by Jack Flynn
The first explosion rocked the van and shattered the windshield and windows. For a moment, Steele thought that they had been hit directly by some sort of a bomb, but when she looked out, she could see the destruction to the side of the building. At least she seemed to be uninjured. She glanced behind her, and Vincente Carpio was still in custody. One of the security guards had been hit by some sort of shrapnel, and it looked as though half his head had been taken off. The other guard was alive, but unconscious.
The far left door to the courthouse garage was destroyed, but the middle door was intact and open. ‘Get into the garage!’ Kit screamed at the driver. She looked over, and could see that he had lacerations across his face from the glass.
‘I can’t see!’ the driver screamed back.
‘Just hit the gas!’
The driver was trying to clear the blood from his eyes as he jammed his foot down onto the gas pedal. The van shot forward, but it wasn’t aligned, so it careened into the side of the door and Steele was thrown forward into the dashboard.
Her head hit first, and she felt herself losing consciousness. She looked back briefly, and through the wire screen separating the front seat from the prisoner, she could see Carpio staring at her. He was smiling.
* * * * *
George Martin was in the second of the vans, and he saw the missiles strike the courthouse. His heart was racing. There were injured police officers and law enforcement personnel all around him. The scope of the destruction was breathtaking, and he knew that he was responsible. No one could ever find out.
Worse, his betrayal wasn’t complete. He still had to free Vincente Carpio. How, exactly, to do that without people finding out that he had sold himself to the devil was still a mystery. Then he saw the lead van slam into the side of the garage door. He jumped out of his vehicle. ‘Secure the perimeter!’ he shouted to the corrections officers in the van with him. ‘I’m getting Carpio inside!’
As he hit the sidewalk, the entire area was in chaos. Nearly all the federal marshals who had been manning the barricades by the garage, waiting for Carpio to arrive, were dead or injured. Most of them were covered in dust and debris. It was, Martin thought, like a mini version of the scenes from the World Trade Center on September eleventh; some people were screaming and running, others wandered aimlessly with vacant eyes.
Martin ran to the lead van. Surveying the situation, he could see that one of the two guards in the back was dead, and the other was incapacitated. In the front, the driver and Kit Steele were both unconscious. That was good luck for him. He unlocked the door to the prisoners’ compartment. Vincente Carpio seemed to be the only one in the van who remained unscathed. He looked at Martin with malevolence.
Martin leaned over the seat and took the key off the dead guard in the back. ‘Your brother,’ he said simply to Carpio. The tattooed man nodded in understanding. Martin unlocked Carpio’s wrists and unshackled his legs. ‘You’re on your own from here,’ Martin said. ‘No one can know.’ He handed his gun to Carpio. ‘If anything happens to you – if you get caught – tell them you overpowered me, understand?’ He could live with people thinking he was incompetent, but not with people knowing he was dirty. Besides, with the money he had and his retirement, he could live a good life. He’d put in his twenty and he had a fat pension waiting for him.
He turned around to make sure no one was watching the scene unfold. It looked as though he was going to get away with it. No one was paying attention – everything was in a state of chaos.
When he turned back, he saw that Carpio was smiling at him. The gun was raised, and Martin was looking down its barrel. At first, he thought Carpio was merely playing his part, pantomiming the act of overpowering Martin. Then he saw the glint of pure evil in Carpio’s eyes. ‘No, wait!’ Martin cried.
Carpio pulled the trigger.
* * * * *
The explosion from the missiles knocked Buddy off his feet, and his head slammed into the pavement. When he opened his eyes, he had no idea for how long he’d been unconscious. It couldn’t have been for long, as smoke and ash still rained down from the explosion’s aftermath. He was groggy, and it took him a moment to get his bearings. He remembered a feeling of panic, and a sense that someone was in danger, but it took a moment for him to put the pieces together.
Vincente Carpio was being brought to the courthouse …
Buddy was there to try to stop Soh …
He’d been watching the van, watching the waterfront …
Soh was there …
Missiles overhead …
Diamond!
It all came flooding back to him. He was on his feet, unsteadily at first. He felt like his skull had been split, but he fought through the pain, shading his eyes against the sun, which now seemed brighter than he could ever remember. He looked up the street, toward where he’d seen her fall as the missiles flew overhead.
She was no longer there …
And neither was Soh.
Seventy-One
Kit Steele felt someone moving her. She was in the front seat of the corrections van, her head was leaning against the dashboard. Her forehead was sticky from the blood that had run from the gash in her scalp, covering her face. The blood congealed in her eyes, making it difficult to see. At least, she thought, someone had reached her and was providing her assistance. More importantly, it meant that they had also gotten to Vincente Carpio, and they were undoubtedly taking him into the courthouse now. Ultimately all she cared about was that he would be held to account for what he’d done, and he would never be allowed to prey on others again.
The first responder was rough with her as he pulled her from the van. She supposed, though, that was he focused first on getting victims to safety, and there was little safety in a crumpled vehicle.
‘Walk!’
The voice was male, with a Hispanic accent. It seemed an odd demand.
‘Walk!’ The order came again, and she forced her eyes to open slightly. The sight was horrific. Skulls danced before her – a sphere of bloody, massacred heads. And in the middle, eyes as evil as any she had ever seen.
The shock brought her back to consciousness quickly, and she realized that she was looking into the eyes of Vincente Carpio. She felt something hard and sharp pressing into her abdomen and she looked down to see a gun jabbed under her rib cage.
‘The water!’ Carpio said. ‘We are going to the water! If you move or you scream, you die.’ He was half pushing, half carrying her down Courthouse Way, toward the harbor. There was a small pier just off the edge of the seawall less than fifty yards away. None of it made any sense. Was he planning on jumping into the harbor? Was he planning on drowning them both?
Steele’s feet slipped beneath her, but Carpio kept her upright. Around them, people were shouting and running in different directions. It seemed as though no one was in charge. Worse still, it was as though no one could see them. She looked at Carpio and saw that he was still in his orange prisoner’s jumpsuit, and yet no one was stopping them as they hurried away from the smoldering courthouse.
She was thinking that she was possibly dead and in some nightmare of an afterlife – but then a BPD officer shouted at them. ‘Hey! What the fuck are you doing?’ He approached them. He looked like he was in his fifties, heavyset, with dark circles under his eyes. Judging from his age, he probably spent nearly all of his time in some administrative role, and had only been pulled out onto the street because of the extra manpower requested to deal with the planned attack. She opened her mouth to talk, but her tongue wasn’t ready to function.
‘She is hurt,’ she heard Carpio say. ‘I am helping her.’
The officer was confused by the answer. He was standing right in front of them now, blocking their way. He had a hand up, making clear that he didn’t intend to let them pass – as though his hand could stop a madman. ‘You’re a prisoner!’ he said.
‘She’s hurt,’ Carpio repeated. Steele could feel the policeman looking at her, and yet she still wasn
’t physically able to speak – to warn him that he was about to be killed, and that she would soon follow. Carpio kept one arm around her waist, keeping her moving. He pulled the gun out of her abdomen, though, and shoved it into the officer’s prodigious gut. He fired three times, and the policeman’s eyes went wide as the bullets tore his insides apart. He went down like a sack.
The man’s belly had muffled the sound of the shots somewhat, but after the earlier explosions, everyone in the area was sensitive to anything that sounded like any sort of attack. All of a sudden, dozens of law enforcement personnel turned their attention to Carpio and Steele. ‘Stop!’ they shouted. ‘They’re getting away!’
None of them, though, was between them and the pier. Carpio pulled her along at a near sprint as the gunfire started behind them. She assumed that they would hit the seawall and he would drag her into the water. That was fine with her. At least he’d be dead, and if she had to sacrifice herself to make sure that Vincente Carpio never hurt anyone else, she was happy to do it.
As they came to the seawall, though, she looked down the narrow ramp to the small pier and saw the two boats waiting there. They were both military vessels, with guns mounted fore and aft, both with three armed men on board. They were shouting to Carpio, urging him on.
It was at that moment that she knew T’phong Soh had lied to her. The attack on Northern Avenue had been a diversion to keep the law enforcement forces at the front of the courthouse and leave the waterfront unguarded. She’d been an idiot, and Carpio’s escape was her fault. Any further brutality that Vincente Carpio would carry out in his lifetime was on her head.
* * * * *
Cormack was only a hundred yards from the courthouse when he saw Vincente Carpio appear at the edge of the shore. He had what looked like a hostage, and it took only a moment for him to realize that he was dragging Kit Steele with him as he hurried down onto the ramp to the small pier. The two heavily armed boats were pulled up to the edge of the pier, and they looked poised to speed away as soon as Carpio was on board.
‘What are you going to do?’ Cicero called to him.
‘We can’t let them get away from the shoreline!’ Cormack called back. ‘If they get out onto the harbor with all this traffic, there’s no way to know where they’ll disappear to!’
‘They’ve got machine guns,’ Cicero responded. ‘We’ve got pea-shooters. How are we going to keep them from getting away?’
‘Only one option! Hold on!’ Cormack floored the engine and crouched down behind the center console as he sped straight at the two boats.
Cicero rolled his eyes and got down low next to him, pointing a gun up ahead, but waiting to fire until he had a realistic chance of hitting anything. ‘This is stupid,’ he muttered under his breath.
* * * * *
Javier Carpio’s attention was focused on the shore. He was gratified to see his brother had made it to the edge of the harbor, but he knew that the mission wasn’t over yet. Several of the police and federal officers now realized what had happened, and they were giving chase. They were shooting down at the boats from the shore, but were easily dispersed with volleys of machine-gun fire.
Javier was far less gratified to see that his brother was bringing a hostage with him. Hostages, in his view, were often more trouble than they were worth, and in this case it was clear that the presence of the woman was not preventing the police from firing their weapons. She was also slowing Vincente down, and speed was of the essence if they were to get away. The increased traffic on the water would make it possible for them to disappear and get on another boat undetected, but only if they could get away from the shore before the police could get a boat on the water.
‘Vincente! Vamos!’ Javier called to his brother.
More gunfire rained down from the seawall, and Javier directed one of his men manning the forward machine gun to return fire.
Vincente and the woman he was dragging with him were almost at the boat, and Javier could almost taste the sweetness of a successful mission when he heard more gunfire. He looked up at the shoreline to find the source, but there was no one visible – it seemed that they had been chased away, and yet someone was shooting. The gunfire came again, and one of the men on the second boat screamed out in agony and fell into the water. Still, though, Javier could see no one firing from the shore.
‘Over there!’ one of his men yelled.
At that moment, Javier realized that the gunfire wasn’t coming from the shore – it was coming from the water behind them. He turned to see a boat headed toward them at full speed. There were two men on board, and one of them was firing an assault rifle as they bore down on Javier’s men.
‘Shoot!’ Javier screamed at his men, directing them to fire the mounted machine guns at the unanticipated attackers. The machine guns, though, were bulky, and turning them was difficult. Vincente was almost at the boat, but it wasn’t clear whether he would be able to get on board in time for them to get away. ‘Get in, Vincente!’ he called.
Vincente and the woman stumbled on board just as the oncoming boat slammed into the port side of Javier’s vessel, and Javier heard the hull split. One of his men was thrown overboard, and the machine gun he’d been trying to swing around at the attackers fired into the air. Freezing water started to flow in through the split. The boat that had rammed them was caught on the hull, and it, too, was taking on water. ‘Onto the other boat!’ Javier shouted. It pulled alongside, and Javier jumped onto it.
Vincente was still holding the woman, and he tried to pull her with him onto the second boat, but she was too strong, and she fought him. He’d wanted to take his time with her. He’d wanted to enjoy the experience of watching her scream as he cut her to pieces – savor the delight in witnessing her agony and holding her gaze as the life faded from her eyes. It wasn’t to be, but he could still take some small joy from her death.
He pulled her close and whispered into her ear, ‘You will not be the last,’ he said to her. Then he pushed the gun under her protective vest and fired four times, just under her ribs. He kept his hand there so he could feel the warmth of her blood as it spilled out.
He stepped back and looked her in the eyes as she felt the pain. She was strong, there was no doubt. She fought death as she looked at him, but they both knew death would win – and quickly.
‘Vincente, now!’ Javier yelled. The police and marshals were back on the seawall, firing down, and there was now only one machine gun firing back, so they were harder to disperse.
‘You will not be that last!’ Vincente yelled into Kit’s face. Then he let her go and moved quickly to jump into the other boat.
Seventy-Two
T’phong Soh was moving as fast as he could away from the courthouse. He held O’Connell’s daughter by the hair at the back of her head with one hand, and a knife to her stomach with the other. She’d struggled at first, but when he showed her the knife and held it against her she’d become more cooperative. He kept the knife low, against her belly, to avoid anyone noticing. It seemed unlikely that anyone would pay any attention to the two of them as they hurried away from the site of the attack. The entire area was in chaos.
He’d seen her run past him, and was shocked that she was there. That meant that Juan Suarez had failed in his mission, and it meant that Soh would have one card fewer to play against O’Connell when the day was over.
He would kill her as soon as he was sure that he could get away undetected. He would have preferred to take her hostage, but it wasn’t practical under the circumstances. At least her death would send a final message to Cormack before Soh took over the harbor. If he was confronted by the police before he could get away, though, a hostage would come in handy.
As they ran up Bond Drive toward Marina Park Drive, he saw several police officers running toward them. He couldn’t tell whether they were running specifically toward him, or whether they were just running toward the courthouse generally, but he couldn’t take a chance. There was a construction site on
the water just off Fan Pier Boulevard. He veered east and ducked through a loose gate, dragging O’Connell’s daughter with him.
Once through the fence, he held the knife to the girl’s throat, looking at the gap in the fence, waiting for the site to be rushed by the police. Nothing happened. He held his breath, listening as the footsteps rushed past the fence and continued on toward the mayhem at the courthouse. He waited for a minute or two, and then looked out. There was no one there. It appeared that the path for his escape was as clear as it would ever be.
He threw the girl against the fence and raised his knife. He was looking forward to the sensation of spilling her blood.
* * * * *
Diamond had been thrown to the sidewalk before the missiles struck the courthouse. She’d felt the earth move under her as she lay there, but because she was already braced against the ground, she’d avoided further injury.
When she’d picked her head up, the first thing she saw was Buddy lying on the street. He wasn’t moving, and she was terrified that he might be dead. She had no idea what had happened, but it seemed as though some sort of a real war had come to Boston. There were bloodied people everywhere, and the screaming was deafening.
She’d got to her feet and started toward Buddy’s motionless body, but before she could take more than a couple of steps, T’phong Soh had grabbed her by the hair. ‘Come, now!’ he hissed at her. She tried to punch at him, but he yanked hard on her hair and threw her off balance. Then she’d felt the knife at her abdomen. ‘I will split you open,’ he said in his high voice. The horror of having a knife so close to the baby she was carrying was too much to bear. She’d nodded. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Just don’t hurt me!’