Chapter 37
KONSTANTIN
The first bullet punches through the yellow service door beside Mikhail's shoulder.
She is already behind the concrete station. One green sleeve shows near the floor before she pulls it in.
Twelve feet away, the stalker aims his pistol toward the service door while his other hand fights the remote caught inside his coat. Between us, a bumper car drifts beneath weak sparks from the ceiling grid.
From my left, Mikhail fires once. At the same instant, a moving bumper car crosses his angle and takes the round through its lower metal shell. Behind it, the stalker recoils from the impact.
The gray remote falls free.
It lands beside his shoe without activating.
"Hands away from it," I tell him.
He turns at my voice.
Recognition makes him hesitate. He expected me to enter with too few men to overpower him and enough fear to make me careless.
Nora has put concrete between herself and his gun. The remote trigger lies on the floor. Four armed people have entered through the passage he believed belonged only to him.
His fantasy has lasted one second too long.
He fires at me.
The shot tears fabric at my left shoulder as it passes, then strikes the side of the empty blue car. I move beyond the service door as Mikhail covers the fuel line above us.
The fire specialist goes right, keeping his weapon trained on the remote.
The stalker sees the closing angles. He abandons the trigger, crossing the open floor toward Nora.
Her hand appears at the far end of the station as she crawls around the wall to keep it between them.
Across the top, he reaches and catches the gray blanket at her back. Nora twists free, leaving the wool in his fist.
"Nora." He says her name as a warning, a promise, or both.
She moves again.
The blanket drops. His pistol follows her across the wall.
Her position gives me the shot.
I fire twice.
The first round enters the center of his chest over the lower sternum. High on the left side, the second strikes inside the line of his shoulder. As his grip fails, the pistol discharges into concrete.
He falls beside the station.
The remote remains six feet away.
Mikhail kicks the pistol across the metal floor. The fire specialist photographs the remote where it landed and confirms that the red circuit appears unarmed without touching it.
I reach the stalker first.
His eyes are open without fixing on me. Blood spreads under his shirt from both wounds, darkening the cloth in widening circles. One breath leaves him. No second follows.
I check his neck, find no pulse, and know he is dead.
Anger and satisfaction disappear beneath my need to see the space behind the concrete wall where my wife is hiding.
Around us, the ride continues. An empty car strikes the rail, reverses, and begins the same useless circuit beneath colored bulbs chasing one another across the wall. From the speakers, five bright notes play before the broken sixth, preserving his fantasy for several seconds after he is dead.
Death has changed nothing in the machinery he revived.
At the control station, Mikhail kills power to the bumper-car floor. Slowly, the final car rolls to a stop as darkness takes the lights above the pavilion, leaving our weapon lamps to cut across the floor.
The specialist confirms that the red circuit remains unarmed, then seals the remote inside a padded pouch. Another operator moves toward the carousel to clear its separate controls.
No one touches the body again.
"Nora."
"I'm here."
Her voice comes from the far side of the station. It is thin, though it is hers.
I step around the body.
She has backed into the narrow gap between the concrete wall and service door. One hand covers her abdomen while the other grips a rusted pipe for balance. Beneath the colored bulbs, her soot-marked face has gone pale.
I stop outside her reach, though every instinct in me has already crossed the distance. "Are you bleeding, or did he strike you?"
She looks down at herself as though the question requires thought. "I don't think I'm bleeding. My left shoulder hit the wall, and he grabbed the blanket."
Describing the impact makes her breathing catch. The cough that follows bends her forward.
I take one step before I make myself stop again. "May I touch you?"
When she raises her head, her eyes move over my face, my coat, and the torn cloth at my shoulder. Less than an arm's length separates us, yet the space contains every reason she has to refuse.
"My arm," she says.
I close one hand around her forearm, leaving the rest of her free. Her pulse races beneath cold skin.
"Is he dead?"
"Yes."
She looks past me. The concrete blocks most of her view, though one polished shoe is visible beside the rail. "He kept saying you stole me."
"He was wrong."
"I know."
The words have no strength behind them. Her body has begun shaking in small movements that do not reach the arm under my hand.
"Grandma."
I keep my hand around Nora's forearm. "A city team is searching for her."
"The photograph was a kitchen. I didn't know it."
Behind us, Mikhail listens to the city channel. "They have the original phone trace. They are checking every property connected to the false call."
"She was alive in the picture."
I give her the only fact I can. "Yes."
I cannot promise that Grandma is still alive now. I can confirm only that she was alive when the photograph was taken.
Behind us, the specialist disconnects the remote receiver from the control box and calls out the sequence. Black buttons operate attractions, while the red one arms the incendiary circuit before a second press ignites it within five seconds. That second press never came.
Mikhail checks the stable corridors through the live feeds. Perimeter teams hold every exit. No additional movement appears inside the park.
The dead man's forces existed mostly in borrowed access, bribed people, and threats assembled to look larger than they were.
Most of the stalker's power came from access he stole or bought, but that fact cannot make Nora safe while we remain beneath a failing roof.
From the control station, an operator reports two locked rooms. One contains bottled water, clothes, fuel receipts, and a folding cot. Camera equipment fills the other, with printed photographs covering one wall, though he does not describe them over the open channel.
The police will receive the rooms as they are. Every drive will be copied. The photographs will become evidence instead of relics anyone in my family can destroy from rage.
His death ends the immediate threat while leaving every photograph behind.
"We need to move," Mikhail says.
Nora nods, though her knees soften when she releases the pipe.
I tighten my hand around her arm. "Can you walk?"
"Yes." She takes one step. Her boot catches on the fallen blanket.
I retrieve it without looking at the body beside it and then settle the wool around her shoulders. My hands remain on the edges until she takes them from me.
She studies the tear in my coat.
She asks whether I was shot.
"The bullet took the fabric. It never touched me."
She reaches halfway toward my shoulder, then stops. Her hand returns under the blanket.
Her concern belongs to this moment alone, free of any demand that she forgive me.
I have known I love her since the train, and the ruined timing is mine. I should have told her before rescue could make love sound like a debt. Keeping it from her now would be one more decision about what she is allowed to know. "I love you."
Nora becomes very still.
The organ music continues from the speakers.
"You don't owe me forgiveness," I say. "You don't owe me this marriage after you are safe. I should have told you before tonight."
Her fingers close over the blanket. Shock leaves no room in her face for an answer.
I don't ask for one. "We need to get you outside."
She nods once.
Mikhail goes first into the service passage to check the route. Nora follows with my hand at her forearm, and I remain behind her within reach, ready to catch her without forcing more contact.
At the narrow wall, she looks at the broken concrete. "You came through this with four people?"
"Yes."
Her gaze meets mine over her shoulder. She has seen the scale of my protection at the estate, on the train, and outside the clinic.
Part of me wants credit for entering with nearly none, though that wish would turn rescue into another claim against her. I let the number stand without explanation.
"The storm blocked every larger approach," I tell her.
"You still came."
"There was no choice that left you here."
She looks away before the words can become more than they are.
Across the tight section, Mikhail helps her turn sideways. When the blanket snags on rough concrete, Nora frees it herself.
Dust falls from the ceiling as wind strikes the hotel wing. A distant crash travels through the building. The roof engineer reports another buckle over the abandoned kitchens.
The passage remains open.
Halfway to the hatch, the gasoline smell thickens. The specialist checks the small branch line. Fuel beads around one fitting, likely disturbed by pressure changes when he disabled the receiver.
"No lights beyond this point," he says.
We continue in darkness with one dim lamp ahead.
Nora's breathing changes near the ladder. Each inhale becomes shorter. She stops beneath the hatch with her chin raised toward the square of white above us. "I need a minute."
"Take it." I keep my urgency out of her minute.
I wait until she tells Mikhail she is ready.
He climbs first, then lowers a safety strap. Nora refuses it with a quick shake of her head.
"I can climb." She does, one rung at a time.
Snow strikes her as soon as she emerges. Mikhail wraps a second thermal sheet around her before I reach the surface.
The exterior world has narrowed to white ground and moving lights. Perimeter operators mark a path toward the rail shed with shielded lamps. The medical team waits below the ridge, too far for a woman coughing after smoke.
The building shudders behind us.