All he had to do was pull his gun and fire. Find the courage. Avenge the murders of his wife and child. After that, nothing else mattered. What happened to him didn’t matter. Let the police kill him, too, and he would be free.
Khan reached behind his belt. His fingers closed around the butt of the gun.
Then he heard a woman’s voice.
He’d heard that same voice once before, in the cemetery, in the midst of the darkness, rain, and bullets.
“Rashid!”
* * *
“I’m in the restaurant,” Gayle Durkin told Stride through the Bluetooth transmitter in her ear. “Where are you?”
Stride replied into her phone, “I’m in the elevator now. I’m thirty seconds away. Any sign of Basch or Rashid?”
“Not yet.”
“I haven’t been able to reach Basch. She doesn’t know about the threat.”
“Understood.”
Gayle began a slow rotation around the restaurant. Her hand was in the purse that was slung around her shoulder, and inside the purse, she had a firm grip on a Glock. She smiled at each table. No one was familiar. No one was a threat.
A waitress passed her, heading in the opposite direction, toward the kitchen. Gayle stopped her with a gentle hand on her shoulder. She grabbed her phone and opened up a driver’s license photo of Rashid. “Have you seen this man anywhere in the hotel today?”
The waitress, a pretty Muslim girl, shook her head. “No, sorry.”
“What about Dawn Basch?”
The girl rolled her eyes, and her mouth pinched into a frown. “Oh yes, she’s here. Keep going—she’s at a booth on the other side.”
“Thank you.”
Gayle studied the tables beyond the curve. She couldn’t see Basch yet. She kept walking. The tower had a faint sway. Out the window, she saw the city where she and Ron had grown up. They’d eaten here once, years earlier. The four of them, Mom, Dad, Gayle, Ron. It was their first experience at a revolving restaurant. Ron, who was probably no more than ten, got sick. She couldn’t even remember why they were there or what they were celebrating. Mom’s birthday, probably. That was in January, and she could still remember the snow flying past the high windows like a flight of angels.
Now she was back.
She couldn’t help picturing Paris in her mind. Another restaurant. Another terrorist. Each step reminded her of the tables in the outdoor café. She thought about Ron’s text. His photo. The Eiffel Tower behind him. Two tables away was a twenty-one-year-old Syrian who was ready to die and take Gayle’s brother with him in the explosion.
Not again. Not again.
Gayle’s grip tightened on the gun.
This time, she wouldn’t miss. There would be no bad shot in the rain and darkness. No ricochet.
She continued around the circle. Something was already happening; she heard voices, someone shouting. She started to run. Ahead of her, she saw a dark-haired woman in a booth, and even seeing the back of her head, she knew it was Dawn Basch. A clean-shaven waiter stood near her table. Behind him, also running, she watched a manager hurrying through the aisle, calling out. “Excuse me! You!”
She took a second look at the waiter. She’d expected a beard, but when her brain took it away, she recognized him.
“Rashid!”
The waiter stared at her. Their eyes met. He had his hand behind his back, and when she saw it again, he was clenching a pistol, his finger on the trigger. He slid into the booth across from Dawn Basch and pointed the barrel into her face.
54
One of the downtown patrol officers spotted Maggie’s truck on Superior Street near the Holiday Inn. The yellow Avalanche, pockmarked with dents and scratches, was impossible to miss. Serena parked around the corner from the vehicle on Third Avenue, and she dialed Maggie’s cell phone again as she got out. The call went to voice mail, as it had done for the last half hour. Maggie was off the grid.
She noticed a navy-blue Cadillac in the spot next to Maggie’s truck. It caught her attention because of the plastic toy hanging from the rearview mirror; it was an oversize mosquito. With a quick call, she checked the license plate and confirmed the owner of the Cadillac.
Wade Ralston.
Serena didn’t know where to start searching. The street. The hotel. The skywalks overhead. Then, standing on the corner, she saw the iron railing around the steps that led into the subbasement of the Third Avenue building. She thought about what Shelly had said.
Wade and Travis are in the downtown basements all the time.
It was a great place to hide. Or a great place for an ambush.
She called in her position and then jogged across the street. When she peered down the steps to the landing below her, she saw the metal door ajar. She ran to the bottom, and as she did, she unhooked the holster of her gun.
Beyond the door, more steps led into darkness. She followed her flashlight beam into a narrow tunnel with brick walls. She was tall enough that her head nearly grazed the utility pipes mounted above her. She listened, but she heard only the buzz of machinery. At the end of the tunnel, the corridor turned at a sharp angle. She saw what appeared to be storage rooms, many of them open, stuffed with file cabinets and old office equipment. She checked each cubbyhole as she inched forward. Ahead of her, the tunnel widened, like the entrance to a cave.
Serena called out, “Maggie?”
Instantly, from somewhere inside the next room, Maggie shouted, “Serena, turn off the light! Ralston has a gun!”
Serena spun into the shelter of a storage room, and as she did, a gunshot banged off the walls inches from where she’d stood. She switched off her flashlight, leaving the basement dark. She drew out her gun from the holster. When she checked her phone to call for backup, she had no signal.
She listened again. No one was moving.
She squatted, staying low, and inched beside the stone wall into the hot, larger room. She tried to keep her footsteps silent, but debris crunched under her feet in the quiet space. She couldn’t see anything. The interior was darker than a cloudy night.
Her foot bumped against something metal. She bent down and ran her free hand along the smooth surface of a toppled filing cabinet. Reaching out, she found a drawer that had come loose, and the floor was littered with paper. She nudged around the obstacles, but she made noise, and another wild gunshot made her dive to the floor. Rock and glass scraped her hands. She heard someone moving, but she didn’t dare fire back, not knowing where Maggie was.
Serena crawled now, using only one hand to prop herself up and the other to keep her gun pointed ahead of her. Her fingers landed in something sticky and damp. When she extended her arm, she felt warm skin. It was a man’s arm, but whoever was lying on the floor wasn’t moving. She followed the arm to the man’s wrist and found no pulse. He was dead.
She climbed over the body. When she stopped and listened again, she thought she heard the faint noise of someone hiding close by. She took a risk and whispered, barely louder than a breath.
“Maggie?”
Someone grabbed her wrist. Serena tried not to scream. She felt herself pulled sideways and then yanked down. Someone’s mouth was at her ear.
“It’s me,” Maggie said.
Serena found Maggie’s ear and whispered back. “There’s a dead body a few feet away.”
“It’s Travis Baker. One of Wade’s bullets hit him. Wade blew up the marathon.”
Their voices were too loud.
Another bullet pinged off the filing cabinet near their heads.
“His gun has to be almost empty,” Maggie murmured.
“Okay, hang on.”
Serena felt around the floor until she found something hard and round, like a marble. She heaved it toward the opposite side of the basement, where it landed with a sharp knock on the wall. The noise drew Ralston’s fire. He shot twice toward the wall, and the bullets ricocheted off stone and metal.
And then they heard it. Click.
“You’re ou
t, Wade,” Maggie called immediately. “Give it up.”
They switched on their flashlights and scoured the basement. There were hiding places everywhere, behind the debris and among the tunnels and storage closets. Their weak beams barely cut through the shadows. They each had their guns in their hands, and with silent signals, they split up, taking opposite routes through the space. Serena veered back toward the tunnel that led to the outside steps, to make sure Ralston wasn’t able to slip out behind them.
“Hands up, Ralston, and come out where we can see you,” Serena called.
Ralston didn’t answer. Slowly, they cleared the interior of the basement from front to back. Twenty feet away, Serena saw Maggie’s flashlight beam swishing across the floor.
And then she heard something.
Something sizzling.
“Maggie, what the hell’s that? It’s coming from near you. Get down!”
The warning came too late. A fireworks rocket exploded, as loud as a bomb, and a shell designed to burst in the sky instead hit the low ceiling and went off in a rainbow shower of color and flame. Serena saw the concussive wave knock Maggie off her feet, and her flashlight rolled away. Before it went dark, she spotted Wade Ralston jumping forward, a shovel in his hands, hoisting it high and arcing it toward Maggie on the stone floor.
“Maggie! Roll!”
Serena heard the shovel bang hard against the floor, but she heard a screech of pain, too. He’d hit Maggie. She charged toward Ralston, but he was already directly in front of her, swinging the shovel like a baseball player toward her head. She ducked and fired. The bullet missed, but the shovel smashed the flashlight out of her hand, leaving them blind again. The burnt smell of the rocket was in her nose. She heard a rush of air as he hoisted the shovel again, and she threw herself down hard and fired toward the ceiling. In the muzzle flash, she had a glimpse of Ralston with both hands over his head as he swung the shovel toward her like an ax.
She fired again.
Ralston screamed. The bullet hit his leg. The shovel kept coming, but it didn’t clear the ceiling. Instead, it slammed into one of the building water pipes and knocked it free. A fountain sprayed into Serena’s face. She fired again, up, aiming where Ralston had been, but he was already gone. Water flooded around her. It pooled on the floor, hissing as it surged from the open pipe.
She heard footsteps dragging on the floor. Heading away, heading toward the outside.
“Maggie!” Serena called, her ears still ringing from the fireworks shell.
“I’m here,” Maggie shouted back from six feet away.
Serena followed the muffled sound of the voice and found Maggie on her back on the basement floor. They were both drenched by the broken pipe. Smoke clouded around them and made them choke.
“Are you hurt?” Serena asked.
“He grazed my shoulder. Feels like an elephant stepped on it. Come on, we have to go.”
Serena helped Maggie to her feet and let her lean against her. They couldn’t see, and both of them coughed and gagged. Their shoes splashed in the standing water. Serena grabbed her phone from her pocket, and it gave them a faint glow. They navigated around debris back to the main tunnel, and ahead of them, they saw a crack of light at the stairs that led up to Third Avenue.
“Run,” Maggie told her. “Go.”
Serena left her behind and charged for the stairs. She took them two at a time, first the subbasement steps, and then the stairs up to the metal railing at the street. Her eyes squinted into the sunlight. She ran to the corner of Superior Street, and a blood trail on the asphalt led the way. She’d hit him, badly, but he’d already escaped. The Cadillac that had been parked next to Maggie’s Avalanche was gone. She looked up and down both streets but didn’t see the car speeding away.
Ralston was on the run, and he had a head start.
When she got back to the basement stairs, Maggie was already at the top, grimacing and holding her shoulder as she leaned against the building wall. Their faces were streaked with dirt and ash, and their hair was matted to their skin. Their clothes were completely soaked.
“Call Maloney,” Maggie said. “We need to get choppers up and roadblocks back in place. This son of a bitch is not getting away from us.”
55
Khan saw the face of Dawn Basch at the end of his gun. All he had to do was pull the trigger, and she would be dead. And then the FBI agent would pull the trigger on her own gun, and he would be dead, too, and the nightmare would be over. It was easy. It was the only thing to do.
“Hello, Mr. Rashid,” Basch said to him, in a falsely pleasant voice that made him think: Yes, she is the Devil.
She didn’t blink. She didn’t tremble. He didn’t know if he’d expected her to be afraid, but she wasn’t. He realized she was just like the martyrs who had stolen his own religion. She was ready to die for her cause.
“Go ahead, pull the trigger,” she urged him. “Aren’t you a little bit curious what happens next? Is there really a heaven? Is there really a hell? Pull the trigger, and in a millisecond, we’ll both find out the answer to the mystery.”
Khan tried to keep his hand steady. He wanted to speak, to say something, but his throat was as dry as dust.
“Put the gun down!” the FBI agent shouted at him.
His eyes flicked to the woman by the booth, with the big black gun pointed at his head. Would she fire first? In that instant, would he have time to shoot Basch, or would he be gone?
Did any of it matter?
“Because of you, my wife and child are dead,” Khan murmured to Dawn Basch.
“I didn’t start this, Mr. Rashid. Once violence begins, it’s impossible for anyone to control it. It spreads, it mutates, it evolves. The ripple effects can’t be predicted. It has a life of its own, gobbling up friends and enemies.”
Khan felt tiredness in his arm as he held the gun. The tiredness was in his whole body. “My wife was a good woman. A computer scientist. A hard worker. A mother. An American. My son was innocent. He played soccer. He liked pizza. They were no one’s enemies.”
“Maybe not now, but sooner or later, Mr. Rashid, we will all have to choose. No one is neutral in this war. Think about it. Here you are, with a gun pointed at my head. You made your choice. You’re a terrorist.”
“I am not.”
“No? And yet here we both are, willing to sacrifice ourselves for what we believe in. Go ahead, kill me. I don’t care. Show the world who you really are.”
“I’m what you made me,” Khan told her.
The FBI agent shouted again. “Khan, put the gun down! I’m not going to tell you again. Put it down, and put your hands in the air.”
Khan knew he had to keep his arm motionless. If he so much as flinched, he was dead. He wondered if he had the time to pull the trigger, before the agent saw his finger pulling backward and fired herself.
He stared at Dawn Basch, whose expression was cool. Seeing her, staring into the emptiness behind her eyes, he didn’t want to be like her. He was a man of peace. Killing anyone was against everything he believed. And yet, if he walked away, she would go unpunished. She would never pay a price for what she did to Ahdia and Pak. Her flames would spread far and wide on a trail of gasoline. She had to be stopped.
He couldn’t put the gun down.
He couldn’t betray them.
His eyes shifted to the FBI agent, and his whole soul was sad. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This woman is poison. The only good thing to come out of all of this would be to put an end to her. If you have to kill me, then go ahead. I’m ready to die, but she dies first.”
* * *
The adrenaline in Gayle’s veins flowed like a river flooding its banks.
Her arms were rock-steady. Her right hand cradled the Glock, and her left hand cradled her wrist. No mistakes. She had Khan’s forehead on the other end of her barrel, lined up in her sights. He was no more than six feet away, with his own gun inches from Dawn Basch. Gayle’s concentration was centered on his trigg
er finger. The slightest twitch, and she would blow him away.
“Lower the gun, put it on the table, and put your hands in the air,” she told Rashid. “Right now.”
“I can’t.”
“Look at me, Rashid. Tell me the truth. Do you really want to kill this woman? Is that what you want to do? Is that who you are?”
He stared back at her, as if he wanted to answer. Their eyes met. His mouth opened and closed without saying a word, but she didn’t need words to understand him. This was her job; she read people. She knew what was in their heads. She was the Lie Detector. It should be easy for her to know if he was serious. She should have been able to see the truth in his face, in his body, in his voice. Either he was capable of murder, or he wasn’t. Either he was going to pull the trigger, or he wasn’t.
But her gift failed her. She had no idea. She couldn’t read him; he was a closed book. She felt blind. She knew her head should be clear right now, but it wasn’t. She should be alone in the moment, but she wasn’t. Her past was with her, sitting in the booth next to Rashid.
Officer Kenzie was there.
Ron was there.
Both of them, dead.
A terrible realization overwhelmed her. She wanted to pull the trigger. If Khan gave her the slightest excuse, she would do it. She would fire, the bullet would blast through his brain, and she would have the tiniest amount of vengeance. It didn’t matter who Khan was or what he’d done or hadn’t done. He was the symbol. He was every deluded fool who’d walked into a café and thought that killing innocent people was a ticket to paradise.
Her jaw hardened.
Her fingers tightened around the gun. She could do it right now. She’d waited long enough. He wasn’t going to give up. He wasn’t going to put the gun down. If she waited, if he fired first, then she’d failed. No one would blame her or judge her for taking the shot.
No one would know what it was really all about.
Marathon Page 33