Chapter 13
Johnson and Khalil pushed their way through the disorganized mess of civilians squeezing their way into the tunnellike corridor. Hadley eyed them doubtfully. “How many trips will we have to make? Really?”
Flynn narrowed his eyes, calculating. She had a sudden image of his red head next to Hudson’s dark brown, tutoring him with Flash Factors: Learn Fractions in a Flash!
Oh God oh God oh God please let us get out of here safe.
“Eleven, including us. Maybe twelve.”
Two down, ten to go.
The chief finished with the synagogue security guards and led them over to where she and Flynn were standing. “Knox, one more time: How do we recognize the bombs?”
“Weight. The decorative ones weigh as much as an empty coffee cup. The dangerous ones are much heavier.”
“Okay. We’re not going to try to be clever, so no putting boxes back like we talked about earlier.
Rotation order is me, Kevin, Knox, Johnson, Khalil.
Two ahead, moving boxes, three providing covering fire if necessary.
We’re going to leapfrog, so we don’t miss anything.
” The chief faced the exhibit case’s glass and drew two imaginary parallel lines.
“The IEDs go from position one to position two.” He stabbed with his fingers.
“Then from position two to position three, and so on.”
“Once we get to three IEDs at one location, we’re going to slow down.
” Khalil spread his hands apart, the width of a pair of boxes.
“We can safely carry two at a time.” He flashed a grin.
“For values of ‘safely.’ Which means the third rotation will have to leave one behind, and the fourth will leave two behind, etcetera.”
“I know. But we’ll be moving all the bombs progressively farther away from the civilians, and staying close together as a group.”
Johnson hummed her agreement. “What’s the ultimate destination?”
“The food court. It’s closed with doors and rolldowns, but the space in there is big enough to absorb half the blast if they trigger the explosives.”
Flynn rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s within eyesight of the guarded corridor. If they decided to come right out to the edge.”
The chief looked at him steadily. “That’s right.”
Flynn nodded. Beneath the chief’s invisible lines, the newspaper image of Marine Corporal Leonard Schlesinger stared out at them. “All right, then.” Flynn tapped the glass over his face. “Oorah.”
Johnson reached past him and also tapped the glass. “Oorah.” One at a time, they all touched the spot.
They had already removed the armed boxes from behind the makeshift barricade.
The chief and Flynn headed for the next pile of faux presents while Hadley and the guards fanned out.
She focused most of her attention toward the distant, almost unseen corridor where the chief had come under fire, leaving just enough to advance down the concourse along with everyone else.
Flynn put down his boxes and headed toward her, pulling out his gun and motioning for her to switch. She holstered her sidearm and jogged toward the “presents,” Johnson mirroring her on the other side of the wide hall.
Flynn had marked the safe boxes by stomping on them; simple and fast. That meant there were already three IEDs waiting for her.
She picked up two, pressing them together horizontally in the same way Khalil had demonstrated.
She didn’t know why, exactly, but at this point she trusted his instincts about homemade bombs a lot more than her own, which were screaming at her to drop the boxes and run as far and as fast as she could.
Instead, she stalked to the next display group.
She set the IEDs down gently and reached for the new boxes.
To her dismay, only one was safe, meaning they were already up to five bombs on her side.
She crushed the unarmed box and ran back to the firing line, pulling out her weapon and waving to the chief.
“How many on your side?” she asked Johnson, not taking her eyes off the distant corridor.
“Five.”
“Same here.”
The chief and Khalil each picked up one bomb, advanced to the next group, added another, and moved forward.
She tried to do the math: armed boxes and armed cops and how many piles between here and the food court, but it all blurred into a sick, thick feeling in her throat.
Better to just work the plan and not think about it.
She was glad the chief had broken the assignments up; if she had had to spend the entire time just moving boxes that could blow up and kill her instantly, she didn’t think she’d make it.
The chief jogged back toward her, and now she and Flynn were on point.
Pick up two IEDs. Move them forward. The purely decorative boxes had already been flattened.
Back to the fire line. This time, someone was running toward them from the barricade.
One of Mr. Schlesinger’s grandsons. “Chief Van Alstyne?” He skidded to a stop. “I have a message from your wife.”
The chief gestured for Johnson and Khalil to keep going. Hadley turned around into a covering fire position, but stayed close enough to the chief to listen in.
“She said she had someone time it, and it’s averaging one every five seconds. Um, and the number is seven hundred fifty.”
“How did you get this message, son?”
“Your wife told Rabbi Jess and she told me.”
“Is your granddad out?”
“Yes, sir, he just went up with my mom and my brother.”
“Good. Let the rabbi know I got the message.” The slap-slap of sneakers on the tile floor told Hadley the kid was running back. “You two hear that?”
She echoed Flynn’s yes. Khalil and Johnson were jogging toward them, gesturing for the next round of “move the box.” The chief pointed to the near wall.
“Everybody over, we’ve got new intel.” The two security guards seamlessly shifted direction, while the rest of them trotted to the spot he had indicated.
“We’ve received numbers suggesting when we can expect the militia to reach its target goal. Kevin, you’re good with math—”
“Twenty minutes, based on what he said, but that’s not counting the time it took for the message to get from the street, to the corridor, to us. So more like fifteen. Maybe less.”
The chief pressed his lips together. “You took the first group up. How much time if we start sending people up nonstop?”
“Loading, unloading, which is slower than normal because we’re moving one at a time through the curtain—”
“Can we do away with that?”
Khalil shook his head. “We’ll literally be spotlighting our people every time the elevator door opens. They won’t just be visible, it’ll draw attention from anyone on the crane.”
“So…” The chief looked back to Flynn.
“Six minutes per group.”
Flynn’s calculations hung in the air. Hadley voiced what they were all thinking. “That’s not enough time.”
“No.” The chief took a breath. “If any of you want to join the civilians in the corridor, that should provide some protection.”
No one moved.
“Okay.” He nodded. “Okay. Change of strategy. Kevin’s always gotten the top marksmanship scores in our department. Either of you two noticeably gifted in that area?”
Johnson and Khalil shook their heads.
“Then here’s what we do. Kevin, you’re going to move up close to the corridor where the gunman was.
Be ready to shoot on sight. The rest of you, shift as many of the IEDs to the food court entrance as possible.
In ten minutes, no more, drop everything and run for that corridor. No exceptions, no ‘just one more.’”
“Chief, what are you going to be doing?”
He pulled out his gun and handed it to Flynn. “I’m going to go up there and try to talk that sonofabitch on the crane out of it.”