David Handler - The sweet golden parachute

“Hon, d-don’t listen to this guy!” sputtered Eric, who was now quivering with rage. “This will be okay. We can still get away.”

“And do what?” Mitch persisted, goading him, inflaming him still further. “Forget about your farm. Your so-called mission is history. Where will you go now? You don’t trust each other, so you’ll pretty much have to stay together twenty-four, seven. And won’t that suck. It means no more nubile teenaged girls for you, Eric. Just plain old Danielle, morning, noon and-”

“I told you to shut up!” Eric screamed, an animal roar coming from his throat as he punched Mitch in the ear with all of his might, pitching Mitch over to the floor with a hard slam.

Now Mitch’s head was ringing.

And Danielle was sobbing, “No, Eric! No!”

As Eric kept screaming, “I told you! I told you!” His eyes blazing at Mitch like a wild man’s. Now the wild man was on top of Mitch, pummeling him in the head with left-hand punches. “I toldyo u!” Danielle screaming at him to stop. And now he had that Leatherman raised high overhead in his right hand. “Say goodbye, you fat son of a bitch! Because I am going to stick this in your eye! So help me I’ll!…”

That chopper was a blessing.

As it moved in closer overhead, the whirring of its rotor blades masked the sounds they couldn’t help making no matter how hard they tried to be silent.

First, there was that old stairway up to the cloakroom. Its wooden treads went snap, crackle, pop even though they tippy-toed. Then there was the door at the top of the stairs. Des got to it first, Soave and Yolie right behind her as she turned the thumb latch. She eased the bolt slo-o-owly open but there was still an audible click. And those door hinges hadn’t been oiled since Hoover was in the White House. They squeaked and groaned as she eased the door open, flooding the stairway with bright daylight.

As Des paused there in the empty cloakroom, blinking in the sunlight, she could hear a steady murmur of conversation inside the sanctuary. No raised voices. No footsteps.

They were okay.

Her SIG drawn, she inched her way across the cloakroom toward the foyer itself. There were two stairways up to the balcony, one on each side of the foyer. She had to find out whether those foyer doors were open or closed. If they were closed then the three of them could split up now, unseen by anyone inside the sanctuary. If they were open then they’d have to take the same stairway up and fan out once they reached the balcony. That would make their job harder because they’d be exposed that much longer-should Eric or Danielle chance to look up. Not an impossible job. Just a riskier one. Because if they didn’t have the element of surprise on their side then they had nothing.

Only a disaster waiting to happen.

Soave and Yolie remained behind her in the cloakroom, their SIGs drawn, as she poked her head through the cloakroom doorway into the foyer itself and…

The foyer doors were closed.

She took a deep breath and darted her way across the building, making not a sound. When she reached the far balcony stairs she paused, glancing back toward Soave and Yolie. They were in position now to climb the stairs next to the cloakroom. Yolie pointed to her own weapon to remind Des that she’d take the shot if there was one to take. Des nodded.

Then they climbed.

Happily, the balcony stairs were carpeted. Des crept her way up, up to the church’s wraparound balcony, staying low to the floor as she came out right alongside the organ. From her crouch there at the top of the aisle she couldn’t make out Mitch or the killers down there. But she could certainly hear them-the acoustics were so amazing that the clarity of their voices startled her. Mitch seemed to be doing all of the talking. Big surprise there. Some noise about a young director named Stanley Kubrick. Why on earth was he talking about Kubrick at a time like this? Because he was Mitch Berger, that’s why. Not that Danielle seemed to have the slightest idea what he was going on about. Des couldn’t blame her. Because now her doughboy was talking about hot pink Jimmy Choos.

Soave and Yolie were crouched low across the balcony from Des. Meanwhile, through the balcony windows, she could see a whole herd of cube vans parked outside. The hostage unit had arrived.

Yolie slithered her way on her stomach between two rows of seats until she reached the balcony’s center aisle. When she got there she nodded to Des. Now all three of them began inching forward on their stomachs, snaking their way row by row down to the lip of the balcony for an actual look at the situation. Slowly, Des raised her head over the top of the protective facing and…

It wasn’t pretty. Danielle was no problem. She was seated in the front row of pews, her back to the balcony. The problem was in front of her on the floor, where Mitch and Eric lay propped against the dais, Eric behind Mitch. Under Mitch, really. He was employing him as a human shield. And Mitch made for one hell of a shield. Hardly any of the thinner man’s body was exposed. Nothing but his arms. His left was wrapped around Mitch’s chest. In his right hand Eric held a knife to Mitch’s throat.

Mitch’s cell phone lay next to them on the floor, as did his smashed tape recorder.

Mitch was still doing the talking. Going on about Allison Mapes now. How she’d spent the night with him last night. Say what? How she’d told him that she and Eric had been lovers back when Allison was a tender teen. Which sure came as news to Danielle, who seemed totally blown away.

Eric was trying to reassure her: “Don’t listen to him, okay? He’s strictly playing with your mind. You can see that, can’t you?”

Des sure could. Mitch was trying to turn them against each other. But Danielle didn’t care. She was too pissed at Eric.

“How could you do that to me?” she wanted to know.

“He’s a ruthless, scheming murderer, Danielle,” Mitch explained. “Everything about his life is a total lie. What made you think he’d be honest with you?”

“We’re in this together,” she responded.

Now Mitch was telling her how wrong she was. That she couldn’t trust Eric. That the two of them had serious marital problems. Des could have sworn the fool was purposely trying to rile Eric. And it was working.

“If you don’t shut your big mouth,” Eric snarled at him, “I swear I will slit your throat right now!”

Des continued to lie there on the balcony floor, powerless. There was nothing they could do-not with the way Eric was using Mitch as body armor. Des was not taking this horrible realization well. Her breathing was shallow and quick, her hand clammy around the SIG. That was the man she loved down there. She was practically ready to dive right off the balcony. But all she could do was exchange a signal with Yolie and Soave to wait. And watch.

And quietly go nuts-because with each passing second Des was becoming convinced that Mitch Berger had a death wish.

“I believe we do the right thing most of the time,” he was lecturing this deranged murderer who held a knife to his jugular vein. “I have to believe that, Eric. Because if it’s not true, then where are we? We’re… well, we’re you.”

Des had to stop herself from screaming: What in God’s name are you doing?

As he lay there in Eric’s clutches, Mitch told her. His round face was turned upwards toward the balcony and he was smiling. It was a blissful smile. A smile that told her he knew something that Eric didn’t know:

Mitch knew that Des was up there.

How? Didn’t matter. All that mattered was he knew.

Now an enraged Eric was sputtering at Danielle to ignore Mitch, insisting they could still get away.