by April Henry
Kilo answers, “That’s not exactly what I mea—”
The last syllable is cut off by a tremendous explosion.
THREE INCHES AWAY
6:12 P.M.
Everyone stills as Grace’s hands close on Cole’s throat. Miranda looks at the door. Has Grace’s shout just given them away?
“Shh, Grace, they’ll hear you.”
“I don’t care who hears me.” Grace’s eyes glitter with unshed tears, but she doesn’t loosen her grip on Cole’s neck. “Cole, or whatever the hell his name is—he’s the one who shot my mom!”
Cole opens his mouth, but all he manages is a choking sound.
In Miranda’s memory, the whole ordeal rearranges itself, like those pictures made of thousands of tiny photos you have to step back to see. It’s possible. But it can’t be true—can it? Her rib cage is a fist around her heart.
Suddenly the light goes on. “That Nicholas they couldn’t find,” she says. “It’s him. They called him November because of the military alphabet, but it’s Nicholas. Nick-Cole-Us. Cole.”
Cole’s gray eyes are bugging out as his face turns a dusky shade of red. A vein stands out on his forehead. But he doesn’t struggle, doesn’t even pull on Grace’s hands, even though she seems intent on killing him. Instead he stares into her eyes.
Miranda can’t watch one more person die right in front of her. She leans close to whisper in Grace’s ear.
“Let go, Grace. Come on. Let go.” Miranda’s fingers pull at the other girl’s, but they stay as taut as wires. “This won’t solve anything. It won’t bring your mom back.”
Grace finally releases Cole’s neck.
And then she reaches for the rifle.
Oh, hell no. Miranda grabs it up first. After a moment, she jams the muzzle against Cole’s chest. She might not want to see him die, but right now, she doesn’t mind leaving him with a few bruises. She keeps her finger off the trigger.
Unlike the scenario he made them rehearse, Cole doesn’t pretend to be surrendering while really keeping his hands ready to grab the rifle. He doesn’t move his hands at all, not even to swipe at the blood trickling down his neck from the red half-moons Grace’s nails cut on his throat.
Finally he speaks. Or tries to. “I … don’t … You see, I…” he stammers.
“Oh, I see all right,” Miranda says. “The reason you knew about this rifle is that it’s your rifle. And you knew exactly where it was because you’re the one who left it there.”
Grace sneers. “What happened? Did you shoot my mom and then chicken out? Drop the gun, take off the vest and mask? And then you tried to pretend you were one of us. You tried to pretend that you were human.” Her voice breaks on the last word.
Cole doesn’t answer. But his pale eyes are full of what Miranda would swear was sorrow.
Javier curses. “Who are you, dude? Are you really one of them?”
“You’re their brother, aren’t you?” Miranda says. “But you said your brothers were dead.” Hadn’t he? Or had he just said his brothers were in the army as he’d looked toward the food court, and she had misunderstood what the past tense meant?
Cole straightens up as much as he can with the muzzle of a rifle pinning him to the wall. “I didn’t lie to you.”
“Oh, so it’s okay to kill my mom but it’s not okay to lie?” Grace scoffs.
“Look, what I told you guys was true. My parents died the way I said. And my two brothers, Gabriel and Zach”—Golf and Zulu, Miranda translates in her head—“were in the army. I grew up wanting to be just like them. Only after they were discharged, they couldn’t find work. The only jobs they could find were at this cruddy mall where everyone calls them wannabe cops and makes fun of them. But they’ve opened my eyes. Now I know what’s really going on overseas. What’s really going on in this country. And we joined a group of other people who felt the same way. This guy Karl, he’s in charge. He picked this mall because my brothers and Ron, the guy who took Amina, worked here. And they got another of the guards to join them.” Cole sucks in his lips until they disappear. “Karl said the only way to get America to listen would be to do something so big that no one could ignore it. And it all made sense, I swear it did. But then today…” His voice dwindles. He tries again. “Today, after I…” Cole looks from Miranda to Javier and finally to Grace. His mouth closes, opens, and closes again.
“What?” Grace bites off the word. “Come on, say the rest of it. ‘After I shot your mom.’ You do something so awful and then you can’t even be man enough to own it, to live with it?”
“I’m—I’m sorry.” He blinks, and a tear runs down his face. “As soon as I did, I realized it was all a terrible mistake.”
Grace’s incredulous smile is like a gash in her face. “It doesn’t make it any better that you’re sorry. In fact, it makes it worse.” She gives her head a short, sharp shake. “Because if you had only thought to be sorry before all this happened, then maybe it wouldn’t have. Or at least my mom would still be alive.”
Cole’s mouth twists. “So what are you supposed to do when you make a mistake? When you make a mistake and there’s no way you can take it back, no way you can fix it? Because it’s already done. It’s already over.” His voice is rough with tears. “I tried to save who I could. And then when I met you, I thought I could get us out of here, or at least I could get you out. But I couldn’t even do that.”
Miranda thinks of how the security guard grabbed Amina. About how Cole left her and Javier behind. She jabs him with the rifle. “You didn’t even try, you liar! You led us right into a trap.”
“If I’m lying, why did I run when Ron took Amina? Why didn’t I help him capture you? All I wanted was to help you find a way to escape. But you wouldn’t let me. You had to go back for her. You weren’t willing to cut your losses.”
“Cut our losses?” Grace echoes. “You mean we should have just let Amina die?”
“What’s worse? One person dying or five people dying? Besides, I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t think they would kill her. Yes, some initial sacrifices had to be made, but after that the plans called for us to hold hostages and use them as bargaining chips.” He takes a deep breath. “But I must not know all their plans. Like I didn’t know they were going to blow up those cops.”
“So you would have stopped them if you knew?” Javier demands.
Cole pauses before his answer, and the pause is answer enough.
Miranda doesn’t wait for him to speak. “They were talking about a bus and a plane. What’s supposed to happen now?”
“We were asking for a bus so we could take the hostages with us to an airport. And they had to release three of my brothers’ friends from prison and take them to the airport too. Once we got on the plane, we were going to release half the hostages. And then we were going to fly someplace—they never told me where—and when we landed safely, then we would let the rest of them go.”
“And you really thought that was all going to happen?” Javier’s voice is flat.
Cole is silent.
Miranda had been thinking. “Well, right now, we’re going to do that stupid plan you came up with. With some slight modifications. We’re going to march you down there. You’re not going to wear a mask or a vest. And we’ll tell them we’ll kill you if they don’t open everything up. The metal gate, the doors.” She pokes him with the barrel of the gun. “And if they don’t, well, at least I know how to keep my promises.”
“Do you even know how to shoot that thing?” Cole asks.
Miranda shrugs. “If I’m three inches away, I don’t think that will matter much.”
NOT ANYMORE
6:16 P.M.
Glass shatters. Even though he’s on his knees, the pressure wave almost knocks Parker over.
Was it another bomb? A cloud of white smoke has engulfed the killers. And it smells like … like … like … barbecue.
As the smoke begins to dissipate, Parker blinks. There’s no Lips. Not anymore. In the sp
ot where he was standing lies a mangled torso clad in the torn remains of the suicide vest. A hand lies on the floor just a few feet ahead of Parker. A hand. Not attached to anything else.
His face contorted in disgust, Ron backs away from Lips’s remains.
Over the ringing in his ears left by the bomb, Parker also hears the other hostages screaming in shock and fear. Stanford has pressed Moxie’s face into her waist.
Mole swears. “Why did Timmy set off his vest?”
“He didn’t,” Wolf shouts, tearing at the straps of his own suicide vest. As his rifle clatters to the floor, he tosses the vest in the direction of the food court. It explodes in midair. Frantically following Wolf’s example, Mole fumbles with the straps on his own vest. But the next explosion is farther away. It sounds like it came from the open second floor of the mall. Mole manages to get his vest off and pitch it away just before it explodes.
While everyone is still shocked into stillness, a barefoot Heels runs toward Lips’s rifle, which landed under a bench. She drops into a baseball slide as she reaches toward it.
But just as her outstretched fingers touch the gun, Ron runs over and puts his foot on it. Bracing his own rifle against his shoulder, he aims at Heels as she desperately tries to scramble back.
No! Parker is already moving. He points the fire extinguisher’s hose straight at Ron’s face. His thumb depresses the trigger.
With a whoosh, a fine pale-yellow powder shoots out of the end of the black hose. The grains are packed so close together they seem almost like a liquid. Ron shouts, then starts to choke and gag. His features are obscured by the powder. Still holding his rifle with his right hand, he tries to pull his shirt over his mouth and nose with his left.
The noxious yellow cloud has begun to envelop Parker, too. As he starts to cough, he forces his hand not to waver. He has to keep the other man from killing Heels. From killing them all.
She pushes herself to her feet and starts to run away. Blindly, Ron depresses the trigger of his rifle. Bullets stitch the floor behind her but don’t find any other target.
With a banshee yell, Gauges launches himself at Ron from the side. He grabs the barrel of the rifle and pushes it down, then wrenches it away.
“Everybody freeze!” Wolf yells out from the other side of the gate.
“No, don’t!” Heels yells. “Don’t do anything he says. It’s time to fight back.” She reaches into an open shopping bag and lobs something the size of a grapefruit. It slips between the diamond-shaped openings of the security gate and catches Wolf square in the chin. It looks like a round bottle of yellow body lotion. He staggers back, but more in surprise than pain.
Gauges was not one of the people who claimed to have experience with rifles, and it’s obvious he has no idea what to do now that he has one. He points it at Ron. But then Ron drops to his knees, gagging and coughing, clearly no longer a threat. Gauges pivots to point the rifle at the killers at the gate. But there are panicking hostages between him and them. He swivels back and forth, undecided.
Even with Ron on his hands and knees, Parker doesn’t let up on the fire extinguisher. “I got the knife,” he yells at Heels. “It’s under my shirt in the back.”
She runs up behind him. He feels her peel up the wet cloth, and then her fingers dip under his waistband.
Clutching the knife, she dashes to one of the glass exit doors. She falls to her knees between two of the hostages and starts hammering on the lower corner of the glass with the tip of the wooden handle.
The fire extinguisher starts to sputter. Ron is now curled facedown like a turtle, but Parker doesn’t stop spraying. He chances taking another quick look around. Everyone is in motion. Some people are throwing things at Wolf and Mole. Some are running in panicked circles. Some people are trying to hide in stores, behind fixtures, even behind other people.
The fire extinguisher is still making noise, but nothing comes out of the hose. It’s empty.
Parker releases the trigger and then looks up. Something is happening on the far side of the gate. More and more hostages are staring in that direction. Wolf and Mole have turned their backs and are looking out at the food court.
Parker follows their gazes. A group of people is heading toward them, cutting around the tables and overturned chairs and the occasional body. In the lead is a guy in a baseball cap. His hands are raised. Behind him is a girl dressed in jeans and a red oversize sweater. She’s holding an automatic rifle, and every few steps she prods the guy with it.
It’s Miranda. She’s alive! A sudden blaze of joy engulfs Parker.
Behind Miranda are—he squints—two more people. One is the busboy from the food court. He’s limping, and his leg is bandaged. And behind him is a skinny girl wearing a blouse stained with blood.
“Open this gate,” Miranda demands. “Open it up or I’ll kill your brother.”
REFUSING TO CRACK
6:20 P.M.
“Put down your guns and open this gate,” Parker hears Miranda repeat. “Right now. Or your brother dies.” Her face is pale and calm, almost mask-like, but her voice is raw with emotion.
For emphasis, she prods the guy in the ball cap, hard enough that he stumbles forward. He’s tall and rangy, with pale eyes. Just like Mole and Wolf.
“Are you okay, Nicholas?” Mole asks.
“Just do what she says, please.” His voice cracks. “She means it.”
A movement in the corner of Parker’s eye makes him turn. Ron has managed to get to his feet. Now he stumbles away, tears and snot streaming down his yellow-coated face as he coughs and gags, bent almost double. One hand on the wall to guide him, he rounds the corner into the day spa.
Parker follows. He doesn’t trust Ron, but his only weapon is out of ammo.
All around them is chaos. The air is filled with the soapy smell from the fire extinguisher, as well as smoke from the AT&T store, where the sprinklers have still not kicked on. From Van Duyn comes the pounding of falling water.
But there’s no longer a need for a distraction, not now that Lips has exploded, Parker has taken care of Ron, and Miranda is ordering around the other killers at gunpoint.
Still carrying the fire extinguisher, Parker enters the day spa. Ahead of him, Ron staggers past the receptionist’s desk to the first of a half-dozen black hair-washing sinks. He grabs the edge of the sink with his meaty fists, doubles over, and starts throwing up. Even his vomit is pale yellow. What kind of chemicals are in a fire extinguisher, anyway? Could they kill someone? Still gagging, Ron turns on the faucet and sticks his face under the stream of water.
Past him, Parker’s eyes are drawn to a set of tools laid out on a white towel. They remind him of surgical tools in one of those TV medical dramas, but because they are next to a display of colorful nail polishes, he thinks they’re probably actually for manicures. He squints. One of the tools appears to be a small purple cordless drill. He moves closer. It is a drill, complete with a bit that comes to a tiny, spade-like tip.
He looks out into the main hall. Heels is on her knees. She’s freed her hands and is still using the butt end of the knife to hammer at the glass door. Even though she’s hitting it so hard that she’s risking stabbing herself in the chest with every backswing, it’s refusing to crack.
Parker snatches up the manicure drill and runs to the spa’s entrance. He realizes he has no idea what Heels’s name is. “Hey! Hey!” he yells until she looks up. “Try this!” Leaning down, he slides it across the floor to her. After she stops it with an outreached hand, her face lights up.
When Parker turns back, the water is still running in the hair-washing sink, but Ron is gone.
No! He spins in a circle, his breathing speeding up. Where did he go?
There! Out in the main hall, he spies Ron’s black utility belt and blue polyester shirt, now splotched with water and yellow chemicals. Even though the guard no longer has a rifle, frightened hostages are scattering in front of him. Parker runs after him.
At the far end
of the hall, Wolf and his brother have their hands in the air while Mole unlocks the security gate, all under the watchful eyes of Miranda and the busboy, who has somehow acquired a pistol.
Parker is about twenty feet away when Ron grabs someone from behind. It’s Amina, that girl from Culpeppers. His right arm is tight around her neck. When he raises his other hand, something catches the light. It’s a metal nail file. Because he’s behind them, Parker can’t see exactly what he does next, but it looks like he’s pressed it against Amina’s throat. At least that’s where Parker hopes it is. Against her throat, not in it. And he also hopes that Ron is thinking about the future. About how a live Amina could be used as a bargaining chip.
With shaking hands, Gauges raises the assault rifle and points it in the general direction of its original owner.
But any bullet that hits Ron will probably go through Amina first. And that’s if Gauges has good aim. If he doesn’t, he could take out any of the dozen people near Amina and Ron. Including Parker.
“No!” Parker yells. “Don’t shoot! It’s not safe.”
From behind him comes a shattering sound that’s almost musical. What the—? He turns. The glass door has finally broken. Heels snatches her hand out of the way, but it’s safety glass, a rain of blunt-edged fragments. It crinkles and pops as the glass gives way higher and higher up. Pulling her sweater sleeve over her hand, Heels starts knocking out the remaining glass from the bottom square of the door.
Ron has also been distracted. Parker seizes his chance. He runs toward the bigger man. Holding the end of the empty metal fire extinguisher in both hands, he swings it like a club at Ron’s head, on the opposite side of where Amina is. She’s short enough that she is tucked in the other man’s armpit.
Ron raises his left forearm, blocking the blow. It lands with a meaty smack. The nail file flies out of Ron’s hand—but the fire extinguisher also slips from Parker’s grasp. It lands on the floor about ten feet behind the security guard.
