“Why bother with all that? We’re not going to be here.”
“But the police will,” Eva told him.
“After we leave here we’ll walk to the shopping mall on the corner. From there we’ll call the police and give them the address of the house and tell them we heard screams inside. Then we’ll describe the green van sitting in the driveway, put the phone down and drive away in the
rental car that you parked in the shopping center.” “I don’t see how all that does us any good.”
“Sure it does,” Eva went on.
“First, it will bring every cop and federal agent in Los Angeles to an empty house. They’ll think we’re inside, and that will keep them distracted while we get away. Eventually, though, they’ll storm the house and see blood everywhere. When they don’t find the bodies upstairs, some idiot will turn the knob to open the cellar door.”
“What happens then?”
“The C-four in the ceiling of the cellar will be detonated and everything will go boom. It will be just like West Hollywood again, except it’ll be cops and federal agents who die.”
“Beautiful,” Rudy cooed.
“Yes,” Eva agreed, wondering when would be the best time to kill Rudy. While he was killing the boy’s mother, she decided. A head shot from behind.
“Then we pick up Bremmer. Right?”
“Bremmer stays behind.”
“But they’ll catch him and he’ll squeal everything.”
“Not if he’s dead.”
There was a long silence.
Joanna listened intently, concentrating, wondering if they had lowered their voices or moved outside.
“How will you do it?” Rudy asked finally.
“After the assassination, Bremmer will drive away and call us on his car phone for instructions,” Eva said.
“When he puts the receiver down, I’ll dial the number of his car phone. As he picks up the receiver, a detonator will be activated, and the C-four under his hood will go off. There’ll be just enough left of him to identify.”
“Screw him.” Rudy shrugged, but he was thinking how dangerous Eva was and how she might kill him to avoid paying him the $400,000.
Eva watched Rudy’s expression change and immediately regretted telling him about her plans for Bremmer. Now he would be more cautious.
“Let me tell you why Bremmer has to go,” she said.
“It won’t take the feds long to figure out the C-four was in the prosthesis. They’ll know it had to be Bremmer who placed it there, and they’ll come after him and they’ll catch him. And before they’re finished with him he’ll tell them everything he knows. Now, do you
want that to happen?” “I guess not.”
“Okay. Let’s go check .. . before .. . the …”
The voices were now muffled, but Joanna could hear footsteps approaching.
Quickly she tiptoed down the steps and sat next to Kate on the mattress. In a whisper she said, “If the door opens, lie down and pretend you’re asleep.”
They waited in silence. Above them the floor creaked, then went quiet again.
Joanna looked up and wondered where the C-four had been placed. Probably in the space between the ceiling and the floor above. She searched the ceiling for wiring, but the morning light coming through the window was too dim to let her see anything clearly.
“Is Jean-Claude all right?” Kate asked softly.
“He’s playing,” Joanna lied.
“I heard him running around.”
“I haven’t heard his little footsteps.”
“He’s in the kitchen.”
Kate eyed the unopened cartons of milk on the floor, which had been left sometime during the night.
“We shouldn’t drink the milk, huh?”
Joanna shook her head.
“It’s probably been doctored.”
Kate sighed deeply and tried to swallow her thirst away.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“Seven o’clock.”
“Only an hour left for us.”
“Yeah.”
“They’re not going to find us, are they?”
Joanna said nothing because at this point it didn’t really matter. Even if they were found, there would be a shoot-out, and with their last breaths the terrorists would somehow manage to detonate the C-four. And she and Kate and Jean-Claude would still end up dead. Unless, during the shoot-out, they could get out through the window. But it was barred and impossible to squeeze through.
Joanna tried to think of ways to escape or to attract attention to their imprisonment. But she kept coming to dead ends. There was no avenue of escape, and just trying to draw attention from the outside could be very dangerous for Jean-Claude. It could only be done safely if the terrorists remained unaware she was doing it. But how could she accomplish that? Joanna concentrated, trying to find answers, but there weren’t any. She stared up at the window she couldn’t fit
through and shook her head dejectedly. “Do you believe in an afterlife?” Kate asked, breaking the silence.
“Yes,” Joanna said.
“Do you think we’ll see Mom and Daddy again?”
“I hope so.”
“Me too.”
Joanna wondered if her vision of the afterlife was the true one. A heaven and a hell, a good and a bad. And where would she end up? In heaven maybe, close to her mother and father, with Kate and Jean-Claude. All the Blalocks together again.
“Do you really think hell is full of fire and brimstone?” Kate asked.
“You know, like Dante’s Infernof” “Maybe.”
“I hate fire,” Kate said weakly.
“It’s always frightened me.” She shivered, rubbing her hands together against the morning chill.
“Although I wouldn’t mind a little fire right now. You know, just enough to warm my fingers.”
“All you’ve got to do is flick—” Joanna jumped to her feet and stared up at the window.
“There may be a way to attract someone on the outside.”
“How?”
“You’ll see,” Joanna said, reaching for the oily rag and the lighter it held.
“Get the mop.”
Joanna hurried over to the table and repositioned it beneath the window. She climbed up on it and took the mop from Kate. Using the mop end, she pushed out the remaining glass pane. It made a soft cracking sound. The pieces of glass fell silently onto the bush and cardboard outside the window.
“What are you doing?” Kate was on her tiptoes, straining to see.
“Shh!” Joanna hushed, now wrapping the oily rag around the mop and tying it in place with mop strands. She flicked the lighter, but it didn’t ignite. Then again, and again it didn’t light. On the third try a tiny flame appeared.
Carefully she held it to the oily rag wrapped around the end of the mop and waited. Sparks came, then smoke, then a small tongue of flame. Joanna slowly pushed the mop through the window and let it drop on the cardboard and dried-out bush.
The cardboard smoldered briefly, becoming black and scorched in the center. Then it went out. A moment later the flame at the end of the
mop died. Quickly Joanna brought the mop head back inside and tried to reignite it. She flicked the lighter, but it gave off only sparks.
Again and again she flicked the lighter, and every time she saw only sparks, fewer with each flick.
Joanna sank down on the table and sighed dejectedly.
“What’s wrong?” Kate asked.
“The lighter is dead,” she said gloomily.
“And so are we.” Monday, April 19, 8=01 a.m.
From a block away Jake studied the terrorists’ house through high-powered binoculars. There were no lights on. Everything was quiet. His eyes went to the Chevy van parked in the driveway, then to its license plate, which read 3 VDM 593.
“Are they detecting any signs of life?” Jake asked.
Hurley held up a hand as he pushed the listening device deeper into his
ear.
“They’re securing the last of the surrounding homes now. They’ll be in position in a minute.”
Jake watched the front door of the home next to the terrorists’ hideout open and close. A couple dressed in pajamas and bathrobes hurried down the steps. A SWAT team member kept them close to the house, quickly escorting them out of sight.
The surrounding homes were now empty except for police marksmen with infrared scopes and acoustics experts with equipment so sensitive it could pick up a soft voice a hundred yards away. Everything was still again. A dog barked briefly, then stopped. Jake glanced at his watch. It was 8:02 a.m.
“You figure they’ve got the house wired with explosives?” Jake asked.
“Probably, “Hurley said.
“Shit,” Jake muttered under his breath, growing impatient and hoping against hope that Joanna was still alive.
“But that’s not the worst-case scenario,” Hurley went on.
“Sometimes they wrap explosives around their hostages. You make one wrong move and a bunch of innocent people get blown up.”
“Well, at least the terrorists die too.”
“Not always. The really smart ones construct a thin necklace of C-four and put it around the hostage’s neck. It’s got just enough explosive
power to blow the victim’s head off.” Jake winced.
“Have you ever seen that done?”
“Once. The head came off and bounced down the street. I swear to God it actually bounced, like a baseball.”
“Christ,” Jake said, trying not to envision the gruesome sight.
Abruptly Hurley held up his hand again.
“We’ve got an infrared image in the front room of the house.” He tilted his head, listening intently to the communication between SWAT team members.
“There’s one and a half people in the living room.”
“What’s a half person?” Jake asked quickly.
“A child.”
Jake breathed a sigh of relief. It had to be Jean-Claude. And if the boy was still alive, there was a good chance Joanna and Kate were as well.
“Who’s with the child?”
“Can’t tell for sure,” Hurley said.
“And the voice detectors can’t help us because they’ve got a television set on.”
“It’s probably one of the terrorists.”
“Probably isn’t good enough. We’ve got to know for sure.” Hurley concentrated his hearing as another SWAT team member reported in.
“There are two more infrared images in a rear room, probably the kitchen. And they hear two voices, both female.”
“Are the people in the kitchen calling each other by name?” Jake asked anxiously.
Hurley waved away Jake’s question.
“Now they’re picking up a man’s voice. There are three voices but only two images. Where the hell is ” Hurley stopped in mid-sentence, listening carefully and nodding at what he heard.
“It’s a telephone call. A man and a woman .. . The woman is asking, “Where are you supposed to go? On the steps or inside?” .. . The man says, “Don’t know yet. I called and the secretary said I’d have to talk with ” There was a brief burst of static, and Hurley waited for it to pass.
“The man is still talking. He’s saying, “They want me to call back at eight forty-five.”
” There was more static, lasting several seconds. Then it cleared.
The phone conversation was over.
Hurley looked over at Jake.
“Can you make anything of that?”
“Not a damn thing.”
“Me neither.”
“Maybe the eight forty-five phone call will tell us more,” Hurley said and readjusted the listening device in his ear. Suddenly his eyes
narrowed. “The two images are leaving the kitchen. A door is opening and closing. Now they hear footsteps walking downstairs. Into a cellar, they think.”
“Good,” Jake said, thinking that was where the terrorists would keep Joanna and Kate.
“Bad,” Hurley told him.
“The outer walls of the cellar are covered with thick stucco. They can’t get infrared readings through it.”
Jake focused his binoculars on the base of the house, just in front of the Chevy van.
“What about the window at ground level? It looks like it goes into the cellar.”
“It does, but it’s too small and too high up.”
“Shit,” Jake grumbled, now watching a SWAT team member crawl up to the near side of the van and slash its tires in case the terrorists decided to make a break for it.
“We’re picking up a conversation in the cellar,” Hurley reported.
“Two female voices. One is called Kay or Kate.”
They’re alive! Jake thought. Oh, sweet God in heaven, they’re alive!
“One of them is talking about trying to get a lighter to work,” Hurley continued.
“And now they’re saying something about a mop and a rag of some sort.” He glanced over at Jake.
“I hope they’re not stupid enough to start a fire down there.”
Jake swallowed worriedly.
“That whole place could explode, huh?”
“That’s not the problem,” Hurley explained.
“You can light C-four and cook on it and it won’t explode. It requires an electrical charge to detonate. My concern is that they could suffocate if they start a blaze down there.”
“They could break the window,” Jake suggested.
“That would only make it worse. Air would be sucked in and feed the fire even more.”
“They’re desperate,” Jake said somberly.
“And that may be their only chance.”
“I know,” Hurley said, wondering if he should take the risk of having a SWAT team member crawl up to the window and transmit a message. The man would be exposed, and if he were seen by the terrorists he’d be dead. And the terrorists would be alerted. Too risky, Hurley decided.
Jake trained his binoculars on the small, barred window of the cellar. Something was being pushed out of it. He focused in and saw the
burning mop head dropping onto the litter outside the juj window. The trash caught fire and sent black smoke upwards.
“Smart move.
Beautiful. So damn smart.”
Hurley heard the news of the fire from the SWAT team member in the adjacent house.
“We’d better hope that fire doesn’t spread to the walls of the house. If it does, we’re going to have dead people.”
Jake hurriedly put down the binoculars.
“Call the nearest fire station and have them send one engine, siren blasting. Tell them to stop one block south of here so I can speak with them. And tell them to bring along an extra fireman’s outfit.”
Hurley hesitated briefly before saying, “Jake, it might be best to let the SWAT team handle this.”
“Will they be able to distinguish Joanna and Kate from the terrorist bitch in a split second?”
Hurley nodded slowly.
“You’ve got a point.”
“Make the call.” Monday, April 19, 8=46 a.m.
See? I told you the ceremony would be held inside,” Josiah Wales said, leading the way out of the old rehabilitation institute.
Timothy Bremmer was a step behind, hurrying to keep up. Under his arm was a box containing the new prosthesis Wales would put on in front of the President.
“You’ve got to remember,” Wales went on, “the President loves to shake hands with wealthy donors, and he can do that better inside. That will also give the photographers and television people time to get plenty of pictures.”
“Yeah. Plenty of pictures,” Bremmer said absently, wondering if he should contact Eva and tell her he had the information they needed. There was no reason to keep the Blalocks alive any longer. It would be best to kill them now. That would save time later. But things were moving too fast, and Bremmer couldn’t call from the new institute. He didn’t trust the phones th
ere, not with all the Secret Service agents around.
“Do you have any idea how many votes this dedication can get the President?”
Wales asked.
“A lot, I guess,” Bremmer answered, wishing Wales would shut up so he could think. There were still details to be ironed out.
“Try a couple of million,” Wales said.
“Every disabled person who sees me putting on that prosthesis in front of the President will vote for him. And then there’s all the veterans who will be reminded that the institute is named after a fighter pilot who fought in Vietnam.”
Bremmer saw the opening to obtain the last piece of information he needed.
“Are you sure the President will want to actually watch you put the
prosthesis on?” “I’m positive,” Wales said at once.
“I suggested it to Simon Murdock, and he told me to set it up.”
“Will I be involved in that?”
“I’m afraid not. There will only be five people accompanying the President on his tour of the new institute. I tried my best to have you included, but they wouldn’t go for it.”
Bremmer sagged his shoulders in mock disappointment.
“I know you did your best.”
“But you and the other dignitaries will be able to see everything,” Wales said consolingly.
“Remember, all the corridors and rooms are scanned by closed-circuit television cameras.”
“Great,” Bremmer said as the last piece of the assassination plan fell into place. Wales would put the new prosthesis on, probably in the fitting section of the workshop. With Wales’s first step the pressure on the heel of the prosthesis would prime the detonator. Then Bremmer would push the switch that would detonate the C-four, killing Wales and the President and everyone around them.
In the chaos and confusion that followed, Bremmer would slip away unnoticed.
They picked up the pace as they approached the new institute. The street was barricaded, and there was no traffic except for a single limousine dropping off a late-arriving dignitary. A very old man who was bent at the waist and walked with a cane slowly made his way up the ramp for the handicapped.
“I thought all the dignitaries were supposed to be here by eight-thirty,” Bremmer said.
“That’s Mortimer Rhodes,” Wales informed him.
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