Page 54 of Nowhere to Hide
The door to the vehicle opened, and Kreiger came in. “All right, the officers are on standby and ready once you are. We’ve got the camera and all the props.”
Sandra didn’t look forward to telling him she hadn’t yet confirmed the revised arrangement with Ryan.
TWENTY-NINE
3:40 PM
“We’ve got Edward Hanson with a bullet still lodged in his chest. A young boy struggling to breathe. Vos, it might be time we just move in.” Kreiger peacocked himself at the end of the vehicle.
His response came after the team filled him in on Sandra’s latest call with Ryan. She was finding it hard to resist Kreiger’s reasoning because she didn’t want Edward’s death to haunt her. Or the boy’s, for that matter. But moving in posed a risk to the entire family. Four souls, five, counting Ryan. Not to mention the officers breaching the home. But she didn’t miss how Kreiger’s regular fire to move in had cooled. He normally didn’t use words likeitmightbe time…He usually spoke as if it were a done deal. Their talk might have had a beneficial effect on him, after all.
“Please just give me a bit more time,” Sandra said. “I think our best option for resolving this peacefully is moving forward with the reporter ruse. But I’ll need to finesse the revised terms into the conversation. He will be concerned about snipers with it being held outside. I’m also not sure what his reaction will be to only one news station coming.”
“Just get him on the phone and tell him how it’s going to be,” Kreiger said.
“It doesn’t exactly work that way.” Rather,tellinga hostage taker anything usually met with a detrimental outcome.
“What do you want me to say, Sandra? Convince him you’re on his side and have his back. You can even be in the undercover officers’ ears, so they say the right thing and respond accordingly to him.”
Yet another risk…“And how do you think Ryan would react to seeing the ERT guy wearing an earbud?”
“Just FYI, it’s a woman we’re sending in as the reporter. A male officer will pose as her cameraman. But the earbud is easy enough to explain away. She needs it to hear the network for her cues.”
“And if he doesn’t buy that?” Neal asked. “I’m with Sandra. I don’t like any of this.”
“Well, we can’t just sit around and do nothing. Get him to agree to do this, Vos, or I won’t have a choice but to move things along with force.” Kreiger presented the ultimatum, and it had Sandra cringing.
That’s the Kreiger I’m familiar with…Sandra detested being pressed into a corner, but she could see Kreiger’s side. “If we’re doing this, we need to remember Ryan can see everything from inside. The undercover officers will need to appear like they just arrived on scene.”
“Already considered and accounted for,” Kreiger responded. “They’ve left to get changed and grab some props and will return. We’ll make a show of theirarrival.” He wrapped the latter word in finger quotes.
Sandra nodded and put her headset on. “Let me try reaching him again.” As the line rang, she prepared her mind for how she was going to make Ryan see the new stipulations as a necessary compromise and not her breaking her word.
Once everyone in the vehicle was ready, she got on the phone.
“Are the reporters here? We’re ready to do this? You are ready, right? I told you not to call back until things were ready to go.”
Ryan’s words came out as a steady stream without giving her a chance to respond. Only after a few seconds did she speak in a slow and measured manner. “A reporter and her cameraman are on standby.”
“What do you mean? Just one station?”
“Yes. That’s all we could get, but this network is ready to go ahead, as I said.”
A few beats, then, “I never saw anyone arrive.”
“They’ll be here soon,” Sandra backpedaled and glanced at Kreiger. It was good he’d thought of all that.
“Fine. I’ll release the gate and let them come in once they arrive. But only the reporter and her cameraman.”
Sandra repeated his terms and added, “I understand, Ryan. But there is one thing I need to bring up. Would it be possible to move this outside?” Sandra treated this as if it were a slight change without consequence. Served on the backside of giving him one thing he’d requested should help soften the change of plans.
“Outside where snipers can shoot me? No, no way.”
His response was just as she’d expected. “It’s just that the reporter and her cameraman are scared, Ryan. You can understand that, surely?”
“What I understand is you’re trying to back out of our deal. I can’t trust you.”
Sandra pinched her eyes shut. Her fear was coming to life. “You can trust me, Ryan. I’ve been going to bat for you this entire time. I’ve spoken with the reporter, tried to convince her she will be safe in there, that you mean her and her cameraman no harm, but?—”
