Chapter 10
They had just gotten the crowd more or less settled and were fielding questions when they heard the first rifle shot, loudly echoing across the concourse’s bare surfaces.
Clare spun around, the screams behind her fading into the background as she focused all her attention on trying to see where Russ was.
Jess Oppenheim tugged hard on her pants. “Clare! Get. Down!”
Another shot. She clenched her hands, shaking with the need to race northward and verify her husband was whole and unhurt. Instead, she collapsed into a seated position on the floor next to Jess. He wants you here, where it’s safe. If there was anywhere safe down in this windowless tomb.
“Look at me. Clare, look at me.” The rabbi took her hand, tugged it, turning Clare around so they were face-to-face. “You and I cannot lose it, you understand? Or everyone here is going to go into a raw panic.”
A third shot. A kind of moan rose up from the dozens of men, women, and children pressed against the shining tile floor.
She watched as a mother curled around her protesting child.
Ethan. She needed to be calm, be calm and not think of what might be happening halfway up the concourse, and escape. For Ethan. She took a deep breath.
“Okay?” Jess wiped a stray lock of hair off Clare’s forehead.
“Okay.”
“Everybody, let’s sit up.” The rabbi let her voice fill the space. “Everyone hold hands. Let’s pray. ‘I lift up my eyes to the mountains: from where will my help come? My help comes from God, maker of heaven and earth.’” She looked at Clare meaningfully.
Clare nodded. “‘He will not allow your foot to slip; He who watches you will not slumber. Behold, He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.’” People’s heads were bent; she could hear a susurration as they whispered along with the words.
Jess took up the next verses. “‘God is your keeper; God is your shade upon your right hand. The sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.’”
Clare could hear footsteps behind them, but she remained facing—the congregation—forward. “‘The Lord will protect you from all evil; He will keep your soul.’”
As if they had rehearsed it, she and Jess finished together, “‘God will guard your going out and your coming in, from this time on and forever.’”
The rabbi squeezed her hand tightly and spoke in a low voice. “And there are our friends, returned safe.” Clare twisted around to see Johnson and Kevin, and oh, thank God, Russ. She and Jess stood. “What happened?” the rabbi asked.
“We can’t go north.” Russ also kept his voice low. “There’s a gunman at the back of the corridor leading to the parking garage.”
“We didn’t try it,” Johnson added, “but my guess is he’s not going to let anyone cross that line, get to any other exits.”
“Why can’t we just move the bombs as far away as possible?” The rabbi pointed toward where Russ and the guards had just come from.
“Two reasons.” Russ held up one finger. “First, if the gunman down in that corridor peeks out and sees what we’re doing, he can have the signal sent to trigger the devices.
” He held up another finger. “Second, the concourse acts like a tunnel. If a massed explosion goes off forty feet away from us, half the force will travel away from us. But the other half will be channeled straight toward us.”
“Maybe they’re not powerful enough to cause real damage?” The tone of Jess’s voice told Clare the woman didn’t really believe it even as she asked.
“The militia’s put a helluva lot of effort into trapping us here, Rabbi. I doubt they’ve left the lethality of their explosives to chance.”
Clare, looking past them, was the first to see the glass doors opening. “Little help here!” the doctor shouted. He, the paramedic, Yíxīn, and Hadley all held a corner of the tablecloth, bowed down beneath Paul Terrance’s weight and soaked through with blood.
Several men raced forward to relieve them of their burden. The doctor pointed toward one of the long folding tables, and they carefully settled the ranger on its surface. “Ladies, I need tampons and sanitary pads. Any tampons and sanitary pads, bring ’em here.”
Jess looked at Clare, eyebrows raised. “Field dressing. Almost as effective as what you’d find in a trauma pack.” She reached out and snagged Russ’s shirt before he could cross to the table. “Love, give them space. There’s nothing you can do right now.”
“I—” He paused. “I sent him up there, Clare.” His voice was husky.
“I know. And the best thing you can do right now is to figure how we’re going to get him out of here.
” Hadley walked toward them, wiping her hands on a wad of paper napkins, silver and blue turned carmine.
As she passed Kevin, he held his hand out and murmured something.
She flickered a smile at him and gave him the bloody wad.
He trotted toward one of the garbage cans.
“The doctor said it won’t be too bad if we can get him to a hospital, Chief. In and out through the side of his abdomen. He doesn’t think the round broke any bones.”
Clare winced. She had done her share of medical evacs in the war, and she knew the myriad complications that could happen to an abdominal wound. Paul didn’t just need a hospital, he needed to get there fast.
“Good.” Russ rubbed his lips. “That’s as good as we could have hoped for, I guess.” He focused more firmly on Hadley. “What’s the sitrep?”
Kevin rejoined them, and Johnson waved Khalil over. “We didn’t take any fire, but we stayed as close to the doors as we could to grab Paul. I couldn’t see anyone, but that crane that was there when we came in? The one to the side of the big menorah? It’s up now.”
“It’s what?”
“The long part, you know, that the hook hangs off of?”
“The boom,” Russ and Kevin said at the same time.
“It’s fully extended. The crane itself hasn’t moved.”
“Could you make out anyone in the operator’s cabin?” Russ made a shape with his hands.
She shook her head. “The lights in the plaza throw off too much glare.”
“Does anyone remember if the boom was a girder or lattice style?” Russ looked around. “The girder is like a solid bar, the lattice ones look like they’re made of a bunch of pipes.”
“The latter,” Clare volunteered. “Why?”
“Because if it’s a lattice crane, one or two people could climb up and be balancing at the top. It would be the ideal place for a shooter.”
Khalil, who had been listening quietly, tapped a finger into the palm of his hand. “You could cover this entrance, the whole expanse of the plaza, and some of Madison Avenue behind you.”
“Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ,” Johnson said. “We can’t even risk calling for backup down here.”
Russ folded his arms and looked toward the ceiling. After a moment, he sighed. “I hate this, but I think our only option is a frontal assault.”
“No!” Clare didn’t mean to yell, but—“Across completely unguarded ground against an unknown number of enemies who have the higher ground? The way, way higher ground? That’s not an option.”
“We have three—” He glanced at Johnson and Khalil, who both nodded. “Five officers. If we can smother them in rapid fire while one person gets in close, we might have a chance.”
“You only have three guns,” Clare protested. “And none of you are wearing body armor.”
Russ stepped out of their huddle and raised his voice. “Is there anyone here carrying a gun?”
“It’s a Hanukkah celebration!” The rabbi looked incredulous.
“It’s America.” Khalil’s voice was sardonic.
Russ took another step toward the crowd. “Those of us who are law enforcement officers are going to try to rush the people holding us here. But we need more weaponry if we’re going to have a chance.”
There was a shuffle and a stirring. One man came forward. “I do.” He reached beneath his jacket and carefully handed Russ a semiautomatic pistol.
“Ben!” someone said, shocked.
“I’ve got a concealed carry license, Joan. It’s perfectly legal.”
A woman sidled around the edge of the crowd. She opened her purse and brought out a gun. “It’s a Ruger.” She gave it to Russ. “It only has five shots, though.”
He passed it to Kevin. “You’ll be our runner. Get up close enough to be inside their defenses and take out as many as you can.”
“Okay, everyone, that’ll do it. I want—”
“Wait! Wait a damn minute!” Leonard Schlesinger elbowed his way through the crowd, helped by the fact people jumped out of his way as soon as they saw the old man.
He reached Russ’s side and stomped about-face.
He held out one trembling hand toward the rest of the congregation.
“Gimme a gun!” His voice was surprisingly strong.
“I’ve killed those damn Nazis before and I’ll kill ’em again! ”
The college-aged boys who had accompanied him hurried to reach him, identical stupefied looks on their faces.
“C’mon, you cowards!” Mr. Schlesinger jabbed the tip of his cane into the floor. “Do you want to live forever?”
“Opa!” one of the boys protested.
Russ gently turned the old man toward him, so they were face-to-face.
“Sir.” Russ straightened into parade position.
“As a fellow veteran, I thank you. But you’ve done your service.
We’ll do ours.” He saluted—contrary to military etiquette, but the gesture drew the elderly man upright for a moment before he shakily returned the honor.
“Dad!” A well-dressed woman in her fifties hurried up. “Dad, what are you doing?” She shot a look at the boys.
“It’s not our fault, Mom!”
“We tried to stop him.”
“Your father still has a lot of fighting spirit.” Rabbi Jess smiled. “I can’t blame him for wanting to help get us out of here.”
The woman looked at them as if they were all wayward children. “Haven’t any of you considered the handicap entrance?”
There was a pause.
She shook her head. “Of course not. No one thinks of the handicap entrance. And it’s not well marked, either, more shame to the architects.
Dad, stay here with the boys.” She shooed her way through the crowd, Clare and Russ and their crew trailing in her wake.
“Here.” What had looked like another alcove flanking the stairways running up to the street and down to the museum was revealed as a narrow corridor.
“You walk all the way down until you reach the elevator. It takes you up to Madison Avenue on the other side of the plaza.”
“It opens onto the plaza?” Russ, for the first time since they had arrived here, sounded hopeful.
“No, you walk out on the sidewalk. Let me draw you a map, it’s easier than trying to explain it.”
They followed her to one of the folding tables. She rummaged through her purse and pulled out a Sharpie, and began sketching right on the tablecloth. Russ bent over to follow along.
“See? Here.” She pointed. “And here.”
He straightened. Turned to Clare. His eyes were alight. “If we’re quiet and careful?” He actually smiled. “We can get these people out of here.”