by Diane Kelly
With cries of alarm, parents leaped onto the carousel to retrieve their children from the horses and benches. Randy jumped onto the round platform to help a woman whose small son had become tangled in the safety belt.
Once everyone in the courtyard seemed to be exiting, I jumped on my walkie-talkie: “Security! There’s a bomb in the courtyard! Get people as far away as possible!”
Mall management monitored our radio communications and in seconds Mr. Castleberry and two of his administrative staff came running out of the executive wing and dashed out the nearest doors.
In my terror and haste, I’d totally forgotten about Brigit. Luckily, she’d followed me even though I’d dropped her leash.
“Brigit!” I cried. “Come on, girl!” I ran to the doors, my arms pumping like pistons, my partner racing along next to me.
I had no idea how much time had elapsed.
Had it been two minutes and thirty-six seconds?
It felt like both an eternity and an instant.
I was ten feet from the door when the timer went off.
KABOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
TWENTY-THREE
HAZARDOUS DUTY
Brigit
Three loud booms echoed through the courtyard, nearly bursting the poor dog’s eardrums. Small, hard objects fell from the sky, landing all around her and painfully pelting her body. It was almost as bad as the time her first owner, the dipshit stoner, had left her outside in a hailstorm.
What the hell is going on?
TWENTY-FOUR
HAVING A BLAST
The Rattler
He ran down the mall walkway with dozens of other people as if competing in the fifty-yard dash in hell’s field day. When the explosions sounded behind them, many screamed and cried out, terrified, as they streamed into the parking lot and rushed desperately to their cars. Lest he arouse suspicion, he ran along with them. He secretly savored each bomb blast, each shriek that met his ears, yet he knew today was only an appetizer, a simple hors d’oeuvre before the more complex, more filling meal to come.
Oh, how I love giving these people their just desserts.
TWENTY-FIVE
THIS JOB BLOWS
Megan
The explosions thundered though the glass dome, echoing off the walls and ceiling. Instinctively I dove to the ground, sliding forward and banging my head on the exit door. Following the initial blast was a cacophony of competing sounds.
CRASH! CLANK! POP! CLINK! TINKLE! WHOP! CRINKLE! SPLUCK!
All around me, metal projectiles, food wrappers, and leftover lunch scraps hit the doors, floor, and ceiling. It was as if I were inside some sort of nightmarish garbage disposal. Pieces hit my shoes, buttocks, back, and head. I wailed in terror.
A moment later, the cavernous empty space fell dead still and filled with an eerie silence broken only by my wheezing as I gasped for air with panicked lungs. I lay there for a moment, numb with shock, before mustering up the courage to push myself to my knees and take a look around.
The glass doors bore numerous web-like cracks and pockmarks. Nails, screws, and some type of hooks had lodged themselves in the door trim, walls, and ceiling. Those that had not sunk into the structure had fallen to the floor, littering it with shiny metal. A gooey piece of cheese pizza had struck the glass door and now slowly slid down it, leaving a greasy trail in its wake.
My vest had protected my back, but the rest of my body had been exposed. I reached around to the back of my head and pulled a pointy shish-kebab stick out of my thick hair bun. If not for the extra three inches of resistance the bun provided, the stick would’ve lodged in my skull. What an ungraceful death that would have been, hmm? One of my arms bore a smear of what appeared to be Thousand Island dressing, my leg a smudge of ketchup.
A soft whine to my left snapped me back to reality.
Brigit!
She lay flat on the floor, her ears back, her tail between her legs. I hadn’t thought this dog was capable of fear, but she was definitely scared now. He entire body trembled.
“Brigit! Are you o-o-o—” Again, I couldn’t get the word out, but it didn’t matter. It’s not like the dog was going to answer me, right?
I stood, slowly and gingerly, to the sound of more clinking and tinkling as shrapnel fell from my body to the floor. My partner stood, too. Using my hands, I brushed fishhooks and screws and nails from her fur, picking out the more stubbornly tangled ones with my fingers. Thank God for her thick hair. Clearly it had provided her some protection from the projectiles.
I picked up her leash, shoved the damaged door open, and led her out onto the walkway. The fact that she could walk was a good sign, though she seemed to have a slight limp.
Outside, a hot breeze carried the far-off sound of sirens approaching and the squeal of car tires as shoppers tried to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the mall. The empty choo-choo train sat at the far end of the row of stores where the conductor and passengers had abandoned it.
The Big Dick stalked around the end of the building and headed toward me, a bullhorn in his hand. He pushed the button and put the bullhorn to his lips as he stomped down the walkway. “Attention! Exit the mall immediately. This is a mandatory evacuation.”
A few shoppers who’d cowered in the stores after the explosion dashed out the doors and headed down the sidewalk at a run.
Serhan and Aruni emerged from a shoe store, a crying Kara clutched between them, her pretty brown eyes wet with tears. The couple ran awkwardly down the walkway, using their bodies to shield their child in the event another explosion occurred. My heart went out to them.
Down the row, Ariana Brackenburg stepped out of her store and turned to lock up, her Chanel bag hanging from her shoulder. She tucked her keys into her purse and made her way down the sidewalk. Though her pace was brisk, she didn’t run. Of course running might be impossible in those pointy-toed spike heels of hers.
Without a word to me, Derek turned and headed back down the row, repeating his order to evacuate the mall.
The initial shock now over, Brigit and I scurried down the pavement, hurrying shoppers along. I motioned in the direction of the parking lot. “Move, people! Go!”
A woman emerged from the Gymboree store with a look of absolute horror on her face and a child’s hand in each of hers. The kids were too small to run fast. I scooped up one of the kids, she picked up the other, and we ran to the parking lot.
The demonstrators fled to the other side of the street, the man in the hiking boots and bike shorts leading the way. The woman in the bikini now bore sunburned butt cheeks. Must’ve forgotten the sunscreen. The group stopped in the parking lot of a gas station, reassembling to watch the activity at the mall.
Lines of vehicles streamed from the exits, among them Irving’s PT Cruiser, Randy’s pink Cadillac, Ariana’s Infiniti, and an orange-and-white U-Haul truck. The mall’s security team and my fellow officers made no attempt to stop them. Another bomb could explode any second. There was no way of knowing if the person responsible had planted more than the one device. Of course one of the cars might be carrying the bomber to his escape, but what could we do? We couldn’t put innocent lives at risk. We’d have to wait until later to determine who planted the bomb, to bring the evildoer to justice.
Once I’d carried the child to the woman’s car and assured myself the mall walkway was clear, I knelt down and gently ran my hands over Brigit again, performing a more thorough search for shrapnel among her fur. “It’s all right, girl,” I said, as much to soothe myself as her. “It’s going to be all right.”
Too bad I didn’t believe my own words.
Until the bomber was captured nothing would be right.
My fingers hit something hard on Brigit’s hindquarters and she emitted another whine. I separated her fur to find a short, thick nail lodged in her hip.
An ambulance pulled into the parking lot and stopped at the far edge. A fire truck from the neighborhood station followed, also stopping at the edge o
f the lot. Fortunately, while the pipe bomb had wreaked untold destruction inside the courtyard, it hadn’t caused a fire.
The Big Dick radioed the other officers on-site to check on casualties. There were a number of scraped knees from people falling in their rush to their cars but no one who needed medical attention.
As I led Brigit across the asphalt to the ambulance, a blue muscle car with orange flames painted down the sides pulled up to the officer at the entrance to the lot. The driver unrolled his window to speak to the cop.
Seth.
I’d wanted to see the guy again, but not like this. Not when I was covered in barbecue sauce and ranch dressing and totally freaked out.
I stepped up to the back bay of the ambulance where a male paramedic with a handheld radio waited for further instructions from someone in charge.
“My dog has a n-nail in her hip,” I said. “C-can you help her?”
The paramedic glanced down at Brigit. “Does she bite?”
“Only on command,” I assured him. “I’ll hold her still.”
In my peripheral vision, I saw Seth pull his ancient Chevy Nova into a spot thirty feet away. His license plate read: “KABOOM.” If not for the circumstances, I might’ve found it amusing.
I wrapped my arms around Brigit’s neck while the paramedic shaved a small square of her fur, applied a topical anesthetic to her skin, and eased the nail out of her muscle. She whined softly and squirmed a little, but once the nail had been extracted she licked the man’s hand and wagged her tail in appreciation.
“Good girl.” My brown eyes met hers and, for the first time since I’d been partnered with the beast, it felt as if we’d reached some kind of understanding. For better or worse, the two of us were in this together. It was time we stopped trying to get one up on each other and started looking out for each other instead.
After Seth climbed out of his car, his yellow Lab jumped out, too, and trotted over. Blast and Brigit reacquainted themselves with a fresh round of sniffing, this time going for butts rather than snouts. So romantic.
Seth walked up and tilted his head, conspicuously eyeing my butt. He was as bad as his dog.
I shot him a pointed look. “Didn’t your mother tell you not to ogle women?”
He made no apologies, just offered a cocky smile. “You’ve been screwed in the ass.”
A glance over my shoulder confirmed a gold screw lodged in my right butt cheek. With all of the adrenaline flowing through me, the injury hadn’t yet registered with my brain. I offered Seth a coy shrug in return. “There’s a first time for everything.”
The paramedic quickly tended to me, using a sharp pair of scissors to cut a small circular hole through my uniform pants and undies, applying the same topical numbing agent he’d used on Brigit and easing the screw out of my gluteus maximus. The experience gave new meaning to the term “buns of steel.”
“Keep an eye on the wound,” the EMT advised. “Any oozing or signs of redness and get to your doctor for an antibiotic.”
“Thanks.” I stepped away from the back of the ambulance.
“You need any help,” Seth said, a mischievous glint in his green eyes, “I’d be happy to keep an eye on things back there.”
Outwardly, I rolled my eyes. Inwardly, I was flattered.
“Um … that ain’t right.” The tech gestured to the dogs behind us.
We turned to find Brigit on Blast’s back, holding him in a vise-like grip between her front legs as she humped his hindquarters. Seth’s poor dog’s face bore a humiliated expression.
Seth raised a brow. “Your dog’s a slut.”
“And yours is a candy ass.”
“Touché.”
I grabbed Brigit’s collar and pulled her off Blast. He tossed me a grateful look and planted his ass firmly on the ground, where it would be unhumpable.
“So.” Seth stood up straighter, all business now. “The screw in your ass tells me you were near the explosion. What can you tell me about the bomb?”
“It was a pipe bomb. Three sections of metal pipe attached to a kitchen timer. The bomb was inside a take-out bag from the Stick People stand. The bag had been placed in a garbage can in the food court. There were other metal things in the bag, too.”
He raised a brow. “You saw the bomb before it went off?”
“My dog alerted on it.”
“You’re lucky it didn’t go off in your face.” Seth glanced down at Brigit. “Is she trained to detect explosives?”
“No. I figured she’d alerted on drugs, but I didn’t see any in the bag.”
“Anything else you can tell me?”
I shook my head.
Not far from where we stood, three news vans pulled up to the curb. Bad news travels fast, doesn’t it? The stations probably had an intern monitoring the police scanners for potential breaking news stories.
The crews pulled their vans onto the grassy right-of-way to avoid blocking the street traffic and descended from their vehicles.
Mackey kept the reporters at bay: “The chief is on his way. He’ll have a statement for you as soon as possible.”
So Mackey had been in touch with the chief, hmm? I supposed that shouldn’t surprise me.
A white SUV bearing the fire department logo was allowed through the entrance. The driver zipped the vehicle into the spot next to Seth’s Nova, taking his attention from me. Two men climbed out of the car, leaving the windows down for a black Lab who stuck his head out and barked in greeting to Blast: Bow-wow!
The men might have been the other bomb techs who’d been in the police chief’s office the first time I saw Seth, but I couldn’t say for sure. I’d been too distracted by Seth and my looming ass chewing to pay much attention.
Seth stepped over to his coworkers and filled them in. While the other two men were taller than Seth and therefore looked down at him, it was clear that, metaphorically speaking, they looked up to him. Both listened intently to his instructions, asking questions in hushed tones, acknowledging the plan with a nod.
When Seth finished, he gave the others a congenial fist bump. “Time to suit up, boys.”
Seth returned to his car and opened the driver’s side door. He sat down for a moment, leaving the door open. He slid a CD into the car’s stereo and cranked up the volume. Seconds later, the strains of AC/DC’s classic “Big Balls” filled the air around us.
The three men sang along to the suggestive lyrics, expounding musically in obvious double entendres about the size and bounciness of their balls as they pulled their special explosion-resistant suits from their cars and slid into them. Made of thick and heavy padded material, the suits were not entirely unlike the K-9 bite suits. However, the bomb tech suit contained a reinforced panel along the front and back of the torso, as well as a clear helmet to protect their faces.
As I watched the men suit up, I wondered what compelled them to take on such a dangerous job.
Were they thrill seekers?
Wannabe heroes?
Just plain crazy?
I suppose it was hypocritical of me to have such thoughts. After all, people could wonder the same thing of police officers. Our reasons for wearing the badge were as different and unique as each of us.
When all three men were fully dressed they looked like astronauts about to step out onto the moon.
As they walked past with their dogs, Seth turned his head my way, his voice muffled through the helmet. He pointed a gloved finger at me. “If I’m still alive after we check the building,” he joked, “I’m taking you out for a margarita.”
“And if you’re not alive?” I asked, unsure whether or not I was joking.
He offered me a soft smile. “Then you’ll always wonder what might have been.”
* * *
There was nothing I could do at the moment but sit on the open hatch of the ambulance to wait for instructions, information, and the aforementioned margarita or lifetime of wondering. I was hoping for the margarita. I twirled my baton in an attempt to co
mbat my worries, using a basic thumb toss to send it into the air before catching it again.
“You’re pretty good with that thing.” The EMT who’d treated me and Brigit sat down next to me and pulled up a movie on his tablet, some raunchy made-for-men comedy starring Seth Rogen. The other EMT lay down on the collapsed gurney behind us and took a nap.
A half hour and approximately five thousand baton twirls later, Chief Garelik arrived on the scene. He was dressed in pressed cotton shorts, a polo shirt, and brown leather boat shoes, no socks. The civilian clothes were a sure sign he’d come to the mall straight from an outing and hadn’t run home to change into his uniform. Given the urgency, who could blame him?
The chief held up a back-off palm to the gaggle of reporters and made his way over to Mackey, who stood with a cluster of male officers in the shade of a tree near the makeshift command center. Mr. Castleberry stood a few feet away with Scott, Ricky, and a third member of the security team.
The Big Dick had assumed command of the situation the instant he’d stepped foot on the mall property. I supposed I could be offended by that. I mean, I was the one who’d been on-site, who’d seen the bomb before it exploded, who’d ordered the initial evacuation of the courtyard and been bombarded with metal and garbage. Still, I was in no condition to take charge. I was barely keeping myself together. Besides, Derek did outrank me.
After they’d spoken for a few minutes, Derek pointed my way. The chief glanced over at me, gave the Big Dick a pat on the shoulder, and headed my way.
I stood as the chief approached. Returning my baton to my belt, I did my best to look fearless. Not easy when all I really wanted to do was curl up in a fetal position and suck my thumb.
“This is a fine mess, Officer Luz,” he barked, as if the bombing were my fault.
What was I supposed to say in response? I wasn’t sure, so I said nothing.
He put a hand on the back of his neck. “Mackey says you were here when the bomb went off.”