9 More Killer Thrillers

by Russell Blake

  CHAPTER 54

  Bloomington, Minnesota.

  I hadn’t had to wait more than five minutes before Bull’s red Jeep Cherokee pulled into the spot next to my grey Pilot on the third level of the Mall of America’s East Parking Ramp. Had it not been for cell phone communications, there was no way Bull could have found me so quickly among the ramp’s more than six thousand parking spaces. And there were another six thousand spots in the West Ramp . . . not to mention thousands more in paved lots on the Mall’s north and south sides.

  Every single time I come to this place I am astounded by its immensity. Four million square feet of inside space – big enough to fit seven Yankee Stadiums. More than twelve thousand people report to work here every day. Thousands of Japanese tourists make the direct flight from Tokyo to Minnesota each week just to shop – and take pictures – in this mammoth monument to consumerism.

  I’d never purchased anything at MOA myself, save the occasional beverage or hot sandwich. Oh, and the fried cheese curds were good, too. Beth bought a few items here from time to time. We enjoyed the people watching, but normally preferred less jostling in our shopping experience.

  Bull departed his Jeep and climbed into my passenger front seat.

  Bull’s another thing that’s really big. I rolled down his window to give him some elbow room.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “It looks like we’re on our own here, Bull,” I said. “The FBI is convinced the action will be over at Southdale.”

  “Hmm,” he said.

  “I want you and me to talk our approach to this thing through before we head inside. But before we do, I gotta know, what’s going on with that guy from Iowa?”

  “He’s moving today, too,” Bull said.

  I was surprised . . . maybe dismayed was more accurate. I would have thought someone might’ve let me know.

  “Thanks for the early heads up,” I said.

  “You were busy,” Bull said. “Chief Deputy’s got it covered.”

  “Gunner?” I said. I knew Gunner was perfectly capable of apprehending the POI and preventing the bio-attack, but wondered whether he had enough info to fully appreciate the situation.

  “Does he understand that this is really important?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Bull said.

  “How did you explain it to him without going above his security clearance?” I asked. “He might think that some guy trying to sicken a cow isn’t a very big deal.”

  “I told him he’d be sorry and he’d better not eff it up.” Bull seemed satisfied. He was a professional. Who was I to second guess? Besides, I couldn’t be two places at once.

  “All right,” I said, turning to the challenge at hand. “How do you figure the two of us should best tackle just under a hundred acres of target?”

  “Not ideal,” Bull said. “Probably we should split up.”

  “You think so?” Sarcasm.

  He turned to face me.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I think so. You go right and I go left. We work top to bottom.”

  That made sense . . . as much sense, at least, as the two of us undertaking this entire endeavor on our own. The term “fool’s errand” came to mind.

  A ricin attack would spread the farthest, and do the most damage, if it could detonate high and filter down like fog. Having nothing better to go on, we would start at the top and work our way down.

  Bull opened the door to get out.

  “Hey,” I said. “You got any bio supplies?”

  “Nope. I was supposed to be eatin’ donuts in Ames today. Remember?”

  I unzipped my backpack and handed Bull a pair of latex gloves, a 3M fabric mask, and a couple heavy-weight black garbage bags. He scrutinized my bio supplies. He knew as well as I that they would afford little real protection from a ricin attack.

  “Good to go,” he said. And off he went.

  “You see anything interesting in there,” I yelled after him, “you call me.” It felt like I’d been saying that a lot lately.

  CHAPTER 55

  Suburban Minneapolis, Minnesota.

  Mrs. Cho had chosen her spot and planted the ricin where she hoped it wouldn’t be disturbed – or if it were disturbed, where it would likely disperse regardless. It wasn’t the sheer number of victims that mattered so much as the shock and fear that would result from a successful terror attack in the supposedly safe environment of a Midwestern shopping mall. And from the fact that the United States government – if perhaps not the citizens – would know this attack was a personal message from Pyongyang.

  After placing the ricin, Mrs. Cho drifted toward the down escalator, examining women’s clothing in a store window as she walked. She nearly paused to admire the latest fashion boots from Milan, but managed to stay on course, downward toward ground level, and then . . . with a little luck, to a life of luxury and privilege to be lived in some warmer clime.

  As she rode the escalator between floors, she scanned the mall’s interior, alert for anyone who might pose a threat. At one point she noticed two men who caused her concern. They were leaning against a railing on the top floor, searching the courtyard and the open walkways below. Plain clothes police?

  Moments later she breathed a sigh of relief when the men were joined by wives and children. There were others here to be watched though. She would remain vigilant.

  Transferring the Louis Vuitton bag onto her other shoulder, she kept walking and watching until, after what seemed an eternity, the exit doors lay before her.

  CHAPTER 56

  Red Wing, Minnesota.

  Ottawa County Chief Deputy Gunderson retrieved his utility belt and side arm from a lower desk drawer and had begun strapping them on when there was a rap on his door frame.

  “I need a moment, Gunderson.”

  Gunner recognized the voice and looked up to see the Sheriff leaning against the jam. Gunner finished buckling the belt and settled it on his hips.

  “Sure thing, Boss. What can I do for you?”

  “My cousin Genevieve’s place was vandalized last night,” the Sheriff said. “She’s in my office right now.”

  “Man, that sucks,” Gunner said. “Is that the cousin who lives out in Flower Valley?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact.”

  “What sort of damage are we talking here, Sheriff?”

  “I’d like you to come chat with her yourself. I told her I’d put my best man on it right away.” The Sheriff gave Gunner a “come along” wave and disappeared from the doorway.

  Gunner knew small town politics when he saw it. The office of Sheriff was an elected position in Ottawa County. When you held the title, everybody expected a favor. Gunner had no choice but to play along. He would try to make this quick.

  * * *

  Forty-five minutes later, Gunner emerged from the sheriff’s private office ready to spit bullets.

  “Kyle,” Gunner said to the first deputy he saw, “you’re with me. Grab your belt and let’s go.”

  “Yessir,” the young deputy said, with a salute.

  “C’mon. Let’s go. Right now. Tout de suite.”

  Kyle stumbled a little as he scrambled into the armory to retrieve his side arm. But he was quick about it, and the two deputies were soon in Gunner’s cruiser, sirens wailing and light bar in full bloom.

  “Where we headed, Chief?” Kyle asked, one hand braced on the dash.

  “Zumbrota,” Gunner said. “Central Livestock. I’ve got good reason to believe somebody’s hell bent on mayhem down there right now as we speak.”

  “Whattya want me to do when we get there?” Kyle wasn’t familiar with protocols for livestock mayhem.

  Gunner wasn’t either. He had to think on his feet, something law enforcement officers prefer not to do if they can avoid it.

  “Just stay behind me and cover my ass,” he said finally.

  Kyle could tell by the Chief Deputy’s tone that he wasn’t in a mood for conversation, so he opted for a simple, “Gotcha.”

/>   As centerline markers flashed to the left, and corn fields slipped by to the right, Gunner checked his watch. Damn! Time was up, at least according Bull’s estimate, and he was still ten minutes out.

  Damn, damn, damn!

  CHAPTER 57

  Zumbrota, Minnesota.

  Kent Evans steered the green Subaru into the gravel drive at the Central Livestock Auction Barn and selected an open space at the rear of the grassy parking area. He consulted the dashboard clock. He’d made good time and had more than twenty minutes before the beef auction started.

  He shoved the gearshift into Park and shut off the engine.

  The place was alive with the characteristic sounds of the livestock marketplace – the mwaarrs and murrs of cattle jostling in crowded pens, the eerie shrieks and squeals of pigs as handlers guided them in directions they did not care to go. And in the background, the low rumble of diesel truck engines from behind the sales barn, keeping their cabs cool as they awaited their living cargo of fattened beef or market hogs, bound for slaughterhouses and feed lots across the region.

  The noises convinced Kent that he had, indeed, come to the right place – a place where his viral threat would be unleashed into the endless stream of livestock commerce, with no chance of government cover-ups before the truth could be known.

  He had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, to the point where he needed to ignite a true epidemic to save his family from financial ruin. But the limited release he had attempted at Rodney Holton’s farm hadn’t produced the desired effect. He’d succeeded in infecting the cattle, of that he was now certain – the barn fire and loss of the herd could not be coincidental. Yet news of the ancient viral scourge of livestock returning to United States soil hadn’t gotten out.

  The news would certainly spread this time, as would the disease. Any trepidation Kent might have felt at unleashing this epidemic on American agriculture was silenced by the vision of his pending success – the millions of doses of FMD vaccine he would sell to producers determined to protect their herds from this new threat . . . and the piles of cash those sales would earn for him.

  And that was no exaggeration . . . cattlemen would buy his vaccines by the pallet and truckload as soon as word of the outbreak hit the livestock reports. There would be no more struggling to keep creditors at bay, no more scrimping to put food on his family’s table. This plan would transform Kent Evans from failure to millionaire overnight.

  The Valium had done its job, too. The panic he had experienced earlier had been replaced by anticipation. His plan would certainly work this time. He had no doubt.

  He snapped open the clasps on his leather briefcase, removed the container of warm, virus-laden liquid, and trickled it into the new water pistol until it was full.

  CHAPTER 58

  Bloomington, Minnesota.

  I followed Bull from the East Ramp, through the Mall of America entrance, and to the escalators that would take us to the top floor – which was Level Four in this part of the mall.

  “Do you have any hot ideas as to what, exactly, we’re looking for?” I asked Bull as we took the escalator steps upward, adding our earnest stride to the escalator’s leisurely clip.

  Bull looked over his shoulder at me.

  “White powder,” he whispered. “Probably where we don’t expect to find it.”

  It wasn’t exactly the insight I had hoped for.

  “Now, quit asking stupid questions.”

  That was more like it.

  Bull was right, as usual. An accomplished terrorist would place the ricin delivery system – whatever form that might take – in a location where no one would expect to find it. Still, there were a few classic terror tactics that were not available in a biological attack, and could therefore be ruled out.

  For instance, it was impossible to disperse the ricin using a pressure cooker bomb like the ones the attackers had used in the Boston Marathon bombing. The heat and pressure generated by that sort of device would kill the biologic, reducing the attack to a simple bombing – not to say that a terror bombing wasn’t significant by itself, but a terrorist in possession of ricin wasn’t about to kill it off with a bomb.

  Abandoned backpacks and zippered purses were not likely suspects either. It would be difficult to open such parcels remotely in the absence of a substantial explosion, which would, as in the case of the pressure cooker bomb, risk damage to the ricin. Briefcases or hard shell luggage were a different matter, since the hasps on both could be unlatched with a small explosive charge, or even a spring timer.

  Finally, if I were to attempt a terror attack with a substance that floats through the air and could be carried via ventilation systems, I wouldn’t place it on the floor. Even if I had a mechanism to launch the ricin into the air from ground level, doing so wouldn’t be as effective as a foolproof drop from above. No doubt, this was also the reason Bull had wanted to “start at the top and work down.”

  When we reached the landing on Level Four East – referred to by Mall promoters as The Upper East Side in an attempt to attract a social crowd to this level’s concentration of restaurants, night clubs, and movie screens – Bull split off to the south, toward the theater. I remained at the top of the escalators surveying the scene.

  Ten steps to one side stood a glass wall topped by a brushed steel railing and overlooking the mall’s seven-acre indoor amusement park. I walked over to take a closer look.

  The park, presently known as Nickelodeon Universe, was alive with noise and movement. The tops of several attractions, including the Ferris wheel and the roller coaster, were at my eye level. You could empty a lunch bag of ricin from any one of those rides while it was at its apex and kill scores – maybe hundreds – of mostly children below.

  Three things made me think the park wouldn’t be today’s target, though. First of all, escaping from a crime committed while at the top of a Ferris wheel, or in the midst of a coaster ride, was a dicey proposition at best, for obvious reasons. Secondly, even if escape from the ride was possible, all exit routes would lead through areas that had already be contaminated with the deadly powder. And finally, I didn’t think North Korea would target children. After all, this attack was a geopolitical power play, an attempt to gain recognition, not to descend further into ignominy. No. An attack on children would not serve Pyongyang’s interests. I hoped North Korea’s mercurial Supreme Leader knew that much, at least.

  I turned to assess the rest of the Level Four landing.

  There were fast food joints on both sides of me now. I supposed that made sense. Kids could grab a bite while the sights of the amusement park kept them entertained. I walked forward, toward the stack of escalators that had brought me here.

  Three steps the other side of the escalator put me at the edge of a four story atrium, extending all the way up from Mall Level One.

  I looked upward.

  It wasn’t hard to envision a cloud of ricin billowing down from the skylight above, its tendrils wafting outward as it moved through the air currents at each level, leaving a dusty white residue on everything it touched, and death in its wake.

  There were four such atria at the mall, I knew. But because the mall only had a fourth level on this easterly side, the atrium before me was the tallest on the property, and therefore, the most desirable for a ricin cloud. In addition, the East atrium was the largest, and frequently hosted gatherings for concerts, events, or special displays on its lowest level. I could hear the echo of loudspeakers emanating from below even now, indicating that one such event was currently in progress.

  My eyes traced over the mall patrons sitting on the benches beside the atrium’s metal and glass railing. If the attacker was still present in the mall, I just might find her on the atrium perimeter.

  Nearest me, in front of a candy store, a young black woman was unwrapping an enormous rainbow lollipop for her excited pre-school daughter. On the next bench, an oriental man wearing black pants and a white dress shirt reclined, his arms spread across the b
ack of the bench and his eyes closed. A large black camera bag rested on the bench beside him.

  On the far side of the open space a young couple struggled to entertain their active two year old – who appeared to be more than a match for them. Judging by the bouquet of helium balloons tied to the railing, it must have been the boy’s birthday.

  On the final occupied bench, located at my nine o’clock, sat a middle aged man with dark hair. He was small and thin. I couldn’t tell his race because he faced away from me, but I found it odd that he held a large Louis Vuitton bag tightly under his near arm. The purse itself didn’t worry me, but the fact that a man was holding it warranted further investigation. Or was it even a man? I couldn’t be certain from my location.

  Keeping an eye on the subject, I maneuvered around the escalators for a better look. He now sat at an angle on the bench, with one arm across the back rest, facing away from me again. His posture protected the large purse.

  I could feel my heart begin to beat faster and I willed it back in line. Adrenaline could be a useful tool for the warrior, but it had to be managed, directed. If allowed to run free, fight or flight hormones could lead to rash actions.

  As I stood there observing the POI, I reached in my front pants pocket, fingering the miniature 9 mm I had brought along for protection. I would have been more comfortable with the .40 caliber Beretta that served as my usual side arm, but MOA forbade even licensed personnel such as myself from possessing a gun on the premises. The Beretta was too large to hide without a sport coat, and the last thing I needed was some rent-a-cop attempting to escort me from the premises – which was all they had the right to do under Minnesota’s gun laws.

  The tiny Glock nine was a decent gun at close range, but it simply didn’t have the stopping power of the Beretta – something that might be crucial if the POI made a provocative gesture, like trying to dump ricin powder out of that Louis Vuitton bag and into the open air of the atrium. Despite what Hollywood might depict, gunshot victims don’t normally topple over after a single bullet. It can take four or five or even twenty shots to stop a determined aggressor, especially using a small package like a 9 mm. I hoped the gun wouldn’t be necessary, but I was prepared to use it if required.