Three long strides took Glenn out of the plant manager’s office and back into the hallway. The black Sig felt heavy and warm in his hand, but comfortable; the pad of his right thumb was tingling from the shock of firing it, but even though Glenn hadn’t fired a gun in years—the last time was in his early twenties when he’d gone to the range with his father—his hand wasn’t sore. All the years of scrubbing and cleaning up after the dirty fuckwads in this building had toughened up his skin. Right now he felt like he could handle fire and walk away without even a blister.
What was left of the wife stealer and his lovely and extremely dead bride were on Glenn’s left. He turned to the right and looked smack into the horrified gaze of . . . gosh, he didn’t even know her name. She was the typing pool secretary and hadn’t been here long, maybe two weeks—she probably didn’t even know his history. Unfortunately for her, Glenn wasn’t feeling particularly benevolent; to his current thinking, just working up here with the rest of the white-collars made her one of them, and if she hadn’t been whispering about him behind his back already, it was just a matter of time. She spun and ran, careening from side to side in the hallway like one of those tiny colored balls in a child’s handheld game. Her forward motion took her past the first two doors, but when she tried to leap through the next door on the right, she crashed into one of the longtime salesmen, Ricardo, as he was trying to peek into the hall. She cried out and pushed at him at the same time he tried to pull her inside; the result was the two of them stalling just long enough for Glenn to bring up the pistol and squeeze off four rounds. The noise from the gun was atrocious, much worse than even the subway train rolling over him last Friday because it was so loud and so confined. Other people were still screaming in the other offices, and Glenn could hear voices shrieking words that were almost incomprehensible, probably calling the police. That was to be expected, but the noise . . . ouch. He’d never fired a gun without protective gear over his ears and this was a lot worse than he’d anticipated. For the first time since this all started, Glenn frowned as he felt the first tiny jab of a headache poke at one temple.
The nameless secretary leaped into Ricardo’s arms, but it was hard to tell whether it was because she was hit or she was trying to jump out of the way. They both tumbled to the gray tile floor and Glenn headed toward them, then paused. To get to them he’d have to walk past the doorways to two more salesman offices. The doors faced each other across the hall, and it was a great place to get ambushed by a couple of jamokes thinking they were going to be the heroes of the day. Derailing that notion was easy; Glenn just fired a couple of shots into the walls on either side, aiming at random spots and knowing that unless there were studs in the way, the bullets would go right through and into the rooms beyond. The office on his right stayed silent but there was a distinct crash from the one on his left as someone gave up a hiding spot and tried to find another.
Glenn smiled. He took two steps forward, leaned into the office, and fired. He didn’t hit anything, but there was a distinct scrambr hound from beneath the desk, which itself was no more than a cheap pressboard kit from an office supply store—nothing but the best for the salesmen, it seemed. He squeezed the trigger again but got only a loud, empty click. Glenn squeezed the trigger again reflexively and the second click was enough to bring Isaac Hunt up from where he’d been crouching in the foot well of his desk. Hunt was a big guy who’d gone to college on a football scholarship and who would’ve made the pros if he hadn’t blown out his knee in his senior year; two decades had seen a lot of his youthful muscle go to flab, but the fury in his eyes now would more than make up for that.
Glenn released the P226’s empty clip, slammed a full one into place, and Hunt was dead before he could stand fully upright.
Back in the hallway, the secretary was moving on the floor. Glenn took aim at her, then realized she was dead—Ricardo was trapped beneath her dead weight, trying desperately to get free. For a moment Glenn thought how stupid that was, because if he’d been still, he could’ve played possum and maybe survived. But no—that would’ve never worked. He was still really liking the absolute efficiency of the kill shot to the head. Ricardo blathered something at him but Glenn neither understood nor cared what the guy said as he put a bullet into the man’s forehead. The office worker looked dead—her eyes were closed, she was limp and she had blood all over her back—but just to be sure, he shot her in the side of face.
Glenn stood in front of his latest kill and considered. His ears were still ringing from the shots and he felt a little deaf, but he could still make out crying somewhere in one of the five offices he had yet to visit. He had perhaps twelve shots left in this clip and fifteen in the last one in his pocket. There were a couple of people that were absolutes on his to-do list before the cops got here and took him out—he wasn’t so stupid he didn’t know that was also an absolute. Things would have been a lot clearer cut had he been able to get his hands on the other two clips that went with the gun, but his bastard old man, even drunk on his ass, had started calling out for Glenn after only a minute or two; although the loaded weapon had been right where his father always kept it, Glenn had managed barely enough time to grab it and the two clips. God only knew where the old bastard had hidden the other two. They were probably empty and stuck on a closet shelf somewhere since ammo was expensive.
So, decisions, decision. What was next—Data Entry, or Personnel? Oh, definitely Personnel. Now there was an old bitch who needed to learn a lesson about what could happen when you betrayed someone’s privacy. She’d blabbed to everyone who hadn’t had a hearing aid—and maybe those who did—about how she’d had to “. . . change all those records because Glenn Klinger’s wife was now Bob Cusack’s wife.” There were laws about that stuff, and since the law wasn’t going to step in and right this wrong for him, Glenn was going to open his arms to the vigilante way.
The noise level in the building had dropped, but that wasn’t surprisinwhen Glenn figured he’d eliminated more than half of the people in this area of the plant. The owner of the company, Carter Swenson, never let anyone below executive level—that being himself, Billy-boy Cusack, and Paul Remsley—go home early; Glenn had counted on that old-fashioned caste attitude to virtually guarantee almost everyone would be up here. He’d been right on the mark, too. Ten offices, eleven people. He was even willing to bet Ralph Atzbach, the salesman who had the office next to Paul’s, had been down in Swenson’s office when Glenn had started shooting, brown-nosing the big boss and making plans for the future. Next to Glenn, the other nonsecret around the place was that Ralph was dating Kiki Swenson, Carter’s only daughter, and planning on marrying his way into the office at the end of the hall when the old guy finally retired.
Glenn hadn’t been keeping track of time—obviously he had other priorities on his mind—and although he felt things had gone smoothly and quickly so far, he still caught the faintest scream of a siren through someone’s open office window. There wasn’t any way to barricade himself up here, so he didn’t have a whole lot of time left. Even so, he ought to be able to finish up well before the police got here.
He stuck his head into the Data Entry office but it was empty. Hiding in here wasn’t an option since Swenson had modernized the department a year ago and gone for glass and metal-framed desks that gave the two computer clerks zero privacy—they didn’t even have modesty panels to cover their legs. There were three servers against the far wall, green lights blinking cheerfully. Glenn stared at them for a long moment, then put two bullets in each one, taking methodic aim and not at all startled by the smoke and sparks that exploded from each one. Maybe the place would burn down. In fact, he’d like that.
There was a sound behind his last shot and Glenn tilted his head, trying to identify it. A . . . whine, maybe. Yes, that was it—like that of a trapped dog. He turned back to the hallway and made his way down it, glancing quickly into both the secretarial offices on his right. Empty, of course—even the dumbest person would’ve reali
zed immediately that the tiny rooms were nothing but death traps and headed into Swenson’s office at the end. Safety in numbers? Not at all; it just meant Glenn wouldn’t have to work as hard to aim.
Finally, the Personnel office, or as it had apparently recently been renamed, Human Resources. The door was closed and locked, just like it would be after hours to give the illusion of security. Except it wasn’t after hours, it was still business hours, and Glenn wasn’t a bit fooled. Nor was he stupid enough to believe that no one was in Swenson’s office, even though that door was also closed and, when he tried the handle, just as locked. The question was, who and how many people were in each place?
One shot vaporized the lock and the door handle to Human Resources, leaving in its stead a gaping, jagged hole. The door slammed inward of its own accord, then rebounded agat the wall and bounced forward again, stopping its back and forth motion only when Glenn jammed his foot in front of it. With the shot still making his ears ring, he scanned the room, his gaze taking in the filing cabinets, the bookcases with all the manuals and volumes about the right way to run a personnel office—Glenn didn’t believe for a minute that Ava McBride ever paid attention to any of that—the prissy framed florals on the wall, and finally the desk itself. Unlike the ones in the Data Entry department, Ava’s was cream-colored metal, something that looked good but came nice and cheap out of a mega-office supply catalog. That cheapness was going to be the end of bitchy Ava McBride, because even though she was hiding beneath it—Glenn could see her shadow in the narrow space between the bottom of the modesty panel and the area rug she’d put there—the panel itself was ridiculously flimsy. He took three steps into the room, pressed the muzzle of the gun firmly against the panel about a foot from the left-hand side—about where he thought her upper body would be—and squeezed the trigger.
Maybe it was because the gun was pressed against the metal, but more than any of the previous ones, this shot was loud. Glenn heard Ava scream, but it was reactive rather than proactive. Proof of that came an instant later when Glenn heard a soft thump and saw her hand fall into view, palm up, within that telltale space under the edge of the panel. As it hit the floor, blood slipped off the edge of the metal, forming an exquisite line of red from the metal to her fingers. Not bad for a single shot.
Ava’s had been the open window, and the sirens—at least three of them—were louder now, probably no farther away than the next block. If he wanted to finish this, he had to hurry.
When Glenn stepped out of the HR office and turned toward Swenson’s door, it took him a second to realize it was open. And in that second, something hard and metallic crashed against the side of his head.
He staggered backward, hitting the doorjamb at the same time he swung outward with the gun. Someone—Ralph Atzbach? Swenson?—grabbed at the P226 then cried out as flesh met the blisteringly hot barrel. Glenn’s assailant let go of that and snatched at his wrist, trying to pry the gun free, but hell would freeze before Glenn would let go of this weapon. Once, when he’d been five years old, his mother had sent him to the store with money for a gallon of milk and a trio of neighborhood bullies had beaten him senseless trying unsuccessfully to get it. Glenn hung on to his Sig Sauer with that same desperation, knowing that the consequences—back then, his father; now, the end of his vengeance—would be worse than what he faced now.
Everything was happening quickly now, but in one of those flash-frame instances Glenn knew his attacker was Swenson himself, the old fuck finally trying to protect himself now that almost everyone else had been sacrificed. He brought his left hand up and clawed at Swenson’s eyes, knocking the older man’s glasses askew he siaking a gouge out of his cheek for good measure. Out of the corner of one eye, Glenn registered Atzbach, half crouched, half cowering, just waiting for a chance—but it had to be a safe one—to jump in and save the big boss. Glenn couldn’t let that happen, because even with a pistol, a two-on-one situation would probably mean the end of everything.
Time for spray and pray.
He wasn’t sure how many bullets he had left in the clip and he didn’t have time to guess. He just started squeezing the trigger, again and again. He didn’t care where they went or who they hit, or even if they hit him. He just wanted Swenson to let go of him, he wanted Atzbach to get the fuck away, and he wanted to finish this business once and for all. By the time the chamber clicked emptily, he and Swenson were covered in blood and the older man had careened into Atzbach; both the men and the two data processing clerks who’d been hiding in Swenson’s office were shrieking loud enough to crack the windows. They were so hysterical they didn’t even realize when Glenn dropped out the empty magazine and calmly loaded his last one.
“Shut up,” he said.
Only two of the four listened—Swenson and one of the clerks—so Glenn raised the Sig and shot the other clerk in the chest. Her ongoing scream was cut off as neatly as if someone had punched the OFF button on a car radio; her corpse slammed against the wall behind her and she slid down and stopped in an almost prim position, eyes open and staring at nothing she would ever be able to relate.
“Listen, Tom, er, Bob—that’s your name, right? Bob?” Swenson tried to smile but it came out as more of a hideous grimace. “Bob, we can talk about this, right? We can work this out? I’ll testify on your behalf—”
Glenn’s jaw dropped. He’d seen and experienced some pretty fucking amazing things, but this . . . wow. “You’re kidding me. I’ve worked here for seventeen years and you can’t even remember my name?”
“Stress,” Atzbach managed to gasp. “It’s just stress. Honest to God, Glenn—”
“Glenn—right,” Swenson put in. He extended a hand toward Glenn, then his mouth worked when he realized it was covered with blood. He blinked and looked down, just now realizing he had a nice, bloody hole in his leg. “I knew that—”
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“Shut up!” Glenn screamed.
The clerk—and who was Glenn to talk, because he didn’t know her name, either—gave an involuntary shriek but slammed her own hand over her mouth to muffle it. Nice effort, but it wasn’t going to save her.
The sirens were right outside now, coupled with screeching tires and the shouts of dozens of men. “My head hurts,” Glenn said to no one in particular. He looked at each of the terrified people in front of him. “And I’m tired.” He tried to think of something to add, something profound or maybe poignant, but at the end, with the sound of boots pounding up the staircase and down the hallway outside the door, Glenn realized that it didn’t matter. Because neither he nor his last three victims were going to be around to tell anyone anyway.
He opened fire, counting off the shots just to be sure he could save the very last one in this very last clip for himself.
Ten
“Something’s wrong about this.”
Eran was standing at the mirror in the bathroom, and he looked back at her reflection as he stoically tried to work the ends of his tie into something presentable. “What?”
She rattled the newspaper at him. “This.” She pointed at the most prominent article on the front page. “If it was any bigger, it would bite you on the nose.”
“Read it to me,” he said. “I have a court appearance this morning and it’s one of those days where this stupid thing won’t cooperate.”
A corner of Brynna’s mouth lifted in amusement as she saw him yank the tie apart, then start over. “All right.”
Chicago—After having his life saved in the subway last Friday, yesterday afternoon Glenn Klinger, a custodian at the Swenson Plastics Plant, shot and killed eleven people in the management offices at his workplace. Among the dead are Carter Swenson, the owner of the company, as well as the entirety of the administrative staff, including all the plant salesmen and the human resources and office staff. Also shot and killed was Klinger’s ex-wife, Lenore Cusack. She and Klinger had divorced four months ago and she had married William Cusack, the marketing ma
nager at the plant. Cusack’s relatives say she was expecting their first child in six months.
A coworker who asked that he not be identified said that the divorce and remarriage of Lenore Klinger Cusack was “like an ugly little Peyton Place.” He went on to say that William Cusack took exceptional delight in tormenting Klinger, talking behind his back, spreading rumors, and making demands that were “clearly designed to rub Klinger’s nose in the fact that [Cusack] had stolen his wife and that Klinger was powerless to do anything about it. He made Klinger miserable every single day.”
Others, however, were unaware of the conflict between Cusack and Klinger. “I don’t understand why someone would do this,” said a tearful Kiki Swenson, daughter of the owner. In addition to her father, her boyfriend, Ralph Atzbach, was also killed in the shooting spree. “I don’t even know who this man was.”
Glenn Klinger had worked at the plant for more than seventeen years. He and his former wife had met in high school and been married for nearly two decades before she divorced him.
“I already heard about it at the station, but it is pretty freaky,” Eran agreed when Brynna had finished reading. “Most of the time people who get a second chance at life, like this guy, go through a kind of revelation phase. They look at where they are in life and find a whole new appreciation for it. Or if they don’t like it, they take steps to change it.” He paused for a moment, staring thoughtfully at his still-crooked tie. “Which, if you think about it, is exactly what Klinger did.”
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