02 Avalanche Pass (35 page)

“I slipped,” she said angrily and he grinned.

“I can see.”

Dusting herself off, she stood up and retrieved the butter and vinegar. She gestured toward the eggs on the floor.

“I’ll get some more of these. Then I’d better clean this up.”

He nodded and waited while she went to the dairy cabinet for more eggs. Then he stood aside as she took them out to Ralph. The chef grinned unpleasantly at her as she set the items down beside him. He’d overheard the exchange.

“You better clean up your mess,” he said and she nodded angrily.

“I’ll get to it,” she said. She didn’t want to appear too eager to go back to the storeroom. “I’ll get the stew heating first.” It took her five minutes to open six cans and dump them into the stew pot. Ralph, as she’d hoped he would, couldn’t help rubbing it in.

“Don’t forget to clean up in there,” he called, swirling vinegar into the pan of simmering water he had ready to poach the eggs.

“Okay!” she yelled at him. “I said I’d do it!” Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the guard enjoying the little spat between them. He had his coffee and was munching on a Danish that he’d warmed up in one of the microwaves. He could afford to enjoy himself. Looking sulky, she headed back to the storeroom, grabbing a sponge and a roll of paper towels as she went.

Inside, she found Jesse had already cleaned the mess up, a wad of sodden paper towel in his hand. She leaned against one of the shelves and let go a pent-up breath. He grinned at her. “You’re doing a great job,” he said and she shook her head wearily.

“Keep telling me. I feel like shit.” She shook her head again. “You really think that professor guy is right, don’t you?”

Jesse didn’t hesitate this time. “We’ve got to assume he is. It’s the most logical explanation. You’re going to have to take those guards out and barricade yourself in the gym. We’ve got plenty of time. If this Emery guy is right, Colby says Kormann won’t make his move until it’s close to dark. We figure he’s got a chopper coming in to pick him up and he won’t want that to happen in daylight. So we’re looking at some time late tomorrow afternoon.”

“But he could move us any time before then,” Tina protested and Jesse nodded.

“Yeah. I thought of that. If you get any idea he’s going to do it, I guess you’re just going to have to start the party and I’ll call for help. Once I’ve called Dent, I’ll try to divert some of their attention from you.”

She considered his words. “I guess you’re right,” she said. “But Jesus, what if we’re wrong on this?” They looked at each other for a long moment. Then Jesse shrugged. “It’s the best we can do,” he said. “Just be ready to move if there’s any sign of a change in their routine. Colby can’t do anything to start things moving,” he told her. “The president has forbidden it. If push comes to shove, it’s up to us.”

“Christ, I hope we’re good enough,” she said.

D
ent Colby put down the phone and glanced up at Maloney and Emery, his eyebrows raised in a question. He had just spent ten minutes on the phone with Roger, in which time the leader of the kidnappers had demonstrated a growing sense of paranoia, accusing Colby of trying to infiltrate men over the back ridges and of more overflights.

In addition, the kidnappers’ leader had accused Colby of stalling over the release of the Irish prisoners. In spite of Colby’s protests that things were moving as fast as possible, Roger had added a further demand. In the early nineties, a small group of terrorists—a surviving splinter group of the Bader Meinhoff movement, had been arrested after exploding a bomb in the main square of Kassel, killing half a dozen people and injuring over twenty others. The four surviving members of the group—three had been killed resisting arrest—were serving a life sentence in Nuremburg prison. Now Roger had demanded their release as well.

But it was his closing words that sent a shiver of premonition down Colby’s spine. Before breaking the connection, Roger had told the FBI agent that he had moved the prisoners to a new location in the hotel.

“I’ve put them in the Atrium,” he had yelled down the line. “You’ve got a plan of the building, I’m sure. Take a look at it and see what that means!”

Then he’d hung up.

“Well,” Colby said to the two men, who’d overheard the entire conversation, “Do we buy it?”

Emery was shaking his head. “The bit about the Germans? I don’t think so. Where does that come from? Nobody gives a damn about them—not even the other revolutionary groups. They were loose cannons and at the time the PLO, IRA and all the others were damned glad to have them out of the way. It’s another feint.”

Colby nodded. He was inclined to agree. The yelling, the paranoia, the accusations, they all seemed so much at odds with the behavior described by Jesse.

“What about his claim that we’re sneaking men in there?” he asked.

Again Emery looked skeptical. “Could be a pointer to the fact that he’s really planning something for tomorrow,” he said. “If he gets us treading lightly, and being extra careful about spooking him, it could make life a lot easier for him if he’s planning to get out of there.”

“One thing’s for sure,” Maloney put in. “If he has moved them to the Atrium restaurant, the risk is heightened.”

Kormann had been right. They did have a plan of the building and the marine colonel had been studying it. Now he pointed to the plan of the Atrium restaurant.

“To the left of the gym and facing the main mountain,” he said. “And it’s glass from floor to ceiling. If the mountain comes down on them in there, there’s no chance anyone will get out alive.”

Colby and Emery moved to the table where he’d spread the map. Dent frowned thoughtfully. “It’s a big open area. Not the easiest place to keep prisoners confined. Jesse told us they have three men in the room with the prisoners at the moment. In a room like this, with possible exits everywhere, he’d need eight or nine to keep an eye on things. That doesn’t leave too many to man the roof defenses. Plus they’ve all got to sleep sometime. He’s stretching things pretty thin.”

“Maybe that’s why he’s left it till now,” Maloney replied. “If he’s going to make his move tomorrow, it’s not going to matter too much.”

Dent looked at him for a moment, then at Emery. The professor’s usually smooth-cheeked face was drawn from lack of sleep. Dent
knew that he’d been awake into the small hours, tossing every possible combination of circumstances around, trying to find an answer to the enigma that faced them.

“It fits,” Emery said simply.

Colby let go a long breath. “Okay, okay. I’ll pass it on to Washington. But we all know what they’re going to say: Sit tight and see what develops.” He pressed the intercom buzzer for the sound tech who’d monitored the phone conversation. “Get that last tape to Washington for analysis,” he said. All conversations with Roger were digitally recorded and then transmitted via satellite to Quantico, the FBI building. Trained vocal specialists analyzed the conversations, using computer models to assess Roger’s speech patterns and mannerisms. The claim was that they could detect nuances of behavior—alterations in rhythm, pitch and tone—that could determine whether a subject was lying or acting a part. So far the results had been depressingly indeterminate. With Roger, they thought maybe he was. But then again, that meant they thought that maybe he wasn’t.

Maybe, thought Dent Colby heavily, was the word of the week around here.

“Let’s go check those choppers again,” he said. At least that would be better than sitting around here waiting.

“Your man thinks he’s lying,” President Gorton said. It was somewhere between a question and a statement and Benjamin nodded.

“Yes, Mr. President, he does.”

Gorton turned and walked to the big full-length windows, looking out to the Rose Garden. It was something he did, Benjamin realized, when he was considering a tough problem.

“Tell me about this Agent Colby,” he said now, his back to the FBI director. Benjamin considered for a few seconds.

“He’s a twenty-year man. Came up through the ranks. Former Olympic boxer and an impressive academic record. He’s got a masters in psychology—did it when he was in his late thirties. He’s one of our best negotiators—been involved in maybe half a dozen kidnap-hostage situations…”

The president turned from the window at that and Benjamin hesitated.

“What’s his record like there?” he asked, and the director shrugged unhappily.

“About fifty-fifty, I guess. But that’s pretty much par for the course in these things, Mr. President. You’re dealing with unstable people who are operating under pressure. It’s not the negotiator’s fault if things don’t work out.”

“So let’s analyze this,” the president continued. “By your own say-so, you wouldn’t expect a better than fifty-fifty result from one of your best men in a situation like this. Correct?”

Benjamin started to prevaricate, then realized that the assessment was a fair one. He nodded. “I guess so, Mr. President.”

“And how about your voice experts? What can they tell us about this Kormann person?”

“I guess they’re split fifty-fifty too. They can’t determine whether he’s genuine or not.”

“That’s what I figured. So maybe this Kormann guy is going to double cross all of us some time tomorrow and maybe he’s not. Maybe he’s willing to go ahead with the negotiations and take the money on Sunday. And maybe, if he does that, we’ll get most of those hostages out of there alive. Maybe all of them.”

It was a lot of maybes, Benjamin thought, unknowingly duplicating Colby’s reaction. But he had to admit the president was presenting the situation fairly.

“On the other hand, if I send Maloney and his men in, we’re relying on two people inside to keep the hostages safe. A security officer and this deputy sheriff from Colorado.”

“Dent says this Parker guy is a cool head, sir. I trust Colby’s opinion.”

“Other people might disagree,” the president said flatly and Benjamin
looked at him in surprise. The president gestured to a manila folder on the desk. “I’ve had Tildeman’s people finding out whatever they could about these two. The girl first. She has a good service record but she never rose higher than corporal in the Marines. She’s intelligent, loyal, talented. She qualified as expert with both rifle and pistol, which might be handy if she had a gun. She’s got a good record with the hotel company. All in all, a good choice as a security officer. But not exactly the background you’d want in someone making a decision of this magnitude.”

There was more coming, Benjamin knew. “Now Parker. After all, he’s the only one we’ve had contact with. We’re gauging everything on his opinions, on his reading of the situation. Right?”

The president flicked open the folder and glanced down at it briefly, as if refreshing his memory on a couple of points.

“Here’s what his lieutenant in Denver said about him: He was a good, solid type. Good cop. Dependable. Got on with the job and got it done. He was one of their top investigators, right up till a shootout went wrong and an officer was caught in the cross fire—Parker’s partner, as a matter of fact. Some people even said that Parker himself shot him—accidentally, of course. Point is, Mr. Director, that Parker had something of a breakdown over it. Tossed in the job and went back home to become a ski bum. He’s
part-time
deputy for the Routt County sheriff’s department.”

“Now, last year, part-time Deputy Parker was badly injured in a skiing accident and since then, folks around Routt County say he ‘hasn’t been quite himself.’ He’s fine physically but people seem to think he’s got something on his mind. He acts a little weird. Nothing important, mind you. He’s not racing around saying the Martians have landed. But he’s not what you or I might call totally stable.” The president paused and offered the file to Benjamin.

He took it and glanced quickly at the section Gorton had highlighted with a yellow marker. The comments from people who lived and worked with Jesse Parker were all there and he had to admit Gorton was right. You had to have some doubt over Jesse Parker’s stability.

“Now I’m looking at a situation with a whole bunch of maybes
and one guy who’s been traumatized twice in the past five years. My decision is, we sit tight and continue to wait.”

Benjamin said nothing while the president moved to the far side of the desk and sat down in his high-backed leather chair. “That’s my decision, Director Benjamin. Now you tell me, in all honesty, would you do it any different in my place?”

You didn’t get to be director of the FBI without being a keen student of human behavior and Benjamin looked up at the president now. Interesting, he thought. Gorton had announced his decision before asking for Benjamin’s opinion. It was a direct reversal of the way the president usually behaved.

Maybe he’d been right and this crisis was the catalyst that would help Gorton grow into the job. In the yin and yang of life, perhaps this situation, as ugly as its outcome might be, would be instrumental in providing the country with a president who could be forceful and decisive. He smiled sadly at the president, who was still waiting for an answer.

“No, Mr. President,” he said. “I wouldn’t do it any different.”

I
t was cold and uncomfortable on the fire stairs and Jesse shifted his position again on the unyielding concrete. He’d spent the night here, deciding that Kormann could try to move the prisoners at any time. If that happened, Tina would be forced to put her plan into action and he’d better be around to hear it happen. From the fifth floor, all hell could break out down in the gym and he’d never hear a thing, so he’d moved to the landing where he now sat uncomfortably, half a flight above the fire door that led to the floor where the gym was located.