Sky Zone: A Novel (The Crittendon Files) Page 13

  The way the arena was lit made the gray smoke seem to glow as it drifted in the stale air. Pamela’s shoulders shot back as another contraction overtook her. She had to tell Jack. They had to get out of there—to a hospital.

  She tugged his sleeve.

  He leaned over.

  “My contractions are hurting. They’re coming … pretty often.”

  “How often?” he whispered.

  She nodded. “Like, really often.”

  His head dropped, and a hand went to his forehead. After a moment, he reached over and put his hand on her hard stomach.

  She wasn’t about to tell him her water might’ve broken. She wasn’t sure. It was earlier, just after they’d gotten into the arena. It had been just a trickle, and she’d assumed it was only urine.

  “Dear Jesus, please … take the contractions away,” Jack prayed. “Let the pain go away. Please … get us out of here safely; get everyone out.” He squeezed her hand on and off as he prayed. “Let our baby be okay. Take care of the girls. God, come down and devour these terrorists. Turn their evil in on themselves—”

  “Let me ask you a question.” Zaher held the microphone to his mouth, his other hand high in the air, his machine gun dangling in front of him with its strap around his neck. “You people are here tonight to show your support, are you not, for United States presidential candidate Martin Sterling? Come, let’s hear it for Senator Sterling!”

  Silence.

  People looked down, turned away, fighting back fears. Some buried their heads in their hands.

  “Oh, I see …” He blurted a laugh. “Now you are not so certain about your candidate—”

  “Sterling for America!” a male voice shouted.

  Zaher stooped over, clanked the mic down, stood, pointed the machine gun, and blasted in the direction of the voice.

  The shot echoed, and screams peeled throughout the crowd.

  He’d missed on purpose, with foam, fabric, concrete, and chair parts exploding in a crooked horizontal line of dust from the shots.

  People were crying everywhere—men, women, and children. Jack’s and Pamela’s and Margaret’s and Derrick’s arms were now interlocked, squeezing tightly. Pamela barely breathed and could not stop shivering. Her mother was ghostly pale, but her face was like a stone, resolute and unflinching.

  Zaher picked up the microphone and pointed to the voice. “See. That is you Americans. Proud and arrogant, yet cowards and infidels. Just like this man you adore, Martin Sterling.” His gun still smoked as it hung in front of him. “You are all idolaters!”

  Jack was squirming in his seat, looking all around, whispering with Derrick, who was clearly in pain. Margaret sat with her arms crossed, one hand inside her coat.

  “Do you know what your candidate has said?” Zaher crossed to the front of the stage. “He said Americans should not accommodate Muslims in this country.” He pointed an index finger in the air like a gun. “He called us parasites. He said that to allow the unrestricted immigration of Muslims in your land is cultural suicide. And you are all in agreement, are you not?”

  Jack squeezed Pamela’s arm tight and leaned close. “Have Margaret pass me the gun.”

  “The West is full of hostile unbelievers,” Zaher said. “We’re here to send a message tonight—one that will go down in the history of the West and in all of the world!” He spun around like a dancer. “Bring out our subjects!”

  A large man in a black mask sauntered out of the shadows. He stopped, turned, and pointed his machine gun. Into the light, under gunpoint, came a towering SWAT guy who Jack whispered was Lieutenant Wolfski. His mouth was strapped with duct tape, hands tied behind him. He was followed by two more SWAT men. Then came Jack’s coworkers. He whispered their names as they came into the light … Tab … Gordy … Clarissa—each bound in a similar manner.

  Derrick’s head dropped amid shrieks from the crowd. Jack pursed his lips and nodded impatiently for Pamela to get him Margaret’s gun.

  “Sit down, all of you!” Zaher pointed for the hostages to sit on the floor of the stage, and they did so fluidly, smoke drifting above them in the dim lights. “Do you know what we do to people like you and Martin Sterling?” He wagged his head toward the audience. “People who criticize Islam? Eh? Do you know?”

  After some coaxing, Margaret carefully passed the gun to Pamela, looking at it longingly, as if she were giving up a childhood keepsake.

  “We are about to show you what we do to infidels.” Zaher laughed and began to turn in a circle, scanning the arena with his black eyes flashing. “Martin Sterling, where are you? It’s time to come out. What do you Americans say? ‘Come out, come out, wherever you are!’ And I mean now!”

  Pamela’s heart was pumping so fast. She covered the gun with her arms and coat and passed it to Jack. He covered her trembling hands with his.

  “Senator Sterling.” Zaher closed his fingers into a fist, pounded his chest, and looked at his big watch. “You have precisely five minutes to make your way down to this stage.” He pointed to a spot on the floor next to him. “And if you happen to be the coward I think you are and don’t show up, we will begin killing people, one by one—”

  Bedlam.

  “And I want that Christian, too,” Zaher shouted over the pandemonium. “That infidel Everett Lester. You’ve got five minutes to get on this stage, rock star, and that goes for your wife and son, too. But no one else comes with you, or with the senator. I want the four of you—alone.”

  Jack held the gun low, between his legs, examining it. He grimaced as he slowly racked the slide, sending a bullet into the chamber just as the next contraction hit Pamela like a lightning bolt.

  27

  Shakespeare hadn’t taken ten steps on the seemingly vacant club level when Zaher’s loud voice demanded that Sterling and Everett get to the stage in five minutes.

  It was 8:19.

  He dashed down the half-lit corridor to suite 227, where Chico was supposed to have taken Sterling, and shone his flashlight through the glass. The room was empty. He eased the door open and ducked inside. The tables were lined with beverages and silver trays full of food, but nothing had been touched.

  His phone vibrated, and he found a text from Hedgwick.

  We have a plan. Call me.

  Shakespeare’s phone battery was down to 13 percent.

  Zaher’s voice continued to boom over the PA: “And I want that Christian, too. That infidel Everett Lester. You’ve got five minutes to get on this stage …”

  Shakespeare slung his rifle over his back, hit the floor, grimacing from the throbbing pain in his arm, and crawled like a commando to the terrace overlooking the bowl. He got his bearings, found the stage … No! Bound and sitting on the stage amid Zaher and his masked henchmen were Clarissa, Tab, Gordy, and the SWAT guys.

  No sign of Jack or the others. They could be anywhere in the crowd.

  He crawled back into the suite, slid to an interior wall, called Hedgwick, and told him Clarissa and company were now hostages.

  “Okay, listen, we’ve got a plan, Brian. We want you to take out the hostile at the glass doors just outside section 115,” Hedgwick said. “We think he’s alone. We’ll have an army of men ready to roll in—”

  “Hold up,” Shakespeare said. “Zaher just gave Sterling and Lester five minutes to turn themselves in, or he starts killing people.” He looked at his watch. “We’ve got four minutes.”

  “Brian, go now! Section 115. Just get us in. We’ll—”

  “Are your men there? Are they ready right now?”

  “They can be. Listen, by the time you get there—”

  Shakespeare’s chin slammed to his chest. He squeezed his sweating forehead. Think … think.

  “If I can find Sterling and Lester,” Shakespeare said, “I can go with them—”

  “And do what? Liste
n to me, Brian. This is our best move. Tell me exactly where Zaher and his men are.”

  Shakespeare gave him the rundown.

  “Okay, good. Now go!” Hedgwick said. “My men will be briefed and ready.”

  Yes, it made sense.

  Shakespeare got to his feet, loaded a fresh magazine, and stood at the door for a second to plan his route. Around the corridor … to the stairwell … down to the main concourse … right a little ways to section 115.

  His watch said he had three minutes till Sterling and Lester were expected onstage.

  He cracked the door, checked both ways, and took off.

  Everett was shivering with anxiety in anticipation of what he was about to do, but trying not to show it as he insisted for the fifth time that Karen and Cole were not coming with him to turn themselves in at the stage.

  “We need to be together,” Karen pleaded, close to tears. “He said all three of us. If we don’t go, he’ll kill you!”

  “He might kill me anyway, Karen—and you. There’s no way I’m taking you down there.”

  Senator Sterling’s people were gathered around him, talking in hushed tones.

  “Ev, I don’t want you to go without us.” She looked frantically about the suite. Cole’s arms were wrapped tightly around her. “We could leave Cole here. How about that? Gray will watch him. That way—”

  “No, Karen. You’re staying. He needs you. I’ll be okay.”

  “You need to make up your minds.” Senator Sterling tapped his watch. “We need to move it.” He took several steps toward the door as his people backed away from him.

  “Sir, I insist we go with you as far as we can,” said a bald body guard. The other two agreed.

  “I will too,” Jenny King said.

  Everett’s manager, Gray, offered to go with them as far as possible as well.

  “Look, let’s just do what the man asked.” Sterling looked at Karen and Cole as if they should be going too. Then he panned the room. “There’s no reason any of the rest of you should endanger your lives by leaving this suite. It’s not you they want.”

  “Senator, I’m not taking my family down there,” Everett said.

  Surely he has to understand. Maybe he thinks I’ll be jeopardizing our lives by not taking Karen and Cole.

  Sterling turned his back. “Fine. In any case, we need to go.”

  Everett hugged Karen and Cole, the three of them locked in a surreal embrace, Karen’s body trembling.

  “Sir, I’m sorry, we are coming,” said another security guard.

  Sterling cursed and threw up a hand in disgust. “All right, but you heard the man. You’re not going down to the stage.”

  “Everett or Senator, maybe you should take one of the bodyguards’ guns,” Gray said.

  “No. They’ll frisk us.” Sterling leveled his gaze at Everett. “Ready?”

  Suddenly the door opened, and Brian Shakespeare barged in, out of breath. He closed the door behind him. “How’d you guys end up in here?” he said.

  “We changed suites,” Jenny said. “The insurgents knew where we were.”

  Shakespeare nodded, catching his breath. “I’m on my way to let a pack of SWAT guys in.” He examined Sterling, then Karen and Cole, then Everett. “You going down?”

  Everett answered. “Just the senator and me. His bodyguards will go with us as far as they can.”

  “Understood,” Shakespeare said. “I’ll cover you as long as I can. We’ll get these SWAT guys in here ASAP.” He checked his watch. “You guys get in the bowl and stall as long as you can. Talk to him. Agree with him. Cavalry’s on the way.”

  With that, the confident Shakespeare burst out the door. “Let’s go.”

  Everett turned to Karen and Cole and stared at them, drinking in their images, knowing he had to go, praying this wouldn’t be the last time he ever saw them.

  “It’s time,” Sterling said.

  Everett heard him leave.

  Chills engulfed him. Karen and Cole were sobbing.

  Everett looked into the eyes of his wife and son and forced a smile. “It’s gonna be okay.”

  But he didn’t mean he was going to live.

  He didn’t mean it was all going to work out the way they wanted.

  He meant, if this was his time to die, he would be going to heaven—and God would take care of them.

  28

  Shakespeare led the men quickly around the club-level corridor to the stairwell nearest section 115. Quietly they shuffled down the stairwell single file. Close behind him was one of Sterling’s bodyguards, followed by Everett, then the bald bodyguard, then Sterling and the third of his men.

  Many lives were depending on Shakespeare.

  Not an unfamiliar feeling.

  He and the bodyguards had their guns drawn. As they worked their way downward, Shakespeare mentally prepared to enter the concourse and respond instantly to any individuals they might encounter. The challenge was deciphering the good guys from the bad in a split second and not killing innocent people.

  They got to the brown metal door leading to the concourse, and Shakespeare peered through the glass. Seeing no one, he turned to his group.

  “I want the bodyguards to enter the concourse with me,” he whispered. “Everett and Senator, you wait here till we signal for you. Once we do, get into the bowl quickly through the double doors and make your way to the stage.”

  He checked his watch. They had one minute.

  Everett’s head dropped. Shakespeare knew he was scared, but he was brave to go without his family.

  Sterling peered at Shakespeare with an unusually cold stare. Instead of fear, anger and hatred blazed in his eyes. He really did loathe the terrorists and what they were doing to America.

  “After we get Everett and the senator inside, I’d like you guys to come with me.” Shakespeare nodded to the bodyguards. “We’ll make sure Hedgwick and his team have a clear entry point.”

  He reached out to Everett and Sterling. “Remember, once you get to the stage, stall. Be agreeable. Tell them what they want to hear. The more you can make the clock tick, the better our chances.”

  They nodded. Everett was breathing hard.

  Shakespeare took a deep breath and set his shoulders back. “Let’s do it.”

  He gently pushed the door open and dashed to a wide white column. The bodyguards were with him like glue. Eighty yards to the left was a heavyset masked guard standing at a bank of doors.

  “You guys stay here,” Shakespeare told the bodyguards. “I’m going to that kiosk.” He pointed toward a coffee station twenty feet to the right. “If it’s clear, I’ll give you the sign, and you wave them into the bowl.”

  Shakespeare made sure the hostile to his left wasn’t looking, took off, and slid behind the kiosk. At the glass doors outside section 115, it was as Hedgwick had said—a lone masked insurgent meandering back and forth, head down.

  Shakespeare signaled, and the bodyguards waved for Everett and Sterling to go. The two men walked rapidly to the double doors and entered the arena.

  Okay, we got them in on time.

  But Shakespeare was worried about a violent response from Zaher when he realized Everett hadn’t brought Karen and Cole. All the more reason to hurry up and get SWAT into the building—

  The glass case two feet from Shakespeare’s head exploded, followed by more shots blistering all around him. He rolled left through broken glass, scrambled, and took cover within the entrance to a restroom.

  The shots had come from above.

  The gunman on the far left sprinted toward them. One of the bodyguards popped out from behind the pillar, took a knee, and fired two shots.

  The hostile dropped.

  More rounds exploded all around Shakespeare, echoing loudly off the concrete and tile, bits of which rained down on hi
m.

  He crawled back into the restroom, scrambled to his feet, and sprinted to the other entrance thirty feet away. Peeking around the corner, he spotted four masked men—all pointing right at him. A blinding mass of gunfire tore the walls to shambles and sent him reeling back inside in a rush of heat and smoke.

  He dashed back to the other entrance, knowing he couldn’t stay in there a second longer or they’d have him. More gunfire rang out in the concourse. He peered around the corner to see the bald bodyguard down cold, bleeding badly, possibly dead. His colleagues were leaning around the pillar, squared off in a gun battle with the hostiles, whose machine-gun fire had shredded parts of the drywall column the bodyguards hid behind.

  His phone vibrated.

  He had to get out or he’d be trapped.

  He checked around the corner. There were five masked men now, all blasting away at the bodyguards. He had to abort the plan to get those doors open.

  It was Hedgwick on the phone; he’d have to wait.

  Zaher’s loud voice ranted over the PA, but Shakespeare couldn’t make out what he was saying.

  Where to?

  He couldn’t try to make it to the bowl, or they’d gun him down.

  Up high.

  Yes, he had to get back to the stairs.

  He caught the attention of the bodyguard closest to him, who was sweating profusely and trembling under the hail of gunfire.

  “Cover me!” Shakespeare yelled, pointing to the stairwell. “I’m going for the stairs.”

  The bodyguards dropped back behind the pillar, and the shooting came to a temporary halt. With their backs to the column, the bodyguards looked at each other, spoke, and wiped their faces. One changed clips. The other reached out tentatively to retrieve the dead colleague’s weapon, but an onslaught of bullets sent him flinching back. He shook his head and said something to his partner.

  They raised their guns at the same time, looked at Shakespeare, nodded, and then bent around the pillar, opening fire with all they had.