Spectrum

by Ethan Cross

  In a hoarse mumble, the young man said, “Only you. No one else comes in this room.”

  Carter nodded, and moving quickly back out the door, he retrieved a fire extinguisher from Taz and said, “I’ll handle him. You just find the others. They have to be hiding here somewhere. Is there access to the roof or a crawl space? Tear down the walls if you have to.”

  “We’re on it, but I say you distract the one in the office. And while you’re spraying the extinguisher, I’ll use that as cover and take a shot.”

  “No,” Carter said. “He’s just a scared kid. I can talk him out. Nobody has to die here.”

  “It’s a mistake, but your funeral, boss.”

  “You just find the big man … And get officers to set up a perimeter and road blocks.”

  “There’s no way they slipped past us.”

  “Then find them, sergeant.”

  Carter ran back into the inferno and sprayed out every bit of the fire-smothering foam, quenching the flames.

  With the fire out, Carter dropped the extinguisher and took a moment to calm his own breathing and heart rate. He’d be no good to that frightened young woman if his old ticker gave out on him before he could get a handle on this mess.

  He kept his hands in the air and tried to seem as nonthreatening as possible. “Don’t you think this has gone far enough, son?” he said.

  The young black man’s skin looked ashen, and his eyes were barely open. “I’m almost gone anyway. What’s … matter. Crazy … stabbed me.”

  “This doesn’t have to be the end. So far, no one’s dead. You can still come out of this, especially if you help us catch your friends.”

  The young man laughed, but it turned into a gurgling cough. “Friends? Nah … Used me. I don’t know where …”

  “What’s your name, son?”

  “Lamar.”

  “Walk out of here with me, Lamar. I know they used you. I’m sure that if you cooperate, we can work out some kind of deal. This doesn’t have to be the end of the line, Lamar. I can see a light at the end of your tunnel.”

  “I … dying. I know it. Seen it before … Already gone.”

  “We can get you patched up. There’s a whole army of paramedics and doctors right outside. Give me the gun and let her go. We’ll bring in a stretcher. This is just a bump in your road, kid. You have an entire life still ahead of you.”

  Tears overtook Lamar’s eyes, and the arm holding the gun began to relax. Then Lamar dropped the pistol to the black and white tile and quickly stuck a hand under his shirt.

  Carter instantly knew what the young man was reaching for, but he was powerless to do anything about it.

  Lamar held a small cylinder made to fit in the palm of a person’s hand. A yellow button sat atop the small cylinder, and a coil of wires trailed out from its bottom, the wires leading back under Lamar’s shirt and connecting to the explosive vest that the kid had shown him earlier.

  “You don’t want to do that, son,” Carter said. “Things aren’t as bad as they seem to you right now. Trust me, I’ve lived long enough to know that you can come out on the other side of almost anything. You just have to choose life.”

  But as he searched the young man’s eyes, Samuel Carter knew that he had already lost the kid. The wound in Lamar’s neck was about to take him away from this world, and the kid knew it. He could see the wheels turning in the young man’s eyes—final, irrevocable decisions being made. Lamar had felt death’s cold hand on him and decided to go out on his own terms. Right there within the time of one breath, of one heartbeat, Carter saw the kid experience all the stages of grief, his mind finally coming to rest on acceptance.

  Carter whispered, “Please, don’t—”

  Lamar raised his arm and said, “We’re already gone.” Then he pressed the yellow button.

  Chapter 58

  After pushing through the line of uniformed officers forming the outer perimeter, Nic saw the blown-open doors of the building and smoke hanging in the air. He was about to grab his gear and rush into the fray when he noticed Edgar standing beside a row of ambulances, trying to direct the medical personnel. The whole scene was pandemonium. Reporters and spectators were pushing against the barricades, all fighting to see what was happening. The uniformed officers were trying to maintain control, but the way people were shoving each other and climbing over people for position reminded Nic of a mosh pit at a heavy metal concert.

  Nic approached the deputy chief in a full sprint and shouted, “Edgar! What happened? Is everyone okay?”

  Edgar wiped the sweat from his balding forehead and, short on breath, said, “The team’s fine and most of the hostages are going to be okay.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “The manager is touch and go. He’s lost a lot of blood. They scooped out one of his eyes and chopped his hand off, Nic.”

  “That must have been the screams we heard on the parabolic mics. Where’s Carter?”

  “That’s the other thing. One of the tangos has a hostage and has barricaded himself in the manager’s office. And it’s the one with the explosive vest who Carter talked to. He’s in there now, trying to talk the guy down from the ledge.”

  “Are the other two shooters down?”

  Edgar looked at the building for a moment, as if in a daze. Nic could almost see the chief aging before his eyes. “Earth to Edgar,” Nic said. “What happened in there, sir?”

  “They’re going to crucify me over this, Nic. Twenty-five years right down the drain.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “They’re gone. Just gone. The team’s in there tearing the place apart, but the other two just vanished.”

  Nic swore under his breath. “This has to be connected to whatever GoBox and the CIA aren’t telling us. Romeo said the rumor is that GoBox and the agency are developing chemical and biological weapons.”

  Edgar’s eyes went wide. “That can’t be. Our government would never be involved in something like that. Especially not on US soil.”

  Nic shrugged. “At this point, it wouldn’t surprise me if the president was actually a cyborg being controlled by the Illuminati.”

  Edgar gave Nic a “you’re an idiot” look, but a bit of the tension also drained from the chief’s face.

  “Where do you need me?” Nic asked.

  “You can help with—”

  A paramedic screamed and backed away from one of the nearby ambulances, a hand over her mouth. Both Nic and Edgar ran toward the muffled cries. With his longer stride and powerful legs, Nic was the first to come around the corner of the ambulance, his pistol drawn, his mind ready for anything.

  He cleared the back of the vehicle like he would any other room. But there were no active shooters. There was only a Hispanic woman in her forties, presumably one of the rescued hostages. She wore jeans and a blue polo shirt with the GoBox logo on the breast. The woman coughed uncontrollably and was bent over with her hands covering most of her face.

  “Ma’am, are you—”

  She looked up at him, removing her hands and allowing him to see her face. Nic didn’t scream like the paramedic had, but he did back away.

  In a hoarse, strained voice, the woman said, “What’s happening to me?”

  Nic kept backing away, heart pounding, lungs fighting to take in more air. He heard himself say, “We’re going to get you help,” but all Nic could think of were the words “biological weapon” and “contagious.”

  Edgar came around the corner, caught sight of the woman, and jumped back like he’d received an electrical shock. He started mumbling, “Oh dear God. Oh, God, no.”

  Nic’s eyes shot to another of the ambulances as a paramedic yelled, “We’ve got a problem over here!”

  Looking back at the infected Hispanic woman, he found her trembling as she stared at the blood covering her hands. She reached out to him, like a drowning woman begging for him to pull her from freezing waters. He had seen people die. Had even looked in some of their eyes as t
hey passed away. He had seen people with guns pressed to their heads on numerous occasions. But he had never witnessed the kind of pure terror that he saw on the woman’s face.

  But he could do nothing to help her. He wondered if anyone could. And he knew that all of the hostages would soon be suffering the same fate, if they weren’t already.

  Just like this woman, they would all start bleeding from every orifice. Ears. Eyes. Mouth. The blood ran down her chin and flowed down her cheeks like a trail of crimson tears.

  Edgar looked paralyzed, standing there blinking and mumbling. Nic grabbed him by the shoulder and said, “Chief, we need to quarantine all these people and everyone who’s been in contact with them. And anyone who’s entered the building.”

  “Right,” Edgar said, still in a daze.

  “Chief!” Nic turned his superior away from the bleeding woman and locked gaze with him. “I’ll handle things out here. You need to get on the phone and get the CDC out here ASAP.”

  Nic could see the fear in Edgar’s eyes change to righteous anger and a sense of responsibility. Edgar swallowed hard and nodded. “I’m on it.”

  Chapter 59

  Sam Carter wasn’t necessarily afraid to die. He was confident in his soul’s destination, and truth be told, he sometimes wished to meet his wife again in the next world. But as he watched Lamar push the button to detonate the explosive vest, he realized that, while he didn’t fear death, he still wasn’t ready to punch the clock just yet. He wondered if some higher power was yelling for him to wake up, that his work wasn’t quite finished.

  Thankfully, when Lamar pressed the button, nothing happened. No explosion. No death. Just fear turning to confusion.

  Lamar looked at his hand as if it no longer belonged to him, as if he had awoken from a dream with someone else’s appendage sown onto his arm.

  The dying terrorist pressed the button again with the same result.

  Carter pulled the Glock 24 pistol he had concealed at the small of his back, rushed forward, and kicked the gun out of Lamar’s reach. To the woman, he said, “Go. You’re safe now.”

  Still trembling, she stood up on unstable legs. Carter caught her before she could fall, while still trying to keep his pistol trained on Lamar.

  “Ortiz!” he yelled. “We’re clear. Get your ass in here.”

  Taz and another SWAT officer rushed into the room. Taz hooked an arm beneath the Indian woman’s shoulder and led her out. The big blond officer kept the M4 to his shoulder and said, “Do you have him covered, sir?”

  “He twitches, and he dies.”

  Carter saw the blond’s name tag Velcroed to his chest: Stromberg. To Carter’s eyes, the officer looked more like a high school football player than a cop, but he had lost all perspective on age assessments years ago. Still, the big blond surely wasn’t an experienced officer, despite the confidence and skill he displayed.

  Lamar still looked confused, as if he was trying to figure out if any of this was really happening. Stromberg gently pulled the detonator out of Lamar’s hand and secured the terrorist’s hands with plastic zip cuffs. Stromberg started to examine the explosive vest, but Lamar absentmindedly said, “It’s supposed to … tamperproof. But who knows. Might not even … real.”

  A look of indecision swept over Stromberg’s face, and Carter said, “Maybe you should ask Sgt. Ortiz what he’d like to do.”

  Within a moment, Taz was back in the room and said, “Loria wants him out of the building.”

  “Are you sure moving him is a good idea?” Carter asked.

  Taz shrugged. “Not the way I would do it, but for all we know, the thing is just for show like the other one. And Mr. Loria made all kinds of threats against me and about the next five generations of my family if that bomb is not removed from his property.”

  Carter shook his head. “What’s your plan then?”

  “We escort him out into that open field, well away from everyone and anything, and then we send in a robot or someone in a bomb disposal suit. That’ll be Nic’s call. He used to do that kind of thing all the time in Iraq.”

  “Really.”

  “Yeah, remember that Hurt Locker movie? That’s the kind of stupidity he used to be involved in.”

  “He’s still alive, so he must have been pretty good at what he did,” Carter said.

  “You should tell that to your buddies at Quantico. They won’t accept him into your snobby FBI academy.”

  “What did they give as a reason?”

  “They didn’t, at first, and when he pushed the issue, he received a letter in legalese saying that it’s the admission board’s right to refuse entry based on ethical concerns. Or something like that. Personally, I don’t think it’s fair to judge someone by their lineage, but they didn’t ask me about it.”

  Taz helped Stromberg get Lamar to his feet and told the big blond officer to escort the prisoner into the safe zone. Then Sgt. Ortiz clicked his shoulder-mounted radio and said, “Kaplan, is everyone clear? We good to transpo?”

  He received nothing but static in return. Taz swore in Spanish and said, “Kaplan, do you read me?”

  “They set up jamming equipment in the building, remember,” Carter said. “It’s probably blocking your radios.”

  “Crap. That’s right. Okay, I’ll go out first to make sure everyone is clear. Strom, you give me sixty seconds and walk him out.”

  Stromberg nodded, but then he looked down at the bomb and swallowed hard.

  Taz slapped his subordinate on the shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, rookie. As stupid as you are, you won’t survive long in this job anyway. If it ain’t today, it will probably just be tomorrow. You should probably accept it and make your peace with Odin or Thor or whoever it is your Viking people pray to.”

  Taz gave Carter a wink, while Stromberg rolled his eyes, a bit more at ease. “I’d rather it be tomorrow, boss,” the rookie said. “I have a date tonight.”

  “You don’t have to lie to make friends, rook.”

  “I’m serious. In fact, I have a super-hot date tonight.”

  Taz raised his eyebrows. “Really. That’s great. What’s his name?”

  “She is a dancer at the Mandalay Bay, and she’s gorgeous.”

  “Good for you, rook. And don’t worry, you’ll be fine,” Taz said as he headed for the door. “We’ll get you home in time for your date with the stripper.”

  “She’s not a stripper,” Stromberg said. “She’s in the Polynesian show!” But Taz was already gone.

  Carter merely shook his head. He had seen commanding officers like Taz several times over the course of his career. The sergeant used humor to try and ease the tension his men felt from putting their lives on the line day after day, week after week. It wasn’t Carter’s style, but Ortiz seemed to have the respect of his men and was good at what he did, so it was hard to argue with his methodology.

  “So you think that, once I’m not a rookie anymore, they won’t pick on me so much?” Stromberg asked.

  Carter laughed. “No, son, I think they’re always going to pick on you. Just try to remember that it’s out of love.”

  Strom checked his watch and prepared to move his prisoner, who simply stared forward absently, as if Lamar felt he was already dead or wishing he was.

  Carter headed for the door but added, “Tell Nic to be careful taking that vest off. We need this guy in one piece. He’s our best link to the other perpetrators.”

  “I’ll let him know, sir,” Strom said.

  Carter left Stromberg and moved to the vault room. Taz had pulled most of his team back because of the bomb, but there was still one short black SWAT officer standing guard over the entrance to the vault. Carter nodded to the sentry as he passed by and then walked over to the conveyor system. Pulling out a small tactical flashlight and shining the light down the tunnel which led to the vault, Carter could see the massive steel plates ten feet down the hole. The metal was unmarred and untouched, no signs of someone having cut through or tampered with the bar
rier. Still, it was the only direction the other two suspects could have gone.

  He rubbed his goatee as he stared down the hole, his wheels turning, trying to put the pieces together. But one thought chased away all others. He couldn’t help but consider how close he had come to dying. He wondered why the other terrorists would strap a nonfunctional vest onto Lamar. Just another distraction and stalling tactic, he supposed.

  But something bothered him about that, a detail from earlier that someone, he couldn’t remember who, had mentioned during the briefing. They had found traces of C-4 in the van, but later, the blocks stuffed into the white-haired woman’s vest had been fakes, which meant that the perpetrators were likely still in possession of explosives. If Lamar’s vest was just for show, then why acquire actual explosives? It would have been much simpler to create something that merely looked like a bomb.

  Unless they intended to use the real C-4 somewhere else …

  Or they planned to use a different method to detonate the explosive vest. If the button was the only part of the vest that didn’t function, then how …

  When the realization came, Carter felt like he’d been punched in the gut. He ran out of the vault room at full tilt, the sentry giving him a look of fear and confusion.

  The detonator would have to be controlled remotely, which meant either a cellular or radio controlled device.

  While Lamar was in the building and the jammers were active, the bomb wouldn’t detonate.

  But if the jammers were switched off, or if the vest was taken beyond their effective range, Lamar and anyone else still in range of the blast would die.

  Chapter 60

  Nic needed a place to quickly quarantine all of the hostages and first responders, although he hadn’t told the paramedics that part yet. The choice was obvious to him. They had already set up a triage unit in the garden department of the nearby Walmart. The area could be completely sealed off and was large enough to hold all those who were potentially infected. The doors would be fairly airtight, and they could seal them up even better once everyone was inside. It wouldn’t be nearly as effective as the giant portable bubbles that the CDC would bring in, but it would work well on short notice.