Chapter 16 #2
She found Luis out there with his laptop under an arm, his phone to his ear. She hadn’t even noticed he’d stepped out to make a call. Based on what she overheard he was on with the hospital that had the donor heart.
Elwood’s line was ringing in her ear by the time she hit the pavement. He picked up on the second one. “Tell me the nightmare is over.”
She hesitated, considered sugarcoating things somehow, but settled on the cold reality. “The nightmare just got worse.”
“Don’t tell me it has anything to do with Maddox.”
“I wish I could. The gunman on the fourth floor has him.”
“Tell me you’re kidding.”
“He threatened to kill Maddox. So we assume he’s still alive.”
“Assume? Dear God.”
“I couldn’t get proof of life before the line went dead. But there was earlier gunfire, and it’s possible someone else was injured.”
“Or Maddox is dead already, and this guy is trying to extend his leverage.”
“I don’t think so. He referred to Maddox earlier as his insurance.” The words were out before she caught her slip.
“You want to repeat that.”
She really didn’t. “We just need to watch our steps.”
“Damn straight. From what you told me this hostage taker has shown himself capable of pulling the trigger. What’s the next step?”
“This just happened, but I don’t see how it changes our approach.
” Sandra brought him up to speed on the incident, realizing on the recap how little progress they had made.
At least they had one man in custody for today’s incident.
There was no word from Eric about his interrogation with Stevie Cross.
There must not be anything worth sharing.
“Well, I appreciate the heads-up. I will bring this to the attention of the FBI director, and he will make what he will of it.” Elwood hung up on that ominous note.
Myron Hamilton wasn’t a man who took things lightly or rolled with what came his way. It’s how he made it to the top. Hamilton was a man of action with little patience for incompetence. Possibly little patience, period. That was the part that worried Sandra.
She was about to return inside, when Brice came out of the vehicle.
“How did he take that?” he asked her.
“It’s not Elwood I worry about. But he was happy for the heads-up.”
Brice nodded. “Helps us get a little ahead of the storm anyhow. Because you know there will be a storm.”
“I hope you’re wrong.” She went back into the vehicle, determined to return to work.
“I really think we should consider moving in.” Kreiger’s suggestion came out flat, like he wasn’t on board with it, but it was his comfortable fallback position.
“Absolutely not,” she pushed out. “You do that, and you will sign Jordon Maddox’s death warrant.”
“The gunman isn’t talking to you, and he made it clear he’d put a bullet in Maddox’s head if you called again.”
“Standard course for crisis negotiation. Lives are always threatened,” Sandra said.
“Don’t tell me you’re taking this lightly?” Kreiger served back.
“Trust me. I take it very seriously.” She made herself a coffee, with everyone watching her, and sat back at her workstation.
“When Mickey, we’ll call him that for the lack of something better, got on the walkie-talkie with his accomplice, she fired back with ‘stick to the plan.’ Mickey is going off-plan by taking Maddox.
I suspect he was seen as an opportunity. ”
“Or as Mickey put it, insurance,” Monica pitched in.
“Exactly. Leveraging Maddox wasn’t today’s goal. It was happenstance, a lucky turn of events for the gunman. He’s unlikely to hurt him.”
Kreiger took a deep breath, inflating his chest. “Unlikely,” he muttered.
“I believe Mickey acted on his own here,” she said.
“So you believe this guy went off-plan? Then what’s to say he won’t go further off the path?” Kreiger raised his eyebrows.
Sandra didn’t want to admit it was possible. Not out loud, especially to Kreiger, who seemed to be itching for a reason to move in.
“Well…” Kreiger prompted her.
“You want me to say something? I’m not a mind reader, never claimed to be. But I am pretty good at detecting underlying indicators. One of these tells me, he won’t shoot Maddox.”
“Agreed. He’s a bargaining chip, as awful as that sounds,” Brice wedged in.
Sandra wanted to get on the phone, but she needed time to consider a strategy before doing so.
Luis was also still outside, and he could provide her with direct numbers for the nurses’ stations.
She’d use this time to further discuss what had just happened with Mickey.
“There is always more that isn’t being said.
To start, what are the base emotional drivers at play here?
We can dispute it all we want, but humans are emotional creatures.
These emotions make us do things, so what made these people—three, that we know of—go into Founders Hospital with guns today? ”
“Whatever it was, it required them to be left alone,” Brice suggested. “The infected system, the jammer.”
“They were buying time,” Gibson said.
“Exactly, and I think it was Mickey’s lack of control over that timeline that had him take Maddox as insurance,” Sandra put in.
“And I sense contention between Mickey and the woman,” Monica said.
Sandra nodded. “She certainly wasn’t pleased by the interruption or Mickey being on the walkie-talkie.”
“She had to know we’d overhear the conversation,” Brice began. “She feared it would jeopardize their goal.”
“Yes, so she’s hyper-focused, but Mickey is making impulsive decisions based on emotion,” Sandra reasoned.
“Just what you want to hear when he’s got Maddox within reach,” Kreiger griped.
“The guy also has a bad sense of humor. Pulling out Mickey Mouse at a time like this. Despicable,” Gibson said while scribbling the name on the markerboard.
“The humor could simply be a deflection,” Monica reasoned. “He might not want to even be involved today.”
“Yet he threatened a man’s life, to a Fed, no less,” Neal said. “It’s too late to unring that bell.”
“Not that we’re disputing this, but we have more to support that Mickey isn’t in charge,” Brice said. “In his exchange with you, I noticed he stuck to the singular pronoun of I.”
Sandra nodded. “I picked up on that too.”
“Either of you want to elaborate?” Neal asked.
Brice gestured for Sandra to do so. “Shot callers generally use plural pronouns such as we, they, and them. Since this guy stuck to I, this tells us he has very little, if any, power over this situation.”
“Hence, taking Maddox hostage would make him feel more powerful and in control,” Neal said.
“Precisely.” Sandra didn’t say anything else because Luis came back into the vehicle.
He had everyone’s attention as he sat back at the table and set his laptop down again. “So I called the donor coordinator…”
“What is it?” Sandra coaxed out of him.
“Bad news. The surgery is scheduled, and people are relying on other organs from that donor. It can’t be pushed off.”
“Son of a bitch,” Kreiger muttered and slammed his fist into the palm of his other hand.
“Ah.” Luis’s cheeks flamed bright red. “And now they know about our situation, they are prepping the next heart recipient on the list for possible transplant.”
“They’re not even giving us a chance here?” Neal’s voice was strained.
“They are, but if things aren’t worked out here by nine PM, Phoebe Chapman’s heart will go to someone else. But everything should be, uh, wrapped up by then, shouldn’t it?” Luis looked at his wristwatch.
“These things take the time they take,” Brice said solemnly. “And sometimes that’s far longer than we’d like.”
“Oh.”
The tiny utterance from the emergency director’s lips hit like an anvil tossed into water. The repercussions rippled out, reminding all of them of the stakes involved.