by John Lutz
Harper followed Naomi to the main stairs, and up them. She had on flat shoes and a short skirt, and she was running flat-out. She pushed through the doors into an impressive lobby. Their rapid footfalls clattered on the shiny marble floors and brought down echoes from the high ceiling. The guards at the security desk heard. They were rising and turning when Harper and Naomi were still thirty feet away.
“We have an intruder!” she yelled. “Check the screens!”
There was only a moment of startled confusion before the guards turned to their bank of television monitors. An older man with a gray moustache came around the desk toward them. “What’s up, Ms. Glidden?”
Harper looked at the man while Naomi explained what they’d found in the alley. He had a ruddy face and his close-cropped hair was as gray as his moustache. He was short and broad-shouldered, and his stomach looked flat as a twenty-year-old’s under his tan uniform shirt. There were stripes on his sleeve, so Harper figured he was the Security Chief. The nameplate on his breast pocket said “Clifford.” As he listened to Naomi, his mouth set and his face turned a deeper red. Harper sensed that he knew something they didn’t know—and the news wasn’t good.
“Sir!” It was a young black guard sitting at the console, wearing a headset. He told Clifford, “This is Surtees reporting. They went down the coal chute into the basement. They’ve looked all over the basement and there’s nobody there.”
“Maybe they haven’t looked long enough,” said Naomi testily. “That basement’s like a cave. Tell them to keep looking.”
“Tell them to come up,” said Clifford. He turned his morose face back to Naomi. “I don’t think we’re going to find anybody in the basement.”
“Why not?” said Naomi. “All the doors leading from the basement to the main building are locked and alarmed.”
Clifford nodded, blinking his eyes as he did so. “We got a red light on the board a while back. Southwest stairway, basement door. We investigated and found the door locked, no sign of tampering. So we wrote it off as a false alarm.” He hesitated, then added, “We wouldn’t have done that if we’d known someone had got in the basement.”
Naomi was looking at him steadily. Only in her unnatural stillness was there any sign of how frightened she was. She said, “When was this?”
“About half an hour ago. Give me a minute and I’ll have the exact time for you.” He turned back to the desk.
“Never mind the exact time. I’m going back to the sixth floor.” She looked at the guards who were watching the constantly changing images on the bank of television monitors. “Look, have these guys go out and search the building, okay?”
Without waiting for an answer, she headed for the elevator. Harper went after her. “The sixth floor,” he said, “that where Rogers is?”
She nodded and stabbed at the elevator call button. She missed it twice. Harper leaned around her shoulder and pushed it. The doors opened. As they stepped in, Clifford came running across the floor toward them. “Wait! Ms. Glidden, what are we looking for—a man, or—”
“No way of knowing,” Harper answered. “He could’ve planted the bomb and gotten away already, or he could still be here. Watch out for suspicious parcels. Have you got metal detectors and fluoroscopes?”
Clifford nodded.
“Bring one of each up to the sixth floor. That’s where we’ll need them first.”
Clifford nodded again and ran back toward the desk. His guards were getting ready to go, strapping on gunbelts, donning flak jackets. The doors slid closed and the elevator started upward.
“The guy can’t be on the sixth floor,” Naomi said, in a low, tense voice. “Not near the studio anyway. I would’ve noticed anybody unfamiliar. Anyway, it’s a maze of corridors up there. A stranger wouldn’t be able to find his way around. Wouldn’t know where to find Speed.”
“This guy would know,” Harper said.
After that they were silent, watching the number indicators flick on and off.
On the sixth floor, the doors slid open. A guard was sitting at the security desk facing the elevators with a telephone in his hand. He was getting the bad news from downstairs. He looked up at them wide-eyed.
Naomi approached the desk. “Pat, has anybody unauthorized tried to get past you? Have you seen any strangers at all?”
“No, ma’am.”
She looked at Harper as if this proved something.
He told her, “This guy won’t be using the elevators. Won’t be trying to get past security desks.” To the guard he said, “Have you got any other security people up here?”
“Four. One on each of the stairway doors, one roaming, and one in the studio with Speed.”
“Leave him where he is. Have the other three fan out through the corridors. Stop anyone they don’t know. Keep an eye out for suspicious parcels—for anything that doesn’t belong here.”
The guard looked from Harper to Naomi. She said, “Do it, Pat.”
As they started down the corridor, Harper became aware of Speed Rogers’s angry, hectoring voice, booming from unseen speakers: “—lost the vote because of so-called moderates who betrayed the people who’d elected them. Weak-kneed, spineless, gutless—”
The corridor was wide and unadorned. It had blue-gray industrial carpeting and white-painted walls. There was nowhere to hide. Naomi led Harper through turn after turn. She was right, the sixth floor was a labyrinth. As they came around each corner, Harper expected to see a furtive figure running away or disappearing through a door. The bomber had brought off his previous attacks unscathed. How would he react to an attempt to capture him? Did he carry a gun? Or would he try to use the bomb to bargain his way out? Or would he panic and hit the switch on his detonator? Harper’s heart was pounding. His right hand was aching again. Tension had made him clench it into as much of a fist as he could make.
Now he could hear other voices, lower than the amplified bellowing of Speed Rogers. They rounded a corner and came to a lounge area with office doors leading off it. The staffers were gathered here, talking excitedly. It was Howard who spotted them first. He ran toward them, swinging one arm while he held onto his glasses with the other. “Naomi, what’s going on?”
“We’ve got a security problem, but we’re handling it,” she replied. “How’s Speed?”
“He knows something’s up. He’s giving me looks through the glass in the control room.”
“Oh, God. Speed musn’t be distracted, Howard, you understand that? Get back in the control room and—and look calm.”
Howard spun and ran across the room to a heavy-looking door. The big, burly guard, whom Harper had seen arriving with Speed earlier that morning, opened it for him.
As Naomi explained to the staffers what was going on, Harper prowled around the lounge and looked into the offices that adjoined it. The tables and sofas were cluttered with books, purses, gym bags, paper sacks from fast-food places. Harper turned back to the group. Raising his voice, he said, “Listen, all of you! I need you to go through these rooms and pick up everything you brought in with you.”
“Then what?” said Naomi.
“Then we’ll see what’s left.”
As the young people were scattering to their offices, Clifford, the security chief, came in leading three men who were toting the equipment Harper had requested.
“Where do you want the fluoroscope set up?” Clifford asked.
“We don’t need it yet. Let’s start with the obvious. Open drawers, look under furniture.”
Naomi stepped closer to Harper. “How big would the bomb have to be?”
Harper nodded toward the heavy door. “Rogers is right through there?”
“There’s the control room and then the studio, yes.”
“Then it wouldn’t have to be big. A plastique charge the size of a cigarette pack would take out all these rooms.”
“Oh God.” She thought it over and gave a small, definite shake of her head. “But I still don’t see how he could’ve gotten t
his close. There are too many of us running around this area before the show starts. Anyone who didn’t belong would be noticed.”
Harper nodded. He saw her point. And yet he felt certain that the bomber would want to plant his explosive as close to the studio as possible, to make sure of getting Rogers. He turned to Clifford. “What’s above us?”
The security chief was kneeling to look under a couch. He straightened up to answer. Maybe he wasn’t as fit as he’d looked downstairs, for he was breathing hard from exertion and tension and his face was now almost beet red. “The roof,” he replied. “I’ve already got a guy up there.”
“Then what’s below?”
“Nothing. The whole floor’s empty.”
“Let’s go down there,” Harper said.
“Nobody can get in. The elevators don’t stop and the stairway doors are locked and alarmed.”
“He got through a locked and alarmed door in the basement,” Harper pointed out.
The chief stood, pulling a jangling row of keys off his belt. “Let’s check it out.”
They set out through the maze of corridors. Along the way they passed numerous guards running in all directions or pushing through office doors with their guns drawn. One woman was patiently disassembling a drinking fountain. Finally they reached the stairway door. Clifford unlocked it and they went down a flight. When they reached the fifth floor landing, they stopped.
The door was standing open.
Clifford glanced sideways at Harper and drew his revolver. In the other hand, he had a flashlight. He flipped it on and eased cautiously through the doorway.
The fifth floor had no lights. Clifford’s beam traveled over bare floors, unpainted walls, empty door frames. The corridor smelled musty, and it was quiet. There were no loudspeakers booming out Speed Rogers’s voice. Clifford moved forward, a step at a time, his flashlight scanning the darkness and the barrel of his revolver moving with it.
A noise broke in on the silence. It was a very soft sound and Harper and Clifford had to get closer before they realized what it was.
Breathing.
The labored, broken breathing of someone who was frightened or in great pain.
It was coming from the doorway just ahead. Clifford ran toward it, throwing out his arms, extending the flashlight and pistol together. “Freeze!” he shouted.
The man had his back to them. He didn’t do as Clifford ordered, but swung around, lifting up his arms to block the light.
Then he sneezed.
“Stuart,” said Harper, recognizing the curly-haired staffer.
“What the hell are you doing down here?” yelled Clifford, lowering the gun but not the flashlight.
“Trying—” Stuart wheezed “—trying to get some air in my lungs. I’m having—an anxiety attack—on top of—an allergy attack.” He sneezed again and mopped at his streaming nose and eyes. Then he blinked up at them. “I just wanted some peace and quiet. Okay?”
When Harper got back to the sixth-floor lounge, he found Naomi leaning in the doorway. He knew at once that her mood had changed. Her thick dark hair had come undone during the morning’s exertions, and she was combing it back with her fingers, a barrette clenched between her teeth.
She looked coolly at Harper. Taking the barrette out of her mouth, she said, “No suspicious parcels here. We’ve accounted for everything down to the last bag of Doritos.”
“What about the search of the floor?”
“Nothing so far, and they’re almost done.”
“Almost isn’t good enough. And the search of the building has hardly begun.”
She was clipping the bun of hair at the nape of her neck, and paying more attention to the task than she was to Harper.
He said, “The intruder is for real, you know. Somebody did break into the building.”
“Yes, and he’s gone by now. We do have occasional break-ins. Burglars after computer equipment. Souvenir hunters after Speed’s doodle pad. We’ll keep looking into it, Harper. We’ll mail you a full report.”
“When people have a bomb scare, they ordinarily evacuate the building. Call the police.”
“We’re doing a live radio show, Harper. Do you seriously expect me to pull Speed Rogers off the air?”
“Yes. I think—”
But Naomi wasn’t listening anymore.
“Chief Clifford?” she said. “Would you kindly escort Mr. Harper out of the building?”
Surtees, the guard from Kentucky, was sitting at the security desk in the lobby watching the monitors when Chief Clifford walked Harper by.
So they were throwing Harper out at last. Surtees couldn’t help smiling. It would have made more sense if Ms. Glidden had allowed him and Tom to escort Harper out half an hour ago. For one thing, it would have spared Surtees from having to slide down that coal chute. That had scared the wits out of him, and he had two scraped knees and a bruised elbow too. And all for nothing. There was no intruder in the building.
Even now the Harper guy wouldn’t give up. Clifford was practically pushing him through the front door and he was trying to talk Clifford into overruling Ms. Glidden. No chance of that, Surtees knew. When the show was on the air, Ms. Glidden was in charge.
Suddenly, Surtees leaned forward. He’d seen something on Monitor 6, but he wasn’t sure what it was. Monitor 6 was showing a corridor on the sixth floor. He manipulated the controls, panning and zooming the camera.
There it was: a ripple in the blue-gray carpet. He squinted in puzzlement. He could see movement, but he couldn’t see what was moving. He glanced at the phone, thinking of calling up to the sixth floor. When he looked back, the ripple was gone.
Surtees decided not to call the sixth floor. It was probably some kind of video glitch. Anyway, there’d been enough excitement this morning.
Up on the sixth floor, Stuart and Courtney were walking down the corridor toward the lounge. With his handkerchief pressed to his nose, Stuart was saying, “Who’ve we got on hold for the next segment?”
“There’s a guy who wants to support Speed’s stand on the capital gains tax. Let’s put him through. Speed loves to talk about the capital gains tax.”
Stuart heard a noise and looked down. Something fizzed past his right ankle.
“What the—” said Courtney.
Stuart bent down as the thing raced away from him. It was a box, painted the same blue as the carpet, mounted on blue wheels. It was running out of the corridor and was going to crash into a wall straight ahead. But when it reached the corner it slowed and turned with an eerie precision—almost as if someone was guiding it. Then it disappeared around the corner.
Courtney and Stuart stared at each other. Then she took off running after the thing. Stuart couldn’t go with her. He felt another sneeze coming on.
In the lounge, the staffers heard Courtney shouting, “Hey! Watch out!” They rose. They looked around. The guard on the door started forward with one hand on the butt of his holstered pistol. No one saw the little blue box whiz past.
Howard Woo was coming out of the control room. He had spent the last fifteen minutes looking calm and nodding reassuringly whenever Speed glanced through the glass at him. Now he was off duty, because it was a commercial break and Naomi herself was on her way in to talk to the star.
He heard shouts and saw people pouring into the corridor from the lounge. But it was a softer, nearer sound that made him look down, his index finger flying to the bridge of his nose to hold his glasses on.
There was the thing sitting still at his feet, like a puppy he’d called. A small blue box with a stubby antenna sticking up from the top. He thought it must be a prank dreamed up by one of his tirelessly inventive colleagues.
“Get away from it! Get away from it!”
The guard was bounding toward him, waving his pistol excitedly.
The air seemed suddenly charged with electricity, and every hair on Howard Woo’s body stirred.
In the studio, Naomi was saying, “Sorry about the ruckus, Sp
eed.”
Rogers was rising from his chair, taking off his headphones, smiling at her. In the next instant, the world split apart in brilliant white light.
He saw but would never hear the explosion. By the time the sound wave reached him, he was dead. The glass of the control booth melted away like a drop of water hitting a hot skillet. Naomi didn’t have time to turn, but Speed Rogers saw a fiercely bright light expanding and rushing toward them.
The pain was terrible but brief.
19
As Markman drove away from Elmhart, and the rest of its buildings dropped out of sight, he could still look back across the gently rolling hills and see the cupolas atop the Old Courthouse. It had been the tallest building in Elmhart when it was erected, and it had remained so. The view hadn’t changed in a century.
Until today, when Markman changed it.
He couldn’t resist the temptation to look back. As he pulled his rented pickup over to the side of the road, he thought that surely it was all right to allow himself this one indulgence. It wasn’t suspicious behavior. In the last mile or so he’d passed several cars and trucks that had pulled to the side of the road so their occupants could stare openmouthed toward town.
He parked the truck on the shoulder, got out, and turned. It was even more impressive than he’d expected. One cupola was completely shattered, destroying the ornate symmetry of the rooftop. A pall of smoke drifted slowly away with the east wind. Over the buzz of insects and the trilling of birds in the nearby fields, Markman could hear the wail of sirens.
The massive stone walls of the Courthouse wouldn’t burn, of course. It would stand for a long time, a blasted and gutted shell. There wouldn’t be anyone to restore it, now that Speed Rogers was gone.
Markman would have liked to roar out his triumph. He might even have pumped his fist and yelled yesss! the way the idiots did on television. But his self-restraint was too deeply ingrained. So he just stood there with his arms dangling at his side and his mouth open, like the other stunned Hoosiers he’d passed on the roadside.