She quickly dialed Lucy’s number and waited as it rang.
“Hello,” Lucy whispered.
“Lucy? It’s Pamela. I got your text.”
“Hey, I didn’t mean to wake you. I’m gonna be busy later and knew I wouldn’t be able to contact you—”
“Is everything okay?” Pamela held her breath.
“Yes … yes. Everything’s fine, thanks to you and Jack—and your mom. I’m safe, Pam. I’m finally safe.” Lucy began to cry softly.
“What happened, Lucy? Do you want to talk about it?”
“This was the last time, thanks to you guys,” she said, choking back sobs. “The last time …”
Pamela waited.
But Lucy continued to whimper.
“Where are you?” Pamela finally asked.
“He shook me … going to the car. He was furious—for no reason. We got home, and I knew what was coming. I knew you were right. I got the car keys. He swung at me, at my head. I ducked and I … My adrenaline was pumping so hard. I ran at him with all my might. He hit the wall … a sculpture on the wall. It was this big metal thing. He was bleeding. I ran! I ran to the car. He was down. I might’ve hurt him really badly.”
“Where are you right now?” Pamela said.
“I’m safe. I’m safe, thank God. I can’t believe it. I’m finally going to be free. I went to the police. I told them. They were going to get him. I’m at a safe house for … for battered women.”
Pamela sighed.
She closed her eyes and squeezed the baby. “Thank God, Lucy. Thank God.”
“I don’t know if they got him … how he is … I don’t care. I never want to see him again. I’m never going back. And it’s thanks to you. Last night happened for a reason.”
“For lots of reasons,” Pamela said in a daze.
God had sent Lucy for her, in her time of trial. Yet, somehow, they had helped each other. And now Lucy was going to be okay. She was going to be safe from harm. She was going to have a future.
“I can’t believe it,” Pamela said. “You’re free.”
“When they brought me here in the middle of the night, I slept, Pam. For the first time in months, I slept so deeply—like a baby.”
There was a long silence.
“Speaking of babies,” Lucy said. “How is our little guy?”
66
The first crack of dawn was quickly changing the look of the newsroom at the Gazette. Derrick watched as the massive room seemed to shift from having a dim, almost romantic appeal to being stark white, with every mark on the wall and stain on the carpet visible and ugly.
He usually wasn’t there that time of day, because he and most of the reporters worked afternoons and nights. But because of the extraordinary events brought on by the terrorist attack, the newsroom was packed with weary reporters and editors who’d worked frantically all night on the stories and photos that would fill the morning edition.
Male and female reporters sat and stood, chatted and sipped coffee to pass the time, waiting for Senator Sterling’s press conference. Derrick chuckled to himself, thinking they looked like the engineers at NASA headquarters, anxiously awaiting a lunar landing or shuttle launch.
He sat at his computer, leaning on his knees, recapping the night’s events.
After he’d hung up with Jack hours earlier, he’d made a slew of calls, confirming that a man named Jody Johnson, twenty-eight, of Chillicothe, had purchased a large quantity of emergency flares from a store in Lancaster, Ohio. These were eventually used to build the fake bombs that had been strapped to the two EventPros staffers. Johnson was now in FBI custody.
Derrick had also been able to confirm that Ed Scarborough, the guy who just happened to be driving by Seneca Falls when Martin Sterling was fleeing his captors, had indeed come into some serious cash two months earlier. Derrick phoned his house in the wee hours of the morning to question him further, but his elderly mother claimed Scarborough had left town to attend to a sick relative. She also said the FBI had been there looking for him.
Derrick had pounded out three stories about the attack. Other reporters had chipped in more. And they had a bunch of Daniel’s photographs slated to run on a special six-page spread.
He checked his watch. It was almost time for them to head over to Mount Sinai Hospital, where Sterling was scheduled to visit those who’d been injured in the attack, then hold his press conference. The morning edition of the Gazette wouldn’t roll off the presses until just after his visit to the hospital. As far as Derrick knew, the Sterling camp wasn’t aware that their candidate was a prime suspect in the attack.
The phone on his desk rang.
“Derrick Whittaker.”
“Hey man, it’s Daniel. Come to my computer.”
“Dude, we gotta get going.”
“I know. Just come.” Daniel hung up.
Derrick huffed, grabbed his stuff, and hurried through the newsroom. He turned a corner and headed for the photography department, where he spotted Daniel standing at a large iMac, waiting for him.
“We gotta roll, man,” Derrick said as he approached.
“Just look at this.” Daniel pointed to several photographs he had enlarged on the screen. “It was the day of Sterling’s photo shoot, here in the studio.”
Derrick examined the photographs. Sterling wasn’t in them, but Jenny King and several of his entourage were pictured, casually standing around a black stool and white curtain backdrop, not realizing they were being photographed.
“I was testing my light meter. You see him?” Daniel pointed to the large, dark-skinned man, toothpick embedded in the corner of his mouth.
“I sure do.” Derrick got chills. “That’s him.”
“I thought so. The FBI got copies of all my photos last night, but I didn’t think of these till this morning.” Daniel closed out the photos and opened his email. “I’m gonna shoot these to Rufus Peek real quick. Then we can take off.”
“Good idea. Maybe we can run them tomorrow—if he turns out to be who we think he is.”
Derrick drove them across town in his FJ Cruiser. As they came within about four city blocks of Mount Sinai Hospital, they began seeing the people.
“Oh my gosh,” Daniel said.
Clusters of men, women, and children trudged toward the hospital, laughing and talking, resembling crowds filing into a major-league baseball stadium. Several of them carried American flags. Many carried signs.
Derrick read one aloud: Sterling—American Hero.
Daniel read another: Vote to Stop Terror: Vote Sterling.
“They don’t have a clue,” Derrick said.
But their support made Derrick question once again whether Martin Sterling could really be guilty of orchestrating such an outlandish plot.
“Wait … listen.” Daniel rolled down his window.
A group of them were chanting. Derrick listened until he could make out what they were yelling: “Protect the US, Sterling for president! Protect the US, Sterling for president!”
“I think you better find the first available,” Daniel said.
“You got that right.” Derrick swung down a side street, searching for a parking place. His phone rang.
“This is Derrick.”
“Derrick. Jenny King. Are you at the hospital yet?” She sounded frazzled.
“We’re close.”
“We’re postponing the senator’s visit with the people injured in the attack.” She was practically yelling over the crowd. “It’s a security issue. We can’t … we don’t have the control and coverage we need. We’ll go on with the press conference at nine. I’m trying to get the word out. Pass it on, will you?”
Derrick spotted a small parking space and put his blinker on. “I will,” he said. “Can you get me and Daniel up close?”
“We’ve got
a press section, but …” She stopped and called to someone else. Then she came back. “This is nuts. If you want a spot, you better get here. I’ll do what I can.” She hung up.
Derrick set the phone down and began backing into the spot.
“Whoa!” Daniel said.
Derrick stopped in the middle of his maneuver.
Two … three … four … five enormous camouflage trucks rumbled past on the cross street in front of them.
“What the heck?” Daniel said. “We better hurry!”
Derrick’s phone buzzed. He finished backing into the spot, pulled forward, and jerked to a stop. The car was crooked and not close to the curb, but it would have to do.
He checked his phone. It was a text from their editor:
Governor has issued state of emergency for Columbus. He’s called in Ohio National Guard for public safety. B careful.
67
Jack was relieved Shakespeare was with him. Shakespeare would know what to do if all hell broke loose, which Jack felt it might, as they stood amid the growing crowd in front of Mount Sinai Hospital.
Minutes ago the Ohio National Guard roared in with their massive trucks, slowing but not stopping for pedestrians, who laughed nervously and scurried out of the way. Some forty to fifty soldiers filed out of various vehicles in precise lines and hustled up the hospital steps, forming a line in the shape of a half moon around the back of Sterling’s podium, which was set up at the bottom of the steps beyond the facility’s front doors.
Jenny King was there, dressed in a beige pantsuit, pacing with her brown high heels and big walkie-talkie, along with several other Sterling handlers who skittishly awaited her commands.
Shakespeare had gotten wind that the governor had called in the Guard to keep the peace at the event, knowing there would be a mix of Sterling supporters and protestors—and potential terrorist threats. The soldiers were in camouflage gear from their boots to their helmets. They carried machine guns and clear bulletproof shields. Columbus police were out in full force as well, some on foot and some on horseback. So far Jack had seen no sign of Wolfski and his SWAT team.
More people filed in from all directions. Most of the thousands in attendance, including a handful of families with strollers and small children, were there to support the independent presidential hopeful. But there were packs of protestors throughout, waving signs and shouting into megaphones in opposition of Sterling and his “hate” tactics.
“I just got a text from Derrick. They’re making their way up here,” Jack told Shakespeare, as they stood some thirty feet from the podium.
“Good luck with that,” Shakespeare said as he scanned the landscape like a secret-service agent.
Sterling was due onstage any minute.
“See the guys in the black suits?” Shakespeare nodded to one twenty feet to the right of the podium and another twenty-five feet to the left. They wore sunglasses and earpieces with wires that ran down into their jackets.
“Yeah.”
“They’re FBI—Peek’s guys.”
“I haven’t seen him. Have you?” Jack said.
“He’s here somewhere. Look around, there’s more of them. I’ve counted seven.”
Jack stood on his tiptoes, craned around, and spotted three … four … five … six.
“Here he comes now.” Shakespeare nodded toward the front doors of the hospital.
Rufus Peek walked out with several other dark suits behind him. They settled to the side of the top steps, just beyond the human wall of National Guardsmen.
The chanting to Jack’s right grew louder. It was a large group of protestors yelling, “Stop the profiling.” One of their signs read Keep America Free and featured Sterling’s face with a red slash through it. Another read Vote Sterling = INSANITY!
News crews camped in a long, sloppy line along the front of the podium, with cameras, recorders, and video equipment—ready to rock and roll.
Jack surveyed the crowd once more. He spotted Derrick and waved to get his attention. Daniel was right behind him. Derrick saw him and weaved in and out of bystanders in his direction.
When he finally got there, he was out of breath. “I can’t believe this!” he said, shaking hands with Jack and Shakespeare.
“We gotta get closer.” Daniel bumped into Derrick from behind as he fooled with his camera.
“Okay, let’s keep going. See you boys.” Derrick headed into the mass of people, and Daniel followed.
Jack heard the chirps of a siren in the distance and tried to figure out which way it was coming from. Then a patrol car from the Columbus PD pulled down Washington Boulevard with its lights flashing, followed by another. Two black SUVs followed, with two more flashing patrol cars behind them.
Jack’s heart thundered. To think that he was partly responsible for blowing the whistle on one of the most popular men in America, a man who was on his way to becoming president of the United States—it blew his mind.
The procession of vehicles stopped at the curb along the front of the hospital. Jack noticed Derrick and Daniel shouting back and forth with Jenny King, who finally made some reporters move over to make room for them. They were within ten feet of the podium. The menagerie of media people was chomping at the bit, inching forward with their equipment, as Jenny and the others ran across the line, literally pushing them back to keep them in their places.
Jack looked up at the large hospital and noticed people in many of the windows, staring down on the historic scene unfolding at street level.
“This is it,” Shakespeare said, as the doors of the first SUV swung open.
68
Shakespeare was on his toes, eyes glued to the first black SUV.
Two men in suits got out of the front of the vehicle.
The crowd went crazy. People pushed in tighter, forcing Shakespeare and Jack forward three, four, five steps.
“Are either of those the toothpick guy?” Shakespeare said.
“Negative,” Jack said.
One of them opened a back door. The other came around, reached in, and retrieved a pair of silver crutches. Then, almost larger than life, Martin Sterling shimmied out of the back of the SUV and hopped onto the waiting crutches.
People screamed so loudly, Shakespeare covered his ears momentarily. Rolls of toilet paper sailed through the air. Flags waved. People pushed forward, wanting to get closer. One little boy nearby screamed in panic; his father scooped him up with a look of alarm etched on his face.
The Ohio senator wore a dark-blue suit and red tie. His entire left leg was in a white cast, which had been decorated with a bright drawing of an American flag. Like a movie star on the red carpet, he stood there waving and smiling for about a minute. Then, suddenly stone-faced, he set his shoulders back and saluted with animation.
Foghorns blasted from amid the sea of people. American flags of all sizes waved above people’s heads. Hundreds of red-white-and-blue signs jumped up and down above the crowd; most of them read Sterling for President—Sterling for America!
As the senator leaned forward on the crutches and began making his way toward the podium, the crowd’s roar became deafening.
Shakespeare and Jack looked at each other in amazement. Sterling’s popularity was over the top.
Maybe Jack was wrong.
He wanted Jack to be wrong. He wanted to cheer for Sterling.
But all of the other evidence was pointing directly at him.
Shakespeare noticed that the back windows of the second SUV had rolled down, but he couldn’t see who was inside.
Several of Peek’s agents in the crowd held binoculars to their faces, watching Sterling and his team. When he got to the podium, the press crept in closer and closer. Derrick and Daniel were literally at his feet.
“That’s far enough,” Sterling said as he handed the crutches to one of Jenny�
�s helpers and gripped the podium, one hand on each side. “Thank you. Thanks for the support …”
The thunderous applause was so loud that it drowned out the senator’s voice.
His mouth sealed shut, he squinted and raised a hand with fingers splayed, firmly motioning for everyone to quiet down. Before they did, he launched forward, boldly, with no notes in front of him.
“What is terror?” His voice boomed, and the volume of the crowd dialed down. “I repeat, what—is—terror? I’ll tell you what it is—it is intense fear. That is what a number of us experienced firsthand last night right here in the heartland of America, at Columbus Festival Arena.”
Angry screams and boos rang out. More foghorns. And yelling from the opposition for peace.
“Let me tell you something. Hey, you …” Sterling pointed to an obnoxious protester with a megaphone who was perched atop the shoulders of a tall bearded guy wearing a red bandana. “It’s people like you who are ruining this country. And you know what? It’s about time someone stands up and calls a spade a spade; enough of this ‘politically correct’ garbage. It’s about time anti-Americans like you got run out of this country on a rail. You don’t deserve to be here. You don’t understand the blood and sacrifice it took to make this country free.”
Absolute bedlam.
“Let me talk. Let me talk,” Sterling called. “I appreciate your applause, but please just be quiet. It’s what I have to say that the American people need to hear. I’m not here to be a superstar. I’m here to make a difference for this great country. Now, what happened last night is something no more Americans should ever have to experience—ever again!”
People were pressing in so hard that Shakespeare and Jack couldn’t keep their places; they were being forced every whichway. Another child screamed amid the frenzy. This was no place for a child, Shakespeare thought.
“Terrorists hate the liberties we enjoy in these great United States. They’re jealous. They’re full of hatred. They’re evil to the core. I look at our current president in utter disbelief. Don’t you get it, Mr. President? There are people who are out to destroy our freedom and our way of life. Life as we know it. Coming and going freely. Working and playing where we want. Worshipping when and where we want. Going to the park, the mall, the ball game—with no fear!”
Sky Zone: A Novel (The Crittendon Files) Page 28