Chapter 17 - The Standoff.

“Kinney! Open the fucking door, Kinney! What the fuck are you thinking - Get this door open right now!” Horvath shouted for the twentieth time as he continued to hammer on the hospital door with his fist. “I swear to God, Kinney, if you’re just in there screwing around with your boyfriend and ignoring me, I’ll haul your ass off to jail as soon as I get this goddamned door open.”

There still was nothing but absolute silence coming from inside Justin’s room. Carl’s bad feeling about this situation was merely intensifying as the seconds ticked by. However, if he was wrong about this and he raised a huge fuss - if, when they did get the door open, all they found was two guys fucking in a hospital bed - he’d not only have egg on his face but probably have his ass handed to him by the chief. Normally, he wouldn’t put that type of stunt past Kinney, but considering how worked up the usually sanguine and professional man had been the last few days over what had happened to his partner, Carl didn’t think that Kinney would be screwing around like this. Shit. The detective had to make a call and he had to do it now.

He decided to go with his gut.

“Excuse me! Excuse me! This IS a hospital. What the hell do you think you’re doing? You can't be yelling and pounding on doors and making all this noise," came an officious and angry voice followed immediately by an officious and angry looking nurse wearing light blue scrubs and an authoritarian scowl, who was apparently unhappy about all the noise Carl was making in her hallway.

Carl didn't have time to deal with officious. "Pittsburgh PD, ma'am. I need you to get whoever is in charge of Hospital security up here immediately. I want this entire building on lockdown in ten minutes or less," the experienced detective ordered, ignoring the shocked look on the officious face and the stuttering, questioning 'what's. "Go. Now!" Horvath demanded loudly and, as the officious and now frightened nurse scurried back to her station, he turned his attention to the uniformed officer waiting next to him.

"Winston. Call the station. Tell Juarez what's going on and get me some backup. Also, I need somebody with a 'scope up on the roof of that building across the street. Hopefully we'll be able to see what's going on inside through the window. Move, Winston."

The chagrined officer trotted down the hall, pulling his cell phone out as he went. There still wasn't any sound coming out of the locked room. Carl put his ear to the crack of the door and listened intently for several seconds but still heard nothing except, maybe, someone talking very quietly - too low for him to be sure he was even hearing it, let alone make out any words.

Horvath fished his own cell phone out of his jacket pocket, flipped it open and spent a minute scanning through old calls to find the number he wanted. He pushed the button to dial the number he eventually located, waiting nervously to see if anyone would answer. The muffled but distinct sound of a ringing phone could be heard inside the locked room.

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Brian watched the surreal scene in front of him, unable to think or act at all because of the complete mind-numbing fear washing over him. The most violent and dangerous man he'd ever had the misfortune to meet was standing next to his lover's bed, a gun held loosely in the fingers of the man's cast-bound left arm while he tenderly petted, stroked and caressed Justin's face with the other undamaged hand. The confused gunman continued to mutter and whisper the entire time, a mixture of threats, accusations and endearments, apparently directed at the still unconscious blond.

Brian was glad that Justin wasn't awake for all this. After everything he'd already been through this week . . . shit, this was the last thing Justin needed to deal with. However, Brian was concerned about just why his blond was still unconscious. Brian hoped, desperately, that Justin was simply sleeping, worn out from his ordeal. Why wasn't all this activity waking Justin up? Had Hobbs already done something more to hurt him? Brian was aching to go to him, to touch him and hold him and reassure himself that Justin was still okay. But he didn't dare as long as that gun was still pointing at the man he desperately loved.

So far Hobbs had seemed oblivious to the hammering and yelling at the door. His interest seemed wholly focused on the sleeping blond beauty in the bed next to him. Brian wasn't even sure Hobbs remembered his own presence. The wary brunet thought it was much better if Hobbs DID forget about him - he was trying to remain as still as possible to avoid drawing any of the man's attention.

It really was too much to hope for, though. Just as Brian was thinking this, the cell phone in his pocket began to chime loudly. The insistent piercing ringing startled the gunman, causing him to visibly jump at the very first ring. Hobbs glared over at Brian as if accusing the Boyfriend of intentionally trying to distract him. Brian instantly held his hands up and away from his body in a surrendering motion.

When Hobbs didn't take any further action, Brian decided to try to engage the man, thinking to hopefully distract the lunatic from the defenseless blond.

"Do you want me to answer that?" Brian asked in as non-threatening a tone as he could manage. "I assume it’s my police friend who's been hammering at the door and threatening to break in here."

Hobbs seemed confused and a little surprised to discover there was even someone else in the room. He truly hadn’t even registered the ruckus coming from outside the door. Hobbs looked over briefly at the door as if just then realizing someone was still knocking and hollering for admittance. By the fifth or sixth ring of Brian’s cell, he seemed to finally recollect his predicament.

"Go ahead and answer," Hobbs directed Brian, still in an unsure and hushed voice.

The caller ID, as expected, showed Brian that it was indeed Horvath who was calling. He tapped the 'accept call' button and moved the phone to the side of his face so he could listen effectively.

"Hello, Carl," Brian drawled into the phone.

"What the hell's going on in there, Kinney?" Horvath demanded imperatively and without any preliminaries.

"Justin and I have an unexpected visitor," Brian calmly explained, his eyes locked on Hobbs' as the gunman carefully watched every move the worried man made.

"Chris Hobbs?" Horvath asked succinctly.

"Bingo. You got it on the first guess, Carl." Brian responded, unable to completely control his customary snark even in these dire circumstances.

"Is he armed? We think he took Winston's gun," Carl asked.

"Oh, yes. He's definitely armed. He's pointing the gun at Justin's fucking head right now."

"Shit!" Carl swore so loudly that Brian winced and had to pull the phone away from his ear, and you could hear the echoes coming in through the closed door on the other side of the room.

"Just hang on, Kinney. Don't try anything stupid. We're handling matters out here," Carl added as soon as he'd wrapped up his cursing spree and spat out a couple of additional orders to the crowd of people gathering around him. "Now, give the phone to Hobbs so I can talk to him directly."

"It's for you," Brian said with a half-smirk as he offered the phone to Hobbs.

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"That's the third time we've had to pull over for emergency vehicles to pass," Jennifer commented as she transitioned the car back into the lane of traffic after the police car had passed. Her daughter, Molly, who was strapped into the passenger seat next to her, merely nodded and went back to looking at her phone. "I hope there isn't some big accident up ahead," Jenn added, persistently trying to initiate conversation with her uninterested teenaged daughter.

Just as she was pulling into the parking structure across the street from the main hospital building, another police car followed by a fire truck sped around the corner behind them, sirens screaming. Jennifer was distracted from the commotion by finding a parking space, then trying to roust Molly and get her to help carry in the large bunch of 'Get Well' balloons they were bringing to Justin, while she toted the overnight bag of clothes and toiletries she'd picked up for her son on their way. It wasn't until they walked out onto the sidewalk next to the parking garage that the pair of blondes noticed all the frenetic activity going on around the entrance to the hospital.

The string of police cars that had passed them earlier was now lined up in the street in front of the main hospital entrance, blocking all access to the building. There were yards and yards of bright yellow 'Police' tape strung up between the cars and around the doorways, holding back a large crowd of people that the cops were trying to corral off to one side. A television news van was parked off to the right and it's crew was working to get cameras and other equipment set up as the reporter stood primping with the help of a side mirror on a nearby fire truck.

Everyone in the crowd of bystanders was shouting 'What's going on - What's happening', at the same time, but no one seemed to have any definitive answers. Jennifer didn't bother trying to get any info out of them. She stood Molly at the far edge of the clamoring group, ordered her to 'Stay' and used the leather satchel she was carrying to help clear people out of her way so that she could get close enough to one of the uniformed police officers.

"I'm sorry ma'am. We have a police situation inside. The building's on complete lockdown until further notice," the unhelpful cop said as he callously blew Jennifer off and started to hurry off to somewhere else.

"My son is a patient here," Jennifer stayed, grabbing onto the mans shirtsleeve and refusing to let him go. "I want to know exactly what's going on and that he's alright."

"I don't know what to tell you, ma'am," the cop replied as he peeled her fingers away from the fabric of his uniform. "There's no information available to the general public yet. If you'll please wait over there with everyone else I'm sure someone will come make a statement as soon as the situation has been stabilized."

The cop didn't care a whit about how unhelpful his words were. As soon as he got Jennifer’s hand away from his shirt, he hustled away, not bothering to look back at the worried mother who was left standing outside the police tape boundary.  Jennifer, on the other hand, was fuming mad at the cursory treatment she’d just received. However, there would be time to get angry about that later. Right now she just needed to ensure that Justin wasn’t in danger.

She quickly pulled out her cell phone, punching the speed-dial for her son’s partner and, when it went straight to voicemail, yelled her concern at the uncaring device.

“Brian, It’s Jennifer. Are you with Justin?  I’m at the hospital but there’s all these cops and they won’t let anyone inside. Please call me.”

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Someone was yelling. His body was telling him it was still tired and that he should just go back to sleep. He ached pretty much everywhere, his head was throbbing again and he felt like he could sleep for at least another week. But, the insistent, angry complaining in the background was forcing him towards consciousness regardless of what his body wanted.

Once Justin had regained enough awareness to get a feeling for his surroundings, he quickly tried to piece together what was going on around him before he actually opened his eyes. This had become a sort of routine over the past few harrowing days - he was never sure where he was going to be when he woke up or what condition he was going to be in so he tried to work out what was going on before he let on to whoever was out there that he was awake. This time he was very glad he took the precaution because what he found he was waking up to was NOT what he wanted or expected.

The voice that was ranting and protesting was that of Chris Hobbs. Justin’s memory was hazy and not everything in the past few days seemed to be falling into a proper linear time frame, but he had thought that he was safe from Hobbs. He remembered waking up in the hospital and that Brian and his mother had been there. Did that really happen or had it been a dream? If he had been found and saved from Hobbs, then why was he still hearing the psycho’s voice? A familiar sense of panic was starting to rise up inside him, making it even more difficult to concentrate on what was going on around him. He couldn’t afford to panic, though. If he was still locked up in that cage and Hobbs was here again, he had to keep his wits about him if he wanted to ever get free and get back to Brian.

Trying desperately to control his breathing so as not to give himself away, Justin listened even harder to try to determine just what Hobbs was talking about. The conversation was unmistakably one-sided - he could only hear Hobbs speaking, there were no other voices - which might mean that Hobbs was on the phone. It could also mean that the psycho had now completely lost it and was just talking to people who weren’t there, but the ever-hopeful young artist wouldn’t let himself believe that yet.

So, he would assume that Hobbs was talking on a phone to someone. Could Justin figure out what the conversation was about? For the most part it sounded like just more of the same rambling that the unhinged man had been spouting the entire time he’d been holding Justin. Hobbs kept repeating that, ‘it wasn’t his fault’ and that, ‘this wasn’t what he wanted’. That information didn’t give him much to go on insofar as figuring out why Hobbs was yelling or what he could do about it. Justin pretty quickly determined that he was going to have to risk taking a look around if he ever wanted to figure out what was going on.

The wary patient let his eyelids drift open the tiniest fraction - just enough so that he could see a sliver of light through his eyelashes - without moving his head. The room he was in was brightly lit. He could see stark white walls and a ceiling covered with white acoustic tiles. Clearly he wasn’t still in the cage in that cement walled equipment shed where Hobbs had been keeping him.

Justin could also see that he was lying in a clean, neat bed with a fresh light-yellow blanket and starched white sheets draped over his lower body. The air had that slightly over-sanitized smell to it that he had always associated with hospitals and there were some faint machine-generated beeping noises coming from behind him somewhere that also brought to mind his past experiences with health care facilities. Without turning his head he couldn’t see much else, but every one of his senses were telling him that it hadn’t been a dream. He was in a hospital. But then, what the hell was Hobbs doing here?

Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed motion over to his left. Justin opened his eyes wider and was disappointed when he clearly made out the form of his long-time enemy, pacing back and forth beside the bed and still bellowing about how nothing was his fault. Fuck! Hobbs was indeed here at the hospital. He had thought he was safe - that he was finally free of the madman, but somehow the maniac had found him again.

Despite his internal mantra that he needed to stay calm and try to figure this out, Justin could feel his heart racing and hear his breathing speed up. He could tell he was shaking but couldn’t stop himself. What could he do? How was he going to get away from Hobbs? He knew Hobbs would try to hurt him again if he could, and Justin had no idea how to stop him this time.

The terrorized young man was just about to give in to his extreme fear when he suddenly heard a small reassuring noise off to his right. It was only a very faint cough, but Justin immediately recognized the sound. He turned his head eagerly in the direction the sound had come from and was overjoyed when he saw a familiar set of hazel eyes looking at him intently from only a few feet away.

Brian!

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Brian had been sitting still on the chair where Hobbs had put him. He was trying to fade into the background while still watching every single movement the ranting lunatic was making, ready to jump up to his feet if Hobbs were to make any threatening move towards Justin’s bed. For the past twenty minutes or so, it seemed to have worked. Hobbs was focused on his long-winded conversation with Carl Horvath and was pacing around the room, talking and yelling into Brian’s cell phone, gesticulating wildly, but for the most part ignoring both Justin and Brian.

Brian had concentrated his attention on the vociferous ex-jock marching around the small room but every once in awhile he had let himself peek over at the unconscious body on the bed. Justin continued to sleep soundly for quite some time in spite of the commotion around him. Then, after a series of particularly vehement complaints from Hobbs, Brian had noticed that his blond’s lashes were beginning to flutter. Brian focused momentarily on Justin and easily discerned that the patient was starting to awaken.

When Brian observed that Justin was starting to breathe more heavily and his body started to tremble slightly, he knew that the other man was finally conscious again even though he continued to feign sleep. He also knew that Justin must be aware, to at least some extent, of what was happening and that Hobbs was back. He was tempted to run over to the bed and comfort his injured partner who he knew must be more than scared at hearing Hobbs’ voice. He didn’t want the armed psycho's attention to be diverted back to the defenseless injured man, though. While Hobbs was busy with Horvath and all his ‘demands’, he wouldn’t be tempted to hurt Justin any more than he already had. Brian knew he had to do something to help his terrified lover, but somehow do it without drawing Hobbs’ attention.

Brian took a chance that Hobbs was too engaged in his phone conversation to notice a small noise coming from the far side of the room. He cleared his throat very softly. Justin's head immediately turned his way and their eyes locked. Brian restrained himself from moving even though the pure terror coming across from his partner was pulling at him mercilessly. The cagey older man stayed in his seat, his shoulders hunched over, elbows braced against his thighs and his chin resting in his hands so that his face was partially hidden. He tried not to change his stance even a tiny bit for fear of alerting their captor. But, he did let himself smile slightly from behind his clasped hands and he gave Justin a saucy little wink of reassurance.

When Justin started to open his mouth to voice his surprise, Brian’s smile instantly turned into a frown and he shook his head in an attempt to warn the young blond to stay silent. Thankfully, Justin caught on right away. His lips snapped back together and he held back whatever exclamation he’d been about to voice. Brian watched as Justin took several deep breaths, obviously trying to calm himself with the breathing exercises they had used many times over the years to quell the boy’s ongoing anxiety attacks. Brian could see that Justin was struggling, but he staunchly refused to give in to the panic. Brian kept those bright blue eyes locked with his own and silently willed his own strength to reach out, bolstering his partner’s fragile control. Their unspoken connection was as powerful as ever, though, and Brian watched with relief as Justin slowly reined in his teetering emotions.

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As soon as the hospital security chief had confirmed that the building was secured, Carl Horvath had stationed two armed men at Justin’s hospital room doorway and then moved the rest of his throng down the hallway to an empty room where they could establish a ‘command post’. The department’s hostage negotiator had turned up about ten minutes later and had taken over the conversation with Chris Hobbs, leaving Horvath to coordinate the police response. From the sounds of the continuing conversation, the negotiator was doing a superb job at keeping the perpetrator busy talking.

The police already had a sniper with a telescope set up on the rooftop of the parking garage across the street from the main hospital building. They had a good view through the hospital window of a large part of the room and they knew that both Brian Kinney and Justin Taylor were still apparently unharmed. Unfortunately, Hobbs kept moving around erratically and had unwittingly managed to spend most of his time in the one corner of the room where the sniper didn’t have a clear shot.

Which meant that, for the moment, there was absolutely nothing Carl could do. This was grating on his nerves. He had long ago resigned himself to being patient when he had no other choice, but it still wasn’t easy.

After listening to the drivel that this Hobbs guy had been spewing for the short time he’d been on the phone with him, Carl was concerned that a standoff like this could go on all day and into the night. The kid was seriously - very, very seriously - screwed up. The hospital had provided some quack to help out the negotiator and the guy was bandying about words like ‘major depression’, ‘psychosis’ and possibly even ‘schizophrenia’. No shit? A guy takes a former classmate who he previously bashed in the head with a baseball bat hostage, holds him captive in a cage for several days and then, after the victim is rescued, takes him hostage in his own hospital room, and there’s even any doubt that the kid is bat shit crazy? If that didn’t qualify as crazy, Horvath didn’t know what did.

Unfortunately, Carl didn’t want to wait till his crazy ran out and somebody managed to talk him down. Not only was Taylor medically unstable and in need of ongoing care, but Horvath had serious doubts that Kinney would hold out much longer without pulling some foolhardy, brave, but idiotic stunt. No way was this standoff going to last a significant time period without all hell breaking loose. Actually, he was amazed that Kinney had lasted this long without doing something moronic.

While Carl was standing there contemplating how to resolve this unresolvable situation, Winston brought him over a sticky note that the negotiator had scribbled on.

The note read, ‘Is he on a cell? I hear beeping. Battery time?’

Shit! Horvath quickly jotted a response, ‘Yes, he’s on a cell. I don’t know about battery’. Officer Winston obediently trotted the response back over to the corner where the negotiator was sitting.

The return sticky asked, ‘Is there a phone in the room?’

After consulting with the hospital security guy for thirty seconds, Horvath responded, succinctly, ‘No room phone set up yet.’

‘We’re going to lose him in about five min,’ was written on the next sticky note.

All Carl could think of was to find a way to end this now.

‘Find a way to get him to move to the window!’ Carl wrote back.

“Roberts,” Carl said quietly into the radio that had been set up to link him to the sniper. “As soon as you have a clear line of sight, you have authorization to take the shot.”

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