Little John stumbled and dropped when Rooney slammed into the back of his knees. Rooney then managed to wrap an arm around his neck and squeeze with every ounce of his pent-up fear and rage.
Rooney was still on top of Little John when the other gunmen started kicking him. Steel-toed boots struck his shoulder, his neck, his forehead. Instead of letting go, he closed his eyes and concentrated on one thing: the pressure of his arm on the hijacker’s windpipe.
The kicking stopped suddenly. Then Rooney heard a metallic snapping and felt something cold and hard press against his temple.
He opened one of his eyes and saw Jack, the lead hijacker, smiling at him from the opposite end of an M16.
“I’m only going to ask you once,” Jack said. “Let him go.”
“Shoot me!” Rooney found himself saying. Adrenaline burned like acid in his blood. “I’m not going to sit and watch you animals beat up on old people and women!”
Jack squinted at him between the holes in his mask. Finally, he slowly lowered the M16.
“Okay, Mr. Rooney,” the hijacker said. “Point taken. I’ll take measures to tone down the aggressive crowd control. Now, if you would please release my colleague. If he dies, I’m afraid it’ll start quite a bad precedent.”
Rooney released the big man and stood up, breathing loudly. His cheek was bleeding from where a boot lace had scratched it, and his right arm felt like it had been in an industrial accident, but his blood sang. He’d actually done something about this outrage.
Jack checked Little John in the chest with the rifle when he leapt up like a Doberman off the floor. “Go get something to eat and some rest,” he told him.
“Mr. Rooney, please retake your seat. I’d like to address everyone.”
Rooney sat as Jack went to the podium and cleared his throat. Then he smiled, and with his suddenly cheerful demeanor, he could have been an airline spokesman updating terminal passengers about a delay.
“Hi, everybody,” he said. “We’ve started the negotiation process, and things seem to be working quite smoothly. If things continue to go this well, there’s a shot of getting you back home to your families by Christmas morning.”
There was no applause, but Rooney definitely thought he detected a collective sigh.
“Now, unfortunately, the bad news,” Jack went on. “If things deteriorate, we’ll more likely than not be forced to kill a number of you.”
A low moan rose from the back of the chapel.
“Since we are here in a house of worship,” Jack continued, “I’d advise any of you who have religious aspirations to get your prayers in now.”
Linda London, the reality TV socialite, doubled over and began sobbing.
“People,” Jack chided amiably. “People, please. You act like we’re going to torture you. You have my word. All executions will consist of a quick, humane shot to the back of the head.”
Jack stepped back down from the pulpit and stopped beside where Rooney sat.
“Oh, and one more thing,” he said, stabbing Rooney in the throat with a stun gun. Rooney’s eyes shut of their own accord as every muscle in his body clenched at once. But instead of black, all he saw was sizzling television fuzz. A dry heave of a scream was lost in his throat as he bounced numbly off the floor and rolled under the seat.
“We’re not your lifestyle coaches or your Pilates instructors, and this isn’t Letterman’s greenroom.” Rooney heard Jack through his semiconsciousness. He even came up with one coherent idea when he managed to gather the scraps of his pain-ravaged thoughts: I should have let him shoot me.
“I thought you had to have some brains to be successful in this country,” Jack complained. “Which part of ‘step out of line and we’ll kill you’ are you morons not getting?”
Chapter 53
IT WAS TEN TO SEVEN in the morning when eleven-year-old Brian Bennett tapped on his sister’s door.
“Julia?” he whispered. “You up?”
Julia came out, combing her wet hair. Already showered, Brian thought with disappointment. He’d wanted to be the first one up, the leader of the family. He was the oldest boy, after all. When had Julia the Great woken up? Six?
“I was just about to get you,” Julia said. “Dad still sleeping?”
“Like a dead … I mean, like a rock,” Brian said quickly. “Who knows when he came in last night. You want me to start getting the cereal out and you wake the monsters?”
“Okay, but if you get finished before I get the girls up, go in and get Trent and Eddie and Ricky,” Julia said. “It’s going to take me a while to get the girls dressed right and do their hair.”