SERGEANT HERB BENEDICT, gun in hand, jogs up the sidewalk, past one idling car after another. His own car is pinned between three others, impossible to drive. The streets are jammed, and nothing is moving. It’s like all of Skokie has become a giant parking lot.
He’s looking for a car, any car, that isn’t trapped, but even the intersections are completely congested. A hundred horns are sounding off around him, coupled with angry shouts. He’s still two miles away from the treatment plant, and if he doesn’t find a vehicle quickly, Jack and McGlade are going to die. In McGlade’s case, it’s no big loss. But Jack is like a sister.
Switching to Robbery had been the hardest thing Herb had ever done. He felt like he was betraying, and abandoning, his best friend. He had hoped that Jack would recognize how ridiculously dangerous their job had become, and would follow him. But she didn’t.
She keeps on risking her life for the Job, Herb thought, and here I am, yet again, running toward danger rather than away from it, to try and save her life.
An engine, behind him. He stops and turns, sees a car has gotten sick of the traffic and driven onto the sidewalk. Something older and sporty, a Challenger or a GTO. Perfect. Herb tucks his 9mm into his hip holster and holds up his badge. He can commandeer this car and—
The car accelerates. The driver either doesn’t see him or doesn’t care. Herb yells, but his voice isn’t audible above all of the honking. He realizes the car is going to hit him, and he tries to step to the side.
At the last possible moment, the car swerves right, but it isn’t fast enough, and the back end clips Herb and sends him spinning into a storefront window. He bounces off the glass and slams onto the pavement, where he lies, unmoving, in a growing pool of blood.
Chapter 40
5 MINUTES
PUT IT IN GEAR! ” McGlade screamed, an octave higher than his normal voice. I helped him tug the shifter into second, and the cabshook and then jolted forward. Behind us, the trailer rocked from side to side, but quickly straightened out. This saved us from jackknifing, but didn’t save us from the line of cars fifty yards ahead and closing.
He tugged the wheel to the right, forcing the truck up onto the carefully maintained lawn of an office complex. Harry continued to turn, winding up behind the building in the back parking lot, heading straight for a fence.
“McGlade...”
“Don’t worry. I do this all the time in Grand Theft Auto.”
“That’s a video game.”
“Pac- Man is a video game. GTA is a way of life.”
The semi plowed through the fence with almost no re sis tance, and then we were in a factory loading area.
“Gear down on three. One...two...three.”
I helped him shift into first, and the truck slowed down, allowing McGlade to navigate a sharp turn. We bounced over a curb and woundup on Morse going east. I looked at the countdown clock and felt ill. We were still over a mile away from the treatment plant and heading in the wrong direction.
“Train tracks ahead,” Harry said. “I have an idea.”
McGlade swung the truck left, and we ran parallel to the tracks on the gravel. There was a slight grade, maybe five percent, but the truck didn’t tip.
“Let’s go to second...now.”
The truck picked up speed, and I listened to the RPMs and was able to gauge when to put it into third, and then fourth. The ride was bumpy, and tilted, but we were making good time, and there were no cars blocking our way. McGlade hummed the song “Convoy,” off- key. I once again turned my attention to the latent on the mirror.
“Gimme your phone,” I told him.
“My new one? Why?”
“Just do it.”
“It’s in my right pants pocket. Help yourself.”
I reached for his lap, then hesitated. It was like willfully sticking your hand into a mousetrap. Not having any other choice, I slipped a finger in, shuddering.
“It’s at the bottom. Reach around for it.”
I was about to go deeper when I realized the obvious.
“How could you put anything in your right pocket with a mechanical hand?”
He smiled, sheepish.
“Caught me. It’s in my jacket.”
I muttered assholeunder my breath and quickly found the high- tech phone in his jacket.
“How do I use the camera?”
“Go to the menu first.”
I stared at the device, which looked slightly more complicated than the helm of a nuclear submarine.
“Is this a touch screen?”
“There’s a menu button in the center of the keypad.”
“What’s it look like?”
“It looks like the menu button. It says menuon it.”
“There are six thousand buttons.”
“Give it to me.”
“Harry, keep your eyes on the—”
The wheels caught on the tracks and hopped them, jerking the whole truck to the right. We hit one railroad tie after another in rapid succession, each feeling like it would rip us apart.
“Downshift!” McGlade screamed, while he reached lefty for the hand brake. I fought the ball knob into neutral, then tried to steady the wheel as we slowed down, and finally stalled.
I checked my mirror, and miraculously the trailer was still attached.
“Look.” Harry tore the phone from my hand and pressed something. “There’s the damn menu button. Happy now?”
“I’d be happier if we got moving. We’ve only got—”
A whistle cut me off. It was followed by a familiar ding ding ding sound, coming from the intersection up ahead.
“No way,” Harry said. “No fucking way.”
I squinted into the distance and saw the small black dot of a train.
Chapter 41
4 MINUTES
START THE TRUCK, MCGLADE.”“You think?”
I cursed myself for not telling Jim to also stop all train traffic, but hindsight is always 20/20. Harry stuck his butt in my face and bent under the steering column, fussing with the wires.
“It was brown, right?”
“Yeah, touch the brown to the red.”
“It’s too dark. They’re all brown. Hold on.”
He dug into his pocket—his left one—and removed a set of keys.
“Damn. My key chain light is out.”
“Open the door, McGlade. Get some sunlight in here.”
“This thing had a five- year warranty.”
“McGlade!”
He opened his door and climbed onto the foot stand. I chanced a look at the oncoming train. I’m not a good judge of distance, but I estimated that we had roughly thirty seconds before impact. I had an irrational urge to jump out of the cab and run for it. Or maybe it wasn’t irrational. It was, however, pointless. Frightened as I was, I wouldn’t be able to run a mile in thirty seconds.
I wondered if anything poignant should be playing through my head, about my life or my past or my dreams, but the only thing I could focus on was the fingerprint. If I died, I wanted the Chemist caught. I fumbled with the phone menu until I found the camera selection, and then I held it up to latent, using the WYSIWYG screen to make sure I framed it well.
“I’m touching the wires. Nothing is happening.”
Another train whistle, louder and deeper.
“Are we in second gear?” McGlade asked.
I clicked the picture, then hit menu to access e-mail.
“Jackie! Put it in second!”
I looked up at the train. Real close now. I could see it was Metra—a commuter—probably loaded with people. I grabbed the shifter, but it didn’t move.
“The clutch, McGlade!”
He hit the clutch with his hand, I popped it into second gear, and the truck roared to life. We had maybe ten seconds before the big bang. I heard a painful screeching of the train hitting the brakes, McGlade pulled himself up behind the wheel and revved the engine, and we shifted into first. The truck jerked forward, Harry hit the gas, and h
e muscled it over the tracks and down the incline, toward the street. The train squealed past.
“No problem,” he said, turning onto St. Louis Drive. “That missed us by at least six seconds.”
I tasted copper. I’d bitten the inside of my cheek hard enough to draw blood.
St. Louis was free of cars, and it was a straight shot to the treatment plant, only a few blocks ahead.
“Your fat partner better be there.”
“He’ll be there.”
I finished typing in Hajek’s e-mail address, which I remembered from the other day, and sent him the fingerprint picture with a note saying Chemist. Then I called Herb. A recording answered.
“The cellular customer you are trying to reach is currently unavailable. Please try your call again later.”
I tried again. Same result. Third time wasn’t any different. I checked the clock. A little over two minutes left.
Not enough time for us to get away.
If Harry left now, maybe he could find another car to escape the blast in time, or some kind of shelter like a basement.
“You need to get out, McGlade.”
“Get out of what?”
“The truck. I can’t get in touch with Herb. If all the streets are as backed up as Hamlin, he’s not going to be there on time.”
Harry looked at me.
“So we just leave the truck here, in the street?”
“No.” I swallowed. “I’m taking it to the plant by myself.”
“Gotcha. Nice knowing you, Jackie.”
He swung open his door.
Two seconds passed. Five. But he didn’t leap out.
“Dammit, Harry, get the hell out of here.”
I shoved him. He didn’t budge.
“Harry! Go!”
McGlade closed the door.
“Fatso will show up. I can’t stand that guy, but he’ll find a way.”
“What if he doesn’t? Don’t you want to live?”
McGlade drummed his fingers across the top of the steering wheel.
“Remember the end of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? Where they both run out of the building to face the entire Bolivian army, and then the movie freeze-frames because you know they’re both going to die?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Wasn’t that the coolest?”
I understood what he was saying, and found myself getting a little choked up. “It was pretty cool, Harry.”
McGlade turned to me, and winked.
“Last stop just ahead, Butch.”
Harry turned right onto Howard Street, and we faced the sprawling sewage treatment complex. At least half a mile long, and maybe three-quarters of a mile wide, on a big patch of very green land.
We hung a left onto the access road, passing two towering brick buildings connected by a massive black air pipe, which stretched over our heads and into the distance like a monorail. The entrance was surrounded by trees, probably planted there to disguise the community eyesore. They should have planted flowers instead. The smell of sewage and waste overpowered us when we pulled onto Howard, and steadily increased the closer we got. Ripe was a good word. Revolting was even better.
“You think we got it bad?” Harry said. “At least we don’t have to work here.”
“Go left. We’re looking for the aeration tanks.”
“Those round ones?” McGlade pointed to a group of eight settling tanks on our left, each the size of a large swimming pool.
“No. Ahead of us. That big one.”
It looked like a small, filthy lake, except it was a perfect rectangle, and the stuff floating on the surface wasn’t algae.
“What should we do?” Harry asked. “Jump out and let the truck coast in?”
“That’s probably the best way.”
“Should I slow down?”
I noted we were going about twenty miles an hour.
“Why bother? If we hurt ourselves, we won’t feel it for long.”
McGlade aimed the truck for the water, and we both opened our doors.
“If there’s an afterlife,” he said, “you owe me some sex.”
I looked down at how fast the ground was moving, reminded myself that fear didn’t matter at this point, and jumped from the cab at the same time as Harry.
Chapter 42
90 SECONDS
I HIT THE PAYEMENT like a paratrooper, ankles tight together and knees bent. It did nothing to cushion my fall. I skidded across the pavement like a skipping stone and then turned a cartwheel or two onto the grass. When the world stopped spinning, I knew I’d done something bad to my right ankle, and I had a scrape across my left palm that looked like I’d taken a belt sander to it.
I sat up, my head screaming at me. It took me a few seconds to find the goose egg, near my crown, leaking blood. I’d lost my Cubs cap.
Gagging screams to my left. McGlade, pulling himself up out of the aeration tank. He looked like a mud monster, rising from the swamp. He lumbered toward me, spitting out brown water, and as he got closer I noted he had several multicolored things stuck to his body.
“You’ve got a...condom on your shoulder.”
He looked at it, and flicked it off with his claw.
“Yuck. And what the hell is this plastic thing?”
“It’s an applicator.”
“Do I want to know what it applies?”
“Probably not.”
The truck had almost completely sunk. Bubbles were still coming up from the cab, and the impact waves had disturbed the entire pool, sloshing filthy water up onto the land. Mission accomplished. But I was having a hard time feeling any sense of accomplishment. Even dampened by the water and the concrete, the blast would destroy this entire plant. We were as good as dead.
McGlade rubbed some muck off his face and gave me a lecherous grin.
“So...about that sex you owe me.”
I checked my watch. “We’ve only got fifty seconds left.”
“I only need thirty.”
“Sorry, Harry. Not even if you weren’t covered with human waste.”
He pouted.
“Come on, Jackie. I’ve always known you had a little thing for me.”
I started to laugh. “You’re the one with the little thing.”
McGlade started to laugh too. And then we were hugging each other, laughing like fools, and I noticed he was angling me toward the truck, like a shield, which made me laugh even harder.
“You’re such an asshole, McGlade.”
“You love me. Admit it.”
“I admit nothing. I—”
A sound, to the south. Mechanical. Rumbling. Growing louder.
“A he li cop ter.” McGlade shielded his eyes from the sun and peered into the distance. “Son of a bitch.”
“I’ll second that.”
As it came into focus, I saw it was a Chicago police chopper, coming at us fast. Real fast. I looked at my watch. We had fifteen seconds left.
“WE DON’T HAVE TIME TO LAND!”the megaphone boomed, and I’d recognize that voice anywhere.
Herb.
“GRAB THE LADDER! WE CAN ONLY MAKE ONE PASS!”
Harry and I watched as a rescue ladder unfurled below the landing skids. The bird swooped in low, the bottom of the ladder sparking against the pavement. It was coming so quick, it would knock out our teeth, or yank our shoulders from our sockets. I decided I could live with either.
At nine seconds until detonation, the ladder hit us with the force of a car wreck. I’d been aiming to get my arm in between the rungs, and I did it, getting a smack in the chest that knocked the wind out of me and probably broke a few ribs. I was jerked off my feet, and so was Harry. The he li cop ter began a rapid ascent, but it was too fast, too much G force, too much wind re sis tance, and I just couldn’t hold on.
My grip failed, and as I began to fall I wondered what would kill me first, the ground or the explosion.
Chapter 43
4 SECONDS
I DIDN’T FALL. McGlad
e—stupid, offensive, obnoxious McGlade—wrapped his legs around my waist in a fireman rescue, and I squinted through the rushing air and saw his mechanical hand locked tight onto a ladder rung.
We climbed even faster, the treatment plant getting smaller and smaller until the cloud cover made it disappear. I held on to Harry’s waist, and looped an elbow around the ladder.
And then the world exploded.
It wasn’t a bang. More like a whoomp. Beneath the clouds came a searing flash of light, and then a wall of hot air and detritus, which rocked the whirly- bird like a toy boat in a hurricane. We tilted to the side until the ladder was actually higher than the propeller, back the other way, and into a spiral that once again broke my grip, but not Harry’s. I squeezed my eyes shut, unsure which way was which, only that I was alive for a little while longer and damn grateful for it.
Then the storm passed. The chopper regained control and began a steady descent that took a tremendous amount of strain off of my muscles and joints, making hanging on almost child’s play. We crept down past the clouds, and I looked toward the treatment plant and saw a giant column of smoke where it used to be. But the houses to the west, and the businesses to the south, seemed intact. It was strangely quiet, and I realized the explosion had knocked out my hearing, which for some reason was more peaceful to me than frightening.
We landed on the country club green, though it wasn’t actually green anymore. Sludge and waste and debris was spewed across the golf course, making it look like a dump. It was still coming down from the sky too, a foul black drizzle mixed with smoke and tiny bits of dirt.
When my feet touched land I cried out in pain from five different places at once, but I was in better shape than McGlade. His prosthesis was soaked in blood, which had leaked from where it was attached to his stump, and his shoulder was noticeably dislocated. Eyes closed. No movement at all. But his legs remained locked around my waist.
“Harry!” I yelled, barely able to hear my own voice.
A dozen things flashed through my mind. Had he been hit by some shrapnel? One of the nails from the bomb? Some sort of internal injury? A fast- acting disease from the raw sewage he’d flopped around in?
Jack Daniels Six Pack Page 95