Hostage (31 page)

Todd turned, made his way past the stack of daily newspapers—all of which, he saw with a casual glance, featured the Clariton story in massive headlines—and left the newsroom. Anyone would have thought Todd, rather than cutting through the chaotic newsroom, was going around the back way to the conference room. He stopped in the hall, swigged his coffee, and glanced up and down the corridor. No one, not a soul. Wasting not an instant, he spun and darted for the parking-lot doors.

There was no way in hell he was going to be able to explain Rawlins, their relationship, AIDS, meeting one of Clariton’s abductors way back when—at least not quickly, because, of course, Todd didn’t understand it himself. And there was no way in hell he had any time to waste answering questions for the FBI. No, the President of the United States and every law-enforcement branch in the country might have one and only one priority, but Clariton most definitely wasn’t Todd’s. He had only one: Rawlins.

Dashing outside, Todd chucked his coffee, mug and all, into some juniper bushes, and raced down the low steps, across the lot, and to the Channel 10 Ford Explorer he’d been loaned. He jumped in, brought the engine to a quick start, and slammed down on the gas, the tires screeching as he roared out of the lot. Turning right onto the street, he glanced back at the building. Nope. No one racing out the door, no one leaping into a car after him. And though it seemed Todd had gotten away completely unnoticed, he didn’t slow, speeding down the road and distancing himself from Channel 10 as quickly and cleanly as possible. If he was correct in his assumption that it was the FBI who’d followed him to Rawlins’s apartment last night, he had every reason to believe they would tail him again now.

As he drove along he kept a steady eye on his mirrors. There was a blue van, a couple of sedans, a motorcycle. He couldn’t discern if any of them was the vehicle from yesterday, however. Not on a busy two-lane road like this. Up ahead he saw the gate of a fancy subdivision and he purposely turned on his blinker. Braking, he turned to the left and steered along a gently sloping street lined with what looked like expensive three-car garages with attached houses. He glanced back, but as far as he could tell no one had turned after him. Just to make sure, he turned right at the next street, left at the one after that. Then he slammed on the brakes and turned completely around. Speeding up, he retraced his route, but the subdivision was dead. The street was void of any life, pedestrian and vehicular. As perplexed as much as he was relieved, Todd slowed to a stop and then just sat there. Surprised by his good fortune, he turned around yet again and continued all the way through the winding streets of the subdivision to the gate on the opposite side. He checked his mirrors once again, still could discern no one, and turned onto a busy road. It didn’t make any sense, he thought as he headed for the city, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to argue.

So how was he going to do this? How was he going to find Rawlins? No, he couldn’t do it by himself, that much he knew, just as he knew he couldn’t tell the FBI and police what he suspected without endangering Rawlins.

Okay, okay. Think.

He came to a convenience store, pulled in, and went inside, bought a small bottle of cranberry juice. With a fresh quarter in hand, he came out and went over to a pay phone attached to the brick wall. Todd took a number from his wallet and dialed.

A deep voice answered midway through the first ring. “Hello?”

“It’s me, Todd Mills. I think I know where they are.” Okay, here was the test question. “Will you help me?”

Lyle Cunningham audibly inhaled, then exhaled. “Perhaps.”

“It’s very complicated, so I don’t want the police involved or the FBI, at least not yet.”

“After a hot story, are you?”

“Hardly. Things have just turned a bit personal. So are you in or not?”

There was a long pause. “Sure.”

“Okay, meet me at Lake and Hennepin. I’ll be at the corner entrance to Calhoun Square.” Todd glanced at his watch. “Pick me up in fifteen minutes.”

Todd hung up the receiver, opened the bottle of juice, and slammed it down. Then he hopped back in the Explorer and took off, afraid of what lay just ahead.

Lyle Cunningham sat for
a long time at his kitchen table and tried to decide just how he should handle this. He reached for the phone, started to drag it across the Formica surface, then stopped. He envisioned his mother in that hospital bed, wasting away. He recalled holding a paper cup full of scrambled eggs and remembered how hard it had been just to get her to take a bite. He pictured her listless face, her fading memory, and the blood that sporadically dribbled from her nose. The stench. Nothing he’d seen in the Marines had prepared him for his mother’s death from AIDS.

Yet despite his ambivalence toward Clariton and everything he represented, he had no choice but to call this one in. He pulled the phone closer, dialed the number.

And when a deep-voiced man answered on the other end, Lyle said, “It’s me, Cunningham.”

“What’s up?”

“Mills just called.”

Lyle’s boss chuckled. “See, I told you. I knew he was part of this. I knew there was no way Mills wasn’t involved.”

“Perhaps,” replied Lyle.

“So what did he say?”

“He wants me to meet him.”

“Excellent. When?”

“Fifteen minutes.” Lyle asked, “So what do you want me to do?”

“What do I want you to do? I want you to meet Mills and attach yourself to him, that’s what. I mean, I don’t want him to move more than two steps away from you. Got it?”

“Yes.”

“Mills obviously knows something we don’t, and with any luck this will be the break we’ve been looking for. So don’t lose him. Let me remind you, your ass is grass if you blow it.”

“Don’t worry,” said Lyle with a sigh, “I know what to do.”

“That’s what you said before,” replied the man, slamming down the phone.

Lyle hung up and then came to his feet. He’d be more than glad when this one was over, he thought as he left his small kitchen. Entering the dining room, he found Koshka, his sinewy black cat, lying right in the middle of the table, bathing in a pool of morning light.

“Hello, kitty,” he said, running one hand over the length of her spine.

His hand passed from his pet to his gun and shoulder holster, which were also coiled on the table. He took out the gun, flipped open the barrel to check that, yes, it was fully loaded, then settled the weapon back in the holster.

Okay, he had no choice. No getting out of this one. And not much time, he realized, glancing at his watch.

He slipped the holster and gun over his left shoulder, grabbed his leather coat from the back of one of the dining room chairs, then started for the front door. From a small entry table he snatched his keys and also a small beeperlike device, which he clipped inside his shirt pocket. He was about to flick it on, but then he thought, nope, not yet.

Shit, thought Lyle, heading out the door. One way or another he hoped to be done with this one by the end of the day, if not a whole hell of a lot sooner.

As he sped into
the city Todd felt his stomach shrinking into a tight, painful mass. Clariton at the Megamall? Rawlins there too? Todd envisioned that enormous concrete box of a place that except for the flags resembled the nearby airplane hangars. He saw the endless rows of shops, the quite amazing central space that could have held a couple of 747s but instead housed an amusement park. And then he recalled the underground levels he’d toured and filmed. Was that where they were hiding, in the sub-basement destined for the Journey to the Center of the Earth?

Todd ran his right hand through his hair. This was too unbelievable. Reaching the Uptown area, Todd headed up Lake Street, passing Caf? Wyrd, Lunds grocery store, and finally crossing Hennepin Avenue. A block later he turned right and pulled into the parking ramp behind Calhoun Square, where he steered into a ground-level space and left the Ford Explorer. He then dashed out of the ramp, across the alley, and into the mall—dubbed Updale by some—carved into a block of old buildings. Clariton had been signing books here just yesterday, Todd noted, although it seemed like weeks ago. He’d been out here in the middle of the two-story courtyard, holding court like a prince, completely unaware of what would soon befall him.

Todd glanced to his left, saw the bookstore just opening up, then cut right, hurrying past the fountains to the entrance on the corner of Lake and Hennepin. Checking his watch, he realized that Lyle should be here just about now. He stepped outside, went right up to the curb, and looked down Lake, then searched up and down Hennepin, but saw no sign of the black pickup. This was the place though. Todd couldn’t have been more specific. He checked his watch again. Lyle wouldn’t back out, would he? No, he doubted it.

Someone crossing the street glanced at him. Another person walking down the sidewalk raised his eyes and studied Todd. Someone driving by did a double take. Shit, realized Todd, sinking back against a column. They were all recognizing him. For a good while now he’d been well-known in the Twin Cities—occasionally a head would turn his way—but nothing like this. These people weren’t just noticing him. Not even staring. No, they were gaping.

“Hey,” muttered someone in a passing group, “that’s that guy who’s been on the news—you know, because of Clariton. They almost got him too, didn’t they? What’s his name, Tom… or Rod… or…”

So they’d seen the local and national news. Possibly CNN on perpetual repeat. Whatever, but Todd didn’t want the attention, particularly now. He scratched his forehead with his left hand, tried to shield his face. But the fame he’d sought for so long and that was now his was not something with a switch. It couldn’t be turned on and off at his discretion, he thought just as someone came up to him, a guy with a big gut and a big smile.

“Wow, we’ve been watching you on TV,” said the guy, loaded with questions. “Pretty intense, huh? Pretty amazing? You were right there—were you scared? Do you think they’re going to give Clariton AIDS?”

Todd was at a total loss. “Well, I don’t—”

A second and a third person stopped, as the first man continued, “So what do you think’s going to happen?”

“I really don’t know.”

An older woman carrying a Lunds bag stopped and gasped. “Say now, you’re the fella that’s been on my TV, now, aren’t ya? And you know what, you’re even better-looking in person.”

The voice of Stella, his agent, echoed in his ears like a righteous mother, a shrill nun, and a football coach all rolled into one: “Todd, you gotta remember that every one of your viewers isn’t a potential couch potato, they’re a potential customer.
Your
customer, doll. You forget that and it takes only seconds to go from a nice hunky beefcake to a piece of dead meat. Nothing spreads faster than gossip, bad gossip, and people just love to torch a celebrity. Trust me, doll, I’ve seen it done thousands of times. It can take you years to claw your way to the top of the pile and about two seconds to fall off. Be careful, this is a nasty business.”

The woman put down her grocery bag, pushed up her glasses with her left index finger, and said, “You wouldn’t want to give me your autograph, now, would ya?”

“Yeah, can I have one too?” said the heavy guy.

But Todd didn’t have it in him to be charming, let alone polite. While all that these people saw was a television personality—and probably an encounter to brag about to their friends—all that Todd saw was the chaos now butchering his life. He just didn’t know what to say, and he was about to duck out, to say something crude and probably profane, when all of a sudden he saw the black truck racing through a yellow light.

“I can’t talk now.” As he started to push himself away, Stella’s voice echoed, and he added, “Something big’s going on regarding the case.”

“Oh, you’re working? Are you filming something?” asked the man, eagerly looking around. “Where are the cameras?”

“How exciting!” said the woman, her tiny wrinkled eyes opening wide as if she were seeing Superman. “Go get ’em!”

Todd tore away, pushing past a couple of people, around a bank of newspaper stands, and rushing to the truck that had stopped. He ripped open the passenger door and jumped in.

“Go!” he shouted.

Lyle Cunningham calmly checked his mirrors, pressed on the gas, and pulled back into the stream of traffic, heading due east on Lake Street.

He said, “Your wish is my command.”

Todd glanced out the rear window, then slumped back, leaning his head against the headrest, closing his eyes, and taking a deep breath. “They’re at the Megamall.”

“Who?”

“Clariton… and whoever has him.”

“Really? What are they doing, shopping for some new outfits?”

“Yeah, right.” Todd rubbed his forehead. “Did you see the tape this morning, the one we ran?”

Lyle eyed him. “Of course.”

Todd then explained, beginning with the piece he’d done on the Megamall months ago and ending with the tape they’d received from Clariton’s abductors. On both tapes, he insisted, were the exact same sounds, those of the roller coaster.

“And I actually have a very good idea in what part of the building they’re holding Clariton,” concluded Todd.