Hidden Charges

by Ridley Pearson

  “I like the way you think, Rappaport.”

  ***

  Outside Yankee Green, the evacuation continued at a frantic pace. Steuhl had called in his demands to Shleit’s precinct. He made it clear that he would be monitoring the parking lot surveillance cameras, and if any attempts were made by the police to storm the building, the new pavilion would be blown up. Traffic became snarled, but the police untangled it quickly and professionally, using a combination of tow trucks and good management. Ten streets were made one-way heading away from the mall. All buildings were evacuated, and the crowds pushed back, over a three-block area surrounding the complex. Sharpshooters were established on rooftops. SWAT teams were deployed, but only on the outside perimeter of the property. Fire trucks and ambulances sat ready, their lights pulsing across the faces of anxious city politicians and police.

  An antiterrorist squad was flown in by helicopter from Boston’s Logan airport. Its members were specialists in both hostage situations and explosives. For thirty minutes, arguments pro and con were made concerning a surprise attack on the mall’s Dispatch Room. The deputy mayor, in from a golf game, held a closed-door meeting with various heads of law enforcement and made an announcement on live television that the city was prepared to wait the situation out.

  Forty-five minutes after Steuhl’s takeover of Yankee Green—fifteen minutes beyond the deadline he had given them—all pavilions were declared empty, the parking lots were closed, remaining customers were forced from their cars and into city buses, and the three-block buffer zone around the area was fully patrolled and guarded by Hillsdale police.

  In city hall there was a murmur of hope. Steuhl had allowed the evacuation to run fifteen minutes overtime. The director of Boston’s FBI described it to the deputy mayor. “It shows he’s soft,” he said. “We can take him. Give us the chance to take him.”

  The deputy mayor steadfastly refused.

  15

  “Our problem is this,” Jacobs explained to Shleit, drawing on the tabletop. Haverill had withdrawn into himself. “Steuhl is in Dispatch. That’s on Level Two of Pavilion C, the next pavilion over. He has us trapped over here on Level One.”

  “How did all the people on the second floor get out? What if we got someone up to the second floor?”

  “Spanner’s Drugs connects directly with the Level Two concourse in this pavilion. Its gate is keyed by use of an ID card. Steuhl must have known that, so he blew the escalators to trap the rest of us on the main concourse. The problem with what you’re suggesting is that he’d be able to see any attempt to get to Level Two. He’s got all the monitors up there. If he’s smart, he has one aimed at the entrance to Spanner’s. Besides, cameras in the lower level of C would pick up any intruder.”

  “What about an elevator shaft? Could someone climb up the elevator shaft and reach Level Two?”

  Jacobs held up a finger as an idea sparked in his head. “Not the elevator,” he said. “The utility shafts.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “The timing would have to be perfect, or he’d spot it,” he said, continuing on his line of thought. “And at Level Two things could get tricky. Even though the buildings connect, I’m not sure there would be a way into the false ceiling of Spanner’s. DeAngelo would know. If not Spanner’s, it would have to be the rooftop. That’s one hell of a climb.”

  “You lost me.”

  “Try to call him on the walkie-talkie,” said Haverill, breaking his silence.

  Jacobs and Shleit looked at him.

  “Tell him I’m bringing the money.”

  “I don’t think that’s wise,” Shleit said.

  Jacobs agreed. “Neither do I.”

  “He asked for me. It sounds like you’re going to need a distraction.” He waited for Jacobs. “Well, aren’t you?” He paused, and Jacobs shrugged. “Well, there you are. I’m your distraction.”

  ***

  “What do you think?” asked Rappaport.

  “Yeah, I agree.” DeAngelo was chewing on the soggy end of a partially smoked cigar, bobbing the stogie in his teeth as he spoke. “Let’s see who we can find to help.”

  “We need somebody who isn’t afraid of heights. And he has to be strong,” explained Rappaport, moving deftly between the steel struts of the roller coaster and peering upward at the overhead maze of colorful I beams and machinery.

  DeAngelo sent one of his crew searching for hydraulic jacks in the hardware store. “Danny,” he called to another of his workers. The man hurried over. “Can you climb that thing?”

  “Dunno. How high?”

  “All the way up,” Rappaport interjected.

  “Haven’t done any girder work in years. None of the boys have. We’ve subbed that out.”

  “Can you or can’t you?”

  “I’m willing to try.”

  “We appreciate it,” said DeAngelo.

  “He appreciates it,” added Rappaport, pointing to the pale, unconscious Sam Shole.

  16

  Removing the money from the large Plexiglas display case caused a great deal of commotion. Shleit ended up in a heated argument with the head guard of the security company, finally assuming all responsibility for the two hundred thousand dollars.

  Knowing he was being watched, he carefully placed the money in a brushed aluminum briefcase in full view of the cameras. The crowd’s attention briefly left Civichek and focused on Shleit and the money.

  When the money was inside, he closed the case and, using the security guards as an escort, returned to The Greek Deli, where Bob Russo and Haverill were in a bitter argument. He only heard Russo’s last few words. “…a blatant lie. Absolutely no proof. You’ll be hearing from my attorneys.” Russo pushed rudely past Shleit and stomped out of the café.

  “What was that all about?” the detective asked Jacobs.

  “You don’t want to know.” Looking at the case he asked, “That’s all of it?”

  “One small fortune with handle, ready to go.”

  “It looks so small and insignificant.”

  “Just what I was thinking. Can you imagine? We’re trading this for a few thousand lives.”

  “We hope.”

  “We hope.” The lieutenant added, “How ‘bout you? Are you ready?”

  “We’ve got to coordinate it all at once. The way it works is this. He has two rows of monitors to watch. On the top row of eight monitors each monitor is assigned to a specific pavilion. The various camera shots hold on the monitor for five seconds, then switch to the next shot. On the bottom row of eight monitors he can isolate any of these shots. Any combination at all. He can also use the RCA, our biggest monitor, for isolation.

  “We have to figure he has chosen to isolate shots of this pavilion on the bottom monitors, maybe using one or two of them to keep an eye on the area immediately surrounding Dispatch to prevent anyone sneaking up on him. Meanwhile, the top row is flashing shots from all over the complex. No telling which camera is showing at what moment, so we have to assume he can spot us at any time.

  “What we hope is that his eye will be on that money. He’ll have to unlock a door for Haverill to get into Pavilion C. That will mean his attention will briefly be on the computer screen, not on the monitors. At that instant, we make our move.”

  “I follow you.”

  To the upset Haverill, Jacobs said, “You’ll have to wear this.” He produced a walkie-talkie setup he had taken from one of his guards. “When you get inside C, he’ll tell you where he wants you to go.”

  “Can’t I just go to Dispatch?”

  “That’s not the way he wants it. He sounds very sure of himself. He’s going to have you make a drop, I think. Something to confuse us further, give him a chance to escape. If everything goes right, I’ll be waiting inside the false ceiling above Dispatch. When he leaves Dispatch, I try and get control of the computer and get the doors open.”

  “That’s all I do?” Haverill asked, sweating, heart pounding hard, eyes flicking about anxio
usly.

  “You all right?” asked Jacobs.

  “Sure,” replied Haverill.

  “You don’t look so good,” snorted Shleit.

  “Nerves.” He shook his head.

  “What’s important now,” the detective continued, “is to give him everything he wants and hope like hell he makes good on his promise to stop that timer.”

  “If there is a timer,” Haverill said.

  “We have to assume there is,” Shleit pointed out.

  Haverill scrunched his lips. For years he had been the one in control. Now he was at the whim of a dimwitted madman. He simply couldn’t grasp the concept. To him, he was still in charge.

  “Two minutes,” Jacobs said, checking his watch and speaking to Shleit. “You take my walkie-talkie. If you have to talk to him, adjust the squelch button. It’ll fuzz your voice; he’ll never know the difference.”

  “I don’t like it. If he suspects we’re up to something…”

  “We are up to something. We’re playing the odds. It’s the best we can do. It’ll take me fifteen, maybe thirty minutes, if I can make it at all. We have a little over an hour remaining. We’re cutting it close—”

  “Okay, I turn up the squelch. No problem,” said Shleit.

  “Let him do the talking.”

  “Right.”

  “Any problems?” Jacobs asked.

  Haverill said, “Ready.”

  Shleit nodded.

  “Off you go.”

  Shleit hooked the walkie-talkie to his belt and jammed the small plug into his ear. He led Haverill to the rear of the store and out into the gray cinder-block hallway. Above them, pipes and conduit ran the length of the hall, entering a utility shaft at the hallway’s midpoint.

  Shleit was reminded of walking death row with an inmate prior to execution, something he had done once his life a long time ago and hoped to never do again.

  Haverill carried the aluminum briefcase gripped tightly in his left hand.

  ***

  Jacobs cracked the rear door open and peered into the gray hallway. The camera moved slowly from right to left. He pushed the door shut gently and kept his eyes on the face of his watch. The camera made a full sweep of the hall every thirty seconds. He waited ten.

  He reopened the door after twenty seconds. The camera lens had swept past the Deli and was now aimed at the backs of Shleit and Haverill.

  Jacobs ran across the hall, cutting in behind the constantly shifting view of the pivoting camera. He jumped up and grabbed hold of a strong pipe and pulled himself up. His eyes were on the moving camera, which paused at the far end of its course and then began its return. He struggled to force himself up in the narrow space between the pipes.

  The camera continued toward him.

  ***

  At the far end of the hallway, Shleit opened a door for Haverill that exited into the new pavilion’s north end. As the door opened, the noise returned. Civichek continued to speak to the crowd.

  Shleit pulled on the last door, as Jacobs had instructed. It was still locked. He waved up into the overhead camera.

  Steuhl was having trouble fighting his impatience. He hadn’t stopped sweating since he had broken in. The crowd bothered him. The guy up on stage bothered him. But he had played his only card by blowing the escalator. Now it was all or nothing. He had no way to show his annoyance, except to blow the whole pavilion. He saw the two men by the door in the monitor and typed in the command to free the mag lock.

  ***

  Twenty people jumped up and surged toward the door as Shleit waved. The cop pushed Haverill toward the door and held the encroachers off briefly. “Go!” he shouted.

  Haverill tugged on the door and it opened. The loud crowd heaved forward, pushing Shleit into Haverill, who went through the doorway fast and pulled the door shut behind himself.

  Shleit checked to make sure the door had locked again. An angry woman cursed and spit on him. “Bastard,” she cried.

  Shleit wiped her spittle from his cheek and dragged his wet fingers across his suit pants. He met her eyes. “I’d like out of here too, lady.”

  The small crowd pressed against the door. “What’s going on?” asked one of the men.

  “It’s all up to him,” answered Shleit softly.

  They watched as Haverill, now in Pavilion C—a world away, it seemed—walked unsteadily forward.

  17

  The worker could climb no higher. Much of the crowd’s attention had focused on this man’s efforts to climb the roller coaster, though few knew his reason for the attempt.

  Civichek saw a golden opportunity. It had been years since he had done any real climbing, but at one point he had been the best second-story man in Boston.

  “We’re going to give you a little show, people,” he said strongly, trying to regain the crowd’s attention, his voice carrying well and further amplified by the public address system. He had heard someplace that it wasn’t enough to tell people, you had to show them. “You’re a fine group of people. Why don’t you give yourself a hand for getting it together so quickly. Go on, that’s it… louder… louder.” The crowd applauded enthusiastically. “Okay, how ‘bout a hand for the volunteer medical people?” Again a roar broke. “And our volunteers with the children!” More applause. He had them with him again. “I’m going to give you some rest from my big mouth,” he said, smiling and drawing a laugh, “and lend a hand over at the Giant’s Tail.”

  He bounded down off the stage energetically and weaved through the seated crowd, receiving appreciative pats from his admirers. Being emcee of this affair was the best idea anybody had ever had. How strange, he thought, that it should have come from the mealy-mouthed Jacobs. He knew damn well he couldn’t buy his way into this kind of publicity. By day’s end he’d be an all-out hero.

  If he ever saw day’s end.

  ***

  As Laura Haff watched the worker climb the multicolored superstructure, she was reminded of Tim. Tim had climbed up high every working day of his life, and on one occasion he had slipped. One mistake, one gust of wind, had cost him his life. Torn by the recollection of the phone call on that blustery day, she felt her throat constrict. She glanced over her shoulder at Sam, covered in blankets. A volunteer now lay next to him, connected by rubber tubing and needles, giving blood that was running from Sam’s wound faster than they could fill him back up.

  She willed him to stay alive, as much out of her newfound affection for him as out of selfishness. You can’t do this to me, she thought, choking on her tears.

  The children at her feet, happy-faced and enjoying a game of pass-the-beach-ball, seemed removed from reality. While some of us cry, she thought, others laugh.

  Behind her, Les Civichek spoke for a few minutes with Rappaport and then began to climb the steel labyrinth of I beams, where the worker was frozen forty feet up, unable to move.

  18

  Haverill followed Steuhl’s instructions carefully, well aware that a good performance now might get this over with. Steuhl used the radio. Haverill listened to the voice of the disturbed man in the small earpiece. “You will go to the far end of Pavilion C. I’m watching you. Go on. Walk faster. Come on! Faster! No unnecessary motions. No signals. Hurry up!”

  Haverill moved as fast as he could without actually running. His nerves were shattered, the pressure intense. Despite the cool of the building, he began to sweat profusely. His stomach knotted and burned.

  “Stop there,” the little voice said.

  Haverill stopped, blood pumping, chest heaving. He dragged his handkerchief across his brow, mopping up the sweat. Get it over with, he thought.

  “Turn to your right,” came the voice. “Again. There. Right there. Now kneel down and open the briefcase. Yes, both knees. Open it. Good. Turn it around so I can see it. Not that way! Yes, that’s right. Good. Show me the money. Take it out and stack it on the floor. Hurry!”

  Haverill’s nerves got the better of him as Steuhl’s voice shouted into the earphone. H
e tore a paper band and a stack of hundred-dollar bills spilled into the briefcase and onto the floor. “For the love of God,” Haverill said under his breath, attempting to restore order to the mess.

  “Clean it up!” Steuhl demanded. “Neat piles, it must be in neat piles. The money…” His voice trailed off.

  Haverill looked at the money as he put it in order. What an absurd notion that a box of paper was held equal in this man’s eyes to the lives of several thousand people. Money, such a curse if you don’t have it. Such a curse if you do. Dear God, get this over with. He had not spoken to God in over thirty years.

  “Put it back. Put it back,” demanded the childlike voice of John Steuhl. “I said put it back!”

  Haverill tried to clear his head, tried to focus on the task before him. It was not easy. He felt vulnerable in the immense pavilion. Incredibly alone. He snapped the briefcase shut. “What now?” he asked aloud, though no one heard him.

  “Back toward the fountain,” said Steuhl. “Hurry!”

  Haverill broke into a run, the heavy briefcase swinging at his side. It seemed like a full two minutes before he reached the Atrium. “Now, up the escalator on that side. That’s right. Keep moving!”

  His heart drummed on his chest painfully. His side ached. Out of shape, he thought. I must get in shape. Must call Kate. Put it back together. I know what I want now. I know what’s important.

  “I said hurry,” reminded the impatient boyish voice. “Up the escalator and turn right. Wait by the popcorn stand.”

  The pavilion echoed hollowly to the percussive cadence of his hard heels striking the stone floor.

  A vehicle on autopilot, he rounded the top of the escalator and headed right as Steuhl had instructed.

  ***