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looked up at Patterson. “You’re here. Good.”
    “What have we got, sir?” said Patterson.
    “IC1 male,” said Jones. “Probably late teens. Claims to have explosives ready to rig in a rucksack on his back.”
    “Claims?” said Patterson.
    “Because it’s inside the rucksack, there’s no way to tell for sure if it’s a real bomb, but considering recent events …”
    “Seems likely,” said Patterson.
    Jones nodded. “Looks like it’s wired to a trigger in his hand. Bomb squad thinks it could be a dead man’s switch.”
    Michael interjected. “Dead man’s switch?” Then immediately wished he hadn’t as the two officers glowered at him.
    “If he lets go, the bomb explodes,” said Jones. “We got him out the back of the hotel in the open, snipers have him in their sights, so he’s not going anywhere.”
    “Apart from the morgue in a hundred pieces if he blows himself up,” said Patterson.
    “Hopefully it won’t come to that,” said Jones. “We’ve evacuated the hotel and surrounding buildings. Dogs are doing sweeps, but early indications are he’s alone.”
    The officer sitting at the workstation nearest the door – a woman with a full head of brown hair pulled back so tightly into a bun that it stretched the skin of her face – turned to them. “We’ve got visual,” she said and flicked at some controls on the panel in front of her.
    The static flickered on the TV screens and an image appeared. The same image of a young man dressed in green, repeated on each screen like the reflection in a hall of mirrors. It was unsteady, like it was coming from a hand-held or helmet-mounted camera, but as the shakiness settled down and the autofocus locked on, it was possible to see the subject was as Jones had described: a white teenager, in his late teens, standing alone with a brick wall of the Capital Hotel building behind him. He was dressed in a pair of black jeans and a green quilted jacket, with black straps over his shoulders that presumably belonged to a rucksack on his back.
    Patterson leant forward to get a better look. “Has anyone talked to him?”
    “The first officer on the scene,” said Jones. “The kid said he had a bomb and then, after that, no one has got a word out of him.”
    “Right. Okay,” said Patterson, taking a deep breath, psyching himself up. “I should go.”
    The image on the screens zoomed close in to the teenager, blurring his features for a moment until the autofocus kicked in. The boy’s face looked almost as pale as the tuft of blonde hair that blew across his forehead in the breeze of the alley. Even with the unsteady footage, he appeared to be visibly shaking.
    “Get him to give himself up,” said Jones. “When he does, don’t do anything stupid, stand back and let the bomb squad go in. And for God’s sake, don’t let him let go of that trigger.”
    “You talk as if I haven’t done this before,” said Patterson.
    “Suspects armed with knives and guns, yes, but not bombs,” said Jones.
    “It’s fine, I’ve had the training.” Patterson grabbed a spare headset from where several hung on a hook and clipped a transmitter to his belt before putting on the single headphone and adjusting the microphone so it was close to his mouth. “Excuse me,” he said to Michael as he headed for the back of the van. Michael pressed himself up against the bank of twinkling lights as the smell of Patterson’s nervous sweat passed by him.
    “Hey, Tony!” Jones called after him.
    Patterson looked back.
    “Be careful. A dead sergeant is a heck of a lot of paperwork.”
    Patterson grinned. “Sure thing.” He jumped down from the van and was gone.
    Jones pulled the headset from around his neck and put it back over his head. “This is Oscar One,” he said into the microphone. “Negotiator Sergeant Patterson approaching the scene. This is Oscar One, Negotiator Sergeant Patterson …”
    As he talked, Michael watched the kid on the television screens. His wide,