Hard Play (16 page)

Before he could inspect it, Frank threw his palm upward, knocking the pistol from Dalton’s grip and sending the gun sliding across the floor.

Frank stood. He rubbed at his bullet hole.

“Old gun, Jim,” he chided. “Belongs in a museum.”

He stepped toward Dalton, fists clenched.

Backpedaling, Dalton slid a small metal square from his pocket. He taunted Frank with the big red button on its face.

“Ah ah ah,” he warned, shaking his finger. “I’ll blow it all to hell.”

He pointed all around the lobby. “Homemade pentolite packs quite a punch, Mr. Black.”

White lumps of plastic explosive hugged the beams overhead and, beneath the second-floor balcony, each of the thirty-nine columns of the lobby sported more of the white blobs. The faint flicker of red glinted within the lumps of pentolite, a sign of the active detonator shoved into each one.

“It’s all over the grounds, Mr. Black,” Dalton said. “Not only in here.”

“Let me be Frank,” Frank said, glaring. “Mr. Black is my father.”

Dalton sloughed it off with a shrug of his shoulders and held the detonator close to his chest. He retreated further away from Frank, hovering his finger over the button each time Frank gave any sign of movement. Frank stepped forward without hesitation, trying to keep his weight off his sore ankle. Each step dared Dalton to ignite the whole complex, but Dalton didn’t. Frank kept moving forward, forcing Dalton this way and that. Circling him from out of the shadows and into the light of the moon.

“You don’t have to do this,” Frank barked as he lunged forward.

“Duty,” Dalton growled as he backpedaled. “Something you wouldn’t understand, Mr. Black, but we all have things that must be done.”

Frank shook his head.

“You have been up to a lot, Jim,” Frank said. “But this won’t solve it. They didn’t kill your wife.”

“They did,” Dalton cried. “They did. They did so. They let her die. They took her. They killed my little girl’s mother.”

Dalton’s thumb jabbed into the red button. The walls rumbled. Beyond the plate glass windows, the west wing splintered and cracked, swelling outward as it exploded in a burst of concrete and fire. The floor quaked as the structure next door fell into itself, pelting the ground with debris and sending a plume of ash and smoke high into the blackness of the night sky.

“You really shouldn’t have done that,” Frank growled.

“You know they gave the shit in this to my wife? Pentaerythritol tetranitrate,” Dalton shouted over the drum of falling concrete. He shook the detonator. “It’s what they gave her for her heart! This is what they had for her!”

Dalton paused, smiling at the flames across the way, then rambled on, “It gave her migraines. Made her incontinent. Headaches. Breathing problems. Anemia. It took her sight. It made her weak, nauseous. She was sick all the time. But it took care of that damn chest pain. It cured the fucking dizziness.”

The remains of the west wing smoldered beyond the window as Frank listened. The fire crackled and popped beneath the hum of Dalton’s words.

He shook the detonator. “Thousands of dollars a pill. This was their solution. One of many that didn’t save her. Just like me. It wasn’t ’til years later that I found out I could make it in my basement. Seems only fitting, wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Black?”

Frank hissed, “Frank.”

Frank spat on the floor and growled, “I’ve still got your daughter.”

Dalton shook his head.

“No. You don’t,” he said.

Frank raised an eyebrow and turned his head. There was no trace of Felicia; only his cuffs lay empty and open on the floor.

“No matter,” Frank said.

Taking a few steps back, Frank extended his fist to Dalton. He rolled out his index and middle finger and stuck up his thumb, pointing his hand like a gun. He closed one eye and looked down his fingers, Dalton in his crosshairs.

“What are you going to do with that?” Dalton scoffed.

Frank pulled the trigger.

CRAAACK!

The detonator flew from Dalton’s hand. Glass streamed down into the lobby from above.

Dalton clutched his wrist. Falling to his knees, he held up his stump in a hysterical display. Blood spurted from the end of his arm, streaming over his slacks and spilling onto the ground.

Shaking his bloody arm at Frank, he cried out, “What did you do?”

Frank kept his trigger finger ready, leaning over Dalton.

“Unlike you, I brought backup,” Frank said. “Real backup.”

Without looking away, he pointed across the room and through the wall of plate glass, adding, “Specifically, a man over there holding an AR-50 sniper rifle retrofitted with a high-velocity Barrett .416 cartridge. That’s what you felt tear through your hand. Less than a second to impact, I’d say he’s no more than three hundred yards from here. An ounce of solid brass… that’s about three tons on impact. How’d it feel?”

He pointed down on him, poking his fingers at Dalton, threatening him with his gun. Dalton tried as best he could to hide his face behind his shoulder, cowering from Frank’s finger-pistol as if that’s where the bullets were. He writhed as he tried to slither away. His body curled and uncurled like a dying snake, smearing his blood into a terrible set of red wings against the marble.

Frank kicked his functioning arm away and pressed his boot into Dalton’s severed wrist. Driving his heel between where the radius and ulna meet the palm, he twisted. The bones crunched. Dalton screamed.

“Where’s Amy?” Frank demanded.

Dalton whimpered and drooled, tears pouring out of his eyes. His face contorted as he tried to stomach the pain. He tried to get away. Twisting and reeling, he sucked air into his lungs, but it was no use.

Frank eased up. And just as Dalton began to calm, Frank twisted his boot heel once more. Blood squirted out like a ketchup packet.

Dalton gasped and sobbed. His breath accelerated as his brain tried to shut him down.

“It’s over, Jim,” he pressed. “Where is she?”

“Top floor. East wing,” he bellowed through his gasps. “Just stop.”

Frank didn’t lift his boot until Dalton passed out. Then he took out his phone and punched in three digits.

Holding it to his ear, he said, “Yeah, I’m going to need an ambulance at Still & Wersner Insurance Company. Gunshot victim.”

He shoved the phone back in his pocket and walked to the empty cuffs on the floor. Taking them in hand, he returned to Dalton. He slapped one cuff around Dalton’s ankle and the other to his intact wrist.

Frank disappeared up the stairs and headed east. By the time he reached the sixth flight, his lungs burned and his chest ached. He clutched his cracked rib and suffered the last dozen steps. Flailing through the emergency exit and onto the top floor, he hurried down the long hall. His slight limp transitioned into a sprint as the walls spread into a wide cubicle farm. He sped around the blocks of gray carpet and across the room. The walls tightened again and the flat plaster was replaced by Brazilian teak panels as Frank entered the executive corridor.

He called out, “Amy?”

There was no response.

He advanced and called again, “Amy?”

He stood still, listening for a response.

Muffled but clear, Amy called out from behind the furthest door, “Frank? Is that you?”

“It’s me,” he answered in a shout as he moved toward her.

He came on the large, double doors that separated her from him. Testing the handle, he found it locked.

“It’s locked,” he shouted through the door, “Can you unlock it from your side?”

He held his ear to the wood.

“Yes,” she replied.”

“Then unlock it.”

After a long pause, she said, “No.”

“What? Why?” Frank tugged the handle again then mashed his shoulder into the door. It didn’t budge.

Holding his shoulder, he shouted, “Why not, Van?”

He slammed the butt of his fist against the wood. “Open the damn door.”

There was another long pause then the knob jiggled and the door popped ajar. Frank eased it inward ’til the door was open wide.

The office was bare but for an oversized desk and a clutter of white boxes. Frank tried the light switch, but the recessed lights overhead held no bulbs. Amy’s body was framed by the glow of the window. Her long silhouette, slender legs, and thin waist were prominent in the darkness with but the moonlight and distant Valley lights illuminating her. As Frank moved closer he noticed the blinking clock and brick of clay sticking out from her naked body. She backed away, crossing her hands over the short tuft of hair between her legs, trying the best she could to cover herself.

“I see why you didn’t want me coming in,” Frank smiled as he tossed off his coat.

Amy wasn’t amused. She snatched the jacket from his hands with a grimace and wrapped it around her hips.

“Now that we’ve handled that,” Frank said with a point to her legs, “This.”

He pointed to the detonator and the mound of pentolite covering her breasts. Placing his hands under her arms, Frank hoisted Amy onto the desk. He flipped open a small utility knife from his pocket and leaned close, using the moonlight as his work lamp. He inspected the wires poking from the clay. He followed their paths into the timer. Cutting back a few strips of tape, Frank lifted the plastic timer and tilted it. He ran his fingers along the seam, then dipped the tip of his knife into the thin line where the two pieces of plastic met.

“Hold your breath,” he whispered.

He twisted the knife. The assembly popped open with a crack and the both jumped.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Amy breathed as she looked into the complex arrangement of green and gold circuitry inside the little black box.

“Stay still,” Frank whispered, putting his hands firmly on her chest.

The clock reached ten minutes and was continuing downward.

Nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds.

Nine minutes and fifty-eight seconds.

Fifty-seven.

Fifty-six.

Frank stared into the circuit. Strips of black and blue and orange and gray and green and red wrapped over and under each other in complicated bundles and knots. His knife blade skated along the series of multicolored wires, seeking each one’s destination and each one’s beginning. His hands were still, precise, surgical.

“Ready?” he asked as his blade steadied against the gray wire.

Amy nodded.

Frank took in a deep breath and Amy followed suit. With a quick twist of the blade, Frank cut the wire in two. Then he cut a second and a third. The clock froze. They both let out their breath in a blast of moist, hot air and smiled at each other.

“Let’s get this off you,” Frank said as he helped her off the desk, lifting her up and setting her on her naked feet.

“Eight minutes to spare,” Amy breathed up at him. “I’m impressed.”

As he sliced at the layers of silver duct tape across her body, he said, “Remember Afghanistan?”

She nodded.

“Extraction was sort of my thing.”

Pocketing his knife, Frank warned, “This next part is going to hurt.”

He turned her around and gripped the tape. Amy bit her lips and Frank pulled back on the strip, hard and fast. Air hissed through Amy’s teeth as the glue tore at her skin. A band of red painted her flesh. Amy whimpered a bit and Frank met her ache by caressing her back, gently running his hand along the marks. Shivers ran down her body as she turned to Frank and handed him the brick of explosive.

“Thanks.” She smiled.

Her breasts hung naked in the moonlight. Her beautiful, perky nipples stood on end as she stretched herself onto her toes, causing Frank’s coat to fall to the floor. Her bare ass glistened in the light. Her calves tightened and her thighs stretched as she reached up and planted her lips on Frank’s. The sparkling veins of the Valley danced behind them as Amy kissed Frank deep and hard. As her lips parted, Frank met her tongue with his and Amy kicked Frank’s wool coat away. Pulling her lips from his, she wrapped her arms around Frank’s neck and hugged him tight. Frank leaned forward for a second kiss, but it wasn’t returned.

“Okay, Mr. Black,” she said. She let him go and pressed two fingers against his lips. “That’s enough.”

The silent office park outside burst into life with screaming sirens and flashing lights. A fleet of black-and-whites followed a train of red fire trucks and ambulances as they flooded down the drive. Amy pulled away from Frank and moved to the window. She stood with her naked body against the glass, looking down over the circle of the main entrance. News choppers were already whirring overhead. Officers and paramedics flooded the main lobby while fire fighters ran their houses over the fiery remains of the west wing. It wasn’t long before a pair of medics wheeled Dalton out on a gurney. Even from seventy feet up, it was obvious he was no longer whole. He grabbed at his missing hand, the tattered sleeve stained in blood. He writhed on the gurney as they lifted him into the back of an ambulance.

Frank put his arm around Amy and pulled her to his side. Together they watched the city clean up their mess below. As they watched, Frank fished a smoke from his pocket and lit it. But, before he could take a puff, Amy snatched it from his lips.