Herbert Burkholz - Brain Damage

Just short of an hour later I sat in the truck with Sammy and Martha. Lou Ritter was at his bank of phones, and Captain Costello was at his. The truck was crowded with police brass, but they were letting Costello carry the ball. He had been there before. So had I. He was talking on the phone with the mayor.

"Yes sir, we're in telephone communication with him," he was saying. "He's holed up in the box office, and what we have here is your basic hostage situation. He has three women in there, and he says he's going to shoot one of them in ten minutes unless we meet his demands." He listened. "He wants what they all want, safe conduct to JFK and an aircraft out of here to Tripoli. No, no money. Yes sir, exactly. We have the streets around the Hall secured, we have a SWAT team standing by, and we're about to send in a negotiator. No, a specialist, a federal man. I've worked with him before." Costello, listening, looked at me and shrugged helplessly. He was lying to the mayor. We had never worked together, but he had worked with Martha and Vince on a hostage job, and he knew what we could do. "Yes sir, the chief is here, I'll put him on." He handed the phone to one of the brass, and turned to me.

"Mayor wanted to know why we aren't using one of our own people," he said. "It was a little difficult to explain."

I nodded. The mayor was new on the job. He had a limited amount of experience, and a limited federal clearance. He didn't know about folks like me. Costello knew. People like me made him nervous, but he knew that there was no one better than a sensitive in a hostage situation. All of us had done it at least once.

"You don't have to make this your pigeon," Sammy said for perhaps the fifth time. "I can send in Vince or Snake. You've gotten yourself involved."

"You've got it backwards," I told him. "I'm the best for the job because I'm involved."

Martha put her hand on my arm. "You're carrying a load of guilt about this. Don't let it get in the way."

"I let him get by me. I was trying to play God again."

"Just get those people out. Don't think about anything else."

"I let him get by."

"Ben, you're on," said Ritter. He was handling the phone to the box office. "We're feeding him the usual bullshit about the aircraft, getting it ready, mechanical delays, blah, blah, blah, but he's getting real antsy. Says to get over there now or he starts shooting."

"On my way. What's the drill?"

"We've cleared the lobby. You go in with your hands out in front of you, and you go straight to the box office window. It's like a teller's window, with bulletproof glass. You belly up as close as you can to the window, and put your hands in sight on the ledge. He'll talk to you through the window."

"How does he sound?"

"Cold. Almost casual."

I asked Sammy, "Any instructions?"

"You've been there before. Promise him anything, but give him bupkis."

I left the truck and started across the street. Fifty-seventh was empty of traffic, cordoned off, and bright with lights. Chicken caught up with me and matched my stride. I said, "What do you want now?"

"Thirty seconds."

"I don't have thirty seconds." I kept on walking.

He grabbed my arm and pulled. I was so surprised that I let him pull me around. "Damn it, you listen. Just for once, you listen to me."

"Thirty seconds."

"It may not mean much, but it worked for me on the Sextant job."

"Christ, that again?"

"Just one thing. Don't speak to him in English, use Arabic. You speak to him in his mother tongue, get it? It worked for me. I spoke to Sextant in Slovenian, and it rocked him, it really did. It took him right out of the role he was playing. And don't call him Safeer, call him Hassan. That worked for me, too."

He stopped, and looked at me expectantly. I tried not to grin. He wasn't being a wiseass, he was really trying to help, and I could not get myself to tell him that what he was suggesting was basic to the job. It was something we all had learned years before. He had learned it too, but at his age when you learn something like that you think that you've invented it.

"I'll try it that way," I told him. "Thanks. Anything else?"

"No, just that. Uh… take care, you know?"

"I will."

I went into the lobby of the Hall. It was brightly lit, and empty. I kept my hands in sight as I walked to the box office window. I got as close to the window as I could and put my hands on the ledge. His face appeared in the window. It was a cold face, with eyes that showed nothing.

"Peace be with you."

"And with you peace."

"I am the negotiator," I said in the Cairene dialect. "I am here to make sure that all goes smoothly."

"There is nothing to negotiate. You know my demands. Is the aircraft ready?"

"It will be ready shortly. There have been some delays."

"Ground transportation?"

"It is being prepared."

"Standard answers," he said disdainfully. "The standard tactic, delay and delay. That will not work with me. I want the transport now, or the killing begins."

"I cannot give you what I do not have. Be patient. It is a matter of minutes."

"While you surround the place with troops."

"The place is already surrounded. I must know if the hostages are safe."

"They are safe. They have not been harmed."

"I cannot see them."

"They are lying on the floor. Shall I shoot one in the leg so you can hear her scream?"

"There is no need for that. Just be patient. As soon as I get the signal, you will leave for the airport."

By this time I was into his head, combing through it quickly, searching for whatever I might be able to use. Considering the circumstances, his mind was under remarkable control. At the top of his thoughts was how we had found him, and he put it into words.

"Do you know who I am?" he asked.

"We know you."

"How did you know I was here? Was I betrayed?"

"Do you really expect me to answer that?"

"No, of course not. What is your name?"

"Benjamin."

"As you know, I am called Safeer. Have you done this work before?"

"Yes."

"Then we may speak as professionals. As you know, my position depends on your belief that I will kill, and since you know who I am, you know that I will." He spoke as if quoting from a textbook. "If my demands are not met, I will kill, and I will kill again. I am willing to kill even if it means losing my last hostage, which means that I too will die. I am not afraid of death, Benjamin. Death is my brother, and when the time comes for me to join him I will do so willingly. You know this about me, you know that I mean it, and so we must stop all this talk about delays." He looked at his watch. "Either my ground transportation is outside within ten minutes, or I will kill one of the women. Is that understood?"

So far the conversation had been going along the classic lines for a terrorist and a negotiator. It was time to change the script. I said, "No."

His eyes narrowed. "No? What does that mean?"

"It means that Safeer would certainly kill that way, but not Hassan Rashid."

He handled it well. His mind whirled, but his face did not change. He raised the pistol and pointed it at me.

"The glass is bulletproof," I reminded him.

He lowered the pistol. "What do you know about Hassan Rashid?"

I told him what I knew. I told him about the lonely exchange student who came to Van Buren and learned to play basketball. I told him about fatherly Mike Teague, and Mutt and Jeff, and the Pom-Pom Queen. I told him about the Poodle, about the baby, about the monthly payments to Violet Simms. I told him all about myself, and he listened carefully.

"Who else knows all this?" he asked.

"I am the only one," I lied.

"And who are you besides being Benjamin?"

"A man who knows many things. A man who knows how to keep secrets."