Targeted (Hostage Rescue Team Series Book 2) (19 page)

As they raced to the bank she thought of Tuck, imagined him getting his team ready, maybe hauling ass back to base to review intel and grab their equipment. He hadn’t told her if they were training off base today and she hadn’t thought to ask because she’d been in such a rush to get into the office once the manifesto was discovered.

Now she wished she’d taken those extra few seconds to tell him how she felt, hug him hard to back it up. Though she was pretty sure he knew just how hard she’d fallen for him, given how she’d dropped her guard for him completely last night. She’d never done that for a man before.

Tuck was definitely worth it.

Travers accelerated faster, keeping his eyes on the road. The engine revved higher and higher as they tore down the highway, FBI and police escorts clearing their way on the route to the bank. “DeLuca’s probably on the line to the deputy director right now. Keep trying.”

Well, duh.
Scowling, she tried Tuck again. It went straight to voicemail. This time she left a message. “Hey, it’s me. Our bomber upped the stakes and has over a dozen hostages at a federal bank in D.C. Travers and I will be acting as DeLuca’s liaisons on scene.”
And therefore by extension, yours too.

She paused, then added, “Be careful.” She didn’t care that Travers overheard her and didn’t give a damn what conclusions he drew about her and Tuck or what he thought of it. Because she was ninety-nine percent certain Tuck and the HRT guys would have to respond to this incident.

Just as she was now certain that he and his teammates were Spivey’s real target and had been all along.

They didn’t know who on the team specifically yet, if anyone, since the paperwork for the subsequent investigation after the Denver incident had been buried deep and analysts had only started looking at it just before the call about the bank had come in. But the manifesto had said he was targeting a specific individual he blamed for his family’s deaths.

The earlier bombings and now this had ensured his case had gotten the agency’s full attention, and the number of hostages combined with the bank’s proximity to Quantico—less than a thirty minute drive—pretty much guaranteed them responding to the incident.

Spivey had planned this carefully. Celida was going to make sure she ruined all his plans today.

Knowing that Tuck and his teammates were almost certainly going into harm’s way today against an expert and motivated suspect made her feel sick with fear but she didn’t dare let it show. “I’ve got people tracking down Spivey’s friends and relatives right now,” she said to Travers. “We might be able to use one of them to talk him down.”

“Maybe,” he muttered, but he didn’t sound hopeful about that and she wasn’t either.

In a way she and Travers were going to be Tuck’s team’s lifeline, relaying critical intel to DeLuca and the rest of the HRT’s logistics and comms personnel. She had to stay calm, professional. Tuck was a seasoned, experienced operator and so were the guys on his team, everyone from command right down to the newest guys like Jake Evers.

She tried DeLuca again and got his voicemail once more. After leaving him an urgent message she lowered the phone into her lap and forced herself to relax. They were less than ten minutes from the bank now. Travers had gotten the call from the police that one of the tellers had triggered a silent alarm.

Apparently Spivey had already barricaded himself in there and initial reports from cops arriving on scene said there were no visuals inside the building because Spivey had activated all the blackout blinds. Knowing they were dealing with an explosives and demolitions expert who also had insider knowledge of law enforcement protocols upped the stakes for everyone involved.

Local cops had already blocked off the area around the bank by the time she and Travers arrived, and a dozen or so Feds were assisting in establishing the secure interior perimeter. Jumping out of the vehicle, they jogged to the large truck serving as a mobile command unit.

Sniffer dogs were already working the perimeter of the building. As she watched, one of the dogs stopped sniffing and sat with its ears perked, looking at its handler. A clear signal that it had found explosives.

“How much do you think we’re dealing with here?” she asked Travers, following him into the command truck.

“A whole shitload,” he muttered, stepping inside.

Seven agents seated before computers all looked up at them. Another senior agent from the D.C. counterterrorism unit Celida recognized, Dave Abbott, nodded at them and spoke to Travers. “Right now we think there are fifteen hostages. Bank manager, assistant manager, four tellers, security agent and eight customers, according to the surveillance video we got before he shut it down.”

“Tell me about the security agent,” Travers said.

“Two years in the Army before being discharged for medical reasons. Depression, apparently. After that he worked for three years as a deputy for a sheriff’s office in a small town in Oregon before moving to D.C. ten months ago and got hired on by the security firm the bank uses.” He paused to draw a breath and adjust his glasses.

“So far four of the five K-9 units have indicated explosives in or around the building. At this point we’re assuming he has all the doors and windows wired. Nobody has been able to get eyes or ears inside yet. We’re pretty sure Spivey must have complete control over everyone inside already because there have been no phone calls from anyone in there.”

One of the agency hostage negotiators she’d worked with before was seated at a desk near the front of the truck with a phone to her ear. “He hasn’t answered the landline in there yet?” Celida asked, switching her gaze out the window as the K-9 units continued their inspection around the building.

“Nope. Two of our techs are trying to figure out a way to get a fiber optic camera in somewhere, maybe through the ventilation system.”

“He’ll have thought of that and be ready for it,” Celida said. They couldn’t do anything that might jeopardize triggering the explosives he’d set.

“Well, we need eyes in there somehow,” Abbott argued, his expression and tone slightly belligerent.

“Not if he’s got the place rigged to blow with all those hostages inside,” Travers said, a hard edge to his voice.

Celida doubted Spivey would blow the place if he could help it—not until his real target arrived, anyway. “We can’t risk it.” She turned to Travers. “SWAT’s out for sure?” If they could take this guy down with a conventional team then Tuck and the others wouldn’t be called in. The agency had some of the best SWAT teams in the business.

Face grim, Travers shook his head. “Not with this high profile a case, and not with that many hostages in there. In this case, unfortunately we might have to give the fucker exactly what he wants.”

The HRT, including Tuck.

Celida shoved back the fear clawing its way up her spine. The sudden blare of her cell phone made her heart rate spike. She grabbed it, hit with a simultaneous blast of relief and disappointment that it wasn’t Tuck’s number on screen. “It’s DeLuca,” she said to Travers. “He’s ten minutes out.”

Pistol gripped firmly in his left hand, Ken wiped his forearm across his damp forehead. All the hostages were now in flex cuffs, hands secured behind their backs, all seated against the far wall with no doors or windows in it.

All except for the little girl and her mother, who he hadn’t tied up. They were sitting with the others, the girl in the woman’s lap. In wiring all the doors and windows he’d forced the HRT to attempt either a ceiling or a wall entry, and they wouldn’t risk blowing through the wall if there might be hostages lined up against it. Without eyes or ears inside the bank, they would have to play it safe.

That is, if they’d even been called in yet.

He’d given the Feds and cops outside more than ample time to get into position. There would be snipers in place on surrounding rooftops, staring through scopes at the blacked out windows, looking in vain for a shot. His only worry for now was one of the hostages trying something stupid out of desperation as the hours dragged by, or an assault team coming through the ceiling.

Or that the HRT wouldn’t show at all.

No, they had to. Everything hinged on that, otherwise all of this would have been for nothing. He refused to even allow that possibility.

Raising his arm to swipe the sleeve of his hoodie across his face, he assessed his hostages. Everyone was silent, staring either at him or the floor. The mother and child he considered to be the lowest probability for a threat, which was why he hadn’t cuffed them. He was banking on her protective maternal instinct to guard her child rather than try to make an attempt to disarm him.

Not that she looked like she was the type who would have a clue about hand to hand combat. He’d hate like hell to shoot her, let alone in front of her daughter, but he would if he had to.

Reality had no doubt sunk in for all the hostages now, except for the child, he hoped. By this point they realized they weren’t going anywhere and that he meant business.

They were all sweating now. Whoever was running the show out there—he presumed it was the FBI—had cut power to the air conditioning unit. All it did was make them all more uncomfortable and him cranky as shit. The heat reminded him of his tours in the Middle East.

“We’re going to need some water soon,” the old lady on the far right said, having taken on the role of spokesperson for the group. Ken had expected the security guard or bank manager to assume the responsibility, but neither had stepped up.

“I’ll take care of it later.” This phase could drag on for hours while they tried to talk him down and look for a weakness in his defenses for an entry point. They’d find out soon enough neither one was going to happen.

Ken checked his watch. Nearly eighty minutes since he’d taken the bank. With the amount of sweat they were already producing though, he’d have to ensure the hostages were hydrated within the next couple of hours. That would require him picking up the phone, and he hadn’t been willing to do that yet.

He’d wanted to make it clear that he wasn’t interested in establishing communication, that he wasn’t going to be talked down. By now that had to be pretty clear to everyone involved in the investigation.

Before he addressed the water issue, he had something more critical to take care of first. It had taken some mental recalculating, but circumstances demanded he alter his plans slightly and he’d figured out a way to make it work, mostly to his benefit.

Time to make some lemonade out of this lemon.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he leaned against the front counter. His right thumb was numb from holding down the button on the switch. Every so often he changed hands, careful to maintain pressure on the button the entire time. Each time he did, several of the hostages watched him with tense faces, seeming to hold their breath until they saw he had control. That was one thing to their advantage, though he doubted they’d appreciate it.

He was extremely careful and conscientious in his work, two reasons why he’d excelled at his job in the Army and on the force. Nothing in this bank was going to detonate without him allowing it to.

The landline on the desk behind the counter rang again. They’d tried contacting him twice already, and both times he’d ignored it. His original plan had been to ignore all their calls. Now he was going to use the situation to his advantage. A certain amount of give and take was unavoidable now, at least in the initial stages.

He picked up the receiver. “Yeah.”

“Is this Ken?”

“Yep.” Man, did it feel fucking surreal to be on this end of the call.

“This is Special Agent Donna Gunderson. I’m an FBI negotiator, here to make sure we resolve this peacefully without anyone getting hurt. Is it okay for me to call you Ken, or would you prefer Mr. Spivey?”

Knowing the Feds were already here eased a little of the tension thrumming inside him. Unlike most hostage takers, however, he wasn’t interested in talking. Not about him, his dead wife and son, or about this operation. “Ken.”

Agent Gunderson and every other Fed gathered outside right now had no doubt already been well briefed about his situation. So if Gunderson was hoping to establish some semblance of a connection with him, she was in for a huge disappointment. He wasn’t going to engage in the dialogue she’d been trained to pull hostage takers into.

“Great, Ken. How many hostages are in there, and are they all alive?”

“Fifteen. Affirmative.”

“Is anyone hurt?”

“Negative.”

“What about you, are you injured?”

“Negative.”

“That’s great news, Ken, it’s important that we get everyone out of there safely, including you. We’ve got a lot of concerned people out here.”

He was sorry for the hostages and their loved ones but it couldn’t be helped because it was necessary to his plan. With this many innocent lives at stake, he was counting on the Feds calling in their best. And he didn’t care to continue this conversation with the usual negotiations protocol bullshit—
Is the electricity on, Ken? No? Well I’ll work on getting it back up for you, but first I need you to do something for me…

“Is DeLuca here yet?” he demanded.

A pause, as though the abrupt change in topic had taken her off guard. “Who?”

“Special Agent Matt DeLuca. The commanding officer of your Hostage Rescue Team.” If she’d been assigned as the hostage negotiator for this case then Ken knew she’d have to be somewhat familiar with him and the manifesto he’d written. He wasn’t sure if she didn’t recognize the name or if she was playing dumb, and he didn’t much care either way.

“Stand by.” The line went quiet. He imagined Agent Gunderson hitting the mute button and asking for intel from everyone in the command truck. She came back on a few seconds later. “He’s not here, Ken.”

“Is he on his way?”

“I’ll find out for you.”

In other words, she had no clue, but wouldn’t dare say no to him in case it escalated things. “You do that.” He injected a steely edge to his voice.