The Breathtaker (28 page)

4

I
T WAS
5:45
P.M.
by the time they pulled into the parking lot of the Environmental Sciences Laboratories, the Loadmaster’s motor racing before cutoff, its new tires edging forward over the asphalt. Charlie spotted Rick’s GMC Sierra parked crookedly in front of the building’s entranceway. “Sit tight,” he told his father, a sick fury propelling him out of the vehicle. He took three steps before a glaring light stopped him dead in his tracks.

“Chief Grover?”

“What the… ?” He shielded his eyes with his hands. “Get that fucking light out of my face.”

The campus security guard lowered his flashlight. “I was told to meet you here, sir.” He was squat and stoop-shouldered inside his beige uniform, sallow-skinned from years of working the night shift. “They said I should—”

“Listen to me very carefully,” Charlie interrupted. “We’ve got a hostage situation inside the building. You with me so far?”

He nodded blankly.

“You’re going to accompany me inside. You will not use your own initiative. You will not veer from my instructions. Is that understood?”

The guard stiffened. “Yes, sir.”

“Just follow me and do exactly as I say.”

He gave a tight, shocked smile.

It was spitting rain. Charlie drew his weapon and moved swiftly across the parking lot toward the GMC Sierra. The engine idled lazily, keys in the ignition. He spotted the lucky rabbit’s foot dangling from the key chain and felt a tightening in his jaw.
Black rabbit fur.
With a roaring sound in his ears, he swung his light over the interior of the cab. The floor pads were green.
Green carpet fiber.

Locard’s principle…

He switched the motor off, pocketed the keys and headed for the horseshoe-shaped entryway of the enormous concrete building, “Environmental Sciences” etched in pink marble over the front door. Skipping up the marble steps, he pushed on the double glass doors, but they were locked for the night. “Open it,” he told the guard.

“Shouldn’t we call for backup first?” The young man stared at him nervously. They stood beneath a cone of yellow light, so close together Charlie could count the individual pores on his pasty face.

“Open the
door,
” he said, coming down hard on the last word.

Obediently the guard stooped over the access panel, punched in a security code and slid his plastic key-card through the magnetic trough. Then he threw the bolt with a sharp
click
and swung the door open.

“Not you.” Charlie blocked his father’s path. He had appeared out of nowhere, out of the darkness. “Go wait in the truck.”

“I’m coming with you.” His jaw was set.

“We can’t afford any fuckups, Pop.”

“She’s my granddaughter,” he said stubbornly.

Charlie had learned not to go head-to-head with the old man a long time ago. A dozen razor straps across the back could be pretty persuasive.

“I’ll keep out of your way,” Isaac promised.

Charlie glanced at his watch. They were all out of time. He entered the cavernous yellow lobby with the two other men in tow, the heavy glass doors thwumping shut behind them. Their footsteps echoed throughout the brightly lit building.

“This way,” the guard said, but Charlie brushed past him and led the way down a forking corridor toward a bank of freight elevators, past dark-wood walls and simple-framed pictures of proud scientists and their machines. He stood punching the Down button over and over again.

“Come on,” he hissed through clenched teeth.

“Yeah. That’ll make it go faster,” Isaac said sarcastically.

“Shut up, Pop.” He pointed a finger. “You wait here.”

“I’m coming with you, Charlie.”

“We aren’t having a debate here.”

One of the freight elevators stopped at lobby level, its metal doors rocking open, and the three of them stepped inside. It seemed to take forever for the doors to jostle shut again, and then, shoulder-to-shoulder, they descended into the bowels of the building. Charlie gave his father a grim look, but the old man simply averted his gaze, while the security guard kept one hand on his holstered handgun.

“You ever use that thing?” Charlie asked him.

“Yes, sir. I was in the ROTC.”

“Good. You’re my backup.”

“What’re we looking for, sir?”

“White male in his early thirties, average height and build, brown hair, brown eyes, wire-rim glasses. He’s got a girl with him… she’s my daughter.” The elevator landed with a jolt and a mechanical whir, and Charlie held the guard’s eye. “If you hurt her… if you cause any injury to her person… I’ll shoot you dead.”

Beads of sweat collected on the guard’s upper lip. “I… I’ll be careful.”

“You’d better be.”

The elevator doors shimmied open, and Charlie ventured out into the corridor alone. Icy fingers of light stabbed through the overhead gantries, and the walls emitted a maddening hum, like a broken chord on a player piano. He made a ninety-degree turn into a higher-ceilinged corridor, where he carefully scanned his surroundings before motioning the others forward.

The test facilities were locked up tight for the night. Charlie tried each door, while the security guard fumbled with his overcrowded key chain. They hurried past one dark, unoccupied space after another, little bronze plaques beside each door identifying the tow tank facility, the signal-light structure, the wind tunnels.

“Try this one.” Charlie waited impatiently while the guard unlocked the door and switched on the lights. They stood in the sodium glare of the hangar-sized wind-tunnel section when something caught his eye—a wisp of smoke curling up from the back of the facility.

He shot through the maze of cubicles, refrigeration pipes and electrical cables lining the walls, until he reached the eighty-foot-long boundary-layer tunnel. He could see white smoke wafting against the observation windows of the test section. “Get a fire extinguisher!” he shouted at the guard as he clambered up the ladder.

“That isn’t smoke,” the guard hollered back. “It’s some kind of chemical they use to make the wind visible… the same stuff they use in skywriting.”

The door wouldn’t budge. Charlie noticed a pencil wedged in between the handle and the metal plate, jammed in there good. He worked it back and forth, and all of a sudden, it snapped off in his hand.

The brittle spring made a loud squawk as the door shot open, and a thick white mist spilled out, nearly choking him to death. Gagging and coughing, he hung back a beat. “Willa?” He felt a sudden shyness around the edges of his feelings for her. A certain tenderness or fear. Fear of losing her. It made him hesitate to move forward.

The white toxic substance had filled the entire test chamber. He shot inside and lost himself in the dissipating mist; he stumbled around, trying to clear the air by waving his arms, but it didn’t do much good. He knew enough to turn on the fans. “Willa?” he said, then coughed as if his lungs might explode. “You in here?”

He bumped into a pair of legs sprawled across the floor, and he dropped to his knees. She wasn’t wearing any protective gear. She lay very still in her jeans and lab coat with its pockets full of keys and pens and those little notebooks she was always scribbling in. He took her by the arms and dragged her toward the exit, but her face was so pale—skim-milk pale—that he bent to feel for a pulse. Fear pounding through his fingertips.

She wasn’t conscious. She was barely breathing. Her eyes were shut. Her lips were blue. “Breathe,” he said, pinching her nose shut, tilting her head back and blowing a single breath into her lungs.

No response.

“Hey.” He gently slapped her face. “Willa?” Frantic. Terrified.
We just fell in love, and already you’re leaving me?
“Willa!” His voice rebounded off the tiled walls as the white stuff continued to exit out the doorway in ropy twists and gusts. He leaned over and blew another breath into her lungs.

She coughed. Sputtered. Sat up. “Charlie?”

He almost laughed with relief. “You okay?”

“No, I’m… yes.” She looked dazed.

He turned to the guard. “Call an ambulance!”

The guard got on his portable.

“My respirator stopped working,” she said, “and I couldn’t breathe. I tried the door, but it was stuck.”

Shaken and enraged, he rocked her in his arms. “I need to find Rick. Do you know where he is?”

She shook her head, then threw her arms around his neck and held on tight, seeming to understand the implication of his question but unwilling to face it just yet. “He took the keys to the Doppler van,” she said.

“The Doppler van?” He turned to the guard. “Is the Doppler van missing from the parking lot?”

The guard’s confused eyes pulled closer together. “It wasn’t registered to be checked out tonight, but I noticed it was gone.”

“When did this happen?”

“About fifteen minutes ago. They do that sometimes, borrow the van without telling anyone. They always bring it back, though.” His voice rose defensively. “I made a note of it on my rounds roster.”

Just then a piercing cry came from out in the corridor.
“Charlie?”
It was his father.

“Be right back,” he told Willa.

“Yeah, go.” She smiled bravely at him. “I’m fine.”

“Stay with her,” he told the guard, then clambered down the ladder and ran back into the main hallway. “Pop?”

“Down here.”

Around the next corner, he found his father standing near an open door, creamy white light spilling out into the corridor. The bronze plaque read “Missile Launcher Chamber.”

Isaac’s eyes were wide with fright. “It was open.”

“Stay back.” Aiming his gun, Charlie approached the doorway with extreme caution, like a man walking into a den of rattlers. Breathing through his mouth, he took a single step into the room and swept his gun around. “Police!”

The missile launcher chamber appeared to be empty. A long orange pipe, held in place by two metal supports, occupied the center of the rectangular room. Charlie felt his heart in his throat, right up near his gag reflex, as he crossed the chamber toward the long plate-glass window at the back of the room, his footsteps echoing off the tiled walls. Through beads of condensation on the glass, he could see a large water tank inside the closet-sized space and nothing else.

He lowered his weapon. “All clear,” he said, and his father cautiously entered the room.

Just then Charlie caught something out of the corner of his eye—a glint of light. At the far end of the chamber, in the center of a plyboard panel, dangled an object that was startlingly familiar to him. Sophie’s silver locket was the one piece of jewelry she would never take off. The necklace dangled from a penny nail and made a soft clinking sound. A wild sweat broke out on his face. “Jesus Christ…”

His father stepped directly in front of the panel.

“No!”

Isaac turned and eyed him questioningly.

A
snap
of compressed air, and the air cannon exploded, an eight-foot-long wooden stud flying out of the barrel and hitting his father center-mass with a thundering crunch. A small wavering sound of protest passed from Isaac’s lips as it pierced him through and blew him backward into the wall.

Charlie sank to his knees, everything turning prickly for an instant. Heart pounding crazily. He couldn’t catch his breath. From a tunneling darkness, he could hear faraway screams.
“Oh my God… oh my God…”

Then he realized those screams were coming from him. He blinked away the dazzling red spots floating in his field of vision and looked down. Blood spiked his uniform front. He stumbled to his feet and crossed the room to where his father was pinned like a bug to the wall.

“Pop?” He checked for a pulse.
“Pop?”
The lurid light revealed too much. The missile had penetrated Isaac’s chest cavity, his heart visible and pulsating weakly through the entry wound, an adjacent collapsed lung exposed. There was blood everywhere. Pooling down around his ankles.

“Pop?”
Charlie stared into the meat of his father’s face. His lips were so gray they looked like pipe smoke. Isaac tried to speak, then went completely still.

Charlie attempted to remove the wooden stud from the wall, grunting and tugging, but it wouldn’t budge. Cradling his father upright in his arms, he applied pressure to the wound, but there was a tremendous amount of give. The torn heart had stopped beating; he could count the broken ribs.
“Pop?”

The old man’s pupils were of differing sizes, and there was no reactive movement when Charlie touched one of the lenses with a tentative fingertip. Fixed and dilated. His hair reminded him of milkweed fluff. He paused to comb a few stray strands from that frozen face with trembling fingers, then heard a voice inside his head. His father’s voice.

Never mind about me. Go save our little girl.

5

T
HE
SNAP
of feet over asphalt. Heart pounding, legs pumping, Charlie sprinted across the parking lot and tugged on the pickup truck door.
This is not how it’s going to end,
he thought furiously as he crawled back inside the cold cab. He stabbed his key in the ignition, put the truck into gear and tore out of the lot, all the while groping for a sense of calm.
Take it on the chin. Breathe deep. Be a man.
His father, talking to him at the hospital, holding his hand. Talking him through the pain.

The air was speckled with blowing rain. He activated his cell phone and dialed the station house. “Mike?”

“What’s going on, Chief?”

“It isn’t good.” He could feel his lips quivering around each word. “My father’s dead.”

“What?”
came the incredulous reply.

“Rick Kripner rigged an air cannon with a trip wire. He used Sophie’s locket as bait. She’d never go anywhere without it.” He could feel his throat closing around this unspeakable thought. “I don’t know what he did with her, but I can’t believe he’d hurt her. He knows her. How could he hurt her?”

“Chief, calm down.”

“I’m following the storm track to Aberdeen…”

“Wait a second, boss. What happened? What went down?”

“Rick was at the wind facility. We just missed him. He ditched the Sierra and took the Doppler van. He sabotaged the facility. Willa Bellman almost died. My father’s dead. I couldn’t find Sophie. I think he took her with him. My hunch is… Jesus Christ, I knew his M.O. was changing, but
this
.” Fear clung like a net. “She can’t be dead.”

“Calm down, Chief.”

“My hunch is he’s wants to find a tornado before he… does anything to any more victims.”

“The department’s behind you. All our resources.”

“There’s a tornado warning down around Aberdeen. He’s probably halfway there by now. I’ve got maybe forty minutes to catch up… I’ve really gotta book it, Mike… make up for lost time. Notify local law, tell them I’m on my way.” The exhaustion hit him. There was no weight to him, no weight at all. “My guess is he’s on his way to Aberdeen… looking for a tornado. Put out a BOLO for a brown Doppler van with ‘Environmental Sciences Lab’ on the side. And get some choppers in the air. Apprise everybody as to the level of danger. Tell them he’s got a hostage with him. She’s sixteen years old, five-foot-seven, brown hair, blue eyes… Jesus, Mike. Are you getting all this?”

“Yeah, I got it, boss.”

“You’ll be where I can reach you?”

“I’m right here, buddy. We’re working the phones like crazy. We’ll find this nut job, never fear.”

“Tell them to be careful, this is my daughter we’re talking about.”

“Not to worry.”

He hung up and stared at the sky.
Supercell. Find a supercell.
He had to get to Aberdeen as soon as possible. Once he got to East Texas, he’d look for one of those rotating clouds that resembled a nuclear explosion. A bead of sweat slid down his forehead as he squinted at the sky through the rain-spattered windshield, his gaze drifting toward a distant curl of cumulus, its underbelly like mauve-colored wool. He had maybe an hour of daylight left. He picked up the road map. Twitchy. Nervous.

Forget it. Forget the map.

He dropped the map on the seat, while the seconds boomed inside his head.
Tick, tick, tick.
He couldn’t keep his teeth from chattering. The world was vast and blurry and all out of reach. In the distance, beyond the hills’ crooked fence line, he could see a truck inching along a country road. Sophie couldn’t be dead. He was convinced she was still alive, out there somewhere beyond the alfalfa fields and cattle ranches. When darkness came, when somebody you loved was out there all by herself… it shut you down. It beat you up.
No more losses. No more grief.
The smell of his own cowardly fear was making him gag.

Snagging his cell phone, he tried Rick’s number again, fingers fumbling. Not expecting an answer.

“Yello?” came the toneless response.

Charlie stared at his own sweaty face with its questioning smile in the rearview mirror. His eyes looked back at him, reflecting a watery horror. “Rick?”

After a suspicious beat, he said, “Yes?”

“This is Charlie Grover.”

A strangled laugh. “Oh… hello.”

His heart pounded crazily. “Could I speak to Sophie, please?”

Short pause. “Well,” Rick finally answered, “I took one look at those clouds last night and couldn’t pass it up.”

Charlie stiffened. Rick’s evasiveness meant that Sophie was still alive—and that she was listening. Otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered to evade the question. “Let me talk to her.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Is she okay?”

“Right as rain.”

Rick was clever. He hadn’t mentioned Charlie’s name yet, which meant that if Sophie was listening, she wouldn’t know it was her father on the other end of the line. Charlie could deduce two things from this: one, that his daughter wasn’t aware of the danger she was in, and two, that she wasn’t bound and gagged. If Rick had tied her up, he wouldn’t bother hiding Charlie’s identity from her.

Charlie had been trained—ever so briefly and long ago—in hostage negotiations. The person he was dealing with was a sociopath who would be loyal to no one but himself. His relationship to others was manipulative and self-serving. He wanted what he wanted, when he wanted it. He blamed others for his behavior and didn’t feel guilt or remorse the way most human beings did. He could be extremely cool.
Be careful. He may end up interviewing you.
Threats of punishment would not alter his unacceptable behavior. The solution must be face-saving, otherwise you were looking at a shoot-out. Tactical solutions were best.
Be calm. Be patient.

“What’re you doing?” Charlie asked in a level voice. “I thought we were friends.”

“Yeah, sure. Good buddies.”

Allow him to vent his feelings.

“What’s this all about? Did I piss you off somehow?”

“Oh, hey. Don’t get all philosophical on me now.”

“I want to know what’s bothering you. Tell me how I can help you, Rick.”

“There’s really nothing you can do.”

Convince him that the safe release of the hostage is to his advantage. Do not try to bullshit this guy. He responds to authority figures; therefore, introducing a non-police negotiator might make the situation worse. Keep him busy. Offer something in return for a concession.

“If you let her go,” Charlie said, “I’ll back off the case. I won’t pursue it.”

That strangled laugh again.

“I won’t follow you. You can go wherever you want to, just let her go. Please. I’m begging you.”

“Well, now…
that’s
believable.”

Charlie’s hands went stiff on the wheel as he drove past a filling station, while the rain poured down from the sky and dimpled the hood of the truck. He caught sight of his own pathetic face in the rearview mirror again and couldn’t meet his desperate gaze. “Please… look. Let’s negotiate.”

“Nothin’ doing.”

He gripped the steering wheel, held on and felt himself dissolving, unraveling.
Don’t get irritated. Don’t interrupt.
“I know where you’re headed,” he said. “I’m coming after you.”

“Oh, I doubt that very much.”

“I’m right behind you.”

“Uh-huh.”

Don’t use trigger words…

“You sick bastard, I’m right on your ass. You’ll be seeing my face in your rearview mirror very shortly, you crack-headed piece of shit. It’s the gray Loadmaster pickup truck, just so you know.”

“What, those antiquated wheels? That heap leaks like a waterfall. I’m talking Third World antiquated. No, wait. The Third World would laugh at you.”

Don’t get mad… don’t be argumentative…

“I’ll track you down and rip out your heart with my teeth, you sorry-ass son of a bitch.”

“Hm. You think?”

Don’t be tough, don’t be defensive…

“I’m coming after you, you demented freak… you sick fuck… I’ll kill you, make no mistake about it.”

“Listen,” Rick said coolly. “Because you’re such a nice guy, here’s what I’ll do. I’ll let you in on a trade secret. Don’t let the models do the forecasting for you. Use them selectively. They’ve burned many. I mean, yeah… you can look at them and get a basic idea. Like today, for instance. Everybody’s got a hard-on for Aberdeen. Check it out yourself. See if the previous twelve-hour forecasts match your current analysis, but I’d advise you to listen to your gut. This is where fate steps in.”

Charlie pressed his fingers to his eyelids and blinked away the tears. “. . . wait a second.”

“Good luck.”

A scream of static disconnected them.

“Hello? Motherfucker!!!” Charlie tossed the cell phone and reached for the old analog controls of the CB radio, multiple voices sputtering out of the speaker. He scooped up the mike and, working to keep his voice under control, said, “Can I get a break? Break one-oh? How’s it looking in Texas? How’s it looking in Aberdeen? Anybody out there with an update?”

He listened to sporadic reports through the crackling static: “. . . we’re on the boulevard, driver, let’s do it to it… watch your back, it’s spitting hail balls… slow down, you got a bunch of Boy Scouts past the next rest area…”

Charlie searched the darkening sky, then pounded his fist on the steering wheel, pounded until it was sore. He slumped over the wheel in a daze. This was hopeless, like looking for a needle in a haystack. His mind went stubbornly blank. His body felt brutalized. Time rivered away like raindrops on a windshield. Exhausted and shaken, he thought about the brown Doppler van and had a flash of Rick Kripner behind the wheel. In this vision, he pulled up alongside the van, aimed his loaded gun at Rick’s head and pulled the trigger… blew his fucking brains out.
Just find her. Shut up and find her.

His father’s voice.

A renewed fury tore at his limbs. He jabbed the horn and raced toward the yellow light, exhaust echoing. A blue Pontiac slammed on its brakes behind him as he shot through the red light and went tearing off down the interstate.