The radio crackled to life. “We’ve got three big fish. Looks like Griffin, his right-hand man, and Jeff Pepper are heading up the stairs. They’re carrying some sort of flat or gurney between them. It’s loaded down with something, ain’t a person.”
Ransom turned to the three of them. “Three guesses what that is.” Then he spoke into the radio again, “Metal canisters, right?”
Another pause, “That’s our guess. Pepper just called in and requested his pilot.”
“Shit. Okay. Over and out.”
Brick switched off the radio and turned to his team. Well, his team and Nick. That stupid, lucky little monkey Nick. Morgan was probably counting down the seconds til she saw him again, saw him, and smooched him, and- bah!
“We’d better split up on this one. You guys go downstairs, get those people out of here. I’m heading for the roof.”
“No backup?” Gomez asked skeptically.
“No backup. You’ve got a lot of people you’ve got to evacuate.”
“If that’s what you think’s best,” Luke replied.
“Go,” Ransom barked as he slipped open the stairwell door and looked up through the flights, then down towards the basement. He motioned downstairs, then mounted the stairs and started climbing, taking them two at a time.
Nick watched Brick go, then glanced over his shoulder at Luke and Gomez and started for the basement.
The temperature rose with each step downward. The air was out.
They were just outside the door to the second basement level when they stopped short. Nick reached for the handle of the first door, but Luke’s hand shot out and grabbed his wrist.
“Hold it.”
“What.”
Luke pointed at the strike plate to the right of the handle, where a thin white wire ran out from between the door and the frame, continued down the wall, and slid back under the door.
“Is that wire always there?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so.” Luke turned to Gomez. “He’s got the place wired, just like the other episodes in his file.”
Nick looked at them questioningly.
Gomez scratched at his brow. “The guy we’re dealing with isn’t too well known for letting his hostages go free. He has a nasty habit of blowing them up as he’s making his escape.”
“And in this case?” Nick asked.
“In this case, one of his guys inside might come out to check on things, and boom. Or, second scenario, we come in to save the day, and end up doing the job for them.”
“Either way, it’s boom?” Nick asked.
Gomez turned to Luke, “Not necessarily. With any luck, Luke here hasn’t spent all his free time lately looking at internet porn, and did a little studying on disarming explosive switches.”
“Sorry,” Luke said. “It was all porn, all the time. Haven’t gone over that disarming stuff since I first signed on.”
Gomez’s face fell. “God damn rookie assho-”
“I’m kidding,” Luke interrupted. “Gimme five minutes.”
Brick started losing steam as he got to the eighth-floor landing. Christ. How long before this would be done and his onion tartlet evening could get started? That was gonna taste better than ever after this ordeal.
The doors to the roof slammed two floors above him.
How fast were they moving?
If he went out there now, would they see him coming up behind them?
It was a pretty flat stretch of roof between the Health Sciences Building and the wing that connected the research building to the main hospital. A few too many opportunities to take some good clean shots at him. He could call out to Phelps, tell him to put some sharpshooters on the three men upstairs, but he knew that was undoubtedly taking place already. Brick leaned against the wall and pressed his thumb on the receiver on his shoulder.
“Can you see ‘em up there?”
A crackle, then silence and a hum.
“Yeah,” Phelps’ voice came through. “We got ‘em. They’re tucked in behind the stair access on the roof. Annnd there they go, they’re taking the scenic route.”
Brick could picture the scenic route quite clearly. He’d just been over every sunbaked inch of it 15 minutes ago. They were looking for a way to block any possible shots, not that the feds would be crazy enough to try that with Jeff Pepper in the middle of the situation, but nevertheless he knew the route they’d be taking: Right across the northern most side of the building, where the brick façade rose up about six feet to their left and the ventilation and air equipment closed them in on the right, giving them a little rooftop corridor for some cover. Hell, there was no reason for him to go up to the top and pop out where they could see him. That would be stupidest move he could pull. The smarter route would be to cut through the building on the next floor, circumvent his way into the main wing, and come at them as they neared the helipad.
He sucked in a deep breath, lifted his foot, and took off up the stairs in a sprint. Brick darted to the left At the ninth floor, grabbed the handle to the door, and pulled it forward. The air around him hiccupped, them shuddered-
PHHOOM!
The explosion rang in his ears as brick and mortar and plaster tore into his face and neck. He pulled one hand over his eyes as he saw a burst of white, then nothing.
Luke slid the knife blade between the door and the frame, where he held it as close to the wood as possible while pressing a thin strip of metal against the wire. He held the metal steady in his right hand, pulling it down and into place as he lowered his knife, pressed the top of the blade against his leg, and flipped it closed. He tucked the knife into a side pocket, pulled out a roll of silver tape, and tossed it to Nick.
“Tear off a couple of five inch pieces for me, will ya kid?”
Nick spun the tape in his hands, tore off the pieces, and handed them to Luke, who pressed the metal strip against the doorframe until his knuckles turned white, then carefully pressed the tape across the strip and onto the wall, scratching it with his thumbnail to smooth the edges.
The tape held. Luke gave Gomez and Nick a “here goes nothing” eyebrow arch, then turned the handle and pulled the door open. Nothing happened. Luke took the tape and ripped off another strip, which he ran down the inside of the frame, holding the metal strip more securely.
“Was that a lucky guess or what?” he said.
Nick tugged at the back of his shirt, shaking the fabric that clung to his back with sweat.
They started down the corridor.
“What are those?” Nick whispered. He pointed to two rows of white plastic-wrapped bundles that ran down the length of the hall.
“Those,” Gomez responded, “are the things we don’t want to go off.”
Nick nodded and followed behind them as they continued down the hall. They were in the Department of Immunology offices, where he’d spent countless, insufferable hours. Raj filled his weekdays with an endless series of “advisory meetings” with his researchers, during which his impatient, arrogant comments were carried across in his distinctive singsong, whiney lilt. Nick had the distinct displeasure of hearing each and every conversation, as though he too were involved in the meetings. Raj never closed the door to his office, no doubt spooked by stories of abused postdocs of the past who had taken closed-door meetings with their similarly assholish advisors and ultimately vented their supreme frustrations by shooting their arrogant superiors in the head, repeatedly, using the various handguns they’d picked up on fieldtrips to Aurora Avenue.
Nick had imagined this scenario playing out in the Immunology offices for the better part of the year. There were one or two particularly despondent research associates, ones for whom Raj pulled no punches, and Nick had devised a series of appropriate responses, should they indeed go on the offensive one day, pumping Dr. Gupta full of hot lead, and, rather than turning the guns on themselves, decide to walk out of the hall and go on a shooting spree through the department offices.
Nick’s proxim
ity to ground zero for such an attack would be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, he’d be the first to know where the hail of gunfire was coming from, but at the same time, he’d also be the first person the gunman would see as he exited Raj’s office. For this reason, when he arranged his cubicle, Nick had set his file cabinets and desk drawers in a layout which left about a foot and a half of space between the office furniture and the cubicle walls. At the first sign of trouble, he just had to slip to the floor and crawl back behind the equipment, leaving perhaps a foot or part of his leg exposed. He figured the shooter would either walk past without noticing him, or fire a few rounds into his legs, but leave his main body relatively sound. That’s what he hoped. Anyway, he’d spent a great deal of time daydreaming about Raj’s demise. Now it seemed relatively close, and even still, he didn’t feel too sorry for the guy.
“You know your way around here, kid?” Luke asked.
“Yep.”
From here it was a quick jaunt around the corner and down a flight of stairs into Raj’s research wing.
“Then I guess it’s showtime,” Gomez said.
The two men raised their weapons and turned to Nick. Gomez pulled the radio from his shoulder and slipped it into Nick’s hand.
“Wait here, kid,” they said in unison.
Nick took a deep breath as the two men hesitated, then took off running around the corner. It seemed they had no sooner left him, than the sound of gunfire filled the air. He pulled his hands to his head, fighting the impulse to take off running down the corridor. A stray bullet tore through the sheetrock in the hallway, gypsum and plastic exploded into the air around him. Nick fell to the ground, pulling his arms and legs in for cover as the sound of the gunshots grew louder.
Then he heard the radio crackling to life.
Fuck. His ears were ringing. His eyes stung from concrete dust and debris. When he opened them, all he could see what a swirling dark blurr. He squeezed the transmitter on the radio again.
Christ.
“I’m gonna need some help up here.”
The radio answered with static, then silence. Ransom pressed the button again as he rubbed at his eyes with his forearm. Whatever was in them was in there good.
“Repeat!” Ransom shouted. “I need back up.”
“Where are you now?” Luke’s voice shouted out at him as the sounds of gunfire echoed in the background.
“Eighth-floor landing,” Ransom replied. “I was trying to cut through the hospital but got hit by one of those explosive sons of bitches they’ve rigged up on all the doors.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m blinded.”
“Permanently?”
“I’ve got no idea!” Ransom shouted back.
The crackle of gunfire again, then Gomez’s screaming voice.
“Luke’s been hit! Luke’s been hit!”
“Christ,” Ransom muttered to himself. This was all just going great. “How bad?”
“In the leg. It went in and out,” Gomez continued. “Kid, where you at?”
“I’m here,” Nick’s voice answered hollowly.
“Can you get up to the roof?”
“No, that's a b-” Ransom started, then he was cut off.
“Yeah, I think so,” Nick replied.
“Brick, I’m blocked off down here. They’ve got me cornered. I’m sending up the kid to be your eyes.”
“Jesus,” Brick thought. This goes wrong and I’ll never gonna hear the end of it. He pulled himself upright and leaned his back against the wall. He picked up the handset again, pressed the button, and whispered into the phone. “Ten four, eighth-floor landing, kid.”
The radio clicked, once more followed by the sound of bullets, then the air went dead.
“You better get here fast.”
Each of the canisters was pressed securely in place on styrofoam packing boards, which were in turn strapped to the gurney that Jeff and his captors were carrying across the roof of the hospital. With the way this little WMD experiment had been produced and packaged, as though ready to be FedExed out to the field, Jeff couldn’t help but wonder what Raj’s final plans had been. Was he driven by revenge? Greed? Lust for power? He flashed back to an image of the cowardly little man standing there, holding one wrist in his hand.
Greed. That was the motive.
No question.
One thing was certain. This had been anything but a routine project inspection. No walking in the door, listening to some arrogant professor's research spiel, trying to stay awake during yet another unbearable PowerPoint presentation, then faking a smile and nodding when the lights came up, and trying to feign interest once the reception was underway. No chuckling at jokes and conceits, mocking his own perceived stuffiness and wealth, while the whole time struggling to check out the bodies of the undergrad women around him. Those were the parties where the best-case scenario involved him going home with some nubile young female companion for the evening, and the worst-case scenario involved about four dozen operating-system jokes, or a witticism about the complexity of email. No, no, this had been a different sort of meeting altogether, and while those email barbs could get unbearably tedious, this particular scenario was its own kind of misery.
So what was his plan when they got to the copter?
He was in good shape.
He knew his way around a martial arts confrontation.
Would he just get to the copter, turn the tables on Simon, then Kung Fu it out with Tim? Would he get there, see his pilot, Mike, and through a series of winks and nods, iron out the logistics of their attack, perfectly coordinate their actions, and bada-bing, bada-boom, this would all be done?
That scenario seemed unlikely. For one thing, Jeff’s communication skills were famously poor. He was better known for his indecipherable grunts and impatient hand motions than he was for the types of speeches and grand announcements that his more famous business partner and company co-founder had eventually become renowned. Besides, in shape or not, martial arts expert or not, he wasn’t kidding himself; at heart he was a fifty-two-year-old former computer programmer, who, like all computer programmers, had a nerdy obsession with the martial arts, but that didn’t mean he was at all cut out to square off against a couple of armed professionals, professionals who also happened to have some type of truly horrific weapon, several dozen of them actually, right at their disposal, within arm’s length, to be precise.
They ran along the rooftop.
The sky was clear and sunny, but the wind was starting to pick up.
His arms were starting to ache under the weight of the canisters.
Just a little ways further and they'd be to the helipad, and then it would be showtime.
A gust of wind whipped his tie back and forth, and Jeff followed the motion of the fabric to the side, only to be distracted by the mass of people and vehicles swarming out across the campus up the hill from the medical center.
Was this on live TV?
Jesus.
He didn’t want to die on live TV.
He’d have to stay focused. He’d have to get out of this successfully; otherwise he’d be the famous billionaire who bought the farm in a graceless show of incompetent self-defense, all on live TV, from chopper FIVE no less!
He’d better not split his pants.
They were at the end of the roof, where the building rose another two stories, and the only way up was by climbing a series of metal stairs that seemed to shoot straight up into the blue sky. No final destination, just air.
Course, he’d been up and down this ramp countless times before, the most recent time being, God, within the last few hours.
It seemed like days ago.
Maybe weeks.
Stop the maybes!
Decisive.
Action.
He’d get to the landing pad. They’d carry their load to the copter. Mike would be there. They’d radioed him to be ready. He’d open the door, he’d get out, they’d all start lifting in the gea
r, then Jeff would give him a look, Mike would know what to do, and they’d be in action, turning the tables on these motherfuckers.
That was the plan.
That was the plan.
Then they got to the helipad.
The copter was there.
His pilot was waiting.
“This is it,” Jeff called to Tim, who glanced over his shoulder at him.
The doors to the copter were opening.
Jeff glanced at Simon, who seemed to be studying everything around him. Measuring the distance from one potential weapon or escape route to the next.
What an exhausting way to live.
Focus.
They got to the copter. The wind was really whipping around them now.
FOCUS!
The doors were opening, and Mike was walking out. Time for the head nod. The knowing exchange of glances. The pause, the briefest hesitation, before taking action.
His pilot was walking down the steps toward them.
Jeff looked down at the gurney they were carrying, shifting his hands under the weight, preparing to bend his knees, twist his body to the side, and heave the weight of it onto Simon’s legs.
Only, that’s when he looked up, and saw that the person coming towards him was not his pilot. It wasn’t Mike. It was a man with a much sharper, harder looking face, one with darker, sunken eyes. Eyes that suddenly lifted, looked directly at him, held his gaze, and nodded at him ever so slightly.
Son of a bitch.
He was gonna have to do this. He was gonna have to try this kung fu shit on live TV.
He had better not split his pants.
Nick took the stairs two and three at a time. He felt the weight of the handgun in the pocket of his cargo pants. It banged against his thigh each time he took another leap upwards. He should pull it out, be ready for whatever he might encounter, but he was nervous about firing on the wrong person, or stumbling and setting the damn thing off -- some way to die. Instead of the hero, he’d be the asshole who fell and shot himself in the head.
Billionaires, Bullets, Exploding Monkeys (A Brick Ransom Adventure) Page 14