246: Negotiation
[1987]
This situation is out of fucking control, and Special Agent Paul Smecker has the joy and distinction of being ranking officer on the scene.
'Ranking officer' because of the two city cops with him, one's a goddamn fresh-into-the-blues fucking rookie, and the other one, the officer who's in his fifties and has the beer gut and the two-day stubble and all the other little signs and signifiers Smecker knows how to read that tell him just the nature of this man's history with the force and of the sort of officer he is-- that one's on the floor, bleeding. Knife to the gut. Not lethal, Smecker thinks, but he only had the glance to go on and he sure as hell can't stop and look now.
"Carson," Smecker says, not in the angry snap he wants to use but calm and carefully and quietly. There's no answer from the young man next to him, who is standing, like him, with gun pointed at their perp. Unlike him, Carson's gun is trembling.
"Carson."
"Sir!"
"Carson, Officer Wycjowski is down. Call it in. Get over there and put pressure on his injury."
"But--"
"I've got it, Carson. I'm ordering you to see to your fellow officer. Get him out of here. Call back-up."
This gets the first response from 'the perp' as Carson called him: the man standing on the other side of the room, barely visible behind the body of the woman he's using as a shield. So far he's little more than a pair of panic-bright eyes and the knife, pressed against her throat.
And now he's saying in a low rasp-- Smecker pegs him as smoker, pack a day-- "No. You don't call back-up. Any more cops show up I kill her now. I cut her throat right now."
The first rule, the cardinal rule, of negotiation: prolong it. Grab every second you can. The longer the encounter goes, the likelier it is to be resolved peacefully. The hostage-taker's adrenaline rush has to be given time to fade.
Paul Smecker takes a slow, steady breath and holds it for the space of two seconds, then lets it out. Slow and steady on the exhale as well. "Sir, I've got an injured man here. I'm sure you didn't mean to hurt him, but he's bleeding over there. You can see him. Please let Officer Carson here take him outside and see to his injuries. Look at it like this, right now you've got three cops in here--" now is not the time to point out he's FBI, but some part of him is still morbidly tempted; he grinds down on it, "--then you'll only have one."
There's several seconds of wordless tension, and Smecker mentally likens it to the beats of judicious silence in some of his favorite musical pieces. He settles himself into the curious calm of a crisis, into the steady equilibrium of racing adrenaline and measured speech and action.
Finally the man nods. "They can go. You stay. And you drop your fucking gun."
"Sir--"
"I said you drop your fucking gun!" The blade winks in the room's half-light, angled harsh against woman's jugular. Agent Smecker nods and slowly, carefully, reholsters his Smith and Wesson 10mm at the small of his back. The man says nothing. He's dealing with a scared amateur, then; a professional wouldn't let him keep it, would insist it was on the ground and kicked over to him.
All in all, he'd rather be dealing with a professional. Less chance of mistakes.
"Gun's gone. The other cops are leaving," he says, reasonably. "Now what?"
The woman is scared. 'Scared,' such a stupid word. She's crying, choked sobs and her face gleaming with snot and tears whenever one of the stray beams of streetlight coming through the broken blinds crosses it. She'd be begging if that sharp serrated edge against her throat didn't compromise speech. He notes these things, notes especially the sounds she makes, and puts them carefully in a package that is wrapped neatly in his mind and then set aside. To save her, he doesn't have the luxury of focusing on her.
Look at the man. He's shifting weight from foot to foot, shifting his grip on the long steak knife in his hand, nervous, unsure of how to answer the question. Smecker counts seconds until he hits thirty, then asks again, "Now what? I can't do what you want if you don't tell me what you want, Mike."
The name is a small gamble. Odds are good that the guy holding the knife is the same guy they came here with a warrant for, though he still can't get a good enough glimpse at him to verify. But Michael Tremaine doesn't argue, so, there, at least he has a name. The second rule of negotiation: know who you're dealing with.
Third rule: Gain their trust. Create calm.
"Mike, my name's Paul. Let's talk this out, Mike. It's all going to be okay."
"Shut up," Tremaine says, but there's no real heat to it, just fear. "Shut up. Leave me alone. You people just-- just leave me alone--"
Smecker lets Beethoven play in the back of his mind, something smooth and pure legato. Cleanly overrides the woman's whimpers, the harsh breathing of both her and the man, the faint sound of Carson's voice on his radio. Each note of the Moonlight Sonata floats, gentle and sweet. Tremaine's sweating. He can smell it but not see it. And-- urine? The woman or Tremaine? Can't tell. Yet.
He talks in time with the mental piano. "It's going to be hard for us to do that, Mike. You hurt an officer. You cut him pretty badly."
"I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to. He was just-- there-- and he had a gun and all I've got's a knife, that isn't fair, man, that's not fair--"
"Mike? Take it easy. Take deep breaths, alright? You're going to hyperventilate. Come on, just breathe for a second, okay? Get your bearings. Good, that's it. I know you didn't want him to get hurt. You didn't want anyone to get hurt, am I right?"
"Fuck, yes," Tremaine moans. "Shit, I don't even carry a gun, man. This shit just went south... it's you cops, man, you guys comin' up like this and surprisin' me!"
"I understand. Things got out of control."
"Yeah. Yeah. If I'd had time to flush the junk--" Tremaine breaks off.
Light quivers off the blade in his hand, ripples a reflection onto the wall in shaky little movements. Smecker can see it at the corner of his eye but, like the woman, like Carson, like everything except Michael Tremaine, it is currently a distraction. He drifts with the piano, keeping his arms and neck loose, ready to move if necessary.
It's been several years since he had to negotiate. Five, at least? He's thirty-one now. In the peculiar stasis of the moment, random facts flicker through his mind without forming connections-- the face of the last man he'd talked down from murder. The stink of fear and madness. Quantico classrooms, the deeply-gouged underside of his lab-table-cum-desk where some bored predecessor on the path of knowledge had scarred it with a persistent pocketknife.
"Mike, I know you're not a bad guy. Things just got crazy. Believe me, I know how it goes. You see everything in this job. I've seen bad people, seriously bad sons of bitches. I know you're not one of them. I know you didn't want to hurt anybody, I know you don't want to hurt her. Am I right?"
No response. Michael shifts back a step or two into the deeper shadows, going entirely invisible now. Except the knife. Paul can still catch gleams from the knife. The woman's eyes are very wide-- no. Not her. Focus on Tremaine. On Michael.
"Mike, talk to me. I can't help you if you don't talk to me. You have to tell me what you want, buddy." Paul Smecker doesn't think he's ever called someone 'buddy' before in his life.
"I want out of here," Michael says, voice breaking. Smecker considers that he might be high. Bad business, that, to be getting high off your own merchandise, but certainly not the first pusher to sample his own wares. "I want to get out of here. A car. I want a car. Get me a fucking car."
"Okay, that's a start." Smecker exhales. "Mike, I don't have a radio. I'm going to have to tell Officer Carson you want a car, alright? And he's going to have to talk to the precinct about that. Okay?"
"Uh..." Michael's thinking it over. The knife is so damn desperately close to her jugular-- "Fuck, no-- do you think I'm stupid? No, no, no, you guys came in a car, I'm taking your car, give me the keys, give me the fucking keys man! I'll kill Maria, I swear to you if I kill her it's on your hands, you guys pushing at me like this--"
"Easy, easy-- Mike, breathe for me. You want our car? Officer Wycjowski drove. I'll have to get the keys from him. You sure you want our car? It's a patrol car. It's visible on any road you take it, and it's got a transponder inside. They all do. We will know where the car is, Mike."
Fourth rule: Never say 'no' to the hostage taker. Stall them, give them alternatives, but don't say no.
"If you want a different car, we'll work on that. We'll look into it. My promise. But either way I have to get Carson to radio in. I can't pull cars out of thin air, Mike. Look. Can I put my hands down? My arms are getting tired, and I need a cigarette. Can I do that?"
"Fuck. Fuck. Alright. Go ahead. But slow. You move fast I'll cut her, I swear--"
"I know. Look, I'm moving real slow. You can see what I'm doing. See? Just getting out my cigarettes. You want one? Might help you calm down."
There's a shaky exhale from the shadows. Maria's eyes are closed now. Smecker appreciates that; he can work more easily when she's not staring at him with panicked plea in her eyes.
"I'll take that as a yes. You want me to toss you the pack?" He holds it up in a beam of light from the dusty window, showing it.
"How'm I gonna smoke, huh? Gotta keep my hands right here, man, otherwise it's all over, it's all fucking over."
Paul considers this. "I'll light the cigarette. I'll lean forward, very slow and easy, so Maria can take it from me. Okay, Maria? And Maria can hold it up to you so you can smoke it. Works out. I'm sure she'd be happy to help."
Tremaine considers again, and finally agrees because when Smecker says it, it seems logical. And he's craving a cigarette badly. Paul spares himself a small moment of congratulation for his correct assessment of Tremaine as a smoker as he carefully, carefully extends the lit cigarette to Maria's trembling fingers.
Rule five: make them see the hostage as a human again.
There's several beats of silence as Tremaine takes a first drag, the ember flaring so brightly in the shadows; and Paul listens to him breathe shuddering relief out with the smoke. The etiquette of nicotine is programmed habit, such that Tremaine mumbles "Thanks" for the cigarette as if this were a street corner and they two strangers, not FBI and dealer in a homegrown meth lab.
"You're welcome," Smecker says, and lets the silence carry them a few more beats, listening to the Beethoven. Give Tremaine a chance to calm down. He's so tightly wound right now that--
A sound he recognizes cuts across the sonata, and Special Agent Smecker curses savagely into the interior space of his mind. Fucking helicopter, the fuck, alright, he did tell Carson to call for backup but Jesus H. Fucking Christ--
A spotlight strobes the room with a nightmare of blinding black and white. The thrumm of chopper blades somewhere overhead makes things rattle on the shelves. The spotlight sweeps on again and the room is plunged back to shadows, but Smecker knows it's already done its damage, knows it before the loudspeaker starts blaring through the building's thin walls. The knife's jamming at Maria's throat again and drawing blood this time, an impossibly thin red line--
The piano's notes hang sweet and silver in the room, in the perpetual second that drags and ticks itself inexorably over. All the details. All the details. Maria's eyes open again, her mouth parted to sing the pain but the sound not escaping quite yet--
--the twist of the tendons and bones of Tremaine's hand and forearm--
--the watery sheen of light on the blade--
--steel under his fingers, the Smith and Wesson's weight in his hand--
--Maria screams in the same second that he takes easy aim at the target he arranged for himself with the cigarette, the red flaring pinprick that marks exactly where Michael Tremaine's head is in the darkness. And one two smooth three four trigger legato one two three four one
Two
Three
Four
Done. Time kicks on again, and Smecker's aware for the first time in minutes that he's soaked in his own sweat. His ears ring with the retort, but Maria looks to be alive, she's still standing, holding her throat, but there's no arterial spurt through her fingers so. So.
Special Agent Smecker finds the nearest chair and drops into it bonelessly and waits for the cops to charge through the door, using the intervening time to smoke his own cigarette and stop the shaking of his own fingers. Goddammit. It could have gone differently. It didn't have to...
But it's done, fuck it, and it could have been worse. This is supposedly comfort. He closes his eyes and reflects instead on the unwritten rule six, which appears in no handbook that the FBI publishes:
Sometimes you just have to shoot the motherfucker.
fandom: boondock saints
muse: paul smecker
word count: 2375
This situation is out of fucking control, and Special Agent Paul Smecker has the joy and distinction of being ranking officer on the scene.
'Ranking officer' because of the two city cops with him, one's a goddamn fresh-into-the-blues fucking rookie, and the other one, the officer who's in his fifties and has the beer gut and the two-day stubble and all the other little signs and signifiers Smecker knows how to read that tell him just the nature of this man's history with the force and of the sort of officer he is-- that one's on the floor, bleeding. Knife to the gut. Not lethal, Smecker thinks, but he only had the glance to go on and he sure as hell can't stop and look now.
"Carson," Smecker says, not in the angry snap he wants to use but calm and carefully and quietly. There's no answer from the young man next to him, who is standing, like him, with gun pointed at their perp. Unlike him, Carson's gun is trembling.
"Carson."
"Sir!"
"Carson, Officer Wycjowski is down. Call it in. Get over there and put pressure on his injury."
"But--"
"I've got it, Carson. I'm ordering you to see to your fellow officer. Get him out of here. Call back-up."
This gets the first response from 'the perp' as Carson called him: the man standing on the other side of the room, barely visible behind the body of the woman he's using as a shield. So far he's little more than a pair of panic-bright eyes and the knife, pressed against her throat.
And now he's saying in a low rasp-- Smecker pegs him as smoker, pack a day-- "No. You don't call back-up. Any more cops show up I kill her now. I cut her throat right now."
The first rule, the cardinal rule, of negotiation: prolong it. Grab every second you can. The longer the encounter goes, the likelier it is to be resolved peacefully. The hostage-taker's adrenaline rush has to be given time to fade.
Paul Smecker takes a slow, steady breath and holds it for the space of two seconds, then lets it out. Slow and steady on the exhale as well. "Sir, I've got an injured man here. I'm sure you didn't mean to hurt him, but he's bleeding over there. You can see him. Please let Officer Carson here take him outside and see to his injuries. Look at it like this, right now you've got three cops in here--" now is not the time to point out he's FBI, but some part of him is still morbidly tempted; he grinds down on it, "--then you'll only have one."
There's several seconds of wordless tension, and Smecker mentally likens it to the beats of judicious silence in some of his favorite musical pieces. He settles himself into the curious calm of a crisis, into the steady equilibrium of racing adrenaline and measured speech and action.
Finally the man nods. "They can go. You stay. And you drop your fucking gun."
"Sir--"
"I said you drop your fucking gun!" The blade winks in the room's half-light, angled harsh against woman's jugular. Agent Smecker nods and slowly, carefully, reholsters his Smith and Wesson 10mm at the small of his back. The man says nothing. He's dealing with a scared amateur, then; a professional wouldn't let him keep it, would insist it was on the ground and kicked over to him.
All in all, he'd rather be dealing with a professional. Less chance of mistakes.
"Gun's gone. The other cops are leaving," he says, reasonably. "Now what?"
The woman is scared. 'Scared,' such a stupid word. She's crying, choked sobs and her face gleaming with snot and tears whenever one of the stray beams of streetlight coming through the broken blinds crosses it. She'd be begging if that sharp serrated edge against her throat didn't compromise speech. He notes these things, notes especially the sounds she makes, and puts them carefully in a package that is wrapped neatly in his mind and then set aside. To save her, he doesn't have the luxury of focusing on her.
Look at the man. He's shifting weight from foot to foot, shifting his grip on the long steak knife in his hand, nervous, unsure of how to answer the question. Smecker counts seconds until he hits thirty, then asks again, "Now what? I can't do what you want if you don't tell me what you want, Mike."
The name is a small gamble. Odds are good that the guy holding the knife is the same guy they came here with a warrant for, though he still can't get a good enough glimpse at him to verify. But Michael Tremaine doesn't argue, so, there, at least he has a name. The second rule of negotiation: know who you're dealing with.
Third rule: Gain their trust. Create calm.
"Mike, my name's Paul. Let's talk this out, Mike. It's all going to be okay."
"Shut up," Tremaine says, but there's no real heat to it, just fear. "Shut up. Leave me alone. You people just-- just leave me alone--"
Smecker lets Beethoven play in the back of his mind, something smooth and pure legato. Cleanly overrides the woman's whimpers, the harsh breathing of both her and the man, the faint sound of Carson's voice on his radio. Each note of the Moonlight Sonata floats, gentle and sweet. Tremaine's sweating. He can smell it but not see it. And-- urine? The woman or Tremaine? Can't tell. Yet.
He talks in time with the mental piano. "It's going to be hard for us to do that, Mike. You hurt an officer. You cut him pretty badly."
"I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to. He was just-- there-- and he had a gun and all I've got's a knife, that isn't fair, man, that's not fair--"
"Mike? Take it easy. Take deep breaths, alright? You're going to hyperventilate. Come on, just breathe for a second, okay? Get your bearings. Good, that's it. I know you didn't want him to get hurt. You didn't want anyone to get hurt, am I right?"
"Fuck, yes," Tremaine moans. "Shit, I don't even carry a gun, man. This shit just went south... it's you cops, man, you guys comin' up like this and surprisin' me!"
"I understand. Things got out of control."
"Yeah. Yeah. If I'd had time to flush the junk--" Tremaine breaks off.
Light quivers off the blade in his hand, ripples a reflection onto the wall in shaky little movements. Smecker can see it at the corner of his eye but, like the woman, like Carson, like everything except Michael Tremaine, it is currently a distraction. He drifts with the piano, keeping his arms and neck loose, ready to move if necessary.
It's been several years since he had to negotiate. Five, at least? He's thirty-one now. In the peculiar stasis of the moment, random facts flicker through his mind without forming connections-- the face of the last man he'd talked down from murder. The stink of fear and madness. Quantico classrooms, the deeply-gouged underside of his lab-table-cum-desk where some bored predecessor on the path of knowledge had scarred it with a persistent pocketknife.
"Mike, I know you're not a bad guy. Things just got crazy. Believe me, I know how it goes. You see everything in this job. I've seen bad people, seriously bad sons of bitches. I know you're not one of them. I know you didn't want to hurt anybody, I know you don't want to hurt her. Am I right?"
No response. Michael shifts back a step or two into the deeper shadows, going entirely invisible now. Except the knife. Paul can still catch gleams from the knife. The woman's eyes are very wide-- no. Not her. Focus on Tremaine. On Michael.
"Mike, talk to me. I can't help you if you don't talk to me. You have to tell me what you want, buddy." Paul Smecker doesn't think he's ever called someone 'buddy' before in his life.
"I want out of here," Michael says, voice breaking. Smecker considers that he might be high. Bad business, that, to be getting high off your own merchandise, but certainly not the first pusher to sample his own wares. "I want to get out of here. A car. I want a car. Get me a fucking car."
"Okay, that's a start." Smecker exhales. "Mike, I don't have a radio. I'm going to have to tell Officer Carson you want a car, alright? And he's going to have to talk to the precinct about that. Okay?"
"Uh..." Michael's thinking it over. The knife is so damn desperately close to her jugular-- "Fuck, no-- do you think I'm stupid? No, no, no, you guys came in a car, I'm taking your car, give me the keys, give me the fucking keys man! I'll kill Maria, I swear to you if I kill her it's on your hands, you guys pushing at me like this--"
"Easy, easy-- Mike, breathe for me. You want our car? Officer Wycjowski drove. I'll have to get the keys from him. You sure you want our car? It's a patrol car. It's visible on any road you take it, and it's got a transponder inside. They all do. We will know where the car is, Mike."
Fourth rule: Never say 'no' to the hostage taker. Stall them, give them alternatives, but don't say no.
"If you want a different car, we'll work on that. We'll look into it. My promise. But either way I have to get Carson to radio in. I can't pull cars out of thin air, Mike. Look. Can I put my hands down? My arms are getting tired, and I need a cigarette. Can I do that?"
"Fuck. Fuck. Alright. Go ahead. But slow. You move fast I'll cut her, I swear--"
"I know. Look, I'm moving real slow. You can see what I'm doing. See? Just getting out my cigarettes. You want one? Might help you calm down."
There's a shaky exhale from the shadows. Maria's eyes are closed now. Smecker appreciates that; he can work more easily when she's not staring at him with panicked plea in her eyes.
"I'll take that as a yes. You want me to toss you the pack?" He holds it up in a beam of light from the dusty window, showing it.
"How'm I gonna smoke, huh? Gotta keep my hands right here, man, otherwise it's all over, it's all fucking over."
Paul considers this. "I'll light the cigarette. I'll lean forward, very slow and easy, so Maria can take it from me. Okay, Maria? And Maria can hold it up to you so you can smoke it. Works out. I'm sure she'd be happy to help."
Tremaine considers again, and finally agrees because when Smecker says it, it seems logical. And he's craving a cigarette badly. Paul spares himself a small moment of congratulation for his correct assessment of Tremaine as a smoker as he carefully, carefully extends the lit cigarette to Maria's trembling fingers.
Rule five: make them see the hostage as a human again.
There's several beats of silence as Tremaine takes a first drag, the ember flaring so brightly in the shadows; and Paul listens to him breathe shuddering relief out with the smoke. The etiquette of nicotine is programmed habit, such that Tremaine mumbles "Thanks" for the cigarette as if this were a street corner and they two strangers, not FBI and dealer in a homegrown meth lab.
"You're welcome," Smecker says, and lets the silence carry them a few more beats, listening to the Beethoven. Give Tremaine a chance to calm down. He's so tightly wound right now that--
A sound he recognizes cuts across the sonata, and Special Agent Smecker curses savagely into the interior space of his mind. Fucking helicopter, the fuck, alright, he did tell Carson to call for backup but Jesus H. Fucking Christ--
A spotlight strobes the room with a nightmare of blinding black and white. The thrumm of chopper blades somewhere overhead makes things rattle on the shelves. The spotlight sweeps on again and the room is plunged back to shadows, but Smecker knows it's already done its damage, knows it before the loudspeaker starts blaring through the building's thin walls. The knife's jamming at Maria's throat again and drawing blood this time, an impossibly thin red line--
The piano's notes hang sweet and silver in the room, in the perpetual second that drags and ticks itself inexorably over. All the details. All the details. Maria's eyes open again, her mouth parted to sing the pain but the sound not escaping quite yet--
--the twist of the tendons and bones of Tremaine's hand and forearm--
--the watery sheen of light on the blade--
--steel under his fingers, the Smith and Wesson's weight in his hand--
--Maria screams in the same second that he takes easy aim at the target he arranged for himself with the cigarette, the red flaring pinprick that marks exactly where Michael Tremaine's head is in the darkness. And one two smooth three four trigger legato one two three four one
Two
Three
Four
Done. Time kicks on again, and Smecker's aware for the first time in minutes that he's soaked in his own sweat. His ears ring with the retort, but Maria looks to be alive, she's still standing, holding her throat, but there's no arterial spurt through her fingers so. So.
Special Agent Smecker finds the nearest chair and drops into it bonelessly and waits for the cops to charge through the door, using the intervening time to smoke his own cigarette and stop the shaking of his own fingers. Goddammit. It could have gone differently. It didn't have to...
But it's done, fuck it, and it could have been worse. This is supposedly comfort. He closes his eyes and reflects instead on the unwritten rule six, which appears in no handbook that the FBI publishes:
Sometimes you just have to shoot the motherfucker.
fandom: boondock saints
muse: paul smecker
word count: 2375