Father of Fear (30 page)

Marcus didn’t slow down as he hit the ramp leading up from the garage and burst through the mechanical arm blocking his way to the street. Officers inside the small security booth ran out but could do little to stop him. Ackerman followed close behind his bumper in their grandfather’s borrowed truck.

On the drive from the hospital, Marcus had seen a large vacant lot a few blocks away. His plan was simple. Get the bomb to a place where it hopefully wouldn’t hurt anyone. The problem was that, if his father had come to the same conclusions as the SWAT team’s bomb expert, then there were two other trucks loaded with explosives that could also go off at any moment.

He pressed the gas pedal all the way to the floor as he called Maggie and yelled out his plan. She screamed back something about him being out of his mind, but his attention was on the road as he swerved in and out of traffic.

The turn into the lot was blocked off with a chain-link fence, but he simply closed his eyes and slammed into the obstruction at full speed. It buckled and clanged off the front of the van, metal scraping and glass cracking.

The van bounced and jostled over the weeds and uneven terrain of the lot. He aimed for the center of the open space and skidded to a halt.

Marcus was about to step out and go back with Ackerman in the truck to retrieve the next explosive-filled vehicle when he heard a whirring and pumping sound emanating from the machinery in the back of the van.

His eyes went wide, and his aching and malnourished muscles nearly froze up.

Ackerman pulled the truck up beside the van’s driver door, and Marcus didn’t even bother to get into the cab with his brother. He simply vaulted over the side and into the truck bed, pounding on the rear glass and screaming, “Drive!”

The truck peeled away, and Marcus quickly dialed Maggie. As soon as the call connected, he yelled, “Get out of there now!”

The words had barely left his mouth when the van exploded into a brilliant ball of flame. The heat wave rushed over his body, licking at his exposed skin and scorching his hair. The pressure pounded inside his skull, and flaming debris struck the sides of the truck. The air was like hellfire, filled with the smells of a million molecules of different substances combusting at once.

Ackerman kept the truck barreling forward until Marcus felt the intensity of the heat recede. His relief at being alive was short-lived as he realized that the two other bombs had just gone off directly beneath Maggie’s feet.

When Marcus’s first phone call came in, Maggie wasted no time. She told the SWAT team leader who had been assisting them that the threat was very real and that they needed to evacuate immediately. He relayed the order over his radio. Then Maggie joined the rushing throng of police officers as they tried to escape the danger zone.

She was almost back to the entrance of the garage when Marcus called back a second time. She only needed to hear the tone of his voice to know what was coming next.

She tried to brace herself for the blast. She widened her stance as if she were standing on a boat and preparing for the rise and fall of an incoming wave.

Her efforts were pointless. When the bombs detonated, the ground jumped three feet toward the sky and then suddenly collapsed. It was as if she had been bounced up on a trampoline and then the trampoline had disappeared out from beneath her.

She slammed back down to the ground, which had dropped several feet. She couldn’t breathe and confusion set in.

A cloud of concrete dust and dirt filled the air. Maggie heard screaming. She pulled herself to her feet. She heard men shouting orders but couldn’t see through the fog of debris. It stung her eyes and burned her nostrils.

Moving in the direction she thought she had been going before, which was away from the blast, her shins knocked against a broken ledge of concrete, and she stumbled over another busted slab and landed on a sidewalk.

She ran out into the street and looked back toward the chaos. The haze wasn’t as thick as it was inside, but she could still only see vague shadows in the fog. Geysers of water shot skyward in steady streams from broken pipes. The smell of sewage and burning metal hung in the air. The mobile command center and the sections closest to Kaufman Center had slid toward the collapsed center of the garage and disappeared, but it didn’t seem as though the entire structure had fallen. Only certain sections had crumbled. Maybe the van that Marcus had removed had kept the chained explosions from having the intended effect or perhaps the structure had been built more sturdily than Thomas White had anticipated. Either way, the damage could have been much worse.

As Maggie looked around, she saw that the evacuation order had come just in time because a large number of officers were now stumbling out into the street, their black tactical gear covered in dust. She wanted to believe that every member of the KCPD was safe and accounted for but she knew there must have been some officers who wouldn’t have been able to make it to safety in time. Still, the damage was nothing compared with what it could have been if they’d had no advance warning.

Then she realized that Marcus too must have been close to a blast of his own. She dialed the number of his cell phone and thankfully heard his voice a second later. “Thank God,” he said. “I thought…”

“Me too.”

“We’re on our way back to you. What’s happening there?”

“Chaos.” A thought struck her, and she said, “Your father will use the confusion to escape. This isn’t just an attack. It’s his exit strategy.”

Maggie scanned the faces of the SWAT team members nearby and spotted the man who had been helping them. “I’ve got to go, Marcus,” she said and disconnected the call.

Then she ran over to the team leader, grabbed him by his tactical vest, and said, “We need to take the building now! We need to get those kids to safety.”

The large dark-haired man looked around at the destruction and death surrounding them and then down at her. He gave a curt nod and started shouting orders to his men nearby who were trying to get their bearings.

Thomas White watched the ground heave and collapse. He felt the tremors shake the floor of the balcony and heard the glass front of the building protesting against the shock wave. The building’s alarm systems began to sound. He steadied himself against the white metal railing and let out a shout of victory.

But as the smoke cleared, he noticed from his raised vantage point that the damage wasn’t nearly as significant as he had predicted. That was a disappointment, for sure, but there was little he could do about it now, and the event would still make the significant statement he had hoped for.

He slammed a fist against the railing but quickly quelled his anger and headed back into the auditorium. Inside, the students were still in their seats, but most of them were crying now. That brought a smile to his face. They’d probably thought that the end had come when they felt the tremors from the explosions. He imagined they were probably overjoyed at being alive at that moment.

Crossing the stage, he joined his apprentice, who was still playing the role of the silent and dutiful sentry. He had one last job for his loyal robot. It would cover his escape by making sure that all additional focus would remain solely on this auditorium and not on his exit.

He leaned down to its ear and said, “Count to two hundred and then shoot as many of them as you can.”

He imagined that, with a little luck, it could eliminate at least half of the hostages using the submachine guns. In a quick moment of self-analysis, he tried to determine if he felt anything at ordering the deaths of a group so young and innocent. Even a twinge of regret or guilt. He looked out at their terrified faces. And felt nothing but satisfaction.

Thomas White squeezed his apprentice’s shoulder, the only gesture of affection that he had ever showed the thing. It had done well, and a part of him had grown attached to it. The same way that a person gave their car a name and achieved a level of familiarity and comfort with the vehicle. He could always go to the dealership and pick up another “car,” but this one had served faithfully, and he hated to go to the trouble of acclimating himself to a newer model. But its face was known now, which meant that it had outlived its usefulness.

As he headed away from Helzberg Hall and down a service corridor leading to the front of the building, he peeled away his suit to reveal the black KCPD SWAT tactical gear beneath. From a pocket, he retrieved a black balaclava and slipped it over his face.

He only wished he could have been able to watch the moment when his apprentice opened fire. The hostages’ screams would crescendo and echo throughout the grand auditorium, making beautiful music, the final notes of his very own symphony.

Ackerman stopped the truck a block from their destination. Visibility was too low for them to continue in the vehicle. He and Marcus ran the rest of the way. Marcus was moving slowly and seemed extremely out of breath. Ackerman knew that his brother’s body hadn’t even begun to recover from the abuse of the past few months and now he was putting himself through the wringer again.

He put a hand on Marcus’s shoulder and said, “Hold up. Let’s think this through.”

Marcus didn’t have enough breath left to protest. He bent over with his hands on his knees and looked like he was ready to collapse. Ackerman knew it was a testament to his sibling’s determination that he had been able to keep up the pace this long.

“If you were Father, how would you get out of this mess?” Ackerman asked.

Marcus, still gasping for air, replied, “I’d disguise myself as one of the SWAT team and just walk out.”

Ackerman nodded. “Right, but you couldn’t go out the back or sides. The officers there would, hopefully, remain at their posts even after the explosion.”

“Okay, so he’d go right out the front,” Marcus said. “Through the rubble, maybe along the outer edge, hidden by all this dust. Then he’d just slip down a side street and disappear. Probably has a car and a change of clothes waiting. By the time anyone realizes he’s not still in the building, he’s long gone.”

“And your son will disappear with him.”

Marcus pulled himself back up to his full height, a new determination in his eyes. “So let’s find him before that happens.”

The pair waded into the confusion, trying to spot anyone who was out of place or not trying to regroup with the others. Most of the officers were recovering quickly, either trying to maintain the perimeter and mount a counterattack or helping with the wounded.

Ackerman coughed on the dust still heavy in the air and shoved his way through the crowds. Other medical personnel and uniformed officers who had been stationed nearby had joined the fray in order to help, which made his and Marcus’s job more difficult.

They had almost reached the next cross street when he spotted someone out of place. At first, he couldn’t quite pinpoint what was different about this man. He wore the same tactical gear, and his face was covered. Ackerman had to smile when he realized what had caught his eye. This man’s uniform was too clean. It was still dusty, but nothing compared with that of the officers who had been near the epicenter of the blast. This man had been inside the building when the explosion struck, so his uniform was still a dull shade of black. It gave Ackerman a small measure of satisfaction knowing that his father hadn’t considered every detail. The old man was still fallible.

Maggie had her Glock drawn and ready as she and the KCPD tactical response team broke through the front doors of Kaufman Center. The once-beautiful glass facade of the building now looked like it had been hit by a sandstorm, but Maggie knew it was a credit to the designers that the building’s massive glass-and-cable structure had withstood such trauma. The shock wave from the explosions had set off every alarm system within a mile, and so they didn’t need to worry about the building’s own security system working against them. They swept the lobby first and then converged on Helzberg Hall.

Snipers moved to the second floor in order to slip onto the balconies and hopefully get a clean shot. Maggie and the others gave them a moment to get in position and then entered the lower level.

There was no sign of Thomas White, but Alanna Lewis stood in the center of the stage, aiming two powerful machine pistols at the crowd. She didn’t even seem to acknowledge the arrival of the tactical response team, as if attacking them or defending herself wasn’t part of her mission parameters and was therefore to be ignored.

“Put it down!”

“On the ground, now!”

The SWAT officers screamed at Lewis, but the woman didn’t respond or move. Maggie could see Alanna’s lips moving as if she were whispering something to herself in her head, but it was in a steady rhythm as though she was counting down the seconds. Like a time bomb.

The response team moved closer, but Maggie held up a hand to stop them and pulled herself onto the stage.

“Alanna,” Maggie said to the stone-faced woman, remembering the details of the file she had read. “Your name is Alanna Lewis.” She saw Alanna twitch at the mention of her name. “Your parents are Bob and Ella. You grew up in Springfield, Missouri. You worked with animals. You were a veterinarian.” She saw Alanna’s aim lower just slightly, and the silent movement of her lips halted. “You have a younger brother named Eli. You’re a good person. You don’t have to do this. You’re not his slave. You have a choice. He can’t hurt you anymore. We’re here to protect you from him.”

Maggie closed within arm’s length of Alanna, and then she reached out slowly and pushed the other woman’s arms down. Alanna turned to Maggie and looked deep into her eyes. Maggie saw no malice there. Alanna cocked her head like a curious child and asked, “Am I alive? Is this real?”