HotTango (13 page)

All three sets of eyes landed on her, and Tanya fought the
urge to crawl under the bleachers. She’d wanted to be part of the solution.
Looked as though she’d landed in the middle of it.

“Okay, here.” Trigger Happy shoved the phone at her, which
was quickly followed by him pointing the gun at her.

A new text message taunted her, but she didn’t dare check
it. Not with three guns, bombs and whatever else these guys were packing so
close.

Trigger Happy’s accent was getting stronger the more worked
up he became. His clothing was soaked, save for the vest, and she didn’t want
to think about that. “You say anything we don’t tell you to, I’ll shoot you.”

“Okay, I understand,” she said slowly, accepting the phone.
“Just so I’m doing exactly as you want me to, should I call now? Or do you
want—”

“Call now,” Silence insisted.

“Okay, I’m dialing 9-1-1.” She tapped those three ominous
digits in and hit send.

“9-1-1. What is your emergency?”

Tanya inhaled a deep breath. Tingles radiated down through
her skull. This whole situation was too surreal.

“Hello, this is—Tanya—Westling. I am a hostage at The
Warehouse. The men holding us here want to speak to—to—the negotiators outside
of the building. Could you connect us?” She bit her lip. Hell, she’d almost
asked them to connect her to the negotiator by name. That wouldn’t seem
suspicious. At. All.

There was the sound of some mumbling and scrambling on the
other end. “Yes, Tanya, I can do that for you. Are there any injured?”

Tanya glanced at the three men, mouth open to answer. “I’m
not allowed to answer questions, only communicate for the—the—men.”

“Tanya, I understand. I’m connecting you to the negotiator
now. Her name is Lily Slade.” The woman’s voice quavered, as if she wanted to
say more but didn’t dare.

“Thank you,” Tanya said. To the three men, she asked, “Would
you like me to put the phone on speaker?”

“Yeah,” Nicolas said.

With their attention on her, Tanya hoped and prayed that
Goldie and the others used the opportunity to get some of the people into the
tunnel, or figure something else out. If at the very least the three women got
out, so be it. That was three more lives saved.

“This is Lily Slade. Who am I speaking with?”

Tanya glanced between the three men. She needed to choose
her words very carefully. There was also the risk that Lily might say
something. She prayed the other woman kept their secret. Silence nodded, which
she took as her permission to speak. She repeated the mantra
speak slowly,
speak clearly
.

“Hello, Lily. My name is Tanya Westling. I’m a hostage
speaking on behalf of the, ah, gentlemen holding us here. I’m not allowed to
answer questions, only speak for the men.”

“Hi, Tanya, I’m glad we’re getting to speak together. I
understand the limitations they’ve placed on you, but I will need to ask some
questions. I hope we can work together on this. Can you tell me how it’s going
in there? Are people safe?” Lily’s voice was the kind that invited trust. They
weren’t close, but she was someone Tanya genuinely liked, and having her on the
other end of the phone was a relief.

Tanya clicked the mute button. “What would you like me to
say?”

“Tell them to give us some space,” Trigger Happy blurted.

Space? They couldn’t see out of the building to tell how
close the cops were.

The other two men didn’t put forth anything, so she had
nothing else to offer in the moment.

“Tanya?” Lily said.

She unclicked the mute button. “Hi, Lily, I’m only allowed
to say what is said to me.”

“I understand,” Lily replied. “Ask them if you can tell me
about the state of the other hostages. I’d like to know that people are safe
and there’s no reason for anyone to get hurt.”

Trigger Happy’s eyes narrowed. She muted the phone.

“What do you want me to say? There are some seriously
injured people here.” Tanya didn’t know how the police would react if they
allowed her to say the truth about the situation of the injured. If she had to
guess, fessing up to the seriousness of the situation might bring the entry
team in. And Tanya didn’t know if any of them would live through that.

“We can’t tell them the truth. If they know how bad it is,
they’ll come in here,” Nicolas said, echoing her thoughts. He was reasonable,
rational and probably the biggest threat to the hostages’ freedom. Then again,
he was the one with bombs strapped to his person, so clearly something had to
be a little unhinged upstairs.

“Tell them everyone’s fine,” Trigger Happy directed.

Tanya opened her mouth to protest, but thought better of it.
The police weren’t going to believe her, not when injured evidence had run
straight into their arms. She unmuted the phone and directed her attention to
the negotiator.

“Hi, Lily, the rest of us are fine for now.” The lie tasted
bitter on her tongue. She knew that not everyone was going to survive and she
hated it.

Lily paused, as if she sensed the lie in her voice. But if
anyone would, Lily was that person. When they first met Lily had performed a
parlor trick displaying how she could tell if an individual was lying or not.
That had been in person from physical tells, but it was reasonable to assume
there were verbal ones as well. “Thank you, Tanya. Can you ask Nicolas and his
friends what brought us to this situation today?”

Tanya muted her end of the call and glanced between the
three men. They appeared uneasy, shifting their weight from foot to foot and
glancing around them. As far as criminals went, they weren’t very convincing.
They were actually fairly normal looking. Only Trigger Happy even looked or
sounded as if he weren’t born and raised in America. Still, she’d like to know
the answers to Lily’s questions as well.

“We want the release of Ali Saed,” Silence said. When she
didn’t immediately relay the answer, he gestured toward the phone. “Tell her.”

Ohmygod. Ohmygod. Ohmygod.

“Okay, sorry.” She shook her head and unmuted the phone, her
mind spinning. It was everything Cole had feared. “Lily, Tanya again. They want
the release of Ali Saed.”

Lily paused. “Is that all?”

Tanya spoke in a rush over the woman. The last thing she
wanted her to say right now was that turning over the leader of their terrorist
organization was an impossibility. She didn’t think Lily would make such a
statement, but she’d also never been in a hostage situation before. “Yes. If
you could work on that, I’m sure they would appreciate it.”

“You know what would help me talk about this with the brass?
Offer me a show of good faith. There are a lot of children in there, and
they’re going to get hungry and noisy. You don’t want to have to keep them
calm. Why don’t you send those kids out here, and I can take that to my
supervisors to show them you’re reasonable?”

Silence slapped his hand over the phone and shook his head
vigorously. She nodded and he stepped back, giving her space.

“I’m sorry, Lily, I don’t think they’re willing to negotiate
that.”

Lily sighed into the phone. “Okay, Tanya. It’s going to make
it really difficult to get my bosses to take them seriously without showing
them something.”

Silence put his hand over the phone. “Hang up,” he
whispered. “We’ve talked to them enough.”

“Hi, Lily. I’m going to hang up. I believe we’ve spoken long
enough to give you the information you need to give us some more space and work
on their demands.”

“Tanya, it would really help me if you stay on the phone—”

Silence grabbed the phone and ended the call.

“Hey! We didn’t ask how they figured out my name. Do they
have my wife out there? What have they told her?” Nicolas glanced between the
other two, Tanya’s presence nearly forgotten. The distress creasing Nicolas’
face was pained, tortured. Wouldn’t a terrorist be a little more resolved to
his act of terrorism? Something wasn’t adding up about the whole situation.

Silence held up his hand. “No, it doesn’t matter. We’ve
discussed this. We know what the mission is. Stick to the plan.”

Tanya was torn between wanting to slink back to the relative
safety and company of the other hostages and staying where she was. Now that
her head was somewhat in the game, there were details that stuck out to her.
The mention of family members in danger, the lack of a unifying drive, the
differing personalities. This wasn’t a team that had trained and worked
together. Something had pushed them to this.

And she wanted to figure it out.

The cell phone in Silence’s pocket began to ring. He pulled
it out and peered at the screen. The display was large enough that even Tanya
could see the Unknown number flashing. But where the men wouldn’t know the
digits, she recognized the prefix on the call. It was the same as Cole’s work
phone.

“Answer it.” He shoved the cell at her.

This time she lifted the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

“Hi, Tanya, this is Lily again.”

“Hi, Lily, the guys don’t have anything else to say right
now.” She glanced between them and saw no complaints with her answer.

“Are you on speaker right now?”

That wasn’t an answer she could speak without giving away
that Lily wanted to talk to her directly. She’d have to wing it and hope that
Lily picked up on her answers. “No. They don’t have anything else to say.”

Lily paused. “Tanya, are you trying to tell me you aren’t on
speaker?”

“Yes. They’re positive they don’t want to talk anymore.”

“Okay, Tanya,” Lily spoke in a rush, “you’re doing a great
job. We want to keep them talking to us as much as possible. I know you’re
scared. Your husband is here and we’re all working on getting you out of there
as safe as possible.”

Tanya’s eyes pricked with unshed tears and her throat
constricted.
Cole.
She breathed deep and shoved the emotions deep.
“Thank you for understanding, Lily.”

“Tanya, we’re going to come in to get you. The bomb they
threw out was just an empty pipe—”

Silence grabbed the phone and ended the call. “That’s
enough.”

The bomb was a fake.

They’d bluffed their way out of one situation.

What else could they fake?

Tanya studied their vests. Wires went into and out of what
looked like honest-to-god explosives to her. Fact was, she wasn’t willing to
chance it.

Something banged on the roof of The Warehouse. Everyone
jumped and stared at the ceiling. Another something hit it and then another.

“Someone’s on the roof,” Nicolas said.

“This is it.” Trigger Happy lifted the dead man’s charge and
began peeling off what looked like clear tape from the trigger.

Clear tape.

On the trigger.

“What are you doing?” Tanya gasped before she could stop
herself.

“I’m not ready for this,” Nicolas said, his voice growing
small and lost. “I’m not ready to die. I have a wife. She might be pregnant.”

Silence grabbed Nicolas by the front of his vest. “Too.
Bad.”

“If you blow yourselves up now you won’t get what you want,”
Tanya said louder than she meant to. The three stopped and stared at her.

Overhead, footsteps pounded across the ceiling. The most
logical thing was to deploy gas, and if they thought the explosives were fake,
well, Tanya had a bad feeling about it. Why tape a detonator to a bomb that
wouldn’t explode?

“We’ll make a point,” Trigger Happy said between clenched
teeth.

“What if you could get out of here, sneak past the police
without them even seeing you?” Tanya prayed that Goldie had opened the tunnel
and was long gone. Otherwise, they were going to be in a world of hurt.

“How?” Silence asked, gaze narrowing.

She held her hands up. “There’s a tunnel in the management
office. They used to move inventory from warehouse to warehouse via a tunnel
under the street. I can show you. You would escape.”

And hopefully run straight into a line of police.

Silence grabbed her arm. “Get ten hostages each. We’ll try
the tunnel.”

That wasn’t part of the plan!

“Hostages? We’ll slow you down,” Tanya blurted.

“Insurance,” he replied.

He pushed her forward, using her like a shield.

Metal screeched and something snapped overhead.

“Out of the way,” Silence said loudly.

People scrambled, making a path through the crowd to the
back of The Warehouse. The management office sat dead center in the middle of
the rear portion of the building, between the two sectioned-off rooms that
served as locker rooms for their purpose. The door hung ajar, a telltale sign
that someone had passed that way.

“Get up. You, you and you,” Nicolas said behind them. People
moved, shuffled and even begged to be excluded from their selection.

Overhead, the sounds of movement on the roof meant the
police were getting ready to do something.

Cole would be impressed with how much she’d paid attention
when he talked about the process flow of escalation. Now she just had to live
long enough to tell him.

God, she loved him.

If she survived, she was going to make sure he knew, from
her mouth, how important he was to her.

“Up, up, up,” Trigger Happy snapped.

Silence pushed her into the office. The floor sloped down
almost immediately, leveling off at a lift. Which was in the down position. As
if someone had used it recently to reach the tunnel floor. The only other
furniture was two desks on either side of the space, both bare.

“Get the lift up here,” Silence demanded.

There was a pole sticking out of the ground at the lip of
the drop-off with one button on the pad. She pushed it and the hydraulics
silently lifted until the lift was level to the floor.

“Everyone on the lift,” Silence ordered from behind her.

Tanya glanced over her shoulder and her blood ran cold.

Goldie, Mallory and Lotta were the first of the other
hostages pushed toward her. Their gazes were full of fear. None of them spoke,
but they moved to the back of the lift as more people were herded into the
office. Outside, people began to cough and it sounded as though someone was
banging on the exterior doors.

The entry team.

Cole.

Her heart clenched. She was so close. If she’d kept her trap
shut, she might be rescued. But because of her they still weren’t blowing
things up. Yet. It was still a possibility.

“On the lift now,” Trigger Happy yelled. He slapped the
button and the hydraulics jerked, dropping several inches suddenly before
easing down, a little at a time, into darkness.

The fluorescent lights were on inside The Warehouse, so it
was hard to gauge the passage of time, but it was growing late.

“What are you doing here?” Tanya asked Goldie. They were at
the very back of the lift.

“We couldn’t climb down, not with her arm like that,” Goldie
whispered. “There were some other guys who went in after us and they did make
it down. Said they were going to show the cops.”

“Off the lift,” Trigger Happy yelled.

People lurched forward, shoving Tanya and the other girls
ahead of them. They started and staggered down the tunnel.

“Where are your skates?” Tanya asked. Last she’d seen them,
they’d been carrying them at least.

“Back at The Warehouse.” Goldie wrapped an arm around
Mallory’s waist and they started forward, into the near pitch darkness of the
tunnel.

It made Tanya think of every zombie movie she shouldn’t have
watched.

Darkness.

The sounds of scurrying things.

She didn’t know which nightmare she preferred. Terrorists
versus zombies. It was a hard pick.

A young man to Tanya’s right dug in his pocket and came up
with another cell phone. He flicked the light on and chased away the shadows.
Another light pierced the dusty tunnel then another. Cell phone apps. What a
lifesaver.

Tanya was grateful for their light. She also noted exactly
who had phones.

The tunnel slowly rose, sloping upward, until they were let
out into what seemed to be an indoor junk heap. Wooden shipping pallets lay
broken and scattered to their left. Piles of rusted scrap made a maze. There
were paths through the debris, but they weren’t wide.

The Derby Dames had held games across the street for years,
and she’d never known this place existed.

“Cell phones, hand them over,” Silence demanded.

Tanya whirled to the closest person she’d seen with a phone.
“Give me your phone. My husband is SWAT,” she whispered in a rush.

“SWAT?” Goldie hissed. “You never said anything about SWAT.”

Tanya snatched the phone from the man’s hand and shoved it
in her shorts, smoothing over the lump. She glanced at her teammates. “Yeah,
well, surprise.”

Goldie opened her mouth to reply, but snapped it shut as
Silence passed in front of them with barely a glance in Tanya’s direction.
She’d ceased to exist to him, or maybe he considered her a non-threat.

“Stay here,” Silence ordered. He gestured at the other two
terrorists. “They’ll shoot you if you move.”

Silence moved off between the piles of junk, leaving Tanya
and the rest to cool their heels.

Nicolas and Trigger Happy took up positions between the
group and the garbage.

Tanya desperately wanted to text Cole, but she didn’t know
if her fellow hostages would turn her in or protect her. She didn’t dare risk
it. The longer they remained prisoners, the less rational they became, and
their chance of survival shrank.

“Is he out there?” Lotta whispered after a few moments.

“Yeah,” Tanya reluctantly admitted.

“Damn. That’s rough.” Mallory punctuated her words with a
cough. She was looking even paler than before. Blood was smeared all over her,
Goldie and Lotta. Maybe even Tanya since they’d been in such close quarters.

Goldie’s gaze was serious, the dim light shining off her
eyes. “Be straight with me. Are they going to get us out of here?”

Tanya glanced at the closest people to them, who didn’t seem
interested in their conversation. “They don’t know where we are. Yet. But they
will come for us.”

Silence stepped out from behind a stack of oil drums. His
gaze flicked to Tanya and she froze. Had he heard their conversation? Did he
suspect her intention to inform on them?

“Follow me. Don’t try to escape, we will shoot,” he said to
the group.

The gunmen herded the group between the refuse to a large shipping
container. The doors hung open, like jaws waiting to snap shut. Tanya couldn’t
see anything inside, but that didn’t mean there weren’t piles of trash or worse
waiting for them.

“In there,” Silence said, confirming Tanya’s suspicions.

“Wait, what are you doing, man?” Nicolas demanded, circling
the group to get in Silence’s face. “We should get out of here.”

Silence thumped Nicolas’ forehead. “Use your head. How do we
keep them together and moving? We move them, we get caught out in the open. No.
We dig in here. They don’t know where we’ve gone.”

“Then why didn’t we stay in the other building?” Nicolas
shoved his hand through his hair.

Both Silence and Trigger Happy ignored the question. Maybe
they weren’t as committed to their cause as they thought?

The hostages were given no choice. Tanya crept into their
makeshift prison, keeping one hand on the wall. The doors clanged shut behind
them and she didn’t know if she should be glad for the protection the metal
walls provided or fearful that this might become her coffin.

* * * * *

Cole’s vision narrowed to the door.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

Aaron pounded the metal with the ram. With each blow it
bowed inward until the hinges popped.

“Police! Get down! On the ground now,” their stand-in team
leader, Sergeant Rylon yelled.

Cole followed on his temporary replacement’s heels, shield
and gun in hand, ready to give cover to any of the officers. It was a moment in
time that would forever kill him, but he had to put the concern for his wife
secondary to the mission.

The inside of The Warehouse was full of smoke. People were
coughing and lying facedown on the floor, others up against the walls, faces
pressed to cracks in the metal. They’d deployed every canister of gas they had
between all the teams into The Warehouse. His eyes stung, but he pushed through
it.

Officers poured in from the two single-person entry points.
Across the space, someone began lifting the dock door.

They spread out, looking for the gunmen but also pushing
terrified hostages out through the doors into the waiting arms of officers
ready to aid the civilians.

Where were the gunmen?

Radios all over the building blared the same message, “Be
advised, hostages are reporting the suspects took a small number of hostages
into a back room.”

Every eye zeroed in on the three partitioned-off rooms. Cole
knew the ones on the far left and right currently served as locker rooms. The
one in the middle was a mystery though.

There were officers moving into position around the rooms,
but Cole held back. Technically he shouldn’t be involved, but the need for
officers was so great that he was permitted a small role in the entry and
retrieval of hostages.

As much as it killed him not to search for his wife, Cole
began helping civilians up off the floor and to the exit. Many clenched his
arm, crying and babbling about family members they wanted to call. He didn’t
recognize a one of them, at least not until he found a Derby Dames skater,
still wearing her skates and everything. Tears streamed down her face, either
from the gas or what she’d just experienced, he couldn’t tell.

Cole offered the woman a hand. “Have you seen Hot Tango?”

She blinked at him as if she couldn’t understand his words.

“Hot Tango, brown-blonde hair—”

“They took her,” the woman blurted.

His heart leapt to his throat.

Of course they would.

The derby girl gave him a once-over, her face creased in
confusion. “Who are you?”

“Give me your hand.”

She took his hand and got to her skates in the odd way that
derby girls had of using their toe stops and front wheels. “No, really. Who are
you?”

“I’m her husband,” he replied.

The woman seemed to go into stunned silence. He helped her
get moving and turned to lend a hand to others.

Paramedics were suddenly everywhere. Stretchers bore off
prone people. Officers were directing able-bodied civilians out in an orderly
fashion. As if there wasn’t a hostage situation still ongoing.

The rational part of his brain knew that there were teams
working on it. There were officers following the suspects’ trail, everyone was
doing their part.

And Tanya was still missing.

His precious wife, the love of his life—the person he
couldn’t live without—was still a hostage.

Cole sucked in a deep breath and headed out of the
warehouse, toward the staging area. He couldn’t take being in there and not finding
her. It was worse knowing she was somewhere out there with the bad guys. That
they’d snuck out right under their noses.

Tanya’s phone buzzed, then his work line and personal cell.
He nearly dropped his rifle scrambling to get one of the devices out of his
pockets. The work phone was the closest on hand.

It’s Tanya. In warehouse behind Warehouse. In storage
container. 19 hostages. Group escaped b4 we did thru tunnel. Find them.

Cole froze and stared at the screen. Tanya was alive and
communicating with him. She could still be rescued.

What were the suspects doing with them? What did they want
now?

He ran as fast as the eighty pounds of gear strapped to his
person allowed. He jerked the command center door open and climbed inside.

“My wife’s with the suspects,” he practically yelled.

All movement in the trailer ceased for a single beat.

The phone vibrated again.

Lily and several other officials moved to peer over his
shoulder.

These 3 guys being manipulated into terrorism. Not
terrorists by choice.

“Let me see that,” Lily said.

Cole thrust his work phone at her and dug out his personal
cell. The same messages were there too.

“She’s texting all our phones,” he explained and tapped out
a reply. He had to. Each communication with her might be his last.

Brass has my work phone. I have mine and yours. Love you.
Stay safe. No heroics. Coming to get you.