Cold & Deadly (Cold Justice: Crossfire #1)(10)
The Governor of Vermont was on the line.
He stared at the screen until eventually the call went to voicemail. Then he stood and grabbed his jacket. Maybe he needed that drink after all.
Chapter Three
The piece of paper on the table contained a list of ten names. Two had died of natural causes. One man’s cancer traced to his work at Ground Zero. Sad, yes, but only because he’d gotten off easy. Three names had already been crossed out this year. Each death had been deemed natural or accidental, including Van Stamos, whose suicide had been perfectly staged and made gratifyingly ugly.
A thick green marker was dragged over the name “Calvin Mortimer” with a sense of grim satisfaction. It had been a tossup, who to shoot. Only three names remained on the list, the most important being Dominic Sheridan. It had been tempting to put a bullet in him today, but like the man who’d succumbed to cancer, that would be letting him off easy. Sheridan deserved to suffer the most. The prospect of the slowly dawning horror he’d feel once he realized he was being hunted was extremely satisfying.
Carefully, the green marker was capped, the piece of paper folded and slipped into a desk drawer. Then the drawer was locked.
A phone rang in the distance. Revenge needed to be total, complete. A veritable masterclass in murder. Peter would be so proud.
Chapter Four
“Make Jennifer McCredie out of the San Francisco Field Office your lead negotiator, but don’t put her in first.” Dominic was talking to a police chief of a small town outside Sacramento where a man had holed himself up with his ex-wife, young son, and a smorgasbord of semi-automatic weapons. “Get one of the other negotiators to do some of the preliminary leg work. Get the man talking. Make him feel like you’re listening to his problems and that you care about what’s happening to him and no one is going to get hurt. After a few hours let Jennifer talk to him.” It would take her that long to arrive on scene anyway.
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “The guy shot a waitress at a fast food joint and seems to have a raging hatred of women. What makes you think he’ll want to talk to this Jennifer person?”
Because Jennifer is the top negotiator on the west coast?
Dominic rubbed his face, glad he wasn’t on video. He didn’t indulge very often but after yesterday’s debacle he’d allowed himself a few beers with the others and had woken up with a hangover. Charlotte had poured him into a taxi at midnight.
The woman was a saint.
Dominic drank from a bottle of water he kept on his desk. “My experience is that getting a woman to really listen to him is exactly what this guy craves.” The waitress had insisted the hostage-taker leave the restaurant when he made a scene with the ex-wife. The waitress had threatened to call the police when he’d refused to go quietly. So, he’d shot her. “Jennifer can get him talking, provide an empathetic ear.”
Over the years, Dominic had noted that many of the people who took hostages were men who felt like they were losing control of what they saw as their property. Their wives left them or simply wanted some independence, and the men couldn’t handle it.
The police chief grunted. “I asked his old boss and brother to come down here to talk to him. Was that a mistake?”
Dominic squeezed the bridge of his nose. “It’s great that you interview them, but don’t let them talk to the hostage-taker.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’ve no idea the type of relationship they have or what resentments the husband might harbor. If the hostage-taker is the suspicious type he might think one of them is involved with the ex-wife. Trust me, it’s happened.” With deadly consequences.
The chief made a frustrated noise.
“Have SWAT secure the perimeter and see if you can get a visual on the guy in the event you need a tactical solution. Then let the negotiation team do their work. It will take time, but that’s a good thing.” Giving time time was an idea an experienced negotiator at the NYPD had taught him. “The longer we draw this out the more chance we have of everyone walking away from this thing alive.”
A lot of people considered negotiators and behavioral scientists to be the social workers of law enforcement. The hand holders. The “let’s talk this out” or “this UNSUB was probably abused as a child” types. As if that meant they were somehow less dedicated to putting the bad guys behind bars or getting hostages released without harm.
Stats were pretty convincing that when crisis negotiators got involved tempers had time to cool and things resolved with less violence and harm to those involved.
The police chief swallowed audibly. “There’s a little kid in there…”
Dominic’s grip on the phone tightened. “I realize that, but as tempting as it is to rush in with guns blazing, that’s the most dangerous thing you can do for the child at this point. If the situation deteriorates, you’ll have that tactical team in place ready to respond.”
Dominic never failed to see the futility of the hostage-takers’ actions. What did they think would happen? That the cops would leave them alone while they held their family at gunpoint? That rape and enslavement would be fine as long as they didn’t bother anyone else?
A good negotiator had to put all judgment aside, to convince a hostage-taker—usually a person in crisis—that life was still worth living, and that although things seemed hopeless right then, there was still hope. It got considerably harder when someone committed a capital crime in a death penalty state.