The Blacklist--The Dead Ring No. 166

by Jon McGoran

  Red took the gun out of Tindley’s hand and brought it down on his head, silencing him immediately.

  “Thank you,” Hoagland said with a sigh of relief.

  In the relative quiet, Red could hear the other helicopters getting closer.

  “Now, you’re going to have to tell me how to deactivate the bracelets and the bomb.”

  Hoagland shook his head and laughed. “Reddington, I don’t—”

  Red shot him in the thigh and said, “I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

  Hoagland kept laughing but in a substantially different tone. He shook his head vigorously, then cursed Reddington through teeth clenched against the pain.

  “You think I’m just going to tell you everything then let you arrest me? Sorry, Reddington. If I’m going out, I’m going out with a bang.”

  Red placed the barrel of the gun against Hoagland’s other thigh, and said, “I assure you, if you don’t tell me how to shut this down, it will be more like a long, drawn out whimper.”

  Chapter 87

  Running toward the processing unit, Keen was assailed by thoughts and images of all the death she had witnessed in the past three days, but she knew she couldn’t let it derail her right now. Too many lives were at stake, including her own, and those of the entire task force. They’d be arriving any moment, and if that bomb went off while they were on the ground, or even in the air nearby, they would all be killed.

  She grimaced as she used the dead guard’s thumb to unlock the phone and dialed Ressler’s number.

  “Keen!” he answered, his voice so soaked in worry and relief she could hear it through the sound of the chopper on his end and the cacophony of alarms going off all around her. “We’re almost there!”

  “Ressler,” she said. “When you land, you’ve got to evacuate this place. Get all these workers out of here.”

  “Got it. Aram told us about the bomb, and they’re working on deactivating the bracelets.”

  “There’s a metal cabinet in front of the main gate. Don’t let anyone touch it. There’s a key in the operations center and if anyone uses that key to unlock the cabinet, everything goes up, the bracelets, the bomb, the whole plant.”

  “Got it. Where are you?”

  “I’m headed toward the processing unit. I’m going to see if I can find the bomb.”

  As Keen rounded the corner of the building, she saw a dozen workers in yellow coveralls dashing out of the main entrance to the processing unit, scattering once they got outside, as if they didn’t know where to run. She hoped there were service gates or some other way out. She had a feeling the front gate was going to get hot.

  She sprinted to the entrance and caught the door before it closed. Next to it was a bundle of massive pipes that seemed to snake across the entire facility before penetrating the outer wall. The largest of them, six feet in diameter, had a label on it that said MAIN INTAKE—CAUTION: HIGHLY FLAMMABLE. Before she entered, she threw the door all the way open, and while it slowly began to close, she quickly checked all sides of the main intake pipe. There was no sign of a bomb. She again caught the door before it closed, and plunged inside the building.

  As soon as she stepped inside, she was almost leveled by a large man in yellow coveralls running straight toward her.

  “Get out of here!” he yelled. “Go on!” He was a big guy, with lots of beers behind him, but strong as well. His face was mostly beard and safety goggles. His name badge said Ferguson.

  “Hold on,” she said, but he cut her off.

  “You ain’t allowed in here anyway, but we got to evacuate.” With that he grabbed her wrist and started dragging her toward the door.

  She swung him around and slammed him against the wall, twisting his arm behind his back. He struggled at first but she gave his arm a little more torque and he stopped.

  “Look, Ferguson,” she said. “I don’t have time to explain, but I’m one of the good guys, and I’m trying to keep this whole place from blowing up. So you need to get out of here and leave me to it, okay?”

  He nodded and she let him go.

  He ran out the door without looking back, leaving a little smudge of blood where she had slammed his face against the wall. She felt bad, but she needed to make sure he got the point.

  The intake pipe was clearly visible inside the unit. It continued horizontally for ten feet, before heading straight up. A narrow ladder ran alongside it, and at each floor, a catwalk branched off.

  Keen looked up and around the pipe, even squeezing herself into the narrow space between it and the wall, but there was no sign of any device. The pipe started to rumble and vibrate, and for a moment, she thought maybe the bomb had gone off, then she realized the intake pipe was just in use, filled with a torrent of whatever flammable chemical it carried. Trying not to think of the seconds ticking by, or the likelihood that she was inches from a pressurized column of highly flammable chemicals rigged to explode at any moment, she grabbed the ladder and started to climb.

  When she reached the second level, she stepped onto the catwalk and leaned out on either side, peering as far around the intake pipe as she could, again searching for anything that looked like a bomb. She didn’t want to miss it, but she also didn’t want to waste time looking where it wasn’t. Five seconds later, she was back on the ladder, headed up to the next level, where she once again did her best to peer around either side of the massive pipe.

  Again there was nothing.

  At each level, she touched the phone to keep from getting locked out. At the fourth level, she was starting to worry that maybe she had missed it on one of the levels below, but then she spotted it, mounted just under the top level. The catwalk above it led deeper into the building, like all the others, but it also ran out through another door that seemed to lead outside. The bomb was affixed to the pipe just out of arm’s reach from the catwalk: three bricks of plastic explosive, a coil of wires, and a detonator with a small display screen.

  A mixture of relief and dread washed over her, as she realized that some part of her had irrationally hoped that the bomb wouldn’t be there at all, and somehow she could just walk away, go home, and be safe. But it wasn’t over. And if she didn’t hustle, it was likely to end in a very bad way.

  She barely winced as she unlocked the phone this time. She took a picture of the bomb and sent it to Aram, then called him. “What can you tell me about this?”

  “We’re looking at it right now,” he said. “Can you see what’s holding it in place?”

  “It seems to be some sort of putty.”

  “Do you see any wires connecting it to the surface it’s mounted to?”

  “No, but I can only see one side of it.”

  “Okay, well, it would be great if we could see the other side of it. In the picture you sent, the screen says 00:00. Is that what it still says?”

  “Yes. I’m thinking it’s probably not on a timer, judging from Corson’s explanation. It should be set to go via remote control.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking, too.”

  “Okay, here’s what we have to look out for. It could be triggered by vibrations…”

  “I don’t think so. The pipe is already vibrating pretty intensely from whatever is running through it.”

  “Okay, well it might be wired to the surface under it, and if the connection breaks, it’ll blow. You’re sure there’s no way you can see the far side of it?”

  Keen thought for a second, then said, “Hold on.”

  She took off her belt and buckled it around the top catwalk railing, then climbed onto the outer side of the railing. She wrapped the other end of the belt around one hand and climbed up onto the lower railing. Leaning out as far as the belt would let her, she held out the phone and took a picture of the far side of the bomb, trying not to look down or think of what would happen if the belt broke or her hand slipped and she plunged four floors to her death. Pulling herself back in, she put one leg back over the railing, so she was straddling it, and sent the picture to
Aram.

  She studied the photo and didn’t see any sign of wires grounding it to the surface of the pipe. Aram confirmed it.

  “Okay,” he said. “That looks clean. Theoretically, the only thing we have to worry about is if it has some sort of level, something electronic or even a spirit level with a bubble in it that will detonate the explosive if the bubble moves too much.”

  “Well, that and the fact that at any second someone could bring the key to the prize box and detonate this thing and the bracelet around my wrist.”

  Cooper came on the line. “The tac team will be there in a few minutes to protect the prize box.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Any progress with the bracelets?”

  Aram came back on. “We’re working on it,” he said. “We’ll have them deactivated soon.”

  In Keen’s mind, soon was meaningless. She could picture Boden or one of the other ringers, at that second, running down the concrete path, past the guardhouse with the dead guard, and through the gate to the prize box. She knew she needed to get that bomb out of there now.

  “I’m going to see if I can remove the device,” she said.

  “Be careful,” Cooper said. “And good luck.”

  Chapter 88

  Keen leaned out from the railing again as far as the belt would let her, fully extending her body and wrapping her fingers around the bomb. It was larger than she had realized.

  She applied gentle pressure, pulling it away from the pipe. It gave a little, telling her the adhesive was repositionable, or at least that it hadn’t set. But it wouldn’t come away. She pulled harder, but it was difficult, fully extended as she was with nothing to brace herself against.

  Pulling even harder, Keen became increasingly concerned about the belt, about her feet slipping off the railing, about falling to her death and blowing up the chemical plant, and everyone in it.

  Then it came free. Her fingers were locked onto it— there was no way she was going to simply drop it— but the weight was unexpected. Her arm sagged and without the bomb anchoring her in place, her body swung away from the pipe.

  She clutched the bomb to her chest, trying to keep it level as she pulled herself back to the catwalk, swinging one leg over it, then the other, then climbing down onto the platform itself.

  She had the bomb. It hadn’t detonated. She was still alive.

  Keen took a deep breath and let it out, then she glanced down at the bomb and cursed. Where the display had read zero, it was now at twenty-six seconds and counting down.

  She looked at the phone, but the screen had gone black. She realized she no longer had the thumb. She must have dropped it while she was removing the bomb. She was alone. She had twenty-four seconds.

  Climbing to the ground floor would take too long, and once outside, she’d have to run all the way around the building before she could even start to run for open space.

  Instead she grabbed the ladder and started climbing up.

  She had seen the catwalks crisscrossing the entire facility on every level, but mostly at the top. Workers had been running along them when the alarms had started. When Keen reached the top level, she grabbed the door and pulled it open, feeling momentary relief that it wasn’t locked.

  Stepping outside, she paused for an instant to get her bearings. The sky was a moonless black punctured by the gas flares. All around, red lights were flashing and the buildings and processors and reactors were lit up with bright yellow.

  The alarms mercifully faded away. In the back of her mind she hoped it meant that the danger had passed, but the red lights kept flashing and she knew the alarms had probably just timed out.

  In the relative quiet, Keen could hear helicopters in the distance, growing closer, but not close enough.

  She had eighteen seconds.

  She was too high up and too far back to see the fence or the gate. She could see the light reflecting off the ground and into the night sky, and there was one area that seemed brighter than the rest. She hoped maybe that was the floodlights at the front gate. One of the catwalks extended much further than the others, and it seemed to be aimed straight in that direction. She didn’t have time for any more wondering or figuring. She had thirteen seconds. She needed to act.

  She ran. The phone buzzed in her pocket, but there was no time for that. The end of the catwalk seemed impossibly far away, but as she ran toward it, the gate beyond came into view.

  Under her, she could see plant workers flocking toward the gate, escaping whatever mayhem they had witnessed, and whatever they rightly feared might be coming their way. As she neared the end of the catwalk, she began to worry that she wouldn’t be able to find a place to throw the device. She knew she had to—that much explosive could easily set off the rest of the facility, even from all the way up there. But she was horrified at the idea that she would have to throw it somewhere that it would kill innocent people.

  She reached the end with six seconds to spare. Below her, people were running in almost every direction, straight toward the gate. She spotted one area that was empty, off to the side, but as she wound up to heave the bomb, she saw a lone figure in the darkness headed directly through it and toward the gate beyond. But the figure was not dressed in yellow.

  It was one of the ringers.

  It was Boden, running toward the prize box. That meant he had the key. If he reached the box with that key, she and every other ringer and a lot of other people would die.

  Much of what she’d been trying to do was save all of the innocent lives hurt by the Dead Ring, though she hoped to save the not-so-innocent contestants, as well. But Boden was evil. The world would be a better place without him. There was nowhere else to throw the bomb anyway.

  She heaved it as hard as she could, sending it arcing through the night sky in a wobbly spiral.

  It hit the ground five feet behind Boden with a dull thud that she could hear even from where she was standing. Boden turned at the sound, looked at the bomb, then looked up at her, way above on the catwalk. Too far away to do anything to stop him. She worried for an instant that the impact had somehow broken the device. He flashed a taunting smile of gloating victory. Then he turned to keep running.

  He took one step before the bomb went off.

  Up on the catwalk, Keen saw the flash, then heard the bang and a microsecond later felt the concussion from the blast. Boden’s broken body landed twenty feet from where he’d been standing, his limbs splayed in an unnatural configuration.

  Keen sank to her knees and allowed herself a momentary sigh of relief. But her bracelet was still active and she needed to get the key from Boden’s body. As long as it was out there, someone could open the box and get the money, killing her and the other ringers, if there were any still alive.

  Keen hustled down the ladder leading from the end of the catwalk. By the time she reached the ground, the only sign of the workers was a handful of yellow smudges fading into the darkness as they ran out into the prairie.

  She ran past the smoking crater where the bomb had gone off, over to Boden’s ravaged body. The key was still clutched in his hand. She half expected him to come alive as she pried it loose, but he didn’t.

  As she straightened up, holding the key in front of her face to look at it, her bracelet spontaneously opened and fell to the ground.

  She smiled and shook her head, then took out the phone and looked at it. It was still locked but she could see there was one missed call from Aram.

  She was putting the phone back in her pocket when a voice she recognized called out, “Put down that key and step away from it or I’ll blow this guy’s head off.”

  Chapter 89

  Bleeding from both thighs, Hoagland locked his one hand onto the dead control panel on his armrest, squeezing it hard as he glared at Reddington with eyes that dripped pure hatred.

  “Sorry about that,” Reddington said. “But like I said, I don’t have much time.”

  “I’ll never let you shut this down,” Hoagland said, his mouth
flecked with foam. “The Dead Ring is all I have left.”

  “Nonsense,” Reddington said, pressing the gun against the bones in Hoagland’s hand. “You’ve still got this hand. For now,” he said ominously. “And you’ve still got your money. Or at least you did up until a few minutes ago.”

  A flicker of doubt passed through Hoagland’s eyes. “What are you talking about?”

  Outside, an explosion rocked the night, and Hoagland seemed to regain some of his wavering confidence.

  They both paused for a moment, waiting for a secondary explosion, for an indication that the explosions were ripping through the plant. But nothing came after it.

  Hoagland’s confidence faltered again.

  “They’re draining your accounts as we speak,” Red explained. “I don’t know the technical details, but they hacked into your accounts, through your own system, I believe. Now they’re taking all your money.”

  “Whatever. Take my money. I’ve got more than you know, and you’ll never find it all. So then what?”

  “They’re draining your subscribers’ accounts, too.” Red laughed. “I bet they’ll be angry about that.”

  “Who is they?”

  “Does it really matter?”

  “So what’s your plan, to arrest me? I don’t think so. I have too much value. I know too much, about America’s friends, and her enemies, and her leaders. And you, too, Reddington.” He cackled. “Don’t forget that.”

  Red smiled. “Now, how could I forget that?”

  “I’ll make a deal, just like you did. I’ll give them the bad guys I want to give them, they’ll protect me from my enemies, and I’ll live well, in my own way.”

  Red knew Hoagland had a point, which was why he knew he was going to kill him before Percival could get his hands on him. But he couldn’t do it yet, not until Keen was safe.

  Red heard the cell phone buzz in Dembe’s pocket.

  Dembe looked at it and passed it to Red.