“Well, I . . . I don't know. I suppose . . .”
Tobey looked around and said, “I'm not going to order anybody to come with me. This is strictly a volunteer effort. But if we're successful, we might be able to whittle down the number of those terrorists until they won't be able to control the prisoners anymore. If everybody rises up against them, they won't stand a chance.”
One of the men asked, “What if they're all wearing bombs? What you're talking about, mister, is a suicide mission.”
“There's only so many of us they can kill,” Tobey said, his face and voice grim. “We're talking about saving the lives of hundreds of hostages.”
“I'll go,” another man said. He was older, probably in his sixties, and on the small side, but there was a look of rawhide toughness about him. “I was an MP, a long time ago. I know about dealing with troublemakers.”
Tobey nodded and said, “All right. Sounds good to me.”
“Count me in,” a second man said. “I'm a high school football coach.”
Tobey nodded, then looked at Lockhart.
“How about it, Charles?” he asked. “Are you the third man?”
“You haven't explained exactly what we're going to do,” Lockhart said.
Herb Dupont, the store manager, pointed to a small door in the wall across from the entrance to the employee break room and restroom. The door didn't have a knob on it, just a place for a key.
“That leads into the maintenance access corridors,” he said. “They connect up and form a network that runs all the way around the mall.”
Tobey said, “We're going to use those corridors to get to where the terrorists don't expect us to be. We're going to kill as many of them as we can, duck back out of sight, and then go somewhere else and do it again, as many times as we can.”
“And you honestly think this is something I'd be good at?” Lockhart asked.
“Heroes are made, not born,” Tobey said with a smile. “And you might have a better shooting eye with that bow than you think you do. We're liable to need to kill quietly, without drawing a lot of attention. An arrow can do that.”
“You don't think we could take some of them prisoner and negotiate with them?”
Tobey shook his head and said, “Fanatics like these don't negotiate, Charles. They may pretend to, when it suits their aims, but really, all they want to do is kill us. All of us.”
Lockhart thought about the way the terrorists had blown up the escalators in the center of the mall, killing hundreds of people already, and how they had mowed down more innocent shoppers with those machine pistols. Tobey was right, he realized. It was kill or be killed.
“I still think you're making a mistake,” he said, “but I'll come with you.”
Tobey nodded and said, “Good. We'll be leaving in a few minutes.”
While Tobey was talking to some of the other men, one of the members of the “commando squad” he had brought with him from the front of the store came over and said, “You're Mr. Lockhart, aren't you?”
This was the young man he'd seen earlier who looked vaguely familiar, Lockhart realized. He said, “That's right. Do we know each other?”
“I was in your English class a few years ago,” the young man said. “Aaron Ellis.”
“Mr. Ellis,” Lockhart said as the memory came back. He frowned. “As I recall, you weren't much of a student. No offense.”
“None taken. You're right. Hard to make much sense of all that symbolism and grammar crap when you're high.”
“I always suspected as much.”
“But I'm clean. Right now, anyway,” Aaron went on. “It looks like we're both gonna be in class again.”
Lockhart frowned and shook his head, saying, “I don't understand.”
“Asshole Killing One-O-One.” Aaron pointed at Tobey. “And there's the teacher.”
Chapter 29
W
hen Tobey had come to him and asked him to be part of what might turn out to be a harebrained scheme, Aaron's first impulse had been to say no. Not just no, but hell no. He wasn't going to abandon his sister. He planned to stay right there and keep fighting to protect her.
But the longer the standoff continued, the more danger Jennie was in, Aaron realized. Those Muslim crazies might get tired of fighting and just blow the place up. That was the kind of thing they did.
If there was even a chance that Tobey's idea could bring this mess to an end without everybody in the mall dying, maybe they ought to give it a try, Aaron decided.
He had given his answer to Tobey, then added, “But whoever takes my place here better be willin' to give it everything he's got to protect those folks back there. He'd better be ready to fight to the death.”
“I think we all are,” Tobey had said. “We don't have any choice.”
Tobey had called some guys up front to replace the men he was taking with him, then they had gone into the back room to recruit the others. While Tobey was talking to the tall, skinny guy with the bow and arrows, Aaron had finally remembered where he'd seen him before. He might have recalled who Mr. Lockhart was before now if he'd paid more attention during his various short stints in school.
Now, after talking to the teacherâwho seemed like a really odd choice to take along on a dangerous mission like this, Aaron thought, but hey, he wasn't in chargeâhe went over to Jennie and Holly.
Jennie threw her arms around his neck, hugged him hard, and asked, “Are you all right? You weren't hurt in all that shooting?”
“I'm fine except where that son of a bitch cut me earlier,” Aaron assured her. His left arm had makeshift bandages tied tightly around the slashes. “And he got what was comin' to him, didn't he?”
Holly said, “That big guy can really shoot.” Her voice held a note of hero worship and maybe something else.
“Yeah, he's good at it,” Aaron said, suppressing the urge to point out that
he
had shot some of the terrorists, too. He told himself it didn't matter what some little high school girl thought of him.
“What are you going to do now?” Jennie asked. “Something's up, isn't it?”
“Yeah. Me and Tobey and some of the other guys are gonna see if we can sneak around and kill us some terrorists.”
Jennie's eyes widened with surprise and worry. She said, “That sounds dangerous.”
“Yeah, it will be, I guess.”
Holly asked, “How are you going to sneak around?”
Tobey had already explained all that to the group, but Aaron went over it again with his sister and her friend. Holly was kind of cute, though, he had to admit, if only to himself.
“We'll probably be safer than you guys here, when it comes right down to it,” he concluded. “We'll be out of sight most of the time.”
Jennie squeezed his arm and said, “Be careful.”
“As much as I can,” he promised. He was glad she hadn't tried to talk him out of it. It wouldn't have taken much to sway his resolve.
Tobey came over, nodded to Aaron, and said, “Let's go.”
“Yeah, just gimme a second.” He hugged Jennie again and then went to hug Holly, but she was gazing at Tobey with a dumb expression on her face. The big guy was ignoring her, of course. He had more important things on his mind right now.
“Hey,” Aaron said to Holly. “I'm goin' off to fight here.”
“Oh, yeah, sure.” She put her arms around him, and her hug had some enthusiasm to it that made him feel kind of good, the way her trim little body was pressed against his, whether she meant anything by it or not. “Take care of yourself.”
“I will,” Aaron said. “And I'll be back for you girls.”
“We'll be here,” Jennie said, smiling. Aaron could tell she was trying to sound brave. She succeeded . . . sort of.
Then Dupont, the guy who ran the sporting goods store, opened the narrow door in the wall with a key he took from his pocket and led the six-man group into a cinder-block corridor barely wide enough for one man at a time to get past the bundles of wiring.
The tunnel-like passage was lit by an occasional small, bare bulb, and when the door was closed behind them, it was gloomy enough in here that Aaron felt a little claustrophobic, like the walls were trying to close in on him.
Tobey was second in line behind Dupont, then Mr. Lockhart, then Aaron and the other two guys. It didn't add up to much of an army, Aaron thought.
But if anybody was going to save the day, looked like it would have to be them.
* * *
“Just how much time have you spent back here, Herb?” Tobey asked Dupont as they moved along the corridor.
“Not that much,” the manager of the sporting goods store replied. “I've had to check that breaker box we just passed a time or two, and last summer one of the air-conditioning guys called me back here and tried to explain to me why the AC wasn't working that day, but that's it.”
“So you don't really know where all the corridors lead or how they link up.”
Dupont shook his head and said, “No, I'm afraid not. You really need one of the mall maintenance guys, but there weren't any of them in the store when the trouble started.”
“Well, you were able to show us how to get back here,” Tobey said. “I guess we'll just have to figure out the rest of it for ourselves.”
Dupont carried two Glock 9mm semi-automatic pistols. Tobey had his Shield tucked in his jacket pocket as a backup gun, but his primary weapon at the moment was the Steyr machine pistol. Two of the Colt 1911s he had been looking at earlierâthat seemed like hours ago, if not daysâwere fully loaded and stuck in the waistband of his jeans.
Charles Lockhart had refused a gun, insisting that he would probably pose more of a danger to his allies than their enemies if he was armed with one.
Aaron Ellis still carried the Browning Hi-Power that belonged to Pete McCracken, and he also had a Taurus Judge, generally regarded as an inferior weapon, but Tobey thought its ability to fire shotgun rounds might come in handy. Each of the other men carried a pair of semi-automatic pistols of various makes and calibers, and all the members of the team had their pockets stuffed full of extra ammunition.
They couldn't match the firepower of the terrorists, but they could put up a damned good fight, Tobey thought. And if things worked out as he hoped, they might be able to get their hands on more of the Steyrs.
To do that, they'd probably have to pry the machine pistols from the cold, dead fingers of the terrorists, a prospect that didn't bother Tobey one little bit.
They passed another of the narrow doors. Tobey figured it opened into the business next to the sporting goods store. There was no point in going out there; they needed to get farther away. Somewhere close to one of the entrances, so that when they popped out and wasted any terrorists who were nearby, the hostages in that part of the mall could flee safely. The more of them who were able to get out, the better.
After passing two more doors, the group approached a bend in the cramped passage. It made a ninety-degree turn to the left, and there was no way of seeing what was around that corner until they got to it.
Tobey tapped Dupont on the shoulder, then signaled for everyone to stop. He listened intently but didn't hear any movement on the other side of the turn. Motioning the store manager closer, he asked in a whisper, “What's around this corner in the mall?”
“I . . . I don't know. It's hard to visualize this stuff in my head. I'm kind of turned around.”
“Stop for a second and think about it,” Tobey told him. “You've probably walked around the mall a lot.”
“Yeah, sure . . . We're close to the center, you know, where the big bank of escalators are.”
“Where they were,” Tobey said. “Those bastards blew them up.”
“Yeah. I know.” Dupont swallowed hard and looked a little sick. “All those people . . .”
“Don't let yourself think about it,” Tobey said. “Just concentrate on the job at hand.”
“Yeah. All right. When we make this turn, we'll be behind a candle store, then there's a place that does jewelry repair, then a toy store that's next to one of the department store anchors.”
Tobey nodded. The mention of jewelry made him think of the ring in his pocket, and that made him think about Ashley, and the fear for her that lurked inside him tried to well up. He pushed it down stubbornly and followed his own advice to Dupont, focusing his attention on the task ahead of them.
“The department store has exits to the parking lot, right?”
“Two of them.”
“If there are any hostages still in there, they'll be able to get out if we kill their guards. That's where we'll start.” Tobey motioned for Dupont to crowd against the wall. “Scoot over and let me past. I'll take the lead now.”
“Sure.”
It was an uncomfortably tight fit, but Tobey managed to wedge himself past Dupont. He put his back to the wall and eased along it toward the corner, listening intently again. He paused as he heard something he thought might be breathing.
The sound didn't come again as Tobey waited for several long moments. He held the Steyr in his left hand and drew the Shield. He didn't want to fire a burst from the machine pistol, because the terrorists might hear that and realize someone was back here in this labyrinth behind the stores. Firing the Shield would be bad enough, but there was at least a chance that a shot or two from it would go unnoticed.
He drew a deep breath, held the Shield in front of him, and wheeled sharply around the corner.
A huge shape loomed up in the shadows, moving toward him, and his finger tightened on the pistol's trigger.
“Don't shoot!” a man's voice pleaded. “For God's sake, please don't kill me!”
Tobey released the pressure on the Shield's trigger at the last possible instant and took an involuntary step back. His eyes widened in surprise as he said, “Santa?”
* * *
Even in the gloom of the passage, the fat man's suit was bright red. The white, fake fur trim stood out in sharp contrast to the rest of the outfit, as did the gold buttons on the coat and the black belt and boots. The beard that hung down over his chest was just as snowy as the trim on the coat.
“Holy crap!” Santa blurted out. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
From behind Tobey, Herb Dupont asked, “Is that you, George?”
“Herb? Herb Dupont? Oh, hell, I'm so glad to see you, man!”
Tobey looked over his shoulder at Dupont, quirked an eyebrow, and said, “I take it you two know each other?”
“That's George Hendricks, one of the mall Santas,” Dupont said. “He's been working here for, what, three or four years now?”
“Four,” Santaâor George Hendricksâsaid.
“What in the world are you doing back here?”
Hendricks took off the red cap and ran his fingers through the thatch of white hair on his head. He said, “I was taking a break . . . you know, tending to the reindeer . . . when all hell broke loose. Stuff was blowing up and people were shooting . . . I didn't want to go back out into that, so I stayed in the men's room where I was. But then I started worrying that whoever was causing all the trouble might come looking for other people . . . you know, to make sure they hadn't overlooked anybody . . . so I found one of those access doors in the bathroom, got it open, and came back here to hide.”
“You have to have a special key to open one of those doors from the outside,” Dupont said with a frown.
“Hey, Santa can fit down a chimney, right . . .” Hendricks spread his hands. “What can I say, I picked the lock. I haven't always played Santa, you know. Sometimes I didn't exactly
leave
presents . . .”
Tobey said, “Never mind. You're back here, and you're safe for right now.”
“Yeah. Whew. When you came around that corner and I saw that gun, I thought I was a goner for sure. What the hell are you guys doin', anyway? What's going on here?”
“Terrorists have taken over the mall.”
“No kidding? Damn! When you say terrorists, you mean ... ?”
“The Islamic kind,” Tobey said.
Hendricks winced and said, “The kind who kill everybody and blow themselves up, right?”
“We're not going to let it come to that. We're going to see if we can't whittle them down to size and help the hostages to escape.”
“Like in a movie!”
Dupont said, “You should come with us, George.”
Hendricks put his red cap back on, frowned in apparent thought, and then said, “Santa's coming to town to deliver presents and kick ass . . . and he's all out of presents.”
Tobey gritted his teeth for a second to hold back an angry response, then said, “Come with us or not. One of our guys can let you have a gun. But one way or another we've got to get moving again.”
“Much as I might like to, son, I'm not really the terrorist-fighting type. I think I'll just scuttle along . . .”
Dupont said, “The fourth door on your left as you go along this corridor opens into the sporting goods store, George. Some people are forted up there. You can go help them, if you want. You ought to be about as safe there as anywhere.”
“I don't know, I kind of like it back here, just me and the rats.”
“There are rats back here?” Aaron asked, sounding nervous.
“Yeah, but they won't bother you. They're probably more scared of you than you are of them.”