William Bernhardt - Capitol Murder

“Marshall, how can you say that? After all the good we’ve done, you and me, working side by side, fighting the good fight.”

Marshall’s teeth locked, his whole face displaying his contempt. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“Then talk to us,” Christina said, trying to deflect his attention. It was obvious Marshall was not stable and that he had some sort of grudge against Glancy. If they continued talking like this much longer, that gun was going to fire. “What is it you want?”

“From you, nothing. You’ve never been anything but a warm, beautiful, caring person. All you had to do was look at that picture for a second and you got it, didn’t you?” Christina didn’t answer. “I could’ve put the damn thing out on my desk, and Todd still wouldn’t have understood.”

“Maybe if you explain it to him. Maybe if we all just calm down and-”

“It’s too late for that!” Marshall’s voice soared in volume. His hands began to tremble. “I very much regret having to do this to you, Christina. And to you, Marie, and Hazel.” He pointed the gun at Glancy. “But now you’re all going to have to watch this son of a bitch die.”

“Marshall!” Glancy said. “You can’t mean it.”

“Believe me, I do.”

“Marshall!” Marie shrieked. “Please! I beg you.”

“Don’t waste your breath.”

“Marshall,” Marie continued, “look at me. Look-at-me!”

He did, and the instant he did, Todd Glancy dove toward the open front door. Marshall wheeled around and fired, but he was well wide of the mark. He swiveled his chair then fired again, this time missing by inches. Glancy did a forward somersault, landed on his feet, then raced through the door.

“Come back, you miserable coward!” Another bullet shattered the jamb. But Glancy escaped.

“Marie-you traitor!” Enraged, eyes wide and red, Marshall whirled himself around to face the three women huddled around the ancient copying machine. Without a moment’s hesitation, he raised the gun and fired. Marie Glancy gasped, then tumbled to the floor.

Christina screamed. “Marie!” Hazel began sobbing.

“And I’ll kill you two just like I did her. Just like I did Veronica!” he shouted, weaving back and forth in his wheelchair. “Nobody else moves. Nobody else speaks. Do you hear me? Do you hear me? Because if you don’t do what I say, you’re both dead!”

B y the time Ben arrived at the Russell Building, a siren was wailing and the Capitol police had already cordoned off the area surrounding Glancy’s office. People were being evacuated as quickly as possible. The FBI was on the scene as well. Todd Glancy had contacted the authorities as soon as he escaped, and a full-fledged hostage situation had ensued. The federal agents were assembling an operations center and trying to establish contact with Marshall Bressler, the administrative assistant who was now holding three women hostage.

Including Christina.

“I’m Agent Martinez,” said a wide-framed officer wearing a standard FBI blue suit and white shirt. “I’m the situation commander.” He gestured toward an older woman in a black sweater with a brown leather gun holster slung over her shoulder. “This is Advisory Commander Cross. We understand you know one of the hostages. A Miss McCall.”

“I know all of the hostages,” Ben explained. “But yes, I know Christina very well. She’s my partner. We’ve worked together for years.”

“Good,” Martinez said, while simultaneously waving at an operative at the opposite end of the hallway and pulling out his buzzing cell phone. “That could be useful.”

“You got here fast,” Ben remarked, impressed.

“We’re trained for speedy response. After 9/11, we have no choice. Anthrax, ricin, whatever happens next, we have to be able to respond quickly to protect the nation’s leaders. Soon as we got the call from Senator Glancy, we roped off the area and began evacuating the senators and their staff across the street to the Library of Congress. We called out the HAZMAT team-the boys in the white space suits. Just to be on the safe side. Tours have been shut down. The restaurants closed. The pages have been given the day off.”

“Why the FBI?”

“We’re the hostage experts. The Capitol officers are used to dealing with poison in the mail and streakers and such, but they’ve never had a full-out hostage scenario here before.” He flipped open the lid of his phone. “Excuse me. It’s Lieutenant Carney, our tactical commander. I have to take it.”

He moved to the other side of the corridor where he could talk with some semblance of quiet. Although the passageway had been blocked off and all civilians had been evacuated, there were still dozens of people in the corridor, all of them moving in busy crisscross patterns, pursuing their appointed tasks with great urgency.

A large marker board had been set up at the top of the stairs. Ben didn’t comprehend a lot of it, but he did recognize one sketch as a rough outline of Glancy’s office. Several names were written to the side, with abbreviated duty assignments reduced to incomprehensible acronyms. And at the top of the board, in bold black letters, someone had recorded THE FOUR STEPS OF SUCCESSFUL HOSTAGE NEGOTIATION: TRUST, CONTAIN, RECONCILE, RESOLVE.

“I know you’re busy,” Ben said, grabbing the arm of Advisory Commander Cross, “but can you give me some idea what’s going on?”

“We still don’t know what started it,” Cross patiently explained. She had short brunette hair, an efficient cut that would prevent her hair from ever obstructing her vision. “But the Senator’s administrative assistant has apparently gone psychotic. He has a gun-we don’t know how he got it in the building. Maybe he overcame one of the security guards.”

“Bressler? He can’t even stand up.” Ben shook his head. “I know how he got the gun into the building. Same way he got in the knife.” And then Ben explained it to her.

“He’s taken prisoners,” Cross said. “Senator Glancy managed to escape, barely, but Bressler has at least three other hostages, maybe more. And one of them is wounded.”

Ben’s heart raced. “Which one?”

“Marie Glancy.”

Ben’s eyes closed.

“You look relieved.”

“No, of course not. How badly is she hurt?”

“We don’t know. Bressler has only spoken to us once, by cell, and he wouldn’t say much. All he told us was what he wants.”

“Which is?”

“Safe passage out of the country. And Todd Glancy.”

“He wants to take Glancy out of the country?”

She shook her head curtly. “He wants to kill him.”

“Marshall,” Christina said, pleading, “why are you doing this?”

“The time comes,” Bressler said, his voice slow and menacing, “when a man has to take action. Has to do what’s right. Stand up for the woman he loves.”

“I’ve been working with you for months. You’ve always been logical, reasoned-the one voice of sanity in a crazy politically obsessed world.”

He laughed bitterly. “Guess you didn’t know me as well as you thought you did. Ben’s going to have to get a new psychic.”

“But Marshall-taking hostages? In the U.S. Senate? You can’t possibly succeed. I don’t care what you do to us-they’ll never let you leave. This is crazy.”

“Don’t call me crazy!” he bellowed. “Don’t ever call me crazy! That’s what that damn doctor said. That’s why he kept cramming me full of those blue pills you’ve seen me taking, day after day. Well, I don’t need the doctor, and I don’t need his stupid pills.”

“All right, all right.” Christina held her hands up, trying to placate him. Behind her, Hazel was huddled beside the copying machine, crumpled on the floor. She had totally fallen apart, melted into a useless heap, racked with sobbing. She wasn’t going to be any help. And Marie hadn’t moved since the bullet caught her in the chest. If she wasn’t dead already, she would be soon.