This from Henry Materasso of the Two-Seven. Big guy with wide shoulders, a barrel chest, and fiery red hair. Not red like Eileen's, which had a burnished-bronze look, but red as in carrot top. The butt of a high-caliber service revolver was showing in a shoulder holster under his sports jacket. Eileen always felt a shoulder holster spelled macho. She was willing to bet Materasso had been called "Red" from the day he first went outside to play with the other kids. Red Materasso. The Red Mattress. And the class clown.
Everyone laughed.
Including Brady, who said, "It goes without saying that we don't want to get hurt, either."
The laughter subsided. Materasso looked pleased. Martha Halsted looked as if nothing pleased her. Poker up her ass, no doubt. Eileen wondered how many armed cowboys she'd blown away in her career at Robbery. She wondered, too, what Detective/First Grade Martha Halsted was doing here, where the job was to make sure nobody got hurt. And she also wondered what she herself was doing here. If this wasn't going to be a full-time job, if they could still put her on the street to be stalked and -
"How often do these hostage situations come up, Inspector?"
Halsted. Reading her mind. How often do these situations come up? How often will we be pulled off our regular jobs? Which in Eileen's case was strutting the streets waiting for a rapist or a murderer to attack her. Wonderful job, even if the pay wasn't so hot. So how often, Inspector? Will this be like delivering groceries part time for the local supermarket? Or do I get to work more regularly at something that doesn't involve rape or murder as a consequence of the line of duty?
I don't want to kill anyone else, she thought.
I don't want anybody to get hurt ever again.
Especially me.
So how often do I get a reprieve, Inspector?
"We're not talking now about headline hostage situations," Brady said, "where a group of terrorists take over an embassy or an airplane or a ship or whatever. We're lucky we haven't had any of those in the United States - at least not yet. I'm talking about a situation that can occur once a week or once a month or once every six months, it's hard to give you an average. We seem to get more of them in the summer months, but all crime statistics go up during the summertime …"
"And when there's a full moon," Riley said.
A wiry Irishman from the Nine-Four, as straight and as narrow and as hard-looking as a creosoted telephone pole. Thin-lipped mouth, straight black hair, deep blue eyes. Matching blue shirt. Tight blue jeans. Holster clipped to his belt on the left-hand side for a quick cross-body draw. Plant him and the dame from Robbery in the same dark alley and no thief in the world would dare venture into it. Eileen wondered how the people in this room had been chosen.
Was compassion one of the deciding factors? If so, why Halsted and Riley - who looked mean enough to pass for the Bonnie and Clyde of law enforcement?
"That's statistically true, you know," Goodman said. "There are more crimes committed when the moon is full."
"Tell us about it," Materasso said, grinning, and looked around for approval.
Everyone laughed again.
It occurred to Eileen that the only person in the room who hadn't said a word so far was Detective/Second Grade Eileen Burke. Of Special Forces.
Well, Pellegrino hadn't said much, either.
"This might be a good time to turn things over to Mike," Brady said.
Goodman rose from where he was sitting, nodded, said, "Thanks, Inspector," and walked to the blackboard.
Actually, it was a greenboard. Made of some kind of plastic material that definitely wasn't slate. Eileen wondered if the movie she's seen on late-night television last week would have made it as Greenboard Jungle. She also wondered why everyone in the room was on a first-name basis except Deputy Inspector William Cullen Brady, who so far wasn't either William or Cullen or Bill or Cully but was simply and respectfully Inspector, which all deputy inspectors in the police department were called informally.
Goodman picked up a piece of chalk.
"I'd like to start with the various types of hostage-takers we can expect to encounter," he said.
His eyes met Eileen's.
"Inspector Brady has already mentioned …"
Or was she mistaken?
"… terrorists, the political zealots who are the most commonly known of all takers," Goodman said, and chalked the word onto the board:
"But there are two other types of takers we'll . . . let's get used to that shorthand, shall we?" he said, and chalked another word onto the board:
"The takers we'll most frequently encounter …"
No, she wasn't mistaken.
". . . can be separated into three categories. First, as we've seen, we have the terrorist. Next, we have the criminal caught in the …"
