I stared fearfully at the two high school kids and the security chief’s son, all of whom Mooney had bound himself to. They were pale, listless, sweating, eyes glazed with stress and shock. I thought of my oldest boy, Brian, only a few years younger. I wanted them to live. I wanted us all to live. I had to make this happen. Somehow.

“Francis! Calm down, man! It’s me, Mike Bennett,” I said, raising my hands slowly above my head. “I’m not sneaking up on you. I have the fathers in the hall here behind me, like you said. I’ll let them in. You let the boys go. Will you work with me?”

Mooney took a step toward me. His eyes behind his glasses were gleaming now, filled with an unsettling intensity. His taped-together hands holding the detonator were shaking now. I watched his right-hand index finger twitch as it hovered over its trigger.

I struggled to come up with something to calm him down. Emily’s tirade was supposed to be just a distraction, but it had gotten him so riled up, he might set the plastic off by accident.

“Where are they?” Mooney demanded, peering into the darkened doorway at my back.

“At the bottom of the stairwell, Francis. They’re waiting to come up,” I said.

“You’re lying,” Mooney said.

“No,” I said, making eye contact with him as I shook my head. “No more lies, Francis. We just want what’s best for everybody. For you. For those kids. The fathers really want to take their sons’ places. They appreciate that you’ve given them the option, in fact.”

“Yeah, like I believe that,” Mooney said. He took another step closer, his eyes squinting as he tried to peer deeper into the dim stairwell.

“I won’t let anyone go until the fathers come up those stairs and stand in front of me. That’s the deal, Mike. No negotiating. Bring them up here right now.”

I turned around as if I heard something behind me.

“Okay, Francis,” I said. “They’re on the stairs right behind me now. Why don’t we do this? Why don’t you come forward a little and look in the doorway first. You can verify that it’s them. Then you can untangle one of the kids. I don’t want you to think it’s a trick.”

Mooney stood there, thinking about it.

“Okay,” he said, taking another step.

As he came forward, I watched the sunlight from the window glance off his shoe. The light came up his leg, his torso, his two hands grasping the detonator as if in prayer.

“Got him,” the FBI sniper across the street said into the radio in my ear.

I dove to the floor.

Chapter 96

STANDING IN THE dusty light, Mooney looked at me in confusion as I hit the deck. Then he turned toward the window I’d lured him in front of.

The shattering of the long front window of the Exchange seemed to happen after Mooney was hit. One second, he was standing there, and the next, the window shattered spectacularly, and he was down, sitting on the floor.

The blood pumping from Mooney’s wrists looked black on the bright faded marble. I scrambled up as Mooney fruitlessly tried to squeeze the detonator trigger. He was having trouble because his blown-apart hands and wrists were now only barely attached to his arms.

The .50 caliber sniper bullets had missed the detonator but hit him through both wrists, completely severing the nerves in both hands.

I felt sorry for Mooney as he wriggled on the floor, moaning and pumping blood.

But that was before he whispered, “Amen,” and lurched up and forward, going for the trigger with his chin.

The third shot came before I’d closed half the distance. The final bullet caught Mooney on his temple. Instead of falling forward, he fell over safely to the side.

“Cease fire!” I yelled into my radio as a thunder of steps came up the balcony stairs.

“No!” I screamed at Jeremy Mason, who’d turned to look at what was left of Francis X. Mooney.

I knelt down in front of the young man tangled in the strings of explosives, shielding him from the sight of Mooney’s body. He’d been through enough. We all had.

“Don’t move, son. It’s going to be okay now,” I said, wiping at the madman’s blood freckled across the boy’s face.

Chapter 97

Tags: James Patterson Michael Bennett Mystery
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