“I killed a couple of guards out there,” he reported. “Managed to do it without raising a ruckus, though, so the rest of them probably won’t know anything about it for a while.”
“What did you do with the bodies?” Herb Dupont asked.
“Dragged them into the ladies’ room.” Tobey grinned. “I figured their buddies wouldn’t think to look for them in there and wouldn’t want to, even if it did occur to them.”
“Good one,” Aaron said.
“Is the way out clear?” Dupont asked.
“Now, that I couldn’t tell you,” Tobey replied. “I couldn’t see the door to the parking lot from where I was. I wouldn’t be surprised if the guy in charge of this bunch has men posted at all the entrances and exits to keep the authorities from getting in without a fight. But if you want to go and see for yourself, I won’t stop you.”
Dupont shook his head and said, “No, I’d rather stay here and fight. Those bastards shot up my store. Somebody’s got to pay for that.”
“And all the people they killed,” Lockhart added.
“That’ll be up to somebody besides us,” Tobey said. “Let’s just say I figure they’ll wake up surprised, disappointed, and pretty hot under the collar when they realize they’re not in their sick version of paradise after all.”
“Because the devil will be waiting for them,” Lockhart said. Tobey just nodded.
“What do we do now?” one of the other men asked.
“We see if we can find some more of them to kill without them catching on to what we’re doing,” Tobey said.
* * *
Habib wasn’t happy. He had men roaming through the mall to root out any of the Americans who were trying to hide, as well as to check in with the men guarding the hostages and make sure everything was all right. One of those patrols had returned with the news that two men were missing.
“Missing, you said?” Habib repeated. “Not dead?”
“No, Habib. They are gone from their post, and we could not find them.”
“Did you see any of the infidels in the area?”
The man who was making the report grinned, his lips drawing back from his teeth in a savage expression. He said, “Only dead ones, praise Allah.”
Habib nodded slowly. This was troubling news, but not completely unexpected. While he hoped that all of his men were as devoted to the cause of jihad as he was, it was possible that some of them were not as courageous. Perhaps the two who were missing had gone off to hide somewhere in hopes of living through this.
That would never happen. Everyone in the American Way Mall was going to die today. It was ordained in heaven.
“Pass the word to the guards that some of them are to reinforce the men at the entrances,” Habib decided. “The Americans have heard our demands. They will refuse to honor them, of course, although they may lie and say that they will. All the while, however, they will be plotting to attack us. Everyone stay in contact. When the attack comes, we will rush to meet it with all the strength of the Prophet in our arms.”
“Taking guards away from the hostages, I don’t know—” the man began.
Habib didn’t let him continue. He snapped, “The infidels are beaten down and too afraid to oppose us. They cower on the floor like animals and pray we will not kill them.” Habib shrugged. “They’re wrong, but for now their false hope is useful to us. It keeps them cowed.”
The man nodded and hurried off to relay the order. Habib felt the skin on the back of his neck crawl. He had hoped to prolong the Americans’ ordeal until the holy hour of sunset, but that might not be possible. Despite his confidence, those two missing men worried him.
Were they just the start of trouble he hadn’t expected?
Perhaps he might need to move up his plan and start the killing early.
* * *
All the Americans had been herded down the staircases at each end of the mall so the upper level was now empty except for a few guards roaming along the walkway overlooking the vast central area on the ground floor.
The children’s play area was not far from the center of the mall, and it was now packed with hostages sitting shoulder to shoulder. A few of the prisoners talked in low voices, some whimpered in fear, but most sat in stunned silence, unable to believe that their day of festive shopping had turned out this way.
The bodies lying everywhere just made things worse. Loved ones of the dead sobbed uncontrollably.
Guards strutted around, machine pistols in their hands, sneers on their faces.
This scene was repeated in the food court, in the entrance areas at the north and south ends of the mall, and in one of the department stores that anchored the complex. The prisoners were spread out that way to keep them from acting in concert. Together, they would have had overwhelming numbers on their side. Separated, terrified, they still outnumbered their captors by seven or eight to one, but the automatic weapons, along with the fear they generated, evened the odds.
Jake Connelly figured that out from the half-hour of reconnaissance he did, slipping out of the service corridors at different locations on the upper level and discovering that it was mostly deserted. He kept an eye out for the roving guards and steered clear of them, and so far nobody had spotted him.
He was about as far from a ninja as anybody could get, though, and he knew it. He wasn’t going to push his luck too much.
He hoped that FBI guy had taken him seriously about sending men in from above. That was the best chance they had of turning the tables on the terrorists and getting some of the hostages out of here alive.
Whoever had put this attack together wasn’t a pro, Jake mused as he crouched behind the counter in a vitamin and health food store. The leader of the terrorists hadn’t taken everything into account. If it was that kid he had seen earlier, then Jake wasn’t surprised. The guy was too young to be anything but an amateur.
Problem was, even an amateur terrorist was way too deadly.
He heard footsteps outside and knew the patrol was approaching. Jake drifted into the store’s back room, where he had left the door to the service corridor propped open. He went into it and eased the door closed behind him.
He wasn’t doing any good here on the upper level, he told himself. When the authorities struck back, as they were bound to do, the action would be down there on the ground floor. That was where he needed to be, he decided. That way when things started to pop, he could get out there and give the good guys a hand.
He headed for the ladder and ventilation shaft he had found earlier.
It took him a while to find it, since he had gotten a little turned around in this rat’s nest. But when he came across it, he tucked his guns away again, took hold of the iron rungs, and started down.
His feet had just touched the concrete floor on the ground level when he heard a faint noise behind him. He started to turn as he reached for the guns at his waist, but then he froze as he felt a hard ring of metal jab against the back of his neck.
That was the muzzle of a gun, he knew, and he realized he was only a few ounces of pressure on a trigger away from dying.
* * *
Irina appeared to know every inch of these service corridors, Jamie thought, and that was good. You always needed a trustworthy guide when you were operating behind enemy lines.
Today, this entire mall had become enemy territory.
They needed guns, too, and in talking it over with Irina, Jamie’s hunch had been confirmed. There was a large sporting goods store attached to the mall as one of the anchor businesses, and it carried a supply of guns and ammunition.
“Do they have any guns like that?” Kaitlyn had asked as they were talking about it. She gestured toward the machine pistol in Jamie’s hands. The girl was more composed now, although her eyes were still red from crying and from time to time she wiped the back of her hand across her nose.
“I doubt it,” Jamie said. “You can’t just go into a store and buy a fully automatic weapon like this. There are rules
against that.”
“Those terrorist guys have them,” Kaitlyn protested.
“Terrorists tend not to follow rules, except for the ones that tell them to kill anybody who doesn’t believe exactly the same way they do.”
“You’ve got one of those guns.”
“I don’t follow the rules all the time, either,” Jamie said. “Anyway, I didn’t buy this Steyr. I took it off one of the bad guys, remember?”
“And I used it to save your life. Remember that? I’d sure like to get my hands on one again.”
“We’ll see,” Jamie said, although she hoped they wouldn’t run into any more of the terrorists until after they reached the sporting goods store and armed themselves better. After that, if they had a chance to grab a couple of the machine pistols for Kaitlyn and Irina, it wouldn’t be a bad idea.
Irina knew how to lead them to their destination, but to get there they would have to cross a couple of the hallways that were open to the mall.
“There could be guards,” the young woman from Chechnya warned. “And even if there are not, all it takes is one terrorist walking by to look down the hall and spot us.”
“We’ll have to take that chance,” Jamie said. “We can’t fight them with just one gun.” She paused. “Unless, of course, you and Kaitlyn would rather find a place to hunker down and wait, instead of engaging them again. That would be the smartest thing to do.”
And she wouldn’t hold it against them if they decided to do that. Neither of those young women was in the business of waging war the way she was.
Or at least, the way she had been. Technically, she was a civilian now, just like they were.
“No, we fight,” Irina said.
“Hell, yeah,” Kaitlyn added. “For the sake of my mom and everybody else those bastards have killed.”
Jamie said, “Your mother wouldn’t want you talking like that.”
“How do you know? You never even met her.”
“I just know, all right?”
“So it’s all right to want to kill those men, but not to curse?”
“Don’t ask for logic at a time like this,” Jamie said. “Come on. Let’s go.”
She cracked open the narrow door that Irina pointed out and peered up the hallway toward the mall. It appeared to be empty. The mall was to the left, some restrooms back to the right, according to Irina. Jamie couldn’t see those doors from where she was, so she had to risk opening the door even farther. She peered around it.
The restroom doors were closed. No one was in sight.
She turned her head, nodded to the other two, then stepped out, holding the Steyr level with both hands. Irina and Kaitlyn hurried out behind her and darted across the hall to another of the narrow service doors. Irina thrust her key into the lock and twisted it. She pulled the door open and ducked inside. Kaitlyn was right behind her.
Jamie was about to enter, as well, when she caught a flicker of movement from the corner of her right eye, toward the restrooms. When she turned her head, she saw one of the terrorists stepping out of the men’s room as he zipped up his fly. His machine pistol was tucked under his right arm.
He saw her at the same instant. His eyes opened wider in surprise. He moved his arm and let the machine pistol drop into his grip.
Jamie had no choice. She pressed her Steyr’s trigger and fought the gun’s tendency to rise as she laced a string of slugs into the man’s chest.
The bullets drove him back against the restroom door, which swung open under the impact. He dropped the machine pistol just outside the door as he fell into the restroom.
Jamie glanced toward the mall. No one was there yet, but somebody was bound to have heard the shots and would come to check them out. But she might have a few seconds . . .
Irina was peering anxiously out the service door, holding it ready to close. Jamie said, “Be right back,” and raced along the hallway to the man she had just killed. She scooped up the Steyr he had dropped, used her foot to shove his legs inside the restroom, and pulled the door closed. Anybody who came looking for him would have to go down the hallway and open the door to find him.
She ran back to the service door and ducked through it. Irina closed it behind her. Jamie handed the Steyr to the young woman.
“Hey, no fair!” Kaitlyn said.
“You get the next one,” Jamie promised, although a part of her hoped it wouldn’t come to that. She had a feeling that Vanessa Hamilton wouldn’t want her daughter turning into a killer, no matter what the circumstances.
Sometimes circumstances forced people to do things they never would have done otherwise, though.
They continued making their way toward the sporting goods store, according to Irina. They weren’t far from it when Jamie heard something up ahead and motioned for the others to stop. She cocked her head a little to the side, tightened her grip on the Steyr, and listened intently.
It was an odd, regularly spaced sound, sort of like footsteps but not exactly. Jamie heard what sounded like a grunt of effort. It came from around a corner in the shadowy corridor. At least it was only one man, she decided, although she still couldn’t figure out what he was doing.
Then it came to her. He was climbing up or down a ladder. Since the sounds weren’t fading, she decided he was climbing down.
Toward them.
Had to be one of the terrorists, she thought. They had finally realized this network of passages was back here behind the scenes in the mall, and he was exploring it, looking for people who had hidden themselves away from the massacre.
Like her and Irina and Kaitlyn, she thought. But the bastard wouldn’t find them defenseless.
She motioned to her companions for them to stay where they were, then leveled the machine pistol and stepped around the corner in time to see a stocky, gray-haired man in slacks and a lightweight jacket reaching the bottom of a ladder formed by iron rungs cemented into the wall.
Jamie frowned. From this angle, he didn’t look like the other terrorists she had seen. For one thing, he was a lot older. But maybe he was the mastermind of the whole attack. Until she knew for sure, she couldn’t afford to take a chance.
As quiet as a cat, she stepped up behind him and pressed the Steyr’s muzzle to the back of his neck. At this range, if she pulled the trigger the stream of bullets would saw his head right off his shoulders.
“Don’t move,” she said.
The man obeyed the order, she had to give him credit for that. He stood absolutely motionless with his hands still on one of the ladder rungs.
Then he said, “Lady, you don’t sound like a terrorist, gun or no gun.”
Jamie’s breath hissed between her teeth in surprise as she heard the American tones in the man’s voice. She said, “You’re—”
“Hoping that we’re on the same side,” the man broke in. “My name’s Jake Connelly. I used to be a cop, and right now I’m trying to find a good place to fight back against the men who have taken over this mall.”
For a second, relief flooded through Jamie. The emotion was so strong she wanted to lower the gun and cry. That would have been too stereotypically feminine a thing to do, though, so she kept the Steyr level as she moved back a step and said, “Turn around, Mr. Connelly. Carefully. And keep your hands where I can see them.”
“Like I told you, ma’am, I used to be a cop. I know the drill.”
He turned, and again Jamie fought the urge to break down as her tension eased even more at the sight of his broad, friendly, bulldog-like face.
He was observant, too, because he said, “Ex-military?”
“Captain. Air Force. Three tours in Afghanistan.”
Jake’s face creased in a grin as he said, “Then I was right. We’re on the same side.” He glanced past her and added, “Who’s this?”
Jamie looked over her shoulder and saw that Irina and Kaitlyn had come around the corner, unable to resist the temptation to find out what was going on. Irina held the Steyr Jamie had given her a short time earlier.<
br />
“Friends of mine,” Jamie said. “I’m Jamie Vasquez. This is Irina Dubrovna and Kaitlyn Hamilton.”
“Ladies,” Jake said as he nodded to them. “All of you look like you have a fight in mind.”
“That’s right. We’re on our way to the sporting goods store, since that’s where we’ll find the most guns and ammo.”
“Sounds like a good idea to me.” Jake sketched a salute. “I’m at your command, Captain Vasquez. We’d better get moving, though. I don’t know how much time we have left.”
“How much time before what?”
Jake pointed up with a thumb and said, “Before a bunch of Special Forces guys drop down on the roof and all hell breaks loose in here.”
Chapter 34
There was too much to keep up with, Habib thought. Too many things to remember. He summoned Mujidan Bashir and told his second-in-command to check on the situation at the sporting goods store.
“I don’t have to go check,” Bashir said. “I just talked to one of the men down there. The Americans who took refuge there are still trapped inside.”
“We haven’t gotten them out yet?” Habib didn’t try to keep the irritation out of his voice as he asked the question.
“No, but you said we should just keep them penned up and deal with them later.”
“I know what I said,” Habib snapped. “But such defiance of Allah’s will cannot go unpunished.”
Bashir shrugged and said, “It won’t. There can’t be more than a few dozen of them in there. Once we’re finished with the others, we can all attack the store and finish them off.”
What Bashir said made sense, but Habib wasn’t going to tell him that. Instead he said, “I’ll think about it. But I don’t like the idea of them sitting in there thinking that they can get away with what they’re doing.”
“No one gets away,” Bashir said. “Destiny catches up with everyone.”
Habib couldn’t argue with that, either.
* * *
Calvin used the back of his hand to wipe sweat off his forehead. A few feet away, Pete McCracken said, “Hot in here . . . ain’t it . . . kid?”
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