by Jan Burke
“Where?”
“In an alley near Third and Magnolia.”
“Downtown?” He swallowed hard. “Any sign of him?”
“No, not yet. I’m on my way over there. They told me they took a quick look at the van, but only found a canvas bag with some soap and towels and plastic bags in it. It’s near a church and the library parking lot. The chief ’s down there, and they told him about finding it before I got the call. He’s already sent a dozen guys in to search the library.”
“The chief — oh, Christ—”
“Yes, he’s in some kind of ceremony—”
“Reed, listen to me — we’ve got to get through to Hale immediately. And to Judge Kerr — especially Kerr! They’ve got to clear the plaza. They’ve got to get everybody out of there. Get the bomb squad down there. Now!”
“Frank—”
“Haycroft’s a one-man judge and jury, right? Jesus, Reed — think of who’ll be there! Every attorney, every supervisor, every judge. But especially Kerr. I’m sitting here looking at a shitload of stuff on Kerr. Everything in Haycroft’s files is about him — I think it goes back to the Sudas case, Haycroft’s son’s death.”
“Jesus — I think those files Freeman found on the computer — I think they all had Kerr connected to them, too.”
“Fuck all that, Reed — listen to me — Irene’s at the courthouse interviewing him. She’s there with Seth. Call Kerr and call Hale — and get that plaza cleared!”
Pete came to his feet, anxious now.
Frank hung up, dialed Irene’s cell phone number again. “Come on, Irene, come on, come on, answer it!”
He got her voice mail again. “God damn it!”
The tone sounded. “Irene, please, this is urgent — if you and Seth are at the courthouse, get out now! Get everybody the hell away from there as fast as you can. Get as far away as you can.”
“Go on, go!” Pete shouted to him, tossing him the keys to his car. “I’ll stay here and deal with the search. Get your ass over there.”
“I’ve got to call Kerr’s office—” he said frantically.
“I’ll do that, too,” Pete said in a voice that made him take a deep breath, calm himself a little. “Now go.”
Frank went down the ladder at a speed that had the crew on the ground shouting at him, then ran to the Chevy. He put the light on the roof and peeled out.
50
Friday, July 14, 11:35 A.M.
Courthouse Plaza
Haycroft knew he needed to appear calm.
He was shaking. He was perspiring. He could actually smell his own body odor. He had been jostled and touched again and again by others. The thought nauseated him.
From the sidewalk where he had temporarily stationed himself, he glanced in the window of the sandwich shop behind him. He did not appear calm.
Police had surrounded the van.
It was inconceivable to him. He had nearly been caught then and there. Strolling along, ready to listen to the story of Harriman’s demise. And there was his van, surrounded by black-and-white patrol cars.
How could this be? Had the late Harriman talked more than anticipated?
He stood staring for a moment, then tried not to attract attention as he walked away. He felt as if every eye were watching him, laughing secretly as he headed straight into a trap.
Somehow, he managed to return to the plaza without being seen by the police. And now this, this further ruin.
They streamed around him, hurriedly but calmly leaving. Like cattle drovers trying hard not to stampede their herd, the uniformed officers of the LPPD and the fire department urged the audience to leave. Announcements were being made. He was making himself obvious, he suddenly realized. Standing like a rock in the plaza as the greater and greater rush of hoi polloi flowed past him.
Then came the little thunderclap. The first charge, in the telephone equipment room, had been too small to be heard by anyone who was not near it. This second one, a small charge going off in an elevator shaft, was surprisingly loud. It was just a little device, designed like one he had studied in Wallace’s notes. It had relied on a timer. He was pleased that something was going right.
It freed him to move again, to join the throng that was now panicking, rushing into the street, bringing traffic to a halt. He allowed himself to be carried along by this swell of frightened lawyers and politicians and civil servants, to be deposited by it on the street’s opposite shore. He escaped it by hurrying up into the shelter of the shops that formed the lower floor of the high-rise directly across from the courthouse.
Only a few minutes now.
He would need to steal a car. This was not among his many areas of expertise. He was good with mechanical devices, though, and he understood the principles involved. He had once stolen a boat — could stealing a car be much different? Perhaps he would try it. What other choices did he have? A taxi? The driver would report him. Public transportation? Hah! Might as well shoot himself. They weren’t buses, they were vermin-mobiles.
He walked back to the sidewalk, watching the building, waiting. The police were watching it, too. No one was going in. Better yet, no one was coming out.
He was only seconds away from achieving his dream.
A horn honked. Startled, he looked down to see an old Plymouth sedan pull up alongside the curb. He was about to run when he recognized the driver. The guard from the old courthouse.
“Get in, Dr. Haycroft,” Denise said. “There’s some crazy bomber on the loose around here!”
51
Friday, July 14, 11:35 A.M.
Southbound on Magnolia
He tried to concentrate on his driving while listening to the reports. There had just been a small explosion in the new wing of the courthouse. No one was believed hurt. The police had started clearing the plaza moments before. There had been some panic at the sound of the blast, but for the most part, dispersal was orderly. Officials were still in the process of securing the area. Haycroft had not returned to his van. Both the fire department and the bomb squad had arrived and a command center had been set up — they were getting ready to go about the long process of clearing the building.
But he wouldn’t feel relieved until he talked to Irene.
His cell phone rang.
He answered it and nearly lost control of the car. “Irene?”
“No, Vince — listen, I got those locked compartments open on Haycroft’s Cessna. You would not believe what I found in them. This guy kept these lab notebooks. Experiments. Only the experiments are on people. Or, I should say, how to kill them or set them up for a conviction. The asshole rates himself based on how well he did. Guess who’s in here?”
“The Randolphs.”
“Yes, and Lefebvre. And Bredloe. And you. Second to last.”
“Is the courthouse dedication the last entry?”
“The courthouse? No — but good thinking on that one, Harriman — I hear they managed to clear just about everybody from the plaza before the one in the building went off. I think our boy hit another dud thanks to you.”
“Who’s the last entry?”
“Judge Lewis Kerr.”
“Has he been accounted for?”
“Not yet, but you know, a lot of folks just hightailed it out of there, so—”
“So we don’t know. Watch that plane, Vince — Haycroft may be coming back to it.”
“I’m praying he does,” Vince said.
Frank called the paper and asked for Irene’s boss, John Walters.
“John — has Irene reported in yet from the courthouse?”
“No, not yet. If you hear from her—”
“Was she in the audience?”
“Probably had a front-row seat. She and Seth were the guests of Judge Kerr. I’d give you the number, but the phones are out in Kerr’s office.”
His hand tightened on the steering wheel. “Oh, God…”
“Frank? You there?”
“I’ll call you back, John.”
He saw a man with a briefcase running in the opposite direction. Frank stepped in front of him. “Judge Kerr’s office — where is it?”
“Get out of my way!”
Frank grabbed him by the lapels. “Where’s Kerr’s office?”
The man paled. Then he saw Frank’s badge and shoulder holster. “You’re a cop. You’re not allowed to do this.”
“You don’t read the newspapers, do you?”
He pointed a shaking finger. “Seventh floor, corner office.”
Frank let him go and ran faster.
He dodged more and more members of his own department. As he got closer to the building, the majority of them were wearing protective gear. They yelled at him to get back, then relented as he held up his ID. A more persistent officer stepped aside when Frank yelled, “Chief’s office.”
The members of the bomb squad weren’t impressed with the “chief” routine and began shouting to the others to stop him.
Halfway across the open space, weaving through the abandoned folding chairs, he looked up at Kerr’s office. All his concentration was centered on it, on the people he knew were within it.
Be safe, Irene, he thought. Be safe, Seth. Please be safe. I’m almost there.
He heard the shouting of the others mixing with the pleading in his mind, both more frantic as he moved forward, the distance between him and the corner office seeming to double with every step, as if each passing second robbed him of progress.
The blast struck like a thunderclap that could take the world apart — all the shouts and pleas lost in the deafening roar of an explosion that shook the ground beneath his feet and thrummed in the marrow of his bones.
In helpless horror he watched as Kerr’s window and a hundred windows near it blasted out and the upper floors of the building crumpled in on one another.
He screamed her name, but even he could not hear it among the other screams, the answering rattle from every building around the plaza, the hard rain of glass and debris that pelted down on them, as if falling from the thick clouds of smoke billowing from the building. Walls and ceilings and floors collapsed, banging down on one another, then lay askew like drunks who had caused one another to stumble. As they fell, bits of concrete shot from them as if from cannons, arcing down into the courtyard with murderous force.
In an instant, he saw the world go out of order, no longer operating as it should, and some part of his mind resisted all the uproar of his senses — the vision of destruction, the ringing in his ears, the choking dust. In defiance of this chaos, his thoughts sought possibilities.
Maybe she got his phone message and never got here.
Maybe they’re already safe, in another part of the city.
Maybe she heard the message and was already making her way back to him.
These thoughts circled through his mind like a toy train on its track, no sooner gone than they returned, while some other, darker knowledge moved him forward, toward a goal that was no longer where he had last seen it, toward a location that had vanished — the knowledge that he must lay aside this resistance, because the very place he could not bear to be was exactly the place he must seek.
52
Friday, July 14, 12:45 P.M.
Courthouse Plaza
The first hour passed in a warped version of time. What he waited and hoped for made the minutes seem too long, what he feared made them pass too quickly.
He knew the statistics. About ninety percent of survivors would be rescued in the first forty-five minutes. He watched in silence, anxiously studying every dazed creature who emerged from the ruins of the building and then every stretcher, and finally, every body bag. These were the “surface victims” — those able to walk out on their own and the ones who could be easily seen by rescuers. The next group must be found by a careful search of the rubble of the building. With luck, survivors would be discovered in the void spaces — pockets formed by the angles of collapse and by objects and materials in the building — a row of filing cabinets might prop up a portion of a fallen ceiling, the area under a sturdy desk might shelter someone from crushing debris.
At one point he became aware that his muscles ached from nothing more than tension, from the strain of keeping his emotions in check — knowing that any loss of control would mean the loss of this horrible privilege of nearness to the scene. At first, rescue workers had tried to force him away and he had missed seeing a few of the injured. But the director of the bomb squad activities was the man who had been at his home just that morning — that long-ago morning — and he took pity on Frank and allowed him to stand near where the first of the injured and the dead were brought out.
He also told the others that Frank had made the warning call, and some thanked him then — because even with such little warning they had gained a few advantages. Before the blast, they had been able to evacuate the courtyard and most of the building, so that relatively few people were in it when the largest device detonated. A fire department battalion chief was on-site, and a command center had already been set up to coordinate the activities of the bomb squad, paramedics, police, firefighters, and the technical rescue team. The first responding unit had been able to shut off the utilities so that the fire damage had been minimal.
The building, they told him, was made of reinforced concrete — if the older building had been bombed, the damage would have been more severe.
Again and again, they told him how much worse it might have been.
He tried to find comfort in that, and couldn’t.
A few of the rescuers and firefighters talked to him briefly as they passed by or while they waited for clearance to enter the building. They tried to give him a word of encouragement, to tell him more about what was going on.
Once the fire was out, the bomb squad went in first. Often bombers left secondary devices — insidiously designed to injure rescue personnel or to slow the rescue process and thereby raise the number of deaths the bomber had “scored.”
While the bomb squad looked for these devices, the Urban Search and Rescue teams — the USAR teams — prepared to enter the building as soon as possible. These technical rescue squads were elite teams of firefighters, as specialized in their work as SWAT teams were in the police department.
Still others interviewed survivors, asking, “Who was in there with you? Was anyone else in the office? Where did you last see this person?” and so on. Some survivors were unable to do more than gaze blankly at their rescuers, while others were frenzied in their desire to be farther away from the place, but most tried to concentrate, to recall the moment before the blast — doing their best to remain calm, to be precise — all while managing their own lingering terror and sudden exhaustion, the high-octane rush of relief and burden of guilt that often came to the rescued. Some were reunited with family members or with coworkers they had thought lost — some who had been little more than acquaintances now weepingly embraced.
Although the fire had been quickly extinguished, a few of the injured and many of the dead were terribly burned. Others had been crushed. Some were unrecognizable — the worst, hardly recognizable as human.
Of each of these, Frank made himself ask the questions:
Could this be Irene? Could this be Seth?
And always answered no, hoping he had not lied to himself.
He continued to watch the stretchers — the noisy, bustling activities of rescue around him going on as if at a great distance — all his awareness focused on this macabre parade, so that he stood like a man waiting at the end of a jetway for a loved one to disembark from some ruinous flight. But t
he number rapidly dwindled, for the ones the workers could quickly and safely reach had been brought out, and he realized that Irene and Seth would not be among them.
From his own department’s training, Frank knew the basic procedures for “major incidents” — a phrase that seemed so inadequate now — and he forced himself to think through what he had learned in those training sessions. Again and again he tried to think of what he could do, what he must do.
Kerr’s office was on the seventh floor. There was no way to get up to what was left of it except by helicopter or fire truck ladder. He knew a couple of helicopter pilots, and for a time he wondered what they would say if he asked them to risk losing their licenses for interference in this type of crisis situation. But the first numbness was wearing off, and he knew he could not value his own misery above that of others who stood beyond the police barrier tape — moaning and crying, or simply staring up at the ruin with anguished faces — waiting for word of missing friends and family.
Still, there must be something he could do. When he could not think of what that might be, a kind of hollowness carved itself into his chest.
The body of a security guard was found. She had apparently gone to investigate the sound made by the first and smallest explosion, the one that took out the telephones, and had been killed by the second one, the one in the elevator shaft. The rescuers, although taking no joy in her death, could not help but feel excitement — for near her body, and quite undamaged, was a clipboard. The clipboard held a sign-in sheet. From it, they gained a better sense of who, in addition to workers, was in the building when the bombs went off.
For Frank, though, the discovery only confirmed that Seth and Irene had indeed signed in, had been escorted to Kerr’s office on the seventh floor, and had not come out — it denied him his denials, that persistent hope that she had never made it here after all, that she was somewhere else, repairing a flat tire on the Jeep or stuck in line at a bank.
No, they were here. He had known it, of course.