by John Lutz
Harper nodded to himself. Amusement parks were a traditional employer for young people on the way up in the entertainment business. Or not-so-young people on the way down.
“This story was about the decision in his lawsuit against the park,” Addleman said. “He fell from the platform of the roller coaster. Claimed he hurt his back. The park had its doubts and it sounded like so did the Post-Dispatch. But Markman had a sharp lawyer. He won four hundred grand. Probably got to keep half.”
“I see,” said Harper. “So that was where he got the money he invested.”
“Yes. It was perfect timing. This was the mid nineties. He probably put the money into tech stocks and saw it double, triple, within months, then got out before the crash.”
“I see.”
“What a difference that money made. Now he had the leisure and the means to act on the scheme that must have been festering in his head all the time he was working as an underpaid drudge. He’d gotten some twisted satisfaction out of mutilating Jake Blake. Now he was ready to undertake his life’s mission.”
Yes, Harper thought—his mission to demolish the celebrity mystique and show the world what life is really like. Now Markman could buy equipment, conduct experiments, travel. The accident made it all possible. He said, “How does this tie in with Aquila?”
“That’s my favorite part. You were on to something when you said it would turn out to be a joke. It is—a very bitter, sardonic one. Our boy Tony has a lot of buried guilt and anger and resentment. The fame and fortune as a comedian that he felt he’d earned, he never got. The family fortune he should have inherited was taken away from him. Then finally he does get a small fortune—thanks to luck, legal trickery, and the jurors’ pity for what a loser he was. You can see how the absurdity appealed to him. I can’t wait to talk to this guy, Harper. What a mind he has.”
Addleman didn’t have to remind Harper of Markman’s twisted and brilliant mind. Harper tried again. “Harold, where does the Aquila come in?”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you? The roller coaster at Six Flags—the one Markman fell off—was called the Screaming Eagle.”
“The Screaming Eagle . . .” Harper smiled thinly. Aquila, the eagle constellation. So a roller coaster was what had made Markman choose his pattern of vengeance and death—his paean to the luck that had set him free from the workaday world and placed him above the rest of humanity, where he belonged.
Addleman gave his wheezing cackle. “This is going to be a blow to Frances, after she sent all those agents over to Calcutta and Hong Kong to consult astrologers, but I think I’d better call her.”
“It’s too late for that,” Harper said. “I approached Markman. I’m afraid I alarmed him.”
“There’s a flight risk?”
“Yes. Look, I’m going to call the St. Louis police right now. Then I’ll go back to his house and watch it till they get there.”
“The St. Louis police! What are you gonna tell them?”
“I don’t know. But they’ll get here faster than if we have to go through Frances, in Indiana or Washington or wherever the hell she is. I’m breaking the connection now, Harold, we have to get this son of a bitch before he slips away.”
“You be careful, Will!”
Harper didn’t take the time to answer. He clicked off Addleman and called 911.
33
Harper slowed the car and doused its lights as he approached Markman’s house five minutes later. He was hoping the bomber was still in there, and he didn’t want to scare him. Just let him stay put a little while longer! Harper prayed over and over to the God that raced in cops’ veins at crunch time.
As he slid to a stop across the street, he noticed with relief that Markman’s Honda was still parked in the drive. There were lights on in the front hall and in an upstairs room. The shade wasn’t drawn and Harper gazed at the rectangle of light for a long moment, hoping he’d catch a glimpse of Markman moving around the room. But he didn’t.
His gaze shifted to the garage at the back of the property. A light mounted on the side of the house made it possible for him to see the sturdy redbrick structure with its white overhead door. But if a light was on inside the garage, it wouldn’t show through the painted-over windows. Markman could be in there, in what Harper was sure was his personal bomb factory, devising God only knew what kind of hellish device.
Mopping the sweat off his brow with his sleeve, he glanced at his watch. What was keeping the police? He’d known it would be pointless to go into long explanations as to who he was and why he needed them, so he’d said something cryptic about a crime in progress and given the address. He’d explain when the cops got there. All he wanted them to do was take Markman into custody. If they took him into custody too, that was all right.
And there it was at last: the distant whine of a siren.
Almost as soon as he heard it, as if it were a prearranged signal, Harper saw the front door of the house thrown open. Markman burst through it. He ran to his car, jerked the door open, and piled inside. The sound of the motor turning over came to Harper.
Harper started his own engine. As Markman began backing down his drive, Harper stamped on the accelerator and veered sharply across the street to block the entrance. Instead of stopping, Markman tried to maneuver around him.
But there wasn’t room. The rear end of the Honda slammed into the chain-link fence along the drainage ditch. Harper saw the front wheel spinning. There was a scream of rubber and white smoke billowed from the wheel well as Markman tried to escape, but the car was stuck fast. Throwing open the door, Markman jumped out and started running.
Harper leaped from his car and ran at Markman. Markman saw him coming and tried to dodge. But Harper closed in. He wasn’t trying to do anything fancy—just catch Markman up in a bear hug, lift his feet off the ground, and fall on top of him. He didn’t want to risk harming the bomber, wanted only to hold him until the police could arrive to arrest him.
Spreading his arms, he hurled himself at Markman. His right shoulder made solid contact. The two men grunted at the impact. Markman staggered backward and almost went down. But Harper couldn’t manage to lock his arms around Markman’s body. Markman was thin, but stronger than he looked. Twisting and turning, he managed to break out of Harper’s hold.
While Harper was still trying to regain his balance, Markman pivoted and punched him in the face. Harper’s head snapped back. He was dazed. In a world that had begun to tilt and spin, he blinked, trying to focus on Markman.
Markman was moving in. His right fist shot forward and another flash of pain went off in Harper’s head. Again he staggered backward. But the sirens were louder now, and behind Markman he could see the flashing red and blue lights of a police car as it rounded the corner at the end of the block.
He lunged at Markman, making another effort to get hold of him, but he was slower this time. Markman dropped to a crouch, ducking under Harper’s encircling arms. Then he drove his shoulder into Harper’s stomach.
Harper grunted with pain. He fell over backward. His back hit something that gave way under him. It was the chain-link fence, he realized. It had buckled under the impact of Markman’s car, and it couldn’t stop Harper from falling into the drainage ditch.
He landed hard on the sloping concrete wall and went sliding and scraping to the bottom, where he came to rest on a thin carpet of damp leaves.
Harper struggled to his knees. The blow from Markman’s shoulder had knocked the wind from him and he gasped and wheezed as he tried to get it back. The palms of his hands were on fire where the concrete had scraped the skin off. He got one foot under him and rose shakily to a standing position.
Now he could see over the top of the ditch. Markman was climbing into Harper’s car. But he was hesitating, half in and half out, turning to look up the street. The police car, its siren whooping and lights flashing, was closing in fast.
Suddenly Markman jumped away from the car. He must have decided he couldn’t escape on whee
ls. He dashed back up his driveway with speed that surprised Harper.
Harper assumed he was going to try to escape through the neighbor’s yard. But when Markman reached his garage, he stopped. Harper could see him fumbling with the key for a moment, then he went inside.
Suddenly Harper knew what was going to happen. Guessed which way out Tony Markman had chosen.
And there was nothing Harper could do about it but drop down to the bottom of the drainage ditch and cover his head with his arms.
A split second later the explosion came. Even through his closed eyelids the light was dazzling. The roar deafened him. Being in the ditch, he was protected from the shock wave. But not from the heat. He felt as if his skin were blistering, as if he were breathing fire. Instinctively he began to crawl away on hands and knees. He was coughing and gasping.
Something hit him hard in the shoulder. He looked up in time to see a crumpled steel mailbox fall to the ground in front of him. It was only the beginning of a hail of debris—pieces of wood, chunks of metal, bricks. Harper couldn’t think clearly anymore, but he knew that safety lay in the culvert that took the drainage ditch under the road, which he could see ahead of him. He started to crawl toward it, grunting in pain as more objects fell on him.
He didn’t make it. Something hit him in the head. He saw a flash of pain that was almost as bright as the explosion.
Then darkness, blacker and blacker . . .
34
Nothing quite like this had ever happened in St. Louis before. The TV anchorpersons, searching for phrases to narrate the footage their helicopter-mounted cameras had shot of Anthony Markman’s block, kept coming back to the same words: It looks as if a tornado hit.
They were right. A twister, touching down on a single spot then lifting off to resume its capricious flight, would have wreaked exactly this kind of concentrated and terrible destruction.
Markman’s garage was gone, its place marked by a deep crater. The back of his house had been cleaved open to reveal the rooms within, so that it looked like a doll’s house. The back fence had been blown down and two tall oak trees pulled up by the roots. The near side of the closest neighbor’s house was a tumbled ruin.
But that was all. The rest of the surrounding structures still stood, although most of their windows had been blown out and they’d taken minor damage from falling debris. Many people had suffered injuries from the same sources, but no one had been killed in the blast except the man who’d set it off.
Assuming, of course, that Markman really was dead.
Will Harper was in St. Anthony’s Hospital in St. Louis County. His hearing had come back. His cuts and scrapes had been bandaged. But his doctors were keeping him under observation, to see if he developed aftereffects from the concussion he’d suffered. They were also searching for the kind of blast injuries that were difficult to detect but potentially serious: burst blood vessels, twisted joints, torn muscles or ligaments.
They were just bringing him back to his room from a CAT scan when Special Agent Frances Wilson came to visit.
“Will! How are you?”
Harper raised his head so that be could see the figure in the doorway. He was feeling dizzy and a little nauseated from the fluids they’d made him drink before the tests. It took him a while to bring Agent Wilson into focus. She was wearing a rather elegant spring suit in a black-and-white houndstooth check, and was heavily burdened as usual with purse, briefcase, and laptop computer. The accoutrements of her trade, in addition to her gun. She had a concerned smile on her face. Walking over to his bedside, she took his left hand in both of hers.
“Now, you’re taking good care of him, aren’t you?” she said to the orderlies who were standing by the gurney.
“Yes, ma’am,” he heard an orderly reply in a bored tone. “Now if you’ll just get out of the way we’ll put him back in bed.”
As they maneuvered the gurney next to the bed and manhandled Harper from one to the other, he tried to figure out why Frances was being so nice to him. He’d interfered in an ongoing investigation and heaped embarrassment on the Bureau and Agent Wilson herself. Harper hadn’t expected anything from the Feds other than a long, angry debriefing and threats of prosecution.
Instead, here was Frances gazing down at him with a face full of gravity and sweetness. She said, “Laura should be arriving soon.”
“She’s coming here?” Harper blurted out, surprised and pleased.
“Yes. On a government jet. If she came by regular plane, the reporters would hector her to death. You’re the man of the hour, you know, Will.”
Harper grunted. Maybe Frances was paying him compliments so the orderlies would overhear and report her graciousness to the media types who were probably hanging around the public areas of the hospital right now.
She was shaking her head with rueful amusement. “But I have to tell you, Laura and I would both like to sock you one for what you put us through. And it was completely unnecessary.”
“It was?” asked Harper thickly. He was having a hard time talking. What was that stuff they’d given him? His tongue felt like an ironing board.
“If you and Harold had brought us this Sam Sugar thing right at the beginning, we would have taken it from there.”
“You would have believed us?”
“Of course. No reason not to. Some of my people were working on the same approach themselves.”
“They’d found the Sugar case?”
“Not exactly. But they were working on the same approach. You know, old bombing cases. They would’ve found Sugar eventually.”
Sure, Harper thought. Along with a hundred other old cases. And the Bureau would’ve taken years to follow up on it.
The orderlies were leaving. If Frances was counting on them to carry the word to the media, she was in for a disappointment, Harper judged. They didn’t appear to be paying any attention. She waited while they wheeled the clattering gurney through the doorway Then she sat down by his bedside, bringing her face close to his. He could see the lines of fatigue and anxiety in the fine, dark skin around her eyes. It had been a long time since Agent Wilson had enjoyed a good night’s sleep.
“Listen, Will. I hope you can pull yourself together. You’re going to have to face the reporters soon. They’re all over this hospital. I had to run a gauntlet to get in here. They act like it’s my fault they can’t see you—as if I’m keeping you under wraps or something.”
“Frances,” Harper said. “I’m not interested in making you look bad in front of the media.”
Her smile of relief revealed the depth of her anxiety for the first time. “That’s good to hear.”
“All I want in return is some information.”
Her face became serious. She looked around the room, making sure they were alone. “What kind of information?”
“Have you found any trace of Markman’s remains?”
Frances didn’t hesitate to reply, but she dropped her voice. “No. And our scientists tell me it’s possible we won’t. That was a terrific explosion and he was right at the center of it. He could’ve been vaporized. Blown to atoms.”
Harper raised himself on an elbow despite the dizziness so he could look her levelly in the eyes. As distinctly as he could, he said, “Don’t count on it.”
She met his gaze and held it. “We’re not. We have cops as well as our own people combing the area. Every law enforcement agency in the area is on the alert. And, Will, the guy’s face is plastered all over TV. If he did get away, he’s bound to have been injured. And he was on foot.” She shook her head decisively. “If by a quirk of fate he is still alive and somehow mobile, he won’t get away.”
“Okay,” said Harper, and sank back against the pillows.
For the moment, there was nothing he could do but hope she was right. Undoubtedly she knew more than she was telling him. But he still wasn’t as sure of Markman’s death as Frances was, because he knew something she didn’t know.
He knew Tony Markman.
Markman sat slumped on one of the hard wooden benches in the bus station in Wayling, West Virginia. There were a few dozen other people in the waiting room, some of them killing time until the bus from Norfolk arrived, then continued west. Markman was killing time waiting for the next eastbound bus.
He was wearing a toupee and dark-framed glasses with tinted lenses. The only other change he’d made in his appearance was to shave the hairs over the bridge of his nose, cleanly separating his eyebrows. He was confident that he was unrecognizable, though. The high forehead, the beetle brow, the almost colorless eyes were his only distinctive features. Otherwise his appearance was bland and forgettable. He’d been told that often enough when he’d been trying to get jobs as a performer.
Markman smiled thinly. There was no danger of anyone recognizing him as the Celebrity Bomber—especially now that the bomber was believed dead.
He glanced at the Wayling newspaper lying on the bench next to him. As a rule he wasted little time or money on the products of the news media. He had no use for these peddlers of sensation and celebrity, and ordinarily he wouldn’t have changed his opinions just because they happened to be covering him. But he’d made an exception for today’s newspaper when he saw the headline announcing he was dead.
It was a great relief, being dead. It was going to make everything easier for him. Today was May 9. Six days to go.
It had taken Special Agent Frances Wilson of the FBI a week to conclude that Markman had died in the garage explosion. He figured that a certain amount of bureaucratic frustration had entered into the decision. They’d been searching so hard for him, expending so much manpower and money. And after an entire week, they’d still found no trace. The Feds were ripe and ready to fall—and fall they had, for Markman’s carefully prepared trick.