by April Henry
Ron swings a left roundhouse at his head. Parker ducks. The blow glances off the top of his head, but is still hard enough that it tugs his hair.
Amina reaches back to claw at Ron’s face. Her fingernails leave red furrows, and he lets out a yell. She squirms out of his grasp and runs away, leaving Ron and Parker facing off against each other.
The security guard stands angled, his hands loose fists held close to his face as he bobs and weaves. It’s clear that he has been in fights before. Ron is taller, so he has more reach. And Parker might be a champion wrestler, but that’s on a mat with rules and a referee and someone in his weight class. With the fire extinguisher now out of reach, he’s lost the only advantage he had.
In a split second, Parker runs through his options. A double-leg takedown? But then what happens once they are on the floor? Or should he change levels, get up under the security guard, lift him, and then try to slam him into the floor, knocking him out? But Ron probably has fifty pounds on him.
Then it comes to Parker. A choke from behind. Like all wrestlers, Parker’s played around with mixed-martial-arts moves. Only now it’s deadly serious and he can’t afford to get it wrong. If it works, he’ll choke Ron into unconsciousness. If it doesn’t, he’ll end up on the floor with the bigger man on top of him.
But it’s the best chance he has.
Faking a right hook, Parker slips to his left, cutting an angle. Then he drags Ron’s right arm across, moving until he’s facing the other man’s back. Parker jumps on Ron’s shoulders like a monkey. His right arm snakes around the bigger man’s neck as he winds his legs around his thighs.
Wearing Parker like a backpack, Ron staggers forward, bent in half. His hands pull at Parker’s forearm, which is now wrapped around his throat. With his left forearm, Parker pushes the back of Ron’s head forward and down, reinforcing the move with his chest. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if he gets thrown. He feels exhausted, his perch tenuous. He doesn’t have any more energy to give, but he knows he can’t stop. He wiggles his right arm to fit it more snugly across the carotids on the sides of the throat. His arms are crossed, with Ron’s neck in the middle. With a grunt, Parker ratchets his elbows closer and closer together.
Finally Ron makes a rattling sound and falls to his knees. Parker doesn’t let up the pressure. And then Ron falls facedown on the linoleum and doesn’t even try to catch himself. Only then does Parker loosen his grip and unhook his legs.
Tugging his arm free, Parker gets to his feet. He kicks Ron in the side, but Ron doesn’t move. He finally allows his focus to expand. That’s when he sees Amina holding the fire extinguisher over one shoulder, ready to step in if Parker’s plan failed.
“Thank you,” he says. His heart is beating so hard, he can feel it in his ears and fingertips. He has to brace his hands on his knees, and suddenly he’s worried that he might go tumbling to the floor next to Ron.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
Amina’s eyes are huge. She manages a nod.
“Are you?”
ON THE TRIGGER
6:23 P.M.
Chaos, Miranda thinks, her hands slick on what was once Cole’s rifle as they march past the newly opened gate and into the hall. That’s the only word for what’s happening. In her plan, she had imagined that everyone would be focused on her threat to kill Cole. Of course, her plan hadn’t included all the suicide vests blowing up. Luckily, Cole’s discarded vest had been far enough away that her group hadn’t been hurt.
Seizing a chance to escape, some hostages are now running past Miranda, through the food court and into the mall. A guy with a shaved head who darts out of the Shoe Mill even has a handgun, but since he doesn’t point it at Miranda as he runs past her, she decides she doesn’t care. At the far end of the hall, other hostages are trying to crawl through the broken-out lower pane of one of the exit doors, which are still bike-locked together.
Miranda sticks to her plan. She has to make sure that their little crew plus Parker and Moxie get out of here safely. She ignores the smell of smoke, the sound of thundering water, and the sights of a murdered hostage and the pieces of the killer who died when his suicide vest exploded.
They go farther into the hall, Miranda marching Cole and his brothers ahead of her. But then the one code-named Zulu, the smaller of the two, runs toward a bench and snatches something from underneath it. When he straightens up and turns back, he’s holding a rifle in his arms.
Miranda freezes. Where did it come from? It must have belonged to the dead killer. Everything slows down. With laser-like focus, Miranda watches Zulu’s finger find the trigger. It feels as if she has all the time in the world to step to one side, to get out of the line of fire. She pictures it in great detail, how the bullet will sail harmlessly past her. Her thoughts feel sluggish, dreamlike.
But then with slowly dawning horror Miranda realizes that her body is actually doing nothing. It’s not moving out of the way. She’s not even pulling the trigger on her own rifle. She’s like a spectator, watching as her own life comes to an end. Frozen.
With a smirk on his lips, the killer looks straight into Miranda’s eyes through the holes in his mask. His own are icy blue, and there’s a mole just underneath his left eyebrow.
Zulu’s knuckle flexes as his finger tightens on the trigger.
All Miranda manages to do is suck in a breath. This is it.
But instead of the stutter of bullets, there’s only a click. Miranda blinks. Zulu squeezes the trigger again and again, which produces only more clicks. The rifle must have been damaged when its owner’s vest exploded.
With an irritated grunt, Zulu grabs the rifle by the barrel, first with one fist, then the other. He hefts it over his shoulder like a bat, then steps forward as he swings it in a wide arc. His eyes are pinned on Miranda, but Grace is the person closest to him. With a horrible hollow sound, the stock strikes her temple. She stumbles sideways and goes down on one knee. Zulu hefts the rifle again.
“No!” Cole yells. “Don’t hurt Grace!” Suddenly the scissors from Culpeppers’s storeroom are in his hand. And then they’re sticking out of his brother’s neck, right where it meets his shoulder. Zulu drops the rifle, then stumbles backward. He sits heavily, his back against the Coach store’s window, his eyes wide.
Grace grabs up the broken rifle and points it at him.
The killer pulls off his mask. Then his hands go to the handle of the scissors.
“Don’t pull it out, Zach!” Cole yells, but his brother doesn’t listen. And suddenly bright red blood is fountaining. A burst of noise at the entrance makes Miranda turn her head. On the far side of the glass doors is an army of uniforms. Some of the men and women have bolt cutters, some have pry bars, and all of them have guns. One by one the doors pop open and the cops surge in, shouting.
“EVERYBODY FREEZE!”
“DROP YOUR WEAPONS!”
“PUT YOUR HANDS ON TOP OF YOUR HEADS!”
Miranda drops her rifle, as does the guy with gauges who had earlier taken the security guard’s gun. Javier throws down his BB gun.
But Grace is still holding the jammed rifle, staring at Zulu and the blood spurting from his neck. And she doesn’t move.
Miranda sees what the cops must. A woman with an assault rifle, seconds away from finishing off a gravely wounded hostage.
One of the cops trains his pistol on her. “Drop your weapon!” he roars. “Now!”
“Grace!” Miranda shouts, trying to break the spell. “Grace!”
But Grace doesn’t move. She doesn’t even blink.
Miranda watches the cop take careful aim. “Grace!” she screams again.
Just as Cole leaps in between Grace and the cop.
And the cop’s bullet that was meant for Grace strikes Cole instead. He makes a terrible groan as he lands on the floor next to his brother.
Grace finally drops the rifle. She falls on her knees beside Cole. Screaming, screaming.
OVER
6:27 P.M.
/> It’s over. At the cop’s commands, Parker raises his hands, ignoring how the movement makes something grate in his side. Ignoring how his left pinky finger juts out at a weird angle from the rest of his hand.
The girl in the bloodstained shirt is screaming over the dead or wounded killers, Mole and Nicholas—the brother who stabbed him, the one Miranda marched in and who just got shot by the cops. Ron is still unconscious.
That leaves Wolf, and no one should leave Wolf.
Because instead of raising his hands, he bolts. As he runs, he reaches into the back of his waistband and pulls out something long and silver. It’s that pistol with a silencer screwed onto the end, the one he used to shoot the guy whose phone rang. And then he darts toward Stanford and snatches Moxie out of her arms.
A cold fist of horror squeezes Parker’s heart as Wolf points the gun at his sister’s head.
“Parker!” Moxie screams, her arms reaching out to him. “Parker!”
ALL TOO MUCH
6:28 P.M.
It’s all too much, Miranda thinks as she looks at Grace screaming over the bodies of Cole and his brother—only a few feet apart from each other. There’s been so much carnage today. She can’t do this anymore. She just can’t. She squeezes her eyes closed.
But then above the shouts and screams of the hostages and the orders of the police, she hears a little voice shrieking.
She opens her eyes. Her stomach bottoms out. No, she thinks. No, please, God, I’m not seeing this.
Facing the police, one of the killers is holding Moxie tight against his chest with his left arm. His other hand has shoved the silenced pistol so tightly under her chin that it’s forcing her small tearstained face to look up at the ceiling.
Moxie must know that it’s a gun, because she’s not squirming, not kicking her feet. Instead, she is perfectly still.
Miranda fights off a surge of nausea.
“Moxie! No! Moxie!” Parker’s voice hitches and rises a notch. His empty hands reach out to her. He’s about twenty feet away, but it’s clear he doesn’t dare go any closer.
The cops nearest the killer go still and watchful. Nothing moves but their eyes. The stillness ripples out as hostages and rescuers alike realize the horror is still not over.
“Back off or I’m going to kill this kid!” the killers’ leader says. His voice cuts through the remaining din. “You need to get me a car. And then you’re going to let me walk out of here.”
No one moves. One of the policemen says in a slow and careful voice, “Okay, let’s talk about this.”
“Don’t talk,” he commands. “Do.” He shifts the pistol so that it’s pressed against Moxie’s arm. “Get me that car. NOW. Or I’ll start by shooting her in the hand or the foot.”
If he leaves with Moxie, then she’s dead. It’s as simple as that. Discarded as soon as she’s no longer needed. Or killed in a high-speed chase. Or when a policeman’s bullet misses its intended target.
And if she dies, Miranda is sure that a big part of Parker will too.
Someone has to stop this.
Miranda remembers the scarves stuffed in her pocket, the ones they had originally planned to use to tie up anyone who came to check out the remote-control car. Now she pulls out a length of silky fabric and loops an end tight around each hand. The killer’s attention is on the cops facing him. Not on the hostages behind him.
Before she can think better of it, Miranda runs up behind him, ignoring how the broken glass bites at her stockinged feet. She loops the scarf over his head and around his neck and then jerks back as hard and as fast as she can. He staggers back, falling to his butt, which sends Miranda to her knees. As his left hand rises to claw at the scarf, Moxie squirms free and runs to Parker. But the killer doesn’t loosen his grip on the pistol. In fact, he keeps rotating his hand so that his gun is pointing behind him. Pointing right at her. Desperate to choke off his oxygen, Miranda pulls even harder. But she still sees his finger begin to tighten on the trigger.
With a flat clang, scorching metal punches her forehead, snapping it back. Hot blood pours down her face.
Then everything goes white.
MURDERS, HOSTAGE TAKING
AT PORTLAND’S FAIRGATE MALL
REVEALED TO BE SMOKESCREEN
FOR $22 MILLION HEIST
(Associated Press)
Portland, Ore.—The FBI has revealed that the brazen shooting spree and hostage taking at Portland’s Fairgate Mall last December was not just an act of domestic terrorism but also a distraction that allowed thieves to make off unmolested with more than $22 million in precious metals. The thieves are still at large, and the gold and silver they stole has not yet been recovered.
Nineteen people died in the attack, including three of the killers. Another twenty-three people were wounded. Several victims are still undergoing treatment for their injuries.
The group behind the attack, Liberty Makers, have in the past described themselves as patriots. They claim that the greatest threat America faces is not from hostile countries or Islamic terrorists but from the federal government. Authorities say group members are heavily armed extremists with an anti-government mindset. Many are current or former members of the military.
Mark Goforth of the Southern Poverty Law Center says, “The core ideas of these so-called patriot groups relate to the fear that elites in this country and around the world are nefariously moving us toward a one-world government.”
The group was led by a charismatic ex-Marine named Karl McKinley. Other members included the three Bond brothers. Gabriel and Zach Bond had both been honorably discharged from the army after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their younger brother, Nicholas “Cole” Bond, had recently graduated from high school. All three had trouble finding jobs that paid much more than minimum wage. Disillusioned, they joined Liberty Makers. The two older brothers had finally gotten work as security guards at Fairgate Mall. There, they introduced another security guard, Ron Skinner, to their cause. Tim Hollingsworth, a sixth Liberty Maker who joined the assault at the mall, had a long criminal record for petty crimes such as shoplifting and public drunkenness. Hollingsworth, along with Nicholas and Zach Bond, ultimately died in the mall.
What the others in the group didn’t know was that McKinley had become disillusioned. Even though he had founded the group, he no longer believed it was possible to change society. So he decided to use Liberty Makers for his own purposes. He had learned about a shipment of gold and silver bars that would be aboard a tractor-trailer traveling from Boise, Idaho, to a processing plant in Vancouver, Washington. He wanted to rob the truck but needed a distraction so that he could get away clean.
The attack at Fairgate Mall provided that distraction. He persuaded the group that a blitz attack on the mall, followed by the holding of hostages, would bring needed attention to their cause.
McKinley’s plan worked. By the time the theft of the precious metals was reported, all law enforcement within a hundred miles was busy responding to the unfolding tragedy at Fairgate Mall. A robbery, even one of such high-value items, had to be put on the back burner.
In the intervening weeks, authorities have not been able to locate McKinley or any associates he may have had and they fear that he may have fled the country. The two surviving attackers—Skinner and Gabriel Bond—claim to have had no knowledge of McKinley’s secondary plan and not to know his current whereabouts.
TOGETHER, WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE
3:53 P.M.
FIVE MONTHS LATER
Carrying the cardboard tray from Perk Me Up, Miranda takes a deep breath and steps into the food court. Fairgate Mall looks like it did just before the shooting started five months ago. Then as now, people are eating, chatting, checking their phones, carrying shopping bags, bustling in and out of stores. The Christmas music has been replaced with something more generic. In a flash of memory, Miranda sees that bell ringer again, with the slogan on her red bucket. “Together, we can make a difference.”
In
her mind’s eye, she can also still see the bodies, the blood, the broken glass and overturned chairs. See Gabriel Bond gliding down the escalator, unhurriedly raising his automatic rifle to shoot the wounded woman lying at its foot. Smell the smoke, the fire extinguisher’s chemicals, and the stench of her own fear. Hear the gunshots, the fire alarm, the screams, the explosions.
This is the first time Miranda has been back since the night the paramedics carried her out. Now it takes all her willpower to keep moving toward the table where Javier, Amina, Parker, and Grace are waiting.
The five of them have stayed in loose touch, mostly by text. This is only the second time they’ve all been together since that terrible day. The first was a few days into the new year, when they were honored by the mayor for bringing an end to what is now called the Siege of Fairgate. Miranda thinks it sounds medieval, like what happened here involved castle walls and boiling oil and heads on spikes. Maybe it did. Just more modern versions of those things.
To a chorus of thank-yous from the others, she sets the tray down next to two red roses, each wrapped in green florist’s paper, that are sitting in front of Grace.
Javier reaches for his plain black coffee, while Amina finds her peppermint tea. Grace picks up her coffee. Parker, like Miranda, ordered a latte. Lifting it in her direction, he gives her a smile.
Even though Parker is the one Miranda talks to the most, she doesn’t know how to categorize their relationship. Being with him reminds her of the worst and best parts of herself. Of how far she has come from that afternoon in his basement. But there are times she doesn’t want to be reminded of who she used to be. Of what she went through.
“It’s like it never happened,” Miranda says as she looks around the space.
“There’s not even a plaque.” Amina unclips her Culpeppers name tag.
Parker shrugs. “It’s not like they could just tear down the mall and start from scratch.” It’s an old discussion between him and Miranda, one that began in the hospital after her dad told her the mall was already planning on reopening.