Nora Roberts: High Noon

"Patsy. It's Patsy."

"Cute. I shoot cute Patsy in the ear. Pockets, now," he snapped.

"He needs medical attention," Mark said as he knelt beside Arnie. "I'll unlock the cases. You can take whatever you want. The police are on the way. The alarm."

"Yeah, it's handy." He heard the sirens already, cutting through the high ring of the store alarm. Quicker than he'd thought, but that was fine. "You're going to turn off the alarm, Mark, but you're not going to abort the lockdown. You got that? Screw it up, and Patsy's brains are going to be all over your nice, shiny floor. You." He kicked the first man again. "Up. Roll that dolly to the northeast corner."

" I… I don't know which is the northeast."

Walken rolled his eyes. "Right rear, fuckhead. Move! You, you, drag that worthless dick back there with it." He back-walked with Patsy, then shoved her to her knees. "Get some shopping bags, Patsy. You're going to pick up all this junk people carried in here, put it in shopping bags and put the bags on this counter. Everybody else, facedown. Oh, not you, Mark, sorry. Northeast corner. I'm watching you, Patsy. You be good, now. Pick up the phone, Mark." He nodded toward the one on the desk. "Call nine-one-one. You're going to say exactly what I tell you to say. Nothing more, nothing less. Understood?"

"Yes."

"Good." Walken tucked Arnie's weapon in his belt, ripped open the top box on the dolly. "You see what's in here, Mark?"

Mark's white face went gray as he looked in the box. "Yes."

"Plenty more where that came from. Make the call."

Phoebe was minutes from the jewelry store when the alarm went off. She stood within sight of it, with the crisis team already moving men and equipment into positions when the nine-one-one call was relayed to her.

This is Mark D, and I have an emergency. There is an armed man holding me and sixteen other hostages inside my store. He has guns and explosives. He says if he doesn't receive a call from Lieutenant Phoebe MacNamara within five minutes from the end of this call, he will shoot one of the hostages. For every minute beyond that five-minute deadline, he will shoot another. If anyone other than Lieutenant MacNamara attempts to contact him on this phone, or any other, he will shoot a hostage. If there is any attempt to enter this building, he will detonate the explosives. Lieutenant MacNamara has exactly five minutes from now.

She reached for her cell phone. "Give me the number inside."

"Communications is nearly set up," Harrison told her.

"I don't want him to know that, or that I'm already here. The less he thinks we know, the longer we can stall." She punched in the number passed to her, sucked in a breath, then punched to call.

"This better be Phoebe."

Answered first ring, she noted, and scribbled down eager/anxious to get started. "It's Phoebe, Jerry. I'm told you want to talk to me."

"You and nobody else. Anyone else calls in here, somebody dies. That's the first term."

"No one else calls you, talks to you, but me. I understand. Will you tell me how everyone's doing in there?"

"Sure. Scared spitless. Got us some criers. One guy's going to have a hell of a headache when he comes to. If he comes to. Hey, I think you know him, Phoebe. Arnie Meeks? You've danced with him before, right?"

Her rapidly scribbling hand jumped. "Are you saying that Arnold Meeks is one of the hostages, and that he's injured?"

"That's what I'm saying. He's also wearing an accessory. Just like the one I made for Roy. You remember Roy."

Not someone she loved this time, she thought, but someone she detested. And a damn clever, vicious way to up the stakes. "Are you telling me that you've rigged explosives on Arnold Meeks's person?"

"Oh yeah. A whole shitload of them. Any move on the building, and I blow him and a hell of a lot of others to hell. I don't figure you'll mind much about old Arnie, right? Guy messed you up, didn't he? Coward's way. How about if I pay him back for you?"

"You don't sound as if you want to do me any favors, Jerry. Can we talk about you and me, and what you do want?"

"We're just getting started. You'd better get things set up fast, Phoebe. I've got a little work to do in here. You call me back in ten."

"Get the com up," Phoebe snapped. "Commander, I need Mike Vince here, right here."

"Done." He ordered it. "We've got a partial visual, a count often hostages on the floor. We can't confirm if there are seven more. Internal security has locked down the building. There's a device rigged to the rear door with trip wires."

"Don't try to defuse, please. He'd know. It would give him the ex cuse to kill a hostage, or set off the rig he has on Meeks. What he wants most is to play me, to pay me back. We need to let him do that, as long as we can."

He'd left a tidy house, she thought, and roses for Angela. "Commander, he's not planning on coming out of there alive. It's a suicide mission for him, his sacrifice. And his way of paying me back. The loss of seventeen hostages, including a man who injured me. I know what he's doing. I need time to wind this out."

"Corn's set-negotiation control's in that ladies' boutique up there." Sykes gestured.

"Okay, I need everything, every scrap we have on him, everything we know or think we know. I need Mike Vince sent up as soon as possible. I need you with me, Sykes. I talk. Nobody talks to him but me." she continued as they hurried toward the boutique. "I need you to feed me information, to let me know if I go off on the wrong angle. He wants to play this out, too, so he won't rush it if we don't rush him. You help me interpret, help me listen, help me with every goddamn thing. Because he knows how this works, and he's waiting for me to make a mistake. He's salivating for just that."

"He's got nothing to lose, Lieutenant."

"No, he's already lost. What he wants is for me to sweat, then blow the whole thing-including himself-to pieces. This isn't a negotiation. But the longer he believes I think it is, the longer we have to get everyone out alive."

"You think he knew Arnie was security there?"

"Yes." She stepped into the boutique where her base had been set up amid thin summer dresses, pretty accessories, high-end handbags and fashionable sandals.

"I think it must have thrilled him to find out Arnie was on the door there. I think he saw it as a sign that he'd chosen his last stand perfectly." She stripped off her blazer, tossed it aside. "We already know why he's in there, what he wants. But we play it out. Start the checklist."

She sat at a table cleared of stock, pressed her fingers to her eyes. "He's cold, rational, committed. He's suicidal. He wants to die. This is another kind of suicide by cop-but a specific cop. Me. I fail, everyone dies. My failure's his motive, but that doesn't go for him unless we establish negotiations, unless we talk, play the game."

She checked her watch. Ten minutes exactly, she told herself. If she called a minute before, a minute after, he could use it as an excuse. She ordered herself to clear her head, to find the calm. When Liz came through the door, Phoebe was counting down the last two minutes. "Your guy Duncan's just outside the perimeter, with his lawyer, Phineas Hector. He says he has to talk to you, right now. It's urgent."

"I can't-"

"Phoebe, he says he's got two people inside. He says he knows two of the hostages."

"Pull him in, fast."

One minute, fifteen seconds, she noted when Duncan and Phin came in.

"He's got my mother in there," Phin blurted out. "He's got my wife and mother in there."

It was like a bare-fisted blow to the throat. "Are you sure?"

"They were going to meet me there." The fight for control was obvious on his face as Duncan stood shoulder to shoulder with Phin. "I talked to Loo on her cell a few minutes before twelve because I was running late. They were inside. They were waiting for me. Jesus, Phoebe-"