Robert Crais - Hostage

Talley saw the man behind the wheel nod. Talley shifted his aim again, back to the man in the car.

“I’ll fucking kill you! Can you hear that , you sonofabitch?!”

The man in the car smiled.

Howell spoke reasonably.

“I’ll still have your daughter. Your wife will be dead, but your daughter will be alive. Do you see her there in the car, Talley? But if you shoot me, then he’ll kill your daughter, too. Do you want to lose both of them?”

Talley aimed at the man in the car again. His breath was coming so hard that his gun shook. If he shot low, the bullet would deflect high, but he didn’t know how much; anything short of a perfect shot would cost Jane’s life. If Talley shot at the man in the car, Howell or the man with the big head would shoot him, and then all of them would be dead.

Howell said, “The negotiation is over, Talley. I won.”

Talley glanced at Howell. He measured the shots; first the man in the car, then Howell, lastly the man on the floor. He would have to make all three to save his family. He didn’t think that he could make them.

Howell said, “Drop your gun, and give me the second disk. Give me the disk or he’ll put her brain on the window.”

Talley’s eyes filled because he thought they would all die anyway, but he still had one chance left. One small chance, because Howell and Benza still wanted the disks.

Talley dropped his gun.

The Mustang man jumped out of the way. Howell and the big-headed man charged forward. They scooped up Talley’s gun and shoved him against the wall, pinning him like an insect to a board. Howell searched him even as Talley told him about the second disk.

“It’s in my left front pocket.”

Talley felt numb. Defeated. Outside, the man behind the wheel climbed out of the car and came to the door. Talley watched Amanda and Jane in the car. Jane met his eye, and in that moment he felt buoyed by a tide of love that felt as if it could carry him away.

Howell loaded the disk into the ThinkPad.

Talley watched him open the disk, and took a grim pleasure in watching Howell’s face darken and grow fierce.

“You sonofabitch. This isn’t the disk. This isn’t the second disk! It’s a goddamned blank!”

Talley felt strangely removed from this room and these people. He glanced at Jane again. He smiled at her, the same small smile they had often shared at night when they were alone in bed, and then he turned back to Howell.

“I don’t have the second disk anymore. I gave it to the Sheriffs, and they’re giving it to the FBI. Benza’s over. You’re over. There’s nothing either of us can do.”

Talley watched the disbelief float to the surface of Howell’s face like a great slow bubble.

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not lying. We’re done here, Howell. Let us go. Let us go and save yourself the murder charge.”

Howell stood stiffly, like a mechanical man. He lumbered around the bed as if he was in shock, picked up his gun from the floor, and aimed it at Talley.

“Are you out of your mind?”

“I just want to take my family home.”

Howell shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe that this was happening, and then he blinked numbly at the man in the door, the man who had been in the car.

“Kill every one of these people.”

MARION CLEWES

Marion watched as Glen Howell opened the second disk. He was disappointed to see that Talley had tried to fake them out with a false disk, but he had expected as much. Talley was a policeman, after all; Marion had never expected that he would let a man like Sonny Benza walk away, not even with his family being held. In the end, turning over the disk to the proper authorities had been the right thing to do.

“Kill every one of these people.”

It was all about doing your job, being rewarded if you succeeded, being punished if you failed. Success or failure was defined by the disks, and Glen Howell had not recovered the disks.

Marion felt sad about that; he had always liked Glen Howell even though Mr. Howell hadn’t liked him.

Marion had his orders.

Marion lifted his gun.

TALLEY

The man in the door whom Howell had called Marion raised his gun and aimed it squarely at Talley’s face. Marion was a small man, ordinary in appearance, the type of anonymous man who would be invisible in a mall and impossible for witnesses to describe. An Everyman; average height, average weight, brown, brown.

Talley stared into the black hole of the muzzle and braced for the bullet.

“I’m sorry, Jane.”

Marion shifted his gun hard to the side and fired. He adjusted his aim, and fired again, then again. The first bullet took Howell above the right eye, the second the Mustang man dead-center in the left eye, and the third caught the man with the big head in the temple.

Marion lowered his gun.

Talley stood motionless against the wall, watching Marion the way a bird watches a snake. Marion shrugged.

“Life is unforgiving.”

Marion crossed the room to retrieve the one good disk, pocketed it, then went to the car. He helped Jane out, then opened the back door and helped Amanda. He walked around the car, climbed in behind the wheel, and drove away without another word. Talley saw him using his cell phone even before he was out of the parking lot.

The motel was quiet.

A dark wind had blown through Bristo Camino, something beyond Talley’s control, beyond his pain and his loss, and now it was gone. Now, only the three of them were left.

“Jane?”

Talley stumbled out of the room and ran to his wife. He hugged her with frantic desperation, then pulled his daughter close, squeezing them to him as the tears spilled down his face. He held them and knew then that he would never let them go, that he had lost them once and now had almost lost them this second time, lost them forever, and that he could and would never allow that to happen again.

It was over.

Saturday, 4:36 A.M.

Palm Springs

SONNY BENZA

Sonny Benza didn’t try to sleep again after they got off the phone with Glen Howell. He popped twenty milligrams of Adderall and snorted two lines of crank to prop himself up, then the three of them sat down to wait.

The first time the phone rang, he damn near jumped off the couch.

Tuzee looked at him, asking if Sonny wanted him to answer the phone. Benza nodded, saying, Yeah, answer it. Tuzee answered.

“It’s the airport. They wanna know where you want to go. They gotta file a flight plan.”

“Tell them Rio. We’ll change it in the air.”

As Tuzee hung up, Salvetti said, “They’re still gonna know where we go. These jets fly so high that air-traffic control watches them all the way.”

“Don’t worry about it, Sally. We’ll take care of it.”

“I’m just saying.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

The second time the phone rang, Tuzee answered without asking. Benza could tell from Tuzee’s expression that this was the word.

Salvetti said, “Shit.”

Tuzee punched on the speaker, saying, “It’s Ken Seymore. Ken, Sonny and Charlie are here. What do you have down there?”

“It’s gone to shit. All of it’s gone to shit. I’m still here at the development, but-”

Benza shouted over him. The fear in Seymore’s voice infuriated him.

“I don’t give a shit where you are. Do we have the goddamned disks or not?”

“No! They got the disks. Glen Howell and two more of our guys are dead. They got Manelli and Ruiz and I don’t know who else. It’s a goddamned clusterfuck down here. I don’t know what happened.”

“Who killed Howell? Talley?”