Crescent City Connection

can’t give you two for one…”
    “Now, Reverend, you know we can’t trade you anybody. Lovelace doesn’t want to join you. We can’t make her.”
    “I’ve got a feeling she’d change her mind if she knew how sick her daddy is. But it wouldn’t be fair to give you Daniel
and
Shavonne. So we’ll take that big clumsy cop off your hands in exchange for one sweet, innocent little girl.”
    “What cop is that?”
    Skip whispered, “Me,” and Jacomine’s voice boomed out, “That Langdon bitch. Daniel and Shavonne for Lovelace and Langdon. Take it or leave it.”
    “Reverend, listen …”
    “You listen, Penny. I’m just about out of patience with you. You got my number—call me when you’re ready to deal.” Once again, the phone went dead.
    Skip said, “It had to be. I knew they wanted me.”
    Goerner looked puzzled. “What for?”
    “The Rev and I have a lot of history. Bottom line, he wants to kill me. But use me for a hostage first to get wherever they’re going. After that, arrange some particularly nasty form of torture—the Rev’s famous for torture—and then, I don’t know. Burn me at the stake, probably.”
    Goerner pulled at a hunk of thick hair. “Out of the question.”
    “Well, I don’t like the idea much myself.”
    In a small voice, Lovelace said, “What about my dad?”
    Skip spoke before anyone else could. “There’s only one chance. We say Lovelace changed her mind when she heard about her dad. She’ll be happy to join them. We say okay, the deal’s fine—”
    “For Christ’s sake, Langdon. No law enforcement agency in the world makes deals with terrorists.”
    “Oh, please. Don’t treat me like a child. No one
honors
deals with terrorists. You guys’ll turn an exchange into a snatch any time you get a chance.”
    “You want to go in there yourself.” Goerner was still trying to grasp it.
    “As Lovelace, yes. But the whole point of never making deals is to send a message to the next guys. Negotiators make deals all the time—’Promise I go free if I give up my little son and daughter?’ ‘Sure, we’ll take real good care of you.’ Then, bam, he’s in the slammer. Deals, yes. Followed by double crosses. All I’m suggesting is a different kind of double cross—think of it as a Trojan horse.”
    “Then who do we send in exchange for Shavonne? Abasolo in drag? And what’s the point, anyway? They’ll just kill both of you.”
    “We arrange for one at a time—first Daniel, then Shavonne. If I go as Lovelace, they won’t be expecting a cop, and they won’t be expecting a weapon. They’ll pat me down, but I’ll have the gun hidden well enough that they won’t find it. Then I’ll just have to make a move before the second exchange—which won’t occur in any case.”
    “Uh-uh. You’re not trained for that kind of work. Anyway, how do we know there aren’t twenty of them over there, all armed with assault rifles? What are you going to do, pick them all off? Or maybe just one of them’s armed—and that one shoots Shavonne.”
    That had been worrying Skip as well. But she said, “I just don’t see what else we can do—this is something we
can
do without being completely at their mercy.” She shrugged. “Okay. I’m happy to listen to alternate plans. Penny, you’re the negotiator—what do you suggest?”
    For the first time, Ferguson looked rattled. Not falling-apart-rattled, like Goerner—but profoundly unhappy.
    “I don’t know. I just don’t know. This isn’t like some psycho who’s mad at his wife and threatening to kill his kids. That kind of person at least half wants to be talked out of it. Religious fanatics at least half want to become martyrs.”
    The phone rang again. Goerner waved at Kohler, giving the okay to answer it. Jacomine didn’t even bother to ask for Ferguson. “What’s your fax number, FBI? We just took another picture of Shavonne and we want to send it right over to you.”
    Kohler gave it. They gathered round the fax machine, the air clogged with tension.
    As the picture slid out, the point of the first photo became clear. A collective gasp went up. Even the smug Kohler for once lost his cool. “My God!” he blurted.
    The photo showed Shavonne standing up in the same jeans and T-shirt as before. She was also wearing a down jacket with two sticks of dynamite jammed and taped into it, an alarm clock attached somehow or other. It was a primitive time-bomb. As graphic a warning as a finger in the