Too Far Gone

by Allison Brennan

  “I don’t know what to think,” Leo said. “I need to give him something—that I’m trying to help. But the bullhorn is bullshit. I need to talk to him one-on-one.”

  “I will not authorize you going in. He has fifteen hostages. We don’t know what he wants, I’m not giving him a cop.”

  “I don’t think he knows what he wants. Give me a second.”

  Young nodded and walked away. Leo took a deep breath, got on the bullhorn again. “Charlie, it’s Leo again. I have news about your friend Paul Grey. I want to tell you, but not shouting like this. Please call me. If you don’t want to get the phone we left at the door, find another phone in there and call me. My number is 555-1023. That goes to me only, 555-1023. I’ll answer.”

  He put the bullhorn down and watched the thermal feed. McMahon had stopped pacing.

  Lucy waited with Leo, hoping this worked.

  McMahon crossed the room and a few seconds later Leo’s tactical phone rang. He hit RECORD then answered.

  “This is Leo Proctor.”

  “Tell me about Paul.”

  “His wife filed a missing persons report. He didn’t come home from work on Monday. He didn’t fly anywhere, he hasn’t used his credit cards.”

  “They killed him.”

  “Who killed Paul?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “We’ll figure this out together, Charlie. I promise, I will find Paul. Did you see Paul on Monday?”

  “No. He didn’t show up and I knew he was dead. They killed him and I can’t remember!”

  Lucy frowned. Was Charlie thinking today was Monday? Or had he planned on meeting his friend Monday? Or was this all in his head?

  “Did you talk to Paul on Monday?” Leo asked.

  “No one understands. Paul had answers, now he’s dead. You’re next. You’re all next!”

  “Charlie, you need to calm down,” Leo said. He hadn’t raised his voice, but Charlie was talking over him and Leo kept his tone even in order to calm the gunman down. Lucy tried to make out what Charlie was rambling about, but it sounded nonsensical.

  “I’m listening, Charlie, but you can’t talk that fast,” Leo said. “Slow down, explain what happened. It’s just you and me right now. I’m listening.”

  “If I tell you,” Charlie whispered, “they’ll kill you, too.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “I don’t remember! Paul knew, he was going to tell me, and now he’s dead. I knew, but I don’t know anymore. But I’m dying. I might already be dead. God, I can’t think!”

  “Charlie, let’s talk face-to-face, okay?”

  Lucy winced. That was the last thing that Young would let the negotiator do—go in face-to-face with the gunman. Not without knowing exactly what his goals were. Lucy had taken risks in the past—most cops did when lives were on the line—but they hadn’t exhausted all other avenues yet. The wife was on her way, and often family could help calm a suspect down to the point of surrendering—especially when the suspect wasn’t angry with the family.

  “Let the hostages go and I’ll come in,” Leo said.

  Young heard that and shook his head. Leo turned his back on the commander and said, “Charlie, can you hear me? Let the hostages go and you and I will sit down and talk.”

  Silence. Leo glanced at the line and nodded. Charlie hadn’t hung up, but they couldn’t tell whether he was still listening. The thermal imaging had him pacing, but the phone was no longer to his ear. Either he’d left it on the counter—live—or was holding it in his pocket.

  “Paul’s dead,” Charlie said, his voice sounding distant. “Who did he talk to? Who killed him? They did. They can get to anyone. No one is that powerful. They are!”

  Charlie was having a conversation with himself. Leo glanced at Lucy and whispered, “Is he schizophrenic?”

  She shrugged and shook her head. She didn’t think he was; schizophrenia didn’t spontaneously show up one day in a forty-six-year-old man. But there could have been early signs that no one picked up on. “Doubtful.”

  “Drugs?”

  “Maybe. But I couldn’t begin to tell you what. Honestly, based on the very limited information we have I don’t think we can make any assessment on this. But everything he’s done so far makes me think he has an undiagnosed mental illness or possibly a brain tumor. There’s also the real possibility that something happened with his missing friend and that he hasn’t processed that information. Nearly all of his conversation is about Paul Grey, directly or indirectly.”

  Leo glanced at the thermal screen, then nodded. “He’s agitated, speaks clearly but isn’t making sense—at least to us. It’s like he’s having a partial conversation. The talking-to-himself part is beginning to worry me.”

  “Is he going to hurt anyone?” Young asked. “Because right now, he sounds stressed and he has fifteen innocent people and more than enough bullets to kill everyone.”

  “I don’t know,” Leo said, a sliver of frustration shining through his voice. He took a deep breath. “He has no history of violence until two months ago with the break-in at his former employer. If Kincaid’s theory is accurate, and he has a tumor or a mental illness, we can’t predict his behavior—he could put down his guns and walk out, or he could shoot someone. Based on what he’s said, I don’t think he wants to hurt anyone—but I would be concerned he’ll take his own life.”

  “I can’t trust that he won’t hurt an innocent in the process.”

  “I need to try again.”

  “Do it, but the first sign that he’s crossed the line, we’re breaching.” He stepped aside and put his SWAT team on alert.

  Leo closed his eyes. He tried talking into the phone. The line was still open, but they couldn’t hear anything except some movement and Charlie’s faint voice.

  Leo said into the bullhorn, “Charlie, you put down the phone. I can’t hear you. Please pick up the phone again, we need to talk. I have an idea where we can all walk out of this situation. But we have to talk.”

  To Young’s assistant, Leo said, “Wife?”

  “ETA ten minutes.”

  “Shit,” Leo muttered. He then said in the bullhorn, “Charlie, Lisa is almost here, and I think you should talk to her.”

  Charlie picked up the phone. “She’ll never forgive me.”

  “Love is powerful, Charlie. I talked to her only a few minutes ago. She loves you, she wants to talk to you.”

  “Tell her I love her and I’m sorry. They did this to me. I just don’t know how! I don’t remember why! I need to remember, but it’s gone. Everything’s gone.”

  “You need to tell her you love her,” Leo said. “She wants to hear it from you, Charlie.”

  “Someone here is with them.” Charlie’s voice took on a low, conspiratorial tone. “I don’t know who it is, but they’re everywhere. There’s here. They’re inside. They’re watching me. They’re watching you. We have to stop them. I have to stop them.”

  “Charlie, please show good faith. Release some of the hostages, it’ll—”

  But he’d already hung up.

  Young said, “I don’t like his state of mind, Leo. You did everything you could.” In his com he said, “On my command, execute Plan Delta. The gunman is alone in the northwest corner of the building—you have his description and photo. All hostages are prone on the ground, except one who is three feet to the gunman’s left, sitting. On three, two, one—go, go go!”

  Leo stared, his face twisted in a sharp sense of failure. Lucy stepped close to him, put her hand on his arm, and together they watched the body-cam feed from each of the team leaders. Two teams of six, one from the front and one from the rear, breached the coffee shop.

  The hostages began to scream. Through the jerky body cams, Lucy saw hostages down on the floor and Charlie McMahon standing at the counter, his hands on his head, each hand holding a small firearm aimed at the ceiling. SWAT identified themselves, ordered him to drop his weapons. Instead, Charlie turned and aimed the guns toward the SWAT team w
ho entered the rear. He fired one gun directly at the team leader, the small-weapon retort distinct. Before the echo subsided, several rifle shots were fired from three different SWAT team members, including the team leader. All three appeared to hit their target.

  McMahon went down.

  The team leader secured McMahon’s weapons while the rest of the teams swept the room for more hostiles, then quickly brought out the hostages. Two men stayed with the body.

  “Clear.”

  “Clear.”

  “Clear.”

  “Suspect down, hostages are free. I repeat, suspect is down and no hostages are injured.”

  Young nodded once.

  Leo turned and walked back to the FBI tactical truck. Lucy almost followed—he looked shell-shocked. Yancey shook his head. “Let him be.”

  “He did everything he could,” Lucy said.

  Yancey nodded. “Proctor has been the lead hostage negotiator for ten years, I’ve been here nearly as long. This is only the second time he couldn’t talk the guy down. He needs to be alone for a few.”

  Resisting the urge to sit with him, Lucy turned back to the scene in front of her. Fifteen men and women—including a mother with a toddler, and several teenagers—were escorted from the building and to safety.

  It could have gone very, very wrong. And while Charlie McMahon made his choice when he took the hostages, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for the man, who had clearly been suffering.

  A faint cry from behind her had Lucy turning. She saw a woman faint into the arms of a man in a sheriff’s uniform.

  Lisa McMahon. Charlie’s widow.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Cassidy Roth turned and walked back to her car, ignoring the commotion around her. Tears burned behind her eyes.

  She’d failed her friend and mentor.

  Charlie had been the only person she could really talk to. Not about personal stuff, but work. He didn’t find her off-putting as so many people did because she didn’t know what to say or do in social situations. He didn’t find her weird or too smart like most of the guys she’d known in high school. By the time she got to college, she wasn’t interested in talking to her peers at all. She really only connected with people in the biochem department.

  She walked several blocks to her car sweating in the heat and humidity, because the police had blocked off all the streets leading to Java Antonio. When she got to her car, she left the area and found herself stuck in traffic because of all the police detours. It took her several minutes to break free, and then she was on her way to Charlie’s apartment.

  She hadn’t been able to save him, but she would prove—somehow—that he’d been murdered.

  And not by the police. They may have pulled the trigger, but someone else set Charlie up.

  She called the only person she trusted.

  “Yep,” he answered.

  “Adam, it’s Cassidy.”

  “Hey, Cass, what’s up?”

  “I need your help. And I might need to use your lab.” Though she had no idea where she was going to get Charlie’s blood. She could get his hair follicles. Maybe that would be the way to go. And she had his writings. She had always been the smartest person in school, but she hadn’t been able to make sense of the code Charlie seemed to be writing in. But between her and Adam they could figure it out.

  She wished she had asked him sooner, but Charlie was so paranoid he wouldn’t let her talk to anyone. And the one person she’d reached out to on her own was now dead.

  “What’s wrong?” Adam sounded concerned.

  “It’s a long story, Adam. I’ll tell you everything on one condition. You can’t go to the police.”

  “Are you in trouble?”

  “No. But the police can’t do anything. This is a situation where they think the case is solved. I have to find something to convince them that Charlie was poisoned.”

  “Whoa, go back, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Dr. McMahon? Your boss?”

  “Yes. He was murdered and I need your help to prove it.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  One hundred and twenty-six minutes after Charles McMahon took fifteen patrons and employees of Java Antonio hostage, the situation was resolved with the gunman dead and no major injuries to law enforcement or civilians. It was a win–win as far as law enforcement was concerned, but Lucy couldn’t help but feel sad for what McMahon had been going through that led him to such a desperate act. Normally she didn’t have a lot of compassion for people who took their ill fortune out on the innocent. But it was clear that something else had been going on in McMahon’s head, and she hoped they could figure out what it was.

  Lieutenant Young coordinated the aftermath of the SWAT takedown. He segregated the hostages into groups, had a paramedic look at each one, had his officers collect names, addresses, and photos of each hostage for the records, and take preliminary notes. SAPD crime scene techs went into the coffee shop to process the evidence. The body was guarded until the coroner arrived to take custody. A media information officer was already on scene to answer press questions, and two counselors as well as clergy were available to the hostages.

  A thorough investigation was just beginning, which would include interviewing each witness for a formal statement in order to re-create the events prior to law enforcement involvement. Detectives would be assigned to talk to everyone in McMahon’s life, search his residence, vehicle, storage lockers, computers, and phone, analyze his finances, and more.

  Especially in a case like this where there was no known motive, the gunman may have said or done something that could give them information on this situation, as well as help them in future armed conflicts. He may have left a note at home. There could be internet browser history that might give them information as to what he had been thinking when he fired a gun in a public coffee shop. They might never know why, but they would do everything they could to uncover the truth.

  Though this was an SAPD case, most high-profile crimes were handled by a joint task force. With diminishing law enforcement funding, many FBI offices worked closely with local police departments to pool information and resources. Lieutenant Young was taking lead, and the first thing he did was pull Leo aside.

  Lucy didn’t know what they were talking about, but it was a quietly intense conversation that lasted several minutes. Then they parted and Leo walked away from everyone. Yancey and Lucy focused on downloading the tactical videos for analysis. In a situation like this, deadly force wouldn’t be questioned, but every officer-involved shooting was investigated fully. That meant talking to all SWAT members, and hostages, as well as reviewing the body-cam video and any verbal communications. All that was handled administratively. Each officer or agent who fired a weapon would have to surrender it, be put on mandatory leave for a minimum of three days, and be debriefed and cleared for duty by a medical professional, usually a psychologist.

  Several minutes later Lieutenant Young came over to Lucy. “I tried to get your boss to walk away and let me handle the investigation, but he’s stubborn. He talked to ASAC Durant and she cleared him to work on the joint task force. You and”—Young looked at his notes— “Lopez?”

  “Yes, sir, Jason Lopez.”

  “You two are also assigned to the task force for the duration, and Yancey, if you can be available for any tech issues that may arise when admin reviews the video and transcripts. Plus, we need a write-up and analysis of the thermal imaging program. You know the drill.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Three officers took shots, one was yours—Dunning. They’ve all been relieved for the next three days pending debrief and psych eval. But tell Dunning it was a righteous kill, we don’t have anything to feel bad about here. Other than the shooter, no one is hurt. That’s a win.”

  “You’ve known Leo a lot longer than I have,” Lucy said, “but I think he can handle this. He probably wants to find the answers—the why—to what happened with McMahon.”

  “He’s tough, and I told
him we had no other choice. The guy was unhinged. But the plan was not to fire unless he turned his weapons on us. My guys are good—they would have held off. But you saw the feed.”

  She nodded. “McMahon aimed two guns at the lead team member and fired one. He had no choice.”

  Young listened in his earpiece, said something into his radio she couldn’t make out, then turned back to Lucy. “My people are interviewing all the witnesses,” Young said, “with Detectives Tia Mancini and Keith Hastings taking point. All reports will go through them so we can coordinate our investigation. Lopez is with them. I don’t know when we’ll be done here—it could take the rest of the day. You talked to the wife—did she give an official statement?”

  Lucy shook her head. “She asked for a couple of minutes to pull herself together. Her sister-in-law is getting her kids from summer camp, and until she knows they’re home safe I don’t think she’s going to be much help. But we need to formally interview her—and if I may, possibly take over the Paul Grey missing persons case from the sheriff. It may have been the trigger.”

  “I’ve already talked to the sheriff, it’s ours. FBI can take lead.”

  Leo returned to the group, and Young asked, “Are you sure you want to do this—McMahon could have killed Grey and blocked it out, or was playing us. You don’t have to be part of the investigation.”

  “I’m in, Jordan, don’t push.”

  “Just trying again. You want to take the wife?”

  Leo nodded. “I just spoke to her brother, Travis County Deputy Trevor Olsen. She’s talking to her kids now, but she wants to talk to us. Olsen suggested later—at his place—but I want to do it now, then follow up tomorrow. We need a clear direction here, and she might know something she doesn’t realize. The guy was in distress and we owe it to him, to the hostages, and to his family to figure out what brought him to this point.”