Sky Zone: A Novel (The Crittendon Files) Read online

  Shakespeare made a run for it.

  29

  “What time you got?” Derrick whispered. He was still pressing hard at the wound on his side.

  Jack checked his watch. “It’s time. 8:24. You gonna make it?”

  Derrick nodded. They both scanned the bowl high and low, as did the other frightened faces around them.

  “Five minutes … five minutes is up!” Zaher appeared from the shadows onstage, machine gun held high.

  Pam’s fingers dug into Jack’s arm.

  “Wait!” a voice called from high atop the steps on a side aisle. “We’re here.”

  It was Senator Sterling, one flap of his dress shirt untucked, tie crooked. He looked down as he took each step, his hands in the air. “Take it easy.”

  He was followed by Everett Lester, who towered over Sterling with his hands in the air. Karen and Cole were not with him.

  That took guts, Jack thought. Zaher will be furious.

  “Aha.” Zaher’s voice projected loudly over the PA. “Hurry up. Make way for them … We haven’t got all day.”

  Sterling and Everett got to the floor and zigzagged their way toward the stage.

  “To the left,” Zaher pointed. “Up the steps. Hurry along.”

  They disappeared in the darkness for what seemed like forever, then walked into the light onstage, squinting.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, Senator Martin Sterling and recording artist Everett Lester!” Theatrically, Zaher swept a hand toward them as if introducing an act.

  But the crowd did not applaud. Many of the hostages could be heard crying, speaking to one another in panicked voices.

  “What’s wrong?” Zaher walked to the front of the stage. “This is your man, is it not? This is who you want to run the great West, is it not? Where is all your loud, repugnant talk now? Senator …” He turned and crossed to Sterling, who stood with his shoulders back, next to Everett. “What’s happened to your supporters? They seem to have lost a good deal of their enthusiasm.” He laughed.

  Sterling, with his hands behind his back, said something and glared at Zaher.

  Zaher ran over to him, comically, and held the mic to his mouth. “What did you say?”

  “I said, they are not used to being coerced by bullies and terrorists.” Sterling swallowed hard and looked straight ahead.

  Zaher’s head dropped, and so did his hand holding the mic. He bit his bottom lip, sneered, and flung the back of his hand across Sterling’s face. The sound of the slap was sharp and crisp.

  Everett looked down.

  Sterling grimaced, then said something more. Zaher held the mic to his mouth again and told him to repeat it.

  “Why don’t you just let these people go?” Sterling nodded toward Clarissa and the others sitting on the stage. “Everyone else, too.” He lifted his head toward the people in the bowl. “You can keep me. That’s what you want, isn’t it? To get rid of me before I get elected president and we put you and the rest of your psychotic friends out of business.”

  Zaher stuffed both hands on his waist and paced. Head dropped back, lips pursed, he looked up to the ceiling, at the hostages, at Sterling, at the crowd. The anticipation was sickening, and Jack feared the maniac might go ballistic and start executing people one by one.

  Zaher crossed to Everett and Sterling and squared up directly in front of them. One of his henchman, a stocky oaf with dark skin showing behind the mask at his eyes and mouth, nodded and took several steps closer. The other hostile did the same, as if something was about to flare up.

  “I thought I asked you to bring your wife and son.” Zaher held the microphone with his elbow high in the air. “Did you not hear me, Mr. Lester?”

  Everett’s head lifted slowly. His face was red. He spoke, but not into the mic. All Jack could hear were the words, “I heard you …”

  “Oh!” Zaher took an exaggerated step backward and stuck the mic to Everett’s mouth. “Tell the people again …”

  Everett hesitated. “I couldn’t bring them. I didn’t want them to be harmed.”

  “Oh, so you protect your family but don’t care about any of these people.” Zaher swept a hand toward the hostages on the stage. “Or them?” He did the same toward the people in the seats.

  “Jack.” Pam tugged at his arm, her face pale, her eyes sunken. She shook her head. “It’s getting really bad. I need to get to the hospital.”

  Her mom leaned over Pam and reached out for Jack’s arm. “We’ve got to do something, Jack. I’ll ask if we can leave. I’m not afraid.”

  “Wait. Just wait!” Jack needed to think … think.

  Zaher was still ranting. “That’s the problem with you Christians. You are all talk, but you have no backbone. You cave in at the slightest threats. You are the ones who serve a false god!”

  Jack could give Derrick the gun, stand, and tell Zaher he needed to get his wife to the hospital—that she was about to have a baby.

  How would Zaher respond?

  He could shoot Jack on the spot … He could do nothing … He could actually let them go—

  “Ohhhh.” Pam’s entire body stiffened, her fingers digging into the armrests. Her neck was arched back, eyes shut tight. “Oh, oh, oh.” Her head shot forward. “It’s gonna come. Oh dear God, I can’t believe this.”

  “Hold on, honey.” Jack put a cool hand on her forehead. The heat of her skin alarmed him even more. Margaret’s eyes were the size of quarters, and she looked as if she was about to stand up. “Don’t do anything, Margaret. Let me handle this.”

  “If he doesn’t want to let you go, Jack, I’ll take her,” Margaret said. “Tell him that.”

  Zaher’s voice rose: “I need you to get your wife and your son down on this stage right now!”

  Jack nudged Derrick, told him he had to make a move, and slipped the gun into his friend’s hands.

  “Dude.” Derrick swallowed hard, looking faint. “Are you sure?”

  “Look at her.”

  Pam was frozen, breathing in repeated short blows, trying to overcome the pain.

  “The contractions are almost constant,” Jack said.

  “She’s got to be close,” Margaret whispered. “We’ve got to get her out of here.”

  Derrick nodded.

  Jack was about to stand—

  “What did you say?” Zaher whipped the mic to Everett’s mouth.

  Everett paused. “I won’t do it. I’m sorry.” He lowered his head.

  “That’s it!” Zaher whirled around like a madman, stopped with his legs spread wide, and shot both hands in the air toward the Sky Zone. “Lower them!”

  Everyone looked up to the black rafters high above—and gasped.

  Jack spotted a neon-orange jacket on the catwalk to the left, and another to the far right. Men in masks knelt over each orange jacket, leaning, stretching, gently letting down as if they were lowering enormous fish back into water—

  It was Charlie Clearwater! Dangling upside down, dropping toward the seats, held only by a rope that the men were feeding toward the ground. He was as still as a corpse, and his arms were crossed in front of him.

  At the same time, across the arena, Steve Basheer dropped upside down toward the crowd. He, too, appeared alive but frozen, with his arms braced across his chest.

  “Ho!” Zaher yelled.

  Charlie’s body jolted to a stop and swayed twelve feet above the crowd, which gasped in horror. Poor Charlie. His face was scarlet red from the blood rushing to it.

  “Keep going on number two,” Zaher ordered as Steve’s body jerked and began zipping quickly toward the seats below.

  “Halt!” Zaher shouted.

  Steve’s body bounced, then twisted in circles some twelve feet above another portion of the occupied seats.

  “There’s a bomb!” A man in the section o
f seats below pointed at Steve.

  Pandemonium broke out in the bowl.

  “Silence!” Zaher screamed.

  Wrapped generously around Steve’s stomach were layers of shiny black duct tape.

  At his stomach, beneath the tape, was a pouch of what looked like sticks of dynamite taped together.

  Sticking out from it were green, blue, and white wires.

  And on top of all that was a small white box.

  With red illuminated numbers.

  Counting downward.

  30

  Shakespeare was winded by the time he made it up to the Sky Zone, and his injured arm was burning. Once through the door with the M14 drawn, he treaded slowly along the walkway that served as the very narrow upper rim overlooking the bowl of the arena.

  “This is what happens, America, when you attempt to suppress us.” Zaher’s voice was muffled and distant. “When you embrace leaders who promote our extinction rather than brotherhood.”

  Shakespeare took a knee at what would be the end zone if it were a football field. He was about six stories up. This level was strictly for maintenance, and everything was black, from the walls and ceiling to the floors and railings. Black curtains blew like waves in the breeze.

  He got his phone out to call Hedgwick, then stopped cold as he peered at the scene below. Those were orange jackets … coworkers … Charlie and Steve! Swinging by their ankles just above the occupied seats.

  “Let this be a message to your fellow countrymen today.” Zaher paced. “Do not try to stop our movement. We will take over the West. We will build our places of worship wherever we want, and we will move into your neighborhoods. We will enroll in your schools and practice Sharia and worship the only true god, Allah. And if you attempt to stop us …” He pointed to Steve, then Charlie. “This is what you will get. Fear. Terror. And ultimately, death.”

  The people below Steve and Charlie were cringing, arms and elbows covering their heads.

  Shakespeare’s stomach turned.

  Almost frantically he hoisted the M14, peered through the scope, and found Charlie—and the apparatus. He scanned to Steve …

  He jerked the gun down.

  Dropped his head.

  Calm … stay calm.

  His phone vibrated. Hedgwick.

  “Sorry,” Shakespeare answered. “We took fire at 115. Had to abort. I’m in the Sky Zone. South end—”

  “Everywhere we go, they stack men at the doors. They must have eyes outside,” Hedgwick said. “Did Sterling and Lester make it into the bowl on time?”

  “Yeah, but hold up. Bad news.”

  “What?”

  “They have two EventPros hanging upside down above the crowd, strapped with what look like explosives. They’re hooked to one of four catwalks that crisscross up here in the Sky Zone.”

  Long pause.

  “All right … I need specifics.”

  At that moment, something clamped Shakespeare’s mouth. A hand!

  He ripped the hostile’s arm, flipped him, and slammed his neck to the floor, choking, choking, choking. The man’s eyes grew enormous behind his black mask.

  And he was out.

  Shakespeare grabbed the man’s machine gun and strapped it around his neck. Then he got the man’s radio and headset and put it on with trembling hands. He found his phone.

  “Hedgwick, you still there?”

  “What the heck’s going on?”

  “Just got one of their radios.” Shakespeare wiped the sweat from his eyes with his shirt. “Let me check it out, and I’ll get back to you.”

  “What’s your battery level?”

  He checked it. “Eight percent.”

  “Tell me exactly where you see each hostile right now, and where the explosives are. I’m afraid I’m gonna lose you.”

  Shakespeare did so, then Hedgwick told him to find out anything he could about the bombs, whether they were set to go off at a certain time, or if Zaher had some kind of remote-control device.

  “Listen, just in case I lose you. We’re gonna storm the place. When you see us coming, I want you to try to take out Zaher. After that, I want you to get out on that catwalk as fast as you can and lower the two guys with the explosives—gently. Copy that?”

  “Copy.”

  Just as he hung up, his phone vibrated with an incoming text from Sheena.

  I’m worried. All over news. U ok? Love u.

  The battery dropped to 7 percent. He wrote back:

  I’m fine. Battery almost dead so last txt. Love u. Give kids hugs. C u soon.

  Then he paused, and added two more lines.

  We’ll work things out. I promise.

  And he meant it. There was junk in the world, downright evil and wrong and filth, but what he had in Sheena and the kids—that was true meaning and life. She’d been right. He’d gone way overboard. He needed to learn to live again, to simply deal with things as they came—as he was right now.

  He hoped God would give him a second chance.

  His closest shot at Zaher would be directly from the side of the arena. He peered through his scope and panned over that way. Two of five huge canister lights were on. Getting behind one of those bright boys would be perfect. For the bad guys, it would be like looking directly into a searchlight.

  31

  Derrick leaned forward, holding the gun below his knees, trying to stop shaking. Zenia must be worried stiff. But he had to put her out of his mind. He might be the only innocent civilian in the arena with a gun besides Shakespeare, and no one knew where he was. He had to stay sharp. Wait for the right moment. His head was woozy, and he just hoped he wouldn’t pass out from the blood he’d lost.

  “This is what we are going to do.” Zaher jabbed Everett Lester with the microphone. “You must order your wife and boy down here this instant.” He stepped to the center of the stage and spoke even louder. “And I need the rogue infidel by the name of Shakespeare to get down here now, or we begin executing people. You have been warned.”

  Zaher threw the mic by the cord over his shoulder, arched back, and blasted his machine gun toward the ceiling. Sparks flew from bullets hitting metal, and one large light exploded in a flash of orange smoke.

  Once again screams rang out like sirens from every direction.

  Derrick wanted to take Zaher out right then, but that would leave all the other insurgents free to open fire on him and the crowd.

  Zaher crossed back to Everett and stuck the mic into his hands.

  Jack elbowed Derrick. “I’m doing it,” he whispered. “God have mercy.” He stood and lifted a hand. “Sir,” he called toward the stage.

  Zaher spun around with an arm raised, pointing, scanning, finding Jack. “What is this?” he called without the mic. “What? Speak up.”

  Jack put his hands out toward Pam. “My wife is having a baby! She’s in labor right now. I need to get her to a hospital. Please …”

  “Come up here.” Zaher waved. “Bring her.”

  Derrick’s insides screamed. No!

  Someone in the crowd called out, “Let her go.”

  “Yes!” someone else shouted.

  “Please.” Jack held up his hands innocently. “We just need to get to a hospital. If you want, my mother can take her. I can stay—”

  “I said, get up here!”

  Jack looked down at Pam, who shook her head in anguish. “No, please,” she pleaded. “It’s coming … The pain’s so bad. Don’t leave me.”

  Jack’s jaw clenched, and he looked back at Zaher. “Please, just let her go. I don’t have to go with her—”

  “Let her go, you animals!” a male voice yelled.

  “Let her go to the hospital!” another voice echoed.

  The chanting began with several voices, then more joined in, and more, and it bec
ame a chant. “Let … her … go. Let … her … go.” Deep. Loud. Resolute.

  Chills ran down Derrick’s arms as he joined in. “Let … her … go!”

  Jack reached down for Pam’s hand. “C’mon.”

  She wiggled to the front of her seat. Margaret stood and helped her get to her feet. Without another word they scooted out of the row amid the chanting.

  “Silence.” Zaher was barely heard. “Silence!”

  The chanting was so loud, Zaher could only muster a frustrated chuckle. His arms dropped to his sides, and he laughed, hesitantly looking around at his partners and slouching as if he didn’t care. But his eyes burned with rage.

  “Let … her … go …” Some in the crowd were standing, pumping their fists with angry scowls.

  Zaher went over and took the microphone from Everett. Jack, Pam, and Margaret were a third of their way up the aisle.

  “Okay, that’s enough.” Zaher said it softly amid the chanting. He pursed his lips and dropped his head back.

  Derrick feared he was about to lose it.

  “I said, that’s enough!” He dropped the mic, lifted the machine gun, and blasted a horizontal line of fire twenty feet above the crowd, sweeping left to right, just missing one of the men swinging upside down.

  Jack, Pam, and Margaret hit the ground, as did everyone else.

  In a cloud of smoke, Zaher leaned down and picked up the mic where it lay on the floor among scattered bullet casings. “No one’s leaving here till I say so. If you want me to end it all right now …” He reached into his coat and yanked out a small black box that looked like a TV remote. He held it high, waving it to one side of the crowd, then the other. “This little mechanism can bring this entire building down and blow up the entire city block. No one will survive. Sit down and shut up—now!”

  Everyone was back in their seats and silent within seconds.

  He called to a masked man standing armed about eight rows up from Jack. “Bring them back.” Then he held a hand over his eyes and looked all around at the upper seats. “Brian Shakespeare, you have one minute to show your face. If you don’t, bad things are going to happen to these people down here.”