by April Henry
Below them, one of the killers yells, “I think it came from over here!” How close is he?
After peeking through the window slit, Cole eases open the door.
With one last burst of speed, Miranda darts through, the others on her heels. Cole closes the door so softly that it doesn’t make a sound.
And then they wait to see if they were followed. Miranda covers her mouth with her hand, both to keep her panting breaths from giving them away and to keep herself from screaming. Her nostrils suck air in so hard that they flatten with each inhale. Her pulse is jumping, jumping.
She and Grace are on one side of the door, Javier and Cole on the other. Grace hefts her broomstick over her shoulder like a baseball bat. Javier clutches his BB gun. Cole holds the scissors next to his head like a crazed slasher.
Miranda tries to ready herself to fight. Where’s her sock full of quarters? She doesn’t remember dropping it, but she must have. She makes her hands into fists so tight, her nails bite into the flesh of her palms.
She hears nothing. Nothing but the breathing of the others.
Slowly, she starts to shift toward the glass slit in the door. A river of sweat runs down her spine. She shouldn’t look. She should stay hidden. But she has to look. She has to know.
The stairs below them are empty. Pressing her face close to the cold glass, she strains to see past the turn of the stairs. There’s no one there.
Miranda exhales in a burst. With a little shake of the head, she lets the others know the stairs are empty. Her heart still thudding, she turns the other way.
The short hallway they’re in opens up into the second floor, which is shaped like a rectangular doughnut. It’s hollow at the center, with the food court below and skylights far above. Offices line the outside edge of the doughnut. The inside edge has a black metal railing.
There are no bodies up here, at least none in sight. But Miranda can see down to the food court, and the carnage there is even worse than it was in her memory. Red smears where people tried to crawl away and bodies where they died trying. And Grace’s mom, a broken doll, her hands still stretched above her head from when Grace tried to pull her to safety.
Now it’s Grace who has to put her hand across her mouth to stifle her cries.
Somewhere below and ahead of them, one of the killers curses. “All of you stop moving around!” he shouts at the hostages. “Don’t make me shoot you!”
Miranda would give anything to be out of here, back at her house, in her bed. She tries to remember how it felt this morning, tries to conjure the feeling of the sheets cool against her legs, the pillow cradling her head, but she can’t. She puts her arm around Grace and gently turns her until she’s no longer directly facing the sight of her mother’s corpse.
Cole puts his finger against his lips, then whispers, “I think I know where we can get a real gun.”
Grace takes her hand away from her mouth. They all step closer to Cole, crowding together until their shoulders touch.
“I was up here when the shooting started. I saw this big gun hidden in a planter. I didn’t think it was real.”
“Where?” Javier’s question is as soft as a sigh.
Cole points in the direction of the railing. Spaced along it are three large concrete planters. Each holds a lush plant with foot-long green spade-shaped leaves that contrast with large hooded white flowers. Miranda thinks they’re called peace lilies.
“The second one.”
She measures the space with her eyes. “If we get down on our hands and knees and stick close to the wall, I don’t think they’ll be able to see us.”
Cole shakes his head. “Why risk everyone? I’ll get it.” Before anyone can argue, he drops to all fours and starts crawling. There’s less debris up here, but it’s still clear people left in a panic. A purse sits in the middle of the floor, not far from scattered papers. Farther on are a wheeled mail cart, a parka, and a box of doughnuts that has spilled half its contents.
When one of the killers speaks, they all freeze. It sounds like he’s ahead and below them, somewhere near the food court. “Zulu, return to base. Zulu. Over.”
Grace and Miranda exchange a look. Zulu?
“G-G-Golf, just give me another minute,” another man stutters. His voice sounds closer but behind them. “That toy car has to have come from the cops, even though Romeo said they promised to back off. I gotta find where they are and take care of them.” After a pause, he adds, “Over.”
“Negative, Zulu. They could be trying to peel us off. Return to base. Now. Over.”
Miranda thinks, What kind of names are Golf and Zulu? Then it dawns on her that something about these words is familiar.
“Roger that,” Zulu finally says, his reluctance plain.
“Any sign of November?” Golf asks. “Over.”
“Nicholas? No.” Zulu swears. “Do you think the cops got him?”
“I don’t know. Just come back. Now. Over.”
So is November the same person as Nicholas? Then Miranda gets it. “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot,” she whispers to Javier and Grace. “I think they’re using their initials in the military alphabet instead of their real names.”
Cole has started moving again. He’ll have to get right up next to the railing to get the gun. What if one of the killers looks up and sees him?
Miranda hates having to sit still. To distract herself, she focuses on a black piece of cloth lying a few feet away. It’s like a beanie, but with three round holes. On-purpose holes, because they are bound with thread. She gasps when she realizes what it is.
It’s a ski mask. The same as the killers are wearing.
Only what happened to the guy who was wearing it?
ANYTHING OTHER THAN KILLING
6:11 P.M.
Cole is halfway to the planter when they hear footsteps below them on the main floor. Fast and from behind. He flattens himself to the carpet. Miranda and the others shrink back closer to the stairway door. It must be the one called Zulu, coming back.
They can’t see him, but they can hear him. It sounds like he’s right underneath them. “I don’t like this,” Zulu says. “I don’t like this at all. The cops sneaking around, Nicholas missing. You should’ve let me keep looking. Maybe I could have found him or figured out where the cops got in.”
“Remember what Kilo said,” Golf says through Zulu’s mic. “That we have to stick together, no matter what.”
“Yeah, and where’s Karl, Kilo, whatever now? Kicking back at the airfield while we take all the risks. He didn’t even answer the last time you tried him.”
Golf keeps his tone even. “He said that he was going to be in and out of range.”
A third voice chimes in over the mic. “The negotiator promised that the cops were going to keep back. Obviously that was a lie. Things are going south. Nicholas is missing, Karl’s not responding, and the cops are trying to spy on us.”
“This isn’t how it was supposed to go down,” says a fourth man on the mic.
As they are speaking, Cole cautiously starts to move again. He’s only a few feet away from the planter. And tucked behind the planter is a—Miranda squints—a weird-looking black, bulky vest with a dozen pockets.
A cold finger traces her spine as she realizes that it’s a suicide vest, just like the ones the killers are wearing.
“I don’t understand how the cops or FBI got close enough to send that remote-control Jeep right up to us like that,” Zulu says. “All the nearby exits are locked. We’ve got clear lines of sight. We should have spotted them right away. But they’re obviously here and we don’t even know where they are.”
“All the more reason we can’t have you go running off,” Golf says. “We can’t afford to lose someone else.”
“We need to get out of here,” the third man says. “We need that bus and we need it now. I told the negotiator that they had better hurry if they don’t want more people to die.”
A bus? Is that slang for something? Miranda exchanges p
uzzled looks with Grace. A bus doesn’t sound like the ideal getaway vehicle. Slow, lumbering, huge turning radius. Then Miranda gets it. The one good thing about a bus is that it can hold a lot of people. The killers must be planning on taking at least some of the hostages with them.
Layered under the voices is another noise. Miranda tilts her head, straining to hear. She can’t quite place it. It’s like someone has left a hose running.
Javier taps her shoulder and then points across the way. On the other side of the second floor, across the mall, an open office door reads MALL SECURITY. Just inside, two uniformed men are sprawled facedown on the carpet, unmoving. One of them is bald except for a half circle of gray hair. Miranda has walked past him a dozen times, carefully looking neither at him nor away.
She had wondered if the coworkers of the security guard who took Amina were in on this thing. The dead men must be the answer. It looks like they were ambushed. If you have to die, is it better to be unaware until the end, and maybe not even then?
Miranda wrenches her gaze back to Cole. She pretends that the right-hand corner of her vision doesn’t work. That she can’t see the bodies in the food court, the bodies in the security office. That the lack of Oxy hasn’t left her shaking and nauseated.
Cole reaches the planter and rises to his knees. One hand pushes aside the leaves, and the other plunges in and then reappears with the rifle. It’s a dull black. The butt ends in a flat, elongated rectangle. Miranda guesses that’s so you can brace it against your shoulder. In front of the trigger sits the curve of the clip. The rifle looks all business. It’s clearly not meant for anything other than killing.
Cole starts to crawl back, but it’s hard to both crawl and carry the gun. He looks over at the food court, and after checking out its emptiness he gets to his feet. Pressed close to the wall, he starts walking back to them.
“I still say we need to know where the cops are,” Zulu says, his voice rising. “What if they’re planning an ambush to get us back for our ambush?”
“Let me try to raise Karl again,” Golf says. “Kilo, come in. Kilo. Over.”
One of the killers moves into Miranda’s field of vision. She sucks in her breath. If she can see him, he can see them. All he needs to do is look up and over. And with the jittery way he’s moving, turning his masked head from side to side, it seems quite possible that he will also think about the space overhead. They have to get out of sight. Now!
As she, Javier, and Grace creep backward, panic zaps through her. They have no way to warn Cole.
But when he sees them retreat, he drops to his knees. He scuttles forward, pushing the rifle ahead of him.
Miranda scrambles into the nearest office. It’s small, with just a desk and three chairs. The others follow. After Cole crawls inside, Grace closes the door before Miranda has time to wonder if the movement will catch the killers’ eyes.
What if they were seen? Miranda grabs a narrow white three-ring binder labeled 2017 INVOICES, lays it on its side, and shoves the narrow end under the door until it gets stuck. It’s like a doorstop. Now if anyone comes up here and tries the door, they won’t be able to shove it open. Cole nods approvingly.
Miranda feels a flush of pride. Then she realizes that if the killers get suspicious, they can just shoot through the door.
“So that’s an AK-47?” she whispers as she looks at the gun lying on the carpet next to Cole.
He shrugs one shoulder. “An AR-15.”
“What were you doing up here that you saw it?” Grace asks. The strain of the past couple of hours shows in her voice.
“Um, making deliveries. I work for an office-supply company.”
Javier nods. “I thought I’d seen you around before.”
“I spotted the rifle when I was trying to get out,” Cole says. “They must have staged this stuff up here for someone who didn’t come. Maybe someone who backed out.”
Miranda thinks of the ski mask she saw near the gun. “I don’t think this stuff was up here waiting for someone who didn’t come. I think someone had it all on and then decided to take off. He got rid of it along the way. First the gun, then the suicide vest, then the ski mask.”
“You could be right.” Cole straightens up. “Hey, maybe I can pretend to be him! The guy who took off. If I put on the vest and the ski mask and then walked up to that gate, I don’t think they’d be able to tell me apart from the real guy they’re looking for, at least not at first. If I keep my mouth shut, they might not know any better until it’s too late.” His mouth thins to a line. “And then I’ll do what I gotta do.”
Javier pulls his brows together, looking worried. “Or they’ll just kill you.”
Miranda is trying to figure out whether Cole’s idea will even work, when Grace says, “Only you won’t be pretending if you put on that vest and mask. Because you were wearing them in the first place. You’re one of them, aren’t you?”
In the stunned silence that follows, she launches herself at Cole. Her hands circle his throat.
“And you’re the one who killed my mom!”
YOU HONESTLY BELIEVED
6:12 P.M.
Soaking wet, clutching the fire extinguisher to his chest, Parker waits for one of the killers to walk into Van Duyn’s workroom.
And waits.
And waits.
Finally he can’t stand it anymore. The water is thunderously loud as it jets from the sprinkler, but for some reason no one is coming to investigate. Parker edges open the workroom door, then ducks down behind the front counter. As he crawls out into the main part of the store, he nudges the fire extinguisher ahead of him. The little finger of his left hand looks like it might be broken. His butt is stiff and painful. His left eye throbs with the beat of his heart. Every part of his body complains.
Still on his knees, he peeks out the entrance of Van Duyn. The killers are all clustered at the gate, paying no attention to the hostages. Most of the hostages sit slumped on the floor, exhausted by the ordeal. A few are more alert and anxious, eyes darting, trying to figure out their next move.
“Kilo? Come in, Kilo. Do you copy?” Wolf says. “Over.” The strain in his voice tells Parker it’s not the first time he’s said those words.
When the killers’ mics crackle, they all jump. “This is Kilo,” a disembodied voice says. “Over.”
Across the hall, the back of the AT&T store is starting to fill with thick gray smoke. Parker catches a glimpse of the guy who works there, on his knees behind the counter, feeding the flames a stack of forms a few at a time. Looking at AT&T’s fire, Parker wishes he had let his smolder instead of forcing the sprinkler to go off. Even as smoke is starting to roll out of the store’s door, though, the killers are still focused on the voice of the man who must be their leader.
“How are things going at the airfield? Have our people gotten there yet?” Wolf asks. “Or the plane? Over.”
“The plane?” Kilo echoes. “You honestly believed there would be a plane? Tell me, do you also believe in the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus?”
After a second of shocked silence, the four killers all speak at once, swearing and demanding that he explain what he means.
Kilo’s voice cuts in, his calm tone a sharp contrast to that of the others. “Did you really think this whole thing was going to work? That the cops and the FBI were going to let you leave in a bus—a bus!—with a few dozen hostages? And then give you a plane and just let you fly away?” His laugh is showy, fake. “If so, then you guys are even dumber than I thought. There’s no way any of that is going to happen. You’re terrorists, even if you’re Americans. And the government doesn’t negotiate with terrorists.”
“Why do you keep saying ‘you’?” Mole demands. “We’re in this together. If we’re terrorists, then you’re a terrorist.”
“Sorry, bro. What you are is a distraction. And what I am is rich. See, I had a little side project, one worth millions in gold. The only problem was how to get away without getting caught. That’s why I wa
nt to thank you. Because what you’ve done today? That’s tied up every cop and deputy and FBI agent for miles. And since they’re all busy with you at the mall, they don’t care about little old me.”
“Wait a minute,” Lips says slowly. “When’s the plane coming? I don’t get it.”
“Idiot!” Ron gives Lips’s shoulder a shove. “He double-crossed us.”
“But what about the cause?” Wolf asks.
“What about it?” Kilo says. “Nobody cares. Nothing’s going to change. Timothy McVeigh blew up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma and killed 168 people. He thought he’d inspire a revolt against the government. All he got was a lethal injection. And how about 9/11? Two freaking buildings collapsed and nearly 3,000 people died. But did anything fundamental change afterward? No.”
“Our message will still get out!” Mole insists, but his voice trembles.
“I used to be like you guys,” Kilo says. “I thought I could make people listen. But they’re not going to change. They don’t want to. They like buying crap. They like mindless TV. They like caring about celebrities. And they don’t really care if politicians lie or the army sends poor kids overseas to die. They don’t want to know how things really work. Just as long as they have their creature comforts.” He makes an amused noise. “And you know what? I’ve realized I’m not that much different.”
Wolf shakes his head as if Kilo can see him. “Right now, we’re being carried live on every news site and TV station,” he insists. “And they’re going to broadcast our manifesto. People are paying attention to the cause.”
“And once the live feed ends because you’ve all been killed,” Kilo says matter-of-factly, “people will stop watching and go on to the next entertainment.”
“Forget you!” Lips says. “We’ll tell the cops it was all your idea. You planned the whole thing.”
“I’m afraid you’re not going to be able to do that, Timmy,” Kilo says. “Because we’ve come to a parting of the ways.”
“Yeah!” Wolf says bitterly. “You’re abandoning us here.”
