The Ackerman Thrillers Boxset: 1-6

by Ethan Cross

  He opened his eyes as it came back to him. The surveillance footage of the hospital where his father’s apprentice had killed two police officers.

  Alanna Lewis had been there. Then he remembered seeing her face at one of the crime scenes, posing as a CSI technician. Her presence had been completely overlooked, which made sense. There wasn’t a demographic in the country less likely to be a serial murderer than a black female. She was practically invisible to the eyes of police and criminal profilers. And that was exactly why his father had chosen her.

  “She wasn’t just a prisoner. She’s my father’s apprentice,” Marcus said. “We need to find Alanna Lewis, right now.”

  86

  THE PEOPLE IN THE AMBULANCE HAD ASKED IT FOR A NAME. It had been unsure for a moment and had replied honestly, “The master didn’t give me a name for this mission.” They had then taken it to the hospital just as the master had said they would when he’d rushed breathlessly into its room.

  “I need you to be my distraction,” he had said. “I’m going to slice your abdomen, nothing too deep, just enough to get the blood flowing. That way anyone following us through the tunnel will have to stop and tend to you. It could buy me the time I need to escape.”

  As they had moved into the tunnels, he had explained what it should do next. He explained that they would take it to the hospital and what it should do once it was there.

  The master thought of everything. Knew everything. The people there had been nice to it, smiling like it was a real person. Treating it like it was a living thing. That made it feel strange, and it didn’t remember how it should react. The police had tried to ask it some questions, but it had just stared at them. The master had said not to speak to the police. They were bad and wanted to cause it pain. And that was the only thing it cared about: keeping the pain away.

  Following the master’s instructions, it stayed quiet for a day so that everyone’s guard would be lowered. When the nurse came to check the machines, the woman said, “Hello, Alanna. Are you feeling okay?”

  It took a moment for it to realize that the woman was talking to it. Then it realized what she had called it. Alanna. Something was strangely familiar about that name. It seemed right somehow, but in the same vague and fuzzy way that the random images seemed to mean something. The name meant something, but the connection eluded it.

  When the nurse turned her back, it struck her over the the head with the metal bedpan.

  Then it asked the guard outside its door to come inside for a moment. The police officer was sitting in a chair in the hall, just as the master had said he would be. The man looked confused about what do. He looked up and down the hall and then entered the hospital room.

  The master had said that the police wouldn’t check its underwear, and so that was where he’d told it to hide the folding knife. It had already retrieved it and held it at its side when the police officer entered the room. Once the man was inside and clear of the door, it thrust the blade deep into his neck.

  After the man stopped moving, it stripped the nurse and changed into her clothes. The master had then told it to leave the hospital and had said where it should go afterward. He had said that he still had another mission for it, and it didn’t want to be late and disappoint the master. When the master was angry, the pain soon followed.

  87

  MAGGIE HUNG UP THE PHONE AND LOOKED OVER AT THE EXPECTANT FACES OF THE TWO MEN. She had built a relationship with Maria Duran, the head of KCPD homicide, and had offered to call her to get some information on Alanna Lewis. During the months that Marcus had been missing, the two women had grown close through a bond of mutual loss and the shared goal of finding the man responsible—the killer who had ordered the death of Maria’s son, Kaleb, and who had kidnapped Marcus.

  “Alanna Lewis is right here in the hospital,” Maggie said.

  Marcus sat up in bed and swung his feet toward the floor. Maggie stepped forward and put a hand on his chest. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “We need to talk to her. She might have some insight into what the target may be.”

  Ackerman said, “Father may come after her. He has an obsessive dislike of loose ends and unfinished business. She may be in danger.”

  Marcus added, “Or she may just be dangerous. Either way, we—”

  “Not we,” Maggie said and pointed at Marcus. “You’re staying in bed.” Her finger swung toward Ackerman. “And you’re keeping an eye on him. Plus, I don’t want to take any unnecessary chances with someone recognizing you.”

  Marcus started to protest, but the look on Maggie’s face must have made her point. He swung his legs back beneath the bed sheets and said, “See if she’s well enough to come up here so I can talk to her.”

  “No promises,” Maggie said as she walked from the room. She headed down a corridor of blue-speckled linoleum, weaving among nurses and visitors as she found the elevator. It was strange having Marcus back after so long. She had become accustomed to calling her own shots, instead of being told what to do by an overprotective superior.

  The elevator doors dinged open on the fourth floor, and she stepped out into a hallway filled with rushing doctors and raised voices. Something had happened down the hall, and it was bringing a crowd. Maggie followed the sounds of murmurs and shouted orders until she reached the room that should have held Alanna Lewis. As she saw an officer—who had probably been assigned to guard Alanna—being rushed past on a hospital gurney, Maggie knew that the apprentice was gone.

  She ran to the nurse’s station and told the woman behind the desk, a heavyset black woman with a frightened and confused look on her face, to put her in touch with hospital security. Maybe they still had time to lock down the hospital before Alanna could escape.

  *

  Once through the doors of the hospital and out on the sidewalk, it followed the master’s instructions to the letter. It walked the four blocks until it saw the coffee shop on the corner. The car was there, just as the master had said it would be. The master knew everything. Saw everything. It found the key on top of one of the vehicle’s front tires, unlocked the door, and dropped inside.

  It started the engine of the beige Buick and then pulled out into traffic. It realized that it knew how to drive but still couldn’t remember learning. There were ghosts of images, a man with a mustache sitting in the passenger seat with a clipboard, but those were just flickering illusions seen from the corner of its eye, no more substantial than a puff of smoke.

  The master was real. The master was its anchor to the world, the only thing holding its fragile existence together. It had purpose because the master gave it purpose. It had a function. A mission. And maybe someday, if it did exactly as it was told, the master would give it an actual life. Maybe he would offer it a soul.

  But, for now, it had its mission. It was to go to where the master was and help prepare for what he called “the grand finale.”

  88

  MANY HAD CALLED THE KAUFMAN CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS THE JEWEL OF THE KANSAS CITY SKYLINE, AND THOMAS WHITE DIDN’T DISAGREE. Fifteen years in the making and financed largely by the Kaufman pharmaceutical fortune, the three-hundred-and-sixty-six-million-dollar facility had been built on a hilltop and had an expansive glass lobby overlooking the city. It reminded Thomas White of that famous Australian landmark, the Sydney Opera House, but also evoked thoughts of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum and the designs of Frank Gehry.

  White had recently attended a performance there by the Los Angeles Philharmonic as they presented a program featuring Brahms’s Symphony No. 2, a new work by Icelandic composer Daníel Bjarnason, and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3. He felt it would be a fitting site for the grand finale of his very own symphony of fear and suffering.

  “First of all, Mr. Simmons, I want to thank you so much for your generous contributions to the center,” their personal tour guide said to Thomas White. “Without private donors such as yourself, this beautiful facility couldn�
�t even have been built.” She was a perky blonde in a pink floral dress, and she had a beautifully tanned complexion, which would have been flawless if not for the scarring from what looked like a dog bite on one of her cheeks.

  White nodded benevolently. “I’m honored to play a small part in bringing such beautiful music to our fine city.”

  “Well, I’m honored to have the chance to show you, both of you”—she nodded at his apprentice whom he had introduced as his assistant and who now stood beside him carrying a large black briefcase—”where some of your money will be going. Please follow me.”

  The guide led them through the pristine white halls, explaining this, pointing out that, describing the intricacies of the building’s forty-eight thousand square feet of glass paneling, which made Kansas City home to the largest enclosed glass-and-cable structure in the world. He smiled and pretended to be impressed, but the whole time he was thinking more about the itchy tactical gear concealed beneath his tailored suit. He hoped it didn’t make him look too bulky, but he supposed it didn’t really make much difference. He was much more concerned about how hot the bulletproof vest and blue fatigues made him feel than whether or not the tour guide thought he looked fat.

  As they walked through the interior of the massive glass facade, White couldn’t help but stare out at the park occupying the space beyond the glass. It was one of the largest “green roof” structures in the United States, beneath which sat a one-thousand-car parking garage.

  The perky blonde led them up a set of stairs and into the balcony of White’s favorite part of the facility: Helzberg Hall. Richly stained wood the color of a dying sunset covered nearly the entire oval-shaped auditorium. It made White feel as if he had climbed inside a finely crafted cello. No seat in the house was more than one hundred feet from the stage. It smelled strangely like a forest, perhaps due to the finely regulated humidity. The stage had been constructed from a type of Alaskan cedar specifically designed to allow the performers to feel the vibrations of the music all around them as well as hear it.

  Helzberg Hall possessed a certain ambience that White loved, and he wished, for just a brief moment, that he could have been there that day for pleasure and to enjoy a performance instead of for the business at hand. As things were, he would be the one performing.

  He sat down in one of the seats in the front row of the hall and gestured for his apprentice and the guide to join him. They sat there for fifteen minutes before the guide looked at her watch and started to get anxious. He admired her dedication and patience. Finally, she said, “I’m so sorry, Mr. Simmons, but we’re going to need to continue with the tour. We have a group from Archbishop O’Hara High School coming in for a private piano concert in another fifteen minutes.”

  White smiled and pressed the muzzle of his Beretta Px4 Storm pistol into her ribcage. “I’m perfectly aware of that.”

  The guide’s eyes went wide, and she stammered, “Why do you need a gun?”

  “Why, all the better to kidnap and murder with, my dear. Now, sit back and keep perfectly quiet or I will kill you. Don’t speak, but nod your head if you believe me.”

  Trembling, she nodded her head up and down in a rapid staccato movement. Then she sat back and stayed quiet. White fought the urge to close his eyes and soak in the perfect energy of the place. He needed to be alert and ready, and this was no time for silent reflection. He regretted the fact that he would never again be able to enjoy a performance here.

  *

  The freshman class from Archbishop O’Hara High School came in five minutes late for their private concert. The teacher and an usher directed the kids to their seats. The presence of three extra audience members went largely unnoticed, and those who noticed couldn’t have cared less. Thomas White knew that the class would fill only eighty-one of the sixteen hundred available seats. A few extra people hardly made a difference.

  But it wasn’t the number of people that was important to him; it was the caliber of their familial connections. Sitting in the seats behind him now was an especially impressive freshman class for the private college prep school. It included the children of the mayor of Kansas City, as well as those of the chief of police, two state senators, five CEOs, and a handful of other movers and shakers in city government and business.

  The pianist who had offered to perform for the kids that day also had a niece in attendance. The man took the stage and began to explain some of the unique features of Helzberg Hall. Then he sat down at the large black grand piano in the middle of the Alaskan-cedar stage.

  Before he began to play, Thomas White stood from the front row and mounted the stage. He kept his gun in his pocket as he said, “I’m sorry for the interruption, but I have a very important announcement to make. What I am about to tell you is not a joke or a prank, and I need each and every one of you to remain seated and quiet.” He paused to make sure that he had everyone’s attention, and then he added, “There’s a bomb in this room large enough to kill everyone here. If anyone gets out of their seat or tries to run, I will detonate this device.”

  Then he pulled his pistol and nodded at his apprentice who stood up with an H&K MP7 submachine gun in each hand, having retrieved them from beneath a hidden panel in the briefcase she carried. She joined White on the stage, aiming the impressive-looking black machine pistols at the crowd.

  White directed the pianist to join the others and said, “If everyone stays calm and follows instructions, then there’s no reason why we all can’t walk out of here. If you test my resolve, you will all die.” He leaned over to his apprentice and, loudly enough for everyone to hear, said, “Cover them. If anyone gets out of their seat, shoot them.”

  Then he made his way back out into the bright white halls of the structure until he found the unmarked room that he knew to be the security control center. He had already acquired the key-code for the door, which he used now to enter. Once inside, he shot the two security officers manning the control panels, kicked one of the dead men out of his chair, and started tapping keys. Within a moment, the words “Locks Engaged — Night Time Security Activated” flashed onto the screen in red letters.

  As he made his way back to Helzberg Hall, he called 911 and said, “I’ve taken eighty-one students hostage at the Kaufman Center. I’m heavily armed and have Helzberg Hall wired to explode. If my demands are not met, I will begin executing hostages.”

  The operator, clearly not trained for this type of call, stammered out, “What are your demands?”

  “I want twenty million dollars. I will give the account number for the transfer to the hostage negotiator. Have them contact me at this number when they’re ready to talk.”

  Thomas White hung up the phone and chuckled to himself, wondering if they would actually try to get the money together. Not that he cared one way or the other. His motives were much purer than greed.

  89

  MARCUS, MAGGIE, ACKERMAN, AND STAN HAD SPENT MOST OF THE NIGHT TRYING TO DETERMINE WHERE THOMAS WHITE MIGHT HAVE BEEN PLANNING TO STRIKE. When they saw the news story about a hostage situation, it rendered all their efforts pointless. Marcus was already out of bed, saying, “Get me some pants.”

  When they arrived on the scene, Marcus asked Ackerman to hang back at the truck and let them talk to the police. They had to park over a block away, since officers had cordoned off the streets surrounding Kaufman Center. But, from a tactical standpoint, the building was an island of its own with open space and parks surrounding it. Kansas City SWAT units had set up their mobile command center and the bulk of their forces in the most logical spot, the park right in front of the glass and steel lobby of the building. It was a large open area with a good view of the entire structure. Marcus imagined that they also had units stationed at all other points of ingress and egress, but this was the spot where those in charge of the situation would be bunkered down.

  They showed their federal credentials to the uniformed cops manning the barricades and then made their way over to the massive black truck tha
t housed the mobile command center. It looked like a cross between a semi truck, an RV, and an armored car and had the words “KCMO SWAT” stenciled on its side in three-foot-high yellow letters. Members of the tactical response team had taken up strategic positions all around, their rifles pointed at the massive silver structure. They were all clad in black tactical gear and assault helmets.

  Marcus and Maggie entered the command center and were immediately stopped by one of the SWAT commanders who had been standing behind a group of six technicians working at computer terminals mounted along both sides of the trailer. They showed their credentials once again and explained that they were part of a federal task force that had been tracking the man involved in this.

  The SWAT commander walked to the adjacent compartment, and after a moment, he returned and asked them to follow. Marcus knew that the next room was where the decisions about this operation would originate. Inside, they found a conference table filled with blueprints and maps, with a group of men and women standing around and pointing at different spots on the documents. Some of the people wore suits, others formal police uniforms, and others had donned the same type of tactical gear as the officers outside, minus the full body armor and helmets. The room smelled of strong coffee, cigarettes, and fear.

  Marcus recognized the mayor, a stern-looking woman with glasses and short brown hair, and the chief of police, an older black man with gray and black stubble and a bald head. The mayor’s eyes were red and puffy as if she had been doing a lot of crying. Marcus could understand why: her son was among the hostages.

  The group didn’t acknowledge the presence of the newcomers. They kept pointing at the blueprints and discussing options for breaching the building. The mayor said, “Maybe we should just give him the money?”