Ransom River

by Meg Gardiner

  The video began to play. In grainy, gray-blue light, it showed Samuel Koh’s backyard and fence and, beyond that, Jared Smith’s house. A clock was running at the bottom of the screen, reeling off the seconds: 2:03:02 a.m.

  At Smith’s house, Brad Mirkovic burst through the kitchen door, off balance, arms wheeling. He looked back.

  Lucy Elmendorf, clad in a T-shirt and panties, came at him through the door. There was no sound, but her mouth was moving. It looked to Rory like she was saying Stop. He didn’t.

  Jared Smith was right behind her, in his boxers, with his service weapon.

  Outside the courtroom, noise rose abruptly, echoing.

  Rory glanced up. For a moment she wondered if her parents were outside. They’d said they might stop by.

  The doors of the courtroom swung open. But it wasn’t her dad who came through.

  Two men stormed in. They wore balaclavas. They wore green fatigue jackets and leather gloves and pants tucked into their heavy black work boots.

  They had shotguns in their hands.

  4

  Rory froze.

  One man slammed the door shut. The other dropped a toolbox to the floor and shouted, “Everybody down.”

  The bailiff turned in seeming shock. His hand jerked toward the gun holstered on his hip.

  The gunman leveled the barrel of the shotgun and advanced at him. “Drop your weapon. Drop it now. Get on the floor.”

  The bailiff held poised, hand near the holster.

  The gunman charged him. And with one jarring motion he created the scariest sound known to modern America. He pumped the shotgun.

  Rory felt it like a shock behind her eyes. People screamed. In the jury box, Helen Ellis jumped. Frankie Ortega sprang upright, eyes wide like a rabbit’s.

  The gunman descended on the bailiff, voice booming. “Throw your weapon on the floor. Now.”

  The bailiff tossed the gun to the floor, raised his hands, and dropped to his knees.

  Rory’s heart thundered. In the public gallery people stood and pushed toward the aisles, clambering over others who sat stunned.

  At the back of the courtroom, the second gunman swept the barrel of his shotgun across the room. “Sit down. Right now, and shut up.”

  He was slight and twitchy. The gun barrel panned the room and stopped at a man on his feet in the aisle. The guy shrank back. People sat down.

  “Hands in the air. Everybody. Do not touch your phones.”

  Twitchy dropped his own toolbox to the floor with a clatter. From inside it he produced a Club steering-wheel lock. He jammed it through the handles of the courtroom doors, extended it, and locked it.

  The first gunman stood over the bailiff. “Hands behind your head.”

  The gunman was built like a stove and had a voice so raspy it sounded charred. The bailiff laced his fingers behind him. The gunman picked up the man’s gun and took his Taser. He bound him with his own handcuffs and ripped the police radio from his shoulder. Then he turned to the judge.

  “Off the bench. Get down here.”

  Somebody was sobbing. Helen Ellis said, “Oh Lord God, oh Jesus.” Frankie began to wheeze. Rory’s vision pulsed. Bright, thumping, neon, unreal. Un-what-the-hell-real. The blood roared in her ears.

  It said, Get out.

  Somehow. Now. Get out of the courtroom. The window behind her—they were on the third floor but if she could open the window they could escape to safety along the ledge outside. She looked over her shoulder.

  “Hold the fuck still.”

  She turned. The first gunman stood in front of the jury box. She held still. So did the barrel of his shotgun, aimed at her face.

  For an endless moment the gunman faced her, as though daring her to move. Behind the black balaclava, his eyes were flat.

  The shotgun could be loaded with buckshot or with slugs. It made no difference. He was ten feet away. For a crooked second, she pictured the courtroom being swept by forensics techs, and another murder trial—for the people clustered around her like eggs in a carton. Exhibit A, a diorama with red strings pinned to it, fanning out from the point of origin and ending in seats and windows and the wall. Shots fired. She fought the urge to vomit.

  Then he raised the barrel, stepped back, and called over his shoulder. “Reagan. Clean ’em out.”

  The twitchy second gunman stepped forward. “Everybody empty your pockets.” He pulled a plastic supermarket bag from inside his jacket. “Give me your phones. Do it now.”

  Frankie’s wheezing intensified. His eyes were wide and he looked twelve years old.

  “Phones, right now. Hand them over.” Reagan stalked along the courtroom aisle holding open the plastic bag, like it was cell phone trick or treat. “Do not try to be a hero. Do not try to call for help. If you do, you’ll die.”

  People passed their phones to the aisle or simply threw them to the floor near him. A woman broke into loud sobs. One young man stood shaking.

  “I’m a reporter. I’m not a part of this,” he said.

  “You’re what?” Behind his balaclava, Reagan seemed to snort. He turned to his confederate. “Nixon. Listen to this clown.”

  Nixon. Reagan. They’d gone with off-the-shelf code names, Rory thought. Tricky Dick turned and lowered the shotgun at the young reporter’s chest.

  “Did you say you’re not apart? I can make that happen.”

  His index finger hovered near the trigger. The reporter cringed.

  Nixon turned back to the crowd. “Purses, backpacks, satchels, toss all your possessions to the center aisle.”

  Hesitantly, most people looked at him.

  “Immediately.”

  Rory jumped again. So did half the room. Helen Ellis emitted a choked cry.

  Frankie’s shoulders lifted. He was struggling to inhale. He fumbled manically in his sweatshirt pocket.

  Rory grabbed his forearm. “Careful.”

  He looked near panic. “Can’t breathe.”

  Rory held his arm. “It could look like you’re pulling a weapon.”

  He nodded tightly and brought out an inhaler. Helen Ellis kept repeating, “Oh God God Jesus, help us.”

  In front of the bench, Judge Wieland stood with his hands raised. “You have no right to do this.”

  His voice had a quaver but came out strong. Nixon and Reagan ignored him.

  “This is a court of law, and these are the people of the State of California. Let them go,” Wieland said.

  Rory’s throat tightened. Wieland hadn’t lost his composure. He was acting like the captain of a ship, trying to hang on to the tiller and get people to the life rafts as water poured over the decks.

  She recalled the Marin County Courthouse attack in the seventies. Black-and-white photos: the judge with a sawed-off shotgun duct-taped to his neck. He was taken hostage by radicals seeking to break the Soledad Brothers out of prison. It was a spasm of “revolutionary” violence, terrifying and pointless. The judge had been shot dead.

  “Shut your mouth,” Nixon said. “Keep it shut.”

  What did these men want?

  Nixon nodded at the jury box, at Frankie. “Throw that thing here. Hands in the air.”

  Frankie shook his head and gripped the inhaler. “I can’t…”

  Nixon lunged forward. People screamed and climbed over each other, fighting to get out of the aim of the shotgun. Frankie shrank back and raised his hands but held on to the inhaler.

  Rory shouted at Nixon, “No.”

  She pulled Frankie against her. Yanked him almost onto her lap, gripping his sweatshirt, and tried to get both of them onto the floor.

  “Shut up and hold still, everybody.” Nixon held poised right in front of the jury box. His chest rose and fell. His gloved hands gripped the gleaming barrel of the gun.

  Frankie shuddered. Rory held him. He was hot, he was barely breathing, he was all she had, human connection, maybe the last seconds of a life she thought would be completely different.

  “Out of the jury box, a
ll of you,” Nixon said.

  Motion, clatter. Sunlight poured through the window onto the backs of people streaming out of the jury box.

  Digging her fingers into Frankie’s sweatshirt, Rory stood up. Nixon was staring at her.

  She said, “He has an inhaler.” Her voice cracked. “Asthma. He needs it.”

  The gunman seemed to think about it. Finally, he nodded and indicated the inhaler with the barrel of the gun. “One shot.”

  Jesus, why’d he have to use that expression?

  Frankie’s eyes shone with fear. He looked about to rabbit, to bolt, suicidally, right through the window. He needed air.

  Rory nodded and released Frankie’s arm. His hand flew to his mouth. Gulping, he pumped the inhaler.

  Nixon said, “Toss it here.”

  Shaking, Frankie stole a second pump. Then he tossed the inhaler to the gunman. Nixon caught it and put it in his pocket. Rory could swear that behind the balaclava he was smirking. Bastard.

  She edged down the steps. Her leg ached, the one with the pins in it. She joined the rest of the jurors in front of the bench. Helen Ellis was swaying. Frankie’s wheezing eased.

  At the defense table, Jared Smith and Lucy Elmendorf were bent forward, foreheads on the table, hands locked behind their heads. The gunmen must have instructed them to do it, though Rory hadn’t heard it. The tabletop had been swept clean. No pens or pencils or anything that could be used to stab the gunmen.

  Nixon looked around. “Everybody listen. You will do exactly as we say. You will not hesitate. You will not hold back. You will not scream or cry out for help, and if anybody has held on to a cell phone”—he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small electronic device—“we will find it, and we will punish you.”

  Nixon raised the device like a police officer waving his badge. Reagan held his gun at port arms, aimed at the ceiling.

  “Well?” Nixon said.

  “Here.”

  A man scrabbled in his pants pocket, pulled out a phone, and tossed it on the floor like it had bitten him.

  “Anybody else?” Nixon said.

  Nobody spoke up. He pushed a button on the device and walked up the aisle.

  “Okay.” Crying, a woman pulled a phone from her bra.

  He grabbed it. “You do what we say, and you’ll survive. Play Rambo, you won’t.”

  He stalked to the defense table and climbed on top of it. “Everybody on the floor. Facedown, hands behind your heads.”

  People began dropping to their knees. But one of the defense attorneys, a ravenish man named Pritchett, edged back from the table, hands in the air. “Tell us what’s going on. What do you want here?”

  Nixon turned his head, slowly, and lodged a stare at Pritchett. Without a word he swung the butt of his shotgun and cracked Pritchett in the face. People gasped. Pritchett staggered back, legs like bamboo. He crashed into his chair and toppled, hand to his bloody forehead.

  Nixon swung the shotgun back up, finger on the trigger. “Any other questions?”

  The lobby of the courthouse was empty. Two lawyers strolled in and stopped chatting. The weapons checkpoint was unmanned.

  “Hello?” one said.

  A moment later, she heard banging sounds. The noise came from beyond the checkpoint, around a corner. It was repetitive and heavy. Like shoes kicking wood.

  The lawyers glanced at each other and, with a shrug, went through the metal detector. It rang but nobody came running. They rounded the corner. The banging grew louder. Down the hall, a closet door shook with each thud. The lawyers glanced around. The administrative offices for the courthouse were in the opposite direction at the far end of the hall, behind closed doors.

  “Hey, anybody here?” she said.

  The kicking got louder and was accompanied by muffled shouts. The lawyers jogged down the hall to the closet.

  It was locked, the key broken off in the door.

  “Anybody in there?” the lawyer called.

  The kicking resumed, and more desperate shouting. The lawyer pulled out her phone. Her colleague dropped his briefcase and ran down the hall toward the administrative offices.

  The lawyer called 9-1-1.

  5

  One by one people dropped to the courtroom floor. Frankie Ortega lay down, breathing like a wheezy metronome. Rory held still. A voice within her said, Stand up. Don’t get on your knees. Around her, shuffling, crying, people prostrated themselves. Don’t let them shoot you in the back.

  Pritchett, the defense attorney, lay collapsed by his chair, his face creased red with blood. Atop the defense table, Nixon swept his gun barrel slowly across the courtroom. He looked like a tank turning its gun turret. A wire of anger and fear heated in Rory’s chest. Nixon’s gun veered toward her. We’ve lost.

  She dropped to her knees and stretched out on the floor, facedown.

  She laced her fingers behind her head and rested her cheek against cold stone. Two feet away, the court reporter stared at her. The woman’s eyes were wet. In a staccato whisper she began reciting the Hail Mary.

  “Faces down,” Nixon said. “Stare at the floor.”

  People placed their foreheads against the stone. Rory heard heavy breathing, whimpers, the percussion of a woman’s charm bracelet shivering against the tile. She heard a small airplane buzz overhead, and traffic on the street. In the hall: nothing.

  Didn’t anybody know what was happening?

  From the table, Nixon said, “Stay exactly as you are. Do not roll over. Do not raise your heads.”

  Across the well of the court, the defense attorney breathed in broken, wet gasps. The court reporter murmured, “Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners…”

  Behind the woman’s prayer, Rory heard another voice.

  “One. Two. Three.”

  It was Reagan. His footsteps scuffed across the floor.

  “Four.” He paused. “Stand up.”

  A cry. “No. Please, don’t…”

  “Stand up.”

  Nixon’s voice boomed out. “If you are tapped on the back, stand up.”

  “No, please…no.”

  Nixon jumped down from the table. His boots hit the floor. “He touched you with the barrel of his weapon. He didn’t shoot you. But if you lie there mewling, you’re going to get hurt. Now stand up.”

  Rory heard a man clamber to his feet.

  The court reporter opened her eyes, desperate. “Now and at the hour of our death, amen. Hail Mary, full of grace…”

  Nixon’s voice again, slow, metallic. “One. Two. Three. Four.”

  A choked cry.

  “Stand up,” Nixon said.

  Shoes scraped the floor.

  Reagan’s footsteps moved again, inching across the courtroom. “One. Two. Three. Four.”

  Nixon: “Stand up.”

  Fabric rustled.

  “Pray for us sinners…”

  “One. Two. Three. Four.”

  The barrel of the shotgun tapped Rory between the shoulder blades.

  Her breathing faltered. Behind her closed eyes, the view burst with yellow stars.

  “Stand up,” Nixon said.

  She pushed to her knees. The court reporter watched, her expression brimming with relief and pity. Rory climbed to her feet.

  Reagan stood in front of her. His eyes were hazel. His skin, the bare ring of it visible beneath his balaclava, looked pasty.

  Amid the crowd massed on the floor, three other people stood with their hands raised. A man in his sixties in a red-checkered shirt. Prosecutor Cary Oberlin. And Judge Wieland.

  Nixon nodded at the door to Wieland’s chambers. “You four. Walk.”

  Stepping cautiously over people on the floor, they picked their way toward the door. Rory went last in line, hands raised. Nixon trailed her. Reagan stood to one side and urged the four past him, like a gun bull guarding a chain gang.

  Where were they going? Were the four of them being released? If so, would they be given a message to take to the world outside
?

  She didn’t think they were being released.

  She walked. Ahead, the older man in the red check took care to avoid juror Daisy Fallon, who lay crying in his path.

  Nixon said, “Speed it up.”

  Oberlin got about ten feet from the door to chambers. Reagan wiped his nose with a gloved hand. Judge Wieland drew even with him.

  Rory saw a blur of blue to the left, off her shoulder. A swift movement, somebody sitting up. Then fumbling, a grunt. She turned.

  A man from the public gallery was sitting upright, unzipping his Dodgers jacket. His eyes were spiked with panic. He yanked the jacket open and reached inside.

  Things went clear and smeared all at once. Beneath the jacket, the man wore a searing yellow Justice! T-shirt. He was breathing hard enough to blow out candles on a cake. He drew a handgun.

  He raised the gun and aimed at Reagan. And fired.

  Orange flame flashed from the barrel. The report cracked through the courtroom. Screams erupted. The pistol rose in his hand with recoil.

  Reagan spun and raised the shotgun. The man in the Justice! shirt leveled his handgun. He fired.

  Reagan fired.

  At such close range, it sounded like the world coming apart. The roar of the blast reverberated through Rory’s chest. A dark form dropped to the floor. The man in the Justice! T-shirt pitched backward onto a young woman. His gun clattered to the tiles.

  Nixon ran across the room, stepping on people. He bellowed, “Do not touch the weapon.”

  No chance of that. People shrieked and crawled away from the Justice! man, mouths wide, hair falling in their faces. The man was dead. His eyes stared at the ceiling and his yellow shirt glistened red with blood. Rory stumbled back.

  How did he get a gun into court? How did any of them?

  Nixon grabbed the handgun from the floor. “Everybody shut up and hold still.”

  People cowered, sobbing. The air swirled with cordite. Nixon turned in a slow circle and took stock.

  Judge Wieland was down.

  The Justice! man had fired at Reagan but missed and caught the judge in the shoulder. The man in red check knelt near Wieland. He tentatively put a hand on the judge’s shoulder. Rory dropped to a crouch and inched forward to his side.