The room was mostly quiet. Bodine and his guys were speaking in low voices. A few of the hostages whispered to one another-Bodine, Barlow, and Bross, the Three Musketeers, off in one corner, conspiring. I noticed that Ron Slattery had joined them.
Others had fallen asleep already, worn out by the stress and the long day and the late hour. A few snored.
"Jesus, Landry."
Ali was sitting ten or fifteen feet away with Cheryl and Paul Fecher, the manager, and the manager's son. I looked over at the two guards at the other end of the room, their faces half washed out by the lantern's light, half in shadows. I couldn't tell how closely they were watching us, whether they were really paying much attention.
Slowly, I slid across the rug.
"We were worried about you," Ali said.
"It was fine."
"When he caught you on the other side of the fireplace-"
"It was a little tense," I said.
"What'd he want to know?" Cheryl asked.
"Well, he figured out pretty quickly I didn't know anything useful. Mostly he seemed to be sizing me up. He asked about you and…" My voice trailed off. The manager and his son were sitting near Ali, watching us talk, but no one else from Hammond was within earshot. "He knew about the investigation."
Her eyes widened for a fraction of a second, then narrowed. "How in God's name? Why would anyone tell him?"
"I'm pretty sure he has a source inside Hammond."
Cheryl nodded. "He knows too much, that's for sure. Danziger also thinks he may be a professional, in the K &R business."
She glanced over her shoulder. Danziger was lying on his side by the wall, asleep. "He also briefed all of us on the duress code."
"Much better than my original idea," I said.
"At least you had a plan," she said. "I owe you an apology."
"Why?"
"I misread them. You had them pegged. And the way you stuck up for me-I won't forget it." She seemed embarrassed. "This isn't easy."
"This isn't easy for any of us," I said.
The door opened. Travis entered with Latimer, then called out Danziger's name. Latimer sat near us. He looked much better, now that his diabetic crisis had passed.
He smiled, mouthed Thank you.
I just nodded.
Suddenly the lights in the room went on, as abruptly as they'd gone off. Lamps and wall sconces blazed to life. A number of people woke up, looked around.
"Guess the generator's fixed," Latimer said.
I nodded.
"You know, what you did before-getting over to the other side to talk to Grogan and Danziger?"
"Stupid, huh?"
"Brave, Jake. Guys with guns strutting around here. You could have gotten yourself killed."
"I don't think so."
"You're a brave guy, Jake."
"Just a survivor."
"More than that."
"Well, you know, a wise man once said that one of the great tragedies of our century is that a man can live his whole life and never know if he's a coward or not." I smiled, held up a forefinger. "Russell told me that."
"You know what the definition of a coward is?" he said. "A coward is a hero with a wife, kids, and a mortgage."
"So maybe that's it," I said. "No wife, no kids. And I don't have a mortgage. I rent."
There was a noise at the far side of the room. Wayne, the crewcut one, entered with Peter the handyman, a small, pudgy man with a bushy gray mustache, receding gray hair, and thick aviator-frame glasses. He was sweating profusely.
Wayne whispered to the other guards for a few minutes, then led the handyman to the back right corner of the room.
A minute or so later, Russell and his brother entered, John Danziger in front of them.
Danziger looked terrified.
Russell cleared his throat. "Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen," he announced. "We have a little business to transact." He unholstered his Glock.
"Some of you guys apparently think you're gonna be clever," Russell said. "Try to throw a little sand in the gears. Try to screw things up for everyone else. Like I'm not going to find out." As he was talking, he popped out the Glock's magazine and held it up, scanned it to see if it was full. It seemed a strange thing to do. He must have known the gun was loaded. "Didn't some guy say that we all gotta hang together or we'll hang separately? Like, George Washington or one of those guys?"
"I believe that was actually Benjamin Franklin," Hugo Lummis said.
Russell looked at Lummis blankly for a moment. "Why, thank you, Hugo." He nodded. "Not many of you got the balls to correct a man with a loaded gun."
"I'm not correcting you," Lummis said hastily. "I'm just-"
"Quite all right, Hugo," Russell said. "I like learning stuff. Not everyone does, though. People get ideas stuck in their heads. That's why you're all gonna have a little lesson right now. A seminar. Shouldn't take too long, though." He seated the magazine back in the butt of the pistol with a quiet click.
"John," he said gently, "could you please kneel right here? Yes, that's right. Right there. Not on the rug-on the wood. That's good."
"Please, don't," Danziger said. He knelt, his eyes darting around the room, his face frozen.
"Now, John," Russell said, "you and I are going to give all your colleagues here a lesson they're never going to forget. See, the best lessons, I figure, the teacher learns right along with the students. So even though I'm teaching this lesson, we're all gonna learn something. Everyone but you, John. I'm thinking it's probably too late for you. You're just gonna have to be the demonstration."
"Please," said Danziger. He knelt on the wooden floor, facing us, his torso perfectly erect, his hands bound in front of his flat belly. He could have been in church. His light blue alligator shirt had big dark sweat stains under the arms.
Russell strode up to Danziger at an angle, like a veteran teacher approaching a blackboard. His Glock was in his right hand.
On Danziger's other side stood Travis, also holding his gun.
Danziger's eyes moved frantically. For a brief instant he looked into my eyes.
Russell's voice was calm and quiet. "So, John," he said, "what's a duress code?"
48
We watched in terror.
"A 'duress code'?" Danziger said. "You mean, like a burglar alarm, when-"
"I don't think we're talking about a burglar alarm, are we, John?"
"I told you, I don't know what you're talking about," Danziger said.
"You did, didn't you? So I guess you really can't help me." Russell lifted his pistol and placed it snugly behind Danziger's right ear. He snapped back the slide.
I shouted, "Russell, don't do it!"
Someone-Lummis, maybe?-screamed, "No!"
There was a sudden commotion: Alan Grogan struggling to his feet. "Please!" he called. "I'll talk to you. I'll tell you anything you want."
"Is that Alan?" Russell said without even turning to look.
I watched, riveted and angry, my mind spinning. Russell wouldn't actually pull the trigger. Especially not after the talk we'd had.
But if he really intended to, there was no way to stop him. Not with my hands bound, not sitting this far away. And not with four other armed men nearby.
Grogan zigzagged across the carpet, around the other hostages. He tripped over something but got right back up, with a jock's agility. His face had gone crimson.
"You don't need to do this," Grogan said.
Travis raised his gun and aimed it at Grogan, then the other two did the same.
"Alan," Danziger said, "sit down! You've got nothing to do with this."
Russell turned to Grogan, a cryptic half grin on his face. "You wanted to tell me something? Try and save your friend?"
"Anything you want to know," Grogan said. "Just put the gun down."
"Alan, sit down," Danziger said. "You don't know anything about this."
"I think he wants to help you, John," said Russell. "He doesn't want me to blow your brains out."