The Surrogate Thief(6)

“Hear you? The whole town can hear you, Matthew.” She drew out his name tauntingly.

The liaison presented a note reading “Tac team has a clear shot through curtain gap.”

Ron winced and wrote “NO SHOOTING” in block letters before handing it back.

He called out over the phone, desperate to head off another blowup. “Matt. You there? Hey, Matt?”

“What?” he said finally.

Reacting to his own pressures, Ron decided to become more direct. “How does it make you feel, being in there with her?”

“Pissed off.”

“You think there may be a solution to that?”

“Yeah. I could walk into a hail of bullets.”

“From us?” Ron made his voice sound surprised, heartened that Purvis hadn’t mentioned killing his wife first. “We’re not going to shoot you. I want you out safe and sound, Matt. Nobody shoots somebody because they’re having a shitty day.”

“The place is surrounded by guys with guns. I’m not that stupid.”

Ron tried steering him away from a conversation they’d had several times already. “What do you think of me? Personally?”

“I don’t know you.”

“Don’t you?”

Ron let the silence drag on.

Finally, Purvis admitted, “I guess you’re okay.”

“Would you be willing to come outside if I was there to greet you? We could keep talking later, face-to-face, away from the guns.”

“I’ve seen how that works on TV. You guys beat the shit out of me.”

“You really think I’d do that?”

Purvis hesitated before admitting, “Maybe not you. I was thinking about those ninja bastards in black. I saw them out there.”

“Well, I’m the one we’re talking about. Let’s get this done, Matt. You and me, at the front door. I’ll walk up and call out, so you recognize my voice; you open the door and come out with your hands up. Then we can talk more in private over some coffee, without interruptions. You can tell me about Chris, and I can brag about my kid.”

The silence was punctuated only by Linda’s growled aspersions in the distance, sounding like a crow on amphetamines.

Matthew Purvis got the message. “Okay.”

“All right,” Ron said with relief. He reached out and pushed a button activating a parallel line to the command post, allowing Washburn and Kazak to listen in and understand what was about to happen. “I have to tell you how this works, so pay attention. I’m not the head guy here, so I have to coordinate with the ninjas you just mentioned. I’ll be there, like I said, front and center at the door, but they’ll be there, too, armed and scary-looking. That’s their job and there’s nothing I can do about that, okay?”

“I don’t trust them.”

“They’re there to protect me, Matt. They don’t know you like I do. To them you’re just somebody who might try to hurt me. And my boss, who is probably just like yours was, he’ll fire my ass if I don’t follow procedure. But you’ll be fine, okay? I promise you that. I’ll be the first one you see when you open that door. I’ll be wearing a bulletproof vest over a white shirt and brown slacks. You listen to my voice only, okay? Ignore everything else.”

“They’ll see the gun and shoot.”

“Then slide it out first or leave it behind. Put it down on a table somewhere. Just make sure when you come out that your hands are up and that we can see they’re empty. You got that? Are we squared away on this?”

“Yeah. I guess.” Purvis was sounding suddenly exhausted.

“Hang in there, buddy. I’ll be there in three minutes. Put the gun down, go to the door, and wait for my voice.”

“Okay.”

Klesczewski made sure Matt had left the phone before leaping to his feet and throwing open the van’s door.

Across the way, he saw both Washburn and Kazak emerging from the command post, actually an old converted ambulance. They’d heard everything he’d said.

“I don’t like it,” Kazak said predictably. “As soon as he turns that doorknob, we should go in hard and take him down.”

Ron merely looked at Washburn as he slipped a black vest over his head and strapped it in place.

Thankfully, Ward Washburn understood. “We’ll do it his way, Wayne.”

Ron nodded. “Thanks.” He began trotting toward the trailer around the corner as Kazak coordinated the surrender with his team over the radio.

Halfway up the driveway, a shot exploded from inside the trailer.

Moments later, the door opened, spilling light across the patchy grass, and a woman appeared, swaying on her feet, a gun in one hand and a bottle in the other. She was laughing.