The Scarecrow (44 page)

Rachel ran both hands through her hair and stared helplessly at the screen in front of her. Carver was blowing another round of smoke toward the ceiling. There was a look of calm resignation on his face.

“Rachel!” Mowry called from behind him. “Get us out of here!”

Carver looked back at his captives and shook his head.

“It’s over,” he said. “This is the end.”

Just then I was jolted by a second blast of the warning horn.

“Attention, the VESDA fire suppression system has been activated. All personnel must exit the server room. The VESDA fire suppression system will engage in forty-five seconds.”

Rachel stood up and grabbed her gun off the desk.

“Get down, Jack!”

“Rachel, no, it’s bulletproof!”

“According to him.”

She took aim with a two-handed grip and fired three quick rounds at the window directly in front of her. The explosions were deafening. But the bullets barely impacted the glass and ricocheted wildly in the control room.

“Rachel, no!”

“Stay down!”

She fired two more bullets into the glass door and got the same negative result. One of the ricocheting slugs took out one of the screens in front of me, the image of Carver disappearing as it went black.

Rachel slowly lowered her gun. As if to accentuate her defeat, the warning horn blasted again.

“Attention, the VESDA fire suppression system has been activated. All personnel must exit the server room. The VESDA fire suppression system will engage in thirty seconds.”

I looked out through the windows into the server room. Black pipes ran along the ceiling in a grid pattern and then down the back wall to the row of red CO
₂
canisters. The system was about to go. It would extinguish three lives but there was no fire in the server room.

“Rachel, there must be something we can do.”

“What, Jack? I tried. There is nothing left!”

She slammed her gun down on a workstation and slid into the chair. I came over, put my hands on the desktop and leaned over her.

“You have to keep trying! There’s got to be a back door to the system. These guys always put in back—”

I stopped and looked out into the server room as I realized something. And the horn blasted again, but this time I barely heard it.

“Attention, the VESDA fire suppression system has been activated. All personnel must exit the server room. The VESDA fire suppression system will engage in fifteen seconds.”

Carver was nowhere to be seen through the windows. He had chosen an aisle between two rows of towers out of view from the control room. Was this because of the location of the smoke detector or for some other reason?

I looked over at the undamaged screen in front of Rachel. It showed a multiplex cut of thirty-two cameras that had been turned dark by Carver. I hadn’t thought about why until now.

All in a moment the atoms smashed together again. Everything became clearer. Not just what I saw in front of me but what I had seen before—Mizzou out back smoking after I had seen him go into the server room. I had a new idea. The right idea.

“Rachel—”

The horn blast came loud and long this time. Rachel stood up and stared at the glass as the CO
₂
system engaged. A white gas exploded out of the pipes crossing the ceiling of the server room. Within seconds the windows were fogged and useless. The high-velocity discharge created a high-pitched whistle that came loud and clear through the thick glass.

“Rachel!” I yelled. “Give me your key. I’m going after Carver.”

She turned and looked at me.

“What are you talking about?”

“He’s not killing himself! He’s got that breather and there’s got to be a back door!”

The whistling stopped and we both turned back to the windows. It was a complete white-out in the server room but the CO
₂
delivery had stopped.

“Give me the key, Rachel.”

She looked at me.

“I should go.”

“No, you need to call for backup and medical emergency. Then work the computer. Find the back door.”

There wasn’t time to think and consider things. People were dying. We both knew it. She pulled the key out of her pocket and gave it to me. I turned to go.

“Wait! Take this.”

I turned back and she handed me her gun. I took it without hesitation, then headed into the mantrap.

R
achel’s gun felt heavier in my hand than I remembered my own gun ever feeling. As I moved through the mantrap, I raised it, checked the action and sighted down its barrel. I was only a once-a-year-at-the-range type of shooter but I knew I would be ready to use the weapon if necessary. I went through the next door and entered the octagon with the muzzle up. There was no one there.

I quickly crossed the room to the door on the opposite side. I knew from the website tour that this led to the large rooms that housed the power and cooling systems for the facility. The workshop where Carver and his techs built the server towers was back here, too. My guess was that there would be a second stairwell also.

I moved into the plant facilities room first. It was a wide space with large equipment. An air-conditioning system the size of a Winnebago sat in the center of the room connected to numerous overhead ducts and cables. Past this were backup systems and generators. I ran to a door on the far left side and used Rachel’s key card to open it.

I stepped into a long and narrow equipment room. There was a second door at the other end and my sense of the building’s plan told me it would lead to the server room.

Moving quickly to it, I saw that there was another biometric hand scanner mounted to the left of the door. Above it was a case holding the emergency breathing devices. It had to be a back door to the server room.

There was no way to tell whether Carver had already made his escape. But I had no time to wait to see if he would come through. I turned and headed back. I quickly moved through the plant facilities room again until I reached a set of double doors on the far side.

Holding the gun up and ready, I opened one of the doors with the key card and stepped into the workshop. This was another large room with tool benches lining the right and left walls and a work space in the center, where one of the black server towers was in midconstruction. The framework and sidings were complete but the interior shelves for servers had not been installed.

Beyond the server tower I saw a circular stairway leading up to the surface. This had to be the way up to the back door and the smokers’ bench.

I quickly moved around the tower and headed for the stairs.

“Hello, Jack.”

Just as I heard my name, I felt the muzzle of the gun on the back of my neck. I hadn’t even seen Carver. He had stepped out from behind the server tower as I had passed.

“A cynical reporter. I should’ve known that you wouldn’t buy my suicide.”

His free hand grabbed hold of my collar from the back and the gun remained pressed against my skin.

“You can drop the gun now.”

I dropped the weapon and it made a loud clatter on the concrete floor.

“I take it that was Agent Walling’s, yes? So why don’t we go back and pay her a visit? And we’ll end this thing right now. Or, who knows, maybe I’ll just end it for you and take her with me. I think I’d like to spend some time with Agent—”

I heard an impact of heavy object on flesh and bone and Carver fell into my back and then dropped to the floor. I turned and there was Rachel, holding an industrial-size wrench she had taken off the workbench.

“Rachel! What are—”

“He left Mowry’s key card on her workstation. I followed you out. Come on. Let’s get him back to the control room.”

“What are you talking about?”

“His hand. He can open the server room.”

We bent down to Carver, who was moaning and moving slowly on the concrete floor. Rachel took her weapon and the one Carver was holding. I saw a second gun in his waistband and grabbed it. I secured it in my own waistband and then helped Rachel drag Carver to his feet.

“The back door is closer,” I said. “And there are breathers there.”

“Lead the way. Hurry!”

We quickly walked, half carried Carver through the facilities room and into the narrow equipment room beyond. The whole way, he moaned and uttered words I couldn’t understand. He was tall but thin and his weight was not overbearing.

“Jack, that was good, figuring out the back door. I just hope we’re not too late.”

I had no idea how much time had passed but was thinking in terms of its being seconds not minutes. I didn’t respond to Rachel but believed we had a good chance to get to her fellow agents in time. When we reached the back door of the server room, I took on Carver’s weight and started to turn him so Rachel would be able to put his hand up on the scanner.

At that moment, I felt Carver’s body stiffen. He was ready for me. He grabbed my hand and pivoted, letting my momentum carry me off balance. My shoulder slammed into the door as Carver dropped one hand and went for the gun in my waistband. I grabbed at his wrist but was too late. His right hand closed around the gun. I was between him and Rachel and I suddenly realized that she couldn’t see the gun and that Carver was going to kill us both.

“Gun!”
I yelled.

There was a sudden sharp explosion next to my ear and Carver’s hands fell away from me and he slumped to the floor. A spray of blood hit me as he fell.

I stepped back and doubled over, holding my ear. The ringing was as loud as a passing train. I turned and looked up to see Rachel still holding her gun up in firing position.

“Jack, you okay?”

“Yeah, fine!”

“Quick, grab him! Before we lose the pulse.”

I moved behind Carver so I could get my arms underneath his shoulders and lift him up. Even with Rachel helping, it was a struggle. But we managed to get him upright and then I held him under the arms while she extended his right hand onto the reader.

There was a metal snap as the door’s lock disengaged and Rachel pushed it open.

I dropped Carver on the threshold, keeping the door open to let air in. I opened the case and grabbed the breathers. There were only two.

“Here!”

I gave one to Rachel as we entered the farm. The mist in the server room was dissipating. Visibility was about six feet. Rachel and I put on the breathers and opened the airways, but Rachel kept pulling hers off her mouth in order to call out her fellow agents’ names.

She got no responses. We moved down a central corridor between two lines of servers and were lucky as we came upon Torres and Mowry almost right away. Carver had put them near the back door so he would be able to escape quickly.

Rachel crouched down next to the agents and tried to shake them awake. Neither was responsive. She tore off her breather and put it into Torres’s mouth. I took mine off and put it in Mowry’s.

“You take him, I’ll take her!” she yelled.

We each grabbed one of the agents under the arms and dragged them back toward the door we had entered from. My guy was light and easy to move and I got a good lead on Rachel. But I started running out of steam halfway there. I needed oxygen myself.

The closer we got to the open door, the more air I began to get into my lungs. Finally I reached the door and dragged Torres over Carver’s body and into the equipment room. The bumpy landing seemed to jump-start Torres. He started coughing and coming to even before I put him down.

Rachel came in behind me with Mowry.

“I don’t think she’s breathing!”

Rachel pulled the breather out of Mowry’s mouth and started CPR procedures.

“Jack, how is he?” she asked without taking her focus off of Mowry.

“He’s good. He’s breathing.”

I moved to Rachel’s side as she conducted mouth-to-mouth. I wasn’t sure how I could help but in a few moments Mowry convulsed and started coughing. She turned on her side and brought her legs up into the fetal position.

“Its okay, Sarah,” Rachel said. “You’re all right. You made it. You’re safe.”

She gently patted Mowry’s shoulder and I heard the agent manage to cough out a thank-you and then ask about her partner.

“He’ll be fine,” Rachel said.

I moved to the nearby wall and sat with my back against it. I was spent. My eyes drifted to the body of Carver sprawled on the floor near the door. I could see both entry and exit wounds. The bullet had strafed across his frontal lobes. He had not moved since he had fallen but after a while I thought I could see the slight tic of a pulse on his neck just below the ear.

Exhausted, Rachel moved over and slid down the wall next to me.

“Backup’s coming. I should probably go up and wait for them so I can show them the way down here.”

“Catch your breath first. Are you okay?”

She nodded yes but she was still breathing heavily. So was I. I watched her eyes and saw them focus on Carver.

“It’s too bad, you know?”

“What is?”

“That with both Courier and Carver gone, the secrets died with them. Everybody’s dead and we’ve got nothing, no clue to what made them do what they did.”

I shook my head slowly.

“I got news for you. I think the Scarecrow’s still alive.”

NINETEEN: Bakersfield

It has been six weeks since the events that took place in Mesa. Still, those events remain vivid in my memory and imagination.

I am writing now. Every day. I usually find a crowded coffee shop in the afternoon in which to set up my laptop. I have learned that I cannot write in authorial silence. I must fight distraction and white noise. I must come as close as possible to the experience of writing in a crowded newsroom. I seem to need the din of background conversations, ringing phones and keyboards clacking to feel comfortable and at home. Of course, it is an artificial replacement for the real thing. There is no camaraderie in a coffee shop. No sense of “us against the world.” These are things I am sure I will miss about the newsroom forever.