Page 9 of Save Her Life

“I want to give him the opportunity to feel like he’s in control.”

“He should be feeling nothing but. Let’s face it. We’ve just been hanging around waiting for him to do or say something,” Garrison lamented.

She let his opinion go without response, and instead put her headset on, turned to Ray on her right, then to Richie on her left. “When this timer goes off, I want to call,” she told them. They’d both be listening to every conversation she had with the HT.

Ray quickly ran her through their system and how to make the call. “We’ll be ready when you are,” Ray said, giving her a pressed smile.

She set her cellphone on the worksurface in front of her, watched the timer tick off a few seconds, then glanced away to look at the video screen. No further movement to be seen inside. Back to her phone, the timer was on the last ten seconds. It beeped, and she put the call through.

It rang once. No answer.

A second time. No answer.

A third, the same. But on the fourth, the call was picked up. There was silence on the other end.

She anticipated this possible response, but at least the HT took her call. “This is Sandra.” She was keeping it light. “Just in case we get disconnected, you can always call me back by hitting theCallbutton. It will patch you right through to me. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

Silence.

“I’d like to help you,” she said a few seconds later. “Are you all right in there?”

“Yeah.”

She glanced at Ray and Richie. Both men were smiling. After four hours, the HT had just said his first word. More an utterance that came out mumbled. But it counted.

Ray passed her a note.It sounds like he’s tired.

She gathered the same. Without hearing more, it wasn’t possible to tell if he was affected by drug use or if he’d helped himself to alcohol from the store’s shelves. She also couldn’t distinguish any accent to his voice. “Well, that’s good to hear. You sound tired though.” By saying this she was showing more empathy. The goal was to get him to trust her, and as a result, she’d gain influence. “Since we’re going to become friends, what should I call you?” With his name, they could access his background and dig into his life situation to see if either could explain how things had spiraled to this point. This knowledge could also help determine his motivation and thereby aid where she steered the negotiation.

“No names.”

Two words and still not enough to determine if he was local. “You’re doing all right, but what about everyone who’s with you in there? Are they doing okay?” Megan Cobb wasn’t far from mind but she couldn’t rush the dialogue along.

“Yes.”

“Wonderful.” She let a small smile lighten her tone. “This means you’re in a great place for all of us to walk away from this. Obviously, no one out here wants to see you or anyone hurt. We’re all in this together. What can I do so that we can all go home safe?” She’d intentionally painted a happy picture, then waited. She let the silence stretch some, hoping he was calculating his demands.

The line went dead.

“At least you got him to pick up,” Ray said to her.

“Better than Leon,” Richie put in, while Patrick noted the time on the markerboard.

“It’s not a reflection on Leon. The HT is just ready to talk now.” She wasn’t about to disparage anyone’s reputation. Let alone someone she didn’t even know.

A hulk of a man entered the command vehicle. Buzzcut, tight pants that encased thighs the size of her torso…well, not quite as thick. He wasn’t in SWAT getup, so he must have been Lieutenant Amos Bowen, the team coordinator, and she could feel his testosterone from the door to where she was seated near the other end of the vehicle.

“She got through,” Garrison informed the man. “This is FBI Special Agent Sandra Vos.” Then to her he said, “This is Lieutenant Bowen.”

The team coordinator looked down at her, not just due to his towering height but in a clear move to intimidate. His hard gaze leveled judgment as if to say,So you’re who they sent.

He was about to be disappointed if he expected a reaction. She wasn’t one to cower, especially to the likes of him. She’d been dealing with inflated male egos since she became FBI. Law enforcement was still very much a man’s world.

“‘She got through…’ Based on that enthusiastic recap, I’m to guess he wasn’t too talkative.”

She peacocked her body posture at his sarcastic assumption. “We established contact. That’s a good start.”

“I know you just arrived,” Bowen said, “but the rest of us have been here for nearly five hours. Tell me you at least got his name.”

---