Robert Crais - Hostage

“We wait until he’s about halfway across the yard, then we shoot him.”

Dennis heard his own heartbeat. He heard his breath flow across his teeth, a faraway hiss.

Mars spread his hands at the simple beauty of it.

“Then they’ll know we mean business, and we’ll have something to trade.”

Dennis tried to tell himself that Mars was kidding, but he knew that Mars was serious. Mars meant every word.

“Mars. We couldn’t do something like that.”

Mars looked curious.

“I could. I’ll do it, if you want.”

Dennis didn’t know what to say. Overhead, the helicopters beat louder. He went to the shutters and pretended to look out, but the truth was that he couldn’t look at Mars any longer. Mars had scared him.

“I don’t think so, dude.”

“You don’t?”

“No. We couldn’t do that.”

The bright intensity in Mars’s eyes faded like a candle losing its flame, and Mars shrugged. Dennis felt relieved. He told them to watch out for the cops, then he once more walked through the house. He went into every downstairs room around the perimeter of the house, checking each window to see if he could use it to sneak out, but all of the windows were in plain view of the cops. Dennis knew that his time was running out. If he was going to get out, he had to do it soon, because more cops were on the way. He moved along the rear of the house, through the family room and into the garage. He hoped to find some kind of side door, but instead he came to a small utility bathroom at the end of a workshop off the garage. A sliding window with frosted glass was let into the wall above the sink. Dennis opened it, and saw the heavy leaves of an oleander bush, dark green and pointed, thick against the dusty screen. He pressed his face to the screen and peered out, but it was impossible to see very much in the growing darkness. The window was on the street side of the wall that enclosed the backyard, but was hidden by the oleander. If the oleander wasn’t there the cops out front would be able to see him. Dennis pushed out the screen, taking care to do it quietly. He opened the window wider, crawled up onto the sink, and leaned out. He would never have done this in the daylight, but the darkness gave him confidence. The ground was four feet below. He worked his shoulders through the window. The row of oleanders followed the wall, but he couldn’t tell how far. He was growing excited. He pushed himself back into the house, then turned around so that he could step through feet first, one leg and then another. He lowered himself to the ground. He was outside the house.

Dennis crouched on the ground beneath the oleander, his back pressed to the high stucco wall, listening. He could hear the police radios from the cars parked at the front of the house. He caught tiny glimpses of the two cars through the leaves, glinting in the streetlight. He couldn’t see the cops, but he knew they would be watching the front of the house, not the row of shrubs along the side wall. Dennis lay down at the base of the wall and inched along its length. The oleanders were thicker in some places and thinner in others, but the police didn’t see him. He came to the end of the wall and saw that the oleanders continued into the neighbor’s front yard. Dennis grew more excited. They could bag the cash, drag it along behind the oleanders, then slip away while the cops were watching the house, right under their noses!

Dennis worked his way back to the window and climbed into the house. Dennis was pumped! He was going to beat this thing! He was going to beat Talley, beat the murder rap, and cruise south to TJ in style.

He ran back to the office to tell Kevin and Mars that he had found the way out.

MARION CLEWES

The planet Venus hung low in the blackening western sky, racing toward the ridge of mountains and the edge of Talley’s roof. The stars were not yet out, but here in the high desert, away from the city, the sky would soon be washed with lights.

Talley’s condominium was one of forty-eight stucco and stained-wood units spread over four buildings arranged like the letter H. Mature eucalyptus and podocarpus trees shouldered over the buildings like drunks leaning over a rail. Marion guessed that the condos had at one time been apartments, then converted and sold. Each unit had a small fenced patio at ground level, and centered between the four buildings was a very nice pool; small, unprotected parking lots were on either side of each building for the residents. It seemed like a pleasant place to live.

Marion walked through the grounds, hearing music and voices. Cars were turning into the parking lots, men and women still arriving from work; an older woman was methodically swimming laps, the pool’s lone occupant; charcoal grills were smoking on several of the patios, filling the air with the smells of burning flesh.

Marion circled the building with Talley’s unit. Because the buildings were of older construction (Marion guessed they had been built in the seventies), the gas meters, electric meters, and junction boxes for both telephones and cable TV were clustered together at an out-of-the-way spot opposite the parking lots. Any individual security systems would be junctioned with the telephone lines. Marion was pleased to see that the building had no alarms. Marion was neither surprised nor shocked; being a sleepy small town so far from LA, the greatest security the condo association might buy would be having a rent-a-cop cruise the parking lots every hour. If that.

Marion found Talley’s unit, let himself through the gate to the front door. He clenched his jaw so as not to laugh; the patio and door were hidden by a six-foot privacy fence. He couldn’t have asked for anything easier. He rang the bell twice, then knocked, already knowing that no one was home; the house was dark. He pulled on latex gloves, took out his pry bar and pick, then set to work. Four minutes later, the deadbolt slipped. Eighty seconds after that, he let himself in.

“Hello?”

He didn’t expect an answer, and none came. Marion shut the door behind him, but did not lock it.

The kitchen was to the left, a small dining room to the right. Sliding glass doors offered a view of the patio. Directly ahead was a large living room with a fireplace. Marion looked for a desk or work space, but saw none. He unlatched the glass doors, then crossed the living room to open the largest window. He would relock everything if he left at his leisure, but for now he arranged fast exits. Howell did not want Talley dead, so Marion would try not to kill him even if Talley surprised him.

Marion climbed steep stairs to a second-floor landing with doors leading to a bathroom and two other rooms, the room to his right the master bedroom. He turned on the light. Marion expected to search every closet and drawer in the house for something that could be used as leverage, but there it was as soon as he entered, right there, waiting. It happened that way, sometimes.

A desk rested against the far wall, scattered with papers and bills and receipts, but that isn’t what caught Marion’s eye. Five photographs waited at the back of the desk, Talley with a woman and girl, the woman and Talley always the same, the girl at different ages.

Marion kneeled, brought the frame to his face.

A woman. A girl.

A wife. A daughter.

Marion considered the possibilities.

Friday, 8:06 P.M.

TALLEY

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Crisis Response Team came around the corner like a military convoy. A plain Sheriff’s sedan led the file, followed by a bulky Mobile Command Post vehicle that looked like a bread truck on steroids. The Sheriffs wouldn’t need Mrs. Pena’s home; the van contained its own power generator, a bathroom, uplinks for the Intelligence Officer’s computers, and a communications center for command and control coordination. It also had a Mr. Coffee. The Sheriff’s SWAT team followed in two large GMC Suburbans with a second van containing their weapons and support gear. As the convoy stopped, the SWAT cops un-assed, already geared out in dark green tactical uniforms. They hustled to the second van, where a senior sergeant-supervisor passed out radios and firearms. Four radio cars followed the tactical vehicles with uniformed deputies who clustered around their own sergeant-supervisor. Talley heard a change in the helicopters’ rotor turbulence as they repositioned to broadcast the Sheriffs’ arrival. If Rooney was watching television, his stress level would soar. During periods like these the possibility of the subject panicking and taking action increased. Talley hurried to the lead car.