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“Figure it out,” she said, staring at my shorts. “Or there will be consequences.”
She pressed the Down button. The door opened.
“Are youinsane??” I shouted. I really thought she might be. Or maybe she’d seen some kind of secret code in the TV report? Something that set her off. A reason to get rid of me for good. Maybe I’d washed out as a trainee. Maybe I knew too much. At this point, anything was possible. Including getting blown to pieces, ass first.
As the elevator door slid shut, Meed gave me a little wave.
“Bye-bye, Doctor.”
CHAPTER 28
MEED STEPPED OUT of the cab at the corner of Clark and Madison, near St. Peter’s.
It was as close as the driver could get. She handed him the fare and started walking up North LaSalle. Police barriers blocked traffic in every direction, and cops strolled around on both sides of the barricades, scanning the crowd and talking into their shoulder mics. Here and there, state police in camo stood in small clusters with semi-automatic rifles slung across their chests. A K-9 sergeant led an eager German shepherd on a bomb-sniffing patrol from one manhole cover to another.
On paper, the perimeter was tight. To Meed’s trained eye, it was a sieve. Loose surveillance. Too many access corridors. Plenty of escape routes. Security seemed to improve as she strolled closer to the speaker’s platform, but even there, she saw gaps and lapses. Listening to the radio chatter, she wondered if the local and state police were even using the same frequency.
The platform, now draped in colorful bunting, was placed directly across from City Hall, with its majestic columns. Police guarded the entrances. Some of the media had set up in front of the iconic facade so the background would lend gravitas to their standups.
There was a controlled space for a small audience directly in front of the platform. Plainclothes agents funneled visitors through a portable metal-detection gate into an area of pavement filled with plastic folding chairs. The metal detector was a solid choke point, which Meed had no intention of testing. Because she was definitely carrying metal.
CHAPTER 29
ELEVEN STORIES UP on the other side of the street, the sprawling City Hall rooftop garden was already starting to burst into life. The crabapple and hawthorn trees were beginning to bud, and the perennials and thick grasses were getting more lush with each warm spring day. “An urban oasis and an environmental masterpiece,” just like the guidebooks said. Also, excellent cover.
At the edge of the roof, just outside the border of the vegetation, a lone sniper took his position overlooking the street, extending the barrel of his rifle over the low parapet. From there, he had a direct line of sight to the speaker’s platform and the crowd surrounding it. The distance was around 250 feet. The scope was hardly necessary. He shifted his arms to get comfortable. The bulky CPD uniform was a loose fit on his lean frame, but he hadn’t exactly had a choice of sizes. He had taken the first one he could get.
The uniform’s original owner was lying just twenty feet away, concealed in a stand of tall grass, his bare limbs turning bluish-gray as his blood oozed into the fertile black garden soil.
CHAPTER 30
CHRIST!THE SPARK on the fuse was snaking its way across the living room. I pulled and strained against the chains, as if that would make a difference. I was a lot stronger than I used to be, but I wasn’t the Incredible Hulk. I tried tugging against the weight machine, thinking that if I could rock it, I might be able to flip it over. Then I remembered that it was bolted to the floor through iron plates. Solid as a rock.
I twisted to the side as far as I could and braced my feet against the edge of the treadmill, but I couldn’t get any leverage. The treadmill wasn’t bolted down, so it skidded when I pressed against it.
I looked back across the room. The spark was just ten feet away and starting to wind around behind me. I stared down at the padlock dangling in front of my chest. I could reach it with my hands, but there was no way I could budge it. Then something flickered in my brain. There must have been a reason Meed hooked the padlock in front instead of in back, out of reach. She wasn’t that sloppy. She must have been giving me some kind of hint. Or some kind of hope.
I ran through the endless series of mantras she’d planted in my brain over the past five months. A lot of them sounded like they were translated from a different language. For some reason, the saying that came to me now was, “Become a master or be gone.” I could hear the fuse fizzing around the base of the weight machine. I scanned the floor around me. That’s when I saw it.
I kicked off my shoes and used my left foot to push down my right sock. When it was halfway down my foot, I shook it off. I stretched out my leg and rolled my bare heel over a tiny black object lying on the side of the treadmill. When it was close enough, I started to work it up between my toes, gripping like a chimpanzee. It was a thin piece of black metal, about two inches long. If I could manage to get it from my feet to my hands in time, I might have a chance.
CHAPTER 31
MEED MOVED THROUGH the crowd, acting like a curious tourist, watching the cops and soldiers and security people, but trying not to make eye contact. She kept her hands out of her pockets and wore a pleasant expression. When other civilians looked at her, she smiled politely, like a true Midwesterner.
As she passed a thickset CPD officer, she heard his shoulder mic crackle with a two-number code. The officer quickly turned to face south and pounded a few junior officers on their shoulders and pointed.
“One minute!” he said, his voice gruff and tight. “One minute!”
Meed looked in the direction the officer was pointing and saw a stir in the crowd one block down. A CPD motorcycle cop rounded the corner from Washington onto LaSalle. A trio of black Suburbans followed right behind.
As she moved toward the inner perimeter, Meed saw a tall SWAT commander with his walkie-talkie pressed to his mouth. “Station 5, check,” he muttered. There was no response. “Station 5, check,” he repeated. Still nothing. He looked up to the roof of City Hall and saw his man in position, barrel protruding just as it should be. “Learn to use your radio, asshole,” he muttered. Then he gave up and started to move his ground people into position. Meed stopped. She looked up, too. In an instant, she sensed why the sniper hadn’t responded. And she knew what she needed to do.
The SWAT squad moved into position as the caravan rolled up. The motorcycle cop pulled to the side and let the three SUVs move slowly into a line alongside the speaker’s platform.
In the center compartment of the middle vehicle, behind two inches of bulletproof glass, an assistant handed Abrafo Asare a neatly typed page with the day’s remarks. He glanced over the five short paragraphs and slipped the paper into his jacket pocket. He looked through the window at the speaker’s stand. Podium in place. Cordon of security. Local officials taking their seats. A Ghanaian flag had been placed to the left of the Stars and Stripes, as requested. A nod to his homeland.
Asare turned to admire City Hall, a solid granite rectangle that looks sturdy enough to withstand a hurricane. The building’s massive columns cast deep shadows. It’s no wonder Asare didn’t notice the flicker of movement along the side of one of those columns. Nobody else did either.
