Chapter
14
“Do you have our money yet?”
Lt.
Stevens grimaced at the cruel voice.
“You
haven’t given us much time to get it together.”
“We’re
tired of waiting. We want it now.”
“We’re
working on it, but we don’t have anything for you yet.”
“You
have another thirty minutes.”
“And
then what?” Stevens asked, a feeling of dread making itself at home in his gut.
“According
to our deal, we get $10,000 per hostage. We give you a half an hour a hostage.
We expect at least $10,000 every half an hour. So you have two and a half hours
to get all of the money. If we don’t get our $10,000…” he laughed a sinister laugh.
“Well, you see, my friend here and I have come up with this little lottery
system. We’ve assigned a number to each of our five hostages. When that 30
minutes is up, we draw a number, and BANG. No more hostage. And you have
another $10,000 added to your tab.”
Stevens
held the phone away from him, and cursed silently. The group of officers
surrounding him looked grim. Once he composed himself, he put the phone back up
to his ear.
“We’ll
do the best we can to get the money together.”
“I
hope so, because you are down to 24 minutes.”
Nick
saw from afar that something was happening, and he didn’t think it was good.
Without a word to the others, he marched his way over the group. Kevin looked
up and saw him leaving, and reached over and gave Howie a light smack. Howie
jerked his head up, spotted Nick’s retreating backside, and stood up to follow.
Kevin
jogged up beside him. “What’s going on, Kaos?”
Nick
continued looking straight ahead. “Something’s up, and I want to know what it
is.” Howie followed his gaze to where a small group of police officers were
gathered. They looked upset. The three
of them caught the tail end of he argument.
“…move
in soon, we’re running out of time.”
“That’s
a big risk, we haven’t been able to figure out what things look like inside.”
“We
can’t give in to their demands. There’s no way they’ll just take the money and
split, they have to know we’d have them cornered in a heartbeat.”
“If
we don’t pay them, I believe he will carry out his threats. We can’t allow
that.”
“We’re
running out of time and choices. There’s twelve minutes left on the clock.”
“Twelve
minutes until what?” Nick asked suspiciously. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to
hear the answer. Lt. Daniels took the three of them off to the side.
“Our
bad guys in there want $50,000. They want the first $10,000 in anther 10
minutes, or they are going to shoot a hostage.”
Nick
flipped. “They’re going to what?” he screeched. Daniels almost shrank away from
him, Nick was a good three inches taller, and in his state Daniels wasn’t all
that sure it was a good thing for him to be standing so close.
“What
hostage? Did they say who?”
He
looked uncomfortable. “You aren’t going to like this.”
“Is
it Brian?” he cried in horror. “Oh, God. Oh, God…”
“We
don’t know who it’s going to be.” He explained quickly about the “lottery
system.”
“What
are you going to do about it?” Kevin demanded.
“We’re
working on that,” he said, not quite meeting his intense gaze.
“You’re
not going to pay them?!” Howie
exclaimed.
Nick
was furious, and Kevin could see he was on the verge of flying off the handle,
so he stepped between the two of them before he could carry out whatever
malicious act he had in mind. He whipped out his checkbook.
“I’ll
write the check right here, right now. All $60,000.”
Daniels
was dumbfounded.
“I’m
serious. All that matters is getting them out of there, and if those bastards
want money, than that’s what they’ll get.”
“We
have no way to know if they will release them,” he said quietly. “Even if we
give in to their demands.”
“We
have to try!” Now Kevin was on the verge of losing his temper. “I won’t let you
put the lives of my friends in danger because you won’t comply with the demands
that I am more than willing to meet!”
Daniels
gave him a hard look, and then nodded. “Write a check for $10,000. We’ll take
it to them, but they might not accept it. It depends on how smart they are.”
Kevin
took no notice of the last part of his statement.
“I’ll
write it and I’ll take it,” he said grimly. Nick and Howie looked at him in
surprise.
“You,
Train? Why you?” Howie asked.
“My
money, my friends, my job.” His jaw line was set; there would be no changing
his mind. Nick had seen that look too many times before and knew not to
challenge it.
“That’s
not a good idea,” Daniels said flatly.
Kevin
never took his gaze away from him as he pulled his cell phone out of his back
pocket, flipped it open, and called up A.J.’s number.
Before Daniel’s could stop him, he hit the send button.
Everyone
looked up in surprise when the phone in Thief Number 1’s hand began to ring.
For a moment, they couldn’t decide whether or not to answer it. After a glance
at his watch, he pressed a button, and lifted the phone up to his ear.
“Do
you have the money?”
“Yes,
I have it,” a voice said.
“Who
is this? You aren’t the one who I spoke to earlier.”
“I’m
the one who’s paying you. Do you want it or not?”
“Yes.
I want it.”
“Good.
When should I bring it to you? And are you going to release a hostage?”
He
considered this for a moment.
“I
will release one, this time, just for goodwill. No one else leaves until I have
all of the money.”
“Can
we choose which hostage?” Three heads snapped to attention at this question.
Daniels made as if to grab the phone away, but Kevin dodged him.
“Nope.
I won’t deviate from my lottery. Too bad. Bring the cash to the front door, My
friend here will meet you there. Don’t try anything funny, because the hostage
will be right there with him, and if anyone makes a move I don’t like, bye bye hostage. Got it?”
“Cash?”
Kevin said, his face turning white. I have a check for you…”
“Sorry,
no good. We want cash, in unmarked bills. Do you really think we can get away
with cashing a check?” He laughed. It was a cruel sound that made Kevin’s blood
freeze in his veins.
“Give
me another few minutes, we’ll get to a bank and be right back.” The urgency and
desperation in his voice was completely unmasked, and sweat poured off his
brow. He’d lost all control of the situation, a fact that almost made him snap.
“Sorry.
Time’s up.”
***
