack was reading his expression correctly, it seemed to be morphing into something more complicated.
“I’m not mocking you,” said Jack. “I’d just really like to know.”
On the desk was a cup of water left over from the evening news, and Demetri drank it, as if his throat suddenly needed oiling.
“Right before I let Sofia out of your car tonight, do you remember what she said to me?”
“Not really,” said Jack.
“She said ‘I don’t deserve this.’”
“That meant something to you,” said Jack. It was an observation, not a question.
Demetri nodded. “I know she wasn’t trying to hurt me or blame me, but it opened up old wounds. Things that I had hoped were healed. She was talking about a night a long time ago in Cyprus, when we were young. It began as pure pleasure.”
Plezoor. A nostalgic moment seemed to trigger the accent.
“Until you got thrown off the building,” said Jack.
“She told you about that?”
“Yes.”
He seemed surprised, then tentative. “Did she tell you what those bastards did after they thought I was dead?”
“She told me what happened.”
“Everything?” said Demetri. “She told you everything?”
“Yes.”
Demetri breathed in and out. “I suppose it’s healthy that she can talk to people about it now. That wasn’t always the case. She wouldn’t even report it to the police. We tried to work through it, but it was too much. We lasted less than a year. Nine months.”
“Do you mean exactly nine months?”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
“Nine months from that night, or nine months after you got out of the hospital?”
“From that night.”
“Are you saying that Sofia was-”
“Just write the damn will, Swyteck.”
Jack took a moment to read the man’s eyes, his body language, his voice-trying to gauge whether the opening was still there. On death row, if you pushed the wrong emotional button, you called for the guard. The gun in Demetri’s hand made the risk of error prohibitive.
Jack picked up the pen, explaining aloud as he wrote.
“I’m drafting this so that everything you have when you die-whether it’s five hundred thousand dollars or five cents-goes to Sofia.”
“That’s the way I want it,” said Demetri.
Jack finished the paragraph in short order, then drew several signature lines at the bottom of the page.
“We’ll need three people to witness your signature,” said Jack.
“Aren’t we in luck? I have three hostages.”
“Yeah, but here’s an important point. In order for this will to be valid under the law, all three witnesses have to be alive to confirm that this is really your signature. So if any one of us gets killed here-well, there goes your will. Sofia gets nothing.”
Demetri gave him an assessing look. He seemed to sense that Jack was bluffing-and in fact, Jack had been bluffing all the way, starting with his claim that three witnesses were required.
“I got a better idea,” said Demetri.
He took the handwritten will and the pen from Jack and walked across the news set to the camera. Holding the paper right in front of the lens, he put his signature at the X. Then he folded up the will and tucked it into his pocket.
“Now I have a million witnesses,” he said. “All of us can die.”
Chapter 47
Secret Service Agent Frank Madera went straight from the Miami International Airport to the Action News standoff.
He hadn’t told the FBI that he was coming, and he assiduously avoided contact with the feds after his arrival. Instead, he tracked down Manny Figueroa in a coffee shop adjacent to the studio. The MDPD SWAT unit had made it their official staging area. Its location was strategic-in a building separate from the studio but within the traffic control perimeter, so that they could mobilize without the entire world knowing about it. Figueroa was standing beside a table of doughnuts and coffee when Madera introduced himself as a member of the president’s elite personal security detail. It was enough to impress anyone, and Madera had his full attention as he explained-falsely-that the Secret Service had arrived to help protect the son of the vice presidential nominee.
“I hope you didn’t bring your own mobile command center,” said Figueroa.
“No,” said Madera. “That’s not what we do. Can you and I talk in private?”
A half dozen members of the SWAT unit were seated nearby in the dining area, waiting for the green light from Figueroa. They seemed incredibly calm, as they were trained to be. In a matter of minutes, one of these guys might storm a building and pump hollow-point ammunition into a man’s skull. Or not. It all depended on how things went. Madera was determined to have a say in that.
“Sure,” said Figueroa. “Step into my office.”
Madera followed him into the men’s room. Figueroa locked the door. Madera stood near the sink with his back to a cracked mirror. Figueroa leaned against the wall beside the electric hand dryer. Madera had never met the man, but he was trained to make quick judgments about people, and he’d already concluded that Figueroa was capable of blowing more hot air than the hand dryer.
“Let me just say this up front,” said Figueroa. “I’ve already backed down to the FBI on leading the negotiations, and I can see th
at it was a mistake. I’m not backing down to the Secret Service on top of it.”
“Take it easy, all right?” said Madera. “I told you that’s not what this is about, and I’m shooting straight here.”
Figueroa looked skeptical, but he didn’t argue.
“Here’s the bottom line,” said Madera. “This gunman has to go.”
“Excuse me?” said Figueroa.
Madera gave him his most serious look. “The man is a threat to national security. It’s time to take him out.”
Figueroa paused, taking in Madera’s words. “What kind of threat to national security?”
“I can’t divulge the details, but I can tell you this much. It’s no coincidence that one of his hostages is the son of the next vice president of the United States. Nor is it a coincidence that he’s taken control of a television news station. The secrets he intends to reveal on the air are a direct threat to our national security.”
“That’s all fine and good,” said Figueroa. “But you’ve got the FBI here, and they have their own SWAT. Why are you talking to me?”
“It’s not like I’m enlisting a bunch of yahoos. MDPD is the one of the largest local law enforcement outfits in the United States. Its SWAT unit is top notch, and unlike most tactical units, your men have experience, not just training.”
“Well, thanks for the blow job, but I’m not sure I really heard an answer to my question.”
“I can’t use the FBI.”
“Why not?”
“Again, I will be totally honest with you, but if you ever repeat it to anyone, I will deny it vehemently. But only after cutting your balls off. Is that clear?”
“Crystal.”
“Have you ever dealt with the Federal Bureau of Investigation?”
“Of course.”
“And has it ever occurred to you that it’s impossible to spell bureaucracy without the bureau?”
Figueroa smiled. “You’ve got a point there.”
“We need to neutralize this threat immediately, and it’ll be dawn before I can get kill-shot authority from the ‘bureau-cracy.’”
“Longer,” said Figueroa.
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