Black Friday (13 page)

A
sante had cleared airport security with no problems. He presented a boarding pass and driver’s license and received only a cursory glance with a wave of a busy hand. Even his duffel bag made it through with a brief pause on the conveyer. No one spoke to him. No one gave him a second look. It was perfect.

Except that here he still sat at his gate. His flight was delayed. No new departure time even hinted at.

He avoided drawing attention to himself but stayed close enough to listen. He’d heard the desk clerk tell another passenger that their plane was on the ground in Chicago and the snowstorm kept it there. As soon as it was cleared for takeoff and on its way, she would alert everyone. Until then, they could only wait.

“No,” she told several impatient passengers. “There were no other flights tonight to Las Vegas.”

On his handheld computer, Asante had done his own search of other flights on other airlines. Unfortunately the clerk was correct. There were no other flights from Minneapolis to Las Vegas until morning and all of those were booked or overbooked.

“It is after all, Thanksgiving weekend,” he overheard the clerk defend herself when one of the passengers complained.

Asante kept calm. Just another glitch.

He had already checked rental cars, too. None available. Even those due back were delayed because of the storm. What Asante had earlier called a godsend was quickly turning into a…a glitch, he reminded himself. Only a glitch.

Sitting so close to the information desk, he’d shut off his phone’s ringer and ignored all calls. Now he checked messages. They knew better than to leave text messages. Too easy to trace. There was, however, one voice message. He pushed the button to listen.

“Hi, it’s me,” the woman’s voice said in a cheerful, familiar tone, a wife leaving a quick message for a husband.

“Just wanted to let you know Becky hasn’t been picked up yet. She’s out of cash. On our way to get her now.”

Asante smiled. He should have been upset that Rebecca Cory was still wandering around. “She’s out of cash,” meant that the girl must have tried an ATM machine. Their system would be able to tell them exactly where the ATM machine was located. They’d know exactly where to “get her.”

He checked his wristwatch. If the plane was still in Chicago there was no way it would get here within an hour. He had ignored his hunger for too long, and he believed taking care of the basics kept the mind sharp. Food was one of those basics. He set the alarm on his watch for thirty minutes. On his handheld computer, that he continued to keep strapped to his other wrist, he set the alarm for any weather alerts concerning Chicago and Minneapolis. Then he swung his duffel up over his shoulder and headed off to find something to eat.

Despite the delay he was safe here. If the authorities began searching for another person—another John Doe #2—they’d never identify him now. Even if they captured his image on any of the mall’s cameras and started canvassing the airport to prevent his escape, they’d never find him. Most airports didn’t have cameras in their ticketing or receiving areas. Those were virtually securityless or what Asante liked to call, “security-lite.” And the John Doe #2 who had facilitated the mall bombing was no longer anywhere to be found. He had been left down in one of those camera-less areas, stuffed away in the restroom trash and flushed down the toilet.

M
aggie shouldn’t have been surprised that A.D. Kunze didn’t share Deputy Director Wurth’s excitement for the way she had handled the parking lot suspect. Turned out the kid was a sixteen-year-old Sudanese refugee, separated from his newly adoptive mother during the bombing. He spoke pretty good English except the panic had dismantled the pretty good. Raw fear and instinct had brought back too many fresh memories of government police in his country. He did the only thing he knew—he ran. Fortunately he hadn’t been hurt.

Maggie, on the other hand, knew she might have a bruised rib or two. Not a good idea to go flinging yourself over car hoods or getting shoved into chrome grills of SUVs.

She was still holding her aching side, allowing Wurth and a paramedic to help her take off her vest. Wurth insisted she get checked out and had taken her to the hotel across the street where a triage area had been set up in one of the ballrooms. To avoid the media, he convinced a paramedic to use a small room off the ballroom. They were able to keep the media out. No such luck in keeping Kunze out. He came marching in and immediately began lecturing her.

“What the fuck did you think you were doing out there, O’Dell? You were just supposed to let them know whether or not the kid was one of the bombers.” He stood over her, hands on his hips, veins bulging in his thick neck. “We didn’t need you running off and playing hero. You could have gotten a bunch of bystanders killed. Not to mention law enforcement officers. We have enough trigger-happy assholes out there without you giving them a good excuse to let loose.”

“That’s enough.” Wurth surprised Maggie as much as he did Kunze.

“What’d you just say to me?”

“Shut the fuck up.” Wurth was about five inches shorter and fifty pounds lighter than Kunze but he didn’t back down. He stared up at the FBI director and didn’t flinch. “Your agent did a courageous thing out there.”

“Courageous? You think that little game of catch-me-if-you-can was courageous?”

“She prevented an innocent kid from getting killed. And yeah, on a day when we’re all looking to shoot up somebody for what happened here, I’d say what she did was pretty courageous.”

“Well, it’s too bad you’re not her supervisor. Maybe she wouldn’t get reprimanded.”

“Reprimanded?” That stopped Wurth.

As for Maggie, again, she shouldn’t have been surprised. She said nothing. Just closed her eyes briefly from the sharp pain in her side and finished pulling off the protective gear. Kunze had managed to scare off the paramedic, too.

“Forty-five minutes,” Kunze said. “That’s how much time you two get to clean up before you go live in front of the media and explain what just happened. I’ll see you then.”

They watched him leave. He disappeared out the door.

Wurth turned to look at her. “What the hell did you ever do to that guy?”

R
ebecca started to panic again. The ATM at the gas station/minimart next to the hotel had spit out both her debit card and her credit card. She wasn’t sure she had enough money for a cab ride to the hospital. Mall of America was clear out here in the suburbs and she knew the hospital was downtown.

She stood inside the station’s shop looking out at the swirling snow. God, it was cold and dark. After the explosion, she’d ripped out the lining of her coat to stop the bleeding in her arm. Each time the shop door opened it made her shiver to think about going out walking in that cold again.

She bought a Snickers bar just so they wouldn’t kick her out of the shop, although there was a steady stream of people coming and going. She stared out the window, headlights flickering on and off as cars pulled up to the gas pumps or parked at the shop. She could see her reflection in the glass, only glimpses but enough to feel like she didn’t recognize herself. Her arm throbbed. She contemplated buying the travel pack of Tylenol for four-ninety-eight, but that would leave her with even less money, less security.

She took small bites of the candy bar, trying to remember when she had eaten last. All she’d had was the coffee earlier at the food court. Leftover turkey and dressing last night at Dixon’s grandparents’ house. A heavenly feast. God! That felt like days ago. A lifetime ago.

“Becky?”

Rebecca turned to find a woman smiling at her. None of her family or friends called her Becky. Either Rebecca or Becca. But the woman looked like she knew her.

“I thought that was you,” the woman said.

She had paid for her gas and was obviously headed back out the door. Now she moved aside to let someone else out and let go of the door. She was Rebecca’s age, maybe a little older, dressed in worn-out jeans and an expensive leather jacket. In one hand, car keys dangled from her fingers, in the other she held a couple bags of chips and her spare change.

“I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“No, not really,” the woman admitted and shrugged as if she was sort of embarrassed. “I’m Chad’s girlfriend. He pointed you out at the mall. I’m on my way to pick him up. Can I give you lift somewhere?”

Rebecca blinked and tried not to gasp. Chad was dead. She’d seen him explode. Did his girlfriend really not know?

“No, thanks,” she managed. “I’m actually waiting for someone.”

“Really?” The woman didn’t look convinced. “Looks like you got hurt.” She pointed at the bloodied sleeve of Rebecca’s coat. “Crazy what’s happened, huh. Chad got bruised up, too. You sure I can’t give you a lift?”

“No really. I don’t want to miss my friend.”

People were walking in around the woman. She was starting to be in the way of the foot traffic.

“Okay then. See ya.”

Rebecca watched the woman walk back to her vehicle. She looked over her shoulder and waved. Rebecca slid over so she could still see out the window but now over a display of ice scrapers. The woman’s van was back at one of the corner pumps, the windshield draped in shadows so Rebecca couldn’t tell if there was anyone else in the van.

Was it possible that Chad had survived? Could Rebecca be mistaken? In her panic and shock could she have only thought she saw Chad explode? All of it seemed like a nightmare. A bad movie. Maybe she had imagined it.

She squeezed out of sight while keeping her eye on the van. A quick glance around the shop. The guy behind the cash register was watching. She pretended to look at the ice scrapers, picking one up and checking the price. Another wave of customers came in and the guy was too busy to keep track of her. She replaced the ice scraper and moved to the other side of the shop, close to the restrooms, a spot where her view was only a slice of the gas pumps. But she could see the parking lot’s exit and the back lot. She watched the van leave. Slowly it pulled out the exit and onto the street. Rebecca felt her shoulders slump from relief.

She pulled Dixon’s iPhone out of her pocket and powered it on. Dixon was her only hope. She found his last text message. She didn’t need to know the number if she simply pushed Reply.

She tapped out her message:

U STILL THERE?

Within seconds came the response:

WHERE R U?

A GAS ‘N SHOP ACROSS FROM MALL. CAN U COME GET ME?

She waited.

ON MY WAY.

Rebecca leaned against the wall, weak with relief. She quickly caught herself. Glanced around. Cash register guy was still busy. She’d be okay. She’d wait here for Dixon.

Then she saw it. The dark-colored van eased its way slowly to the opposite side of the parking lot, creeping to a stop alongside the back Dumpster.

M
aggie found a Pepsi machine and ice maker off the crowded lobby. Wurth had managed to get them hotel rooms. Even had her bag delivered from the back of the SUV. She got the impression that once you earned Charlie Wurth’s respect he took good care of you. Not something she was used to, especially lately with A.D. Kunze.

As the last of the injured were cared for, the hotel’s ballroom, reception area and lobby slowly transformed into an information center for families to reconnect and to find out about loved ones. Screams and cries—some out of sadness, some out of relief—mixed with greetings and a litany of instructions. The front revolving doors swirled continuously, bringing in a constant stream of cold air and a new wave of victims, their families or responders.

Maggie gently eased her way through the crowded lobby, nudging and excusing herself. The constant press of bodies and steady hum of voices made it feel like forever to get across to the bank of elevators.

The hotel was large, an eight-story convention center, but the holidays and its proximity to Mall of America ensured it was packed with regular customers. This overflow of injured and worried families created an additional energy and caused a commotion of its own. In the midst of all of it, Maggie had noticed the disjointed line of guests dragging their suitcases and waiting to check out. A good deal of frightened guests—concerned about the bombings not being over or confined to the mall—wanted to be gone, leaving rooms available for law enforcement and medical personnel. Maggie didn’t realize how grateful she was that Wurth had snatched up several of those rooms until she closed the door to her own. Now as she tried to make her way back there with her Diet Pepsi and bucket of ice, she realized how dead tired she was.

Once inside the elevator the noise disappeared, like turning off the volume of a loudspeaker. The cries and shouts and mumblings were replaced by Christmas music. At first, Maggie only noticed the change because of the drastic difference. As she left the elevator and started for her room, the music followed her down the hallway. Then she recognized it as a nice change. A soothing change.

She usually survived the Christmas season by ignoring it as best as possible but there were certain elements that reminded her of a pleasant time in her childhood, what she called the prefire days. Music of the season was one of those things that she took heart in.

Maggie was twelve when her father was killed, a firefighter running back into a flaming house to save the occupants. People told her she should be proud her father died a hero. As a child Maggie thought that was a ridiculous thing to tell her because, of course, she would rather have a live father than a dead hero.

Christmases after his death were usually as unpredictable as they were untenable. It depended on how early in the day—or the evening before—her mother decided to start the festivities and who the guests would be—Jim Beam, José Cuervo or Jack Daniel. If the year had been especially successful, Johnnie Walker might replace all the others.

As an adult, Maggie had tried—in the beginning, at least—to start some new holiday traditions with her now ex-husband, Greg. But as a young and rising star in a prestigious law firm, Greg had always been more concerned with being seen at the right holiday parties and leaving lasting impressions with expensive gifts that he’d later grumble about not being able to afford. There were no quiet moments putting up a tree, no midnight masses with inspiring messages of hope, no family feasts around a crowded table. After a while the Christmas season became something Maggie just got through.

But every once in a while something would remind her of Christmases before the fire—happy, wonderful times that now after twenty years seemed almost a figment of her imagination. Earlier she thought she had seen someone who looked like her father—down in the crowded lobby—so he was already on her mind.

As she placed her key card into her hotel room’s door the next song began: “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” Without warning she remembered her father singing the same words and that Christmas came back to her in a flood of memories so vivid they couldn’t possibly be made up by her imagination.

The three of them—her mother and father and Maggie—had spent the afternoon trudging through the snow at a Wisconsin tree farm. Their mission to find and cut down “the most magical Christmas tree in the field.”

“How will we know it’s magical?” She wanted to know but her father just kept shaking his head and saying, “We’ll recognize it when we see it.”

Maggie had been eleven that Christmas. She was too old to believe in Santa or magic. When her father finally stopped and pointed to the tree he wanted, she thought it looked suspiciously like all the others they had declined. But her father loved to make a special event out of their outings and she and her mother played along. That night they decorated the tree, sipping hot chocolate and singing Christmas carols. At the time they had no idea it was to be their last Christmas together. Perhaps that alone was what ended up being magical about it.

Inside the room, Maggie checked the time. She set aside the ice bucket. The ice was for her bruises, not the soda. She guzzled half the Diet Pepsi while she started pulling off her dirty clothes. Her suitcase lay open on one of the double beds. She wished she had time for a shower before their press conference, but she’d settle for a change of clothes. She turned on the TV only to fill the quiet, glancing briefly. Then she stopped completely.

The scene being played out looked like an episode of the reality show,
Cops.
It was, in fact, the local news. The camera had captured her chase of the young Sudanese boy. It wasn’t the first time the channel was playing it. The anchors were commenting as though they had seen it over and over and were now doing an instant replay analysis.

“Here it is,” the woman said just as Maggie watched herself jump up onto the hood of the compact car.

“Whoa,” the two anchors joined together.

“That had to hurt,” the woman added but she said it like she was a proud mother. “We’ve just learned that agent, Special Agent Margaret O’Dell, is a profiler from Quantico who is here at the request of Governor Williams.”

A professional photo of Maggie appeared in the corner of the television screen.

The anchor continued, “Special Agent O’Dell was able to assist and tell local law enforcement that this teenaged boy was not one of the bombers simply by the profile she has already come up with for the homicide bombers. The boy—”

Maggie’s cell phone started ringing.

On the television screen a photo of the boy was added alongside Maggie’s.

“This is Maggie O’Dell.”

“Some good news and some bad news,” Charlie Wurth announced without a greeting.

“What’s the good news?”

“You don’t have to do the press conference. I’ll join Chief Merrick and his home team for this one.”

“Let me guess. A.D. Kunze doesn’t want to exploit my escapade.”

“Aw, so you’re watching.”

“Just turned on the TV. Looks like the local station caught it.”

“Au contraire, cheri,”
he said giving his voice a pretty good New Orleans Cajun spin, “Networks just picked it up. CNN and FOX have it, too. You’re a star.”

“So I’m guessing that’s the bad news.”

“No, no. That’s not it. Remember how disappointed your supervisor was about a half hour ago? Well, now he’s fit to be tied. He did want me to tell you that we’re all meeting down in the command center, ground level, room 119. Your presence is greatly appreciated. Why don’t you wait and come down in about thirty minutes. I should be finished with the media by then and I’ll do my best to play interference.”

He was gone before she could thank him. She found the remote and clicked through the channels. Sure enough, there was the chase in various stages on different channels.

Her phone started ringing again. What had Wurth forgotten to tell her?

“This is Maggie O’Dell.”

“Hey, it’s Nick. What are you doing right now?” He sounded as casual as if he were asking her on a date. Obviously he hadn’t seen a television yet.

“Having my nails done, followed by a spa treatment.” He laughed long and hard. Like someone who hadn’t laughed in quite some time and didn’t expect to right this moment. So long, in fact, that she had to wait for him. It made her smile.

Then he was serious, again. “We heard the fourth bomber was a false alarm. Are you okay?”

“A few bruises. I’m fine.”

“Listen, Jerry and I just learned a few interesting things. I know we’re all meeting over at the command center in a little bit, but I thought you might like a heads-up.”

“So what did you learn?”

He told her about the bomb expert’s findings. It only confirmed her suspicions, that the young men carrying the backpacks had no clue what was to happen today.

He told her that Jerry was downloading the best shots they had found of the five suspects and ended by asking if there was anything else she wanted them to bring.

“How ’bout a burger and fries,” she said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

He hung up before she could tell if he knew she was joking. With Morrelli it was hard to decipher. There had always been chemistry between them but otherwise they seemed out of sync with no common ground to rely on. Maybe she’d simply given up trying to figure it out.

She finished peeling off the rest of her clothes. Ironically the chase had been good for her, mentally as well as physically. A month ago she wasn’t sure her body would hold up to those sorts of challenges ever again. She had felt weak and nauseated. A fever and nosebleeds sent her into a tailspin of panic, constantly wondering if the virus she had been exposed to might be replicating itself inside her body. At times she believed she could feel it exploding her blood cells. But she’d been lucky. She’d gone past the incubation stage and still showed no signs of the virus. Yes, she’d dodged yet another bullet, unlike Cunningham.

Now as she examined her injured right side she could see it had already started to turn blue and purple. Next to the scars on her torso, the bruises looked mild. No big deal. She’d accepted the fact that her body was becoming a road map of past cases. Told herself it came with the territory. When you tracked killers for a living, sometimes it got rough. Most of those memories had been safely compartmentalized. Eventually the fear and panic of the exposure would find its own compartment. Now if only she could do the same with her personal life.

Her friend Gwen Patterson, the professional psychologist whose past client list included killers as well as five-star generals, didn’t believe in compartments. She oftentimes reminded Maggie that stuffing everything behind doors and into convenient little compartments of the mind sometimes had a way of backfiring.

“One of these days a few walls may crumble. Then what?”

She suggested Maggie find a way to sift through the good and bad. Learn how to hang onto the good stuff. But what if the good—those memories of her father—only reminded her of what’s missing in her life? Maybe that’s what Nick Morrelli was reminding her of, again. Too many things missing.

Maggie checked the time. A five-minute shower would definitely do her wonders. And then she needed to learn some things on her own. She pulled out her laptop and plugged it in on her way to the shower.