7:11 p.m.
I braced my hand against the car’s ceiling as Lien-hua swerved around a corner and jammed on the brakes at the edge of a semi-circle of spinning lights. In the middle of the road, surrounded by more than a dozen police officers, stood a lone man wearing one of the new breed of Kevlar-sewn body armor that doubles as a wet suit. He wielded a jagged combat knife and was turning in a cautious circle so the officers wouldn’t rush him.
Austin Hunter.
They had him cornered.
And I had to assume that they didn’t know about Cassandra.
Lien-hua and I jumped out of the car and rushed past the ambulance parked behind one of the police cars.
“Drop the knife!” one of the officers yelled. “Hands above your head!”
Hunter began to slowly raise his hands, and then in one light-ning-swift motion yanked a Kimber Tactical Custom II. 45 out of a holster slung around his chest and aimed the weapon at his own head before anyone could react.
There he stood. Knife in one hand, gun in the other.
This guy was brilliant. If he would’ve aimed the gun anywhere else-anywhere at all-the cops would have fired. And if he turned himself in, his abductors would think he’d gone to the authorities and would undoubtedly kill Cassandra. The only way to save himself and his girlfriend was to buy time by threatening to take his own life right now. Maybe get the authorities to listen to him.
To help him.
“Drop the gun!” hollered one of the officers. “Now. Drop it!”
“They’ve got her,” Hunter yelled. “They’re gonna kill her.”
I whipped out my ID, showed it to a sergeant who seemed to be the site commander. “We’re federal agents,” I said. “Stand down.”
Hunter swiveled and looked at me, the gun still aimed at his own head. “They made me do it. I didn’t want to. I need to find her.”
I heard another officer shout, “Put down the gun!”
“They’re gonna kill her,” Hunter yelled.
“Relax, Austin,” I said. “We’re here to help.”
The sergeant, whose badge read “Newson,” was hesitating. Something you can’t do at a time like that. This was rolling downhill fast, and there was only one outcome in sight.
Think fast. Think fast.
“Drop the gun!” someone hollered.
“Sergeant Newson,” I said. “The field office sent us.” I pointed to Lien-hua. “She’s a negotiator.” It wasn’t quite true, but she was the best hope we had of reining this in. “Let her talk to him, now, before someone gets trigger-happy.”
“FBI field office sent you?” Newson asked.
“Lieutenant Graysmith requested it,” said Lien-hua.
Yes. Good thinking, Lien-hua.
“Graysmith?” Then he shrugged. “OK. It’s his butt, not mine.”
He seemed relieved to hand the situation off to us. “Hold your fire,” he shouted into his vehicle’s built-in PA system. “Hold positions, but hold your fire.”
“OK,” I said to Lien-hua. “You’re on.”
In the tense silence, Hunter scrutinized Lien-hua and then me.
“I didn’t want to hurt anyone.”
She slowly set her gun on the pavement. “I know.”
“I just want to save her. We don’t have much time. She dies at eight o’clock.”
She stepped toward him. “We know about Cassandra,” she said.
“We want to help. Do you have any idea where she is?” Lien-hua had wisely kept the conversation on Cassandra’s situation, rather than Hunter’s, focusing on the one thing that mattered most to him.
He shook his head, the gun still aimed at his temple. “They’re gonna kill her. Drake is gonna kill her.”
Drake?
Victor Drake?
Lien-hua raised her hands, palms up, and took a gentle step toward him. “How will you get in touch with them, Austin? Can we contact them-”
“No. It has to be me. They contact me. They’re watching. They’ll kill her.”
“Drop the gun!” blared one of the cops.
“Quiet,” Lien-hua yelled. She took another step toward Hunter, her hands still open, showing she meant no harm.
He moved the gun closer to his head. “Stop. Stay there.”
She paused. “Please, Austin. We want to save her. We know she’s in danger. We saw the video.”
He stared at her. “I didn’t kill them. I swear.” His voice cracked.
“I didn’t even know.”
“No. You cleared the building. You saved them. No one was killed.” She took another small step.
“Not them.”
“No one died in the fire,” she said. Then another step.
And another.
“No, no. Of course not. I made sure-for all of them, I made sure.
All fourteen.” He twisted to the right to see if any of the officers were creeping up on him. “But I didn’t start the fire last night, and I had nothing to do with that homeless guy.”
“Homeless guy?” She was only a meter from him.
And then he stared past Lien-hua toward me. “Her abductors want it. They said we could exchange. It’s over-”
And then Austin Hunter made his fatal mistake.
He might have survived the night if he hadn’t pointed the knife at Lien-hua as he said those last two words.