The Trophy Wife (38 page)

“What about Emily Childs?” Hogan asked.

“We won't shoot first, except to take out his tires. Maybe when it's obvious that he's not going anywhere, he'll decide that there's no point in getting him and his girlfriend killed. Because we'll make it clear, if he shoots the lady anywhere along the way, then we start shooting.”

It was the same decision that Hogan would have made himself. Assure the safety of his officers first, and then try to save the hostage. He also agreed with stopping the car as soon as it cleared the house. There was no point in trailing them
out to the airport. Then the showdown would have to happen when they tried to board the plane. And there was absolutely no sense in letting them get on the plane. All that did was move the showdown to another city. The fact was that at some point, Rita and Mike would have to decide if they really would rather die. If they did, nothing could save Emily.

“Can I help?” Hogan asked.

“Not now,” Borelli answered. “You and your friend have helped enough.”

 

Mike stood in the kitchen doorway, tugging the telephone cord to its full length. He had the assault rifle at his hip, panning in the general direction of the two officers lying on the living room floor. Rita was sitting across from Emily, half aiming a pistol in her general direction.

“One car,” Mike was saying, “with just one cop inside. I don't want to see another cop car around here. In fact, you better make damn sure there aren't police cars anywhere along our route.” He listened for a few moments. Then he snapped, “I don't give a fuck about other towns and other jurisdictions. You get ahold the other jurisdictions and tell them no cars along the route. If you can't do that, then put someone on the line who can.”

His voice was spirited, almost cheerful. Mike was enjoying the power. He had the whole state of New Jersey out there begging him to come to terms.

They had started with assurances that he wasn't actually a kidnapper. Someone else had taken the woman by force. Sure, he was in trouble, but it was the kind of trouble he might be able to get out of,
if
he didn't make things worse. Give up the two officers right away. Everyone understood that he had taken them in a moment of panic. And then negotiate the release of the lady. Of course, they would have to take him and Rita in. But they would have an attorney appointed within the hour.

Mike mocked those offers. The guys in the black suits who had charged into the house with assault weapons didn't look
like lawyers. He wanted a car to the airport and then he wanted a plane.

Each negotiator claimed not to have the authority to give in to his demands and Mike kept asking for someone who did. They kept going to higher and higher officials and, one by one, he kept telling them to fuck off. Maybe he should demand to speak to the governor.

“He's going to get us all killed,” Emily repeated to Rita. She had been explaining the scenario ever since Mike had answered the phone. The three of them would walk outside with her in the front as a human shield. Once they were away from die front steps, she was going to turn on Mike, kicking at him until she broke free. Then she would run to the police. Whether she got free or not, Mike would have to kill her because there was no way she was going to get into his car. And once he did, then Rita and Mike would be standing in the middle of an army of troopers, all of them armed and mad enough to fire. “You don't have to get shot to pieces,” Emily whispered. “All he has to do is tell them you're coming out without your guns. Then they can't fire at you. They have to arrest you. And I'll tell them, I swear to you, I'll tell them how you tried to help me.”

Rita stood up and looked at Mike, who was smiling as he listened to the pleading over the telephone. “This isn't going to work,” she suddenly announced.

He snarled at her. Then he yelled into the phone, “No! No! No more time. I told you what I want and when I want it. You have five more minutes. Then I kill one of these guys. Maybe that's what it's goin' to take to get through to you.” He backed into the kitchen for the length of time it took him to hang up the phone. Then he returned to the living room and walked around behind the two prone police officers. “Doesn't sound like your buddies out there are takin' me seriously. So who's it goin' to be? Which one of you guys wants to be first?”

 

Angela's plane had left Heathrow just before midnight, in time to get London's bankers to Zurich before the Swiss
banks opened. Despite the hour the plane was crowded. Apparently the English were very appreciative of the Swiss financiers' legendary discretion.

She had landed in London early in the morning, checked into a business suite, and connected to her office computer over one of the bank's leased circuits. In the early afternoon—early morning in New York—she had watched Walter's transaction, transferring funds to Fassen Bank. Instantly, she had sent the recorded phone message that would free Emily. Then she had freshened up, and gone back to the terminal for her Zurich flight. She had slept comfortably in her First Class seat until the wheels went down on final approach.

As soon as she came through the door she saw the lights of Zurich, still glowing even though the sky was beginning to fill with morning light. Close by, there were the garish logos of global companies, flashing in neon at the tops of the buildings. Farther off, she could see the streetlights of the old city, with the occasional flicker of automobile traffic. It was less than spectacular. Zurich insisted on being unobtrusive. There was nothing dramatic about the city until daylight brought the background of jagged mountains into view.

A taxi was waiting at the head of the queue with the passenger door open. Angela slid in, pulling her bag into the seat after her. She gave the name of a modest hotel in the banking district that was even more discreet than the banks. She knew that she would attract very little attention. Businessmen using the hotel frequently arranged for companions to join them in their rooms. She had stayed there once herself and had been approached in the bar by an Englishman who thought she had been sent over by the service.

At the desk, she signed in as Susan Schwartz and smiled at the clerk when he tried to compare her with the passport photo. Then she refused the services of the bellman and saw herself to her room.

The morning sun was pouring in through the starched curtains. Angela tossed her bag on the bed and went to the window. Traffic was building in the streets and there was a crowd pouring out through the doors of the streetcar at the corner.
There wouldn't be any time for her to catch up on her sleep. Hardly enough time to take a shower. The banks would be opening soon and she wanted to be in and out of Fassen Bank as quickly as she could. She checked her watch and calculated that it was two in the morning back in New York. By now, Emily Childs had been dropped off in a school parking lot. Within a few hours, her safety would be assured. Angela knew that once Emily was safe, someone would have to think about sending a message to stop the transfer of funds that Walter had initiated. She wanted to have the money out the door and into another bank before that message came.

 

A minute before his deadline, Mike heard the telephone ring. He broke into a smile. “I hope it's for you,” he said toward the two officers. “Otherwise, your time is up!”

He backed into the kitchen and returned with the handset “Yeah,” he said. Rita watched his face darken and felt certain that the police outside were calling his bluff. But then one corner of his mouth curled up into a sneer. “Yeah,” he said again. “Only not in fifteen minutes. Now! I want everyone out of that buildin', and I want all the police cars out of here. Just one car, out in the street, clear of the driveway. And one driver. I'm going to take a long look around and if those two jerks are still standing across the street, or if one of those mothers is still in the backyard, then the whole thing is off. Each of your guys gets it in the back of the head. And then me and the lady here take our chances.”

He listened for a few seconds and enjoyed what he was hearing. “Okay,” he finally said. “You have five minutes to clear everyone. Make sure you get 'em all. You don't want to make any mistakes.”

Mike let the phone fall to the floor. “Well, what do you know,” he announced proudly to everyone. “We're getting a police escort to the airport.”

They waited quietly, listening to the sounds outside the house. Voices called to one another. Auto engines burst into life, followed by transmission sounds and the squeal of turning tires. Then there was silence, broken only by the sounds
of their breathing. The captured officers listened with trained ears, trying to identify what was taking place outside. Rita looked about carefully, as if the enemy might already be in the house. Mike checked and rechecked the position of the pistols in his belt and pocket and then wiped the sweat from his palms down the legs of his trousers. Emily sat at the edge of the sofa, tense as if waiting to spring. She didn't care about the police outside. All her energies were focused on the man who had delighted in torturing her. No matter what anyone else did, she would make certain that he didn't get out alive.

Headlights flared in the front window curtains and Rita crossed the room to look out. “It's the police car,” she said, her voice fearful of the ordeal that it represented. The moment had come. She would be stepping out into a no-man's-land.

“Pull the curtain,” Mike told her. “Look around. Tell me if you see anybody.”

She looked carefully, touching her forehead to the glass so that she could widen her field of vision. “Nothing out there,” she said. She kept looking. “Just the police car. Nothing else.”

“How about the factory?”

She went to the side window. “The cars are gone. The lights are out. But I can't tell if anyone's there. It's too dark.”

He thought. There were probably people still in the second floor windows. Maybe a sharpshooter. Sure. If they caught him out in the open, it would make sense to take him out. But he could handle that. He had a bulletproof shield. As long as he kept close to the lady, no one would dare fire.

“Okay, now check out back. There were two of them back against the fence. Take that flashlight and look out the window. All along the bottom of the fence.”

Rita went close to the prone policeman and lifted the lamp from the floor. She stepped over their bodies on her way to the back of the house. When she snapped on the light, she was startled by its brilliance. Aimed through a back window, it illuminated half the yard and let her see even the spaces between the fence planking. She panned slowly. There was no one there. Then she went to the kitchen window and moved the light back and forth across the litter-strewn lot
between the house and the next cluster of buildings.

“They're gone,” she called from the kitchen.

Mike's mouth drew into a narrow smile. “They're not gone. They're just hiding, waitin' to pop up the minute we show our asses. But the only thing they'll see is the bitch's face.”

He slung the assault weapon over his shoulder and pulled the police automatic from his pocket. In one step, he was hovering over Emily. “On your feet!” She stood immediately.

“Fasten the cuffs,” he ordered. Rita looked at the manacles dangling from Emily's hands and then took the key from her pocket. She unlocked the cuffs that had been fastened to the bed and then connected each of them across to Emily's other arm.

“Okay,” she said. Mike prodded Emily toward the door and then reached around her for the knob. The door swung back from its shattered frame.

Instantly, his arm was around her throat and the muzzle of the pistol against her ear.

“We go real slow,” he told Emily. They moved through the doorway, with Rita pressed close behind.

“One step, then stop.” His chokehold lifted Emily off her feet and deposited her on the next step, where he joined her immediately. Again and again he moved her down until they were on the path leading to the driveway. Emily had imagined that she would be able to throw an elbow or get her fingers close to his eyes. But the handcuffs kept her hands in front of her and his hold was like a vise. She was choking each time he lifted her feet off the pavement.

He moved her slowly to the driveway, always keeping her on the street side, with his back to the house. Rita moved with them, hiding behind the shield that they afforded. Then they backed up to the garage door, which Rita raised.

“Turn on the light and look around.”

She did, and opened the car door to look inside. “All clear,” she whispered.

“Kill the light and get into the backseat.”

She switched off the light, stepped around the car, and
climbed into the back behind the passenger seat.

Mike took one last look up and down the street. There really was no one beside the uniformed policeman sitting behind the wheel of the waiting cruiser. He pulled Emily back into the garage, along the driver's side of the automobile.

He opened the back door, ducked down behind it, and pushed Emily into the seat next to Rita. “Put your gun right up against her head. Up high, so they can see it.” Emily felt a new weapon against her temple, but Rita wasn't pressing it into her skin.

Mike reached over the driver's seat and pushed the front door open. He used this as his shield while he closed Emily's door and slid in behind the wheel. He started the car, turned on the high-beam headlights, and rolled slowly out of the garage, his face below the height of the steering wheel. If they were going to turn a marksman loose, this would be their moment. But there was no hint of an attack as they rolled slowly down the driveway and bounced onto the street. Mike straightened up in time to see the cruiser pulling slowly away, its red and blue lights spinning furiously. He fell into line behind it and followed it toward the corner, which was masked by the wall of the factory across from the house. “Make sure they can see the gun,” he snarled at Rita. “Keep it up high.” The cruiser turned the corner. Mike leaned forward to see if anyone was waiting on the other side of the building. It looked clear and he made his turn keeping close on the taillights of his escort.