Stolen

by Daniel Palmer

  “It’s in . . . my . . . pocket,” Dobson said between uneven breaths.

  A rattling gust of wind forced Dobson to claw at the brick for balance, his fingernails digging into the mortar until they came away gray.

  I said, “I’m going to come out there, Henry.”

  I didn’t know whether Dobson heard me. He answered a completely different question. It was as if he heard me ask “What happened?” but that wasn’t what I said.

  “He must have broken into my apartment,” Dobson said, still breathless. “He drugged me. I don’t know. All I know is that I woke up in this apartment here with Ruby, wearing this vest. He gave me a lock-pick kit, which I’m supposed to give to you.”

  “Did you see his face?” I asked.

  “No,” Dobson said, whimpering. Okay, so he heard me. “He kept a ski mask on all the time. Please, John, can you do it?”

  I sucked in a breath and swallowed a jet of bile souring my throat. I blinked once, then twice, but it didn’t change a damn thing. I was still up really, really high.

  I can do this. . . . I can do this. . . .

  But I couldn’t do it. I was stuck. I had my body partway out the window, arms pressed up against the windowpane, ready to provide enough leverage to get my legs up and through, but I wasn’t going anywhere. I looked down. Shouldn’t have done that. The ground seemed to drop out like an elevator cut from a cable. Down it went, farther and farther, fading into infinity.

  No matter what it takes . . .

  I couldn’t look up. The ground below me was spinning, a swirling vortex pulling me into its epicenter. So I closed my eyes, and with one leg out the window, I pushed until my other leg rested on the sill.

  Or how far I have to go . . .

  My legs were shaking like those of a newbie on ice skates. With my head poking out the window, the elements seemed exceptionally harsh to me—the wind blew fierce, and the sun blinded. The last time I felt wind this strong, I had cut a rope tethered to Brooks Hall. No, it’s not like that. My mind was tricking me into thinking the wind up here matched the force on the mountain. But the mind can be a powerful deceiver. My body shivered with a cold that was imagined as well. I thought about those nails exploding outward and saw them buried into Ruby’s arms, neck, and skull. I forced my head farther out the open window.

  I’m not going . . .

  My eyes stayed closed. My face felt on fire. I shuddered and shook and couldn’t imagine how I was going to stand on a ledge without tumbling right off.

  Brooks, please forgive me. Please give me strength.

  That was when I saw him. It was just like the time I rode the glass elevator in the Wilhelm Genetics skyscraper. Back when I had faith I could find a way to get Ruby her medication. Before I became a criminal. Only this time, Brooks’s eyes were blue and infinite, not black and dead. He was standing on the summit of a mountain, waving a flag in victory. His smile could melt the snow. He beckoned me to come.

  To let her die . . .

  A time warp, that’s the only way I can describe it. One minute I was perched on the windowsill, body halfway in and halfway out. The next thing I knew, I was standing on the ledge, flush against the wall, feeling the scratch of rough brick rubbing against my back. The wind kicked up with startling power. Or maybe that was just how my brain perceived it. My muscles twitched and contracted with powerful spasms that threatened to expel me from the ledge. My knees were wobbling; my heart lodged in my throat. The world below me kept spinning and spinning and spinning.

  “Look at me!” Dobson shouted. “Look at me, and don’t look down!”

  His voice sounded far off and distant, no more powerful than a fading echo. But he commanded my attention, so I looked at him.

  “You’ve got to get closer,” Dobson said. My hesitation, it seemed, gave him strength. His voice sounded less shaky. He needed me able-bodied so that we could both live.

  I took shuffling side steps, inching my way closer to him, closer still. The sound of my feet scraping along the cement ledge pierced my eardrums. I could feel an invisible string pulling my head lower, trying to make me look down. My muscles tensed to the snapping point. Each breath brought in little air. One second the skin of my face was afire, and in the next it would turn frostbite cold. But somehow I took another shuffling side step toward Dobson, my toes dangling over the ledge. I got close enough that I could feel his hot breath bathe my face.

  “You’ve got . . . to get . . . the lock-pick kit,” Dobson said, stuttering. “It’s in the front pocket of my pants. Can you reach it?”

  I stretched, wishing my fingers were elastic. Keeping my back against the brick, I let my fingers become my eyes, and bit by bit they found the inside of the pocket. Slowly, carefully, I slid my hand in deeper, gripped something leather, and was able to remove a small black zippered case.

  “He told me it’s the easiest lock to pick,” Dobson said.

  Down below I heard horns blaring. Higgins’s voice crackled up through the bullhorn. People were shouting. Helicopters whirled overhead. But I refused to look down. I kept my gaze locked on Dobson. I brought the case close to my chest, but to unzip it, I would have to let my arms come free of the wall. I would need to become more vulnerable than I already was. Determination overcame my momentary paralysis. I took out the tools, a tension wrench and a pick, and let the case fall from my hands. I didn’t watch it drop, but I heard people cry out, as if I’d just let a baby fall.

  “I don’t know how to do this,” I said.

  “You can do it, John. I’ll tell you how.”

  “You know how?”

  “Just trust me. He told me the steps to follow.”

  I took a shuffled step toward the window. I couldn’t do this. But then I worried that leaving the ledge would be a violation of the Fiend’s rules.

  Boom goes the dynamite.

  It had to be done here, and it had to be done now. I swiveled my hips to the right, allowing me to use both hands, while keeping my feet glued to the cement. Dobson spoke clearly, his instructions both precise and methodical. I followed them as best I could.

  I blocked out all distractions—the wind, the honking horns, the helicopter chop, the people, Dobson’s erratic breathing. Everything. Getting myself centered and somehow calm, I steadied my hand enough to slip the tension wrench into the lower portion of the keyhole. Turning the wrench clockwise, I applied torque to the cylinder, feeling the give. Dobson’s instructions were clear and easy to follow. They focused me, channeled my energy. Slipping the pick into the upper part of the keyhole, I could feel the tip of the pins with the tip of the pick. My teeth were chattering, and my hands were awkward and clumsy.

  I kept working the pick. Some of the pins were harder to push up than others, just as Dobson said, so I applied more tension with the wrench to increase the torque. I did this several times, feeling around with the pick, pushing up on pins, and adjusting the torque, until I heard a satisfying click. My eyes went wide as the lock fell open.

  Dobson squealed in delight. It was Dobson who pulled the lock from the hole that allowed the opaque case to pop open.

  I searched the inside of the newly opened case, looking for a button, an off switch of some sort, but all I saw was a piece of paper taped to the inside cover. I took the paper in my hands, unfolding it. A note was written in the same handwriting the Fiend had showed me during our soundless chat.

  LOOKING FOR SOMETHING? GET BACK INSIDE. WE’RE NOT DONE YET.

  CHAPTER 66

  I shook my head furiously from side to side, trying to send a signal to Higgins that the mission had failed, but I couldn’t look to see if he understood. If Higgins sent in the cavalry, the Fiend might still detonate the bomb. Something had gone wrong. There wasn’t a switch to deactivate the device, and I had no idea how to shut it off.

  “What’s going on? What’s happening?” Dobson shouted at me. “What’s that note?”

  His shaking returned. The strength and resolve he’d shown earlier seemed to h
ave abandoned him. His eyes betrayed his state of mind. I’d seen it on the mountain. Brooks had the look. Clegg did, too. “I’m going to die.” That was what his eyes said. “This is it. Sayonara. Arrivederci. This is the end.”

  “Come on, Henry. Get inside with me. You can do it.”

  I shuffled to my left, one sliding step scraping across the concrete, followed by another. Dobson came along, shuffling in sync with me. I reached the window, slipping a leg inside, bending at the waist, and getting another leg in there. Awash with relief, I glanced behind me and saw Ruby still thrashing about on the floor.

  “The bomb isn’t deactivated,” I said to her. “I don’t know what to do. If I untie you, he might detonate the device. I’m going to get Dobson back in here. Stay patient, sweetie. Just hang in there.”

  She didn’t like my words. Not one bit.

  I poked my head back out the window, encouraging Dobson along. He got to within a foot of his portal to safety when a gust of wind slapped at his knees. Dobson lurched forward, arms flailing for balance. At the same instant, I leaned out the window and reached for him as he fell. My hand clasped his forearm just as the rest of his body vanished from my view.

  The collective holler of the onlookers lifted skyward in a singular crescendo. I gripped his arm with my other hand and used the windowsill as a barrier of sorts to keep the pull of his body weight plus the added weight from the vest from dragging me out. He grabbed hold of me as well. I could feel him but couldn’t see him.

  Dobson swung pendulum-like against the outside of the building, scraping the side of the wall from left to right, then back the other way, the force of his grip crushing the bones of my wrists. My throbbing hands threatened to release the tenuous hold I had on his forearms. I leaned farther out the window, our eyes locked, Dobson’s terror becoming my own. I had no idea what was happening on the street below us. Had the fire department set up any netting? One of those inflatable mattresses, perhaps? I didn’t know the answer, so I pulled, feeling the snap and stretch of the muscles in my shoulders, arms, and legs as they exerted themselves against an unrelenting strain. They burned for relief as Dobson’s terrified screams ripped through me. Here was my chance to make some amends for the sins of my past. The rope I had to cut. The life I had to take to save my own. Here was a piece of salvation.

  Pressing my feet against the underneath of the windowsill, I pulled hard enough to dislocate Dobson’s shoulders. I felt him inching upward, so I pulled even harder. There was Brooks on that mountaintop again. I saw him waving to me from somewhere, from that great beyond. Who knows? I pulled, my body shaking, teeth clenched, making savage grunts and groans.

  No more death. No more dying.

  Thrusting with my legs, I allowed the full force of my backward momentum to carry Dobson up the side of the building like he was hitched to a pulley system. Dobson came tumbling through the window and landed right on top of me. I felt the nails from the bomb vest poke against my chest. Dobson rolled off me, breathless and heaving.

  I stood up first and then helped Dobson to his feet. Marimba chimes rang out. My phone. I answered.

  It was Clegg. “What’s going on, John?” he said. “Are we sending people in?”

  “The bomb . . . is . . . still active,” I told him, hands on my knees, body bent, heaving and struggling for breath. “I don’t know what’s happening.”

  “Should we come up there? You give the word,” Clegg said.

  “He might detonate it if you do.”

  “Let me talk to him,” Dobson said, tapping me on the shoulder. “The kidnapper said something to me that might help.”

  I handed Dobson the phone. He turned his back to me. Ruby was screaming through her gag. My stomach threatened to rebel. It wanted me to untie her. But if I did . . . if that was the wrong choice . . .

  I went to her, caressing her face, trying to calm her down. Smoothing her hair, I told her it would be all right, just stay patient, that sort of thing. I turned back around and saw Dobson standing in front of me. He held up the phone, offering to give it back, and I reached for it.

  “Congratulations, Johnny. You’re a real criminal now,” Dobson said. His voice had shifted into a rasp familiar and chilling enough to set goose bumps on my skin.

  I was confused, trying to process what I just heard. I was looking at the phone, still reaching for it, getting my brain around the strangeness of Dobson’s voice, which was why I didn’t see his other hand, the one holding a knife. As I took the phone, Dobson plunged a seven-inch blade into my stomach.

  Again.

  And again.

  And again.

  CHAPTER 67

  I don’t know how many times I got stabbed. Five? Six? Ten? It’s hard to count when you’re being murdered. I crumpled to the floor like I’d been unplugged, clutching my gut, feeling myself grow weaker by the second. Blood seeped through the makeshift dam of my fingers to collect on the floor beneath me. The world looked askew, everything tilted. Dobson’s canvas sneakers—yes, those made the most sense for standing on a ledge—came shuffling toward me, but my eyesight was blurry and fading. I sensed Ruby near me, a beacon of sorts guiding my hands toward her, and yet everywhere I reached I couldn’t seem to find her. Now I understood—too late, of course. She hadn’t been begging for me to untie her. She’d been warning me about Dobson—the Fiend.

  Dobson’s footsteps spoke a language all their own. “I’m coming,” they said. “I’m coming, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.” He bent down, getting close to me, and lifted me up by my shoulders. Not off the floor, entirely, just enough so he could slide the bomb underneath. I felt those nails and ball bearings pressing up against the knife wounds, a searing pain.

  “Can’t risk an autopsy showing that you were stabbed,” Dobson said, again speaking in that raspy, guttural voice I recognized as belonging to the Fiend. “Oh, and by the way, thanks for saving my life out there,” he said in his normal speaking voice. “That little slip and fall incident wasn’t planned, I can tell you. Not at all. Whew!” He wiped the back of his hand across his brow to show his relief. “I thought you did amazing, by the way. I mean, talk about a true test of your criminality. You faced your greatest fear and picked that lock! You’re a master, John. You’ve won the game. Wow, what a rush! I knew this would be great, but I didn’t know how great. I mean, my heart is really pumping. It never did that when I was choking the Uretskys.

  “Anyway, the good news is you’re going to die a hero, John. I’ll tell them I took off the vest in a panic and tossed it to the floor. I ran out the door, quick as a bunny.” Using two downward pointing fingers, he pantomimed the idea of legs moving fast. “Well, I guess I must have dropped the vest near Ruby. I saw you going for the bomb just as I was leaving. You wanted to save your wife, naturally. Makes perfect sense. And then, boom, it went off. Well, it didn’t go off by itself. I’ve got the remote trigger, which I’ll get rid of on my way out of here.”

  “They’ll know,” I said. “The police will figure out that you don’t work for UniSol, and they’ll hunt you down.”

  “I thought you’d know me better by now. I’m looking forward to having them try and find me. It’s just another game to play. Sorry, buddy, but that’s how it ends. You were so much fun to play with. I mean, I really, really loved playing with you. Guess I’ll see you on the other side.”

  He smiled wickedly. I saw his feet turn. Time to go. Next, I heard those footsteps as they headed for the door. Slow moving. No need to rush. I listened to the sound of his footfalls on the hardwood floor. I listened. And I listened. And when I didn’t hear footsteps anymore, I knew he’d gone out the door and into the carpeted hallway. I counted to ten, having no idea how long he’d wait to set off the bomb. Five seconds? Three? He’d want to get safely down the stairs. Maybe a flight. Maybe two. So I counted to ten, filling my lungs with resolve.

  One . . . two . . . three . . .

  I pushed myself off the floor onto my hands and knees.


  Four . . . five . . .

  I got to my feet, shaky and off balance, wincing in pain, with blood seeping from my body in a steady stream.

  Six . . . seven . . .

  I picked up Ruby, feeling my stab wounds ripping. The agony burning from within turned my vision black.

  Eight . . . nine . . .

  I carried Ruby over to the window—dragged her—my steps shuffling and off balance, but effective.

  Ten.

  I pushed her out the window.

  Eleven . . .

  The bomb went off.

  CHAPTER 68

  The blast waves hurled me out the window in rocket-propelled fashion. I was in free fall. Nails sliced through the air with the speed of missiles. Glass shattered and spread out in all directions. Bricks exploded outward, pelting me with debris, but my rate of descent pulled me down faster than the objects on a collision course with my body. Most of the debris lost thrust and posed more of a risk to the people down below than it did to me. For me, the real danger was falling. Oh, and my stab wounds.

  Brooks. I thought about Brooks. The fall would last only a few seconds. My thoughts came and went quicker than a streaking star. This must be how he had felt. Now I knew. Dropping into the infinite. Not knowing what awaited him. The ground rising as fast as the sky fell away. A scream. A yell. One final cry. One last confirmation of life. Or was it?

  I hit the inflatable mattress dead center. The whoosh of displaced air filled my ears. I savored the bounce as the mattress gave way to my weight, then rose up again. Ruby rolled into my body. The gag muted her sobs. I fought a tide of billowing fabric to get off the mattress. Bodies converged on us. Hands latched onto my arms and pulled me toward the edge, staining the mattress with long streaks of my blood. Clegg helped me down, propping me up with his arm. I hung on him, limp and useless.

  “Don’t move me. Don’t move me,” I said.

  We were standing—well, he stood; I was propped—directly in front of the glass door entrance of 157 Beacon Street. Angry spurts of blood spilled my life force onto the street. My vision darkened. The world began to spin. Round and round. Quick like a bunny. I saw Dobson’s fingers making that same gesture. Quick like a bunny. I remembered the coolness of his touch. How clammy his skin felt on mine. But I stayed on my feet, waiting . . . waiting.