Black Friday. Alex Kava

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.

      Chapter

      8

      Patrick shattered the glass to get the fire extinguisher. Yards away, the explosion had blown out storefronts and ripped open brick walls, yet here it hadn’t left even a crack in the glass case that housed the fire extinguisher. He pulled the extinguisher’s pin, ready to use it, but found only smoke, no fire. Still, he pushed his way through the gray mist, thick and wet like a fog on a humid summer morning. Again, he was going the wrong direction. He waited until a stream of shoppers shoved by, then he tried to move forward.

      Over the intercom he heard the mechanical voice repeating the same calm message, “There’s been an incident at the mall. Please remain calm. Walk, don’t run, toward the nearest exit.” The Muzak system was still playing holiday songs. No one noticed either.

      Patrick stopped to help a woman who had gotten shoved to the side. She was wrestling her baby out of a stroller. The infant looked unharmed but was screaming. The mother was wide-eyed and panicked.

      “Oh my God, oh my God!” she kept mumbling.

      Her hands were shaking and jerking at the blankets and straps that kept the baby restrained inside the stroller. She stumbled and rocked back and forth, losing her balance like someone who had too much to drink. Patrick noticed she didn’t have any shoes on. Her feet were already bloodied from the shower of glass that glittered the floor. He looked around and discovered the three-inch heels tossed aside. He scooped them up and offered them to her.

      “Your feet,” he pointed.

      She didn’t seem to hear him. She didn’t even look up at him. Once she had the baby in her arms she ran for the escalators, leaving behind the stroller, a diaper bag, a purse…and her shoes. She didn’t notice the trail of blood her feet left.

      Patrick put out one fire, a kiosk of cell phones already charred from the blast. He recognized a couple of stores and knew he was close to the food court. It had to be just around the corner. The smoke was thicker here. Harder to see. He had to feel alongside the wall and watch his feet. Debris littered the floor, slick and crunchy. He worried the rubber soles of his One Star high-tops might not be thick enough to withstand the larger pieces of glass and metal. Through the smoke he saw a sign for the restrooms. It dangled overhead and he realized this was where he had last seen Rebecca.

       Finally.

      Only Patrick couldn’t see the doorway. It was gone, replaced by a huge, ragged hole. The wall was buckled, lopsided and charred. Bricks bulged and hung loose like toy building blocks tossed and shoved out from the other side. Water seeped from one of the holes in the wall and a smell like rotten eggs, maybe sewage, flooded the area. He prayed that Rebecca wasn’t still inside the restroom when the blast went off.

      That’s when Patrick tripped, slamming himself against the sharp bricks, ripping the palm of his hand open, but managing to stay on his feet. When he looked down he saw the long dark hair first and thought he had tripped over a mannequin. After all, the legs were twisted and knotted together like they were made of plastic and were stuffed into a garbage bag. But there was nothing plastic about the eyes that stared up at him through the tangled hair. Her jaw had been torn away, leaving a wide gaping smile. Patrick’s first reaction was to reach down to help her up. Then he jerked back when he realized she must be dead.

      He took a better look at the twisted pile of legs he had tripped over and for the first time his head began to swim and his knees felt a bit spongy.

      The legs were no longer connected to the rest of the woman’s body.

      Chapter

      9

       Lanoha’s Nursery

       Omaha, Nebraska

      Nick Morrelli pulled out a credit card. He knew his sister Christine was watching him so he tried not to wince, flinch or clear his throat. All signs she would be looking for.

      She had already told him that he didn’t have to pay for the fresh-cut nine-foot Fraser fir Christmas tree. In fact, she had told him three times, leading him to insist, making him pretend that it was no big deal. And why would it be a big deal? Never mind that he had just left a prominent position with the Suffolk County prosecutor’s office in Boston to move back to Omaha. It wasn’t like he was fired or let go. The decision had been entirely his choice.

       Choice, not impulse.

      Impulse was the word his mom and Christine used.

      “Your father knows you love him, Nicky,” his mom had said when he told her he was moving back to Nebraska. “He doesn’t expect you to leave your life and be at his side.”

      At the time Nick wanted to tell her that the old Antonio Morrelli would want that exactly. He’d want everyone to uproot and rearrange their lives to accommodate his schedule especially now when he appeared to be near death. A massive stroke had left Nick’s father paralyzed and bedridden several years ago. Now his only means of communication were his eyes. Maybe it was simply Nick’s imagination but he swore he could still see that same disappointment and regret in those eyes—now watery blue instead of ice blue—every single time the man looked at him.

      Nick had tried most of his life to do what his father expected, tried to fill the huge shoes. His father had played quarterback for the Nebraska Huskers, so