“I don’t want anything else!”

“They won’t give you Glancy. They can’t. Why not ask for money? Or just settle for transportation to some country that the U.S. doesn’t have an extradition treaty with. I’m sure you know more about that than I do.”

“No!” he bellowed. “I want Glancy. And I’ll get Glancy, or they’ll see everyone in this room die!”

“P-p-p-please…” It was Hazel, hunched down on the floor, her aged hands covering her head. “Please let me go. I don’t care what you do to Todd. I don’t care what you do to anyone. But please let me go.”

For a moment, gazing at the broken, elderly woman he’d known for more than a decade, Marshall almost regained his usual countenance. “I regret that I must do this to you, Hazel. I truly do. But it’s necessary.”

“I-I can’t take it any longer, Marshall. You know how bad my heart is. I’m not going to make it.”

“If you die, you die. It happens.” His eyes narrowed. “Even to the people you love most.”

Christina steeled herself and took a step forward. “Marshall, please. End this nightmare. Let Marie get medical attention. I know you’re not a bad person. I don’t-I don’t understand what’s happened to you. But I can’t believe you want to hurt anyone.” She held out her hand. “Give it up, Marshall. Give me the gun.”

“You want it. Here it is.” He fired.

Christina’s heart raced. The bullet drilled a hole in the carpet between her legs.

“Now stand by the wall and stay put,” he growled, waving her back with the gun. “Next time, I won’t miss.”

“What was that?” Ben asked, grabbing Agent Cross’s arm, refusing to let her go. He knew he was pushing his luck. They’d tolerated him so far because he had information that was useful to them, but they could get rid of him with a single word to one of the dozens of agents on duty. “What happened?”

“That’s what Agent Martinez is attempting to find out.” She looked over Ben’s shoulder and saw the situation commander’s signal. “He doesn’t think anyone was hurt. Just a stray shot.”

“This time! Marshall’s getting crazier by the minute. We have to do something.”

“Mr. Kincaid, I assure you we are doing something. Everything we can. But we have to play this by the book.”

“I don’t care about your book. I want Christina out of there. And the others.” He paused, desperately searching for a solution. “What about tear gas? Can’t you flood the room with gas?”

“Not without him knowing about it. He’d have plenty of time to kill the hostages before the gas knocked him out. And he’s said if we try anything of that nature that’s exactly what he will do.”

“What about a sniper? Doesn’t your tactical man have snipers on the scene?”

She threw back her shoulders. Ben was obviously starting to get on her nerves. “He has tons of snipers, Mr. Kincaid-but nowhere to put them. There are no buildings or other perches that would give them a line on Senator Glancy’s office. For a reason. This is the U.S. Senate, remember? We’ve never allowed any construction that could be turned into a potential sniper’s nest.”

“Maybe a SWAT team could rush the door. We don’t even know that it’s locked.”

“That’s an option. But if we do that, realistically, he’ll kill at least one of the hostages before they get him. Maybe all of them.”

Over by the phone station, Ben saw Martinez stick something in his ear. “What’s that?”

“An aural implant. Tiny, can’t be seen. But it will allow us to talk to him-if Bressler ever gives him the okay to go in.”

“What about over there?” Ben pointed toward three men huddled just to the side of the closed door to Glancy’s office. “What are they doing?”

“Trying to get a fiber-optic cable inside. One of Bressler’s earlier shots went wild and put a hole in the wall. If we can get a videocam cable through it, we can at least see and hear what’s going on.”

“But how are we going to get the hostages out?” Ben knew he sounded desperate. He was. He’d known Christina so long, had wasted so much time, and now some madman was threatening to take her away from him forever. “He gave us ten minutes.”

“Agent Martinez is negotiating for more time.”

“He’s not going to give you any more time!”

“So what do you want us to do, Kincaid? Send Glancy in to be slaughtered?”

Ben fell silent.

“Please. Just let us do our jobs!”

“Cross!”

Both of them whirled around. It was Carney, the tactical commander. “Just got this tidbit from the computer geeks. Agent Martinez is on the phone with Bressler, so I thought you’d want to see it.”

Cross rapidly scanned the document. “Oh my God.”

“What?” Ben said. “What is it?”

“How did you get the doctor to release this?”

Carney looked at her stoically. “We didn’t ask. You can expect a lawsuit later.”

“Would someone please tell me what it is?” Ben pleaded.

Cross looked at him, thought a moment, then decided to cut him a break. “It’s about Marshall Bressler. Did you know he was seeing a psychiatrist?”

Ben’s heart felt as if it turned to lead. “Why?”

“According to this, the car accident that crippled him also caused damage to the bilateral lobes of his brain, making him susceptible to delusions, paranoia.” She paused. “And given to bursts of sudden uncontrollable mania.”

“Meaning?”

“In lay terms? He’s a walking time bomb.”

“I’ve been working with him for weeks. I’ve seen no signs of any… mania.”

“Because he’s been heavily medicated with psychotropic drugs. Have you seen him taking pills?”

“Yes. He said they were pain medication.”

“Maybe some of them were. But he was also taking a powerful antipsychotic. One little blue pill every six hours. That’s what’s kept him under control.”

Ben took a step backward, staggering. “He lost his briefcase this morning. So he’s off his meds. Combine that with seeing Glancy acquitted-”

“This changes everything,” Cross snapped to Carney. “Get a message to Martinez. Tell him-”

She was cut off by the sound of a gun firing inside the office. Followed by a piercing scream.

“What happened?” Ben asked, running toward the phone base. “That was Christina’s voice. Was someone shot? Christina!”

It was her own fault, Christina thought, as she struggled to remain alert and rational through the blinding pain. Whoever was talking to Marshall on the phone was doing a good job; for the first time, Marshall seemed somewhat distracted. He became so angry, so intent on shouting at the man on the other end, that he lowered his gun. And that was when Christina made her move.

It always worked in the movies, she’d thought, as she fell in a heap onto the carpeted floor. But in real life, people don’t move faster than bullets. Even before he fired, she had realized that she wasn’t going to get there in time and tried to get out of the way. But it was too late. The bullet caught her in the upper right thigh. It hurt like hell and it was bleeding like a river.

All the times she’d watched cop shows on television, through all the westerns she’d seen as a kid, she’d always wondered what it felt like to be shot. Well, now she knew.

It hurt.

“Please let them send in a doctor,” Christina begged. Her voice was weak and feeble and she knew it.

“No!” Marshall screamed. “I told you not to try anything! I told you!”

“Then-at least let Hazel tie a tourniquet on my leg. I’m bleeding buckets.”

Marshall looked at the elderly woman cringing beside the copying machine. “You really think she’s capable of anything like that?”

Fine, damn you. I’ll do it myself. Christina placed both hands on opposite ends of her blouse and tore off a long strip. She just wished she hadn’t worn something so nice. She’d made the mistake of dressing for court rather than for a bullet wound.

Mustering every ounce of strength she had, she wrapped the strip around her leg, just above the wound, and pulled it as tight as possible. The pain was crippling; she felt lights exploding in her head and thought she might pass out. But that was not an option, she told herself. She had to stay awake. She had to. She tied the tourniquet in a knot, then lay back on the carpet, exhausted.