The phone rattled as Purvis dropped it again to scream at her, "You goddamn bitch. Don't you say that about Chris. You say one more thing about him and I'll blow your fucking brains out, you hear me?"

"Hear you? The whole town can hear you, Matthew." She drew out his name tauntingly.

The liaison presented a note reading "Tac team has a clear shot through curtain gap."

Ron winced and wrote "NO SHOOTING" in block letters before handing it back.

He called out over the phone, desperate to head off another blowup. "Matt. You there? Hey, Matt?"

"What?" he said finally.

Reacting to his own pressures, Ron decided to become more direct. "How does it make you feel, being in there with her?"

"Pissed off."

"You think there may be a solution to that?"

"Yeah. I could walk into a hail of bullets."

"From us?" Ron made his voice sound surprised, heartened that Purvis hadn't mentioned killing his wife first. "We're not going to shoot you. I want you out safe and sound, Matt. Nobody shoots somebody because they're having a shitty day."

"The place is surrounded by guys with guns. I'm not that stupid."

Ron tried steering him away from a conversation they'd had several times already. "What do you think of me? Personally?"

"I don't know you."

"Don't you?"

Ron let the silence drag on.

Finally, Purvis admitted, "I guess you're okay."

"Would you be willing to come outside if I was there to greet you? We could keep talking later, face-to-face, away from the guns."

"I've seen how that works on TV. You guys beat the shit out of me."

"You really think I'd do that?"

Purvis hesitated before admitting, "Maybe not you. I was thinking about those ninja bastards in black. I saw them out there."