reading

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Acknowledgements

Follow Penguin

It’s so odd, how I don’t feel scared right now, not even nervous. All those months spent rehearsing, going through every conceivable scenario, and now, as I watch the taxi turn the corner, knowing the moment is upon me, I don’t feel scared or nervous or have the urge to walk away or have any reservations.

It feels right, what I’m about to do.

I know it’s right.

After I climb into the back of the cab, shivering from the cold, I lean close to the small window separating the driver from the back seat, my gloved hand gripping my throat, which is bundled in a scarf. The black hoodie is tied tightly around my head and my eyes are covered with sunglasses.

‘One Schroder Plaza,’ I rasp.

The driver looks like an old dockworker, someone who has spent too much time in the elements, his gaunt face cragged and peppered with deep grooves and, I’m guessing, all sorts of skin cancers. He leans his head closer and cocks an ear to me and says, ‘Sorry, I didn’t hear you?’

I make a practice show of how painful it is to talk. ‘One Schroder Plaza,’ I rasp. ‘Boston Police Department.’

The driver nods, puts the car in gear.

‘You getting over a bad cold? The flu?’

I nod eagerly and lean back in my seat, the back of the cab wonderfully warm. I don’t take off my hat or gloves. I don’t want him to see my face, to describe me later to the police and FBI.

‘Bad flu season this year,’ the driver says. ‘My nephew, he’s thirteen? Kid’s a star athlete – basketball and football – works out like a fiend, eats real healthy, takes his vitamins and everything. He gets the flu and ends up in the hospital for a week, can you believe that?’

I stare out my side window, watching the early morning traffic under the grey sky –

‘And today we’re going to get hit with another snowstorm, and I’m saying to myself, “Mike, the hell are you living here for? They got cab drivers in Florida, ya know.” ’

The cab driver keeps talking. I drown out his voice, losing myself in my thoughts, about how we all lead two lives – the one we present to the world, and the one we live behind our eyes. This isn’t a profound thought, I know. I’m sure some philosopher or hack songwriter already said something like that – and probably said it better, too – but I don’t have the benefit of a college education, and I’m not all that well read. The one thing I know – that I’m sure of – is that at the end of the day we want to know the real person, the one he or she keeps hidden from everyone. The one where you find out that your next-door neighbour, Mr Vanilla, a man who volunteered at a suicide hotline and did animal rescue work, who never had a bad word to say about anyone and was shy and quiet and extremely nice, liked to prance about his house wearing clothes belonging to the dozens of women he’d killed and buried in his basement, or something. We want to know the real person – what made him that way, how he kept so secret for so long. We need to know the things we hide from everyone but ourselves, because that’s where the real truth lies.

1

– 00.45

‘I don’t want to do this,’ Darby said.

Coop drank deeply from the cup of coffee he’d made quickly back in his hotel room. They were both staying at the Bunker Hill Inn right around the corner from Mass. General, and directly across the street from Beacon Hill, the place she had called home for ten years before deciding to sell everything off and live as sort of a vagabond forensic consultant. No home, all of her possessions whittled down into a four-by-six hardtop motorcycle suitcase that fit nicely on the back of her Triumph.

It was coming up on eight on Monday, the start of the work week, and they were sitting in the back of a cab, Darby wearing sunglasses even though the early morning sky was overcast. Last night’s wedding reception had run into the early morning hours, and she’d had a little too much bourbon and too little sleep and she was paying for it this morning. She pinched her temples between her fingers and then rubbed the skin above her eyes, trying to massage away the hangover while she gazed out the window at the Boston streets packed bumper-to-bumper with traffic.

‘You were the one who volunteered our services, not me,’ Coop said.

He was right. Last night at the reception, Anna Lopez, a mutual friend and former coworker who was now the head of the city’s Criminal Services Unit, had asked Darby if she and Coop would be willing to stop by BPD’s main headquarters this morning, Monday, to consult on the murders of a pair of retired Boston homicide detectives from last year. Both men were victims of what appeared to be a home invasion. Both men were in their late sixties and lived alone – one a longtime divorcee, the other a widower. The killer tied both men to either a kitchen or dining room chair with duct tape and, after working them over with a heavy, blunt object for several hours, tied a plastic shopping bag around their heads, suffocating them.

That was all the information Darby had. The fine details of a double-homicide were not generally discussed during the reception and cocktail hour, even if the groom and half of the wedding guests were Boston cops and people from the crime lab.

‘It’s the right thing to do,’ Coop said. ‘I know you don’t want to go back there – and I don’t blame you – but we’re talking about Lopez here. How many times did she cover your ass back when you were head of CSU?’

Too many to count, Darby thought.

‘How many all-nighters did she pull? How many weekends did she give up for you?’

‘You’ve made your point,’ she said.

‘And you’ve learned a valuable lesson, which is never, ever make decisions or agree to anything while drinking. Really, you need to be more mature.’ He grinned. His smile disappeared when he glanced out the front window and saw the dead-stop traffic. ‘We should’ve taken the T. Would’ve been quicker – cheaper, too.’

He was right, of course. But when you had a hangover and less than five hours of sleep, a taxi was the only way to go.

She was glad for the hangover, though; it would create a good distraction from her feelings. She didn’t want to go anywhere near the BPD. She had put that life behind her – and for good reason.

She thought she did okay last night at the reception.

‘Let’s walk,’ Coop said.

‘It’s fifteen degrees out.’

‘We’re not that far away, and the fresh air will do us both some good.’ Coop didn’t wait for her answer; he handed the driver a twenty through the window and asked the guy to pull over.

Outside, Coop tossed his cup into a nearby city trashcan. Despite her foul mood, Darby couldn’t help but marvel at how he not only didn’t seem to age the way normal men did – he was in his mid-forties but could have easily passed for someone a decade younger – but also how he managed not to look even the slightest bit tired after late nights of drinking. Coop was like a Chanel suit: classically good-looking year-after-year, and never went out of style.

He pulled his phone out from his pocket and read the screen. ‘They cancelled our flights,’ he said.

‘It’s not even snowing yet.’

‘Weathermen are saying the storm will be here this afternoon around two or so.’ He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his long camel-hair overcoat and began to walk next to her, his head tilted into the wind. ‘What sort of info did Lopez give you about these cases?’

‘Just the basics. She say anything to you?’

‘She told me she talked to you and asked that I tag along.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you need constant monitoring and supervision,’ he replied playfully.

They turned right on to Ruggles, the corner taken up by a brick-façade apartment building. The kerbs here, like all the others, were crusted with small mounds of ice and snow, and the small city trees planted along the concrete sidewalks were stripped of their leaves, their fragile, gnarled limbs still strung with Christmas lights.

‘It’s weird being back here, back in the city,’ he said. ‘You miss it?’

‘Nope.’

‘Bullshit. You have to miss it a little. You grew up here. We both did.’

But she didn’t miss it. Too many ghosts, she thought.

Her father had died when she was twelve – shot by a schizophrenic drug addict. Three years ago, she had discovered the real killer: cops inside the Boston Police Department – the so-called Blue Brotherhood. They had killed him and framed an innocent man, who later died in prison, to protect the head of Boston’s Irish mob during the late seventies and early eighties, a man named Frank Sullivan who was in reality an undercover federal agent.

Ruggles ended at a streetlight. They turned right, on to Tremont. The main headquarters for the Boston Police Department, a squat and rectangular-shaped glass castle set on top of concrete, took up nearly six blocks. Darby felt her pulse quicken. She squeezed her hands into fists inside her jacket pockets as she watched the three flags set up in front of One Schroder Plaza snap like canvas sails in the wind. From behind the green tint of her Ray-Ban sunglasses, she stared at the flag holding the Boston Police crest and rode the greasy swell of her hangover, the building growing taller and wider, like it was coming to life, about to devour her.

2

– 00.25

‘You have a good time at the reception?’ Coop asked.

Darby nodded. ‘You?’

‘Absolutely. Jimmy was fun, as always. Can’t believe he’s married, though. Last of our bachelor friends from BPD. How did it feel seeing your ex get married?’

‘We only dated for six, maybe eight months.’

‘He proposed to you, didn’t he?’

‘He was working up to it, I think.’

‘You told me you were in love.’

‘No, I told you he was in love with me.’

‘So why’d you call it off?’

‘He’s a good guy, fun, but when it comes to relationships he’s pretty much a spineless limp dick who’s looking for someone to replace his mother.’

‘Good thing he didn’t ask you to make a toast last night.’

The sidewalk ended. The road in front of them turned into a porte-cochères-like area for taxis and other vehicles that needed to drop off people for the main entrance into One Schroder Plaza.

Coop held open the heavy glass door for her. As she stepped inside the warm lobby of brown-and-black speckled marble, her chest tightened and blood pounded in her ears like the roar of a crashing wave.

Her father, long since dead, spoke to her: Never let the bastards grind you down.

They killed you, she replied. They killed you, and when I finally exposed the people who did it – exposed them and their laundry list of corruption dating all the way back before I was born – they shoved me out the door.

‘You haven’t said anything about my date last night.’

‘She was nice.’

‘That’s it? Nice?’

‘I really liked her,’ Darby replied as they walked, the pathway sectioned off by raised marble planters bursting with ferns. She knew he was trying to distract her, keep her out of her head and away from her thoughts, and she loved him for it. ‘Not only could she count to ten without using her fingers, she knew all her A-B-C’s.’

‘That’s a little harsh – and she has a name, you know. Nevaeh.’

The metal detector and X-ray machine, Darby noticed, had been upgraded since the last time she was here, and there were a lot more blue uniforms manning the checkpoint: a man and a woman to conduct pat-downs, three others standing behind the conveyor belt to open briefcases, backpacks and other packages. She had heard that BPD had beefed up their security after the Boston Marathon bombing.

‘Did she tell you what it means? Her name?’

‘Yeah,’ Darby replied, snaking around the corner and then breaking off to her right, to the back of the visitors’ line. ‘It’s “Heaven spelled backwards”.’

‘She has two million followers on Instagram.’

‘No, her ass has two million followers.’

‘Heaven-spelled-backwards is a fitness model.’ Coop grinned from ear-to-ear. ‘Did she tell you she was last year’s runner-up for Brazil’s Miss Bum Bum?’

‘Repeatedly.’ Darby unzipped her jacket. ‘Well, she’s certainly bright,’ she said, removing her Class 3 gun-carrying permit from her inner pocket. ‘You know Dan Carter?’

‘Dr Dan the Foot Man.’

‘She asked him what he did for a living. Dan tells her he’s a podiatrist, and Heaven-spelled-backwards says, “Oh, I love children!” ’

The Hispanic woman standing in front of Darby and thumb-keying on a BlackBerry stifled a laugh. She was young and curvy and dressed in a sharp suit, and she looked familiar – a lawyer, Darby believed, from the federal court.

‘It was loud in there,’ Coop said. ‘Nevaeh probably thought he said paediatrician.’

Darby took off her sunglasses. ‘Hmm, I don’t think so.’

There was a holdup at the front of the line. A very pregnant woman who looked like she had a boulder taped to her stomach dropped her coat on the conveyor belt as she spoke to one of the guards, probably asking if she could have a pat-down instead of going through the metal detector. A lot of women still subscribed to the myth that metal detectors and the full-body scanners at airports gave off radiation that could harm their child. The man standing behind her, the one wearing a black rolled-up beanie drawn across his forehead and ears, swallowed back his impatience, his jaw muscles bunching. He reached for a backpack sitting on the conveyor belt, waiting to be examined by X-ray, and when his hand clutched the strap he decided to let go and wait. He didn’t look happy about it.

‘Dr Feet seemed like a real party,’ Coop said. ‘You two have a good time last night?’

‘He’s a nice guy,’ Darby replied, still watching the aggravated man in the black beanie standing behind the pregnant woman, watching as he unzipped the black hoodie he wore underneath his stylish black wool overcoat. He wore a suit jacket underneath the hoodie, a scarf knotted around his neck.

Why would someone wear a hooded sweatshirt over a suit jacket?

‘Did you and Dr Feet do the dance with no trousers?’ Coop asked.

Darby turned to him. ‘What’re you, twelve?’

‘Emotionally, yes. And the fact that you’re deflecting means you and Dr Dan –’

‘How about we talk about these mutant Barbie dolls you keep dating? Where do you find them? Do you hang outside eating disorder clinics?’

‘Not only is that not true, it’s hurtful. I’m just looking for love like everyone else.’

Darby rolled her eyes. ‘What’s the longest relationship you’ve ever had?’

‘I dunno,’ Coop said. ‘Three, maybe four lap dances?’

The Hispanic woman shook her head, looked like she wanted to make a comment, maybe join in on the conversation. She turned slightly so she could get a look at Coop from the corner of her eye. Like most women, she liked what she saw and responded to it. Smiled radiantly.

The man wearing the black beanie removed a gun from underneath his overcoat.

Pointed it at the ceiling.

Fired.

3

– 00.15

Cops were trained to duck and seek cover the moment they saw a weapon or heard gunfire. Civilians ran. A handful might freeze for a second or two, but they always ended up running like frightened cattle and didn’t think twice about pushing or shoving whoever was standing between them and their safety. Children, an old lady using a walker, a litter of puppies – it didn’t matter. They would be knocked down and walked over and trampled because a shooting took on the exact same frenzy and chaos of a Black Friday sale at a Wal-Mart, only the most-sought-after item in this scenario was reaching the exit without getting shot and killed.

The first gunshot was still ringing in Darby’s ears when she saw the gunman grip the pregnant woman in a chokehold and then push her past the metal detector, triggering its subtle but noticeable alarm – a brief trill followed by flashing orange lights.

Then the stampede started.

Darby dropped to the floor beside the conveyor belt, her hand already pulling the SIG from her shoulder holster. A pot-bellied man dressed in a cheap suit and looking like some ambulance-chasing lawyer seen on late-night commercials roughly pushed aside an older, heavy-set Hispanic woman with bleach-blonde hair bundled inside a puffer jacket. He didn’t stop to help her – didn’t so much as even pause. No one did.

A howling typhoon of denim and polyester legs stormed past Darby, towards the building’s revolving front doors. The woman, now lying on her side, brought up her arms to try to protect her face from the boots and shoes kicking at her, and she screamed when someone dropped a steaming cup of coffee on her thighs. Darby scrambled to her feet and fought her way past the tide of bodies. As she grabbed the woman underneath the arms and lifted, from the corner of her eye she saw Coop inching his way along the side of the conveyor belt, heading for the metal detector so he could get a better tactical view.

Once the woman got to her feet, she brushed past Darby and was immediately swept inside the current of bodies. Darby clicked off the safety and inched forward to the main lobby, a long cavernous space maybe half the size of a football field, the walls, floor and ceiling lined with tile that magnified every sound. Underneath the handful of canister lights, she saw maybe a dozen or more cops, a mix of plainclothes and blue uniforms, all of them armed. Some were set in tactical positions behind the raised marble planters and columns. Handfuls were dragging civilians out the line of fire, and she saw a small group tucked inside the lobby for the elevators. Several cops were barking police codes into their chest radios, a few others were on their cell phones. No one appeared to have been shot. The floor was littered with abandoned briefcases and backpacks, spilled coffee cups and cans of soda and bags of food. She didn’t see any blood.

A thread of relief swam underneath the hurricane of adrenaline pounding through her limbs. The gunman hadn’t shot anyone – and he hadn’t wandered in and started firing at random. He had waited in line and, it appeared, as far as she could tell, that he had fired all his shots into the ceiling, all of which suggested he wasn’t some crazed gunman or terrorist looking to rack up a high body count. He wanted something – and he had taken a hostage.

The gunman stood behind the pregnant woman in the far northeast corner, near the end of the long podium of lacquered dark walnut that served as the front desk where, at any given time of day, three to five blue unis worked the phones and handled the check-in process for all visitors. There were three people behind it right now – all men, all of them white-haired and pale and looking like they had lived well beyond their expiration date – and they had their sidearms pointed at the balaclava-covered face nestled behind the woman’s head. The black fabric was cut only to reveal the eyes.

The gunman pressed the muzzle of what looked like a Glock 40 with an extended mag against the woman’s right temple. His arm didn’t shake, and his eyes didn’t jump around the room. Twenty, maybe thirty seconds had passed since the first gunshot, and during that time police had secured the two exits – the one behind Darby, the alcove holding the security checkpoint that led back to the main front doors; and, on the west side of the main lobby, a glass door secured by a keycard that led into the first-floor suite of offices for the Missing Persons Unit. Two cops there. Three cops behind the front desk and six, maybe seven, inside the small lobby for the elevators. A cop behind each of the six marble columns and a half dozen or so cops standing fifteen, maybe twenty feet away from the gunman. The man was boxed in and had twenty or so weapons pointed at him and he didn’t shake and his eyes didn’t move, just stared straight ahead at some fixed point in space, watching a movie only he could see. He seemed too calm, too still.

The same wasn’t true of his hostage. Her legs kept giving out, the red-painted nails desperately clutching at the dark wool fabric of the coat arm wrapped firmly around her throat, her mouth opening and closing, trying to gulp in air as her frightened gaze darted across the sea of weapons and strange and angry faces, all of which seemed to be aimed directly at her.

No one had stepped up to take charge of the situation, and someone needed to. Darby holstered her weapon, about to speak when she saw a tall, doughy man with perfectly combed black hair and fake teeth as white as a toilet lower his Glock and step forward. Darby recognized him: Bob Murphy, a middling detective from Kenmore’s D-3 district.

‘Let’s talk,’ Murphy said in a booming voice. He holstered his weapon, and as he stepped over a puddle of coffee, Darby felt a collective and palpable relief sweep through the lobby. While every cop in here was justifiably afraid of saying or doing something that would cause the hostage situation to rapidly deteriorate, their real terror had to do with the security cameras posted throughout the lobby, recording their every movement, spoken word, and action (or lack thereof), all of which would be reviewed down the road, Monday-morning quarterback-style, by a taskforce or panel of bureaucratic career climbers and pencil-lickers that had never found themselves in the heat of combat. Cops now lived in a world where their best efforts were reviewed, criticized and often vilified. The world wasn’t looking for heroes. It wanted scapegoats.

And now Detective Robert Murphy had stepped up to the plate, putting his career on the line. Whatever happened next, good, bad, or indifferent, would fall on him.

‘My name’s Bobby. You’ve got my attention, so talk. Tell me what you want.’

The gunman didn’t speak. Murphy’s too intimidating, Darby thought. And he’s not speaking the right way. Rule one in hostage negotiation was to develop a rapport. You didn’t bark out commands.

Murphy broke rule two – no yes or no questions – when he said, ‘How about you let everyone out of here so you and I can talk? How’s that sound?’

The gunman grabbed the woman in a chokehold.

‘Easy,’ Murphy said. ‘No need to hurt anyone, okay? Nobody here is going to hurt you.’

Then, to the lobby: ‘Everyone put your weapons away right now. Go on. Do it.’

Murphy turned and watched as people, some begrudgingly, holstered their weapons. Darby kept her attention on the gunman. His calmness set off alarms inside her, making her think, for some reason, of the stillness of a suicide bomber, a man who had already surrendered to dying.

The last weapon holstered, Murphy turned back to the gunman and said, ‘Now everyone is gonna leave so you and me can talk.’ Then, louder to the room: ‘Everyone go ahead and leave, nice and slow out through the front doors.’

The gunman slid the Glock away from the woman’s head.

Dug the muzzle into her swollen belly.

Murphy put up his hands near his shoulders, and Darby saw a slight bulge underneath his jacket, near the back waistband – the sort of bulge a handgun would make. Was Murphy packing a second piece?

‘Everyone keep walking nice and slow,’ Murphy said.

Darby zipped up her jacket to hide her sidearm. Murphy had the best of intentions, but he was out of his depth. Winging it. She had to diffuse the tension and try to gain some control. Now.

‘They killed my father,’ Darby called out.

The gunman’s eyes darted around the crowded lobby to see who had spoken.

‘He was a good man. Honest,’ Darby said. ‘That’s what got him killed.’

Then she moved past a wall of cops and stepped into the gunman’s line of sight.

‘Detective Murphy can’t help you, has no interest in helping you. No one in here does.’

On the periphery of her vision Darby could see more than one angry and reproachful gaze aimed at her. Traitor, their expressions said. Bitch. Liar.

Darby raised her hands to her shoulders and took a few steps forward. ‘Whatever your agenda is, your grievance, I want to hear it. I don’t answer to these people. I know how they think, how they operate. I’ll listen to you and I’ll help you any way I can.’

You don’t belong here, their expressions said. You’re not one of us any more. You never were.

‘We can talk now, or we can talk privately,’ Darby said. ‘Which would you prefer?’

Silence. The lobby, packed with the sharp odours of gun smoke, the warm air crackling with police radios and ringing telephones, felt eerily still.

The gunman’s blue eyes appraised her. They reminded her of Coop, his eyes: large and expressive and bordering on feminine, with the kind of thick lashes generally only seen on women.

He’s too calm, Darby thought. Only someone who had mentally rehearsed this exact moment thousands of times and surrendered to whatever fate would hand him would appear this relaxed.

But what does he want?

The gunman turned his head slightly, towards his hostage, as though he wanted to whisper a secret. The pregnant woman closed her eyes, and her lips trembled when she said, ‘He asks that you come closer.’

Smart, Darby thought, making her way around the items and puddles. Real smart. Using the hostage as his spokeswoman automatically engendered sympathy. It was simple biology and evolution: there wasn’t a single person in here who could stand the thought of seeing a woman, let alone a pregnant one, get hurt. Using her as his mouthpiece forced everyone to take his threats and demands seriously.

That would change if Darby could convince him of her real plan: exchange the hostage for her. If that happened, with the exception of Coop, no one would shed a tear if she became collateral damage. BPD will probably hold a parade, she thought.

‘Stop,’ the hostage said, still gripping her captor’s arm.

Darby, now standing less than ten feet away, got a good, close look at the pregnant woman. She appeared to be somewhere in her early to mid-thirties and had the kind of pale and freckled Irish skin that always burned and never tanned. Boston accent. Shoulder-length blonde hair that was tangled around part of her face and mouth. No make-up or rings on any of her fingers. Her clothing – sneakers and maternity jeans with a red top worn underneath a long and baggy grey hoodie with a ripped right-front pocket – were well-worn, thrift-store purchases or items donated to her by her girlfriends.

The hostage said, ‘He asks that you please put your hands behind your head.’

Darby complied. For some reason, the woman triggered memories of her mother. After her father died (no, murdered, he was murdered by people who once worked in this very building, his so-called brothers-in-blue) they had lived on a shoestring budget. Sheila McCormick clipping coupons and only buying store-brand groceries and clothes from yard sales and department-store clearance racks – and only when it was completely and absolutely necessary.

The gunman trained his weapon on Darby.

‘Get on your knees,’ the hostage said.

4

– 00.10

Darby didn’t move.

‘Down on your knees, hands behind your head,’ the hostage said, her voice trembling. ‘He won’t ask you again.’

Seeing the raw terror in the woman’s eyes, how it was eating its way through her, quickly transforming her into a shell of a person who, if she survived this, would be for ever scarred and mistrusting and constantly frightened, made Darby want to lunge for the gunman.

‘Please,’ the woman nearly screamed. ‘Do what he says …’

‘You got it,’ Darby replied. Her voice didn’t tremble. She breathed deeply and slowly. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Laura –’

The gunman tightened his chokehold, cutting off her words.

Locked back the Glock’s hammer.

He won’t kill me, Darby told herself as she dropped to one knee, then another. Shoot me or anyone else and he’ll lose all of his negotiation power. He’s smart enough to know that.

Was he? She had no way of knowing. For all she knew, the gunman was mentally unstable and had some personal death wish. Maybe he was going to splatter her brains across the cold marble floor to demonstrate his power. Maybe he was going to make some proclamation and start firing wildly. Right now anything was possible because she knew next to nothing about the man and his intentions. Right now she was operating solely on gut instincts and experience, both of which told her he needed to voice some grievance before listing his demands. Right now all she could do was wait for him to speak. When he did, she would listen with trained empathy. Give him her full attention and build a rapport with him.

You’re making a helluva lot of assumptions, an inner voice countered. Let’s hope to God you’re right.

The hostage let go of her captor’s arm. The woman fought like hell to keep her legs from buckling, and her arms shook as she reached around, behind her back. Then her gaze cut sideways, to a civilian: an older black woman with grey dreadlocks and thick-rimmed eyeglasses who was sitting on the floor with her back resting up against the reception desk, her mouth working rapidly in silent prayer.

‘You. Yes, you,’ the hostage said. Darby could see the woman’s fingers fumbling at the buttons of the man’s overcoat but kept her attention focused on the gunman, studying him, trying to commit his every gesture and movement to memory. ‘That cane lying on the floor, is it yours?’

‘Yes, sir.’

A pause as the gunman spoke to the hostage.

‘You’re to remain seated,’ the hostage said. ‘Nod if you understand … good.’

Now the pregnant woman turned her attention to the centre of the room.

Then, louder: ‘You, the woman with the white curly hair standing in the back. Please come forward.’

Over her left shoulder Darby saw a bull of a woman with a round face thread her way past a pair of armed blue uniforms: Caucasian, somewhere in her late fifties, stocky and thick, about five foot five inches. She had a slight overbite and wore a forest green L. L. Bean winter parka that had a hood lined with fur.

Another pause as the gunman spoke to his hostage.

‘Face down on the floor, please,’ the pregnant woman stammered. Then, with her left hand, she pulled back the lapel of the gunman’s overcoat and held it open.

Darby had seen suicide vests in photographs and on the news, but never one up close. The gunman had fashioned his using an olive-coloured military tactical vest which, given its thickness, suggested it was not only bulletproof but held ceramic armour plating. She could only see the left side of the vest, but what she saw was enough: detonator cords running into five bricks of C-4 or some other plastic explosive tucked inside five tactical pockets.

A wave of terror washed through her before she could catch it. On the periphery of her vision she saw people inch back, fighting the urge to run. She wanted to join them. Bombs were nasty, hateful things, wildly unpredictable and wildly destructive. They ranged from crudely constructed devices using ordinary kitchen items like pressure cookers to the elegantly simple pipe bomb. Assuming the right side of the vest was a mirror image of the left meant the gunman had a total of ten blocks of plastic explosive strapped to his body – nowhere near enough to blow the building but more than enough to destroy the lobby and kill everyone in here – especially if he, like other suicide bombers, had packed the vest with ball bearings, screws, bolts, and other metal objects to serve as shrapnel.

The hostage spoke again: ‘The three women are to stay. Everyone else, clear the lobby.’

While people filed out, Darby tried to study the gunman, who was still crouched behind the hostage, his body pressed up against the woman’s back. He was about a good five inches taller than the hostage, putting his height around six feet. He wore polished black Oxford shoes and a black suit with a white shirt and a dark tie – funeral attire, she thought.

But it was the man’s calm demeanor that worried her. It made her think of suicide bombers who had willingly and eagerly surrendered to the belief that their actions would grant them entrance into a paradise of unlimited pleasures.

Again the gunman whispered against the hostage’s ear. Whatever he said caused the woman to break into tears. Then he released his grip on her throat and with his left hand he reached inside his jacket pocket and came back with a black, circular device that looked like a gasmask filter. He placed it against the black fabric covering his mouth and used the Velcro straps to attach it to his balaclava.

Not a filter; a voice-altering device. ‘Remove your coats and place them on the floor,’ he said, his voice taking on the robotic quality of a computer. ‘All of you.’

They complied. The black woman, Darby saw, was having a difficult time. She saw the gunman glaring at her and said, ‘I just had shoulder surgery. I can’t take it off myself.’

But the gunman was no longer paying attention to her; his attention and weapon were now on the white-haired woman, who wore a hip holster strapped with a nine.

‘You’re a cop,’ the gunman said. The voice-altering device didn’t allow for inflection. Darby didn’t know if the man was asking a question or making a statement. ‘Are you a member of the Boston Police Department?’

The woman nodded. She wore a grey cable-knit sweater with jeans and boots.

‘Active duty?’

Again she nodded.

‘Where?’

‘District Three,’ she said. ‘Fenway.’

‘Homicide?’

‘Yes.’

‘Place your service weapon on the floor. Then lie down and push it over to me.’

Active duty, Darby thought. Service weapon. Cop speak. She sensed he was fighting some internal conflict. Taking a cop as a hostage maybe wasn’t part of his plan.

His attention swung back to Darby, at the nine tucked in her shoulder holster.

‘I’m not a cop,’ she said. ‘I work in the private sector.’

‘As what?’

‘I’m a forensic consultant. My name is Darby McCormick. Tell me how I can help you.’

‘Remove your handgun and slide it over to me.’

She did.

‘Now rise,’ he said.

5

– 00.04

‘What was his name?’ the gunman asked. ‘Your father?’

‘Thomas McCormick,’ Darby said. ‘Everyone called him Big Red, like the gum.’

‘Big Red. I like that. Was he a detective?’

‘No, a patrolman in Belham, where I grew up. It’s a city –’

‘I know where it is. Why was he killed?’

‘Because he was a good man. Honest.’

The cold blue eyes from the balaclava squinted at her, as if trying to decipher some hidden meaning behind her words. The pregnant woman gripped the boulder that was her stomach with both hands as if trying to hold it up. She was clearly in pain.

‘She needs a doctor,’ Darby said to him. Then, to the woman: ‘Laura, how far along are you?’

The woman gasped; the gunman had tightened his chokehold.

‘You’ll address me and only me,’ he said to Darby.

‘She’s a liability. You should take me instead.’ If he took her as his hostage, Darby could, with a few well-placed blows, have him on his knees, sobbing and begging to return to the safety of his mother’s womb.

You don’t know if he has a detonator, an inner voice added. If he does and if he reaches it before you can subdue him, they’ll be scraping what’s left of you and everyone else in here with spatulas.

‘I don’t think so,’ the gunman said. ‘You’re a dangerous woman. In more ways than one, I suspect. On the conveyor belt you’ll find a black backpack. Retrieve it for me. Please.’

The backpack weighed at least twenty pounds, the tight nylon fabric stretched to its limit.

‘Bring the bag to me and place it on the floor,’ the gunman said. ‘Now open it.’

Darby squatted on her haunches, found the zipper and pulled. When she opened the mouth of the bag, a strong, chemical odour like bleach assaulted her. Inside, she saw two rolls of duct tape, plastic zip ties, and what looked like a portable and battery-operated router – what everyone called a mobile hotspot – sitting on top of a mountain of what she assumed was plastic explosive. It had the colour and texture of dough. She suspected the gunman had crafted the explosive himself, using some homemade recipe he’d found on the internet. Terrorists loved sharing their baking secrets.

‘Remove the router and place it on the desk behind me. After you’re done, come back to me so I can see your pretty face.’

Darby reached inside the bag and used a fingernail to scrape off a piece of the explosive. It was hard, like putty, and it remained trapped underneath her fingernail as she stood with the router in her hand. The gunman, she saw, had painted the areas on the router containing its make and model.

‘My demand is simple and easy,’ he said after she returned. ‘I want to speak with Mayor Edward Briggs here, face-to-face, in the lobby. You will escort him and a cameraman and reporter to interview me live on TV. Once the interview is over, I’ll release the hostages and surrender myself to you. It’s that simple.’

‘Edward Briggs is no longer the mayor. He retired last year.’

‘Your watch,’ the gunman said, ignoring her statement, ‘does it have a timer function?’

‘It does.’

‘Good. Please set it for a three-hour countdown.’

Darby went to work, pressing the various plastic knobs on her cheap digital Casio with its scuffed-up face. She had worn it for years – the watch and the small gold crucifix under her shirt, the last gift her father had given her before he died. Over the years they felt like talismans that protected her from harm, even death.

‘My timer is set,’ Darby said.

‘Thank you. Don’t start it yet – I want you to give me your full attention, because this next part is critical. Do I have your full attention?’

‘You do.’

‘You will have exactly three hours to deliver the honorable Mayor Briggs, a reporter and cameraman into the lobby – you and only you. If they don’t arrive within the three-hour timeframe, the first bomb will go off. Another bomb will go off every three hours until Briggs arrives. Do you understand?’

‘I understand.’

‘The suicide vest I’m wearing is connected to my heartbeat. If I die, the vest and the bombs I’ve planted in and around the city will go off. If members of the Boston Police or FBI or anyone else try to infiltrate the lobby, if I see a bomb robot deliver a throw-down phone, I will detonate one of the bombs, maybe even the one strapped to my chest. Do you understand?’

‘I understand.’

‘Please repeat back what I said.’

She did.

‘I’m electing you as my spokesman – excuse me, my spokeswoman,’ the gunman said. ‘I will speak to you and only you. No one else is to enter the lobby.’

‘You have two explosive devices in here. They’re not going to allow anyone to enter.’

‘The devices will be rendered safe once I see that Briggs has arrived.’

‘And the other bombs you planted?’

‘I’ll give you their locations and the codes to disarm them.’

‘How many are there?’

‘Start your timer. Oh, and Darby? There will be no negotiation. Please remember that or there will be blood.’

Chris Mooney

EVERY THREE HOURS

PENGUIN BOOKS

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