Hostage (33 page)

Elliot nuzzled his mouth up to the girl’s ear and whispered, “Hey, I’m sorry, sweetheart, for pushing you around like this. You don’t have anything to worry about though, okay? I’m really sick, but you can’t get AIDS through casual contact like this, so you’re perfectly fine. You can’t get AIDS from holding hands or touching or kissing even. You know that, don’t you?”

“Sure.”

“Listen to me, sweetheart, you can only get it through the exchange of blood or other bodily fluids, so you’re fine. And, anyway, I wouldn’t have hurt you. I really wouldn’t have. You’re such a nice girl and… and…”

Her voice was small. “Thanks.”

“Now, scoot on in there,” he said, releasing her arm.

She broke away from him, darting into the refrigerator as quickly as she could. Elliot then slammed the door shut, reached over to the work counter, grabbed an oversize spoon, and jammed it in a small hole right beneath the door handle. Right, that’s exactly where a padlock went, so there was no way they were going to get out. At least not until he was long gone.

Fab, thought Elliot with a huge smile on his face. Crisis averted, at least for now. He turned around, scooped up a half dozen warm cookies, and scurried out of the little log cabin. Emerging again into the amusement park, he looked around at all the rides and trees, all the bright colors.

Now, where the hell was that door, anyway, that would lead him back down to Matthew and Clariton?

Todd had never been
out here this early and hence had never seen the environs of the Megamall so deserted. As the pickup glided off one of the freeway ramps, there were few cars and no frustrated traffic, and he instructed Lyle to turn right and right again, then left into an open lot next to one of the bunkerlike parking ramps. And as soon as the truck came to a stop, Todd whipped open the door and started clambering out.

“I’m pretty sure we’ll find them on this side of the building,” explained Todd.

“I hope you’re right,” replied Lyle, jumping out.

“So do I.”

They rushed along the blank facade and down the side of the monolithic structure. As they neared a main set of doors, creatively emblazoned with the words MALL ENTRANCE, Todd heard sirens, a screaming mass of them swirling closer and closer. He hoped they signified a fire, but with his luck he feared not.

“I wonder what in the hell that’s all about,” he said.

“Sounds like a whole posse coming this way.”

“No shit. But a posse of what?”

Yanking on one of the doors, Todd found it open, and Lyle and he hurried inside, entering a large space with rest rooms on either side, lockers, an information stand, banks of phones. A large cluster of people gathered around a security officer, a woman with dark skin, short hair, and wearing a white shirt and black polyester pants, who was obviously briefing them.

“So until we know what this is all about,” explained the guard, “we want you all to remain in this area.”

Two women clutching coffee cups drifted to the side, and Todd went over to them.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Oh, there’s another nut case out here,” said one of the women, who held her foam cup with long red talonlike fingernails.

“Yeah,” added the other, a tall woman with curly hair, “some guy went after some girl and tried to give her AIDS.”

Oh, shit, thought Todd. “When?”

“Just a bit ago.” The first woman waved with her red claws toward the innards of the mall. “He’s still in there somewhere.”

So things were already boiling over, and Todd wondered if he was already too late. If only there was a way to keep the FBI and police at bay, and, more important, a way to prevent some pestilence from dragging Rawlins into the heavens. Was it only yesterday morning when the most pressing things in their relationship were how often Rawlins was blowing his nose and just what they’d do in New York—what plays to see, what bagels to eat, what neighborhoods to stroll?

Todd turned to Lyle. “Come on.”

They ducked around the two women and hurried past the crowd. Todd could never find his way around this windowless place; the slightly curving corridors and the endless shops always left him disoriented. He was fairly sure, though, that the perky Megamall tour guide with the Yugoslav accent had led him this way, that they’d descended into the bowels of this commercial giant somewhere over here on the west side.

“Gentlemen!” called a voice. “Please, I’m going to have to ask you to stay in this area!”

Todd glanced over his shoulder, saw the guard who was shouting at them, but kept going.

This time she shouted, “Hey, stop right there!”

Speeding up, Lyle nudged Todd on the arm. “Come on, let’s get out of here, let’s make a break.”

Following Lyle’s lead, Todd broke into a trot. Yes, they could outrun her. Yes, they could disappear into this massive place. After all, this guard was alone, wasn’t she? As Todd was about to enter the main hall, he checked behind just to make sure there weren’t more security people, a group of them that would come barreling after them.

“Hey, speed it up!” commanded Lyle.

But Todd couldn’t. Just as he neared the corner of the hall, he looked back and froze in disbelief. Beyond the guard, past her and out the glass doors, he saw first the reflections of a flashing blue light and then a silver car—the very one that had tailed him last night—which came to a screeching halt. A moment later a second car stopped right behind it. No, he thought, staring at the second vehicle as Maurice Cochran climbed out. This couldn’t be.

“Shit!” cursed Todd. “It’s the FBI! How the hell did they get out here?”

He immediately broke back into a run, tearing past Lyle and down the corridor, which was littered with gargantuan houseplants, kiosks with umbrellas, benches, and a fountain or two. There was no way Todd was going to get this close to the truth and be stopped, especially not now and particularly not by the FBI. He’d almost found Rawlins, of that Todd was confident. He couldn’t give up now. No way. Now thankful for all those years of jogging around the lakes, he tore across the teal carpeting, past a jeans store, and sports shop, with Lyle just a half step behind.

But how the hell had the FBI followed them to the Megamall when Todd was so sure Lyle had lost them back in town?

Even as he ran he couldn’t let go of the question. Todd’s phone might have been tapped, just as Lyle’s might have been. Or Todd’s vehicle might have been tampered with, which meant Lyle’s might have been too. If that were the case, if they had in fact put some sort of tracking device on both vehicles, that would make sense, that would explain how the FBI could have traced them all the way out here to the Megamall even after Lyle had lost them at the intersection of Lyndale and Lake. Or had there been a second car besides the silver Chrysler? Perhaps even a helicopter?

But why?

In some paranoid and homophobic corner of himself, Todd could rationalize why the FBI might view him cautiously, even why they might tap his phone or whatever. He was gay. He was right there when Clariton was abducted. He “discovered” the mysterious videotape of the congressman.

But what about Lyle? What would cause the FBI to track him as well? Todd could see how he himself might be suspicious, yet he certainly didn’t know what would put Lyle, a self-employed bodyguard, in the same category.

Unless…

Suddenly the truth exploded as sharply as a dart piercing a balloon. In his mind he went back and added everything up, all the events over the last two days, and came up with an entirely different conclusion. Dear God, how could he have been so utterly stupid? There could be only one way the FBI had been following him with such uncanny ability.

“In here!” ordered Todd, ducking past a women’s clothing store and down a side hall that shot through to the amusement park.

Todd knew he only had moments, if that, and he slammed himself up against the wall. Lyle came tearing after him, his face flushed red, his forehead blistered with perspiration.

“What are you doing?” he demanded. “Where’s Clariton?”

Todd peered back down the corridor, but didn’t see any movement, let alone FBI agents. Not just yet anyway.

And then he whipped around, grabbed Lyle by the collar. All of Todd’s anger exploded, and he hurled the much larger man back against the wall.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” he shouted. “You’re one of them! You’re a fucking FBI agent, aren’t you?”

Lyle could have flung Todd off with brawny ease. With his thick arms he could have lifted Todd right off the floor and swatted him aside. Instead, Lyle, big and bulky, just stood there, castrated by the truth. He hesitated for a moment, glanced to the side, then raised and lowered his head in a slow nod.

Todd shouted, “What the—”

Lyle’s face tightened in a panicked grimace, his eyes flashed wide, and he whipped a forefinger to his own lips in a desperate attempt to silence Todd. Both understanding and not, Todd caught his words. Lyle then nudged Todd back a half step, reached into his sport coat, and silently pointed to a small device in his shirt pocket, a black thing that looked like a tiny radio and had a dot of a red light burning on the top of it.

Lowering his chin and speaking clearly into it, Lyle said, “Top floor, by the movie theaters. Out.”

He then pulled the transmitter from his pocket, ripped loose a wire, and hurled it down the hall, where it skipped along like a rock and finally crashed into bits.

Stunned, Todd shook his head. “I can’t believe this.”

“Sorry.”

Only one question came to mind. “So… so none of that was true?”

“I work in the local FBI office,” confessed Lyle, “and, yes, I was assigned to watch Congressman Clariton while he was here in town. After that blood was thrown on him in San Francisco, there was a certain amount of concern for his safety.”

“No,” said Todd, for all that other crap was irrelevant, at least in the bigger scope of things. “I mean you were bullshitting me about your mom. She didn’t die of AIDS, did she?”

“Actually,” replied Lyle, measuring his words, “she did. Just like I said. Which is why I didn’t want this assignment in the first place. I’m being totally honest when I say I really can’t stand Clariton.”

Stunned, Todd couldn’t move. He shook his head. What was he really supposed to believe, and what difference did it make—this guy and his lies—anyway?

“I’ve got to go,” said Todd, breaking away.

“Wait!”

“Forget it.”

“But you’re going to need some help,” insisted Lyle.

Todd hesitated. “And why would I trust you?”

“Because I’m a witness.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means I’ve seen it, I’ve been there.”

Todd stared at Lyle, searching the other man’s eyes and seeing something different. What was it—sincerity?

“I took care of my mother for the last month of her life,” continued Lyle, “and I saw how AIDS ate her alive. Listen, man, I understand what you’re facing, you and this guy of yours.”

“Oh, do you?” said Todd as snidely as he could.

“Yeah, as a matter of fact I do. I understand AIDS doesn’t have a fucking thing to do with anyone’s morality. Not at all. It’s about humanity.”

As if he’d just been doused with frigid water, Todd was stunned by the clarity thrown at him. Trembling, he stood there dripping with some kind of insight. In the same hideous moment Todd sensed he’d caught sight of his own future, which was now hurtling at him with such speed and determination that he feared there was no escaping. Be that as it may, did that mean everything important in his life had already been decided?

No, he couldn’t give up. He couldn’t let go of the belief that he could make a difference, that he had the power to affect or alter, however slightly, his own destiny. Believing that, he knew he had to move, to jump back into all this. There wasn’t time for any banter, any discussion. Only honesty.

And, yes. He did need help.

“Come on,” said Todd. “If I’m right there’s a door about a hundred feet down the main hall. Clariton should be down three levels. Since you’re with the FBI—or were—may I assume you’ve got a gun?”

Lyle reached beneath his sport coat and pulled out a pistol. “Yes.”

“Good, because I think we’re going to need it.”

Matthew couldn’t fucking believe
it. He’d overslept and missed the whole goddamn thing, the entire broadcast of Tina and Johnny Clariton!

He stomped across the floor, kicked the bathroom door as hard as he could, and it flew open. Inside was the sink, the toilet, Tina’s dark-plastic-wrapped body, but no Elliot. Where the hell was he, and why hadn’t he awakened him?

Matthew stormed over to the small storage room, took out a key, and with shaking hands slipped a key into the padlock and shoved open that door. Congressman Clariton, handcuffed to the pipe, looked up, his face haggard and wrinkled. Steve Rawlins, lying on the floor against the other wall, raised his head.

“Where the fuck’s Elliot?” demanded Matthew.