Page 85 of Every Last One
6:40 PM
Sandra and the team filled Kreiger in on the last call with Mindy Ashmore.
“I have so many questions, I’m not sure where to start,” Kreiger said.
“At the beginning, boss,” Gibson said and laughed.
Sandra smiled, and so did Brice, Monica, and Neal, but after all the hours that passed with little to show for them, this arrangement was the light they needed. A relief to the palpable tension.
Kreiger shot Gibson a glare and mumbled, “Smart-ass. All right, lay out what you’re thinking.”
“ERT goes in and clears each floor one by one.” That was the simple overview.
“Whoa, okay, now I need to sit down.” Kreiger had Luis squeeze over to make room, and then Kreiger looked at Sandra once he got comfortable. “Am I hearing you right? You want ERT to move in? I never would have expected this turn of events.”
“Don’t get carried away there, big fella,” Brice said with a smirk.
“Special Agent Sutton is right,” Sandra cut in. “ERT needs to move in strategically.”
“The only way they know how,” Kreiger said drily.
Sandra wasn’t doing him the favor of responding to that. She could point out what he seemed to miss was that in this situation, there were advantages to brains and brawn working together. “No one moves in until Mindy Ashmore has contacted her teammates.”
“How much longer could that take?”
“I wouldn’t think long,” Sandra said. “I told her I wouldn’t get the money together until she told them to surrender. She knows I’m listening in.” She pointed at the walkie-talkie, that so far was silent.
“So now we just sit around and wait? It seems more attractive to just move in, call it for what it is. No need to get any money together for that.”
“Are you forgetting about the boardroom full of innocent people?” Brice popped his eyes, and it had his brows shooting up.
“I’m not, but…”
A strange energy emanated from him, and Sandra read it as judgment. As if he didn’t view those on the board asinnocent.And maybe it was her perception of what he left unsaid, but her intuition was typically spot-on. It was a stereotype that the rich had a shady side, and some people in that room might have done things, but no one out here was qualified to stand in for judge and jury. Regardless of any transgression, those people must possess goodness or they wouldn’t have gone into healthcare and medicine. Her thoughts briefly switched to Dr. Cowan specifically, who was scheduled to perform a heart transplant on a little girl in a handful of hours. There was no way she’d fail her. She nudged out her chin. “Our job is to protect people, save lives, prevent injury and death. No matter who they are, what they’ve done, what they plan to do. Do you see it differently?”
Kreiger didn’t touch her question. “Where are you getting the money? And she wants you to go with the cash? And you said you would?”
“I did.”
“I can’t condone that.”
She could argue it wasn’t his decision to make, but as team coordinator it technically was. To respond by telling him she’d go over his head to the FBI wouldn’t be conducive to a good working relationship. “I can appreciate there are risks involved.”
“Too many. Just get the husband on the phone to tell his wife he has the money.”
Brice was shaking his head. “It’s not that easy.”
“He’s right,” Sandra added. “She’ll see right through that. And she’s made it clear she wants cold hard cash put into her hand.”
“And then what?”
“She said she’d walk away.”
“Nah, I don’t like this. Surely, she’d believe her own husband.”
It took a lot to rile her, but this man was well on his way to doing just that. “They’ve been married fifteen years, and you don’t think she could tell if he was lying? She detects that, feels his betrayal on top of everything else, and you can bet everyone in that room is dead.”
Voices came from the radio scanner through the speakers in Gibson’s computer.
