Perfect Justice

by William Bernhardt

  Ben gripped the camera all the tighter, focusing tightly on Dunagan’s face. Thank you for the confession, Mr. Grand Dragon. I think you just said enough to get yourself convicted of felony murder.

  Ben was so focused on Dunagan’s confession he didn’t hear the sneakered footsteps approaching behind him.

  “Intruder!” The shout was long and loud, silencing the assembly.

  A pair of hands thudded down on Ben’s shoulders, causing him to drop the camera. He tried to break away, but another pair of hands twisted his arms tightly behind his back.

  “Christina! Run!”

  Too late. They had her. One of them grabbed her satchel, another had an arm around her neck. She fought and kicked, but it was no use. They were much too powerful for her.

  “There’s two of them!” the man holding Ben shouted.

  Dunagan’s eyes narrowed when he spotted Ben. When he finally spoke, it was almost like a growl.

  “Bring them to me.”

  62.

  THE TWO MEN HOLDING Ben dragged him through the ranks of ASP to the center table, with Christina close behind. He struggled futilely. He couldn’t get away. And even if he could, where would he go? He was surrounded by fifty more just like the two who were holding him.

  “Demon Kincaid,” Dunagan said through clenched teeth. “How nice to see you again.”

  “The pleasure isn’t mutual.”

  “I would advise you not to offend me more than you already have,” he said ominously. He glanced at Christina. “Who’s she? Another Hatewatch whore?”

  “She’s a member of my staff. An employee. She’s only here because I ordered her to be here. Let her go.”

  “I’m afraid it may be too late for that.”

  “Don’t even think about hurting her, Dunagan. I heard what you said a minute ago. Including your confession that you’re behind the attacks on Coi Than Tien.”

  “Our land must be cleansed.”

  “Yeah, well, tonight’s cleansing resulted in a death, and that means you can be charged with felony murder. That’s a capital offense, Dunagan. Just like murder one.”

  The muscles in Dunagan’s face and neck tightened. “Then I will have to ensure that you never have a chance to tell anyone what you have learned.”

  Another ASP man broke through the ranks. He was waving the video camera. “The intruders dropped this.”

  Dunagan snatched the camera away, glaring at Ben the whole time. Unfortunately he knew how camcorders worked. He rewound the tape, then watched it through the viewfinder.

  “They are spies!” he shouted. “Enemies!”

  The angry snarls and hisses chilled Ben’s blood.

  “How convenient,” Dunagan continued, “that we already have a jury assembled. Gentlemen of the jury, I submit Exhibit A!”

  He passed the camera to the man who had submitted the previous verdict, who in turn passed it to the other members of the ASP jury. Some of them looked at the tape; some of them didn’t bother.

  “Are you able to reach a verdict?” Dunagan asked.

  “Wait a minute!” Ben said. “What kind of trial is this? Don’t I get an opportunity to be heard?”

  Dunagan slapped Ben harshly with the back of his hand. “Your actions have spoken much louder than your words ever could. I ask you again, gentlemen of the jury. Have you reached a verdict?”

  The jury huddled for less than ten seconds. “We find the intruders guilty of conspiracy against ASP.”

  Ben struggled to get free, but his captors held his arms tight. He couldn’t even budge. “I’m not intimidated by this sick kangaroo court, Dunagan. You wouldn’t know justice if it knocked you in the face.”

  Dunagan hit Ben again, this time with his fist.

  “Very good.” Dunagan faced the entire assembly. “The intruders have been found guilty by this tribunal. What shall their sentence be?”

  “Death!” one voice shouted, and then the others joined in. “Death, death, death, death, death!”

  Ben couldn’t believe this was happening. It was too fast—too surreal. People didn’t really act this way. No one could have so much hate; no one could be so devoid of conscience. Not so many of them. Unfortunately the mob mentality was probably the main problem. Groups were easier to manipulate than individuals. And this group was thoroughly under Dunagan’s control.

  “Death, death, death, death, death!” ASP shouted.

  “The jury has spoken,” Dunagan solemnly pronounced.

  “That’s murder you’re talking about, Dunagan. No matter how you dress it up, it’s murder!”

  Dunagan ignored him. He motioned to one of his assistants.

  Before Ben had a chance to react, someone had clamped a damp cloth over his nose and mouth.

  Chloroform. Damn! He stopped breathing, but he hadn’t had time to inhale first. He knew he wouldn’t be able to hold out long.

  He twisted his head around. Christina was getting the same treatment. Her eyelids were fluttering. Then they closed.

  Ben’s own vision was getting foggy. He tried to force his eyes to remain open.

  The commotion among the crowd was growing—wait a minute! Something else was happening. People were pointing toward the back, running. …

  The ASP men were scrambling, deserting the hall. But why? Ben couldn’t make out what was going on.

  And then, suddenly, the back room exploded into brilliant white light. A hot light. It shimmered and changed shape. It grew.

  Ben had seen this before. Much too recently.

  Fire.

  In the final instant before he passed out, Ben realized the church was burning.

  63.

  BEN AWOKE CHOKING. THE smoke cast a gray haze through the hall. It was difficult to see more than a few feet away.

  He shook his head several times, trying to clear out the cobwebs. He was still in Fellowship Hall. At least he thought he was. It was difficult to be certain. The chloroform had left him with blurred vision and a dull throbbing between his temples. He had to—

  Oh my God. Christina!

  He shouted out her name, but didn’t hear a response. He looked all around, but the smoke obscured his vision. Worse, he could see the blaze billowing out from the ASP war room and spreading into the hall. The fire must’ve been set in there, probably through the cellar door Ben had left open.

  “Christina!”

  He ran around the table, trying to find some trace of her. Would they have taken her with them? Why her and not him? It made no sense.

  “Christina!”

  He tried to remember where he had seen her last. They were holding her over there, behind the table. …

  He practically stepped on her before he saw her. She was lying on the floor, hands over her head. Her eyes were closed.

  “Christina!” He coughed; the smoke was getting to him. He took her head and gently moved it back and forth, calling out her name.

  Slowly her eyelids opened. She started to speak, inhaled smoke, and began to cough violently.

  Ben helped her sit upright. “What happened?” she gasped.

  “Someone set the church on fire. The ASP clan fled. They left us here to die.”

  “Great. How—” Her voice was consumed by coughing.

  “I think you got a bigger dose of chloroform than I did before ASP hightailed it out of here. Can you stand?”

  She nodded. Ben helped her to her feet.

  “I don’t mean to rush you, but the back entrance is already blocked off by fire. We need to get out of here before the front doors are impassable as well.”

  With his arm around her shoulder, they moved to the stairwell that appeared to lead to the ground floor of the church. The passage was already filled with dark sooty smoke, but they made their way to the top.

  The front entrance to the church was consumed in flame.

  Ben clenched his teeth. “They must’ve set a second fire. The arsonist was trying to trap everyone inside.”

  “It must not have worked
,” Christina said. A layer of black soot underlined her nose and mouth. “The ASP gang isn’t here.”

  “The back entrance,” Ben said, snapping his fingers. “Remember—we passed it on our way to the cellar door. Must be on the other side of the pulpit.” He grabbed Christina’s hand. “Come on!”

  “Wait a minute!”

  “What? We don’t have time—”

  “Listen!”

  Ben fell quiet. And a few seconds later he heard it, too, above the roar of the flames.

  The whimpers and cries of the dogs.

  Christina ran to one of the stained-glass windows in the chapel. The windows were too narrow to squeeze through, even if they knocked the glass out. But the windows did provide a view of the dogs. “The fire has spread to the kennel! They’re trapped!”

  “I’m sorry,” Ben replied, “but we don’t have time for this. We have to get out of here!”

  “We can’t just let those poor dogs burn to death!”

  Ben swore silently. “There’s a control panel near the front entrance. I saw it when I was here before. It electronically controls the kennel doors.”

  “Show me.”

  Ben and Christina ran back to the front entrance. In the space of perhaps a minute, the flames had grown twice as large. Even standing ten feet away, the heat was so searing they couldn’t come any closer.

  Ben pointed. “It’s over there, on the wall. Beside that closet door or whatever it is.”

  “It’s too hot!” she cried. “I can’t get to it!”

  Ben remembered where the men’s room was. He ran in and found to his relief that the faucets were still working. He removed his windbreaker, soaked it thoroughly, and threw it over his head.

  “Be careful!” Christina shouted when he emerged.

  “I’ll do my best.” Draped in the wet coat, Ben ran to the control panel. The heat was scalding; he could almost feel his skin melting. The coat provided some protection to his face, but he knew he couldn’t count on that for long. Images of Maria Truong flashed in his brain. Please God, he did not want to be burned like that. Please—anything but that.

  He had no idea which of the blinking buttons controlled the kennel, so he tried them all in rapid succession. After the third button, he heard Christina shout from inside the chapel.

  “That’s it! The doors are opening! Get out of there!”

  Ben raced away from the control panel, the flames licking at his heels. He felt scorched from head to toe. But he made it out.

  He looked through the chapel window and saw the terrified dogs bolting out of the blazing kennel. “Now let’s get out of here!”

  He grabbed her hand and raced toward the backdoor. Or as close to it as they could get.

  The delay of a few minutes had cost them dearly. The fire in the basement was spreading not only out but up. The flames caught onto the wooden floor and crept all over the north wall.

  They couldn’t even get close to the door.

  “That’s it, then,” Ben said, staring into the flickering flames. “We’re trapped.”

  64.

  CHRISTINA PRESSED CLOSE AGAINST him. “There must be something we can do.”

  “Look at the fire spreading,” Ben said, almost mesmerized by the red glow. “This wooden church will go up in no time at all.”

  “I’m not giving up. If we can’t get out, we should move up.”

  The wheels in Ben’s head began to turn. “There’s a staircase in the front lobby.”

  “Come on!”

  They ran through the chapel to the staircase. Just as they hit the stairs Ben heard a sudden whoosh!—followed by an intense flash of heat.

  The fire must have hit a gas main or something flammable. The flames had burst forward, filling the chapel.

  It was following them.

  There was only one room on the second floor. It had no furnishings, but Ben saw many folding chairs and tables stacked against the walls. Probably a social room, or for Sunday school. Smaller groups that didn’t need a room the size of Fellowship Hall.

  “There are no windows!” Christina exclaimed.

  Ben scanned the room quickly. She was right.

  “I had hoped there would be some way out—a window or a ventilation duct. Some exit from this death trap. But there isn’t.”

  Ben could see the mounting panic in her eyes. She was out of ideas, and knew better than to look to him for help. He had never been any good in an emergency; she was the one who always saved the day. But this time it seemed even Christina was stumped.

  “Maybe I can punch a hole in one of these walls,” he said, without much conviction. He covered his fist with his wet coat and gave one a try. He barely left a mark.

  “Let’s go back down.” Ben had barely reached the head of the stairs before he realized that was impossible. The flames filled the ground floor. There was nowhere down there to go but straight into the inferno.

  “Ben,” Christina said, “I—I don’t feel so good.” She began to cough violently. She sat down and braced herself against the floor.

  She’d taken in too much smoke, Ben realized. Soon she’d be suffering from serious inhalation damage or scorching of her lungs. Or worse.

  The fire reached the top of the stairs. It was filling the church, obliterating it. The flames wouldn’t stop until the church was utterly destroyed.

  And everything in it.

  “I need air,” Christina gasped, between coughs.

  Ben pounded his fists together. There had to be something he could do. There had to be a way. This second-story refuge had become a prison; there was nothing they could do but wait for the fire to reach them. There was no way out. Not in the wall. Or the floor.

  But what about the roof? Ben raised his head and looked upward. Yes! There was something up there—a trapdoor, perhaps?

  He jumped toward it, but he was too short to reach it. He grabbed one of the folding chairs. They were hot to the touch. Gritting his teeth, he unfolded the chair and stood on it.

  He popped open the trapdoor. From the opening he could see the steeple tower. Of course—this was how they rang the bell.

  The fire was in the room with them now. They didn’t have a second to spare.

  Ben scrambled down to Christina’s side. “Do you see the opening?”

  Her nod was barely perceptible.

  “Do you think you can get through?”

  She didn’t answer, but her eyes told Ben she had serious doubts.

  “I’ll go through first. If you can just stand on the chair, I’ll pull you up. Okay? Will you follow me?”

  She smiled weakly. “Don’t I always?”

  Ben pushed his head through the opening and grabbed the top of the roof. He’d never been very good at chin-ups in school, but it was amazing what you could do when the only alternative was being burned alive.

  As soon as he was on the roof, he lay flat and reached down for Christina. She was already standing on the chair, but she was teetering uncertainly. She held out her arms to him.

  Ben stretched his arms through the opening. Bloody hell! He would have a legal assistant who was barely five feet tall. Reaching down with all his might, he grabbed her hands and pulled. Once he had her head through, she flattened her arms against the shingles and helped push. A few seconds later she was on the roof.

  And not a moment too soon. The fire filled the second-story room.

  “We made it,” Ben said breathlessly. “Thank God.”

  Christina drank in deep gulps of fresh—or at least fresher—air. “We made it,” she echoed. “But to what?”

  Ben knew exactly what she meant. The way this fire was spreading, it would only be a matter of moments before it reached the roof. Or more likely, the flames would eat away at the structural supports and the roof would crash into the blazing cauldron below.

  Ben peered uneasily over the edge of the roof. They were much higher up than the usual second-story roof. The chapel was probably designed with a high ceiling. Even i
f he had been inclined to try to jump to the ground, though, in this case, it would be a suicide plunge. The fire had spread to the surrounding land. He would be jumping to a hellish instant death.

  There were no signs of assistance; in fact, there was no sign of anyone. Probably the only ones who had noticed the fire were the residents of Coi Than Tien, and they were hardly likely to mount a rescue.

  There was no help from others, and no way they could help themselves. They were surrounded by flames on all sides.

  And there was no way out.

  65.

  BEN SAT BESIDE CHRISTINA, hopeless and defeated. He had failed miserably. He hadn’t saved them. All he had done was buy time, and not much time at that.

  Christina’s coughing had subsided, but in its place was a deep, rasping noise. Her breathing was heavy and labored. Ben knew she was hurting.

  “You did all you could,” she managed to say. “Don’t blame yourself.”

  “Why would I?”

  Christina tried to smile. “You always blame yourself. For everything.”

  Ben turned away. He couldn’t stand to see her like this. Despite what she said, it was his fault she was here, and he damn well knew it.

  He glanced down through the trapdoor. The room below was ablaze; there was nothing left but the yellow flames that destroyed everything in their path. The fire was barely inches away from the roof.

  “Christina,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

  She coughed again, a harsh hacking cough. “Told you not to blame yourself,” she whispered.

  “It’s not that. I’m so screwed up. I should’ve—”

  “You did what you could.” Another deep, rasping breath. “You always do.”

  “But it isn’t enough. You deserve better. I—” He clasped her hand. “I want you to know before it’s too late that I—”

  He was interrupted by a strange sound, a noise in the background he hadn’t heard before. What was it? Some bizarre Ouachita wildlife? It seemed to be coming from the sky. A bird? No, that wasn’t it. It was more like—