by April Henry
His plan to stay silent is quickly abandoned. Grunts are forced from his mouth with every blow. His mouth fills with hot, salty blood. A solid kick connects with the back of his head. He imagines he can feel his brain bouncing off his skull.
Finally, Heels yells, “No. Stop! We have to stop! He’s not the enemy. And we’re not killers. We’re not like them.”
Parker uncurls his head.
And then Businessman kicks him in the chin.
5:23 p.m.
UNIT 45: We have to assume that 68 and the others are no longer able to assist. I’ll take command until SWAT is on-site. Until then I want two cars at every exit to check for injured, and to check for people who might be armed.
DISPATCH: Copy that. I’ve got press and family members staging at Calvary Baptist, which is about two miles from the mall. We have requested mutual aid from all local law enforcement. Tigard, Beaverton, Gresham, and Oregon City are sending additional officers. I’ve got about fifteen Salem officers coming up, and another twenty officers coming down from Vancouver.
UNIT 45: All cars coming in, have them set up a perimeter around the entire mall.
DISPATCH: Copy.
UNIT 10: Do I have permission to take people in cars? I’ve got a bunch of people shot and no ambulances.
UNIT 45: Do it. Just tell all the hospitals we got people coming in.
DISPATCH: Copy.
UNIT 22: We’ve got two victims in the back of a squad on the west side of the mall. We’ll take them in.
UNIT 84: I have three parties shot over on the east side. One guy’s been shot in the neck. Taking them in.
UNIT 45: Officers on foot, be careful, as we’ve got squads leaving with victims. Dispatch, what’s the status on SWAT and the Crisis Negotiation Team?
DISPATCH: They should be on-site in the next few minutes.
UNIT 45: Is the FBI in the loop yet? We may need to get them to activate the Hostage Rescue Team out of Quantico.
DISPATCH: Someone’s in touch with the FBI on the fire channel.
UNIT 45: Tell everyone to come into the south parking lot. We’ll give them cover.
DISPATCH: 10-4. They have been advised.
SLOWLY, SLOWLY
5:23 P.M.
The explosion was so powerful that it rattled the cage of Miranda’s ribs.
Grace cried out, and Cole pulled her to him. “That wasn’t any flash bang,” he whispered to them over her shoulder. “That was a bomb.” His mouth twisted. “I can’t believe they did that.”
“One of them exploded his vest?” Javier asked.
Cole shook his head. “I think they set a booby trap for the cops.”
A scream came from the other side of one of their walls. “Parker!” It was a little girl. Panicked. And very close. “Parker! Parker!”
Miranda braced herself for the sound of shots. But all she heard was the faint murmur of two men’s voices.
Now Miranda’s phone vibrates. She pulls it out with a shaking hand. It’s a text from her dad.
The cops think a bomb took out the cops who were coming in. Pulling back & reevaluating.
How long until they come? she texts back.
It takes him so long to respond that Miranda already knows the answer before she reads it.
May be long time. Are you sure no way out?
She texts back, We’ll try to think of something. She can’t stay penned up here any longer, shaking from withdrawal, the seconds crawling by.
Be careful. I love you.
Love you too. Tears burn her eyes. Saying good-bye to people is already horrible, but having to say it over and over is worse.
Everyone but Grace—who is still sniffling into Cole’s shoulder—is watching her. “My dad says that explosion was a bomb. It took out the cops who were trying to save us.”
Amina looks at the computer. “The reporter is also saying it was a bomb.”
Miranda’s whisper is light as air. “He said that it might be a long time before the cops can come for us.”
Grace lifts her head, her eyes shining with tears. “I can’t take this. Waiting to die.”
“The longer we stay here,” Javier says, “the better the chance they’ll find us.”
Miranda tries to imagine spending hours and hours here. Days.
“What if we tried that back corridor again?” She points. “We haven’t heard any shots for a long time.”
“I don’t know.” Grace finds an edge of her blouse that isn’t bloodstained and wipes her eyes. “What if it’s not safe?”
“And this is?” Amina says flatly.
“Too bad that back door don’t have a peephole,” Javier says.
A peephole would only show something directly in front of the door. They need to know if there’s still someone in the corridor. But if one of them pokes their head out to discover the answer, they could die.
But what if…? Miranda gets to her feet and starts looking through the top drawer of the desk. There! The ruler she remembered seeing earlier. And a roll of tape. Holding her phone against one end of the eighteen-inch-long ruler, she starts wrapping tape around both.
“What are you doing?” Cole asks.
“Sticking a phone out that door is a lot safer than sticking out your head. I can put it in video mode and then check out the back corridor.”
Amina looks up, thinking. “To the right, it just ends. I’m pretty sure at Eternity Day Spa.”
Miranda pictures it in her head. “And that’s off the hall where they’re holding the hostages.”
“Right.” Amina points in the other direction. “The other way goes about fifty feet, but then it branches.”
“Where do the branches go?” Grace asks.
“One goes to the mall. The other goes to tenant storage.” Amina traces an imaginary path in the air. “But I’m pretty sure that one also goes to an emergency exit. But we won’t be able to see it from here.”
“If we can leave, do you think you can walk?” Miranda asks Javier.
Instead of answering, he slowly pushes himself to his feet. He takes one step, then another.
“I can do it,” he whispers. “Thanks to you guys. Let’s go. Let’s get out of here.”
As they move to the door, Grace looks at Amina. “Maybe you should take off your scarf thing.”
“What?” Amina narrows her eyes. “Why?”
“Because it makes you stand out. And maybe these people don’t like Muslims.”
“I won’t deny my faith. Besides, I don’t think it matters. I’m pretty sure they want to kill all of us.”
As they leave the storeroom, Grace spots a broom in the corner. She spins off the head and gives the handle a few experimental swings before hefting it over one shoulder. Cole has the scissors. Javier holds his BB gun. Amina has the three-hole punch. Miranda carries her phone taped to the ruler.
They don’t have to move the bookcase nearly as far as before, but somehow it’s harder. Miranda thinks it must be because they’re starting to face the truth of what they’re about to do.
As they leave, Miranda looks back at the empty storeroom: the strewn clothes, the floor splashed with drying splotches of Javier’s blood. It looks surreal. Like a camera crew might step out and reveal it’s all a crazy new reality show.
If only.
Miranda walks to the emergency exit and puts her ear against it. Nothing. She closes her eyes to concentrate.
The sound of a tiny bell makes her jump, even though it’s behind her. Amina has opened the cash register. Setting down the three-hole punch, she grabs a pair of long socks from a nearby display, pulls one free, and begins filling it with fistfuls of coins. Miranda doesn’t understand, but then Amina raises the filled sock and swings it through the air at head level. Miranda imagines how satisfying it would feel to hit one of the killers, to break his jaw, smash his nose, crush his cheek.
“Can you make me one?” she whispers to Amina before turning back to the door. She puts her phone in video mode, then holds he
r breath and eases the door open just far enough to slide out the phone taped to the ruler. She tries to move it in different angles as well as up and down, and then she slips it back in, flips it so that it’s facing the other side, and sticks it out again. Even though she hears nothing, it’s a relief to bring the phone inside and close the door.
Everyone crowds around as she plays back the silent video. It’s oddly comforting to be surrounded by the warmth and smells of the others.
The body Amina saw is still there, but there’s no sign of anyone else. It’s just an empty corridor with scuffed ivory-colored walls, interspersed with plain brown doors. As Amina said, it dead-ends to their right. On their left, it stretches on farther than the phone can see.
“It looks safe,” Grace finally says.
“What if we realize it’s a mistake and need to get back in?” Miranda starts to undo the tape. “That door will lock behind us.”
“I’ve got a key.” Amina pats her pocket.
“But what if we get split up?” Javier says.
“We could put something inside to keep the lock from clicking in,” Miranda says. “Like gum.”
“That’s too squishy.” Cole has been toying with a cap from near the register and now tries it on. “Maybe paper.”
“But if we do that,” Amina points out, “anyone could come in.”
Grace shrugs one shoulder. “Who’s going to try? Anyone back there must know how these doors work. They won’t expect to find one unlocked.”
Finally, Cole pulls the door open an inch, just far enough so that he can stuff the hole where the lock would normally click into place. He uses the folded-up tag from the hat. Then, one by one, they slip outside, with Cole in the lead and Javier in the rear. They keep in a tight line, each with their weapon.
The weight of her coin-filled sock feels good in Miranda’s hand. She thinks of the SWAT team. She’s seen photos of men in camouflage lined up like they are now. What if there’s a booby trap out here, too?
But the only thing in sight is the woman’s lifeless body. She lies on her belly, one knee raised and one arm outstretched, as if she’s still trying to crawl forward. Without discussion, they come to a stop.
“That is Linda,” Amina whispers. “Oh my God. Linda. We walked in together today.”
Linda has red hair with gray roots. Her head is turned to one side. Her blue eyes are open, fixed and still. Her skin looks like wax. Under her hips is a puddle of blood.
As they pick their way around her, Miranda swallows back bile.
Just before the corridor branches to the right, Cole stops. Nervously, he tugs the brim of his new hat with his free hand.
Then slowly, slowly, he peeks around the corner, scissors at the ready. After a long moment, he nods that it’s okay. Miranda lets out a breath she didn’t even know she was holding. The rest of them join him.
“If we keep going straight, it just leads to the mall,” Amina whispers. She points down the new corridor. “I’m pretty sure there’s an outside exit. But this place is like a maze. It’s been added on to a million times over the years. Things don’t fit together in any logical way. The security guards are the only people who really know the layout.”
There’s no need to discuss which way to go. They creep down the new corridor, carefully turn another corner. And in the middle of the new corridor are solid metal double doors with a red EXIT sign overhead. They are only thirty feet from freedom.
And then Miranda sees it. Another bike lock stretches across the doors, chaining them together.
There’s no way out.
EVERYTHING IS UNDER CONTROL
5:23 P.M.
“It’s time,” Karl says to the man next to him, the driver of their nondescript white van.
They’ve been monitoring the police channels. Every cop within a hundred miles has converged on Portland, responding to what is clearly a major terrorist attack.
The driver presses down on the accelerator until the van hugs the bumper of the unmarked tractor-trailer. Both he and Karl are dressed in dark coveralls topped with reflective vests. Except for a half-dozen orange traffic cones, the back of their van is empty.
Karl raises the fob in his gloved hand and presses the button.
Instantly, the cab of the eighteen-wheeler ahead of them is filled with a cloud of pepper spray. For the three guards inside, the effect is instantaneous and overwhelming. It’s like being kicked in the chest by a donkey. Every inch of exposed skin is now on fire.
As his eyes involuntarily clamp shut, the tractor-trailer’s driver manages to pull over to the side of the road. The three guards stumble out of the cab, coughing uncontrollably, mucous streaming from their noses. One of them starts to vomit. Another flees the cloud spilling out of the cab’s open doors, blindly running into a tree so hard, he’s knocked off his feet. The third presses his hands to his chest as if his heart is going to burst. But the gas is already dissipating.
Parking behind the tractor-trailer, the van’s driver puts on his flashers. He and Karl pull on ski masks and jump out of the van. It’s no work at all to relieve the guards of their guns, zip tie their hands behind their backs, and order them to walk into the woods that border this quiet stretch of road. The guards stumble off under threat of being shot. Karl has no intention of shooting them, not if he doesn’t have to. It’s not like the authorities won’t look hard for missing money, but when murder is also involved, they will never give up the search.
Karl and the driver set out the orange cones to make it look like everything is under control. They open the back of the van, then take the keys from the ignition of the eighteen-wheeler and open the trailer. A few seconds later, they start moving the buckets of gold from the larger vehicle to the smaller one. They also retrieve a few of the lighter—and less valuable—buckets of silver, stopping once there’s no more room in the back of the van.
Fifteen minutes after Karl pressed the button on the fob, they’re gone. Without firing a shot. And with twenty-two million in untraceable precious metals.
COME WITH ME
5:39 P.M.
Despair flattens Miranda as she looks at the bike lock stretched across the metal doors. The police aren’t coming and all the doors are locked. And even though she didn’t hear any shots, Parker is probably dead too. Maybe even his sister.
Muttering, “No, no, no,” Grace walks past Cole, grabs the chain, and yanks it.
The locked door, the door that is the only thing that stands between them and safety, is halfway down the corridor. Miranda looks to the other end. Just like the hall they came from, it doglegs, so she can’t see more than about thirty yards.
“I don’t think we can go that way,” Javier says from behind her. “That goes toward where the hostages are.”
“We’re just going to have to go back to where we branched off and try the other way,” Miranda says.
“Back into the mall?” Amina shakes her head hard. “If we go out that door, they’ll see us.”
“But there must be another exit someplace that isn’t locked. We have to try to find one.” Miranda won’t give up. She can’t. She focuses on that and not on how shaky she feels.
“Hold on,” Cole whispers. His fingers have been busy unwinding a paper clip, and now he holds it up. He must have taken it from the desk drawer. “I might be able to get the lock open with this.”
“You know how to pick the locks?” Javier asks.
“When you grow up on a farm, you learn how to make your own fun.” Cole puts one end of the now-straightened paper clip between his teeth and bites down, then bends it. When he takes it out, it’s bent at a ninety-degree angle. He pulls another paper clip out of his pocket and quickly unfurls it. “Spread out and keep watch.” He makes a series of tiny bends in the second piece of wire. “This is either going to work right away or it’s not going to work at all.”
Javier stays at the intersection with the corridor they came from. Amina, armed with her coin-filled sock, faces the new cor
ridor. Miranda and Grace stand in between the two, with Miranda closer to Amina.
A few feet from Grace, Cole kneels in front of the lock. He has tucked the scissors into his waistband. He’s biting his lip. The ball cap hides most of his face, so Miranda doesn’t know if he’s worried his paper clip trick isn’t going to work or if he’s just absorbed by the puzzle.
His left hand is curled around the lock, and his left index finger holds the straightened paper clip inside the lock at about four o’clock. With his right hand, he’s plunging the bumpier wire in and out of the lock. His head is cocked as if he’s trying to hear the tumblers inside the lock falling into place.
A gasp makes her turn.
It’s Amina. Miranda can’t see what she’s staring at. But she hears footsteps.
Amina’s eyes go wide. Her face lights up as if she has just beheld a miracle. “Thank God! Ron! Please, please, Ron, help us get out of here.”
Behind her, Miranda hears Cole scramble to his feet and then it sounds like he’s running. But why?
It’s one of the security guards. A mall one, not a plainclothes one who works for the stores. Miranda’s seen him before. He’s got blond hair cut military short, and he wears a light-blue shirt and black pants, along with a black utility belt.
“Why, hello, Amina.” His right arm is crooked awkwardly behind his back. A tight smile is pasted on his face. He steps forward with his left arm outstretched, and for an absurd moment Miranda thinks he’s going to hug Amina.
Instead he loops his arm around her neck. The move turns Amina and yanks her to her tiptoes at the same time. Her sock filled with quarters clunks to the floor. He raises the thing he was hiding behind him and points it not at Amina but at the others. It’s a long gun. A black rifle with a curved clip.
It looks just like the guns the killers used.
Miranda’s muddled brain tries to make sense of this. Did he take it from one of them? Because the security guards here don’t carry guns. These guards are all wannabe cops, but the worst thing they have is pepper spray. Pepper spray, zip-tie handcuffs, plastic gloves, a walkie-talkie. But not some kind of automatic rifle meant for killing as many people as possible.