[Anthology] Close to the Bones

by Martha Carr

  ‘What does that mean?’ Dr Ridzuan asked, frowning.

  ‘It means that we go with a lethal injection,’ Karim said. ‘But make it quick. He must not suffer any more than he already has.’

  About John Ling

  John Ling was born into an ethnic Chinese family, and he was raised as a Christian in Muslim-majority Malaysia. He now lives in New Zealand. His exotic cultural background, straddling East and West, informs his storytelling.

  He is the author of the Section One series, international spy thrillers that are perfect for fans of David Baldacci and Robert Ludlum.

  You can find out more about him and his work athttp://www.johnling.net

  Ten

  The Backpack

  By Ethan Jones

  Maybe my eye caught the way the little boy held his red backpack. It seemed quite heavy for a third-grader, and he was struggling to keep it on his tiny shoulders. Theo, my nephew, was also a third-grader and went to the same school, but his backpack was much lighter. I was easily holding it with one hand as we were crossing the street and heading to school.

  Maybe it was the look the boy gave to the two brown-skinned men in the black Mazda SUV in the school’s parking lot. He turned his head and waved. There was something in his blue eyes, more than just a simple sadness that he wasn’t going to see them for a few hours. It looked as if he was giving them a final goodbye.

  Or maybe I just have a keen eye and see things most other people miss or ignore. As a special operative with the Canadian Intelligence Service, I’ve been trained to always observe my surroundings, to see everything, and to take note of what’s important. And I just can’t turn myself off, even when I’m carrying out a simple task like taking my nephew to school on my way to work.

  “Uncle Justin, I’ll go on my own now.”

  I gazed at Theo’s serious face. He tried to take the backpack from my hand now that we were on the sidewalk, a short distance from the school’s entrance.

  I looked again at the SUV, then at the boy with the red backpack. He was now almost at the schoolyard, and had hurried his steps. “How about I take you to your classroom today?”

  Theo frowned and returned a look of surprise. “But why?”

  I shrugged. “I . . . I need to take care of something.”

  “Are you . . . will you talk to my homeroom teacher?” Theo slowed down.

  “Why, do I need to?”

  He shook his head, maybe a bit too quickly. “No, no reason.”

  “Does your mom talk to her?”

  “Yes, when the teacher calls for her, or sometimes when my mom drops me off.”

  I noticed the concern in his voice, so I tousled his black hair and said, “I’m not meeting your teacher today. It’s something else that hopefully won’t involve you at all.”

  I spoke the last words without much conviction. If the red backpack was full of explosives, then whatever the boy was doing was going to involve not only Theo, but everyone in the school.

  Theo shrugged. “Okay, Uncle.”

  “Let’s go then.” I quickened my pace.

  “I’m not late.”

  “Yes, but what I need to do may take some time.”

  I didn’t want to miss the boy with the backpack, although the loud color was easy to spot. The boy stopped to talk to a small group of friends, so I slowed down.

  Theo pulled on my hand. “Uncle, I thought we were in a rush.”

  “Eh, yeah, sure.”

  We continued through the schoolyard. I glanced in the direction of the boy, trying to be as discreet as possible. He was busy talking to his friends and was very animated, his hands moving like a windmill. I kept the Mazda SUV in my peripheral vision and turned my head only once to look in the other direction, so my gestures would not draw anyone’s suspicion.

  I tried to walk as slowly as I could without being too obvious to Theo. As we climbed the steps outside the school’s entrance, I glanced behind and to my left. The boy with the red backpack and his friends were making their way behind us, and they were about thirty yards away. That’s good. They’re catching up to us.

  Theo and I entered the hall. I kept the door open for a couple of students and a mom coming hand-in-hand with her daughter. Then I looked at the boy. He was coming toward us, but still too far away for me to determine the backpack’s content. I needed to take a closer look.

  “Uncle Justin, what are you looking at?”

  I turned at Theo. “Just being polite and holding the door open for the next person behind me.”

  Theo blinked rapidly. “You’ll be doing that for a long time. This is when all the students come in.”

  I smiled at him. “Only for one or two.” I glanced at the large painting on the wall, depicting a general riding his galloping horse. I knew all about General Rutherford and his role in the most crucial battle of the War of 1812. But I needed to buy some time. “Who’s that gentleman?” I pointed at the painting.

  Theo looked at the wall, then at me. “Some war hero from a looooong time ago.”

  “Do you know his name?”

  “Uncle, is this a test?” Theo pursed his lips.

  “No, but do you know the answer?”

  “Of course, I do. General Rutherford. The school is named after him.”

  I nodded. “It’s a large school. How many students?”

  “I don’t know. Hundreds. Thousands.”

  I doubted there were more than three hundred students at the school, but Theo was prone to exaggeration.

  “Okay.” I glanced again through the doors. The boy was now but a few steps away.

  “Uncle, let’s go now.”

  “Yes, one moment.”

  I crouched down pretending to fix my runners. I took my time and when I straightened up, the boy with the red backpack had just entered the hall.

  I had a good look at the backpack, but I couldn’t be sure there was a bomb inside or not. I need to take a close look, but Theo was already yanking at my hand. “This way, Uncle.” He pointed to the right, in the other direction from where the boy was headed.

  “No, let’s go this way.”

  “My classroom is not there.”

  “Yes, but I need to take care of something.”

  “Can’t you drop me off first?”

  “No. But this will not take long. Come on.”

  “But this will make me late.”

  “I’ll talk to your teacher if needed. Come on.”

  Theo shuffled his feet as I pulled him alongside. The boy was up ahead, maybe twelve steps away, among a sea of heads rushing through the hall. I tried to force my way through, without making my objective seem awkward or obvious.

  At some point, Theo let go of my hand.

  I turned and looked for him, but he had disappeared among the crowd. I shrugged and returned my gaze to the red backpack still a few yards ahead of me. I wasn’t worried about Theo. He would find me or his classroom later. And if my premonition was correct, the further away he stayed from the boy, the better it was.

  The boy stopped, and I sped up. I stood behind him and studied the backpack. It rested heavily on the boy’s narrow shoulders. The main compartment’s zipper was not completely closed. There was a sort of thin black wire poking out. It formed a small loop and disappeared inside the backpack.

  The wire could be connected to a pair of earphones or a computer battery or another innocent electronic device. But if my gut feeling was right, it was hooked up to something horrifically sinister.

  What if I were wrong?

  What if I were right and did nothing?

  I shook my head. The moment to intervene was now.

  I stepped forward and grabbed the backpack still resting on the boy’s shoulder.

  He swung around. “Hey, what you’re doing?”

  I tried to unzip the large pouch/compartment, but the zipper was stuck.

  “Let go. That’s mine,” the boy shouted.

  “Stop it,” one of his friends yelled.

&n
bsp; Another one kicked my right shin.

  A third one threw a punch to my side. It didn’t hurt, but it didn’t tickle either.

  I ignored the mob forming around me and tried to pry open the zipper.

  The boy unhooked it and tried to reach for one of the small pouches. I pushed his hand away, as gently as I could. I wasn’t sure what he was doing. He could be reaching for the bomb’s trigger, if there was a bomb inside the backpack.

  “Give it back,” the boy shouted.

  “Thief, thief,” a girl cried in a high-pitched voice.

  “Miss N., Miss N., there’s a perv here,” another boy cried.

  His shouts were repeated by other children.

  I shook my head and stuck my fingers inside the small opening. I pulled hard and heard the rip of the fabric. And what I saw inside confirmed my worst fears.

  “What’s going on here? What are you doing with this boy’s backpack?” said a stern woman’s voice.

  I looked up and saw the frowning face of a woman perhaps in her early sixties. I assumed she was the Miss. N. the children had been calling. She was glaring at me over her glasses, which had slid down to the tip of her long nose. “Call the police,” I said in as calm a voice as I could muster.

  “I was thinking of doing that. Now, return the backpack to—”

  “Listen, I don’t have time to waste. Call the police, right now, and firefighters. And where’s the gym?”

  The woman flinched. “What? Why?”

  “The gym! Where is it?” I shouted.

  She took a step back and cocked her head to the right. “There, that way.”

  “Thank you. And don’t let that boy go.” I pointed at the one who had been carrying the backpack.

  “Why? What did—”

  “Just listen. Don’t let him go anywhere.”

  I forced my way through the crowd, ignoring the kicks and the punches. It had been a while since I had been bullied in school. It was as unpleasant then as it was now.

  Once I had broken through most of the children, I dashed toward the gym. I had no idea if the two men sitting outside in the Mazda SUV were expecting the boy to detonate the explosive at a specific time. What if that time is now? They could remotely trigger this bomb. The explosives were connected to a cellphone, which could ring at any moment, closing the circuit and pulverizing a lot of innocent children.

  I sprinted toward the end of the hall, dodging children and staff. When I got there, I swung open the door and shouted at the top of my lungs, “Anyone here? You’ve got to get out! Get out, right now!”

  No one answered, and I saw no one in the large court. I glanced left and right and noticed the locker rooms to the far left. It was too early for little kids to start gym class, but perhaps one of the coaches might be getting ready.

  I repeated my shouts, but again there was no answer. I decided to get rid of the bomb first, then clear the locker rooms.

  In the movies, the hero cuts or pulls one of the wires while there are three or two seconds left on the bomb’s large red countdown display screen. But I’m no hero, and this was not a movie. I know one or two things about dismantling a bomb, but there was no time, and I had none of the tools necessary for the job.

  So, I bolted toward the furthermost end of the gym. I dashed inside the men’s bathroom, double-checked to make sure all the stalls were empty, then placed the backpack in one of the stalls. I closed the door, then, with some hesitation, called out and entered the women’s bathroom. Thankfully, that was empty as well.

  Back in the gym’s court, I heaved a sigh of relief. I wasn’t sure about the bomb’s explosives content. It was about ten pounds, and if that was C4, it would make for a gigantic explosion. A pound of C4 was sufficient to destroy a truck. If the explosives were Semtex, it would be much, much worse.

  I jogged toward the locker rooms and when I got there, I shouted, “Hello, anyone here, hello? You need to—”

  “Hey, what are you doing? Get out,” a woman’s voice shouted at me.

  I tried not to look at the blonde woman who had just dropped her towel and was using her hands to cover her modesty. “Ma’am, we . . . eh, you need to leave right away.”

  “Don’t look. Get out! I’m not going anywhere.”

  I turned around. “Eh, sorry, but we must go. There’s a bomb in the gym.”

  “A bomb? No one sounded the alarm.”

  I nodded. “Yes, that’s because they don’t know about it.”

  “And you do? Who are you, by—”

  Her words were cut off by a powerful explosion that shook the building. One of the lockers tipped over and fell to the ground with a loud thud. A large crack appeared in one of the walls by the door.

  I looked behind me. The woman had fallen to the floor. While we were talking, she had put on her pink shorts and a matching halter top. I stepped closer to her. “How are you?”

  “Oh, I . . . my arm,” she said in a weak voice.

  I glanced at her right arm. During the fall, she seemed to have twisted her wrist. “It will be okay. Now, let’s get out of here.”

  She tried to climb to her knees, but they buckled under her weight.

  I said, “Let me help you.” I put my arm around her waist and gently lifted her up.

  She hung onto me, perhaps a bit more closely than I would have liked, and took a few unsteady steps. “I can do this,” she said in as firm a voice as she could.

  “Good.”

  We made our way to the door as smoke began to seep into the locker rooms. Out in the gym, a veil of thinning dust and smoke was coming from the other end. A part of the roof had collapsed, and large sections of the walls were gone. Bright yellow flames were chewing through the flooring.

  “This way.” I guided the woman toward the doors.

  She shuffled her feet slowly and began to shake. “How . . . how did you know about the . . .”

  “That’s kind of my job. And you’re the gym teacher?”

  She nodded slowly.

  I smiled at her. Gym teachers were never this cute when I was a student.

  We reached the hall, and, as expected, there was pure pandemonium. Screaming children were rushing in all directions, while the staff tried in vain to control them. Fire drills always worked fine, but when the real thing hit, it took a lot of nerve to remain calm and do your job. These teachers were not trained to handle the aftermath of a bomb explosion.

  I drew near one of them, the closest one, who seemed as lost as a little child in a corn maze. “Teacher, do you have a car?”

  “Huh, what?”

  My words had obviously startled him. “A car, a vehicle, do you have one?”

  “Oh, yes, yes.”

  “What is it?”

  “What?”

  “The car, what brand is it?”

  “It’s, eh . . . it’s a Hummer.”

  I grinned. Of course. What the man lacked in temperament, he made up for in appearance. A Hummer was the best to go after the Mazda, if it came to a high-speed chase. I still didn’t know the two men’s intentions. They had sent the boy in, but what were they waiting for in the SUV? By now, they could have been long gone, zooming out of the parking lot right after the explosion. Or maybe they were wielding assault rifles and waiting for the children to come out and start firing at them. Even worse, the Mazda could have been rigged with explosives.

  That last thought must have darkened my face. My forehead wrinkled into a deep frown. I looked at the gym teacher, who was giving me a curious glance. Before I could say anything to her, the teacher said, “Stacy, with all this commotion and chaos, I didn’t notice you. How are you doing?”

  “All right, I guess. But who’s doing this?” Stacy looked at me.

  I shook my head and turned at the teacher. “Hand me the keys.”

  “What?”

  “The Hummer keys. I need them.”

  The teacher peered at me for a second, then flinched and looked in his pocket. The keys clinked as he passed them to
me with his trembling hand.

  I wanted to ask him to take care of Stacy, but it was obvious it was going to be the other way around. “I have to go,” I told them both. “But see the children to safety.”

  “Where are you going?” Stacy asked.

  “To put an end to this.” I waved my arms around and darted through the hall.

  “Thanks,” Stacy’s sharp voice came to my ears. “What’s . . . what’s your name?”

  “Hall, Justin Hall.”

  “Thanks, Justin.”

  I waved at her and sped up, avoiding the staff that was herding children out of classrooms and into the hall. They slowed me down, but also gave me a chance to take in the full picture. I wouldn’t want to miss it if the gunmen—I was operating under the premise that the two men in the Mazda were armed—had already entered the school.

  Thinking about their weapons brought another fateful thought to my mind. I was unarmed, but I wasn’t going to let such a minor detail stop me. I had been outnumbered and outgunned many times before. I had never been outcouraged.

  I reached the entrance to the school and flung open the doors. My eyes went to the place where I had seen the black Mazda SUV. It was just screeching its way out of the parking lot.

  I wasn’t sure why the two gunmen had been hanging around. Maybe it was to observe their work, or to make sure their mission was accomplished. Little did they know that no one had gotten hurt.

  But that was about to change.

  I pressed a button on the teacher’s keychain. The Hummer’s alarm shrieked. The vehicle was on the other side of the parking lot, about fifty yards away.

  Before I could dash toward the Hummer, I heard Theo calling me. “Uncle Justin, where are you going?”

  His weak, worried voice stopped me in my tracks. I glanced at him huddling next to his friends and one of the teachers. I drew closer to him, then crouched so I would be at eye level. “Theo, I’ll come back soon. Stay with your teacher and help her get all the students to safety. Got it?”

  Theo gave me a puzzled look. “I heard the bomb. Are people . . . are you okay?”