Death Watch

by Jack Cavanaugh

  They reached the junction of three concourses. Not surprisingly, it was a food court. In the center of the triangle stood a magazine kiosk. Every newspaper, every magazine had Special Edition slashed across the front. Death Watch was the feature story. Time magazine featured a large black question mark on the cover, set against a bloody red background, with the words, “Who’s Next?” printed beneath it in bold block letters.

  The competing odors of deep fried foods—french fries, donuts, fried chicken, fish—commingled at the concourse intersection. Backlit franchise signs vied for patrons with bright colors and pictures of burgers, tacos, pizza, gyros, and hoagie sandwiches.

  Even though it was the middle of the night and Sydney’s stomach knew better, it was aroused by the odors. They did a job on Stacy, too. She stirred and looked up with half-open eyes.

  “Mama?”

  “Go back to sleep, honey,” Cheryl said. “We’re not there yet.”

  Just then Sydney realized Hunz was missing. She looked around for him and found him standing at an unoccupied American Airlines gate watching a television mounted high on a white pillar. Even from a distance, Sydney recognized the CNN logo in the corner. Nothing unusual. CNN produced a special airport edition of their show. However, this wasn’t it. On the bottom of the screen were the words SPECIAL REPORT—DEATH WATCH UPDATE.

  Sydney joined Hunz. Intent on the news report, he gave no indication he knew she was there.

  The CNN correspondent, an attractive black female, held a microphone and addressed the camera. She stood in front of a Hilton Hotel sign.

  Two more bizarre death watch stories came to light today. At the South Pole, photographer Robert Helwys, a member of the National Geographic scientific expedition at the Atmospheric Research Observatory, is reported to have received a death watch notice on his digital pager, even though that device is well beyond normal transmission range. Authorities are unable to explain it.

  And in an equally bizarre event, the Russian Space Agency has just confirmed that Cosmonaut Alexei Kovalenko has received a death watch notice while aboard the International Space Station. The transmission arrived via highly secure communication channels.

  Which begs the question: Who is behind this far-reaching terrorism? Theories abound, and there is no shortage of terrorist groups claiming responsibility. However, authorities are quick to point out that none of these terrorist groups have the means or resources to pull off a strike of this magnitude. So who is behind Death Watch? One man says he knows.

  The camera panned up the side of a glass building to the roof of a hotel where a man stood precariously close to the edge. Tucked beneath his right arm was a Nike shoe box.

  “Good Lord!” Sydney cried. “That’s him!”

  “Who?”

  Sydney looked harder. “I’m almost certain it’s him. Yes. In Pasadena. He was holding a Nike box!”

  “Who?” Hunz cried.

  Cheryl and Josh, having doubled back, joined them looking up at the television.

  “Billy Peppers!” Sydney said.

  “It can’t be,” Hunz said.

  “Peppers,” Josh said. “Isn’t he the crackpot who keeps contacting Cori with end-of-the-world messages?”

  High atop the Hilton Hotel at O’Hare International Airport, here in Chicago, a man stands on a ledge. He says he alone has the answer. Police have identified him as William Peppers, a resident of Los Angeles and self-proclaimed gospel minister.

  “He must have followed us here,” Sydney said.

  “How?” Hunz countered. “We just got here. He had to have arrived before us.”

  “Oh, no,” Sydney said.

  “What?” Hunz demanded.

  “The groundskeepers.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The groundskeepers at the cemetery. They said they heard Billy Peppers talking about going to Chicago.”

  “A coincidence,” Hunz said.

  “Is it?”

  “What are those white patches all over him?” Josh asked, pointing at the screen.

  “They look like torn pieces of paper,” Hunz said.

  On screen, emergency and camera lights reflected off the patches, making it difficult to see what they were. The camera zoomed in for a tighter shot.

  “Angels,” Sydney said. “They’re pictures of angels.”

  “Why would he paste pictures of angels to his clothes?” Hunz asked.

  “That’s right!” Josh exclaimed. “He’s the crackpot who says angels talk to him.”

  However, Mr. Peppers refuses to talk to authorities. He says he will speak to only one person—

  Premonition. Intuition. Call it what you will, but a sense of anticipatory dread chilled Sydney.

  —Sydney St. James, a Los Angeles news reporter. Police are attempting to contact Miss St. James now.

  Everyone looked at Sydney.

  “How did he know you’d be here?” Hunz said.

  Sydney was shaking her head. “He couldn’t have known. I didn’t even know until we got to the airport.”

  Hunz’s cell phone rang. He answered it. “Yeah, she’s right here. We just landed. I don’t know. She doesn’t know. All right. No idea. All right. Yeah.”

  He closed the phone.

  “That was Sol Rosenthal. The Chicago police are looking for you.”

  “Did he tell them we were here?” Sydney asked.

  “No. He told them he’d attempt to locate you. He wants you to get over there.”

  “And do what?” Sydney cried.

  “Get the story. It’s national.” Hunz turned to Josh. “Oh… .and he’s looking for you, too. He sounded peeved. Grant Forsythe did the sports tonight.”

  “You didn’t tell anyone you were leaving?” Sydney said.

  “I had more important things on my mind than reporting a bunch of scores,” Josh said.

  Meanwhile, police are trying to talk Mr. Peppers down from the ledge.

  The camera cut back to the reporter in front of the Hilton Hotel sign.

  When asked if they thought Mr. Peppers could solve the mysterious death watch puzzle, authorities declined comment. But in a world gone mad, where messages transcend normal transmission limits and breach ultrasecure channels in space, who’s to say? And if, as it has been said, fortune favors fools and small children, perhaps we should listen to a homeless man who says he converses with angels. This is Chandra Smyth reporting live from Chicago. Back to you, Bill.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Between the food court and ground transportation curbside the foursome made the decision to split up.

  “How far is it to O’Hare?” Hunz asked.

  “I’m not very good at distances,” Cheryl replied. “You go straight up Cicero to I-90 west. Fifteen, maybe twenty miles, I think.”

  “We’ll meet up with you at the hospital as soon as we can.” Hunz held Stacy while Josh climbed into the back of the limo behind Cheryl.

  Cheryl reached a hand across Josh. “Thank you for everything,” she said to Hunz. She squeezed his hand warmly, then looked up at Sydney. “Sydney, you too, dear friend. Come as quickly as you can.”

  “We will,” Sydney said.

  Hunz closed the limo door and it pulled away from the curb.

  “You didn’t tell them?” Sydney asked.

  “And add one more worry to her burden?”

  He hailed a cab. Sydney checked her watch. Hunz had barely seven hours to live.

  Hunz hadn’t spoken a word since they left Midway. He stared out the taxi window at the lights—convenience stores, gas stations, donut shops, strip malls, grocery stores, auto shops, and tire centers.

  A man who had less than the length of a workday to live should have something more poetic to look at, Sydney thought, like mountain streams, blue skies, and flowers. Acres and acres of flowers.

  She wondered what he was thinking, but didn’t ask. Not that she was afraid. They’d been through enough together—walking through the valley of death is the
phrase that came to mind—that she felt comfortable asking him personal questions. He just seemed to need some alone time.

  What does a perfectly healthy man who knows he’s dying think about? The details of his impending death? Will it be an accident? A fall, or possibly a runaway vehicle? Does he have an undiagnosed malady? A heart imperfection, like the actor John Ritter, or a blood clot, like Lyle Vandeveer? The body is such a complex and delicate vessel with a thousand ways to break it.

  Whether the stone hits the pitcher, or the pitcher hits the stone, it’s going to be bad for the pitcher. Words of wisdom from that immortal philosopher, Sancho Panza.

  And then there was the biggest unknown—who was throwing the rocks? Who was smashing vessels of flesh the world over?

  Aliens? Had anyone considered aliens? Was this some sort of extraterrestrial prelude to invasion? Some sort of otherworldly war? Of course, it would have to be a technologically advanced race. That went without saying, didn’t it? If they had the ability to travel the gazillion light-years scientists said they’d have to travel just to get here, they’d have to be advanced, right? But given the bizarre facts of Death Watch, were aliens out of the realm of possibility?

  The cab accelerated onto I-90, leaving the colored store signs behind. It wasn’t long before they could see commercial airplanes low in the sky, approaching O’Hare International Airport runway. Huge green overhead freeway signs provided arrival and departure information.

  As they neared the airport terminal, red taillights like fireflies began popping up in front of them. The cab slowed. The driver cursed. It seemed odd to encounter traffic this time of night.

  With a pudgy, freckled hand the driver gestured at a large white “Pardon Our Face-lift” sign.

  “Can you get us directly to the hotel?” Sydney asked.

  “Looks like the police got the hotel blocked off. Wonder what’s up with that?” the cab driver said.

  To their left, barricades blocked the road leading to the Hilton.

  Hunz opened his door. He threw money at the driver.

  “Let’s go,” he said to Sydney.

  The next thing Sydney knew, the two of them were running between rows of cars toward the white lights of the terminal. Because of open ditches and construction scaffolding the length of the loading zone, they had to stay in the roadway until they were parallel to the doors.

  To their left was the Hilton Hotel, attached to the terminal, its features bleached in the glare of police spotlights. The overhang on the terminal prevented them from seeing the hotel’s roof; neither could they see the street in front of the hotel.

  “We have to go down one floor,” Sydney said.

  Searching for a down escalator, they raced into the terminal, stepping over piles of luggage, brushing past people, sidestepping long lines in front of the ticket counters.

  Hunz spotted it first. Sydney had to quicken her pace to keep up to him.

  They raced down the escalator, across the terrazzo floor, past baggage carousels, and out the door, once again in the Chicago night.

  Playing cop, Hunz stiff-armed traffic to a halt as they crossed lines of traffic. They dashed under the elevated airport transit tracks just as a train whooshed over them.

  A policewoman met them. She was short and freckled, with orange-red hair tucked beneath her hat. “Sorry, folks. Hotel’s temporarily unavailable,” she said. “We got a situation here.”

  Sydney looked up at the situation. Billy Peppers was seated atop a ten-story building of glass with a convex facade. At the far right, it met the airport control tower. Billy was in the center, his legs dangling over the edge.

  “This is Sydney St. James,” Hunz said to the policewoman.

  “I’m Sydney St. James,” Sydney said, a half syllable behind him. She flashed her press pass.

  The name didn’t register with the policewoman. “Glad to meet you. Like I said, folks, I’m sorry but. . ”

  A short distance away, a man coiling cable overheard the exchange. He grabbed the arm of a woman nearby and said something. She swung Sydney’s direction. Barking orders, she quickly navigated an intercept course. Sydney recognized her. It was Chandra Smyth.

  By the time she reached Sydney, she had a microphone in hand, the area was awash in camera light, and she was asking her first question.

  “Miss St. James, what is your connection to William Peppers, the man on the ledge?”

  The swift approach of the camera crew took the policewoman by surprise. She obviously didn’t like the intrusion but didn’t know what to do about it. The lights and sudden movement caught the attention of another officer, a sergeant fifty feet away. He hurried toward them, scowling.

  The suddenness of the ambush caught Sydney off guard. She reacted like the proverbial deer in the headlights.

  Hunz stepped forward, putting his hand over the camera lens, a move that angered the cameraman. “Miss St. James has no comment at this time,” Hunz said, positioning himself between Sydney and Chandra Smyth.

  “What’s going on here?” said the approaching police sergeant.

  Sydney identified herself again.

  “Miss St. James, how did you get here so quickly?” Chandra Smyth shouted.

  The sergeant recognized Sydney’s name.

  “Come with me,” he said. With a forearm, he shoved Ms. Chandra and her microphone aside, earning for his efforts angry words of protest which he shrugged off as he led Sydney away. Hunz attempted to follow. The policewoman stopped him.

  “He’s with me,” Sydney said.

  The sergeant looked Hunz over. “Sorry,” he said.

  Sydney pulled up short. “I’m not going anywhere without him,” she said.

  “He your lawyer?” the sergeant asked.

  Sydney said nothing. Neither did she move.

  The sergeant took another look at Hunz. “All right,” he said, and motioned him through the police cordon.

  The sergeant led Sydney to a man in a gray suit. Short and stocky, he wore a no-nonsense facial expression as he stared up at the roof and Billy Peppers. Just as they reached him, he lifted a walkie-talkie and demanded an update.

  While they waited for Gray Suit to conclude his transmission, Sydney looked up at the roof. Billy sat on the ledge, his feet dangling, surveying the scene below. The CNN camera lights must have attracted his attention, because he was staring straight at Sydney.

  She imagined it wasn’t hard for him to spot her. After all, it was dark, there was no moon, and all the emergency workers were dressed in dark colors. Her blonde hair must have stood out like a struck match in a pitch-black forest.

  When he saw her, he smiled. A mouthful of white teeth were framed by black lips stretched wide. He stood up, a move that agitated the crowd below. Then he spread his arms wide, as though to greet Sydney with a hug, or invite her to join him on his precarious perch.

  A shiver shook Sydney, chilling her insides and draining her extremities of blood until they were ice cold. At that moment, a gust of wind arrived from Lake Michigan. It whipped the flags on two impressive poles in front of the hotel. Billy’s open shirt, the one on top of several layers of shirts, flapped happily with the flags.

  “What is it, Sergeant?” Finished with his conversation on the walkie-talkie, the man in the gray suit turned his attention to them.

  “This is Sydney St. James,” said the sergeant.

  Gray Suit looked her over with a critical eye. Purely professional. He was registering details, forming opinions, and filing away information in some file cabinet in his head. “Why you?” Gray Suit asked Sydney.

  “What do you mean, why me?”

  “What does he want from you?”

  Sydney said, “All I know is—”

  Hunz cut her off. “Exactly who is it we’re talking to?” he said. “Who are you and what is your position here?”

  Gray Suit scowled as though asking questions was his private domain and Hunz was trespassing. “You her lawyer?”

  “A fr
iend,” Hunz said.

  Gray Suit’s jaw ground back and forth. Sydney had heard of men who chewed people up and spat them out, and she’d always thought it was a figure of speech. To look at Gray Suit, she wasn’t so sure anymore.

  The sergeant jumped in. “This is Assistant Chief of Police Leonard Caplan,” he said. “He’s in charge of this whole shebang.”

  “Well?” Caplan barked. “Can we get on with it now?”

  “I don’t know why he chose me,” Sydney said.

  “You know him?”

  “I recognize him.”

  “From where?”

  “He watched us do a live broadcast in Pasadena.”

  “He watched you. You’re certain it’s the same man?”

  “Fairly certain. He was carrying a Nike shoe box that night too.”

  Caplan nodded as he chewed on this. “So after seeing you do a live broadcast, he thought it would be nice to invite you to a tea party on the roof of the Hotel Hilton in Chicago?”

  “He emailed me yesterday,” Sydney said. “He claimed he had information on Death Watch. We"—she gestured toward Hunz—“failed to connect with him. Then, when we did a little investigating, we discovered he lives on the street and volunteers at a rescue mission.”

  “In Chicago?”

  “In LA.”

  “What’s he doing in Chicago?”

  “You’ll have to ask him that.”

  “I don’t buy it. He asked for an LA reporter thirty minutes ago and now here you are?”

  “Coincidence. We’re here on a totally unrelated matter.”

  “You mean news story, don’t you?” Caplan ground his jaw. He spat on the ground. “I don’t like it. Not one bit.”

  He squared himself and stood inches away from Sydney.

  “This is some kind of media stunt, isn’t it? A rivalry between two television stations. Or maybe the payoff on a lost wager.”

  Sydney didn’t answer immediately. Guilty people tended to answer too quickly. She looked him dead in the eye. “We just brought a pregnant woman, a friend, from LA to Chicago so that she could deliver her child at home before she dies. Believe me, Assistant Chief Caplan, if I had any choice in this matter, I would be at her side right now, not here.”