by Hinze, Vicki
“He wants the pleasure of your company, too, though I doubt you’ll be as gently treated.” Linda tilted her head. “Actually, I’d bet on that.”
Too? “So that’s where Judy Meyer is. Kunz has her.”
“That’s right.” Linda smirked. “You thought she was dead.”
Oh, God. Poor Judy probably wished she was dead. Hell, she likely was praying for it. Kunz was a sadistic son of a bitch, a monster, and she was facing him as a novice without any training whatsoever to help her endure it. “What could he possibly want with Judy?”
“I didn’t ask,” Linda said. “But he did like her an awful lot.”
Surprise streaked up Maggie’s back. “They met?”
“Oh, yes. About a year ago.” Linda let out a little giggle. “When he was here, he and Judy spent a lot of time together.”
Maggie couldn’t believe it. Kunz had been this close. This damn close, and the S.A.S.S. had no idea. “Are you saying Thomas Kunz has a romantic interest in Judy?”
“Most definitely,” Linda said, a purr in her voice. “But not in you. And from all I hear, that’s not good news for you. Actually, I’m told he quite hates you.”
Maggie’s insides curdled. Every awful, horrifying image she’d ever seen of Kunz’s victims flashed through her mind in vivid color—mostly red from blood—and she went weak all over. He’d be even more vicious with her.
“You look ill, Maggie.” Linda baited her. “I suppose you’ve heard stories about him, too. He did say I should tell you that there’s been nothing personal in his actions.”
Nothing personal? Kunz was a bastard who loved torture and hated S.A.S.S. operatives. If he got his hands on her, it’d be very personal. He hated all of S.A.S.S. as much as he hated Special Forces. No way was Maggie going to become his prisoner. She’d die first—after she disarmed Linda and stopped the attack.
“You’ve done all this dirty work for Thomas Kunz.” Maggie couldn’t wrap her mind around it. But Linda’s reasoning certainly hadn’t been a romantic interest, not with what she had said about him and Judy Meyer.
Linda nodded, gleeful and clearly aware of his reputation. “Oh, I was absolutely happy to do it—and would gladly have done more.”
Appalled, Maggie asked, “Why? How can you kill innocent people just for the sake of killing them?”
“These people mean less than nothing to me. They’re strangers.” She grunted. “Why should I care what happens to them? They don’t care about me. None of them care a thing about me.” Her face twisted in the shadow from the flashlight. “They come in here day after day and abuse things. They steal and complain and they’re never satisfied. No matter how hard you try, or what you do for them, it’s never enough. They’re all takers. Every damn one of them. Takers and users, and I’m sick of them.”
“For God’s sake, they’re human beings, Linda. They have lives and families and they care about things just like you.” She stiffened her shoulders. “Takers and users—ones who have money and use it to do whatever they want.” Her eyes narrowed. “I hate the people who shop here.”
Did she realize how crazy she sounded? “If you feel this way, then why didn’t you just quit?”
“And do what?” she asked. “This is what I know.”
“But this is just a business. One that provides goods and services to customers. That’s what your job is. You’re paid to listen to them complain and to deal with their abuses. You chose it, Linda, and when they come here and spend their money, they pay for the service you give them.”
“Shut up. Just shut up. You don’t understand.”
“Well, explain it to me, then.”
Linda hesitated, her jaw clamped tight. “Never. Not once in my whole life, have I had money. Not for what I need, much less for what I want. For anything I want. For a second, I thought you might understand, but you don’t. You have to live poor to get it. Making do, doing without. So just shut up!” Linda tossed her a cloth. “Cover your nose and mouth—and don’t bother trying to fake it. I’ll know, and I’ll shoot you.”
She wouldn’t kill her. Kunz had ordered Linda to bring Maggie to him. Maggie caught the cloth and felt a little spray come halfway up her arm. It was soaked, all right. Chloroform. Taking advantage of the poor lighting, she pressed her hand to her nose and mouth, kept it between her face and the rag, then held her breath.
Linda stood and stared at her, the gun barrel wavering, just waiting for Maggie to fall.
Maggie had to breathe. When her pulse thrummed in her temples and her chest ached for air, she crumpled to the floor, letting the cloth fall loose from her hand.
Linda waited a long moment, then cautiously approached Maggie, picked up the rag, and stooped to cover her face and mouth with it, clearly wanting to take no chances that Maggie wasn’t out, or that she came around before Linda wanted.
Maggie didn’t breathe. She lay still as long as she could, giving Linda time to relax and get comfortable—and hopefully, complacent. Finally, Linda let out whistling breath.
That was the signal Maggie had awaited. She reared and attacked, shoving the gun from Linda’s hand. In a flurry of punches, jabs and kicks, Maggie gained control and kept it.
Squaring off, she landed a solid blow to Linda’s jaw, swept at her knees and knocked her off her feet. Sprawled on the concrete, she moaned and didn’t move.
Breathing hard and heavy, more from nerves than exertion, Maggie jerked her handcuffs from her center back belt loop, dropped her knee to the small of Linda’s back and jerked her arms behind her, then locked the cuffs on her wrists.
Blowing calming breaths, Maggie retrieved her gun and the working flashlight off the floor, then pulled Linda to her feet. “Let’s go.” Maggie pushed her toward the short-stack door and followed her out into the thoroughfare.
“You’re too late, Maggie.” Linda laughed. “The fire will make the sprinklers go on automatically and the water will hit the pit. It’ll take a little longer to release an impressive amount of DR-27 than it would have if aided by the fire hose, but it will happen.”
“In your dreams, bitch.” Maggie shoved at Linda’s shoulder.
The Level Three thoroughfare was now deserted. Maggie looked around, but saw no one. She handcuffed Linda to a stabilizer pole that went through all three floors. The only way it was coming out was if the damn building went down. “Darcy?”
Still no answer. She pulled out her earpiece and saw the wire was severed. Well, that explained it.
She grabbed the walkie-talkie. The problem had to be in the damn batteries. Nothing else made sense. Who was closest? Maybe still around? An image of Donald Freeman, his pride in his round, in her trust of him, filled her mind. “Hey, Freeman, do you hear me?”
“Yeah, Maggie.”
Relief washed through her, head to toe. “Get your ass to Level Three, now!”
“I’m on Three, guarding the round. Where do you want me?”
Guarding the round? With a fire burning on Level One below him. God love his dedicated heart. “At the short-stack door. Hurry.” She had to get downstairs, get those sprinklers locked down.
Donald came from around the corner in a dead run. “I’m here. I’m here.”
“Can you contact Will?”
“Hadn’t tried.”
“Try.”
He pulled his walkie-talkie. “Will?”
But only static came back. It wasn’t the batteries. It was certain channels.
Maggie shoved her gun into Freeman’s hand. “She’s the enemy.” Maggie pointed to Linda Diel. “If she moves, shoot to kill.”
“Shoot to kill? Linda?” Stark shock registered on his face. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. Linda is most definitely the enemy,” Maggie repeated. “Can you shoot her, Donald? I need to know, and I need to know now.”
“She did all this to us.” Anger replaced his shock. “Hell, yes, I can shoot her.”
“Good. You release her only to the FBI. No one else. Got it
?”
He nodded, and Maggie turned and ran toward the escalator, then rode and ran down the steps, shoving past people still heading down. Cutting the corner, she headed down from Level Two to Center Court.
“Justin!” She shouted above the screaming, scurrying, push of people cramming the exits and backed up into Center Court. Everything was logjammed—and some were trapped with no way out of the snow. “Justin!”
Hearing her, he swiveled around, searching faces, looking for her. “Maggie?”
“Two o’clock!” she told him, now that he’d honed in on her voice.
He saw her, started toward her.
“It’s in the snow. Tell Darcy, it’s in the snow!”
Justin repeated what she’d told him. She saw it from his lip movements, and heard Darcy confirm it a moment later in a message she delivered over the PA system.
It boomed through the half-empty mall. “Get out of the snow. Everyone immediately get out of the snow and exit the building.”
Maggie wound through throngs of people and met up with Justin. “My earpiece died. No communications. Tell Darcy that Kunz’s primary point person is Linda Diel. I’ve got her handcuffed to a pole up on Level Three. Donald Freeman is guarding her at gunpoint under orders to shoot to kill. Get the FBI up there. The DR-27 virus is—”
“In the snow!” Justin said, running for the nearest store.
Maggie followed. “Where the hell are you going?”
“Plastic bags,” he answered, speaking not to her but to a startled clerk. “Give me the biggest ones you’ve got, and all the little ones.”
Maggie grabbed them by the armfuls, passing instructions through him to relay. Darcy had visual but audio was out. She needed verifications.
“Kate, Amanda, Mark—keep the water off the snow.
Darcy,” he repeated all Maggie had told him and then added, “did you lock down the sprinklers?”
“There’s a fire,” Darcy said. “I can’t shut them down.”
“Can’t Will manually lock them down?” Justin asked.
“Water breaks the capsules and releases the virus, Darcy.
We’ve got to stop any water from hitting that pit.”
Darcy relayed to Maggie through Justin. “Barone’s key is lost and someone stole Will’s.”
“It wasn’t on Linda,” Maggie said. “Consider the keys gone and go to backup protocol. Darcy, shut off all the water to the facility.”
Justin shifted a huge load of plastic bags to his left arm, pulled out his earpiece and stuck it in Maggie’s ear. “I’ve got to get these shields on the kids in the pit.” He ran with the bags out of the store and into Center Court.
Carrying more, Maggie headed for the other side, telling everyone she saw to get out of the building. People were panicked. Shoving. Screaming. Crying. Dropping packages and dragging bellowing, terrified kids.
“Maggie, the main shutoff is outside and only the water department—”
“Get them on it, then,” Maggie interrupted Darcy. “Now.” She looked down the corridor toward Men’s Row. The smoke was gathering, growing thick. The sprinklers could go on at any time. Guessing, they had five to seven minutes. “Talk to the fire department, too. Maybe they have emergency access.”
“Will do.”
Maggie tripped over a fallen woman well into her sixties. She bent to help her up, then told her to leave right away.
“But I need to exchange—”
“The damn building’s on fire,” Maggie said, losing it. “Get out!”
“Well, all right, then.” The woman left in a huff, swinging her handbag and muttering.
Maggie found Justin down on his knees, showing a small group how to fashion waterproof vests out of the bags. She dumped the extra bags at his feet.
She straightened and pulled a quick visual assessment. People poured out through the exit, but there were so many more yet to go. “Darcy, run that directive to have people exit away from Center Court nonstop, until the stampede thins out, and then get some medical staff outside the other exits to check those injured coming out.”
A man was swinging his cane, clearing a path. Justin spotted him, had words with him, and the guy took a swing at him. Catching the cane midair, Justin snatched it and tossed it up onto the empty stage.
About twenty people went down like a row of dominoes. He and Mark headed in that direction to help get folks moving again.
Maggie looked at the sprinkler heads above her, at the wall of smoke pushing toward Center Court. Thank God the fire was still small. It would activate the sprinklers—she checked her watch—in less than five minutes. Five minutes, and there were still thousands to get out of the building. The fire and water departments were working on cutting water to the building, but if they didn’t make it…
“Justin,” Maggie called. “We’ve got to stop the sprinklers.” She pointed to the heads circling the pit.
Justin looked down the thoroughfare, estimated when the sprinklers would engage. “We’ve got less than three minutes. No one can shut down the water main before they engage. We need a miracle.”
The pit was empty on the back end. The front end was jammed with an overflow of people trying to get out through the exit. Spotting the Happy Holidays banner, Maggie yanked it down. “Grab that end of the sign, Justin.”
He caught on to what she was doing. “Amanda, Kate, Mark, get the other banners. Tarp the people on this side of the exit. The pit, too, if we can extend that far.”
Justin and Maggie stretched the banner above the heads of those trying to get out the door. Those farthest away were making vests of the plastic bags, using the small bags to cover their shoes. Justin’s idea had caught on and now the panicked people waiting to get out were fashioning their own vests and shoe covers, taking action. Special Forces members darted in and out of the stores; rounding up more bags and helping those farthest from the exits get covered.
The smoke inched closer and closer. It was at Macy’s, creeping into the far edges of Center Court. A minute at most and it would cover them.
Maggie gave Justin the earpiece back and then grabbed a food court chair, positioned it on the far right of the exit and stepped up on it. Justin did the same on the left side of the exit doors, and they held the plastic banner stretched above the shoppers’ heads. “Go, go, go.” Maggie rushed the people out. Covering the pit wouldn’t prevent the problems. The shoppers had snow clinging to their clothes. They were contaminated. “Go, go, go!” She looked down. The smoke was curling at her feet. “Oh, God, hurry!”
People poured out of the building. Shoved, trying to get under the tarp. They had no idea why it was important, but reacting to the panic, they innately knew that being under its cover was critical to them.
“Justin,” Maggie shouted across to him. “Tell Darcy to get the HAZMAT crews working outside to decontaminate them as they come out.”
He nodded, then relayed, paused and then shouted back to Maggie. “They’re working it, Maggie.”
Good. Good.
Amanda and Mark stretched a second banner behind the first, copied Justin and Maggie, extending the tarp further back, into the pit.
And Kate and Will stretched a third behind the second.
“Justin, what about the sprinklers?”
“Will couldn’t override the system, that’s why he’s now with Kate. If he had shut the system down without the key, all the sprinklers throughout the entire facility would have engaged. It’s an added safety measure. Fire and water departments are working it from the water main outside.”
God, they were going to be too late. And there was still a third of the people in the pit that weren’t under tarps.
In the crush of people getting out, several teams of Special Forces broke ranks, picking up on what Maggie and the others were doing. In short order, they ripped down more of the huge plastic banners and filled in behind Kate and Will.
The smoke thickened, crept up to Maggie’s waist in roiling whirls. At least they
didn’t have to worry about flames reaching the people. But the smoke was choking some farthest from the exit.
Her arms aching, her shoulders throbbing, she looked back. The entire pit was covered by tarps. Everyone was under the flags. A knot of gratitude and relief swelled in her throat. Her nose tingled, her eyes burned and tears blurred her vision.
The sprinkler heads came to life.
Water sprayed down, splattering on the marble in the thoroughfares, misting the outer edges of the tarps.
“Get away from the edges!” Maggie shouted. “Get away from the edges!”
The crowd began to chant it to each other and the warning worked its way through them as they huddled toward the center, still pouring out the exit doors.
Panic seized the shoppers. Frantic, they started to stampede, trying to get outside. More Special Forces members lined the way, directed and kept them from trampling anyone and further choking up the exits. Firemen and police intercepted the shoppers on the other side of the doors, shuffled them to the medical staff set up in huge numbers in the parking lot. Once injected with antidote, HAZMAT team members put the shoppers through decontamination chambers.
Maggie watched it all happening above the heads of those exiting through the glass doors. She scanned hungrily, anxiously, praying that no one would die, that the water and fire departments would shut off the water at the main soon, that the makeshift flag-tarps would hold until the last person was out. If the water touched the snow, melted it, the encapsulated DR-27 virus would be released and the two-minute window for administering antidote would trigger.
The mist was gathering at the edges of the tarp.
Fifteen seconds later Darcy sounded the extreme-hazard alarm.
It blared through the mall, piercing ears, setting them to aching. Panic tripled. Shoppers shoved at each other, at the exit door, screaming, swearing, pushing, punching, crying, keening, and Maggie stood helpless. All she could do was stand with her aching arms extended, the smoke burning her eyes, holding the flag above their heads.
And then the sprinklers suddenly stopped.
“Water department got to the main,” Kate shouted.
