“Okay,” I said, since I was probably supposed to figure out what to say here. “There’s been no threat of violence if his demands aren’t carried out in a certain timetable?” I thought I’d heard the man right, but in a hostage situation this was pretty crucial stuff.
“No timetable,” he said. It was probably a sign of how he felt about us that he hadn’t offered his name.
I frowned. “That’s a little odd. Did he specify what he’d do if you didn’t comply?” The lawman shook his head again. “Have you called him back?”
Here, his expression darkened. “We were told by our higher-ups not to contact him again until you arrived.”
“Well, we’ve arrived,” I said, unfolding my arms. “When was your last contact?”
“Four, five hours ago,” he said. “Haven’t heard a peep from inside since then.”
“All right then,” I said. That wasn’t great news, but it wasn’t world-ending either. “Let’s give ‘em a call. Got the number?”
He handed me a cell phone after he’d already punched the number in. I pushed talk and held it up to my ear.
The sun beat down on me as I stood there, the black phone hot against my ear like it was about to explode. It was shaping up to be another Texas summer day, dry and fiery. My feet felt like they were going to melt their way onto the pavement, the soles of my shoes sticky against the rocky black aggregate.
“Hello?” someone answered, jarring me out of my heat-induced lapse into silence.
“Hi there,” I said. “My name is Reed Treston, and I’m working with the local police. Who am I speaking with?” Using my Grade A phone manners, like grandma taught me to.
There was a nervous silence, and for a second I wondered if the voice would answer. It was male, sounded young, cagey. “This is Peter.”
And I had a first name. It was progress. “Peter, how are you doing in there?” I lowered my voice to a calm octave, trying to be all soothing and pleasant.
“Fine,” he said, short, clipped, to the point. He didn’t sound greatly agitated, but there were definitely a few things on his mind.
“That’s good,” I said, trying to be smooth. “We’re all rooting for this to turn out well, you understand? We don’t want anyone to get hurt—and that includes you. All right?”
He seemed to ponder that one for a second, then to take it onboard. “Okay.”
“So…Peter,” I said, repeating his name as often as I could to try and establish familiarity and rapport, “I talked with the Odessa PD officer on the scene, and I took over. I’m in charge now, okay? They’re backing me up. And he kinda suggested what you want, but he was a little vague about it.” I tried to adopt a conspiratorial, “he’s over there, and it’s you and me against him,” kind of tone to put us on the same side. “I don’t know what exactly he said to you, but I want to know exactly what you want, so I can get to work on that for you, because—again—we just want this all to work out and nobody to get hurt, okay?”
“Okay,” he said again, and the wheels were turning really slow in this guy’s mind. I tried to keep my voice even, but either he was on something, drug-wise, that was slowing his cognition, or he was flat-out dumb. It could have been either, and both were worrying.
“So…what do you want, Peter?”
Peter was quiet for a few seconds. “I want to get out of here. I want—I want a plane. To get me out of this country.”
“Okay,” I said, once I’d allowed a few seconds to be sure I wasn’t going to end up talking over some request he made after a brief pause. The last thing I wanted to do was cut over this guy. I needed to listen, full, attentive, and long. It was amazing how many times you could actually talk someone out of doing something stupid just by listening to them. “We can do that,” I said, giving him a little of the can-do attitude. “I will need something from you in return though, if that’s all right.” Gentle. Conciliatory. “And it’s not tough; you don’t have to really do much—I just need to talk to the people in there with you, and make sure they’re all right.” I hesitated, and went for the gusto. “Are they all right, Peter?” I asked as non-judgmentally as possible.
“Yeah, they’re fine,” he said, and a mild hint of agitation cut through in the strain of his voice. It wasn’t a terrible amount, but enough that I found it…worrying…that it came out when I mentioned there might be harm to the hostages.
“Okay, good,” I said, trying to sound relieved, which was not hard. “Can I talk to one of them, please, Peter?”
He chewed that one over. “Yeah, okay,” he said, and then went silent.
There was a sniffling on the other end of the phone, and then a voice, female and cracking with fear, said, “Hello?”
“Hello,” I said, trying to keep pouring on the soothing. “This is Reed Treston. I’m outside, with the police. Can I ask your name?”
“Elvira,” she said.
That one took me aback. “Elvira?” I mostly repeated it so that I could confirm I got it right, and would have done so even if she’d said, “Jane.”
“My mom was a fan of—never mind,” she said, sniffling. “Elvira, yes.”
“Okay, Elvira,” I said, almost a whisper. “Is there anyone else in there with you besides Peter?”
“My kids,” Elvira said, voice straining as she held back a tide of emotion.
My stomach plummeted like an elevator in the Empire State Building with the line and brakes cut. “What are their names and how old are they?” I asked, fighting off the emotion that threatened to creep into my voice. I needed to keep that at bay, because if I didn’t, if I let feelings infect me, it had the potential to damage my discussions with Peter. Because it was really tough to talk to someone with decency and respect when they were a chickenshit who took kids as hostages.
“Elijah is six,” she said, sniffling a little. “Barry is four. Annie is two.”
“Elijah, six, Barry, four, Annie, two?” I repeated it and watched as Angel jotted it all down. She’d been listening in and taking notes all throughout my conversation. “Is there anyone else in there with you, Elvira?”
“No. Just us and Peter.”
“Okay,” I said. “I just need you to hang on, Elvira. We are working on this, okay? We are going to do everything we can to make Peter happy and settle this problem so everyone’s okay. All right?” I wanted to end on a peppy note, give her some hope, because people without any hope tended to do desperate, terrible things. That went for Peter as much as it did for her. “You can hand the phone back now, okay?”
“Hello?” I heard Peter’s rough voice again.
“Hey, Peter,” I said, “thanks for making that happen.” I complimented him on his can-do ability to be in charge, because that kind of thing worked wonders on a man’s ego. “I’m gonna go talk with the sheriff and get things rolling for you on that plane, okay? It’s probably going to take a while, though, because—I don’t know if you’ve ever dealt with the airlines before—” I threw in a fake chuckle “—but they’re pretty particular about people asking to borrow their planes.” I hoped he wouldn’t dive too deep on this lie, since the government owned plenty of planes we could probably easily commandeer, but he didn’t seem the deep-thinking type. “But I’ll get to work on that right away, see if we can cut through some of the red tape for you.” Everything was for him, and I’d throw this in over and over again in our conversations, because I wanted him to see me as his advocate, on his side. I was working for him, fighting the man for his benefit!
Fearless, tireless, against all odds, I’d be working into the late, late hours trying to answer his needs. And it would go into the late hours too, because my job was to keep him from doing anything stupid while we waited for him to go to sleep so we could take him unawares. Or wear him out so he’d surrender without hurting anybody.
I glanced at the scorched squad car. Yeah, making sure he didn’t hurt anybody was very important.
“Is there anything else I can do for you, Peter?” I asked. “Anything else you need? Food? Drink? Anything? Gatorade? Steak? It’s Texas; we can get steak a lot easier than a plane.”