Black Friday (5 page)

Mall of America

A
sante wasted little time fighting through the wave of hysteria. It was ridiculous. This was why he never stuck around afterwards to watch. There were some he had worked with in the past who enjoyed this chaos—the smell of fear, the clawing and clamoring to survive, the screams and cries of human nature at its most vulnerable. Or, as Asante considered it, human nature at its most pathetic. And from simply a glance, he knew that to be true.

Years ago he learned never to be fooled. Those who bragged that a crisis brought out the best in people would soon have you forget that the exact same crisis would also bring out the very worst in people. Asante stood at the top of the escalator looking down as the wildfire of panic raced through each floor of the mall and he resisted the urge to smile. People shoved each other, stepping over the injured, dropping and leaving behind their precious belongings. If they thought this was bad, wait until they saw what was to come. This was but a distraction.

He followed the GPS signal as he shoved through, keeping close to the walls where he knew any cameras still functioning could not pick up his image as easily. He walked quickly when he wanted to run. Time was slipping by. It had taken him longer than he expected to fight his way through the crowds amassing at the exits. The signal seemed to be taking him right back to where the carriers began—in the food court.

Asante stopped suddenly. He dropped down to the floor, kneeled and doubled over his duffel bag, pretending to be hurt while a security guard ran by. He didn’t want security seeing his PARAMEDIC cap and escorting him through to the wounded. He’d find his own wounded.

While on the floor he turned on his wireless headset that fit close and tight over his left ear. He had strapped the small computer, just a fraction bigger than a smartphone, to the inside of his arm so he had both hands free and could still follow the green blinks on the computer screen’s map. He poked in a number on the keypad and then turned up the volume on his headset. In seconds he was listening in on the mall’s security guards exchange information and curses.

“Where are the cops?”

“On their way.”

“How frickin’ long does it take?”

This time Asante couldn’t help but smile. Their wait was his gain. And now they would warn him when it was time for him to leave.

The food court reminded him of a sidewalk café in Tel Aviv after it had been bombed. It had been in his student days when he was still studying the art of terror. Where better to learn than on the eternal battlefield. Now he looked around at tables and chairs that were strewn and broken like piles of pickup sticks. The walls were splattered with a combination of Chinese dumplings, pizza, coffee, flesh and blood. The floors glittered with glass. The mist from the ceiling sprinklers added to the haze, dampening those who ran away and soaking those who couldn’t.

Asante followed the green blinking light on his GPS system, tapping it twice when it malfunctioned and indicated that his target was right in front of him. He pressed several buttons before he realized the computer had not malfunctioned at all. Where he expected to see the young Dixon Lee, he saw instead a young woman. She was curled up behind an overturned table, close to the rail that over-looked the mall’s atrium.

She was no longer moving, but she was, indeed, the source of the blinking green light.

Son of a bitch.

This was his errant carrier?

Newburgh Heights, Virginia

M
aggie left them to pack. She insisted they stay.

“Please don’t let all this food go to waste,” she told them. “Gwen and I worked too hard to prepare it.” Then with a smile, “Okay? Please stay.”

Racine had been the first one to promise though it came out in typical Racine style. “Yeah, no problem. I’m starving. It takes more than a little holiday carnage to keep me from eating.”

It was enough to break the ice and make the rest of them laugh.

Still, Maggie wasn’t surprised to hear the knock on her bedroom door. She expected Gwen had one last word to get in.

“Come on in.”

“You sure?” Benjamin Platt stood in Maggie’s doorway looking more like a hesitant schoolboy than an army colonel.

“Yes, of course. Come on in,” Maggie told him, trying to hide her surprise.

He showed her the little black doctor’s bag he had in his hand. It had become a familiar object over the last two months. Ben had made several house calls after Maggie’s quarantine at USAMRIID. Inside the bag she knew he kept a phlebotomist kit for taking blood samples and at least two vials of the vaccine for the Ebola virus.

“Still carrying that around, huh?”

“Ever since I met you,” he said.

“I have that effect on guys.”

His eyes narrowed. He was serious now, ready to put aside their usual witty repartee.

“You’re not due for another shot of the vaccine until late next week, but considering where you’re going,” he paused, and waited for her eyes, “and what you’ll encounter, I think it might be a good idea to give you the dose before you leave.”

That he was concerned made Maggie concerned. This was a doctor, who all the while she was quarantined and restless for results, kept telling her to slow down and wait, that they would deal with whatever it was when they found out exactly what it was. The “whatever” they were dealing with ended up being Ebola Zaire, nicknamed “the slate sweeper.” Maggie had been exposed but didn’t show any signs of the virus. The incubation period for Ebola was up to twenty-one days. It had been fifty-six days since Maggie’s exposure. That she knew exactly how many days was a testament to how seriously she still took the threat.

“You don’t think—”

“No, of course not,” Ben interrupted. “Just a safety precaution. Your immune system has been through a hell of a lot.”

“Okay,” she said and started to clear a place for him to set the bag on her dresser. Her Pullman was spread out on the bed, almost packed. She’d learned a long time ago to keep the basic necessities already in the bag. While Ben prepared a syringe Maggie looked for a warm turtleneck sweater. She’d been to the Midwest enough times during this time of year to no longer underestimate the cold.

“It’s snowing there,” Ben said as if he could read her mind.

“Boot snowing or just snow-snowing?”

This time he stopped his hands and looked up.

“There’s a difference?”

“Oh, big time. You haven’t been to the Midwest in the winter?”

“Chicago, but no. It was spring.”

“My first trip I only had leather flats. It snowed like eight or ten inches and the only place nearby to buy boots in the middle of nowhere, Nebraska, was a John Deere implement store.”

“Let me guess, you ended up with bright green, size twelves?”

“Something like that.”

She rummaged through her closet and pulled out a pair of slipover boots that folded easily. When she turned back to her suitcase Ben was watching her, smiling.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head but still smiling.

“You’re just pretty incredible, that’s all.”

She hoped the flush up her neck didn’t show in her face. She held up the boots for him to see as she placed them in the suitcase. “I knew eventually I could get your attention with my sexy footwear.”

“I hate to disappoint you,” he said, setting aside the syringe and coming close enough to touch the back of his hand to her cheek, “but you managed to do that without any footwear at all. The first time I saw those bare feet in oversized athletic socks back at USAMRIID my heart skipped a couple of beats.”

Maggie wasn’t sure if it was his touch or his rare and surprising admission that caused her own heart to miss a couple of beats.

“A foot fetish, huh?” She tried to keep it light. “Big time.”

Another knock on the door startled both of them. This time it was Gwen.

“Sorry to interrupt. Your ride to Andrews is here.”

Mall of America

T
he glass hadn’t plunged in as deep as Rebecca thought it had. It was bleeding but no major gusher. So no major arteries. She still had to pull the chunk of glass out.

She could do this. Of course, she could.

She had cleaned up and taken care of her share of wounds and injuries. Never mind that they were on dogs. Bites from other dogs, rips from barbed wire or abuse from owners. One of the dogs she helped treat had been hit by a car. All of the wounds were gross. No different than this. If anything, it should be easier when it was herself. No sad brown eyes looking up at her. If only her head would stop throbbing and her stomach would stop threatening to shove everything up or down.

The security guard had left and Rebecca felt relieved. Scared and in pain but relieved.
How weird was that?
She couldn’t help wondering if the security guards had seen Chad and Tyler and Dixon with the exact backpacks? Had they been watching them on the security cameras? Was that possible on a day like today with the crowds? Or maybe especially on a day like today. How else would they know?

She looked around again and couldn’t see any other blue uniforms. Or did some security guards wear plainclothes? If they had been watching the guys and were suspicious of the backpacks that meant they had seen her, too. Would they recognize her now?

Maybe not with this harpoon in her arm.

God, it hurt.

She thought she could hear sirens now. There were shouts from below. Was someone shouting “Police”?

The shouts were drowned out by an ear-piercing electronic buzz. Somewhere an alarm had been set off. No one seemed to pay attention to any of it. There wasn’t a sound that could stall the hysteria.

Rebecca stayed put. She tried to assess the damage to her arm. Her coat was shredded on the left side where broken glass must have pummeled her. Funny, she didn’t remember.

How could she not remember the pain?

It happened so quickly. She was probably lucky to have just one piece of debris stuck inside her.

She carefully ripped the fabric away from the wound and the sight of her own flesh, purplish-red, raw and torn made her sit back. She leaned her head against the rail, waiting for the nausea to pass. She felt the vibration of the stampede around and under her. She couldn’t focus, couldn’t hear over that buzz and now there was an annoying whirling sound like bursts of wind through a tunnel. She closed her eyes and that’s when she realized it wasn’t wind. It was her own raspy breathing.

She had to do better than this.

She needed to get the glass out of her arm.

Come on, Rebecca. Just pull the damned thing out.

One, two, three…like a Band-Aid in one quick jerk. But she’d need to stop the bleeding when she pulled out the glass. Her eyes flew open. She’d have to shove something into the hole the glass left in her arm. If not, she’d bleed to death. This was actually good. It made her think through the process. It made her focus.

She grabbed pieces of her coat that she had ripped away and began peeling out the lining. It’d be cleaner than the outside of the coat. And it was softer.

“I can help you with that.”

Rebecca looked up to find a man standing behind her. He wore a cap that read PARAMEDIC but he was in jeans and hiking boots. No uniform. Although she couldn’t really see underneath his winter coat. A duffel bag was slung over his shoulder.

She should have felt saved, rescued. She wouldn’t have to do this herself. But there was something about the way he held the already loaded syringe that didn’t seem quite right.

Omaha, Nebraska

N
ick Morrelli was trying to check flights on his smartphone while Christine waited to drive them home. Outside the car her son Timmy and his friend Gibson helped the Lanoha Nursery worker load the Christmas tree on top of Christine’s SUV. Nick had offered to help, too, but the boys insisted they could do it. He didn’t argue. All he could think about was finding a way up to Minneapolis.

His new boss had chosen Nick to represent Mall of America’s security company, their security company, United Allied Security. With his experience as a county sheriff he had dealt with homicide scenes and forensic evidence. And as an attorney he had the legal background to protect the company’s rights. That’s what his boss Al Banoff had told him. Nick guessed it was one of those golden opportunities that shouldn’t be questioned. Even if the opportunity would be measured in fatalities.

“How many do they think are dead?” Christine asked him.

Nick gave her a warning look. “What?”

“Stop being a reporter,” he told her.

“I’m just asking,” she said, then added, “Out of concern. Nothing more.”

“Right.”

He waited. He knew she wouldn’t give up that easily. “Seriously, it’s bad, isn’t it?”

But this time without even glancing at her Nick could tell she was concerned by the catch in her voice. He caught a glimpse of her hand before she hid it in her lap, nervous fingers combing through her blond hair. Explosions going off in a crowded mall the day after Thanksgiving—it was a nightmare that could happen anywhere. That’s what grabbed you by the throat and choked your senses for a minute or two.

“Yeah, I think it’s bad.”

“Reminds me of the Hawkins shooting,” she said in almost a whisper.

“It was around this time of year?”

“December 5
^th
.”

Nick had been living in Boston at the time but he knew the incident had rattled the state of Nebraska. A nineteen-year-old named Robert Hawkins walked into the Von Maur at Westroads Shopping Mall, took the elevator to the third floor and started shooting. By the time he was finished and turned the gun on himself, eight other people were dead. All of them random and innocent shoppers and store employees.

“That was so hard on the entire community,” Christine said, now watching out the SUV windows, as if she wanted to make sure her son couldn’t burst in and overhear. “I can’t even imagine what this will be like for the families.”

Nick operated by getting through life step by step, prioritizing and keeping focused on what needed to be done immediately. He couldn’t think about the victims right now or their families. As heartless as that sounded, he needed to stay focused on his job. For his old job as a Boston prosecutor that meant finding the bad guys and putting them away. This job would be a little trickier. The premise remained the same—find out who did this. Find who cracked their firewall of security. No, not cracked. More like ravaged.

“I’ll take you to the airport,” Christine said, startling Nick back.

“Looks like there’s room on a Delta flight in two hours from now.”

“Can you pack and be ready that fast?”

“Sure, why not. If I forget something I’ll be at the mall.”

She rolled her eyes at him and he thought he saw the beginning of a smile. But just as quickly it disappeared. Her fingers gripped the steering wheel and Nick watched her face transform from sister to mom while Timmy and Gibson opened their doors and piled into the backseat.

“You’re gonna miss the Nebraska Colorado game, Uncle Nick.”

“You can TiVo it for me, okay?” he told the boys.

Nick caught Christine’s eyes and just in that moment they seemed to exchange the same thought:
Oh but to be fifteen again and have the world revolve around only you.