The Lightning Stones

by Jack Du Brul

  Mercer was confident that in the most vulnerable seconds before they rammed the car, the gunman’s aim would be thwarted by his weapon’s inherent inaccuracy, his bouncing gun platform, and the fact his target was hopping and jouncing as well. Mercer was just about to commit to his attack when he studied the small weapon’s barrel and not the hurtling car and realized the 9mm aperture was rock steady. The shooter was so well trained and so proficient in this, the most difficult of shooting situations, that he had a dead bead on his pursuers.

  “Down!” Mercer shouted, reaching across the center console to haul Jordon below the dash while he cranked the wheel sharply left, hurling the Yukon through a split-rail fence.

  Half of a thirty-round magazine emptied into the SUV in as much time as it took Mercer to yell his warning, but his driving reflexes had been quicker than both his mouth and the gunman’s finger, because the bullets stitched a trail across the top of the SUV’s windshield and peppered a line down its flank. None of them hit where the shooter had been aiming—a tight slashing burst across the windscreen that would have decapitated driver and passenger alike.

  While the Honda wove through a small forest of pines, its taillights growing more distant, Mercer fought to regain control as the Yukon fishtailed wildly in the middle of what appeared to be an open meadow. Having never been to the school before, he didn’t understand the significance of the split-rail fence they had blasted through and didn’t know something was seriously wrong until he heard the first moaning cracks of ice giving way under the truck’s nearly three tons of steel. The open field was a pond surrounded by a fence so students didn’t wander too close. Mercer chanced a look into the rearview mirror and saw that the ice in their wake was bobbing in great broken slabs that had dark water lapping at the back wheels.

  Even farther behind he saw a bursting eruption of red and orange flame leap out of one of the science center’s second-story windows, followed immediately by a rolling cloud of black smoke that climbed the side of the building toward its flat roof. Moments later came the jarring sounds of the detonation, the dull boom of the initial ignition, and the follow-up blast of overpressure powdering glass and concussing the cold winter air.

  For now, all Mercer could do was curse again and concentrate on steering them out of this mess.

  The far side of the pond, if the fence line was to be trusted, was a solid three hundred yards away. Knowing that ice near the shore is thicker than ice toward the center of a body of water, Mercer was sure that at the rate they were traveling, they were going to crash through. Their only chance was the frozen-over stream that fed the pond. The tiny lake’s discharge was too well hidden by the snow, but he could see the silver husks of rushes sticking up where the feeder entered the pond. As gently as possible he turned the wheel, dropping his speed ever so slightly. As he’d experienced while working in the Canadian Arctic for DeBeers, too much speed on an ice road could build a sine wave of water under the truck and split the ice even before the front wheels hit it. He couldn’t speed up, and with the ice breaking in their wake, he couldn’t slow down either. It was a delicate balance.

  Jordan finally realized their predicament and went ashen. “Mercer, we’re on a pond.”

  “I know,” he said tightly, easing off on the turn when the Yukon’s nose was pointed between the two stands of water plants. He had been so easy on the wheel that the back end didn’t so much as twitch on the grease-slick surface. The stream was about eight feet wide and would be shallow enough for the truck to remain in the clear should they crash through its crust of ice.

  And as he neared the stream, the ice beneath the truck grew thicker. It still cracked under the SUV’s crushing weight but didn’t shatter. Snow lay deep around the edges of the pond, windblown into drifts of inestimable height. The front of the SUV plowed into one such drift just as they were exiting the pond and entering the feeder stream. Again, Mercer’s lack of knowledge about the campus was his downfall. The pond was an artificial construct, the stream a man-made channel that fell into the usually bucolic water body from a three-foot-high brick-and-mortar waterfall that currently lay hidden under a mantle of powdery snow.

  The wall was just high enough to catch the underside of the front bumper, and they were traveling hard enough to accordion the Yukon midway down its hood. Airbags deployed with explosive efficiency. Mercer just managed to keep from having his nose broken by one, while a still unbuckled and discombobulated Jordon bounced into hers with a shoulder and tumbled to the passenger-side footwell. The collision was enough to break the ice under the truck, and frigid water quickly began seeping in around the doors and rear gate, which had popped open once again.

  Mercer’s first concern was his passenger. “Jordan, are you okay?”

  “Jesus, this water’s cold.” She quickly hauled herself up onto her seat. “And your driving sucks.”

  He almost smiled. That she could complain was a sign that she indeed was all right. “You wanted to come with me. Remember?”

  Her dark eyes hardened. “You could have warned me you were nuts.”

  “You should have figured that out the moment you met me.” Mercer lowered his window and flattened the already deflated airbag against the steering wheel. He pushed his body out of the truck and onto the door, making sure Abe’s pistol was still tucked into his jacket. The front tires were fully submerged and had grounded on the bottom. The SUV’s lighter back end still floated amid the broken chunks of ice. He swung up and out onto the hood.

  The Honda continued to race for the back gate, probably unaware that the chase had ended, the sound of its trick exhaust diminishing with every passing second.

  “Give me my phone,” he said to Jordan as she climbed over the center console and made ready to join Mercer on the Yukon’s wrinkled hood.

  “Remember when I said the water was cold?” she asked. “Yeah, well, I had my hand in it as I tried to rescue your phone from a watery grave.”

  “What about yours?”

  “A melted puddle by now. I left it charging in Abe’s kitchen.”

  It really didn’t matter now. Mercer could make out the Doppler whine of approaching sirens. The authorities knew something had happened at Hardt College and were racing to investigate. Even if he somehow got a cop’s attention and reported the fleeing Honda, the local authorities didn’t have the manpower to secure the campus and go after the gunmen. Besides which, in the next ten or so minutes the shooters would steal another car and be making their way anonymously out of Killenburg, Ohio.

  Mercer helped Jordan climb onto the hood. The metal was warm under their bodies, and he could hear the engine hissing and bubbling as it bled heat into the stream still trickling under all the ice and snow. He looked over at the Lauder Science Center expecting to see the wing where Abe Jacobs must have kept his office fully engulfed in flame.

  Instead he saw wisps of white smoke coiling out of some shattered windows and icicles forming on the outside of the sills from the sprinkler system’s discharge freezing against the cold metal framework.

  There was hope of salvaging something from this mess after all. He yanked Jordan off the truck. “Come on. We’re not done yet.”

  7

  The sound of sirens grew steadily louder as the pair raced hand in hand across the campus. The snow was deep enough that Mercer needed to hold on to Jordan so he could help tow her through the taller drifts. If he hoped to find anything before the cops shut down the campus he would have to hurry. And because Jordan had spent time with Abe more recently, even if she hadn’t been to his office here at Hardt, she might see anomalies that he did not, so he didn’t consider abandoning her and sprinting ahead.

  Mercer had no idea how long they would have once they reached the science center. Units from nearby towns would roll in to assist, and eventually county and state cops as well. Still, Mercer figured ten minutes at least before one of the responding officers left their cordon and actually swept the Lauder Building. After that, everything would b
ecome a crime scene, and they’d be faced with the same bureaucratic obstacles he’d managed to avoid in Minnesota.

  Students had scattered from the building. Many were rushing across the rural campus for the purported security of their dorms. Others remained hidden behind cars in the adjacent parking lot. As they approached the battered front entrance doors, Mercer made sure no one could see his weapon and start a fresh wave of panic. A boy and girl huddled behind a bench on the cleared flagstone plaza in front of the modernist building. The science center’s fire alarm wailed in rhythmic pulses that beat in on Mercer’s brain.

  He approached the duo hiding behind the bench. “Listen. I’m an off-duty cop,” he said, and let them see the butt of the pistol. “When the uniforms arrive, make sure they know we’re inside.”

  The wide-eyed girl and the goateed boy both nodded, not questioning why an off-duty policeman would need to bring a civilian woman into the building with him.

  Mercer led Jordan inside. The lobby was a mess, with broken furniture, ruined carpeting, and junked bits of the SUV scattered on the floor. It was also thankfully deserted. But as loud as the alarm had sounded outside, now that they were in the building, the shriek was enough to make the two of them physically cringe. It was nearly impossible to talk.

  Wordlessly, Mercer took Jordan’s hand again and together they mounted the external ramp, mindful of where the car had smashed through the handrail and window. The floor was littered with glass shards, and a cold wind blew in through the jagged hole. Farther up and around they climbed until they reached the second-floor landing. To their left was a balcony that overlooked the main atrium and afforded a great view of the dangling solar system mobile. From the railing the installation’s details stood out beautifully. Earth’s moon was covered in miniature craters, and Saturn’s rings were rendered in fantastical colors.

  To the right was an open space littered with overturned couches and chairs that showed the tire tracks where the Honda had turned around. Leading away was a broad corridor lined with a series of closed doors that Mercer guessed were classrooms. Three-quarters of the way down the long hallway he could see fire-blackened Sheetrock, and he watched the spray of water pouring from the overhead sprinklers. The pressure wave from the initial explosion had blown the covers off most of the fluorescent lights and shattered the bulbs, so the hall was dimly lit but flashed brilliantly every couple of seconds when an emergency strobe light fired off in time with the siren. The effect was like that of a creepy fun house. Mercer yanked out his pistol when a student dashed from the shelter of one of the classrooms and raced past them without as much as a sideways glance.

  He watched the student vanish down the ramp, bent low in a naturally defensive crouch, and then Mercer turned back to check the hallway again. He spotted movement—a shadow shifting behind the gray curtain of water pouring down through the fire suppression system. Mercer could understand a reluctant student hiding out in a classroom six doors down from the explosion, but not someone lurking just on the far side of where the blast occurred. The outline paused its pacing of the hallway and seemed to study them through the falling water.

  Instinct and experience took over. Jordan was a pace or two ahead of Mercer. He launched himself at her, throwing his left arm around her waist and twisting her to the floor. He rolled over her as they landed, extending his right hand so that her body was covered by his and his pistol was aimed at the mysterious figure. Jordan was just taking in a breath to shout her angered protest at being manhandled when the hallway filled with the mechanical crash and subsonic judder of a silenced auto pistol discharging its deadly load.

  The air in the corridor came alive with plaster dust and gunpowder smoke and a heavy mist of water blown sideways by the fusillade fired through the sprinkler cascade. Bullets chewed everything they touched, showering the couple with shredded batting from the ceiling acoustical tiles and bits of plastic from a fluorescent light cover.

  Compared with the silenced machine pistol, Mercer’s P-38 roared like a cannon in the hallway’s confines. It was an assault on all the senses and one he tried to repeat, but the pistol jammed after firing just the single bullet, a hasty shot he hadn’t aimed as much as hoped had gone in the direction of the shooter.

  The analytical side of his brain knew that the eighty-year-old spring inside the pistol’s magazine no longer had the yield strength it once possessed. In effect the magazine spring had been crushed flat over the years by the bullets Mercer had loaded so long ago, and could no longer bounce back into its original shape. The weapon fired the first round with no problem, but the next bullet in line didn’t rise high enough out of the grip to be caught by the slide and chambered. Mercer would have to pop out the bullet and refeed it manually.

  He thought through all this even as he peeled Jordan off the floor and half dragged her into a classroom. They just reached cover when another burst of autofire raked the corridor, some rounds thudding into the classroom’s wooden door and others pinging off its frame. Mercer quickly noted that there were doors connecting this room to the next and, he assumed, to those farther down the hallway. This room was a chemistry lab, with long parallel rows of workstations stacked with beakers, pipette racks, and ceramic crucibles suspended over unlit Bunsen burners. He pressed Jordan flat to the floor behind one of the rows.

  “Stay here.”

  “Don’t worry,” she panted. “I’m never following you again.”

  “Smartest thing you’ve said all day.”

  The connecting door was closed but unlocked. Mercer first cleared his pistol’s jammed action and inserted another round into the chamber. He then thumbed all the remaining rounds from the defective magazine and held them ready in his left hand. He gave little thought to the fact he was facing a machine pistol with what amounted to a single-shot gun, and that his adversary knew he was armed. He needed answers, and taking this guy down was the only way he was going to get them.

  He checked the next classroom before committing himself. It was a typical schoolroom, with a teacher’s desk and lectern in front of a blackboard that faced about twenty students’ desks. A few posters lined one wall while the other was windows looking out over a quad. Police cars were careening into view, their strobes flashing against the morning snow.

  Mercer went on through the next room, and then the next. In this one, a clone of the previous, he could hear the roar of water still sluicing through the overhead pipes and discharging into what was presumably Abe Jacobs’s office. The gunman hadn’t fired again, and Mercer wondered if he was still waiting just beyond the veil of water. He wondered too why the gunmen had left a man behind. The only reason was that he and Jordan were the shooter’s intended quarry. The driver had to have warned the leader that he had been made, and a hasty trap had been set here at Abe’s office to not only destroy the scientist’s work but to take out whoever it was who’d been dogging them since Minnesota. The lone gunman could then escape in the pandemonium.

  He had to give it to these guys. It was a good plan that very nearly worked. He was just about to go through to the next room when behind him he heard Jordan Weismann scream.

  He’d been flanked!

  Mercer whirled and ran back as hard as he could. He streaked through the intervening rooms without seeing them and burst back into the chemistry lab. For a moment it looked like one of the students had taken Jordan hostage. The gunman had a smooth baby face and a thatch of dark hair slicked down to his head by a dousing under the sprinklers. He looked no more than seventeen but was probably twenty or more. A silenced Mini Uzi dangled from a sling off his shoulder while he held a black automatic pistol to Jordan’s temple, his other arm snaked around her neck in a choke hold that barely allowed her toes to touch the floor. He doubtless expected Mercer to stop or at least slow his headlong charge.

  The shooter was too young to have learned the lesson that you never play chicken with someone with nothing to lose.

  Mercer kept coming at a full sprint. He watched th
e gunman’s eyes widen when he realized his tactical mistake, and he was just pulling his pistol from Jordan’s temple to aim at Mercer when Mercer brought his own gun to bear and fired the only round he would need. The 9mm bored a hole through the shooter’s forehead and erupted out of the back of his skull in a gout of pink and white and gray that splattered the wall behind them like an obscene imitation of a Rorschach test.

  The gunman was punched back by the impact and nearly dragged Jordan to the floor as his body fell. She managed to disengage herself from the crumpling figure, and when she saw the ruin that was the back of his head she screamed into the echoes left in the gunshot’s wake.

  Mercer ran to her and took her up in his arms, turning her so she couldn’t see the stain seeping from the corpse’s head into the tile floor. Over the shrieking fire alarm he told her she was okay…it would be okay…meaningless platitudes, but as so often in the past they did the trick. Jordan soon stopped shuddering and gave him a hard squeeze before straightening out of his embrace.

  “That was a hell of a risk to take with my life,” she said, trying to sound tough, but she was obviously rattled and unsure whether to be grateful, angry, or to just give in to her terror.

  “By the time I pulled the trigger, I was only about twelve feet away. I could have made that shot at twice the distance.”

  “Who are you? Seriously. What geologist can shoot a gun like that?”

  “One who spends too much time in dangerous places” was all Mercer had the time to tell her. “Someone must have heard the shot. The police are going to be swarming this building in minutes. Come on.”

  They made their way down the hallway. Icy wind blew in from shattered windows, and there was no way to avoid ducking under the streaming sprinkler heads. The water felt like it was just a couple of degrees above freezing. Their leather jackets protected their bodies, but both had water streaming down their faces and under their collars after just a few seconds’ exposure. Mercer withheld telling Jordan that the dousing had washed some of the shooter’s blood and brain from the back of her coat.