by Roland Smith
“You got the signal,” she whispered to him, her body relaxing as the adrenaline rush subsided.
“Yeah. I got it. Now get out of here. But don’t go back to the safe house. Ziv is waiting at the park’s northeast entrance. He’s got a police cruiser. He’ll get you somewhere safe.”
“What’s going on, Pat? Is Angela okay?” Malak asked.
“I don’t know what’s going on. Angela is with Boone. We’ve got to assume your cover is blown. Get out of here. Now.”
She didn’t wait. Uly picked the guy up by the collar and deftly handcuffed him and disappeared into the crowd, dragging the semiconscious, choking man along. Malak pulled her hoodie up over her head. Clutching her pistol inside her pocket, she moved quickly through the mass of people toward the waiting Ziv.
All along the way, she thought about what Callaghan had said regarding Angela. He had said she was with Boone.
But he didn’t say she was safe.
No Place to Hide
“Take cover, take cover!” Boone shouted again. He and Croc broke to the left and Angela and I went right, looking for something—anything—to hide behind. And we discovered to our immediate horror that there aren’t a whole lot of safe places to hide on a skyscraper roof. Especially when you are trying to get away from someone with an automatic weapon. There were all kinds of vents and pipes and stuff but nothing that would protect us from the bullets. Except—the cooling units.
It had to be the guy Buddy left behind who was shooting. Unless there were already more terrorists inside the building we weren’t aware of. Which was entirely possible. If they wanted to blow up a building they would probably need more than one guy. What if there were more guys with guns headed up the stairs now? We’d walked into an ambush!
“Over here!” Boone hollered, drawing the gunman’s fire away from our position.
“This way!” Angela shouted. We sprinted at an angle toward one of the air-conditioning units and dove behind it just as the shooter returned his attention to us. A spray of bullets ricocheted off the metal side of the air conditioner.
Here is another thing I have learned about being shot at. In the movies or TV they make it look like the hero has these superhuman reflexes. He always knows exactly where the shooter or shooters are located. The hero turns and fires his weapon, making a miraculous shot, and takes the bad guys out.
This is a big fat fake.
First of all, when you’re in a noisy environment like the top of a skyscraper, you can barely hear the shots over the wind noise. Sometimes automatic weapons use sound suppressors, and there’s just this little piff, piff, piff sound. So it’s not until bullets strike the ground or the wall near you that you even realize you’re being shot at. The bullets are flying and a shooter who knows what he’s doing is constantly on the move. All you can do is try to make yourself as small as possible and hope that he is a horrible shot. The trouble with that plan is that an automatic weapon holds a lot of ammo, so he doesn’t have to be a great shot. He can spray bullets everywhere until he hits something. You need to be lucky or you need someone to take him out.
“Do you see him?” Angela shouted.
I didn’t say anything.
“Q! Do you see him?” Angela shouted at me, which only served to bring what sounded like another several dozen bullets blasting in our direction. The gun made that piff, piff sound and the rounds ricocheted off the metal in front of us.
“No,” I said, “he’s shooting from over there somewhere.” I nodded with my head.
“That’s helpful,” she said. We were squatting on the ground, our backs pressed against the air conditioner.
“If you don’t peek out from your hiding place to look for the shooter, you don’t get shot,” I said.
“Where’s Boone?” she asked, ignoring my explanation of how to survive being shot at.
“He went in the other direction,” I answered.
To make matters even worse, the wind picked up and now it was roaring across the roof.
“You’re really not being helpful!” she yelled over the wind.
“My level of helpfulness decreases dramatically when I’m being shot at!” I yelled back.
I never ceased to marvel at Angela. If it came down to it, I bet she could probably pass the test to become a Secret Service agent right now. Here we were, on top of one of the world’s tallest buildings, pinned down by a gunman. Said gunman was likely going to set off a bomb or something in the next few minutes. And Angela was approaching the entire scenario like it was an algebra problem: find “x,” “x” being the crazed shooter with a machine gun. I’ll stick to magic, thank you very much.
We heard Croc bark and Boone shout “Over here!” again, his voice barely carrying over the sound of the rushing wind. That was followed immediately by a blast of automatic-weapons fire. Boone was still trying to draw the shooter’s attention away from us. Which made me think about Boone and why he didn’t just poof behind the guy and knock him out or something. Then I remembered how he’d looked so tired and sweaty down on the street. Maybe he was sick. Maybe you couldn’t poof as well when you were ill.
“We’ve got to move,” Angela said. “We need to split up. It will help Boone or Croc get close enough to take him down. If we stay here he’ll get us both eventually.”
I didn’t like the sound of him “getting us both eventually” at all. But I liked the idea of running to another location even less. So far this one had stopped all the bullets. It seemed perfectly safe to me.
“I’ll head toward the structure. You run along behind these air conditioners to the other end. If you spot Boone, try to get his attention. Maybe he can take the guy out.”
Angela didn’t wait for my agreement. She raised herself to a crouch and ran back toward the steel structure. I wanted to follow after her. Instead I ran along behind the air conditioners, keeping them between the shooter and me. I think it’s probably the fastest I’ve ever run in my life. And then I ran faster because a trail of bullets started following me. I skidded to a stop at the last air conditioner. I didn’t see Angela anywhere. For a moment I thought I saw a flash of orange on the roof of the steel building but I wasn’t sure.
My eye caught movement to my left and I saw Angela peek around the corner of the steel edifice. She must have circled all the way around looking for the gunman. I pointed up to the roof and she shook her head. She hadn’t seen the shooter.
I looked everywhere for any sign of Boone or Croc. Nothing. And right then I got hit hard with the itch. Only this time it was different. My stomach lurched and I felt a little nauseated and dizzy. And when I glanced back at Angela, I saw she had one of those red laser-targeting dots in the center of her forehead.
I didn’t even think. “Angela!” I cried.
The next thing I knew, I had pushed Angela to the ground. A bullet struck the concrete right where she had been standing. Shrapnel flew everywhere.
I’m sometimes a little klutzy and I had launched myself at her awkwardly. My momentum spun me around and I felt something punch me hard in the thigh. I also felt sick to my stomach, like I wanted to throw up.
The next thing I saw was a guy landing on the roof in a clumsy heap next to us. He was wearing one of those orange hazmat suits. The kind they use when someone has to clean up chemical spills or doesn’t want to be infected by a zombie virus. A small machine pistol landed next to him. He scrambled to his hands and knees and was about to rise up. But Croc had other plans.
At first I thought he jumped. But I don’t know if he actually leaped from the top of the structure or just poofed from somewhere. I was fighting a severe case of nausea and my vision was a little blurry. Either way, he landed right on the guy’s back. Croc’s weight drove him hard into the roof surface and shattered his glass faceplate. We heard a loud ooof through the broken helmet. Croc went on the attack, snarling, barking, and growling and in a few seconds the guy’s hazmat suit was torn to pieces. Whoever designs those things should probably hope the
re is never a zombie virus that affects dogs. They’re going to need better suits.
The guy finally made it to his feet and tried kicking at Croc. The terrorist had no idea this was an exercise in futility. Croc was everywhere and nowhere at once. It quickly reached the point where it’s almost futile to describe how it looked. There just isn’t anything to compare it to that doesn’t sound ridiculous or like you’re having a hallucination. Croc appeared and reappeared all over and around the guy. Each snap of Croc’s jaws drove the guy back toward the edge of the roof. Somehow he recovered enough to reach inside the shredded suit and draw a big knife.
Big mistake, as this only made Croc madder. The guy swung the knife in a vicious arc and Croc dodged it easily. Well, not dodged—he just disappeared. I’m sure the guy couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Before the attacker could recover for another swipe, Croc rematerialized in the air and bit down hard on the knife-wielding arm. Now the man screamed in real agony. As Croc landed on his paws, arm still clamped in mouth, he pulled the guy around in a semicircle. Then he let go. The guy tried to recover. He didn’t realize how Croc had herded him. Croc had used the man’s momentum to drive him right to the roof’s edge. The wind, his wounded body, and the fact that he was off balance were big disadvantages. For a second he teetered on the edge of the roof. With a scream I’ll never forget, he tumbled over the side.
I was stunned. In shock, I think, because my stomach hurt and I still wasn’t sure what had happened to me. Despite how yucky I felt, seeing all these people die in front of me these last few days was bothering me. Yes, the guy was a bad man. A killer. Not only a killer, but also a fanatic. A terrorist, who would have wiped out all of us without a second thought. Still, watching someone plunge to their death didn’t make me feel heroic or happy or even relieved. For a few brief seconds I felt incredibly sad. I couldn’t comprehend how some people could hate other people so much. That guy who just died must have had a family. People he cared about and loved just like I did. Before he started shooting at me I didn’t wish him any ill at all.
But then I thought about the fact that I was alive and he wasn’t and another part of me was glad about that. Mostly I wanted to curl up in a ball right then and not think about any of this. But I knew I couldn’t.
Angela shook me out of my reverie.
“Q, I know you just saved my life and all,” she said, “but what the heck did you just do?”
“What do you mean?” I rolled over onto my back. I felt like I’d been run over.
Angela bounded to her feet and I managed to stand, groaning with every movement. A wave of dizziness hit me and I wobbled and Angela caught hold of my arm to steady me.
“Q? Are you all right?” she asked.
“I feel sick,” I said. And then I was. I puked right there on top of the Hancock building. I put my hands on my knees, trying to take in air.
“There aren’t any more people who are going to shoot at us up here, are there?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” she said.
“Good. Because I don’t think I can move.”
“Q? What just happened? You moved across the roof really fast.”
“No, I didn’t. I couldn’t have. It’s not possible,” I said.
“Q, come on. You were at least twenty yards away and you crossed the distance almost faster than I could see. You saved my life.” She was still holding on to my arm.
I felt so horrible I didn’t want to think about it. Something had happened. But I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. And my head hurt too much to do any heavy thinking.
“If I saved your life, we’re even,” I said. “But it was mostly Croc.” We looked over at Boone’s old dog, now lying on the roof, resting, his head up, tongue out, panting away, looking at us like nothing unusual had happened at all.
“Q!” Angela said. “You’re shot!” She was pointing to a hole in my cargo shorts where a bullet had entered. I remembered feeling like something had punched me in the thigh when I tackled her.
“I don’t feel shot,” I said, reaching inside my pocket and removing some of my stuff. Out of sheer luck, the bullet had hit one of my magic coins, which had been lying directly over the top of a deck of cards. It had punctured the coin, but the cards had stopped it from doing any serious damage.
I held up the ruined deck with a bullet wedged in it and waggled my fingers.
“Told you they were magic,” I said.
This time Angela actually bent her head and put her forehead in the palm of her hand before she groaned. “You’re hopeless.”
“Where’s Boone?” I asked, suddenly realizing he was nowhere to be seen.
“Up here,” came his familiar voice. He was standing on top of the structure in the center of the roof.
“We’ve got a problem,” he said, “a huge problem.”
The Big Problem
We had to climb a ladder to reach him on top of the power plant. It’s not really fun to do when you feel like barfing again at any minute. There was something he wanted us to see. Boone was talking to X-Ray on his little fancy earbud thing. He was standing next to three shiny metal tubes that looked sort of like cannons. They were next to the base of one of the antennas and pointed directly toward the center of downtown Chicago. On top of each tube were two glass canisters with plastic hoses leading to the ends of the cannons. Each canister held a different color of liquid.
“What the heck are those things?” Angela asked.
“Some type of chemical weapon,” Boone said.
“Uh. Boone?” I asked.
“Yes?”
“They aren’t going to go off or anything, are they?” I was having a pretty traumatic day so far. Chemical weapons exploding in my vicinity might just send me over the edge.
Boone held up a black plastic case that had some frozen red LED numbers on its glass face.
“Nah,” he said. “I pulled the timer. X-Ray has J.R. sending a team here to secure these tanks, then—” Boone was interrupted by the sounds of screams. At first it was hard to tell exactly what was happening. But all of sudden we heard horns honking and people shouting. All the way up here on the top of the building we could hear noise and confusion coming from the streets below.
“X-Ray what is—” Boone stopped talking and the color drained from his face.
“Boone,” Angela and I said at the same time.
“X-Ray? X-Ray? Can you hear me?” Boone said. He was quiet a moment as if he was listening. Then he tapped his ear a couple of times. He removed the little earbud transmitter and looked at it. “Looks like communications have gone offline.”
“What’s wrong?” Angela said.
Boone was silent for several moments.
“Before I lost him, X-Ray said reports are just coming in over various news outlets,” he said. His voice was shaking. “There have been chemical weapons attacks in Atlanta, Paris, and Los Angeles. Antiterrorism squads in New York and London foiled the attacks there. Details are sketchy but it appears that the attacks were launched at 8:46 a.m. First responders are being deployed, air traffic is grounded, the military is on high alert, and evacuation plans for each city are in place, but this is bad.”
I looked at my phone. It was almost 9:00 a.m.
“Why 8:46 a.m.?” Angela asked. I knew the answer. I was only a kid when it happened but we’d studied it in school.
“That’s when the first plane hit the World Trade Center on 9/11,” I said.
None of us knew what to say. What we’d just managed to do, stopping an attack in Chicago, didn’t feel as satisfying anymore. No matter how many times my brain tried to tell me it could have been worse. It was bad enough.
“We’ve got to get moving,” Boone finally said. “Croc, take this timer to X-Ray. Let him look it over. Maybe he can trace the components somehow, give us a lead.” Croc took the instrument in his mouth and disappeared.
Neither Angela nor I were surprised by Croc’s disappearance, but no matter how many times you see it,
it’s still startling. I guessed now was not the time to ask questions. Boone took out his phone and looked at it. Apparently it wasn’t working either. We both checked our phones. No service.
“Okay, I can’t raise anyone. I’ve got to get to the park and find out what happened with Malak,” he said. “I need the two of you to get back to the intellimobile. Wait there until you hear from me. Your parents are at the park. Art and Marie will make sure they’re safe. I’ll tell them you’re safe. But listen. Go straight to the van. You should get there before your parents get back to the hotel. The streets are going to be chaos. I’ll tell them X-Ray is one of my roadies and you were waiting with him to be ready to evacuate at a moment’s notice. You’ll be safe with X-Ray. And as soon as I can, I’ll send Croc back to you. X-Ray has some skills besides tech and … if anything else happens … he can … he’ll know what to do. Now go. They’re evacuating the building by now. I’m sure they’re using the elevators to get as many people out as quickly as possible, but if not you’ll have to take the stairs. So just blend into the crowd and get out as fast as you can. Head for the van the minute you reach the street.”
“Boone, we got here in time, what happened?” Angela asked. “If this is the ghost cell, they’ve been shadowing us the whole time. If they’ve been focused on taking out the SOS team, why would they hit all these other places? It doesn’t make sense.”
“It’s starting to. I’m thinking this was part of the plan all along. They played us. The cell made us close in and circle our wagons, thinking our team or the city we were going to was the next target. Then they waited until we arrived in the biggest city on the tour. I think it was the plan all along. It made me look inward too closely, and it gave them the perfect opportunity to go big. I messed up. I messed up bad.”