by K. W. Jeter
The copter landed in the space the police had cleared off. MacAvoy climbed out and walked head-down against the rotor wash.
A minute later, MacAvoy entered the command post tent, followed by the officers who had picked him up from the convention center.
Glover didn’t stick his hand out to shake. “Colonel MacAvoy? I’m Captain Glover.”
“Right.” MacAvoy gave a single nod. “You in charge?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
Glover shrugged. “On what our friend up there thinks. He’s the one who asked for you.”
MacAvoy glanced up through the tent’s open flaps. “Who is he?”
“Didn’t say. He just wants you to give him a call.” Glover held out a cell phone. “ASAP.”
Deep in thought, MacAvoy didn’t take the phone.
“Look, Colonel –” Glover didn’t have time for this. “I don’t know why this psycho wants you, but we figure he’s got close to a hundred people trapped in their cars and trucks up there, and that includes a bus full of school kids. And those guys are walking around, strapped pretty heavy. I don’t want to hear any more shots. Just make the call, okay?”
† † †
Up on the freeway, Feldman held the radio phone out toward Richter. “Got him.”
Richter took the phone and held it to his ear.
“Hello, Colonel. Long time.”
In the police command post, MacAvoy’s face set harder as he heard the other man’s voice. “Richter –” He nodded. “Somehow . . . I just knew.”
Outside the jackknifed big rig, Richter smiled. “Would you like to know something else, Colonel? That part in your book about me being dead – you might want to revise that for the next edition.”
“Maybe,” came the colonel’s reply. “Or maybe just the time and place.”
“Dream on.”
MacAvoy peered up toward the freeway, trying to catch sight of the other. “What do you want?”
“Right at the moment, I want you to tell that news copter hanging up there to get a little closer and zoom in on me.” The cold smile could be heard in Richter’s voice. “They’ll know which one I am.”
“Why? What’re you planning?”
“We’re playing a little game, Colonel. And I’m about to tell you the rules.”
TEN
UP IN the sky, there were some happy people.
“We just lucked out big time, baby!” The traffic reporter slapped the helicopter pilot on the shoulder. “We’re talking Emmy here!”
“What’re you going on about?” Menard kept the copter banked in a tight circle above the freeway bottle.
“Didn’t you hear what they just said?” Eddie Holton pointed to the radio. “That maniac wants a close-up – so take this sucker down! We’ve got the exclusive.”
“I don’t like it.” The pilot shook his head. “First sign of trouble, I’m lifting us outta there.”
“Yeah, fine. Whatever. In the meantime, let’s get famous.”
The pilot shrugged and pushed the rudder stick forward.
† † †
Richter nodded in satisfaction as he watched the news copter dropping in low. He turned toward Feldman beside him. “Give me the mike.”
“Here you go.” Feldman handed it to him, the cord trailing back to the stacked-up electronics gear. He started flipping switches on the amplifier controls.
“Are we on?” Richter kept one hand wrapped over the microphone.
“Soon as you’re ready.”
Richter climbed on top of one of the nearest cars, scrambling over the hood and then onto its roof. The driver inside cowered down beside the steering wheel.
In the police command post, Glover and MacAvoy stood with arms folded, watching the news feed on the video monitor.
From where Elton and I were in the panel truck, we had a clear shot of Richter standing on top of the car. And there was no way we wouldn’t have been able to hear him, with his voice booming out of the loudspeakers mounted on the radio tower that his crew had set up.
“Okay, people.” There was still enough sunlight left, to turn his mirror-lensed sunglasses fiery red. “Here’s the deal. We’ve got this piece of freeway wired and stacked with enough explosives to leave nothing but a large pile of smoking rubble. That bit we set off back there?” He pointed to the rear of the bottle, where smoke trailed from the charred wreckage. “That was nothing.”
That was true enough. I’d watched with more than professional interest as some of Richter’s crew had strung black-sheathed electrical wires down the freeway lanes, with ominous-looking gray bricks plugged in every ten yards or so. Ominous, that is, if you’re familiar with C4 and other high explosives. These had sequencer relays spliced in, so they’d go off a few seconds apart, all down the line. Whatever the reason for those was, it didn’t matter; by the time Richter’s crew finished up with that little job, there was enough bad news laid out to vaporize this stretch of reinforced concrete.
Meanwhile, Richter continued with his spiel. He turned his gaze up toward the circling copter, so the news camera could get a full shot of his face. “Anybody tries to get in here, we’ll know about it – and we’ll take the place out.” He glanced over toward the side of the freeway and the command post down on the surface street. “If the police try to take a shot at me or any of my crew – same thing.”
“Crap.” Inside the panel truck, I shook my head as I listened to the amplified voice. “He’s not joking.”
“Yeah . . .” Elton slowly nodded. “Seems serious, all right.”
In the police command post, Glover looked over at MacAvoy. “What the hell’s he want? Money?”
“No –” MacAvoy shook his head. “That’s not what this is about.”
“Then what is it about?
The colonel looked up from the monitor, over toward the freeway. “I don’t know yet . . .”
Richter’s face and voice continued on the screen.
“I realize that some people are going to have to die, before the authorities see reason and give us what we want.” He turned slowly as he stood on top of the car, so everyone could see him. “That’s regrettable, but true. So we’ve come up with a system to make it as fair as possible.”
Richter unclipped a device from the belt of his motorcycle cop uniform and held it up.
“We’ve entered the license plate number of every vehicle here. So they’re all in one big lottery. And we just roll the dice.”
Richter thumbed a button on the front of the device. Letters and numbers jittered across its LCD screen.
Over beside the jackknifed truck, the same letters and numbers raced across the screen in front of Feldman.
Then they came to a stop.
“We’ve got our first winner,” Richter spoke into the microphone.
On the screen in front of Feldman, two red lines had crossed and centered on a graphic image of a late-model Toyota Corolla.
Feldman talked quietly into his radio phone. “Center lane, sixth car from rear, a Toyota, license number . . .”
I could see the two guys I called Short and Tall striding down between the rows of vehicles. The driver in the Toyota saw the two approaching – and panicked. He shoved open the door of his car, jumped out, and ran.
On the thermal imaging screen in front of Feldman, the fleeing driver appeared as a rapidly shifting blur. “We’ve got a sprinter . . .”
Short had already raised his assault rifle. He squeezed off one shot and blood spurted from the running driver’s shoulder. He fell sprawling on the pavement between the lanes of cars.
Rifles slung behind them, Short and Tall dragged the man back to his car and threw him inside. And then something else –
A thermite grenade.
The two men hauled ass, taking shelter behind the next car over as the Toyota went up in a ball of flame. Not as big as the one that had sealed off the rear of the bottle, but still impressive.
“Jeez.” Up in
the news copter, Holton leaned back from the camera’s screen. “They just toasted that guy.”
The next action looked even scarier to all the people catching the news. On the other side of the freeway, Scavulos worked the control levers in the cab of the Claw. The machine’s articulated arm stretched over the other cars, and the steel talons smashed down on what was left of the burning Toyota. The Claw lifted the car, the arm turning and extending over the guardrail. Scavulos pulled back on another lever. The steel talons spread apart, dropping the flaming hulk over the side of the freeway.
Down below, police and news crews scattered as the burning car smashed onto the surface street.
The guys up in the news copter got all the action on camera.
“I told you –” The pilot shook his head. “This guy’s nuts.”
“Yeah . . .” The traffic reporter was mesmerized by what they’d just seen. “It’s great . . .”
Over in the police command post, Glover joined in the general assessment about Richter’s mental health.
“He’s frickin’ crazy!” Glover shook his head as he watched the monitor screen showing the news station feed. “He hasn’t even told us what he wants, and he’s already killing people.”
“It’d be easier,” said MacAvoy, “if he were insane.”
“How the hell do you know this guy?”
MacAvoy’s gaze narrowed as he looked at the monitor screen. “Bad luck.”
Up in the news copter, the traffic reporter was still fascinated by what he saw from the camera.
“This is the big one,” he murmured. “We’re talking national airtime.”
Richter’s face showed on the small onboard monitor. The traffic reporter could hear the man’s voice over his headphones: “That’s so everyone will know we’re serious . . .”
“Wait a minute –” The traffic reporter’s brow creased as he leaned closer to the monitor. “What’s that?”
Menard glanced over. They could both see a line of some thick, black fluid trickling from one of Richter’s nostrils, down to his chin.
Richter hadn’t noticed it yet. He went on talking into his own microphone.
“Right now,” he said, “the police and Colonel Welbourn MacAvoy should be thinking about all they can do to make life more rewarding for my friends and me.”
He punched another button on the device he held in his other hand and raised it up toward the camera of the hovering news copter. On the device’s little screen, numbers counted down: 30:00; 29:59, 29:58, 29:57 . . .
“Because the next one goes over in half an hour.”
Richter jumped down from the car and headed back toward the command post truck.
“Hey –” Feldman peered over from the bank of electronic equipment, then pointed to Richter’s face.
Bringing his hand up, Richter felt the black liquid slowly leaking from his nostril. As he looked at the stuff smeared on his fingertips, his expression snapped to one of furious anger, fist clenching as though he were about to punch Feldman. A second passed before Richter managed to regain control, then he turned and stalked away from the truck.
† † †
Elton and I didn’t watch Richter’s announcement on the news. We got to see it live, looking out the panel truck’s windshield at where he stood on top of one of the cars and listening to his cold voice booming out of the radio tower loudspeakers.
Things seemed real quiet when Richter finished his spiel.
“Well.” Sitting beside me, Elton slowly nodded. “Now we know just what’s going on.”
“This sucks.” I squeezed the steering wheel in both hands. “I was already having a bad day.”
“I think we should try not to have a worse one. And get the hell outta here.”
Looking over, I saw him scanning the situation, the way people in our line of work tend to do. Counting up the number of guys on the other side, what they were armed with, where they were stationed, which ones were paying serious attention to their own jobs, which ones seemed a little bored with the whole situation. Where the escape routes were and what you’d have to do to get to them.
Plus our own resources. Which were a little meager at the moment, consisting basically of just ourselves and no operational hardware. We’d lost the two pieces we’d had – that little Smith & Wesson I’d been carrying in the holster on my thigh and the bigger gun Elton had stashed in the truck’s glove compartment. My regular .357 was still in my shoulder bag in Karsh’s limo, where it was no use to me now. Even if we’d still had any or all of those guns, we were still surrounded by a pretty capable looking crew of hard guys, armed to the teeth with assault rifles. And if Richter’s show was any indication, with the car that got torched with the driver inside and thrown over the guardrail, the guys working for him were probably just as ready to off anybody who gave them trouble. Or who just tried to escape. It was pretty obvious that Richter wanted to keep as many hostages in his grip as possible, or else he wouldn’t have gone to so much effort to set up a bottle as big as this one. Nailing anybody who tried to run would just be more great footage for the news cameras.
Not that there were going to be that many, or any at all, who would try to get away. I knew the drill about hostage situations like this. Most people who get caught in them just shut down, hoping to still be among the ones who were alive when it was all over. There wouldn’t be a lot of others like Elton and me, with our minds racing, calculating our moves and their odds . . .
“I think we got a chance,” said Elton. “Maybe when it gets darker.”
“They’re already setting up lights.” I pointed to the buildings on either side of the freeway. “This place is going to look like high noon when the police fire those up. And this Richter and his bunch aren’t going to tell them to switch the spotlights off. They’ll want them on, so they can keep a better eye on everybody.”
“You get shadows with spotlights. Stick to those, and you’ll make it.”
“Yeah, well – there’s another problem.” I told Elton about my brother Donnie in the school bus up ahead of us.
“Sure he’s there?”
“Pretty sure.” I knew actually, deep in my gut.
Elton knew better than to doubt me on that point. Or to ask if I’d consider leaving without Donnie.
“Got any ideas?” Elton looked over at me. “About how to fetch him outta there?”
“That,” I said, “is what I need to think about.”
ELEVEN
THE NEWS copter swung low over the freeway.
“They want us to jack up the human element.” The traffic reporter switched off the radio contact he’d just had with the news station. “So we need to get some close-up shots of the people in their cars. You know, the hostages.”
“Guess that’ll be good for the ratings, huh?” The pilot shook his head in disgust. “Okay, whatever.” He pushed forward on the rudder stick.
“Zoom in on that limo.” Holton pointed as the copter banked across the motionless lanes. “Maybe there’s somebody important inside. Like a celebrity. That’d be the best.”
A few seconds later, a close shot appeared on the camera’s onboard monitor. The copter was angled far enough over that the man sitting in the limo’s back seat was visible.
The traffic reporter frowned. “Who’s that?”
“Wait a minute . . .” Menard looked over at the monitor. “I know who that is.”
“You recognize him?”
“Yeah.” The pilot’s expression darkened into a scowl. “I used to work for him.”
Keeping quiet, the traffic reporter nervously regarded the man beside him. The way the pilot spoke had worried him a little.
† † †
There were some other people who recognized the man in the back of the limo, when his face showed up on the live news coverage.
“Look –” One of the low-level associate producers pointed to the image on the big flat-panel screen. “It’s Mr. Karsh!”
The others in the
production company’s glossily furnished office clustered around the video screen mounted on the wall. They were the people that Karsh had been talking to on his cell phone, ordering them to do whatever they had to in order to get him out of there, when he had gotten cut off by Richter’s crew member.
