Chapter 16
"You realize that they will try to kill you right?" Barba spoke up. He did not want to poke the bear as it were but if it was necessary he would for Olivia.
"Of course they will but it's a risk I'm willing to take. Besides if they try something stupid doesn't mean I won't take one of you with me," Lewis smirked. Barba then realized that despite a possible death wish by the crazy holding him captive, he could still end up dead or worse Hardgrove could. He cursed himself for bringing her into this but he had never realized that things would get so out of hand.
"As your attorney, I must caution you against betting on the NYPD or the Department of Corrections to not shoot. You hurt both an NYPD Detective and a Corrections Officer. They will not hesitate to take revenge and to be honest they would be in their rights if no other options presents itself," Hardgrove was trying to be brave and still give her client advice. Barba decided that after all of this was over, he'd offer her to go out for drinks and a job at the DA's office.
"Why don't you two get up against those windows?" Lewis asked. Thinking they both should have kept their mouths shut; carefully the two stood up from their chairs and walked over to the windows together.
"Are you ok?" Barba asked as he noticed that Lewis had tightened the plastic cuff on Hardgrove's wrist awfully tight and it was drawing blood.
"I'll be fine," she was putting on a brave face but he could tell she was scared.
"Hey, did I say you could talk?" Lewis asked before clubbing the back of Barba's knee with the chair piece. He cried out in pain and went down, almost dragging Hardgrove with him.
"Stand up!" Lewis grabbed him by the shirt collar and forced him up. The ADA could barely put any weight on his leg and he hoped this would be over soon.
Outside, the sniper on top of the nearby building reported what he saw to his superiors and was waiting for a reply.
"You have no shot?" The voice came over the radio.
"Negative. Hostages are in the way," the sniper replied.
"Standby," the voice told him. Down at the negotiator vehicle, Captain Joseph Hannah of Major Case shook his head; things had gone from bad to worse.
"Get me Captain Don Cragen over at SVU. His team knows this psychopath better than anybody else. In the meantime, I want SWAT to be as close as they can be to storm that room if we've lost sniper capabilities for good," he said.
"Yes, sir," one of the men said before grabbing his cell phone and placing a call to One Police Plaza for Cragen's whereabouts.
"How much longer do we wait until he gives demands?" The negotiator, Sam Magner, asked.
"Not very. He doesn't give us demands in the next ten minutes and I'm sending SWAT in. He's got a phone and he's refusing to use it. Once I talk to Cragen, we'll go from there," Hannah told him.
"You don't think he'll try something if we charge the room?" Magner wanted to know.
"Oh I'm counting on it. If this guy is as nuts as the report filed for the case against him says he is, he'll try something and then we'll end him. He has to know by now that no matter what he does, he isn't getting out of this," the Captain said. Then the phone rang inside the truck and Sam picked it up.
"I want to speak to the man in charge," Lewis said.
"Well that's me. What do you need?" Sam asked.
"I need you to keep your men back or I'm liable to do something that no one will appreciate. Least of all, Miss Hardgrove," Lewis told him.
"No one is getting any closer. We just want this to end peacefully," Sam lied.
"Sure you do and I'm the Queen of England," the criminal retorted.
"Have I given you any reason not to trust me?" Sam inquired.
"The snipers," Lewis pointed out.
"Standard procedure. They don't take a shot unless they absolutely have to. I don't want them to have to, do you?" The negotiator asked.
"I do actually. It will stop the voices in my head telling me to kill poor Miss Hardgrove. It's really a shame because they're telling me to do other things to her but I know I'll never get that far," his words rang out in Barba's head and now he knew what Lewis was up to. He looked at Hardgrove who was barely able to stand up. She knew what her client was getting at and she had been shown what happened to poor Alice Parker.
"We're going to get out of here, I promise," Barba whispered and squeezed her hand. He looked out the window to see the sniper ready and waiting. With Lewis distracted on the phone, he leaned his head toward the other side of the window and saw all the police cars and personnel. Then something Lewis said caught his attention.
"I want Olivia down here and I want her in the next ten minutes or I start doing bad things," Lewis then slammed the phone down. The ADA knew that they would never let Olivia in even if she could get to the site within ten minutes. They had basically been told by Lewis that in the next ten minutes some bad things were going to happen. Grabbing a set of plastic cuffs, Lewis grabbed Barba's free hand and zip tied him to the bars on the window.
"What are you doing?" Barba asked. For his question he got the chair leg to the back of his other knee. The tight zip tie cut into his wrist at the window forcing him to basically stay on his feet. He then zip tied Hardgrove to the other window then he placed his hands on her backside and gave it a squeeze.
"I think you and I would have had fun together. Isn't that right Susan?" Lewis smirked and all the defense attorney could do is swallow hard.
"Now we sit and wait," he said, taking a seat in one of the remaining chairs.
To Be Continued…