David Morrell - The Spy Who Came for Christmas

“ Don’t worry. Our men are professionals. They don’t shoot randomly. They make sure they’ve got the correct target, and even then, they don’t shoot unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“ If anything happens to my wife and son… What did this guy do?”

“ He held up a liquor store.”

“ You mean he’s got a gun?”

“ Please keep your voice down, Mr. Brody. Yes, we suspect he’s armed.”

Brody groaned. “If I hadn’t lost my temper-if I hadn’t left them alone…” A thought made him straighten. “Maybe he’ll listen to reason. Maybe you can negotiate and stop this from getting out of control.”

“ That’s hard to do without a phone. But there might be another possibility…”

Brody stepped toward him. “What?”

“ It’s risky.”

“ Tell me what it is.”

“ It could be that I was wrong,” Andrei began.

“ What do you mean? Wrong about what?”

“ Not letting you go inside.”

Brody shook his head in confusion. “But you said that if I went in there, I wouldn’t do any good. I’d just become another hostage.”

“ That was before you told me the phones aren’t working. We need to negotiate with him, and you’re the perfect person for that. You’ve got every reason to walk up to the house. When your wife explains who you are, the gunman won’t suspect you’re working with us. Detective Hardy will equip you with a miniature microphone and earbud.”

“ Earbud?”

“ A tiny earplug that works as a radio receiver. The microphone will allow us to hear everything you say in there, and maybe what the gunman says. Through the earbud, I’ll be able to give you instructions.”

“ About what?”

“ Things I want you to notice. By now, he probably rigged some kind of defense system. Booby traps. It would be natural for you to show surprise if you saw anything unusual. Your questions wouldn’t arouse his suspicion. That’ll give the SWAT team an idea of what to expect if they need to go in.”

“ Go in?” Brody looked alarmed again. “You mean they’ll break down the doors and-”

“ Maybe it won’t come to that.” Andrei spread his hands in a reassuring way, seeking to calm him. “You’re a smart man. You might be able to persuade him to allow you and your family to leave.”

Brody let the thought work on him.

“ Yeah.” He sounded hopeful. “I can try to make him listen to reason.”

“ Exactly.”

“ But what if he won’t agree?”

“ I always have a backup plan. In that case, if he won’t let you and your family go, the microphone and the earbud will give me a chance to negotiate directly with him.”

Brody seemed paralyzed by the dilemma. Finally, he asked, “You really think this can work?”

“ The suspect has numerous arrests for robbery, but he’s never shot anyone. I don’t know why he’d be stupid enough to start now. There’s a good chance to bring this to a successful conclusion. The question is, are you willing to do your best to save your wife and son?”

“ My best to save them? Hell, I’m the reason they’re in danger. If I hadn’t gotten drunk and lost my temper, we’d all behaving a good time at a party.”

Andrei put a consoling hand on Brody’s shoulder.

“ Then maybe it’s time to make things right.”

“Pyotyr, the day after Christmas, Hassan, his wife, and his newborn son will use a private jet to fly back to the Middle East.

“ As a present to his wife, though-the last luxury she’ll have for a long time-he’s arranged for his family to spend four days in a suite at a hotel on Santa Fe’s Plaza. The baby has three bodyguards and a nursemaid. With the child well protected, the wife will perhaps feel less nervous about leaving the hotel and going out to view the famed seasonal decorations in the city.

“ Santa Fe is the capital of New Mexico. At eight P.M. on Christmas Eve, Hassan and his wife will be driven to a reception at the governor’s mansion fifteen blocks away. There, amid numerous television cameras, he’ll make an impassioned speech about his goals in the Middle East.

“ Even though he’s a Muslim, he’ll use Christmas Eve to argue for mutual understanding and tolerance. He’ll use his exceptional speaking ability to talk about the child of peace, who happens to be his son but who represents every Palestinian child. He’ll tell the world that he’s taking the newborn baby back to the Middle East as a symbol of his hope for the future of all children in the region. He’ll argue passionately that if people truly love their children, they’ll do everything possible to demand a lasting truce.

“ Pyotyr, what Hassan doesn’t realize is that, although the infant’s bodyguards are loyal, the nursemaid works for his rivals, who haven’t the faintest interest in peace. All they want is to stay in the violence business that makes them so very much money-more than you or I could ever imagine.

“ At 8:05 tomorrow evening, the nursemaid will free the dead bolts on two of the suite’s doors. She’ll tape a strip of plastic against the side of each door so that the latches can’t seat themselves in the door frames and act as further locks. While Hassan and his wife are away at the governor’s mansion, we’ll enter the suite, shoot the guards, and grab the baby.”

Kagan gripped the kitchen table and pushed himself to his feet.

“ Cole, I’ll take your place now.”

He drank more of the mixture that Meredith had prepared, tasting the salt and the sugar. The now-tepid fluid trickledown his dry throat. His stomach absorbed it without the nausea he’d experienced earlier.

Just give me enough strength to keep functioning, he thought, not sure to whom he directed the words.

In the dark living room, he crept to the leather chair. When Cole’s thin form slid away, Kagan eased into it, the leather creaking. He set the pistol on his lap, felt its comforting weight, and studied the window.

The Christmas lights over the wreath outside the front door illuminated some of the area. Beyond the two leafless trees, the coyote fence was vaguely visible, its waist-high cedar posts contrasting with the snow, but past it, the lane was hard to distinguish. If not for the threat that lurked out there, the view would have been comparable to what Kagan had noticed a little while ago on the television in Cole’s room: Bing Crosby singing “White Christmas” while snow fell on a beautiful scene.

He suddenly realized that the boy had remained standing beside him. Is he staring at the gun in my lap? Is it making him more afraid?

“ I need…” The boy sounded self-conscious. “… to go to the…”

Kagan relaxed slightly, thankful that the boy wasn’t panicking because of the gun.

“ Better use the toilet near the laundry room,” he said. “I booby-trapped the hallway. It might be hard to get to those other bathrooms.” Kagan couldn’t remember when he’d last relieved his bladder. That he didn’t feel pressure in it troubled him. His wound had dehydrated him more than he realized. “When you’re finished, come back to the living room, okay?”

“ You bet. The last thing I want is to be by myself.”

“ Bring your baseball bat. Hang on to it.” Kagan noticed a big-screen television cabinet in the left front corner. Cole had referred to it earlier. “Keep imagining how you’ll crawl behind that cabinet and stay low if anything happens.”

“ Maybe I won’t need to,” Cole said.

“ That’s what I’m hoping. Things are beginning to look in our favor. But as I said, spies never take anything for granted.”

“ It could be…”

“ Could be what?”

“ I don’t think I want to be a spy,” Cole said.

“ At the moment, I don’t want to be one, either.” Kagan listened to the sound of the boy’s uneven footsteps as he went across the brick floor and entered the kitchen. “Meredith?”