Eric then slowly moved back to the maintenance room and kept watch through the partly closed door. Meanwhile, Ken set one of the remote controls on a workbench and plugged it into to the receptacle amongst the tools hanging on the wall. Ken then joined his brother who was keeping watch through the gate. The brothers slipped on the overcoats and hats and skulked behind the large blue garbage bin, flies buzzing around their ears.
Eric moved closer to his brother. “There’re two patrol cars going around the block.”
“You’re sure there are two.”
“For sure, different unit numbers. I don’t see anybody stationed on this side…just a sec.” Eric pointed towards a vehicle pulling up to the curb half a block down from the building. Two large men were in the front seat. The sun reflected on the lenses of the binoculars of the man in the passenger seat. Thirty seconds later a marked police car containing three officers joined the unmarked sedan.
The brothers dipped well behind the large red garbage container.
“Okay, Eric, I’ll get the first van going.” He handed Eric the second remote. Keep a close eye on those two and any other police that show up.”
“Right.” Eric, now sweating profusely as he imagined a life behind bars in a prison, peeked between the garbage bins at the cars down the streets.
Ken opened the door of the maintenance room and looked down the rows of vehicles in the garage. The areas between the vans and the gates were clear. He held out the remote control for the garage door and pressed the button. The door opened in front of the van carrying the explosives. After a quick look to confirm no other vehicles were heading towards the exit Ken closed the maintenance room door and went to the remote on the workbench. He adjusted the screen to reduce the glare from the bare light bulb on the ceiling and turned the dial controlling the acceleration. The van drove out the garage door and up the angled driveway. Through the screen Ken saw two more sedans and a SWAT van parked one block from the building. He increased the accelerator and the van sped towards the van.
The policemen standing behind the SWAT van turned as the vehicle approached them. One of the policemen dashed out in front of the SWAT van and put up his arm. The van Ken controlled continued to accelerate. At the last second the agile policeman jumped to his left, tumbling over the hood of a police car as Ken’s minivan plowed into the SWAT van. Ken hit the igniter button and the bomb exploded. The heavy SWAT van jumped into the air, landing on four of the policemen standing behind it. The flames from the burning minivan engulfed four other policemen, including the one who tried to stop it. The two nearby police cars caught fire. The officer behind the wheel of one car was instantly incinerated, the driver of the other was able to get out. She ran across the sidewalk covered in flames. Two other policemen pushed her down onto the grass and rolled her around. Her face was charred, her eyes closed. Ken grinned, no chance that one would survive.
Eric peeked out from behind the garbage bins. The marked police car sped towards the explosion, the dark sedan remained. “One has left, Ken.”
“Right, lets open door number two. We better move quickly.”
The police scanner on the workbench was buzzing. The police were talking over each other on all of the channels. More units were headed towards the side of the building where the fire raged.
Eric glanced out the door again. No cars or people were approaching the other garage entrance. He gave Ken the thumbs up. Ken reached out the door and glanced towards the garage entrance at the far end of the building. No vehicles moved. Ken pressed the other garage door remote control and the large door squeaked as it opened. He went to the other remote control and turned up the accelerator. The van moved out the door and up the inclined entrance. It continued across the street and accelerated.
“Suspects spotted in blue minivan headed north. Repeat, two tall men are driving north on 104 Street,” said an officer over the police scanner.
From inside the maintenance room the brothers could hear sirens blaring and tires squealing.
Eric took another glance and saw the other police car speed towards 104th Street. “All clear, it’s now or never, brother.”
Ken carried the remote, steering as he walked. “Guide me, Eric. I’ll keep them occupied as long as I can. But first make sure it is totally clear.”
Eric took a breath and stood up. He glanced up and down the street. “All clear.” Eric grabbed Ken’s arm and led him across the street and along the tree-lined avenue. People were standing outside their houses. Eric guided Ken down a back lane and away from the gathering crowds. Only a barking dog greeted them as they walked down the lane.
The minivan controlled by Ken sped down 104th Street at a high rate of speed. Police two blocks up from the speeding van jumped out of their cars and threw nail belts across the road.
“Right on time, assholes.” Ken turned the dial to maximum and the van picked up speed. With the increased speed and limited visibility Ken was having difficulty controlling the vehicle. It jumped onto the sidewalk and headed towards the cement wall of an office building.
“It’s show time.” Ken pressed the igniter button on the remote just as the van was about to hit the wall, making sure it exploded and hopefully delaying the police discovering that the driver and passenger were not real.
By this time the Clellend brothers, who were several blocks away from the building, felt the explosion. Ken threw the remote control and miniature monitor into a street-side garbage container.
The police and fire department surrounded the burning van. Thorpe, Collins, and forty other policemen milled around while the firemen extinguished the flames. One fireman hurried to the group of detectives milling around inside the yellow tape encircling the burning vehicle and charred building and handed something about the size of a bowling ball to a policeman. The fireman returned to the smoldering van while the detectives inspected the partially melted plastic head, the blond hair curled and melted from the heat of the explosion.
“Christ,” said Thorpe as he inspected the head. “These guys are good.”
Thorpe turned to a sergeant standing beside him. “Barry, get statements from everybody in that building and have the entire building and grounds checked.”
“I’m on it.”
“Barry…I mean the whole building and grounds.”
“Right,” responded the sergeant.
The police scoured the building. Thorpe and Collins worked with the identification team in the brothers’ apartment. After prying open the safe they found the book listing the targets of the brothers.
“They had a book on both of us. It was just the luck of the draw they killed our partners and not us,” said Collins.
“Well, this place has only been lived in for a short time. It’s so damn clean. Like it’s right off the showroom floor. There isn’t one personal object in the place. No pictures. Nothing. It’s basically a large hotel room,” responded Thorpe.
Reports on the dozens of interviews done in and around the building and the evidence bags from the teams of investigators that went through every square inch of the complex and grounds piled up in a large room in the basement of police headquarters. After finishing at the apartment, Thorpe and Collins settled into the basement room with a large pot of coffee. The police had done a thorough job interviewing other residents, they managed to contact everyone, except those who were out of town.
Collins checked through the items found in and around the complex. The clear plastic bags contained everything from keys to coins to cigarette butts.
Thorpe turned his attention to the interviews of the neighbours. All of them found the two men polite and said they kept to themselves. There were contradictions, as some witnesses said the brothers spoke with an English accent, while others maintained it was Spanish. Come claimed they hadn’t noticed an accent at all. An interview from an elderly lady in the condominium two stories below them said she never met them, but knew that one of them smoked and had an annoying habit of throwing the butts of
cigars over the edge of the balcony. She reported that most landed on the grass below, but one fell on her balcony while she was out there. She was friends with the people in the condo above hers and knew they didn’t smoke. They had the same concerns about the upstairs neighbour. One final remark from that interview caught Collins’ attention. The lady said the cigars were coarsely made with a very dark wrapping. It struck her as odd because her husband smoked cigars and she had never seen one like that.
Collins remembered seeing a couple of the butts in the bags of things collected from the grass. He pulled on latex gloves and opened the bag. With tweezers he removed the thick hand-made cigars, held it up to his nose and smelled. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Thorpe put down the report he was reading and walked over to Collins and looked at the odd cigar. “What the hell is that?”
“If I’m right, it’s a good lead.”
Collins pulled the other two bags containing similar evidence. “Can we get these analyzed, a.s.a.p?”
“It’s done.” Thorpe waved over another detective and had him run the remains of the cigar to the lab.
* * *
Ken and Eric walked the eight blocks to a hotel near the hospital. Eric gave Ken one of the cotton bags he was carrying. Ken went into the hotel to a public washroom. He took off the overcoat and hung it on a coat hook on the door. Straightening the hospital uniform, he put his hospital identification in the side pocket, and walked out of the hotel and into a coffeehouse full of hospital workers. Eric continued on down the street and turned down a back lane. He took off his overcoat and stuffed it under some empty boxes behind a row of businesses. Eric slipped the hospital identification badges into his breast pocket and continued to the hospital. Ten minutes later Ken’s phone rang.
“Hello.”
“All set?”
“You bet, you?”
“Ready to go. Let’s synchronize our watches again.”
“Eric, we just did that an hour ago.”
“Cut me some slack, will you. I’m nervous as hell.”
“Okay, Eric, relax. I have twelve-thirty-two and thirty seconds on the mark.”
“Confirmed. I’ll head out. Wait for the signal.”
“Okay, I’m a block away from my mark, so I’ll head there now. ETA ten minutes.”
“All right. This better work, Ken.”
Eric slipped the cell in his pants pocket, picked up the bag, and walked down the busy street. He passed dozens of hospital workers, noon hour was the lunch break for some employees, and also a shift change. The beehive of activity made it easy for both Eric and Ken to avoid suspicion from the endless number of police cars prowling the streets. It also allowed Eric to comfortably walk into the front door of the hospital and take the stairs to the basement. At the bottom of the staircase Eric disposed of the large bag under the stairs. His mind flashed back to the stairwell in Toronto. It seemed like a lifetime ago. It was actually dozens of lives. He cringed at the thought as he clipped on the identification badge, picked up the cardboard box containing the smoke bomb and opened the heavy steel door. The pharmacy was on the south end of the lower floor. Eric turned north and searched for a place to put the bomb. He found a cardboard recycling bin in a maintenance room. After checking he was alone he opened the top of the bin and laid the smoke bomb and detonator under two pieces of cardboard. After shoving a thick piece of cardboard in under the lid to keep the bin open he left the maintenance room and went down the concrete hallway, nodding at those he passed. The halls were cold and poorly lit.
Why do they stick the pharmacy in the bowels of the building? Eric wondered as he worked his way through the labyrinth of corridors.
Perhaps for security. Eric grinned.
As he took a right hand turn the pharmacy sign appeared at the far end of the hall. He slowed his pace and looked left and right at each door, searching for a place to hide. A short distance down the hall he spied a door with a window. The room was dark but the door was unlocked. Eric’s body shook as he entered the morgue and sat down on a bench on the wall to the left of the door, hidden from anyone passing by. Across the room were three stainless steel tables and a wall full of large drawers. He wondered how many more drawers would be filled in the next couple hours.
Panic struck Eric as he realized the room would be buzzing with activity very soon. He pulled a sandwich and orange juice out of his pocket, but stuffed them back in his pocket and left the room. Next to the morgue was an electrical room. Eric ducked inside and sat on a stool in the corner. He laid the orange juice and sandwich on his lap so he could tell anyone who might come in the room he had a hangover and was looking for some peace and quiet to eat his lunch. A little levity always made a lie more believable.
Ken’s hospital shoes pinched a little, but he ignored it. He picked up the bag and cellphone and walked down the busy street.
As he turned the corner and walked towards the hospital he came upon the same sea of hospital workers.. The large glass doors greeted Ken as he carried the cotton bag under his left arm and entered the hospital. He turned down a passage near the emergency area. At the end of a maze of hallways Ken pushed his way through a set of metal doors which brought him to the administrative area of the hospital. The area was shared by a variety of offices and am employee cafeteria. At the far end, a small hallway led to a staircase. Here Ken ducked into the shadows, removed the three boxes from the bag, and threw the bag in a nearby waste can. From there he carried the boxes in a pile with the labels facing out as he searched for an empty office to drop off the first box.
Around the next corner a security officer, walking with an authoritative swagger came straight towards him. The heavyset man stared at Ken and put up a hand to stop him. Keeping one hand up to stop Ken from proceeding, the guard pulled out the ID badge and clipped it onto Ken’s pocket.
“I see you have your hands full. We don’t want you dropping those boxes now, do we? Let me guess. You went for lunch and forgot to put it on.”
“Exactly. Thanks.”
“Just doing my job.”
The security officer marched down the hall, Ken continued on his way with the three incendiary bombs in hand.
Around the next corner he found a storage room filled with cafeteria supplies. He placed a firebomb behind some boxes marked “powdered coffee whitener.” As he continued down the long corridor he neared the other end of the hospital. There was a laboratory under renovation, wood and other building material scattered around the room. Ken looked left and right. The place was empty. He slipped into the room and placed the second bomb behind some sheets of plywood. Looking out the large laboratory windows, Ken decided the hospital annex across the parking lot would be a great place for the third fire. The exit to the building was just outside the door of the laboratory, conveniently held open with a wedge of wood, no doubt to allow the contractors to bring in material. Ken weaved his way through the cars in the parking lot and boldly walked in the front door of the hospital annex. He headed straight to the room at the end of the hall marked “Medical Library.”
These books should keep the fire going.
After placing the last firebomb between two large stacks of medical journals Ken left the building without incident and went to a two-story café across the street from the hospital, well within sight of the exit Eric planned to use. He ordered a double espresso and took a seat on the upper level where he would get a better view when the game started. As he stirred his coffee with one hand he pulled out his phone and dialed Eric’s number with the other.
In the electrical room Eric felt his phone vibrate, Ken’s signal. He checked to make sure the call was from Ken’s number. His pulse increased dramatically as he cancelled the call and pressed speed-dial twenty. The phone in the box at the other end of the building rang once. The small electrical charge signaled the homemade detonator, igniting the smoke bomb. Within ten seconds alarms were sounding throughout the hospital and people streamed towards the exits. Eric opened the ele
ctrical room door a crack. A man and a woman came out of the pharmacy and looked up and down the hallway. They ran towards the fire exit and up the stairs to safety. Eric again glanced both ways, he estimated the smoke would reach the pharmacy in forty-five seconds. Since the staircase used by the pharmacists was right next to the pharmacy, Eric was confident he could get out before the smoke reached the pharmacy. He would have to work fast. Touching his side pocket he felt the small, heavy-duty pry bar. Eric rushed out the door and across the hall into the pharmacy. The room was empty. On the counter sat half-filled prescriptions, powders, liquids, and computers. The bright white cabinets were alphabetized for the convenience of the pharmacists, and any thieves that stopped by looking for a specific medicine. Eric found the cabinet marked “anesthetics” and on the third shelf was a container of Talsitropomium bromide. Eric slipped the bottle into his pants pocket. On the way to the door Eric spotted a small sink and some towels hanging on the wall. The smoke was at the pharmacy door so Eric grabbed a towel and soaked it in water. He held it to his face and pulled out the cellphone. He dialed Ken’s number. In the café across the street sipping his espresso, Ken answered the call.
“Everything okay?”
“Fine. Just want to make sure none of the bombs you planted were near the pharmacy before we put on the show.”
“No, brother, you’re clear.”
Rough Business Page 8
