by Jon McGoran
Red let out his breath as he lined up the shots and took them: one, then the other. As soon as the second man’s knees started to buckle, the helicopter dropped into a mad descent, a seemingly suicidal dive that Red knew was coming, had, in fact, specifically requested, but which was unsettling nonetheless.
Red and Dembe released their straps and harnesses, holding on tight as the helicopter snapped to a halt once again, as if it had reached the end of its tether. They were ten feet off the ground, twenty feet from the RV. The helicopter abruptly dropped to a height of two feet and Red and Dembe hit the ground running.
In one second, they were at the RV, one on either side of the door. They paused long enough to exchange a nod. Then they went in.
Chapter 84
They’d lost one of their own, even if it was just that disgusting Yancy. And the Cowboy had proven himself an annoying flea who sought to use the Dead Ring to improve his standing, rather than truly appreciating it for what it was. But it had still been an epic Dead Ring. And the fact that it was taking place within the United States of America proved the power of the Dead Ring, and the man who led it.
It had provided the spectacle that was, at the end of the day, his only remaining joy. And the best part was yet to come.
There were upwards of two hundred workers at the Wolfcamp Petrochemical Plant, plus another eight hundred in the nearby town of Martella, all of them sitting virtually on top of millions of gallons of highly flammable toxic chemicals.
The Cowboy seemed paralyzed by doubts and second thoughts, worrying it would be too big a spectacle, as if there was such a thing. Let him worry. And after all, if his goal in all this really was to gain a little credibility in the criminal world, he was going to need a lot of help. If anything was going to do it, this would.
The final round was always bittersweet. It was traditionally the most spectacular, and this one surely would be, but it was also the last one until the following year. It was also special because by this point you felt like you had gotten to know the handful of players left. You could really pay attention to each one and root for them or against them. Now it was personal.
There were always the favorites—in this case Boden and Dudayev—but there were also the dark horses, like the lovely Le Chat and the quite obviously dying, but miraculously not yet dead, Okoye.
The two of them, especially Le Chat, had drawn a respectable chunk of long-shot wagers. In fact, Le Chat was largely responsible for this Dead Ring having the highest take so far through two rounds.
The long shots never won, but it was always fascinating to see which unlikelies would make it to the third round.
Le Chat was a strange one, and as the final round got underway, she held true to form. Starting out with a lateral move that looked very much like she was going to be a runner after all. But at the last minute, just before her bracelet would have gone off and ended her unlikely run, she stopped at the camera and headed straight inside to confront her destiny. Good for her.
The others cut a swath of destruction through the plant, killing the guard at the front gate and anyone else who got in their way. The blood was just starting to spill, the glow was just starting to burn, and the Ringleader was just starting to settle in for the high point of the year when the technician said, “Sir, we seem to have a problem.”
There was no need to ask him to explain. It was obvious he needed to explain, and he did. “The computer system is acting glitchy. I think… I think someone’s trying to hack into our system.”
From outside, they could hear the unmistakable beating of helicopter blades. That wasn’t good.
It was never ideal to rush the Dead Ring, and there was a solemn pledge to allow the game to complete itself, to allow the winner to become the winner. But not if it meant arrest. And certainly not if it meant forgoing the sound and light show at the end of it all.
The Cowboy had been behaving himself, keeping quiet and enjoying the show. But it seemed he could no longer hold back. “What is it?” he said. “What is it?”
His money had paid for all of this, and he was, in a very real way, a partner. But he was an annoying partner at best. The urge to kill him was strong.
If he had to blow the whole thing early, if this year there had to be no winner, it might be better if there weren’t any witnesses anyway. Or at least none that weren’t on his payroll. Maybe he’d kill the Cowboy after all.
He considered blowing the whole thing right there and his hand moved toward the keypad. Then he heard a noise outside—two spitting sounds followed by two crumpling sounds. He had just enough time to wonder what it could be when the door to the mobile control room was kicked open and in an instant both guards and both technicians were dead on the floor.
Chapter 85
The phone had been keyed to the guard’s left thumb, so that’s what she took. She tried not to think about it as she wedged the thumb between the door to the guardhouse and the doorframe, or when she slammed her body against the door, lopping the digit off. She tried not to think about it as she cradled the thumb in the same hand that carried the phone. Add it to the long list of things she’d have to process later.
As she ran along the central road, past a couple of smaller outbuildings and into the middle of the facility, alarms started sounding, blasting through the noise of the plant’s operations. A moment later, red lights started flashing, adding to the glare of the floodlights. Their presence was known—probably a good thing overall, but it could make her task more difficult.
She was surrounded by tanks, processing equipment, and a dense maze of pipes and conduits. A series of catwalks lined the tops of the structures, and yellow-clad workers were running back and forth along them. The ground was mostly the same dust, rocks, and occasional scrubby plants as the rest of the plains, but it was crisscrossed with concrete paths leading from each unit to each of the others.
She stopped at a place where three of the paths came together, trying to get her bearings and make sense of it. There was one building in the middle that had pipes and conduits leading out from it in every direction. It was taller than the others, and had windows throughout. At the top of it was an enclosed observation platform with even more windows, like an airport control tower.
She figured that was the operations center, the target of the game, but not what she was looking for right now.
To the left of it was another structure, with no windows at all, just a similar jumble of pipes. It seemed to be the biggest structure in the entire complex. She took off running toward it, gambling that it was the primary chemical reactor.
A pair of workers ran across the clearing in front of her, and another one ran the other way.
The phone buzzed in her hand. It was Aram.
Luckily she didn’t need the dead man’s thumb to answer it.
“Aram,” she shouted over the racket as she ran. “What do you have for me?”
“I got the layout of the plant. I’m sending you a diagram right now, but there is a tall building in the middle, like a tower. That’s the operations center. Just west of that is the primary chemical reactor.”
“Okay, I’m headed to it now. I need to know where the main intake is. That’s where the bomb is supposed to be.”
“Okay,” he said, almost to himself. “The main intake… the main intake… Okay, I found it. It looks like it comes into the unit at ground level on the west side. There is an entrance right next to it there. Once inside, it goes straight up to the top level, and that’s where it enters the initial processor. The closest stairway is thirty yards away, down a hallway on the north side of the intake. But there might be a ladder.”
“Okay, thanks. Stand by.” She was on the east side of the unit, meaning she had to run all the way around to the other side of it before she could even get into the building. One side of the unit was essentially a wall of piping that extended off at least a hundred yards. Looping around the operations center would probably be quicker.
She ran
off toward it, hoping in the back of her mind that she didn’t run into any of the other ringers.
The path headed straight for the main entrance to the operations center. The door had been torn off its hinges. The ground in front of it was littered with broken glass and the twisted doorframe. At least one of the ringers was already in there. Part of Keen thought about going in there, too, getting the key, and trying to head things off that way. But she knew most or all of the other ringers were probably already in there fighting it out. She would never reach the key before them. Her only hope of avoiding a catastrophe was to find the bomb on the chemical reactor’s main intake, and remove it.
And she probably didn’t have much time.
She ran past the entrance, pushing her legs to go even faster.
As she curved through the narrow gap between the two structures, a figure stepped out of the shadows just ahead of her and she jumped back, out of the way and ready to fight.
For a moment, she was relieved to see it was Okoye. He smiled weakly as he shuffled toward her, but she could see he was much worse. His left eye, the one that had been twitching, was now drifting, unfocused as it looked up to the sky.
“Jakob!” she said. “Are you okay?”
He laughed faintly. “I will be fine soon, I think. Do you need my help?”
She thought for an instant. “Yes! My team should be here any moment, but in the meantime, I need to find that bomb in the chemical reactor and get rid of it. If someone gets the key and opens the box in the meantime, we all go up. If you can get the key and hide it or try to slow down whoever has it, that could make all the difference.”
His good eye focused hard on her and he nodded with solemn resolve. He took a step toward the operations center entrance, but stopped and turned back. “It’s been an honor to know you, Miss Le Chat.”
“Keen,” she said. “Special Agent Keen. And it has been an honor to know you, too, Jakob Okoye.”
He turned and entered the doorway.
Keen turned away, too, and continued running the same way she had been before.
She didn’t get far. Another figure emerged from the same shadows, and this time it wasn’t Okoye. And he wasn’t shuffling.
She considered trying to go around him, but she knew she didn’t have the angle. As she made the mental calculation, the figure moved quickly out of the shadows, cutting her off completely.
It was Dudayev.
He came at her low and fast. His eyes were bright, flashing with animal excitement, like a predator. His hands were bloody up to the wrist.
Keen stifled a wave of fear and revulsion, imposing on herself a steely calm as she jammed the phone and the severed finger into her pocket and considered her best approach. She didn’t need to take him down, she just needed to get past him. In order to do that, she needed to draw him out from the space between the two buildings.
She moved back, hoping he would keep coming after her, but he took a few steps and stopped, a flicker of doubt crossing his face, as if maybe he was wondering why she hadn’t just gone into the door right behind her.
Then a truly evil grin spread over his face, a smear of blood across his teeth. If she wasn’t headed into the operations center, maybe she had just come out of it. “You’ve already got the key,” he said.
He closed on her again, with an even more murderous intensity.
Instead of denying it, Keen stepped away, spinning, and launched a kick to his chin that snapped his head back. He roared and tried to grab her, but as soon as she came down on her other foot, she bounced away, keeping her feet moving, staying out of reach as she tried to figure out what to do next.
If she could connect with another kick somehow, maybe she could get past him and outrun him. Maybe when he saw she wasn’t headed back to the prize cabinet he’d rethink.
Dudayev laughed, reached behind him and pulled out a hunting knife. He closed on her fast and as she backed away her foot slipped in the dust. He lunged with the knife and as she moved out of the way, his left fist crashed into the side of her head. Keen felt her foot slide out from under her and she slammed against the ground.
Suddenly Dudayev was straddling her and the tip of his knife was pressed under her chin.
“Give me the key,” he said, his breath foul in her nose, his eyes manic.
She flung a handful of dust into his face and tried to buck him off. It seemed to have no effect. He threw back his head and laughed, not even blinking at the grit that crusted his eyes.
Then he looked down at her, smiling, and said, “I guess I’ll have to find it myself.”
He drew back the knife like he was going to backhand it across her throat.
Involuntarily, Keen closed her eyes for an instant, waiting for the end.
She felt a soft breeze brush the skin of her neck, and she realized that somehow he had missed. As she opened her eyes, she saw him yanked off her and into the air.
Standing there, breathing heavily, was Okoye. He looked at her and said, “Go.” Then he turned stiffly, and closed on Dudayev.
“He’s got a knife!” Keen called out.
“I know,” Okoye said without turning around.
Keen staggered as she got to her feet. She felt terrible leaving him behind, but if she didn’t deal with that bomb, they would all die, along with many others.
“You fool!” Dudayev spat. “She’s got the key!”
Then he sprang, ripping the knife in an upward arc that would have split Okoye open if he hadn’t pivoted away. Instead, Okoye managed to grab Dudayev’s knife hand and kick his feet out from under him.
Keen watched both men tumble to the ground. She knew that in his weakened state, Okoye would be no match for Dudayev. He wouldn’t be able to hold him off for long.
She put her head down and ran, but just before she rounded the corner, she turned and looked back. They were on the ground with Dudayev on top. Each had one hand clamped onto the other’s throat. Dudayev’s knife was in his other hand, and Okoye gripped the other man’s wrist, but Keen could see that he was clearly outmatched and losing his strength rapidly. The blade slowly pushed toward Okoye’s eyes.
Okoye turned his head to look at her. “Remember the Akaba School,” he rasped. Before Keen or Dudayev had an inkling what he was doing, he took his hand from Dudayev’s throat and moved his wrist so that his bracelet was snagged on the tip of the knife. Then he flicked his arm off to the side.
The bracelet exploded the instant it was severed, echoed a microsecond later by Dudayev’s. The explosions wreaked awful damage, sending out a red spray and shrapnel of bone and flesh.
“No!” Keen cried out, taking a step back towards them. But it was too late. Okoye was dead.
What remained of the two bodies collapsed together.
Keen stifled a sob, then she turned away from the sight and set her jaw in determination. She put aside any thoughts of Okoye’s tragic death, his valiant sacrifice, and their brief friendship. She needed to use the time he had bought her to complete the task at hand, to prevent the countless other tragic deaths that would occur if she failed.
She lowered her head once more and ran as fast as she could.
Chapter 86
There were two guards, two technicians and two others in the mobile control center when Red and Dembe burst in.
They took out the guards first. Then the technicians drew weapons and they shot them too.
That left two others. One was standing by the two dead technicians. The other was sitting in the shadows in back of the control room.
Red picked up a gun dropped by one of the dead technicians.
Dwight Tindley was the one standing. He started raising his hands, his mouth forming the “D” sound that would inevitably have started the sentence, “Don’t shoot,” if it hadn’t been pushed out of the way by the scream that erupted from his throat as Red shot him in the knee.
They didn’t have time for unnecessary discussion.
As Tindley howled, Red turned to
the seated figure, planning on opening with a similar gambit, but instead he paused. The man had no knees and no legs below them. He was missing an arm, and a good portion of his face. But the eyes were undamaged, physically at least. They were bright and clear and vivid with insanity.
The chair was a wheelchair. The eyes were Michael Hoagland’s.
Tindley was making an awful racket, but his screams faded to a loud, sobbing moan.
“Reddington?” Hoagland wheezed. His ruined face twisted even further into a bitter half smile. Maybe a full smile. It was hard to tell. “What are you doing here?”
Red half smiled back, so as to not show off. “It’s been some time. Looking good there, Michael,” he said, while scanning Hoagland for anything that could be a switch or a controller. The only thing within reach was the lighted control panel on the armrest of the wheelchair. “I’m here to tell you to shut everything down. It’s over.”
“I heard you were working with the FBI now. I never would have believed it.”
“Our interests overlap. Now tell me how to access the system.”
Hoagland made a shrugging motion and moved his hand toward the controls. As his fingers reached for the keypad, Red shot the cord connecting it to the battery pack and the lights on the control panel went dark.
Hoagland looked up at him in rage and disgust, and maybe legitimate disbelief. “You shot my wheelchair?! What kind of monster shoots a man’s wheelchair?”
“Sorry, Michael,” Red said. “I don’t entirely trust you.”
He nodded at Dembe, who pulled one of the dead technicians out of his chair and took his place in front of the computer.
“Now, tell us how to deactivate the bracelets and the bomb, and stop all this nonsense, and I’ll get the wheelchair fixed for you. Good as new, I promise.”
Tindley shifted on the floor, the movement causing him to start screaming anew. Hoagland scowled at him. “Ugh,” he said, disgusted. “Can you do something about that?”
Though the noise was indeed distracting, Red wouldn’t have done anything about it if Tindley hadn’t somehow produced a gun and started to raise it. But he did.