Читать книгу Black Friday - Alex Kava, Alex Kava - Страница 9

Mall of America

“We’ve got a problem,” Asante growled into his wireless headset. He avoided people in the parking lot, some standing in the frigid cold just staring while others ran to their vehicles.

“What’s the problem?”

Asante could barely hear the response.

“We’ve got one carrier still on the move.”

There was silence and Asante thought perhaps the connection had faded out.

“How is that possible?” came the reply.

“You tell me.”

“There were three blasts. No one could survive that.”

“You watched them?” Asante asked with careful accusation.

“Of course.” But the conviction wavered against the hint of Asante’s irritation.

“You saw each one?”

“Yes. I saw all three arrive in the food court area.” Hesitation, then the admission. “Carrier #3 brought two friends along. I didn’t think it was a problem.”

Asante stayed silent when he wanted to remind his point man that he didn’t get paid to think. No matter how willing, no matter how capable they appeared to be, Asante had learned to trust no one but himself. It was a tough lesson he had learned long before Oklahoma City, one that had taught him to always, always have cutaways like McVeigh and Nichols for each and every project no matter how small or large.

“I’m headed back in.”

More silence. Asante knew exactly what the man was thinking. You must be insane. But of course, he wouldn’t dare question the Project Manager.

“What do you want me to do?” The question came quietly, hesitantly and probably with the hope that Asante would not request that he accompany him.

“Find out who those other two are.” He could almost hear the other man’s relief.

Asante continued, making his way through the cold and the snow to the back of the mall, toward the same exit he had used earlier to flee. Before he’d left the sanctuary of his getaway car, he’d exchanged his Carolina Panthers baseball cap for a navy blue cap with PARAMEDIC embroidered on the front. He’d also changed his jogging shoes for a pair of hiking boots. On purpose the boots were three sizes too large for him. A shoeprint could be as incriminating as a fingerprint and in the snow the print might be well preserved. He had already prepared the boots with socks in the toes, making them a comfortable enough fit that he could run in them if necessary.

The jogging shoes he’d kept and thrown into a duffel bag with everything else he would need including a syringe filled with a toxic cocktail he always carried for himself. It was one more detail, a safeguard for a project manager who insisted on controlling even the details of his own death if it came to that. Today he’d need to use it on the surviving carrier instead of on himself.

He had never intended to return to the scene but took every precaution if it became necessary. He had researched and studied the mall’s routine until he knew it by heart. Within seconds the mall’s security would come over the public address system announcing “an incident” and ordering a lockdown. Shops would pull down their storefront grates. Kiosks would close down and secure their merchandise. By now the sprinkler systems on the third floor would have been activated. Escalators and all portions of the amusement park would come to a screeching halt.

The fire department would be alerted as soon as those sprinklers opened. Asante expected their sirens any moment now. In fact, he was surprised he didn’t hear them already, but the snow might slow them down. The local police would follow. As soon as a bomb was suspected, a bomb squad and a sniper unit would be sent. Mall security carried no weapons. Asante figured he had ten minutes at least, thirty minutes at the most, before he had to deal with a ground and air mass invasion of armed responders.

As he plodded through the snow he set his diver’s watch to count down the seconds. Thirty minutes should be more than enough time to find the errant carrier and terminate him.