James Grippando - When Darkness Falls

“Yeah, but he also said that he has a gun to Theo’s head. If by ‘two words’ he meant a sentence or two, you could piss him off bad enough to make him pull the trigger.”

Paulo showed no reaction. He laid his index finger atop the mute button. “Two words,” he said, as if to close all debate. He counted aloud-one, two, three-and then pressed the button.

On cue, Alicia spoke into the phone. “Falcon, it’s me again.”

There was silence on the line.

Alicia waited, and then, on Paulo’s hand signal, she tried again. “Falcon, is there something you wanted to say to me?”

A muffled noise carried over the line. It was unmistakably human, so it was clear that Falcon had not hung up, but no words were discernible. It sounded like crying, perhaps from one of the hostages.

“Alicia?” said Falcon.

Paulo raised one finger, indicating that Falcon had just spent one of his two words.

“Yes?” she said.

The sound of her voice triggered a sob over the line, and the source of the crying was no longer in question. “I’m sorry,” said Falcon.

Paulo seemed confused by the words as much as the tone. He was slow to reach for the telephone, apparently not quite so intent on limiting Falcon to his two-word deal.

“Sorry for what?” said Alicia, but as the question left her lips, the crack of a single pistol shot exploded over the line.

“Theo!” shouted Jack, fearing the worst for his friend.

J ack practically flew out of the mobile command center and ran toward the Biscayne Motor Lodge at full speed. Alicia was right behind him, but with his adrenaline pumping, Jack was gaining separation with each stride.

Jack couldn’t count the number of times Falcon had threatened to shoot Theo, from the carjacking, which had started this whole crisis, to the final telephone conversation, which had ended with a gun blast. By closed-circuit TV transmission, he had watched Theo step into the open doorway with the injured girl in his arms. He’d caught glimpses of Falcon shielding himself behind Theo, pressing a gun to the back of his head. In any hostage crisis, the safest strategy for someone in Theo’s position was to keep quiet and melt into the background, but lying low and playing the wallflower was definitely not Theo’s style. It would have been impossible, Jack knew, for Theo to stand by and watch the abuse of other hostages, especially the girls. After four years on death row for a crime he hadn’t committed, Theo would never bet his life on law enforcement swooping in to save him. Theo was the kind of hostage who made negotiators nervous-strong, fearless, and determined to save himself and to save the others, even at the risk of pushing a crazed gunman over the edge.

Jack had no doubt that if Falcon’s bullet had found a hostage, it was Theo.

“Hold it right there!” a police officer shouted as he nearly tackled Jack. It took the strong arms of two motorcycle cops to keep Jack from breaking through the yellow crime-scene tape. He was at the street entrance to the motel’s parking lot, about thirty yards away from the open doorway to room 102.

“Did SWAT go in?” said Jack.

“They got it under control.”

“Then I need to get by you!”

“You need to wait here,” the cop said with attitude.

Alicia caught up. “He’s with me,” she said, breathless from the run.

“Sorry,” said the cop. “You can’t go either. No one goes past this line until I get the all-clear from SWAT.”

A member of the tactical team suddenly appeared in the open doorway. Jack believed it was Chavez, but he wasn’t sure. He lowered his M-16 rifle and gave a hand signal, which needed no interpretation, but Alicia offered one anyway.

“There’s your all-clear,” she said. “Come on, Jack.”

They ducked beneath the yellow tape and sprinted toward room 102. Two teams of emergency medical technicians had also been waiting for the signal, and even with their gear, they kept pace with Jack. As Jack neared the open door, he could hear other SWAT members inside as they tried to calm the hostages. He heard cathartic crying from the girls and hysterics from a man who sounded nothing like Theo.

Chavez allowed the EMTs to enter, but he stepped up to prevent Jack from entering the room. “Crime scene,” he said. “That’s as far as you go, Swyteck.”

Jack looked past him and saw the SWAT members and EMTs tending to the three other hostages. Then he saw Theo. He was lying on the floor, his face, neck, and shoulders covered with blood.

“Theo!”

Theo sat up, obviously disgusted. “Can somebody clean this shit off me?” he said. On the floor beside him was Falcon, his body in a heap. Beside him was the pistol that he had used to turn the right side of his head into red-and-gray splatter.

“He shot himself,” said Jack.

“Really?” said Theo. “Are you sure your name isn’t Jack Sherlock?”

“Are you hurt?” a paramedic asked Theo.

“No.”

Another team of EMTs hurried past Jack, and Chavez stepped aside to let them enter. They put the injured girl on a gurney and rushed her to the ambulance. The other team stayed behind and checked on the remaining hostages.

Jack turned as Sergeant Paulo came up behind him. Alicia said, “It looks like they’re all going to be okay, Vince.”

“All but Falcon,” said Chavez.

“Go figure,” said Jack. “A guy threatens to jump off a bridge, gets himself arrested, even kills a police officer and takes hostages. He finally gets what he wants and has the mayor’s daughter on the telephone, and what does he do? He falls apart, says he’s sorry, and can’t tell her any of the things he’s been dying to tell her.”

Vince said, “I think he said everything he wanted to say.”

“What do you mean?” said Alicia.

“If I’m to believe that old woman who passed along those files to you, Falcon gave you something that thousands of other Argentine families have never gotten.”

“What?”

“An apology.”

Alicia tried, but she couldn’t dodge the impact of Paulo’s words. Jack took notice.

“Hey,” said Theo. “You guys heard tonight’s forecast yet?”

“The forecast?” said Jack.

“Tell ’em, Wally,” said Theo.

One of the SWAT guys said, “Hey, ain’t you Walt the Weather Wizard? My wife watches you every night.”

The weatherman groaned, as if resigning to the fact that it was time to face the music. “Yes, yes. Walt the Weather Wizard was shacked up in a flea-bitten motel room with a couple of teenaged hookers. I’m guilty as charged, all right? You happy now?”

The SWAT guy checked out the Latina, then, as if the weatherman weren’t even there, he gave his teammate a little shrug and said, “Who knew? I thought he was gay.”

T heo wanted nothing to do with the media.

For two full days, one reporter after another tried to land an exclusive interview and brand him a hero. Theo turned them all away. In his mind, true heroes were never motivated by self-preservation. They ditched their own safety and thrust themselves into danger to save others. The actual words he used to convey those thoughts, however, were slightly less than quotable: “Ain’t nothing heroic about lifting your own black ass out of a crack.”

In some ways, it took more courage for him to pick up the telephone and call Officer Mendoza.

The Mendoza family had also been hounded by the media, and Theo could only assume that Alicia had managed to avoid the frenzy by crawling into a bunker. Her father, of course, was all over the television and newspapers, praising “a job well done” by the City of Miami Police Department. Chief of Police Renfro was almost as much of a media hound. She and the mayor spoke most highly about Sergeant Chavez and “the brave men of SWAT.” They made little mention of Jack and the active role he had played in the negotiations. Even Sergeant Paulo was relegated to the I-also-wish-to-thank category. Jack and Paulo seemed okay with that. After the hour-by-hour intensity of a hostage crisis, a chance to relax and sleep was more than welcome, and a little time to step back and plan the next move was a good thing. At some point, however, it was time to stop planning. Theo was ready for action.