Warning Signs

by Stephen White

  She protested into her gag, hoping to create enough noise to alert Alan to what was going on.

  He said, "You know, you're cute."

  She said, "Fuck you."

  He shook his head dismissively, as though he might have actually understood her mumbles.

  He started the engine and pulled back onto the street, retracing his route down Blake, crossing Broadway, and heading right back into the heart of LoDo.

  CHAPTER 54

  I don't think I hear anything, Sam. Maybe some background noise, but I'm not sure. Is there someplace more quiet we could go?"

  Rivera led us into the main entrance of the ballpark, near the ticket turnstiles. We were away from the street noise, but I still couldn't make out much on the phone. In my other ear, I heard Rivera tell Sam that the explosion had been right upstairs in the ball club's office suite.

  Again, I said, "I don't hear anything."

  Sam said, "Give it to me."

  I handed him the phone and the attached recorder.

  He listened for ten seconds and shook his head. Finally, he said, "Wait, wait. Maybe a voice in the background. Everything's muted. I wonder if she's losing her battery."

  He turned to Rivera. He had a phone to his ear, too. Sam asked, "Can we trace this? Triangulate it?"

  "They're trying. The technology's tough apparently. But they're trying. I hope this call doesn't die."

  A young woman wearing a bomb squad windbreaker walked toward us and waited until she had Rivera's attention before she said, "Detectives feel confident that the device was under the woman's desk. Or maybe in her desk, in a drawer or something. But she was definitely the target."

  Rivera said, "The woman in accounting?"

  The young cop nodded. "And we don't think there's a secondary. We did a quick search along with the Rockies people."

  "You don't think there's a secondary?"

  She grinned just the slightest bit. "That's right. In case you haven't noticed, this is a very big building. Your people can go inside anytime. Detective said to remind you that we're handling the detonation investigation."

  Rivera said, "I know. We're merely looking for a terrorist who's holding a cop hostage. I'll stay out of your way." They were interrupted by a young black woman who didn't seem to appreciate Rivera's tone. I couldn't hear what she told him but his reply was clear: "What did you say? Dear Jesus."

  Sam asked, "What's going on?"

  Rivera answered, "The bomb threat at East High School? They just found a device. He wasn't kidding."

  Columbine images flooded my consciousness. Everyone's.

  Sam was shaking his head slowly. "I'm picking up a siren. Rivera, you recognize it?"

  Rivera took the phone from Sam and covered the microphone with his fingers. He closed his eyes as though he were appreciating some good jazz. "I'd say it's the fire department, but I'm not sure. I wonder how fast we can find out where they have trucks running with sirens right now. Shouldn't be that hard to do."

  Sam narrowed his eyes and said, "Damn," under his breath. I followed him as he hustled outside onto the wide sidewalk in front of the stadium. He fixed his eyes to the left. A big pumper, lights flashing, siren blaring, was two blocks away, approaching down Blake from the east. He turned to me. "They're here, Alan. I can smell them. Ramp and Lucy. They're right around here."

  The truck killed its siren and glided to a stop a hundred feet away. Rivera walked outside to join us. Bomb squad personnel were running past us and jumping into their vehicles to respond to the fresh threat at East High School.

  Sam said, "The siren stopped, didn't it?"

  Rivera nodded.

  Sam pointed at the electric-green pumper. The dirty-yellow-suited firefighters clustered around it, tugging at equipment. Sam said, "That was the truck, Rivera. They're right around here. Damn."

  Rivera gave Sam the phone. Immediately, he handed it to me, ordering, "Tell me if you hear anything important."

  Sam stared at the streets while he huddled with Rivera. I shuffled close to the building to mute as much traffic noise as I could.

  As I listened hard to the tiny speaker at my ear, there were moments when I was convinced that I could hear faint voices, other moments when I was sure that I was hearing nothing more than the desperate pulses of my hope. The whole time, I watched the traffic funneling down the viaduct from I-25 and the traffic being diverted from Blake Street up to Market and Larimer. Did I expect to see Lucy waving to me from the passenger seat of a passing car?

  Not really.

  But if she was waving, I wanted to be watching. That was the nature of my hope's persistence.

  CHAPTER 55

  R amp slowed as a cop waved him away from Blake Street, then he followed the detour up Twenty-second to Larimer, before turning back down Twentieth all the way to Wynkoop.

  A little over ten years before, Wynkoop Street had been ground zero for the rejuvenation of Denver's old warehouse district into the trendy center now called LoDo. The very first renovations in the decrepit section of Denver that bordered the railroad tracks of the Santa Fe and the Union Pacific had been in the brick warehouses that faced Denver's 120-year-old Union Station. The arrival of Coors Field in the mid-1990s had cemented the reincarnation, and the new LoDo was crowded with vibrant businesses, overpriced lofts, and the kind of sidewalk bustle that the Chamber of Commerce coveted.

  After turning left onto Wynkoop, Ramp passed one of the most recent renovations, the stately old Beatrice Foods Ice House, and turned into the drive that led to the front entrance of Union Station. The neoclassical railroad hub consisted of a huge stone building that was constructed between the two original 1881 wings after a 1914 fire. From her position on the floor of the truck, Lucy could clearly see the trio of huge arched windows that graced the lobby, and the garish neon "Travel by Train" sign high above the building's stone cornice.

  She screamed "No!" into her gag.

  Ramp turned up the radio in response to her protest, before pulling the truck to a stop on the far left side of the entrance drive. He reached down to the floor in front of his seat and lifted yet another transmitter. The device was bright yellow. "This one's from a model boat. Decent range," he said for Lucy's benefit. "Listen carefully, you might be able to hear it go off. Maybe not-the walls of this place are really thick. You should feel something in your bones, though. Try."

  He lowered the volume on the radio. Lucy screamed again.

  He looked askance at her. "You want to know who it is?" Ramp asked.

  Lucy nodded vociferously.

  "A photographer. She has her studio in there. She's the wife of the guy who was head of the parole board when the guy who killed my mom got out of prison."

  Lucy's eyes softened and Ramp pressed straight ahead on a lever on the plastic console.

  She heard a muted thud that felt like nothing more to her than an extra heartbeat.

  Ramp raised an eyebrow as two huge double-hung windows burst outward on the upper floor of the train station and said, "That's it. The cake is baked. All that's left now is the frosting."

  I heard some music in my ear. Not clearly enough that I could recognize the artist or the song, but clearly enough to know that the phone call was still alive. I ran over to Sam and Rivera. "I hear music."

  Sam said, "That's it? Just music?"

  "Yeah. Maybe some voices in the background. I'm not sure."

  He turned back to Rivera.

  "And I heard a little pop. A little boom."

  "An explosion?" Rivera asked.

  I said, "I don't know."

  "Give me that thing," he said.

  I did. Rivera turned his back, pressed the phone against one ear, and stuck an index finger into the other one.

  Two bomb squad members came flying out the front door of the Rockies' offices. "Another explosion. This one's at Union Station," one of them said as he passed by. He directed the words at Rivera's back.

  Sam said, "What did he say?"

  "He
said there was just an explosion at Union Station."

  Sam grabbed my arm. "Shit. How far away is that?"

  "Maybe three blocks."

  He released my arm and tapped Rivera on the shoulder. Rivera lowered the phone and took the finger out of his ear. "I don't hear shit," he reported.

  Sam pointed at the activity at the curb. "A bomb just went off at Union Station."

  The Denver cop shook his head. In disbelief? Disgust? I couldn't tell. He said, "Union Station? Not East High School? Are you sure?"

  "That's what they said."

  "How bad is it?"

  Sam shrugged. His face was the color of the winter sky.

  Rivera pointed to a brown sedan at the curb. "That's mine. Let's go."

  R amp exited the drive in front of Union Station and pulled the truck across Wynkoop and then straight down Seventeenth past the Oxford Hotel into Denver's downtown business district. After a few blocks, the wail of sirens began to echo in the canyons between the blunt faces of Denver's skyscrapers. Seventeenth was a one-way street leading away from Union Station, and Ramp's truck was unimpeded by approaching emergency vehicles as it headed toward Broadway.

  While he waited for a light to change, he lifted his windbreaker and threw it behind the seat of the truck. He fumbled for some coins on the console. "I'll need some quarters for the parking meter. Don't want to draw any attention prematurely this morning."

  Lucy prayed that he wouldn't see the red light that glowed on her phone. To her, it looked as bright as a streetlight on a dark night. She screamed again to distract him.

  He looked at her. "What?"

  She screamed again. She was trying to say, "Take this off! Take this off!" She kicked at the floor.

  The light changed. He said, "I'll take it off in a minute. We're almost at our next stop."

  She pounded the console with her closed fists.

  He raised his wrist, displaying the transmitter that was taped to his arm. "I said wait."

  F rom the backseat of Rivera's car, I said, "Voices. Sam, I hear voices."

  Sam spun on his seat.

  I held up my finger, asking for quiet.

  "The guy just said, 'What?' Then there were a couple of muffled screams."

  Rivera stared at me in the rearview mirror.

  "Now the guy said, 'Wait a second. I'll take it off in a minute. We're almost at our next stop.' And then another muffled scream, and… and some pounding.

  "Wait. It's him talking again. He said, 'I said wait.' " I continued to listen intently. "Silence now, Sam. Just background noise."

  I looked up. We'd pulled to a stop in front of Union Station. Uniformed cops were directing pedestrians and traffic away from the building. By now I knew the drill. The bomb squad would be evacuating the building prior to beginning a search for secondary devices. I couldn't shake the feeling that we were a step behind Ramp and that that was exactly where he wanted us to be.

  Rivera ordered me to "Stay put and keep listening." He got out of the car and huddled in front of the train station entrance with a black man in a brown sport coat. Sam nodded his head in their direction. "The guy with Rivera? That's Walter. My friend Walter." For the first time all morning, Sam smiled.

  I said, "The one whose name isn't really Walter?"

  "Yeah, that Walter."

  He pointed at the phone. "Anything?"

  I mouthed, "No."

  Sam said, "We're wasting our time here. Going from bomb to bomb after they go off isn't going to get us where we need to be."

  "I was thinking the same thing." I raised one index finger. "They're talking again. I think I hear Lucy, Sam. I do. She's still alive."

  He exhaled as though he'd been holding his breath for most of the morning. "What'd she say? Give me that thing."

  CHAPTER 56

  R amp stayed southbound on Broadway until he was just past Fourteenth. He pulled to a stop by the curb opposite the plaza of the block-long complex housing the Colorado History Museum and the Judicial Heritage Center. He hopped out of the cab, fed the parking meter, and jumped right back in.

  He stared at Lucy for a few seconds before he reached down and lowered her gag to her chin.

  "Stop," she pleaded. "Please, stop. No more bombs, Ramp."

  He smiled an ingratiating smile. "Don't worry. This is the last stop. This is where the day ends. If all goes well here, you'll be free."

  She couldn't tell where they were parked. The landmarks she could see weren't familiar to her. He placed a nylon windshield screen across the inside of the windshield and pushed a piece of cardboard against the glass of the window above her seat.

  "Where are we?"

  He chuckled. "We're at the principal's office."

  She was amazed at Ramp's calm demeanor. He was like a kid confident that he was about to ace a test. It was as though he already had all the answers.

  She said, "What does that mean?"

  "One of the many mistakes that Klebold and Harris made is that they failed to target the boss man. They went randomly after kids, and they didn't seem to care who they killed as long as they killed someone. That's unproductive rage. That's not my style. I've identified specific targets, deserving targets. And the final target on my list is the principal, the one who is ultimately responsible for the culture that took my mother from me."

  "You're not even in school. Who's the principal? I don't get it."

  "My problem is with the judicial system, right? Who makes those rules? Who's the boss?"

  He was playing with her. "I don't know-the governor?" Were they parked outside the governor's mansion? From her position on the floor she couldn't tell where they were.

  "Wrong. The head of the judiciary in this state is the Colorado Supreme Court. For me, that's the equivalent of the principal's office. That's where it all begins and that's where it will end."

  "You're going to kill the Supreme Court justices?"

  He reached down between his legs to the floor on the seat in front of him. "I know I won't get them all. But I should be able to get a few."

  She had trouble grasping his threat. Kill the justices? "Wouldn't you have to kill all the legislators? They make the laws. They write the sentencing statutes."

  "No, no. It's too late to change. It's going to be the justices." His hand held a thick roll of duct tape. "I don't trust you not to interfere. I need a few minutes to get set up, and I can't risk you doing anything to draw attention."

  She said, "I'll be good. I will."

  "Sorry."

  Ramp reached down below his seat one more time and came up with a neat package wrapped in brown paper. The package was about the size and shape of a roll of paper towels that had been sliced in half lengthwise. A loop of insulated wire emerged from the package and a slender antenna extended up from the top about three inches.

  "What is that?" Lucy demanded. She already knew what it was. She just didn't know what Ramp planned to do with it.

  He leaned across the console and placed the flat side of the package against her upper abdomen and chest, pressing down hard, separating her breasts. With economical motions, he affixed the package in place with duct tape, concluding with three quick bands of tape all the way around her back.

  He raised his wrist, displaying the switch that was taped to his arm. With a magician's flourish, he reached behind the switch and touched something. A tiny red light began to glow on the plastic case, a light so small Lucy hadn't even noticed it before.

  She knew that he'd just armed the damn thing. And she knew that it hadn't been armed until then.

  She mumbled, "Shaped charge?"

  "Again?" he said.

  "Shaped charge," she repeated. It was no longer a question.

  He smiled. "Yes, Lucy. A shaped charge. The energy of the blast is largely directed at your spinal column. But don't worry about paralysis. Before the blast ever gets to your spinal cord, it will liquefy your heart and lungs."

  He saw a new level of fear spread across her eyes. It seemed
to kill something healthy as it swelled, like a plague.

  "I'll be in the back of the truck for a few minutes, getting ready. I'll be able to see you through the rear window the whole time. Do you understand?"

  She nodded enthusiastically.

  "You get off the floor, you're dead. You try to speak to anyone or get their attention, you're dead. Do you understand me?"

  His voice told Lucy that he didn't want to kill her. Not that he wasn't willing to. Only that he didn't want to.

  Ramp's eyes moved from Lucy's and rested briefly on the console. She felt certain he could see the status of the cell phone.

  He moved his face to within a foot of hers. "Let me tell you something else, okay?" With an awkward motion, he sat back and crossed his left leg over his right knee, exposing the bottom of his hiking boot to Lucy. He pointed a finger at a tiny silver button taped to the sole of the shoe. "See that?"

  A thin wire snaked through the treads. The wire was taped to the side of the boot and disappeared under Ramp's trousers.

  She nodded. She saw it.

  He uncrossed his legs, planting his left foot firmly on the floor of the truck. "It's a pressure switch. A dead-man switch. As long as I have weight on the switch, the circuit's closed. If I don't have weight on the switch for ten seconds, the circuit opens. When the circuit opens, the device on your chest will explode. If the police shoot me before I'm done, and I fall over, you will die ten seconds later. You won't believe how long those ten seconds will last, Lucy. It'll be a whole lifetime."

  Involuntarily, she glanced at the cell phone. She regretted the act as soon as she did it.

  Without hesitation, he lifted the phone to his face. "You guys get that? I hope so. Now pay attention to this, too. There are a series of explosive devices hidden in the chambers and courtrooms of the Colorado Supreme Court. The staircases and the elevators are wired. So are the fire exits. I want everyone in the building to get ready to come out through the front doors. You have ten minutes to get everyone organized. But no one leaves until I say so. The justices will come out last. I want them in their robes. No switches. I know exactly what they look like. Got it? Good."