He wouldn't let her do that to him.
"Wait! Sir! Don't go in there!" She made a grab for his shoulder but he eluded her and raced down the center hallway. "Chet!" he screamed, beside himself with fear.
Two uniformed policemen had just raced out the door to the basement and were running through the passage toward the back of the house. One of them turned in his tracks. "I've got him," he said, and started to approach Richard. The other continued to dart away, flying through the swinging door that led to the kitchen. Before it swung shut again, Richard could see that the cop was out the rear entrance.
"Where's he going? What's happened?" cried Richard as the officer who'd remained behind motioned palms downward, the way he would attempt to settle a wild dog. "Calm down, sir. Come on out to the street with me—"
"Where's Chet?"
"Just let's go outside, Dr. Steele," the man added, reaching for Richard.
"Where is he!" Richard shoved him aside, only to be grabbed from behind by the policewoman he'd initially evaded and the young cop who'd accompanied him.
"Sir, stop it!" she yelled. "We haven't found him yet. Are you sure he's here?"
"You mean that bastard took him?"
"We don't know anything yet. We've looked upstairs and are searching the basement, but so far there's no sign he's even been here. Are there any cubbyholes, attic access, storage areas that we might have missed?"
Richard's thinking seemed frozen solid. "No, I don't think so."
"Your son may have come and gone," she continued. "Why don't you phone the school and see if he went back there. Now are you going to behave?"
"But that maniac may have kidnapped him—"
"First check the school," she cut in.
Richard nodded, and the arms around him immediately released their grip. In two strides he made it to the phone sitting on a little table by the front entrance, willing to clutch at any pretense not to think the worst. Please, oh, God, please let him be safe, he prayed as he dialed. But as he listened to the ring, he knew this was just another cop trick, a way to manage him while they continued to search for what they already knew to be inevitable— that Chet was dead. The howl of an approaching ambulance vibrated up and down the length of his spine.
"Yes, it's Dr. Steele calling from home. My son doesn't seem to be here." He forced himself to sound calm, as if treating Chefs absence as something with an innocent explanation would change the reality, would prevent the nightmare. "Has he showed up back at school, by any chance?" But his voice cracked, and it was all he could do to keep from sobbing.
"No, Dr. Steele, he's not here," the principal said.
Richard couldn't remember his name, only that he was bald, wore large wire-rimmed spectacles, and seemed prone to making overly long speeches at parent-teacher nights.
"But we'll call you, Dr. Steele, the second he turns up."
"Yes please, the second he arrives. And thank you—"
Richard went absolutely still. His blood turned to ice water.
Hanging on a coat rack in front of him was a battered knapsack, the one in which Chet carried his books. "Oh, my God, no!" he murmured and dropped the phone.
"Dr. Steele? Dr. Steele!" the principal's voice called from the receiver somewhere near the floor.
"He's been here," Richard said. He grabbed the bag off the hook and tore it open."This is his. It's all his school stuff. He never would have gone back without taking everything here with him."
The woman cop's radio crackled to life. "Captain, get down here fast."
"You found him?"
"Yeah, and we need help. He's stuffed in a coal chute."
"No!" Richard screamed, and he bolted for the stairs.
A chorus of shouts broke out behind him.
"Wait!"
"Stop!"
"Hold it!"
He beat them to the landing and raced down. The normal coolness had a damp bite to it and the familiar musty smell seemed even stronger than usual. He started for the end of the unfinished room where a huddle of policemen were gathered in a semicircle using flashlights to peer up a two-foot opening in the middle of a brick wall. It had been there when Richard bought the house, a remnant that predated electric heating. Apart from padlocking the outside door and shoving a wad of insulation up it, he'd paid it no mind. Now it gaped at him, menacing as a massive bullet hole, the black orifice filling his vision as he approached. He saw the mouths of the policemen moving but didn't hear their words. He barely even sensed their hands pawing at him as he barged through. He felt as if he were running underwater, impeded, struggling to reach what the police looked at.
He plunged up the dark cavity, his arms outstretched the way he might surface from the depths of a pool. Sounds of someone hammering on the far end of the metal tube reverberated around him.
His hands closed around a pair of stockinged feet.
"Chet!" he sobbed. "My poor little Chet."
The soles all at once pressed down against his palms, frantically but firmly delivering a quick succession of beats. A flurry of muffled, urgent moaning noises filled the chamber. From behind him he began to hear the cries of what the police had been trying to tell him.
"He's alive!"
"As far as we can tell he's okay."
"But we want to check him from the other end of the chute first, before pulling him out."
With a loud clang, the distant metal cover sprung partially open, and a flood of light cascaded into the tiny space.
"He's gagged," yelled one of the men who had opened the hatch.
The tearing noise, the sound of tape being stripped filled the air.
"Don't move me!" Chet cried, his voice stretched taut and high with terror. "He said I'm attached to a bomb that goes off if I even budge."
Voices erupted from everywhere.
"Jesus!"
"Get the explosives squad."
"Do you see anything?"Richard, already whiplashed from absolute despair to incredulous relief, plummeted back into free fall. "Chet, we're going to get you out," he managed to say, the words sounding as hollow as his hopes.
"Dad! Don't move me."
"No, we won't, we won't, not until we're sure it's safe."
"We don't see anything up here," yelled one of the men above. "No wires, no device, nothing. Just a little pile of goddamn sticks."
Cold dread gripped Richard's chest, then a pair of hands was on his back pulling him out. "Sir, I have to take a look," said the young cop, his manner as polite as ever, but his firm touch brooking no resistance. "Chet, my name's Ted Mallory," he called loudly, "and I'm coming in, just to feel around your legs and trunk. Did he stick something in your clothing? Or did you feel him shove in anything else after he jammed you up there?"
"He tied my hands to a pipe, then told me if I moved, I'd blow up."
"Are your hands behind your back?" Mallory asked as he slid up below Chet, checking every inch of the way with a bright but small flashlight. "Yeah, and they hurt. My ankles, too."
"Okay, that's me you feel at your feet. Hope you're not ticklish."
"No," said Chet, his voice a shade lower. Mallory's chatter was having a calming effect.
"Good, because I don't want a foot in the face."
Richard felt someone slip up behind and take him by the elbow. "You better come outside," whispered the policewoman.
Richard only then realized the rest of the cops were no longer in the room. "No. I stay here!"
She swallowed, nodded, and gave him a wan smile. "I understand." She left quickly then.
As he turned back to watch Mallory, Richard had a new appreciation of the cop's courage. The man could have waited until the bomb squad arrived. Instead he stood with the upper half of his body enclosed in what could be a torpedo tube primed to go off any second, and soothed a frightened teenager. "Now, Chet, there doesn't seem to be anything by your legs," he said, his voice sounding piped-in. "I'm going to cut the tape around your ankles, but don't move."
Ri
chard saw him reach down and take a small exacto knife from his utility belt. "There, does that feel better?" he heard Mallory ask after a few seconds.
"I'll say."
"Now let me try and get your wrists. Doctor Steele, can you find me a box or something to stand on? About a foot high ought to do it." Mallory sounded as casual as if he was fixing the furnace.
Richard got him what he needed.
After a few seconds more, Mallory said, "Now I'm at your hands— oh, shit!"
Richard stopped breathing.
"What's happening?" cried Chet, his voice shooting into the upper registers again.
"Nothing," said Mallory with the same phony all is well smoothness that Richard adopted when a case was going from bad to worse in a hurry. "It's just that the guy taped a pipe to your wrists, probably to twist them tighter. I'll have it off in a second, but I need something better to cut it free."
He ducked out of the chute and led Richard a few feet away. "If that's what I think it is, we have to get him out of here now."
"But—"
"I haven't time to explain— except I'm pretty sure I know who's doing this. I haven't a clue why they'd be after you, but if I'm right, that's a pipe bomb. It'll have the works from an automatic car lock attached to it, and a simple remote can detonate it. Now get the hell around to the guys on the other end and tell them quietly what I said, so as not to alarm Chet. But I'm going to cut the thing away from him, and when I say pull, you yank him out and run like hell!"
"No, I won't leave—"
"Go, damn it. The bastard could be anywhere within fifty yards of us right now and getting ready to set this thing off!"
"But!—"
"That bomb's for you. He lured you here, and for sure he'll blow it up. This bunch doesn't care who else they take." His terse whispers sounded like fabric tearing. "Who—"
"Move!" Mallory skinnied back up the chute. "Okay, Chet, your dad's gone round to help pull you out as soon as I free your arms."
"No! He said if I moved the bomb—"
"He lied, Chet, to frighten you into staying put. Now you'll feel me cut away the duct tape he used on your arms...."
His cool voice faded in the distance as Richard ran up the stairs. He raced through the kitchen and burst out the back door, startling the two officers who were peering down into the darkness at the mouth of the chute. They had both put on what looked like hunting vests but what Richard figured was Kevlar. If the bomb did go off, he knew it wouldn't protect them. Kneeling by their sides, he looked in. Chet was about three feet below, attempting to give his dad a brave smile.
"Hi, Dad."
Richard forced himself to grin. "And to think of all the times I told you not to play in there."
"What's going on?" one of the cops whispered. There was no way for Richard to answer fully without Chet hearing. "When Mallory says pull, we yank him out." Under his breath he added, "And run like hell, if you know what I mean."
The cop looked at him sideways, his lips drawing a little tighter, but he said nothing. Instead he nodded to indicate that he understood. The grim expression on his partner's face showed that he'd gotten the message as well.
"Are you sure it's all right, Dad?"
Chefs voice sounded small, its reediness almost a man's, yet the tenor tones betrayed his closeness still to boyhood. He seemed so vulnerable, Richard felt himself wince.
"It'll be fine, Chet. Just get ready to come out of there." He reached down and gave his son's dark tousled hair a rub. Then he got a grip on Chefs shoulders.
"How's it coming Mallory?" the cop beside him called.
"A few snips more should do it," came the voice from below.
"You guys hold Chet, I'll haul back on you," said the officer behind them. "Now!" cried Ma I lory.
Richard and the man at his side strained as hard as they could, barely budging the boy.
"That hurts!" Chet yelled.
"Push against my shoulders, Chet, with your feet," Richard heard Ma I lory say from below.
Then up Chet came, all at once, the way a baby finally tumbles out of a womb.
"Let's move," said the cop who'd been pulling on Richard's back.
With Chet supported between them they ran toward the neighbor's fence. We can climb over here," Richard yelled. "Then go through—"
A roar exploded out the mouth of the chute behind him.
He swung around in time to see a volley of tiny silver missiles streak through the air and shred the leaves of the trees overhead. They peppered the walls of the house behind his with a single loud thwack. The initial crack of shattering glass in the windows gave way to the tinkle of pieces falling to the ground. Larger shards clattered after them.
But the worst came in the silence that followed.
The cry started low, almost tenuous at first, as if the agony behind it wasn't making itself fully felt just yet. Then it grew in volume, leaving Richard no doubt that Mallory's pain was taking hold and the momentary shock, the few seconds when he wouldn't grasp what had happened, was lifting. The sounds continued to crescendo, in keeping with a growing horror as he must have recognized what was missing and what remained, however shredded. Coming out of the chute his screams seemed to be from the bowels of hell itself.
Chapter 14
Richard was the first into the room.
Fumes from the explosion filled the air, but there was surprisingly little smoke, and there was very little structural damage, though chips of concrete lay everywhere. The floor was pockmarked where the nails flying out of the chute had first hit the cement, then ricocheted up to carry out their real purpose, the rending of flesh.
From the waist down Mallory was a mass of gelatinous twitching muscle embedded with spikes. Torn cloth entwined with strips of skin trailed off him, ending in two smears of blood stretching several yards along the floor where he'd tried to drag himself away from his own carnage. Quivering with shock but still conscious, he lay propped up against the wall, his eyes bulging in disbelief as he stared down at what little was left of him.
"No! Not that! Not my legs!" he sobbed, between howls of gibberish and screeches of agony that had every cop who came into the room cringing or cowering away.
"Ted, can you hear me?" said Richard, kneeling by him, the cloying stench of seared tissue filling his nostrils.
". . . oh, God! Help me! Help me! Help meeeeeeeeee . . ."The shriek pierced to the bone. "Get the medics in here," Richard snapped over his shoulder, already planning how they'd lift Mallory's mangled limbs without pieces of muscle sliding off his tibia or falling away from the femur. "Tell them to bring their drug kit, and sterile blankets. Then you guys clear the road to the hospital!" IV's, airways, oxygen, and painkillers— what they could give him here— weren't enough.
". . . give me something, oh God, something for the pain . . ."
Richard gently took Mallory's face between his hands. "Just seconds now, Ted. They're bringing it now. Just seconds more, then I'll make the pain go. After that I'll get you to emergency. We're minutes away, and you're going to be okay, hear me? Okay!"
Ma I lory didn't seem to understand and frantically strained to peer around Richard as if he dared not let his lower body out of sight.
". . . where are my legs? Let me see them . . ."
"They're there, Ted. Your legs are there."
". . . don't let the doctors take them. Give me something, do something, oh God, get my legs—""Ted, hang on. We'll make this right," he said, trying to coax the young man's stare back to his own, knowing full well no one could make that much damage "right" ever again. But his years in ER had taught him to lie. The issue wasn't Ted's legs. It was his life. And Ted might be mad with pain, but he could cling to an offer of hope, albeit a false one. Death was coming fast. Even if he told Ted, the young man would find it impossible to prepare for. Hearing a promise that he could still be made whole— that someone would undo the hurt, stop the hemorrhage, repair the mashed limbs— gave comfort. Damn what the textbooks s
aid about doctors always telling the truth.
"Look at me, Ted," Richard continued. "Hear what I'm saying. Hang on and you'll be fine."
Mallory started to sob again. For an instant his eyes focused on Richard. "Just hold my hand," he cried, his teeth chattering. "Don't let go of my hand."
Richard clutched the outstretched fingers. They were trembling and felt as clammy as if Mallory were already dead.
Two medics clattered down the steps bearing their stretcher, an equipment case teetering precariously on top.
Finally! Richard flipped open the case, found a ten-milligram vial of morphine, and drew it into a syringe. "Here we are, Ted. Sweet relief."
"Oh, Jesus, yes."
Pulling up a sleeve and finding a vein, Richard slowly injected half the contents keeping an eye on the man's breathing. Within seconds Ma I lory started to whisper. "Yes. Yes, oh thank you, God. Oh, Jesus, thank you." A few seconds later he murmured, "Doc, shoot it in, all of it. Take me out. I don't want to live like this."
Richard ignored the plea. "We'll slide a sheet under him, then lift," he told the attendants as he withdrew the needle.
"No, Doc, please."
"Enough of that talk, Ted. You're going to make it, and in one piece. Are you married?"
"Engaged."
"What's her name?"
"Cathy."
"Well, you just think of Cathy, and how proud she'll be of you when I tell her how you saved my son." Shifting to get in a better position to move him, Richard felt his shoes stick to the floor. Looking down he saw a rapidly spreading pool of bright blood pouring out from behind Mallory's buttocks. "Damn it," he muttered and moved to grab a pair of gloves from the open case. He snapped them on.
"Hold my hand again," Mallory said, his words slurred and his voice much weaker than before.
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