"Well, some do," Bellow told him, deciding to build up his ego a little. "We call them sociopathic personalities, but you're not one of them. You're a soldier. You fight for something you believe in. So do the people back there." Bellow waved to where the Rainbow people were. "They respect you, and I hope you respect them. Soldiers don't murder people. Criminals do that, and a soldier isn't a criminal." In addition to being true, this was an important thought to communicate to his interlocutor. All the more so because a terrorist was also a romantic, and to be considered a common criminal was psychologically very wounding to them. He'd just built up their self-images in order to steer them away from something he didn't want them to do. They were soldiers, not criminals, and they had to act like soldiers, not criminals.
"Dr. Bellow?" a voice called from around the corner. "Phone call, sir."
"Tim, can I go get it?" Always ask permission to do something. Give them the illusion of being in command of the situation.
"Yeah." O'Neil waved him away. Bellow walked back to where the soldiers were.
He saw John Clark standing there. Together they walked fifty feet into another part of the hospital.
"Thanks for getting my wife and little girl out, Paul."
Bellow shrugged. "It was mainly luck. He's a little overwhelmed by all this, and he's not thinking very well. They want a bus."
"You told me before," Clark reminded him. "Do we give it to 'em?"
"We won't have to do that. I'm in a poker game, John, and I'm holding a straight flush. Unless something screws up really bad, we have this one under control."
"Noonan's outside, and he has a mike on the window. I listened in on the last part. Pretty good, doctor."
"Thanks." Bellow rubbed his face. The tension was real for him, but he could only show it here. In with Timothy he had to be cool as ice, like a friendly and respected teacher. "What's the story on the other prisoners?"
"No change. The Grady guy is being operated on-it'll take a few hours, they say. The other one's unconscious still, and we don't have a name or ID on him anyway…"
"Grady's the leader?"
"We think so, that's what the intel tells us."
"So he can tell us a lot. You want me there when he comes out of the OR," Paul told Rainbow Six.
"You need to finish up here first."
"I know. I'm going back." Clark patted him on the shoulder and Bellow walked back to see the terrorists.
"Well?" Timothy asked.
"Well, they haven't decided on the bus yet. Sorry," Bellow added in a downcast voice. "I thought I had them convinced, but they can't get their asses in gear."
"You tell them that if they don't, we'll-"
"No, you won't, Tim. You know that. I know that. They know that."
"Then why send the bus?" O'Neil asked, close to losing control now.
"Because I told them that you're serious, and they have to take your threat seriously. If they don't believe you'll do it, they have to remember that you might, and if you do, then they look bad to their bosses." Timothy shook his head at that convoluted logic, looking more puzzled than angry now. "Trust me," Paul Bellow went on. "I've done this before, and I know how it works. It's easier negotiating with soldiers like you than with those damned bureaucrats. People like you can make decisions. People like that run away from doing it. They don't care much about getting people killed, but they do care about looking bad in the newspapers."
Then something good happened. Tim reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette. A sure sign of stress and an attempt to control it.
"Hazardous to your health, boy," Clark observed, looking at the TV picture Noonan had established. The assault plan was completely ready. Connolly had line charges set on the windows, both to open an entry path and to distract the terrorists. Vega,Tomlinson, and Bates, from Team-1, would toss flash-bangs at the same time and dart into the room to take the bad guys down with aimed fire. The only downside to that, as always, was that one of them could turn and hose the hostages as his last conscious act, or even by accident, which was just as lethal. From the sound of it, Bellow was doing okay. If these subjects had any brains at all, they'd know it was time to call it a day, but John reminded himself that he'd never contemplated life in prison before, at least not this immediately, and he imagined it wasn't a fun thought. He now had a surfeit of soldierly talent at his disposal. The SAS guys who'd arrived had chopped to his operational command, though their own colonel had come as well to kibitz in the hospital's main lobby.
"Tough day for all of us, isn't it, Tim?" the psychiatrist asked.
"Could have been a better one," Timothy O'Neil agreed.
"You know how this one will end, don't you?" Bellow offered, like a nice fly to a brook trout, wondering if he'd rise to it.
"Yes, doctor, I do." He paused. "I haven't even fired my rifle today. I haven't killed anyone. Jimmy did," he went on, gesturing to the body on the floor, "but not any of us."
