Trapped in the Mayan Tattoo (25 page)

            “Of course, Daddy!”

            “This isn’t fancy but
it will serve the purpose. I got the student model, and it will work pretty
well with music. Not so much on games.”

            Tina tried to eat the
cracker but was afraid it would gag her.

            “I don’t play video
games much anyway,” she said. “And I can’t eat the cracker.”

            “See what you can
drink. Want some broth?”

            “If it isn’t too much
trouble, I’ll try,” she said. Tina still felt hot and cold, shivery, yet
sweating. “You won’t get sick too, will you?”

            Her father was already
in the kitchen. He yelled back, “I shouldn’t. I got my shots for it at my old
job. Stupid of me not to see that you had all of yours. I’m trying to be a
better father.”

            “I know,” Tina said quietly.
Then she murmured, “I love you, Daddy.”

“Don’t worry about
a thing. I’m right here. Let me know if you learn anything new that we should
try.”

“I’m pretty tired,
Daddy. Maybe I’ll do it later.”

After he brought
in the broth, her father set the computer nearby and left her alone to try to
eat more. He checked to see how often to give her medicine.

“You’re good to
go! Hit your glass with your spoon if you need anything.”

“Thanks, Daddy!”
Tina said as her father closed the door.

Instead of trying
to eat and drink, Tina sat up straight on the bed and pulled the computer onto
her lap. Signing in as GUEST on this new computer, she immediately went to her
old social networking page and sent a message.

“I know what U
were doing, Gopher. How many other girls have U sold? It’s gonna catch up w U.”

Tina logged off
and set the computer aside, ready for sleep. She would see him imprisoned. For
the rest of his life. Gopher and then Ramon and then others.

Some hours later
her father knocked on the door.

“It’s Mrs.
Hightower on the phone. Do you feel like talking?”

Tina had been in
and out of a restless sleep. Not able to get comfortable. Not able to get
enough to drink.

“I’m awake,” she
said.

Her father brought
the phone in.

“You’re burning
up,” he said. “This can wait. We’ve got to get you to the hospital.”

“I’m afraid she’s
too sick,” he said to Mrs. Hightower.

“No! Let me talk
to her!” Tina said.

Her father hung
up.

“Please! If I die,
they won’t be able to get the other girls. There are lots of them! Call her
back. I know things. I want to talk.”

“Sweetie, go back
to sleep,” he said, but before he could close the door Tina started getting
sick again.

“That does it.
We’re going to the hospital.”

He grabbed a
shopping bag and bent over to help her.

“Let’s get you to
the bathroom,” he said.

“Call her back,”
Tina said.

“I’m calling the
squad.”

“Am I dying?” she
asked.

“Not on my watch,
Baby,” her father said.

He reported her
illness to the dispatcher. “Hurry!” he said.

Tina struggled to
get to the bathroom where she washed up and cleaned her hair that had gotten in
the way.

“Do I smell bad?”
she asked, poking her head out the door.

“You’re fine. The
squad will be here right away. Are you able to leave the bathroom now?”

“Daddy, Daddy, I
think I’m dying,” Tina said.

Security personnel
who had left the building just moments before came running back into the lobby.
Abbi crawled out from under the bench and sat up, still on the floor. She tried
to regain composure. Her eyes and ears didn’t seem to work right.

Louise crouched
beside her near a potted plant.

Abbi couldn’t
think. Her head had a swirling sensation.

“Louise? You OK? What
just happened?” Abbi asked. Her voice sounded odd to her and she noticed a
faint humming.

“It was awful!
That man was killed! He must have been shot,” said Louise, urgently continuing.
“I think you passed out for a minute. Are you OK?”

“What? Shot?” Abbi
asked, shaking her head. She only heard part of what Louise had said and the
part she heard didn’t make sense against what she saw. Abbi faced Louise to
read her lips.

“Yeah, shot.”

“No, he wasn’t
shot,” Abbi insisted, speaking louder than she should.

Then she noticed a
spot of blood on Louise’s chin.

“Dang! Are you sure
you’re OK?” Abbi asked in alarm.

She touched
Louise’s face to rub off the blood and stopped when she realized it was not
Louise’s blood.

“Oh no!” Abbi said
in a hushed tone. “It’s his!”

“Get it off me!”
Louise whispered.

Abbi took a small
bottle out of her briefcase and poured a generous amount of antiseptic cleanser
onto a tissue to wipe Louise’s cheek. Afterward, she threw the tissue into a
planter and said, “Yuck!”

She wiped her
hands vigorously on her jacket. Then they checked each other all over to see if
there was more blood on their clothes.

No, not a gunshot,
Abbi thought. It seemed to be an internal explosion from the

man’s stomach.

The two girls
hugged, thankful they were alive.

Abbi looked at the
man on the stairs. Odd smells filled the air, smells she couldn’t identify and
didn’t want to breathe. The staircase railing had been damaged, the lower
portion of the balustrade shattered.

The strange, woozy
fainting sensation returned and Abbi wobbled when she tried to get up. Her ears
still hummed. She really didn’t like the smell. She was afraid she was getting
sick. Louise steadied her.

“We’re not in
Kansas anymore. Are we Toto?” Abbi asked.

“You doin’ OK?”
Louise asked, with a nervous laugh. Suddenly, in her natural dramatic flare,
she yelled, “We have to get out of here!”

Abbi’s head, like
cotton candy forming in its machine, had a swirling sensation as if her brains
were spinning, taking new shape.

“Do your brains
feel funny?” she asked Louise.

“I’ve felt
better,” Louise answered. “And my ears are ringing. We shouldn’t be here.”

“How can you say
that?!”

“I mean right
here. Can’t you see we’re in the way?” Louise asked.

A text message
appeared on both girls’ cell phones.

“CHANGE OF PLANS. WAIT
THERE. SOMEONE WILL SEE YOU.”

“Oh, if he only
knew!” Louise said. “What do you suppose GK has cooked up?”

“He probably knows
something about this. Better tell him we’re OK,” Abbi said.

“But are we?”
Louise asked.

Abbi abruptly
stood up, despite the dizziness, not yet fully aware but determined to focus on
their mission. She tried not to wobble. Her sluggish mind, in a pseudo
dream-state, prevented her from thinking and acting normally. She fell back to
the floor, feeling really sick. Louise leaned over her.

            “Let me have her,
Mademoiselle!” said a voice, both familiar and soothing.

Abbi focused on
the large black man in his high-dollar suit. The fog in her mind gave way to
recognition. And then she vomited, barely missing his shoes.

“Big Sam!” Louise
called. “She needs you!”

Even in her sick
fog, Abbi was surprised to see Big Sam. She slurred her words, sounding drunk
when she said, “You’re not supposed to be here.”

            “It looks to me like
the little lady needs a doctor!” Big Sam said. “And maybe you do too, Miss.”

            The sound of Big Sam’s
voice comforted Abbi. He knelt down, trying to avoid the mess on the floor, and
checked her pulse. Using a penlight, he looked in her light green eyes and
asked a few questions. Then he patted Abbi on the shoulder and said, “That was
close!”

            “I, uh, I don’t think I
need a doctor,” Abbi told him. “But I’m woozy.”

“Let’s move out of
the way. There are other benches over there.”

Big Sam indicated
where they would go and helped Abbi. Louise seemed unaffected by the blast.

Shoe Clerk arrived
as they were moving to an out-of-the-way location in the huge rotunda.

“Abbi, I wouldn’t
have let you come here if I’d known. I’m sorry,” he said.

“It was crazy!”
Abbi said.

Big Sam said, “I’m
glad you came back, Shoe Clerk. Can you get the location on the first attempted
suicide bomber? We need to run some facts. Can you take care of that? Later,
meet up with us at headquarters.”

“Sure, boss!” Shoe
Clerk left as quickly as he arrived.

“Can you tell me
what just happened? Did that bomber guy explode from the inside out?” Abbi
asked as she sat down again on a bench closer to the entrance and farther away
from the scene.

Big Sam paused
before he checked Louise. Then, with a heavy sigh, he turned back to Abbi.

“Exactly. How’d
you know?”

“He clutched his
belly.”

“Both of you
ladies could have been killed, but the explosive device evidently
malfunctioned,” he said softly. “That man was personally delivering an IED,
probably targeting someone upstairs. The fact that his explosive device passed
undetected through the scanner tells me he either had it hidden in a body
cavity or, and this may sound crazy, he swallowed it.”

“That’s what I was
thinking,” Abbi said.

“The IED likely
detonated sooner than planned. The limited damage leads me to believe it must
have malfunctioned.”

“What a mess! His
phone rang right before the explosion,” Abbi said, in case there was a
connection. She wiped her face and hands with a sterilized wipe from her
briefcase.

“Probably the
signal that did him in,” Big Sam said.

“Yeah. He looked
at his phone right before it rang,” Louise said.

“And started
running. Maybe he was late,” Abbi added.

Big Sam looked at
them both.

“I think you’re
right. He probably saw the time and knew that he was outside of his time frame.
Traffic had been slowed because of securing off this area after the bomb that
fizzled here earlier this morning. For awhile after that, people had been
denied entry.”

“So this guy was a
suicide bomber, the back-up plan? The first attempt fizzled, totally missed its
target, and then this guy’s bomb went off early!” Abbi said.

“Exactly. Suicide
bombers often work in pairs. We’re not sure yet as to who did this. This
building should have been closed earlier today and left closed for the day.
Security knew better. Protocol flew out the window on this one. For that
matter, we should have dismantled this plan and sent you somewhere else.”

“I wouldn’t want
to be the Number 2 man!” Louise said, glancing over as paramedics covered the
body. Her body convulsed in one big shiver.

“But what or, uh,
who was the target?” Abbi asked.

“I really can’t
say,” Big Sam replied. “As you know, a meeting was scheduled upstairs.”

            Can’t say or won’t say?
Abbi wondered. She knew ATF agents played their cards close to the chest. Big
Sam was no exception.

            “I thought you were
still in Virginia,” Abbi said.

            “There seemed to be a
tie-in to what happened here,” Big Sam said. He was much friendlier to her than
when she last saw him.

            “Really? Then you know
why we’re here, don’t you?” Abbi asked. She thought she’d take a chance and
find out what he knew. This couldn’t have just been coincidence.

“The important
thing is that you’re safe. Don’t worry about the rest. Gate Keeper asked me to
check on you and give you this note from Mrs. Hightower. Things have gotten
more complicated. He can’t come, and the meeting isn’t going on here now. FBI
is setting up temporary headquarters near here.”

Big Sam passed
Abbi a note.

“Read this
carefully, commit every word to memory, then chew it up and swallow it. Are you
well enough to walk?” he asked.

“I think so,” Abbi
asked. “But I’m not sure I feel well enough to swallow it.”

“No. Probably not,”
Big Sam said as he looked at the floor where she had been.

“We burned the
last one,” Louise said.

 Abbi studied the
note hard so that it would sink into her foggy brain.

Big Sam seemed to
be overacting his script. That concerned her. Maybe it was just that he took
his job seriously but he couldn’t be serious about swallowing the note. Could
he?

Abbi asked, “Are
we safe now?”

Louise adjusted
Abbi’s wig.

“Safer than a wart
on a toad’s back,” Big Sam said, then hesitated before he spoke again. “No.
Really, we’re not. Do what the note says. She’s still in the building and
waiting for you. Take the back stairs up two flights before they get cordoned
off or you’ll be stopped. Don’t be afraid to say what you need to say.”

“Big Sam, you’re
not still mad at me?”

“No. Sometimes
personal instincts trump direct orders.”

The area looked secure.
The building’s security personnel were cordoning off the scene while ATF agents
checked to avoid further detonation. Some people returned to collect specimens.
Another took photos. One made an outline around the dead man’s body, as well as
she could. No need for a coroner. The man’s physical condition was not
conducive to life.

Abbi stared as a
small crowd of people came out of a room above the large marble staircase. The
horrified onlookers became frantic as they looked over the banister and began
to realize what had happened. On part of the lower portion of the stairway lay
small scattered pieces of metal and wire, remnants of a bomb. And there, among
these fragments, the onlookers could see the twisted, messy remains of the
terrorist.

For the second
time that day, security officers began the swift evacuation of this building.
Sirens rang.