Hunted by Karen Robards Page B

seeing was a dead man’s switch: he had his thumb on the small flat disk that was the detonator, holding it down.
    “Better call off your snipers,” Ware added, and smiled at the camera. It was an almost malicious smile, and it caused Caroline to wonder again if he was quite sane. “I take a bullet, and this whole place and everyone in it goes boom.”
    A voice beside her said, “Damn it,” and with a sideways glance Caroline saw that Dixon had returned with Villard and that both men were staring at Ware on the monitor.
    “He has a dead man’s switch,” Caroline pointed out, just in case they’d missed it.
    “It sure looks like it,” Villard agreed, then asked the technicians, “Can you get me a close-up look at that backpack?”
    “Nobody wants you to take a bullet,” Caroline said to Ware, maintaining her even tone with effort while the technicians worked to zoom in on the backpack. With the clock ticking, she needed to pick up the pace on winding her way up the behavioral change stairway, which was what negotiators called the process of building trust with a perp, until she reached the point where she could persuade Ware that surrendering was in his best interest. “We want you to come out of this alive, along with everyone else.”
    “I doubt your colleagues there agree with you.” Ware’s tone was sardonic. “In fact, I know they don’t.”
    “You’re wrong,” she said. “Nobody wants you to die tonight.”
    His mouth twisted. “You don’t know much about much, do you, cher?”
    Caroline frowned. “It’s the truth.”
    “You trying to fool yourself or me?” he asked.
    “I’m not trying to fool you. I’m trying to help you,” Caroline replied even as her eyes darted from monitor to monitor, trying to pick up clues about what was going on outside. Dixon and Villard were huddled together a little apart from her, conferring about the close-up of the backpack that the technicians had pulled up on one screen. “You can still walk away from this. All you have to do is release the hostages and come out. No one will hurt you. No one has to get hurt.” She stressed that last part for emphasis.
    “So I can just walk away like none of this ever happened, right?” The skepticism in Ware’s voice was unmistakable.
    “You’ll face some charges.” Her voice was steady. “But atleast they won’t include murder. And at this point, even the severity of the charges is on the table.”
    “Is there a rainbow out there anywhere?” he asked. Caroline was mystified: the question made no sense at all.
    “It’s night,” she replied cautiously.
    “That’s good, because the next thing I was expecting you to tell me was that if I saw one and followed it, I’d be finding me a pot o’ gold.”
    Her lips re-formed in a thin line. “I’m offering you a way out.”
    “Are you?”
    “Yes.”
    “Are you saying that I can trust you, Caroline?”
    Caroline could almost feel the heightening tension surrounding him. Her own nerves were stretching to the breaking point. It occurred to her once again that she didn’t really know Reed Ware at all, and she had no idea what he might be capable of if his demands weren’t met. She had no means by which to judge whether or not he would do exactly as he had threatened. Her gut might tell her he wouldn’t do it, but her gut could very well be wrong. For all she knew, he might be prepared to kill every single hostage in that room.
    But even if she didn’t fully trust him, she sure as hell needed him to trust her.
    “Yes,” Caroline said, and meant it, at least as far as it was possible within the parameters of the job and the situation. Even though she was prepared to lie to him, trick him, or do just about whatever it took to get him and the others out of there alive, what he could trust in was that she would do the best she could for him, for as long as she could.
    Ware looked at her—at the camera, damn it—steadily. “Just how big a fool do you think I