Run the Risk

by Scott Frost

“The Frenchman Philippe—we found his car,” Harrison said.

  “Where?”

  I could see the muscles in his neck tighten.

  “It’s across the street from headquarters. I think you could see it from your office window.”

  A chill went up my spine.

  “Gabriel’s playing more games with us? What is he trying—”

  I didn’t have to finish the thought to know the answer. Terror. And that meant there was more to it than just the parking of a stolen car across the street from my office.

  “It’s not just the car, is it? There’s more,” I said.

  Harrison nodded.

  “Finley’s missing partner, Breem, is inside.”

  11

  GARFIELD AVENUE WAS BLOCKED off at either end with the same stanchions that would be holding back parade-goers in a little over twenty-four hours. Nothing moved on the street other than a few dried magnolia leaves that blew across the pavement in the breeze. The central plaza in front of the grand Spanish city hall building was filled with emergency vehicles instead of tourists looking at the thousands of Christmas lights strung through all the trees. The only sound was that of a mockingbird in a distant tree, mimicking a siren.

  Right smack in the middle of downtown Pasadena every person within two blocks, including the entire police department, had been moved beyond a potential blast zone. Gabriel had stuck a thumb right in our eye by parking the Hyundai in front of the county court building and the police department. He was staking a claim that he could go anywhere, do anything. And what was most frightening was that I believed it.

  A bomb squad robot was ten feet from the Hyundai, its small video camera pointed at the face of the florist Breem. He was sitting in the passenger seat, his mouth covered with tape, his eyes wild with fear as they pleaded with the camera for help. We were a block to the south on the edge of the tree-lined plaza. Lacy’s godfather, Chief Chavez, stared at the image on a small TV monitor, then shook his head.

  “My God, I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.”

  I stared at the monitor thinking the exact same thing. Whatever I might have thought I understood about Gabriel, it now seemed irrelevant.

  “How much explosive is inside?” I asked.

  Chavez shook his head. “The first officer on scene backed off after he realized what the hell was going on.”

  “Look at the rear tires,” Harrison said. “The body is riding low, the fenders are almost touching. The trunk could be filled with a hundred pounds or more.”

  “What happens if it goes off?” Chavez said.

  “Let’s just say none of us will be around long enough to hear the blast,” Harrison said.

  “Do we know how it’s wired?” I asked.

  Harrison motioned to the tech officer controlling the robot.

  I looked at the small video monitor that was receiving the image from the robot’s camera as it panned off Breem’s face to the door on the passenger side. There were two small objects placed on opposite sides of the door’s opening.

  “They look like window alarm sensors.”

  “That’s exactly what they are. We haven’t seen the other door, but it’s safe to assume it’s also wired. We open a door, break a window, that’s it.”

  He paused and looked at me.

  “And that’s just what we’ve seen. There could be a remote or motion sensors. I don’t think we can rule anything out.”

  “Can I talk to him through this?”

  Harrison nodded. “There’s an open phone line on the robot.”

  The camera made a jerky pass back onto Breem and zoomed in until his face filled the monitor again. He was breathing heavily; sweat covered the side of his face in long streaks.

  “I don’t know if he’s capable of hearing you at this point,” Harrison said.

  “Agent Hicks is on the way with the FBI’s people. This is their ball game,” Chavez said.

  “They’re not going to ask him about my daughter.”

  Chavez looked at the monitor for a moment, then nodded. “Take as long as you need.”

  Harrison motioned to the mike on the control panel. “Just speak in a normal voice. He’ll hear it.”

  I nodded and Harrison flipped the mike’s switch.

  “Mr. Breem, this is Lieutenant Alex Delillo. You remember me, I was at your flower shop? If you understand me, nod as much as you’re able.”

  A bead of sweat dripped down his forehead.

  “He didn’t hear you,” Harrison said.

  “Mr. Breem, if you can hear me, nod your head. There’s a camera in the robot. Look at the robot and nod.”

  Breem shook his head.

  “Look at the camera and nod. I need to know that you can hear me.”

  Breem slowly turned his head as if it were being restrained by a neck brace.

  “I don’t think he knows where he is,” Harrison whispered.

  “We have the very best people here. You’re going to be all right.”

  Breem shook his head as if he knew something we didn’t. His eyes were wide open but with the unfocused look of a blind man.

  “Have you seen my daughter? She was a contestant in the pageant. You talked to her on the phone, Lacy Delillo. Do you know where Lacy Delillo is?”

  He stared straight ahead. His eyes gathered focus as if searching out a memory, then he looked back at the camera.

  “Lacy Delillo—do you know where she is?”

  Lines appeared at the corners of his eyes, then they filled with tears.

  Chavez’s hand landed on my shoulder. I couldn’t give it up. He knew something, he had to, otherwise he wouldn’t be in that car.

  “Mr. Breem, have you seen my daughter?”

  If he heard anything, he gave no sign of it. He looked straight ahead, his eyes retreating back into the nightmare he was living.

  “He’s gone. I don’t think he even hears your voice,” Chavez said.

  “He needs to see a face,” I said. “He’s alone and he’s terrified.”

  “Alex, don’t even think—”

  “He’s lost. If he sees my face, if he thinks he isn’t going to die . . .”

  “You’re not walking up there,” Chavez said.

  “If he knows something about Lacy and we lose him . . .”

  The air slipped out of my lungs, taking my voice with it. I tried to take another breath, but it was like breathing through a plastic bag. Finally, the words returned in a whisper.

  “How do I live with that?”

  Chavez looked at me like a stern father. “His hands are bound, his mouth taped. Even if you get through to him, what are you going to learn?”

  “All I need from him is a nod. If he makes a connection to Lacy then we know something we didn’t know before.”

  Chavez shook his head, looked over at Harrison.

  “You’re the explosives expert. Tell her why this is a bad idea.”

  Harrison looked down the block at the Hyundai, glanced at me, then turned to Chavez. “I don’t have a daughter.”

  Chavez shook his head and looked down the street toward the car.

  “I have a daughter,” he said in a whisper. Then he turned to me. “And I have a goddaughter.”

  HARRISON GAVE me a litany of things to look for in the car. The shape of the charge, was it bundled, how many circuits, where was the ground, source of ignition, how many fuses, what kind? If this wire or connection was present, was it intact? Was it broken? If it wasn’t, I was all right. If it was, run or lie down, depending on the direction of the explosive wave. It sounded like a high-school science class twisted into the vocabulary of terror.

  I’d walked this street outside headquarters for twenty years, but it was no longer familiar. Moving beyond the barriers felt like stepping onto the surface of the moon. It had the feel of one of those hideous blocks in Sarajevo where mothers ran past snipers just to buy bread for their family. With each foot gained, the ground became more and more suspect. Each step too
k me farther into a brave new world where the assumptions we held about right and wrong and justice were turning to dust.

  I stopped just short of the robot as Harrison had said, then carefully looked around the base of the car for any pins of red light that indicated a laser motion detector.

  “I don’t see anything,” I said, the mike on the robot picking up my voice. Harrison had thought it best not to give me a radio. Triggers could be set to frequencies.

  “Okay,” Harrison said. His voice sounded like it was coming from the other side of the planet instead of just two hundred yards away.

  Breem was sitting bolt upright facing straight ahead, his eyes closed, his breathing as rapid as that of a woman in labor.

  “Mr. Breem?” I said in as casual a way as possible.

  His eyes popped open like he was waking from a nightmare. He turned his head toward me without moving his body. There were deep circles under his eyes, his skin looked pale, as if he were being slowly drained of life.

  “I’m going to stand here for a little bit so you’re not alone. Do you remember me—Lieutenant Delillo?”

  He stared at me for a moment, his eyes searching for a thread of memory, and then he nodded. I stepped up next to the car and looked inside. As Harrison had suspected, the window and door appeared to have been wired.

  “You’re going to be all right. We’ll get you out of this.”

  His eyes bore into me as if he were asking a question, then he looked down at his lap. My heart was in my throat. The fear of standing next to the car vanished and was replaced by a cold sense of dread. I was looking at the terror Harrison had talked about. There was no fighting this. Just seeing it, I had already lost. The strands that collectively hold all of us together as humanity had just been cut. I stepped back from the car, repressing an urge to vomit, then turned and spoke into the mike so Breem wouldn’t hear me.

  “His hands are sitting in his lap. They’re not just bound, they’re covered in a big ball of duct tape with wires coming out of each side.”

  I looked down at the end of the block and could see Harrison turn toward Chavez and shake his head.

  “Can you see what the wires are connected to?” Harrison asked.

  “No, they go under the seat.”

  There was a long silence on the other end. I looked down the street at Harrison. He was staring at the ground, working something out. The hair on my arms suddenly raised. I knew what Harrison was doing. He was trying to get into Gabriel’s head. He was imagining the drawing of his face. The sharp features and dark hair. The small half-moon scar. The light eyes that even on paper had the power to look right through you. A “strong man of God.” It was the perfect portrait of evil. Figure how Gabriel wanted this exercise in terror to end, and you have a window into how he had wired the device wrapped around Breem’s hands.

  I saw Harrison shake his head, then look up from the pavement and turn toward me.

  “I think you should get out of there now. Just walk away,” he said.

  “What do you think is—”

  “Just walk away.”

  “I have to ask him about Lacy.”

  “Do as he says, Alex, walk,” Chavez said.

  I glanced down the road, then turned back to Breem.

  “Mr. Breem, they’re working out how to get you out of this.”

  He looked back at me and then down at his hands.

  “Do you know where my daughter is?”

  He lifted his eyes toward me and then shook his head. He tried to say something but the tape muffled his attempt and he began to cry. Whatever hope was left inside him drained away.

  From behind me on the speaker came Harrison’s voice.

  “Lieutenant, walk away. Walk away right now.”

  Breem began to scream under the tape and shake his head violently back and forth.

  “Get out of there, Alex!” Chavez yelled from down the block.

  Breem’s eyes paused just long enough for me to know that he had made a decision.

  “No, we can get you out of this,” I said.

  He shook his head and screamed under the tape. Down the street Chavez was yelling.

  “Get out of there, Alex!”

  I took a step back, then another and another as Breem’s muffled wail became continuous. As I turned and started to run, I saw out of the corner of my eye Breem raise the ball of tape that covered his hands.

  The concussion knocked me to my hands and knees like a hard slap from a giant hand. There was silence for a moment, and then the glass from the car’s window began falling on the pavement around me like a dusting of snow. The echo of the explosion bounced off headquarters across the street and broke the silence with a heavy thud. The concussion set off car alarms up and down the street. The thump of a helicopter became audible. The acrid smell of explosives blended with the sweet scent of night-blooming jasmine.

  “Why?” I said, not entirely sure if I was having an internal conversation or speaking out loud. I began to shake my head. It didn’t make sense. Why did he do that? I sat back on my feet and tried to determine if I was wounded. My legs were fine, my arms, head. Blood trickled from my mouth—I had bitten my tongue as I was knocked down.

  Down the street, officers were running toward me. I turned and, to my surprise, saw that the car was still intact. The windows were all broken and some fabric hung down from the ceiling, but otherwise it appeared undamaged. Breem was still sitting in the passenger seat. His head was bent forward with his chin resting on his chest. Blood was dripping heavily from his nose. A strip of duct tape had been blown loose from around his mouth and hung like a torn piece of flesh. If he was alive, he was unconscious.

  I rose unsteadily to my feet and walked toward the car and looked inside. Breem’s hands were gone. All that was left was bone and torn muscle and the silvery sleeves of tendon.

  I stumbled backward as two hands caught me by the shoulders and began to walk me away from the car. Voices were asking me questions, but I couldn’t make out any of the words. I was aware of tears running down my face, but I felt no emotion. The hands around my shoulders guided me back down the street past the yellow tape and sat me down on the curb.

  “Alex, are you hit anywhere?”

  I looked up into the face of Chavez, who was kneeling in front of me.

  “He set it off. I don’t understand, he just set it off,” I said.

  I shook my head in disbelief and ran my fingers through my hair. Tiny cubes of safety glass fell out like rice after a wedding.

  I looked back down the street toward the car. Two bomb squad officers in full armored suits were pulling Breem’s limp body out through the window and carrying him awkwardly toward some waiting paramedics.

  “Terror,” I whispered.

  “Alex?”

  “Breem’s eyes. He understood terror, he knew it.” I looked up at Chavez. “He didn’t know where Lacy was, but he knew she was kidnapped. He knew.”

  “Someone want to tell me what the hell happened here?” said an angry voice.

  Agent Hicks had arrived with the FBI’s team and was standing behind Chavez. In the white, artificial light, I could see the flush of anger in his neck.

  “I told you people to wait, to stay back and let us handle it. And what do you do? You let her walk in—”

  “ ‘Her’ is the head of Homicide,” Chavez said defensively.

  “Who just about got a witness blown up, brilliant work. Who do you think you’re dealing with?”

  “He set it off himself, Hicks,” Chavez said.

  “Now, why the hell would he do that? You got an answer for that, Lieutenant?”

  The gurney carrying Breem came clattering past with two paramedics working furiously. There was a tube down his throat to aid his breathing. Blood-soaked bandages covered the stumps of his arms. I could smell the explosives on him as he went by. It permeated his clothes like a rotting rose.

  I replayed the events in my head. His screams under the gag. His shaking his
head. He knew something. Terror. I suddenly understood. Harrison may have guessed it. It was why he told me to back away.

  “Oh, my God,” I whispered.

  Chavez took my hand. “What?”

  “I think Breem did it to save lives.”

  “Come again,” Hicks said.

  “I think there’re more explosives in the trunk. He was given a choice. Gabriel gave him a choice.”

  “What choice?”

  “He could lose his hands. Or take the chance that others would die trying to save him. I think that’s what he did.”

  Hicks shook his head.

  “All you know is that he panicked, and that you’re lucky to be alive.”

  “It wasn’t panic I saw in his eyes, Hicks. He made a decision . . . an unimaginable decision.”

  Harrison stepped up next to Chavez and knelt down.

  “You okay?”

  I nodded.

  “The car is loaded with explosives. The charge on his hands took out the other triggers. If the full load had gone off, this would have looked like a street in Baghdad.”

  “Jesus,” Chavez said.

  “That car is ours,” Hicks said, getting out his cell phone. “Get your people out of there.”

  Chavez nodded and Hicks walked away, barking orders at other agents.

  I looked at Harrison. He knew the truth about what Breem had just done as clearly as if he had been standing next to me. The horror of coming to a decision that cost him his own hands. How he sat in the car, running the possibilities through his head again and again. How he would have played out all the “what ifs” and “maybes” and “prayers” only to come to the decision Gabriel had intended all along. The shock of it spread out like a wave from an explosion, leaving all who understood lessened and weaker.

  “Tell me you can outthink him,” I said to Harrison.

  The ambulance taking Breem away lit up its siren and sped off, wailing into the night like a wounded animal. Harrison watched it drive away.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Screw it,” I said, angry at my weakness. “He has my child. I will not give in to this. I won’t do it.”