Hidden Charges

by Ridley Pearson

  The thick cable of wires ran along the ceiling to his left now.

  He felt along the trunk line of wires. After several yards, it left the ceiling and headed down toward the Armstrong panels below him.

  Dispatch.

  Light filtered through gaps left where the bundle of wires entered the room, now looking like gilded spider webs.

  Suddenly, he heard gunshots.

  ***

  Brock pulled off his shoe as he heard the next two gunshots. “Hurry,” he said to her, handing her his shoe.

  She slid the shoe over her own: it added two inches to the length of her foot. She stretched out again, groaning from the pain the handcuff caused her wrist.

  “Push,” she demanded.

  Brock repositioned himself and placed both feet on her shoulders. He leaned against her. She cried out and he eased off.

  “Almost,” she muttered, feeling her shoulder about to dislocate, her wrist on fire. “Push.”

  Brock pushed harder.

  Every muscle, every bit of sinew in her body stretched to its limit. The toe of the shoe was less than an inch from the ashtray. She grunted with her efforts.

  “Almost,” Brock said.

  The door to the back hall swung open. Steuhl saw the shoe just nudging the ashtray. He raised the gun and fired.

  Susan kicked Brock’s shoe off. It struck the ashtray and the springed door began to close. She watched, waiting for the click of the lock.

  Without warning, a shoe filled the crack and stopped the door. Susan looked up through the wire-mesh safety glass and saw the evil grin of John Steuhl.

  ***

  Jacobs hovered above the ceiling to Dispatch. He faced the decision of a lifetime. To attempt something could threaten the life of the woman he loved. If he didn’t some four thousand people might be lost. Priorities, he thought. He hesitated, uncertain. What if he broke through the ceiling and gave Steuhl enough time to detonate the charges? Then his efforts would cause the death of four thousand people. What if Steuhl shot the hostages? Was this the right thing to do? His arm throbbed.

  He heard Dicky Brock say, “Almost.”

  And then he heard her scream.

  He dropped through the ceiling panel and landed directly atop the control system for the camera monitors. Steuhl fired wildly, exploding a monitor which caught fire. He lunged for the autodialer.

  “No!” Brock yelled.

  Jacobs wrapped his arms around the man and held him back.

  Steuhl fired the gun into the man’s thigh, broke Jacob’s grip, and ran from the room.

  “Keys!” Brock hollered.

  Jacobs caught Susan’s eyes briefly as he knocked the sets of handcuff keys off the counter and toward Brock. “Radio,” he said, rifling a storage locker filled with radios plugged into electrical chargers.

  Jacobs hurried off, his leg bleeding badly.

  ***

  Brock’s hands were shaking so badly it took him three attempts with the keys. Finally he had the cuffs off. He unfastened Susan’s and handed her the set.

  She unlocked Perkins’s cuffs and immediately tended to the man’s wound.

  The control board for the monitors was smoking: all the monitors were dark.

  Brock hurried to the radio, slipped into the chair, and pulled the headset on. “I’m with you,” he said to Jacobs.

  “Roger,” came back the panting voice. “My password is ANGEL. Open all the doors to the new pavilion. How much time?”

  “A little under fifteen minutes.” Brock didn’t need the password. Steuhl had already entered it. He typed commands to release the mag locks in the FunWorld pavilion. How strangely simple it was to set them free. “The box is here,” he told Jacobs. “Two buttons. I saw him push the bottom one before. Two others are marked. Red and green. I assume one triggers the charges, one stops the timer. That’s what he implied. No way to tell which is which.”

  “I copy,” said a breathless Jacobs. “Any ideas?”

  “I’m not going to guess, if that’s what you mean.”

  Susan was caught up in the ongoing conversation, hearing only Brock’s comments.

  “He’ll have to tell us,” said Jacobs.

  “Yeah, fat chance of that,” quipped Brock, still working with the computer.

  “We’re going to make him tell us,” replied Jacobs, too winded to be heard clearly. “Lock every door there is, except those in C. Right away. And stay with me. Out.”

  Brock looked over at Susan, who was attending to Perkins. “How is he?” he asked.

  “What’s going on?” was her reply.

  ***

  Glee passed through the crowd as Brock’s voice announced, “May I have your attention, please. Evacuation of the pavilion will begin immediately.” Three thousand strangers embraced one another. Cheers resonated throughout the hall. Then, just as quickly, pandemonium broke out. The people rose to their feet nearly in unison, some pushing forward, a human tide surging towards the three exits.

  Rappaport was among those swept away by the moving crowd. One minute he was standing by the Giant’s Tail, the next he was being carried toward the south entrance. “Get control of yourselves,” he shouted, his wounds causing him great pain. “Stop this!” he bellowed. But the crowd pushed on, taking him away. He, like others around him, was overcome by fear.

  A woman screamed nearby. Rappaport saw her fallen child. The first few people stepped around the child. Then a shoe came down….

  Rappaport clawed his way through the closely bunched group and reached the child before the mother. He bent down and was about to lift the child when he too was knocked over. “No!” he screamed, rolling under the thunder of trampling shoes. A man tripped over him. Then a woman came down on top of both of them. Rappaport forced his way up, clutching his bruised gut, and snatched the child from the floor just as the mother reached him.

  “God bless you,” she said, grabbing her child back.

  ***

  Laura Haff was separated from Shelly and Keze by the mob. At first she thought everything was fine. She had a firm grip on the fallen escalator and was shielding the girls from the crush of people. The crowd slammed into the three of them. Shelly screamed. Laura lost her hold and was pulled into the surging crowd, away from her children.

  She turned to fight her way back, but the crowd spun her around and carried her with them. “No!” she screamed. She clawed her way toward the edge of the crowd, pushing and heaving. Twice she fell to the floor, and both times she jumped back to her feet, determination pumping strength into her. She fought the strong current of human bodies, like a rescue worker in flood waters, carried along, yet progressing slowly toward the bank. She finally broke out of the swarm, into the tangled steel of the Giant’s Tail. She hooked an arm around a support and stopped to catch her breath. Moving through the I beams, she worked her way back toward where Civichek had fallen. There was blood on the floor.

  The girls had held on. They were kneeling on the other side of the escalator, arms wrapped around the bent frame.

  Laura hoisted Keze onto her back. “Hold on tightly, honey,” she said to her crying child. “You with me?” she asked the older Shelly, who faked a nod.

  Before receiving an answer, she and the girls were again carried into the flow. Shelly screamed loudly and Laura grasped her hand tightly. “We’re all right,” she declared, wondering if it was true. “Aim away from the doors. Away from the doors, Shel. Cut across the crowd. That’s right,” she choked out as Keze gripped her more tightly around the neck.

  She hunched over and plowed through the chaos. “There has to be another way out,” she said. “There has to be.”

  ***

  Coleman climbed on top of a fallen escalator and looked over the crowd. Although the west exit was open and people were pouring out through it, the south doors were, unexplainably, still mag-locked. A good part of the crowd had gathered there; people were crushed against the unbreakable-glass doors like moths trying to reach a light at nig
ht. Hundreds of people were stacked up, and the crowd was growing more impatient by the minute. The pushing and shoving was growing violent.

  He ran back into the service hallway where Mykos Popolov waited with a childish glee on his face. Coleman said breathlessly, “The doors on this side are still shut. It’s getting nasty. The others are open, but it’s moving slowly.”

  “Stand clear,” said Popolov.

  The wall was stacked high with bags of potting soil and fertilizer, the homemade bombs held firmly against the wall.

  Coleman insisted, “Let me do it. I can run faster.”

  Popolov shook his head. “Too risky. I made them. I light them.”

  “But Mr. P. You won’t have time to get away.”

  Popolov lowered his voice and stepped close to Coleman. “Listen, my friend, the world is full of risks. You either take the bull by the horns or you lick it in the ass. You’re a good kid. I’m old. I’ve had a good life. With any luck at all…. If anyone is to take the risk, it is me. Now give me your lighter and get out of here.”

  Coleman handed him the lighter. “Good luck.”

  Popolov smiled. “Luck is what you make it. Remember that.”

  ***

  Coleman ran down the hallway and into the hardware store. He headed straight to the marine section and grabbed an air horn off the shelf and then hurried outside the store, blowing the horn. It took five sharp blasts from the horn, but he finally got some of the attention of the chaotic crowd. He motioned for everyone to cover their heads and get down. It was too noisy to be heard, but he kept shouting, “Get down and cover yourselves.” After several attempts to communicate, the crowd seemed to understand.

  Popolov looked up toward the ceiling and said, “It’s all up to You.” He crossed himself and, one-handed, climbed the stepladder and lit the long fuse to the top charge.

  He hurried down the ladder and thrust his hand into the first hole, flicking the lighter. He heard the fuse take. He moved down the line quickly. He had cut the fuses in different lengths, hoping for a simultaneous blast.

  He ignited the second and third fuses. As he reached the fourth he looked up and saw that the fuse to the top charge had melted a section of plastic bag and had gone out.

  He panicked. If the top charge failed to blow, the entire effort was useless. He reached the ladder and scrambled back up, one-handed, as fast as possible.

  As he reached the top fuse, he knew he had taken too long. He bent down and bit back the fuse to a short stub barely a half inch long. He lit it.

  When he was nearly to the bottom of the ladder, the first charge exploded. Then the second. Then the top.

  The weak cement behaved more like sandstone than concrete.

  Mykos Popolov was knocked off the ladder and thrown to the floor against the wall. A tremendous section of the wall fell away, burying him.

  The last thing he ever saw was blinding, crystal-clear sunlight and a pale blue sky.

  It was truly the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.

  ***

  Coleman ran into the blinding dust that choked the service hallway. “Paplav?” he called out, amazed at how much of the wall had fallen away. It was larger than any of the other exits.

  No answer.

  The hallway was littered three feet deep with boulders of jagged concrete.

  Crowds of people broke through the doors behind him and climbed over the rubble, desperate to reach the outside.

  Coleman began to dig frantically but abandoned his efforts as even more people found their way into the hall. There was no fighting the crowd. There was nothing to be done. Earl Coleman ran for his life.

  ***

  The sound of the explosion, and the sudden burst of sunlight, drew the crowd to the opening like insects to a porch light. Laura Haff followed the crowds. They had to be going somewhere, she thought, and it was much less frantic here than in the middle of the pavilion.

  As she rounded the corner, the dust gagged her. A uniformed fireman reached out and offered his arms to Keze. “I’ve got her, ma’am,” he said loudly. “Follow me.”

  “Thank God,” said Laura.

  ***

  Jacobs felt the building rumble and knew by the size of the blast that it had to be Popolov. With any luck at all the building would be evacuated in the next few minutes. But he couldn’t count on it.

  He could only think of one way to force Steuhl to tell them which button to push: he had to get him inside the new pavilion. If there is one constant in this world, he thought, it is the value of life. One priority above all others has sustained the existence of every creature on earth since time began—the will to survive.

  But how could he trick Steuhl into walking into his own trap? The first thing to do was increase the pressure. Force the man to make hasty decisions. Split his concentration. Confuse him.

  He grabbed the handset to the walkie-talkie and spoke to Brock. “Make sure all the elevators are running, and unlock the north door to the back hall on the east side of the pavilion. Repeat it.” In his mind he was picturing the floor plan of the ground level of Pavilion C. Each step would have to be carefully choreographed, if his plan was to work.

  Brock repeated the orders and Jacobs okayed them, finishing up with, “Start shutting down the main lighting when you get a chance. I want this as dark as possible.”

  “Emergency lights only. Got it.”

  Jacobs slipped the walkie-talkie’s handset into his pants pocket and continued his slow, stiff-legged run.

  Steuhl was directly below him, having already reached Level 1.

  Jacobs didn’t have time to run all the way around the Level 2 concourse and descend the escalators by the fountain. He had to pressure the man now. He had to force Steuhl either into the elevators or down the east service hallway.

  He jumped up onto the rail and dove straight out, grabbing hold of a tree branch. He swung himself in to the trunk and slid roughly down its side, scraping the skin off the insides of both arms. He landed on his good leg, surprisingly close to Steuhl, who turned and fired the gun.

  The overhead lights switched off, hardly noticeable because of the flood of daylight through the glass canopy. But Jacobs noticed.

  He followed as Steuhl crossed the empty pavilion and tried to open the doorway to the west back hall. Their footfalls echoed in the cavernous building. The door was locked. Steuhl tried the door next to this one. It was also locked. Frantic, he ran down the line, tugging on doors. As Jacobs approached, he raised the gun.

  Jacobs dove to the slick floor, sliding across the cool stone. The empty gun clicked in Steuhl’s hand, who tossed it away, turned, and ran for the open elevator.

  Right where I want you, Jacobs thought.

  Steuhl ran into the first open car, pushed a button, and stepped to the side as the doors slid shut.

  “Stay with me, Dicky,” Jacobs said into the walkie-talkie just before stepping into the car. “I’m entering car number two. He’s in one.”

  “With ya.”

  Jacobs hoped to trick Steuhl into his old habit of using the utility tunnels. The narrowness of the tunnels might allow a confrontation. Jacobs had to get the man’s glasses off. A blind rat could be led through a maze by light.

  The tunnels ran south from here toward the new pavilion. Still, the only connections between the two buildings were the passageway on Level 1 and the entrance to Spanner’s Drugs on Level 2. He couldn’t be bothered by this. One step at a time. First things first. He would force Steuhl to the far end of the pavilion. From there, with any luck, he could cause him to enter the service hallway on Level 2 and eventually chase him into Spanner’s.

  As the doors slid shut, Jacobs radioed, “I want to know where he stops the car, and I want you to cue me to stop mine alongside. Got that?”

  “Got ya.”

  Jacobs pushed “3.” The doors closed. He kept his fingers on the emergency stop switch as he listened for Brock.

  ***

  In Dispatch, Brock
typed the commands into the Chubb to show him a display of the elevator movement. Seeing Steuhl’s car stop, and watching the graphic display of car two, he said, “Right… now!”

  Jacobs threw the emergency switch.

  “Looks good,” Brock said. “You’re a little above him.”

  “Stay with me.”

  ***

  Jacobs bumped the panel out of the ceiling and pulled the ladder down. He moved up it quickly despite his wounded leg. In the darkness, he stumbled and fell from the top of the car. His hands slapped around the thick cable of the next car over. He slid to the top of this car, palms burning, and landed loudly.

  He looked down into the elevator car and met Steuhl’s eyes. The little man abandoned his own efforts to climb out and dropped back to the floor of the car. Then he threw the EMERGENCY switch.

  The cable jerked, breaking Jacobs’s grip. The elevator’s motor engaged noisily, and the car began to move upward.

  He landed first on the roof to Steuhl’s car, taking most of the impact on his wounded leg. He tumbled forward, dangerously close to the high-voltage inductors, and then rolled off the car, catching one arm on the cross brace by the limit switches of elevator number two.

  Steuhl’s car climbed past him. Jacobs pulled himself up to the roof of car two and found his way back down the unsteady ladder. He reached for the EMERGENCY switch and flicked it up. The car popped into motion.

  “Stop me where he does,” he told Brock.

  ***

  As the doors to Jacob’s elevator car slid open on the second level, he saw the squat man running down the escalator steps toward the pavilion’s main concourse.

  His first attempt to box Steuhl had failed.

  The sound of the fountain enveloped the slap of his irregular footsteps as he pursued. He looked at the huge clock on the wall: 3:49 P.M.

  Eleven minutes.

  Steuhl crossed the main concourse, its vastness dwarfing him. Jacobs followed, plotting another way to trick the man.

  Steuhl hurried to the short hall, mid-concourse, that led to the public toilets on this level.

  Jacobs grabbed the handset and said, “Open mid-doors, Level Two, east concourse.” He ducked behind a huge mirrored pillar, in case Steuhl turned around, and watched him in the reflection of another overhead mirror. He whispered into the handset, stuffing the earpiece deeper into his ear at the same time, “If I give the word, lock that door immediately.”