Stirred (21 page)

The hole he’d created was ragged, irregular, about three feet across at its widest point, and as Peter stared through it, it occurred to him for the first time what was about to happen.

For some reason, he’d assumed this psycho was going to stab him to death, but that wasn’t it at all.

Siders grabbed his legs and dragged him across the carpeting toward the hole, Peter squirming, fighting with everything he had to break free, but all he accomplished was digging the plastic zip-ties so deep into his skin he could feel fresh blood begin to flow.

His feet moved through the opening, dangling out over Dearborn Street, and then he was out up to his knees, the awful tug of gravity already beginning to pull him the rest of the way through.

Siders sat on his stomach, momentarily halting his progression through the hole.

“I envy you,” he said. “‘When will I die?’ is a question that haunts every man. No one knows the day, let alone the hour. But you do.” Siders glanced at his watch. “In seventy seconds, you’re going out this window. I promised Jack you’d live to see the fall, which is why I’m not cutting your throat first. I’ll shut up now, and give you a moment to pray or make your peace or whatever you feel the need to do.”

Peter realized this had to be that madman who’d hung the woman off the bridge near Kinzie Street, the one who’d dropped that professor in a fish-food box at the aquarium.

What were the odds?

“Forty-five seconds, counselor.”

He couldn’t speak, so he couldn’t beg, but he had a hunch his cries and blubbering would make no difference. Roe wasn’t religious, and it surprised him that even now, on the literal precipice of death, he had no sudden fear or belief in God. Only a gaping emptiness in the pit of his soul that he recognized as regret.

“Thirty seconds.”

Regret for so many things.

But he came back to something he’d told his wife, his son, his friends, so many times—guilt, worry, jealousy, and regret—these were worthless emotions that accomplished nothing.

And so he attempted to clear his mind.

A sudden noise ripped him back into the moment.

He craned his neck, saw the door to his office burst inward.

His staff? His wonderful, disobedient staff, rushing to his rescue?

No! Something even better.

Security from the lobby!

Two men whose names he’d never even taken the time to learn had broken in with guns.

They’d come to save his life.

April 1, 1:50 P.M.

“H
oly…shit…”

“Yeah. Does it feel like eighty or what?”

The city blurred by, the acceleration in McGlade’s Tesla reminding me of my younger years, when I thought roller coasters were a good idea. I was actually pinned to my seat by the G-force, and we came up on the tail end of a city bus so quickly I was sure we’d embed ourselves in it.

But McGlade swerved, and the car proved its handling was just as wicked as its speed, narrowly missing the bus, weaving between a cab and an SUV, and then drifting through two El-track posts until we swung out onto Wabash, speeding south.

“Remember
The French Connection
?” McGlade said, a crooked grin plastered on his face. I looked at the tracks overhead, then at the traffic ahead of us, and realized I probably wouldn’t have to induce labor. This might just do it for me.

I chanced a glance at my iPhone.

I’d lost the connection back in the hospital and now saw a text from Phin saying he was on his way. I punched the address book and called Herb as McGlade laid on the horn and ripped past a group of geriatrics who toppled like dominoes along the side of the street.

“Jesus, McGlade!”

“Hope they were wearing adult diapers.”

“Do that again and I’ll need one.”

“Please don’t do that in my new car, Jack. It’s impossible to get the smell out of the leather.” He shot me a quick, sheepish glance. “Or so I’ve heard.”

Another burst of acceleration, which was almost surreal since there was no sound of a roaring engine to go along with it. The Tesla was electric, quiet as a church mouse.

“Mile and a half to the Marquette Building,” McGlade said, coasting through a red light, swerving to avoid a cab. “Piece of cake.”

“Just make sure it isn’t an upside-down cake.”

The words had barely left my lips when I saw a construction scene ahead—a roped-off section in the middle of Wabash where some city workers were ducking into the sewer main.

There was no conceivable way we’d be able to stop in time.

April 1, 1:50 P.M.

H
e’d buy the security guys cars for this. Hell, he’d buy them each a—

Siders reached around his black jeans, pulled out a gun of his own, and shot each of the guards several times in the chest.

They dropped to the floor.

It had all happened in the blink of an eye.

“Twenty seconds, Peter.”

Roe felt the spring breeze coming through the broken glass, and it felt like utter hopelessness.

Like finality.

He stared at the face-page of the patent for an emergency egress lighting system he’d shepherded through the USPTO.

At least I made a small difference in the world,
he thought.

His heart was racing—

“Fifteen seconds.”

—but he fought through the fear and took in a deep shot of oxygen.

“Ten seconds.”

He’d lived a calculated life built upon the accumulation of wealth, but he’d loved it, and he’d lived it the only way he knew how, and he wasn’t going out that window—

“Five…four…”

—with any—

“Three…two…”

—regrets—

“One.”

—but one. He’d never learned the names of those two guards who’d died trying to save him. So he turned his head, staring hard at their cooling bodies, and memorized the names on their tags.

Wilson and Roberts.

Thanks for trying, guys.

“Peter Roe, it is one fifty-one
P.M.
Godspeed.”

Roe felt a jag of glass cut into his back as he went over the lip.

There was a blink of excruciating brightness as he caught a face-full of sunlight, and then his stomach lifted, Dearborn Street rushing up to greet him, twelve floors streaking past in a blast of wind and sun and glimmers of reflected light, and the people on the sidewalk oblivious to what was falling toward them, in particular a street preacher holding a fat, black Bible and shouting that the day of judgment was at hand to every pedestrian who passed by.

April 1, 1:51 P.M.

“U
h oh,” McGlade said as we rocketed toward the construction.

The workers were digging up the asphalt, and an entire fifteen-foot slab that should have been on the street was no longer there, a rocky ditch in its place.

McGlade punched the horn—

—and accelerated.

“Harry! Holy—”

The Tesla hit the edge of the hole, but rather than go in headfirst and cartwheel in a spectacular spinning ball of death, the car took the sloping indentation like a ramp and actually took to the air—

“—sheeeeeet!”

—landing safely on the other side of the hole, kissing the street so gently it felt like the wheels had never left the ground.

“Cool,” McGlade said. “They oughta put that in the sales video.”

“Jack? Jack, where are you?” Herb’s voice.

I looked at my iPhone, realized Herb had picked up.

“We’re close,” I said, as McGlade wove through a pair of El supports, brought two tires up onto the curb, and then pulled away just before a fire hydrant ripped his car, and us, in half.

“Shots fired on the twelfth floor,” Herb said. “Cops almost on the scene. Wait for backup, Jack. What am I saying? Don’t you
dare
go inside. We’re cordoning off the building. He’s not going to get out. So don’t do anything stupid.”

McGlade jammed his foot into the brakes, skidding onto Adams, heading west.

Traffic was at a standstill, but he powered up onto the sidewalk, horn blaring, and took it all the way to Dearborn, bringing the machine to a screeching stop outside the entrance to the Marquette Building.

“Houston, the eagle has landed,” he said.

A black-and-white was already on scene, the officer standing out in the middle of Dearborn, trying to reroute traffic.

I pushed the door open and hauled myself up out of the seat, my hand in my purse, already fingering my Colt Detective Special. I didn’t know for certain that Herb had put out the word that I’d be here. It was a hot scene, and I didn’t want some beat cop thinking I was just some civilian commando with a gun. Good way to get shot.

Two more cruisers with sirens wailing came tearing around Adams behind us.

“McGlade, go watch that entrance, and don’t let any black-haired male out of the building.”

“I won’t let anyone out. But don’t you go in there, or I’ll kick your ass.”

As he ran toward the main entrance I headed over to the police cruisers.

One of the officers had joined in to help direct traffic away from Dearborn, and the other, a young cop who looked barely out of high school, was just climbing out of the nearest car.

When he saw me, he said, “Ma’am, I’m going to need you to go stand over on that sidewalk. We have a dangerous situation here.” He pointed at the building across from the Marquette.

I held up my hand. “My name is Jack Daniels, out of the two-six. Heard of me?”

His brow furrowed, skeptical. “You mean Lieutenant Daniels?” He looked at my belly, dubious.

“You were called here on a one eighty-seven in progress, correct?” I asked.

“That’s right.”

“The suspect is a white male with long black hair. Armed. He’s still in the building, and he’s killing a man.”

“I need to call this in.”

He reached up to his shoulder mike.

I said, “You have to shut this building down and get some men inside, right now, Officer. No one in or out unless your career goals involve riding a Segway writing parking tickets.”

My tone must have hit home, because the next words into his microphone were, “Car one-three-five-six, take the rear entrance. No one gets in or out. Suspect is a white male with long black hair. Proceed with caution, he is armed.”

And then the cavalry arrived.

A Chevy Caprice roared up behind the two squad cars, and Herb burst out from behind the steering wheel as fast as I’d ever seen him move.

We started walking toward the building.

It sounded like several districts coming at once, a rash of sirens echoing between the skyscrapers, the cranky horn of a fire truck blaring several blocks away.

“You’ve gotta lock it down, Herb,” I said.

“It’s happening, Jack. I’ve got units securing the Adams, Marble, and Clark Street entrances.”

“I want everyone funneled through the Dearborn Street exit,” I said as we reached the sidewalk. “Nobody leaves the building until I’ve seen them. Where’s SRT?”

The Special Response Team was our version of SWAT.

“On their way, but you have to…” Herb looked over my shoulder and said, “Oh, hell.”

A crowd of a dozen or so horrified onlookers had gathered around a brick planter up ahead.