Law And Disorder

“Well, I’ll try to keep a clear head here,” she said. “At the moment, my mind is not hampered with grief over losing anyone, and you really should keep it that way. I mean, if you want me to find out anything for you.”

Nick wished he could have shut her up somehow; he couldn’t believe she was taunting a man who was half-crazy and holding the lives of so many people in his hands.

He had to admire her bravado—even as he wished she didn’t have it.

But Dillinger laughed softly beneath his mask.

“My dear Miss Cameron, you do have more balls than half the men I find myself working with!” Dillinger told her. “Excellent—if you have results. If you don’t, well, it will just make it all the easier to shut you up!”

She wasn’t even looking at Dillinger anymore. She’d turned her attention back to the journal spread open before her.

“Let me work,” she said softly.

Dillinger grunted. He took a seat in one of the chairs by the wall of the library, near the phone.

Nick walked to the windows, looking out at the gardens in the front of the house, the driveway and—at a distance—the wall and the great iron gates that led up to the house.

More and more cars were beginning to arrive—marked police cars, unmarked cars belonging to the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies.

He wondered how Dillinger could believe he might get out of this alive.

And then he wondered just how the hell any of them were going to get out alive.

The phone began to ring. Dakota Cameron jumped in her chair, nearly leaping from it.

Nick nearly jumped himself.

Dillinger rose and picked up the phone. “Hello? Dillinger here. How can I help you? Other than keeping the hostages alive... Let’s see, how can you help me? Well, I’ll begin to explain. Right now, everyone in the house is breathing. We have some employees, we have some guests... What we want is more time, really good speed boats—cigarettes or Donzis will do. Now, of course, we need a couple because a few of these good people will be going with us for just a bit when we leave. We’ll see to it that you get them all back alive and well as long as we get what we want.”

Nick wished he was on an extension. He wanted to hear what was being said.

He saw Dillinger nod. “How bright of you to ask so quickly! Yes, there is a missing child, too, isn’t there? An important little boy—son of a mayor! Ah, well, all children are important, aren’t they...? Mr. Frasier? Ah! Sorry, Special Agent Frasier. FBI. They’ve brought in the big guns. Let’s go with this—right now, I want time. You give me some time and you arrange for those boats. To be honest, I’m working on a way to give you back that kid I scooped up. Not a bad kid, in the least. I liked him. I’d hate for him to die of neglect, caged and chained and forgotten. So, you work on those boats.”

Nick saw Dakota Cameron frown as she’d heard the name Frasier. Not that Frasier was a rare name, but Kody was good friends with Kevin Finnegan and therefore friends with his sister Kieran—and so she knew Craig. She had to be puzzled, wondering first if he was indeed the same man a friend was dating and, if so, what he was doing in South Florida.

She looked up from her ledger. She was staring at Dillinger hard, brows knit in a frown.

A moment later Dillinger set the receiver back in the cradle. He seemed to be pleased with himself.

“You kidnapped a child?” she asked.

“I like to have a backup plan,” Dillinger said.

“You have all of us.”

“Yes. But, hey, maybe nobody cares about any of you. They will care about a kid.”

“Yep, they will,” Nick interrupted. “But I think they need to believe in us, too. Hey, man, you want time for Miss Cameron to find the treasure, the stash, or whatever might be hidden? If we’re going to buy that time, we need to play to them. I say we give them the security guard. He needs medical attention. Best we get him out of here. An injured hostage is just a liability. Let’s give him up as a measure of good faith.”

“Maybe,” Dillinger said. He looked at Kody. “How are you doing?”

“I’d do a lot better if you didn’t ask me every other minute,” she said. “And,” she added softly, “if I wasn’t so worried about Jose.”

“Who the hell is Jose?” Dillinger asked.

“Our security guard. The injured man,” Kody said.

Dillinger glanced restlessly at his watch and then at the phone. “Give them a few minutes to get back to me.”

He walked out of the room, leaving Nick alone with Kody.

“How are you doing?” he asked her.

She shrugged and then looked up at him. “So far, I have all the same information everyone has had for years. Anthony Green robbed the bank, but the police couldn’t pin it on him, couldn’t make an arrest. He wrote in his own journal that it was great watching them all run around like chickens with no heads. Of course, it wouldn’t be easy for anyone to find the stash. What it seems to me—from what I’ve read—is that he did plan on disappearing. Leaving the country. And he was talking about boats, as well—”

She broke off, staring at the old journal she was reading and then flipping pages over.

“What is it?” Nick asked.

She looked up at him, her expression suddenly guarded. He realized that—to her—he was a death-dealing criminal.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I need time.”

“You’ve got time right now. Use it,” he said.

“We need to see some of the hostages out of here—returned to safety,” she said firmly. “In good faith!”

They were both startled by the sound of a gunshot. Then a barrage of bullets seemed to come hailing down on the house.

A priceless vase on a table exploded.

Nick practically flew across the room, leaping over the desk to land on top of Kody—and bring her down to the floor.

The barrage of bullets continued for a moment—and then went silent.

He felt her move beneath him.

He looked down at her. Her eyes were wide on his as she studied him gravely. He hadn’t just been intrigued, he realized. He hadn’t just wanted to see her again.

He’d been attracted to her. Really attracted.

And now...

She was trembling slightly.

He leaped to his feet, drawing her up, pulling her along with him as he raced down the hall to the stairs that led to the right tower where Schultz had been keeping guard.

Nick was pretty damned certain Schultz—a man who was crazy and more than a little trigger happy—had fired the first shots.

“What the hell are you doing?” he shouted.

As he did so, Dillinger came rushing along, as well. “What the hell?” he demanded furiously.

“I saw ’em moving, boss. I saw ’em moving!” Schultz shouted down.

The phone started ringing. Nick looked at Dillinger. “Let me take it. Let me see what I can do,” he said.

Dillinger was already moving back toward the library. Nick followed, still clasping Kody’s hand.

When they reached the library, Dillinger stepped back and let Nick answer the phone.

“Hello?” Nick said. “This is Barrow speaking now. We don’t know what happened. We do know that you responded with the kind of violence that’s going to get someone killed. Seriously, do you want everyone in here dead? What the hell was that?”

“Shots were fired at us,” a voice said. “Who is this?”

“I told you. Barrow.”

“Are you the head man?”

Nick glanced over at Dillinger.

“No. I’m spokesman for the head man. He’s all into negotiation. What we want doesn’t have anything to do with a bunch of dead men and women, but that’s what we could wind up with if we don’t get this going right,” Nick said.

“We don’t want dead people,” the voice on the other end assured him.

“We don’t, either,” Nick said.

“Barrow. All right, let’s talk. I think everyone got a little panicky. No one wants anyone to die here today. We’re all working in the same direction, that being to see that everyone gets out alive. Okay?”

Nick knew who was doing the negotiating for the array of cops and FBI and law enforcement just on the other side of the gates.

He was speaking with Craig Frasier. Nick was glad the FBI and the local authorities had gotten it together to make the situation go smoothly. He knew Craig; Craig knew him. There was so much more he was going to be able to do with Craig at the other end.

“How are they doing on my boats?” Dillinger asked, staring at Nick.

“We’re going to need those boats,” Nick said. He needed to give Craig all the information he could about the situation, without making Dillinger suspicious, and he wanted, also, to maintain his position as spokesman for Dillinger.

“Yes, two boats, right?” Craig asked.

“Good ones. The best speedboats you can get your hands on. Now, we’re not fools. You won’t get all the information you need to save everyone until we’re long gone and safe. But, right now, we’re going to give you a man. Security guard. He’s got a bit of a gash on his head. We’re going to bring him out to the front and we’ll see that the gate is opened long enough for one of you to get him out. Do you understand? The fate of everyone here may depend on this nice gesture on our part going well.”

He knew that Craig understood; Nick had really just told him the guard had been the only one injured and that he did need help.

“No one else is hurt? Everyone is fine?”

Craig had to ask to keep their cover. But Nick knew the agent was also concerned for Dakota Cameron. That the Cameron family owned this place—and that Kody was down here—was something Craig must have realized from the moment Dillinger made his move.

“No one is hurt. I’m trying to keep it that way,” Nick assured him, glancing over at Dillinger.

Dillinger nodded. He seemed to approve of how Nick handled the negotiations. There was enough of a low-lying threat in Nick’s tone to make it all sound very menacing, no matter what the words.

“That’s good. Open the gate and we’ll get the man. There will be no attempts to break in on you, no more bullets fired,” Craig said.

Nick looked at Dillinger. Yes? he mouthed.

Dillinger nodded. “Keep an eye on her!”

As he hurried out, Kody stood and started after him, then paused herself, as if certain Nick would have stopped her if she hadn’t. He held the phone and stared at her, wishing he dared tell her who he was and what his part was in all this.

But he couldn’t.

He couldn’t risk her betraying him.

He covered the mouthpiece on the house phone. “Don’t leave the room.”

“Jose Marquez...” she murmured.

“He’s really letting him go,” Nick said.

She walked over to him suddenly. He was afraid she was going to reach for the mask that covered his face.

She didn’t touch him. Instead she spoke quickly. “You’re not like that. You could stop this. You have a gun. You could—”

“Shoot them all down?” he asked her.

“Wound them, stop this—stop them from killing innocent people. I’d speak for you. I’d see that everyone in court knew that people survived because of you.”

She was moving closer as she spoke—not to touch him, he realized, but to take his gun.

He set the phone down and grabbed her roughly by the wrists.

“Don’t pull this on anyone else. Haven’t you really grasped this yet? They’re trigger happy and crazy. Just do as they say. Just find that damned stash!”

Something in her jaw seemed to be working. She looked away from him.

“You found it already?” he said incredulously. “You have, haven’t you? But that’s impossible so fast!”

She didn’t confirm or deny; she gave no answer. He heard a crackle on the phone line and put it back to his ear. As he did so, he looked out the windows.

Dillinger, wielding a semiautomatic, was leading out two hostages carrying Jose Marquez. They brought him close to the gate, Dillinger keeping his weapon trained on them the entire time.

They left Jose and walked back into the house.

Dillinger followed them.

A second later the gate opened. Police rushed in and scooped up the security guard. They hurried out with him.

The gates closed and locked.

“Barrow! Barrow? Hey, you there?”

“Yes,” Nick replied into the phone.

“We have the security guard. We’ll get him to the hospital. What about the others? Do they need food, water?”

Kody was staring at him. He heard footsteps pounding up the stairs, as well.

Dillinger was back.

“Sit!” he told Kody. “Figure out what we need to do in order to get our hands on that stash.”

To his surprise, she sat. She sat—and had the journal up in her hands before Dillinger returned to the room.

“Well?” Dillinger said to Nick.

Nick spoke into the phone. “We’ve given you the hostage in good faith. We really would like to see that all these good folks live, but, hey, they call bad guys bad guys because...they’re bad. So back away from the gates and start making things happen. What about our boats?”

“I swear, we’re getting you the best boats,” Craig said.

“I want them now,” Dillinger said.

“We need you to supply those boats now,” Nick said, nodding to Dillinger and repeating his demand over the phone. “We need them out back, by the docks, and then we need you and your people to be far, far away.”

“The boats will be there soon,” Craig told Nick.

“Soon? Make that six or seven minutes at most!” he said.

He hoped Craig picked up on the clue. Stressing the word told him there were seven in this merry band of thieves.

“Don’t push it too far!” Nick added. “Maybe we’ll give you to ten or eleven minutes to get it together, but...well, you don’t want hostages to start dying, do you?”

Easy enough. That told him there were eleven hostages, including Dakota Cameron, being held.

Dillinger looked at Nick and nodded, satisfied.

“We’ve got one of the boats,” Craig said. “How do I get my man to bring it around and not get killed or become a hostage himself?” he asked.

“One boat?”

“So far. Getting our hands on what you want isn’t easy,” Craig said. “If we give you that one boat, what do we get?”

“You just got a man.”

“We could find a second boat more quickly if we had a second man—or woman,” Craig said.

They had to be careful; the negotiator’s voice carried on the land line.

Of course, Craig Frasier knew that. He would be careful, but Nick knew that he had to be more so. Dakota could hear Craig, as well.

“Please,” she said softly, “give them Stacey Carlson and Nan Masters. They’re older. They’ll just be like bricks around your neck when you need hostages for cover. Please, let them leave.”

“Please,” Dillinger said, mimicking her plea, “find what I want to know!”

“I might have,” Kody said very softly.

“You might have?”

“Give the cops two more hostages. Give them Stacey and Nan,” she said. “I’ll show you what I think I’ve figured out once you’ve done that. Please.”

Dillinger looked at Nick. “Hey, the lady said please. Let’s accommodate her. Get on the phone and tell them to get the hell away from the gate. We’ll give them two more solid, stand-up citizens.” His eyes narrowed. “But I want my boats. Two boats. And I want them now. No ten minutes. No eleven minutes. I want them now!”

He looked at Kody. She was staring gravely at him.

“We have a present for you,” he told Craig over the phone. “Two more hostages. Only we want two boats. Now. We want them right now.”

“And if we don’t get those boats soon...” Dillinger murmured.

He looked over at Kody.

And his eyes seemed to smile.

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