The Law Of Three: A Rowan Gant Investigation (36 page)

I turned back and gave the pilot a quick nod
as I shut the front door and felt it latch. The three of us then
hunched over beneath the rotor wash and scurried away toward the
dark sedan several yards to the south.

I heard the repetitious thump growing behind
me as the collective once again tilted the rotating blades and
applied lift to the aircraft. The whine of the engine rose, and the
helicopter hovered upward.

“I’m Agent Kavanaugh with the hostage
negotiation team,” the young woman told us as we came to the rear
of the four-door vehicle, carefully modulating her voice against
the sound of the aircraft. She quickly popped the lid on the trunk
and after reaching in, withdrew a Kevlar flak vest. “Before we go
down to the street, Mister Gant, you need to put this on.”

“What for?” I asked. My voice was starting to
go hoarse from all the yelling. “Eldon Porter doesn’t use a
gun.”

“Standard operating procedure, sir,” she
returned.

“I don’t need it.”

She started to respond then paused as the
helicopter rose past us and nosed off into the night sky, taking
with it the brunt of the noise. As it faded into the background,
she dropped her volume several notches and spoke. “Mister Gant, let
me explain this briefly. Number one: you are a civilian, and from
this moment on, you are my responsibility. Number two: the simple
fact is we have no way to know for certain what he has with him in
the way of weapons. Number three: as long as you are on the scene,
you go by our rules. And, finally, number four: we don’t have time
for this. So put the damn vest on now!”

“Fine.” I gave my reluctant agreement and
started shrugging off my coat. “Give it to me.”

I had been subject to wearing one of these
before, and I’d hated every minute of it. Granted, it had been
right at the end of a muggy Saint Louis summer. The temperature had
been hovering around ninety even though it was the middle of the
night. And, on top of that, I’d been plagued with an aggravating
itch that the vest had rendered unreachable for the duration.

Still, even discounting all of those factors,
body armor had been one of the most uncomfortable things I’d ever
worn.

I slipped into the vest and in the process
realized just exactly how sore I was. My body creaked like an old,
wooden sailing ship, and I suspected I had bruises forming on top
of bruises. I grimaced and forced my torso into the armor then
wrestled with the Velcro straps. I wriggled about inside the
somewhat bulky protective garment as I smoothed them down. Agent
Kavanaugh inspected the closures, taking a moment to rip several of
them open and pull them tighter.

“I was thinking I might like to breathe,” I
declared with a sarcastic bite as she tightened the last one.

“I was thinking I might like you to walk away
alive,” she retorted without looking up. “You’re no good to us
dead.”

“Thanks for the compassion,” I scoffed.

She didn’t miss a beat with her own acerbic
reply. “You’re welcome.”

Ben handed me my coat, and I struggled to
pull it back on over the vest.

Agent Kavanaugh was already climbing into the
driver’s seat of the sedan when she called to us. “Come on!”

We followed suit; Ben took the front
passenger seat while I jumped into the back. I was still pulling my
door shut when Kavanaugh spun the tires against the slushy pavement
and expertly whipped the vehicle around in a tight half-donut.

I rocked inward and felt the door partially
latch then sat up and looked forward. I happened to catch a quick
glimpse of Ben’s injured right hand as he twisted to look back at
me. He was holding it balled up in a tight fist and cradled against
his chest. Even in the dark, I could tell it was covered in blood,
and when I looked up at his face, I saw immediately that he was
mutely coping with severe pain.

“You really need to have that hand checked
out, Ben,” I told him. “It doesn’t look very good.”

“What? You a doctor all of a sudden?” he
retorted.

“Ben…”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll get it taken care
of when this is over.”

We rocked to the side as Agent Kavanaugh
whipped the vehicle out of the lot at a sharp right angle, sped
forward, and then made another ninety degree turn to the right. She
accelerated down the hill, only to quickly apply the brakes,
fishtail the sedan through another right hand turn, and bring it
skidding to a halt diagonal to the curb.

“Well, that was fun,” Ben quipped as he
turned back to the front and reached across with his left hand to
open his door.

Our no-nonsense escort already had my door
open and was hustling me from the back of the vehicle. Once I was
out, she led me toward a small clutch of very serious-looking
individuals.

A trim man, looking to be in his late forties
or early fifties, was at the center of the activity. He was wearing
a headset that appeared to be connected to a large, gadget-laden,
black box. Upon close inspection, the container looked to me like a
deep suitcase. The hinged clamshell of the case was wide open,
displaying a patch panel and compact recording equipment, as well
as an array of switches and dials.

He fixed his gaze on me and gave a
questioning raise of his eyebrow. He must have received a response
from Agent Kavanaugh as he immediately executed a satisfied nod of
his head and continued talking.

“Yes, Eldon,” he said into the headset
microphone. “He’s here. I’m looking right at him. Can’t you see him
from the window?”

He grimaced for a moment, and I wondered what
Eldon was saying to him. His response that followed a few seconds
later gave me a clue.

“No, Eldon, I’m not trying to trick you into
giving away your position. I just want to make sure you know I’m
telling you the truth. Yes… Yes, I know. Yes, that is him. Okay,
fine. Now, according to my watch, we came in well under your
deadline.”

He continued staring at me with that as his
only acknowledgment of my presence. Around us, members of the team
appeared to be taking notes while others seemed to be in the
process of arranging them on a large board.

“All right, Eldon,” he said. “I can let you
talk to him for a minute, but I’m going to need something from you…
Hey, Eldon, I kept my end of the bargain. You wanted Mister Gant
here, and I made good on my promise. He’s on site. This is all give
and take, Eldon.”

I studied the man as he worked, wishing I
could apply the same detachment that I was witnessing in him. At
the same time, I wondered if that detachment was merely a stoic
front and that perhaps he internalized these things even more than
I did.

“Okay then. I want you to put Miss Sullivan
on the line, so I know she is okay. Simple, right?” He paused for a
moment. “Give and take, Eldon, give and take. Right now it’s your
turn to give… Okay… That’s good… Thank you.”

He paused again, and I waited.

“Miss Sullivan?” the man suddenly said with a
questioning note in his voice. “This is Special Agent Scott McCoy
with the FBI. Have you been harmed in any way? Miss Sullivan? Miss
Sullivan?”

Agent McCoy’s eyes hardened, and the lines in
his face grew deeper as he frowned. In that instant, he actually
seemed human as opposed to just the detached automaton I’d been
watching for several moments.

“That wasn’t much of a conversation now was
it, Eldon?” he said into the microphone. “Okay… Calm down, he’s
right here… Yes, I’m going to put him on the line. Hold on.”

McCoy twisted back a half turn to the box and
pulled out a handset. When he turned back to me, he held it down to
his side and fixed his stare with mine. “All right, this is how we
need to play this, Mister Gant…”

I shot him a concerned glance, looking first
at the handset by his side then at his headset. He noticed it
immediately. He turned the handheld phone up so I could see it.
“We’re fine, there’s a talk button on this, and right now my
headset is muted.”

I nodded, feeling a little chagrined at
having questioned him.

“Now, I’m going to put you on the line with
Porter,” he continued. “We will be listening in. The only thing I
want you to do is calm him down. Once you’ve done that, we take
over again. It may sound crass, sir, but you just became a carrot
for us to dangle in front of him.”

“That doesn’t bother me,” I returned. “But
you probably aren’t going to like how I calm him down.”

He shook his head at me. “Mister Gant,” he
said. “We heard your conversations with him earlier so we get the
picture. Truth is I don’t particularly care what you have to do as
long as you don’t make him any promises. I just want that hostage
out of there alive.”

“Believe me, the feeling is mutual,” I
replied.

He held the handset out to me. “Press the
button to talk, and let it go if you want to say something to us
without him hearing. Remember, NO promises. I’ll handle the
negotiating. Understood?”

“Yeah,” I affirmed. “You negotiator. Me
carrot. No promises.”

I stepped forward and took the device out of
his hand then drew in a cleansing breath. I let it out slowly from
my mouth in a thin cloud of steam and then felt myself join with a
solid ground. I placed the handset to my ear and squeezed the talk
button.

“Listen up you sonofabitch,” I said with more
than just a hint of sincere anger. “You are really starting to get
on my nerves.”

I turned to face the building as I spoke. It
didn’t exactly tower over us, but at five stories, it definitely
required a rearward tilt of the head to see the top. Large windows
were spaced at regular intervals across the brick face, vertically
rectangular with a slight arch at the top of each. Unfortunately
for us, every one of them was securely boarded over with aging
plywood.

I had to lean from side to side as I
inspected the scene before me because for some reason, Agent
Kavanaugh had placed herself between the structure and me. I was at
once reassured and at the same time annoyed by what I considered to
be an inexplicably overprotective gesture.

“You tell them not to even think about coming
in here, or she’s dead” came Eldon’s frantic response from the
earpiece. “I know every move they make. Do you hear me?”

“I think we all do.” I gave a terse
response.

He didn’t even acknowledge my comment, moving
straight into a demand instead. “Where have you been?”

“On my way here,” I responded. “Why? Are you
getting lonely?”

“Shut up, Gant,” he spat. “Just shut up!”

“Fine,” I answered. “I really didn’t want to
talk to you anyway.”

I loosened my grip on the handset, keeping it
to my ear, but allowing the talk button to release, effectively
muting my side of the conversation.

“Gant!” his screaming voice issued from the
earpiece. “Don’t you hang up on me, Gant!”

I took a moment to gaze up and down the
street. The semicircle of squad cars I’d seen on the television
earlier had now been rearranged into a strategic perimeter. I
immediately spotted police officers from at least two departments,
not counting the highway patrol. That isn’t even to mention the FBI
agents that were clustered around me.

Paramedics were already on the scene,
preparing for the worst or maybe even the best. Who could say? I
guess it just depended upon which side of the fence you were
standing on. At any rate, I noticed that at the moment, one of them
was closely inspecting Ben’s injured hand.

“GANT!” Eldon screamed again.

I continued holding the handset but simply
listened. My fingers would tend to twitch as he spoke, and an angry
retort was caught somewhere in the middle of my vocal chords. I
consciously forced myself to remain quiet and several times found
myself willing my fingers to loosen before they could connect with
the switch.

Several steps to my right I saw a small group
of plainclothes officers. I assumed them to be detectives attached
to the Major Case Squad; primarily because at the center of the
huddle was Lieutenant Albright giving instructions with animated
thrusts of her hands. They were close enough for me to hear her
talking but too far away for anything to be intelligible. As I
stared at the clutch of officers, Albright’s gaze met mine. She
paused and frowned severely, fixing me with the proverbial look
that could kill. After a pair of seconds, she looked away and
continued her briefing.

“Gant!” Porter’s voice came again. “I know
you’re there! Gant!”

I kept waiting. I was banking on the fact
that his attention would focus directly on me and that he would
forget about Star. As long as he was ignoring her, he wasn’t
hurting her. At least, that was my simplistic theory.

I could feel the tension rapidly increasing
around me. Some of it was mine, but the majority was coming from
the lead hostage negotiator and his team. They couldn’t say that
they hadn’t been warned. For all intents and purposes, they knew
what I was going to do once I got on the phone—even if my current
ploy was somewhat off my previously traveled path. Still, I had to
give them credit for their level of patience. Even with the
mounting pressure, no one jumped the gun, and they let me continue
playing it out my way.

I’m sure they were all speculating on whether
or not I knew what I was doing, and if I had to guess, I would bet
that someone was standing by to pull the plug on me at any moment.
What I wasn’t about to tell them though, was that I was dwelling on
that very same issue myself. I was making this up as I went along,
and my imagination was getting very weary, very fast.

“Goddammit, Gant! I’ll kill her! I will!”

I looked up at the building once again. I
didn’t know if he was watching me at the moment, but based on the
earlier exchange between him and Agent McCoy, I gathered he was
able to see me if he wanted to. For me, the façade was a visual
connection, so I continued to scan the boarded-over windows in
search of his face.