“He had not yet learned that if you do one good deed your reward
usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.”
-C.S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy
The
explosion that consumed Xander Calvan’s office served as the exclamation point
marking the conclusion of the Huston Gold Disaster, as the press took to
calling it. The few Tanzanians who were left alive, seeing the lengths to which
the American police were prepared to go, surrendered at once when the SWAT Team
landed on the roof in the wake of the explosion.
There was
still a lot of work to do. The hostages had to be attended to, their statements
taken, and any injuries tended. SWAT would have to secure the building to make
sure that there were no more terrorists hiding anywhere in its offices, then an
army of crime scene investigators would have to descend upon it to try to learn
all they could about the terrorists. But at least now the immediate danger was
passed, and that was enough for Joe Webb.
In the
midst of trying to coordinate all this, Joe allowed Bill to drag him around to
the other side of the building to view Strasser’s body. Peter Joshua, uninvited
but unshakeable, accompanied them.
Strasser
was lying on the cracked pavement in an unnaturally C-shaped position, his
spine arched sharply back, his legs curled up under him, his eyes wide and
blank, yet still filled with a shadow of the shock and rage that he had died
with.
“Alright,
Bill,” said Joe. “I see the body. What about it?”
Bill gave
him a serious look.
“You need
to get some sleep,” he said. “Remember, this guy fell fifty stories.”
With an
unpleasant jerk, Joe realized what he meant. Though Strasser’s body was twisted,
broken, and clearly dead, there wasn’t a mark on him. Not so much as a drop of
blood visible.
“Okay to
move him?” he asked.
“Be my
guest,” said Bill. “It’s not like there’s any mystery about the cause of death
here.”
Joe pushed
the body over with his foot to examine the back, where Strasser had impacted
the concrete. In all his years around crime scenes he had never seen anything
quite like this. The back of Strasser’s skull was clearly caved in, the skin
hanging loose like a wet sack, but again, not a drop of blood. His skin was
still completely intact, even though the bone beneath had been pulverized.
Joe swore
under his breath.
“Bill,” he
said. “What the hell is going on here?”
Peter
Joshua, who had followed him, bent over the body, frowning. He poked the soft
bulge of loose skin. It made an unpleasant squishing noise.
“Well, this
certainly complicates things.”
“No kidding,”
Webb sighed, rubbing his temples. “But I’m too beat to work it out tonight.
We’ll have to wait for the coroner’s report.”
“I don’t
think you’re going to get much of an autopsy off of this one,” said Joshua. “Maybe
you can arrange with some laboratory for a cutting laser or something, because
a scalpel’s not gonna cut it.” He looked up at the officers and grimaced.
“Sorry, that just slipped out.”
“You know
something about this?” Webb asked.
“Something,”
Joshua answered. “But not nearly as much as I’d like.”
As the dust
settled, George slowly lifted his head. The vault had shielded them from the
blast, but the room was filled with smoke and ash and his good ear was ringing.
He’d be lucky to escape without being all-deaf.
He picked
himself up off of Martha, whom he had been shielding with his body, and raised
her to her feet as well. She was trembling violently and for a moment he
wondered whether she could stand.
George
didn’t let go of her hands after she had gotten to her feed. He held them tight
in his as he looked into her ash-covered, yet still beautiful face. Her eyes
were wide with amazement as they searched his.
“We…we’re
alive,” she said.
He nodded.
“We made
it!” she gasped, a half-crazed grin breaking out across her face. Then it faded
just as quickly.
“George,
you saved my life.”
He
shrugged.
“Well, I’m
just glad you’re okay.”
She looked
at him. He looked at her. Slowly, they faces began to drift closer…closer…
“Guys!”
They jerked
apart as Ben staggered into the room.
“You two
alright?” he asked. “I’m so sorry; I thought you were right behind us! I never
would have…”
“It’s
okay,” said George. “The important thing is you’re alright. How’re the others?”
“Two of
them are wounded; nothing too serious,” Ben reported. “Caught some during our
shootout with Strasser.”
“How about
you?”
Ben
gingerly felt his bleeding nose.
“I don’t
think I’m gonna bother fixing it this time.”
George
laughed, then Martha and Ben joined in. The night had been a terrible ordeal
for all of them, and before long they would feel the grief and horror of it
once more, but for now the relief that they had all gotten through made their
hearts light. In fact, they felt so giddy that George actually was considering
going ahead with that interrupted kiss, whether Ben was watching or not, when
the SWAT Team arrived to take them to the helipad for their evacuation.
With the
stairs and elevators destroyed, the hostages of the Huston Gold were obliged to be evacuated by helicopter. This
actually proved a blessing, as it meant they didn’t have to go passed the
swarms of reporters who were surging about the plaza, eager to interview the
exhausted survivors. Deputy Chief Webb had already arranged with St. Michael’s
hospital for the police to take their statements there.
The wounded
were being taken in the first helicopter, which meant that George, despite his
protests to the contrary, was one of the first to leave, together with Ben and the
two other injured guests.
Already on
board was a young woman George didn’t know with her left arm in a sling.
Despite her blood-shot eyes and generally exhausted appearance, he couldn’t
help noticing that she was remarkably beautiful.
“Any of you
guys George?” she called over the noise of the rotor.
“That’s
me,” he said.
She smiled
and held out her hand.
“I’m Laura.
Nice to finally meet you.”
He felt his
face break into a grin as he took her offered hand.
“Likewise.”
At the
hospital, Joe Webb and Bill Morgan took the survivors’ statements themselves.
Tired as they were, they both agreed that it was better that way. Most of the
force still didn’t know the real reason for the assault, and Joe and Bill had
agreed it probably should stay that way, at least for now. Especially since it
sounded like no one but Calvan himself knew where the real ‘Alphite’ – whatever
that was – was being kept.
Besides
that, there was a sentimental reason. They’d been the ones coordinating the
whole operation, the one’s who had been talking with Strasser himself. It
seemed fitting that they should talk to the people who were on the inside.
For the
most part, the stories were pretty much the same; they’d been invited to the
party, everything was going fine, then suddenly men with guns were shooting up
the place. Strasser had given a speech, then after a while they’d been sent
onto the patio, which collapsed beneath them. They had been fortunate enough to
get off in time.
Then came
the really strange part when they all shared the story of how Ben had grabbed a
gun and tried to shoot Strasser, only to have the bullets bounce off
harmlessly. That pretty much destroyed any hope they might have had that
Strasser’s inexplicably intact skin had been a freak accident. No one, however,
could offer any explanation of how Strasser
might have achieved this unnerving effect.
“Alright,
ma’am,” said Webb to Martha Aurelia. “Now, I know that you’ve been through a
terrible ordeal and we’d like to let you rest as soon as possible. We just need
to clear up a few things.”
Martha sat
in her hospital bed, bleary eyed and seemingly only half-conscious. She hadn’t
been injured, but the hospital was keeping all the survivors overnight for
observation. She shrugged.
“Ask away.”
“As we
understand it, you were the only one of the hostages who wasn’t sent onto the
Sky Patio, correct?”
“He…he said
he wanted to keep me close,” she answered.
“That’d be
Strasser?”
She nodded.
“Why do you
think that was?”
“I don’t
know. He said I was…insurance. Oh, God! All those people!”
“Yes,
ma’am. We saw it.”
“You work
for Centron Farms?” Morgan asked.
“Research
assistant at the Birkin Center,” she answered, then suddenly flinched. “Oh, I
don’t think I was supposed to say…”
“It’s
alright ma’am; we know about the place.”
“In fact,
we probably know more about it than you do,” Morgan put in. “So don’t worry
about sharing secrets with us. We’re just trying to get a better idea of the
people behind this.”
She smiled
weakly.
“I was just
thinking it’d be a shame to add being fired to everything else.”
Webb
smiled.
“I don’t think
you have to worry about that.”
“You’re not
from around here, are you, Martha?” Morgan asked.
She shook
her head. “Bronx.”
“You have
family back there?”
“Just my
mother. Oh, God! I need to call her…”
“That’s
alright; you can do that in a minute. Did you ever meet Mr. Strasser before?”
“No,” she
said. “I’d heard of him; my friend, Ben, had been dealing with him, but I never
met the man. Even if I had, he…he would have seemed like just a normal
businessman, right?”
“That’s one
of the things we’re trying to find out,” said Webb. “Now, one more thing; we’ve
been told that you were the one who
actually pushed Mr. Strasser out the window. Is that correct?”
Martha
bowed her head and buried her face in her hands.
“I know he
deserved it,” she said in choked kind of voice. “He was a monster and a bastard
and…but every time I close my eyes, I see his face as he…”
“You did
the right thing, ma’am,” Morgan assured her. “A very brave thing.”
“Doesn’t
feel like it,” she answered.
“Don’t
worry,” Webb told her. “It will.”
She choked
back a sob.
“One more
question,” said Webb. “Then we’ll let you get some rest. Did Strasser say
anything to you? Anything at all?”
She shook
her head.
“Nothing.
Why would he?”
“Well, you
were at his side pretty much the whole time,” said Morgan. “We thought he might
have mentioned something that might help us get a lead on what he was after.”
“No,
nothing.”
Webb and
Morgan looked at each other.
“I think
that’s all we need, ma’am,” Webb told her. “Thank you very much for your
cooperation and your bravery. You get some rest now.”
Outside,
Morgan looked over his notes as they walked down the hall.
“What do
you think, Joe?”
“I’m too
beat to think,” Webb answered. “Let’s just wrap this up and we can think
later.”
Before they
went, they stopped by the room where Laura Lotus was recovering, her wounded
arm re-bandaged and in a sling.
“How’re you
doing, ma’am?”
She
shrugged, but winced as she did so.
“They tell
me I’ll live,” she answered.
“I wanted
to thank you again for you help,” said Webb. “You’re a real hero.”
“If you say
so,” she smiled.
“Just one
question before we wrap this up,” Morgan said. “The boys are gonna want to know
what you were doing at the office that late at night, and it’ll save some time
if we have an answer.”
“Working,”
she said. “I’m what you might call…diligent.”
She gave a
feeble laugh.
“But after
this, I think I’m gonna take some time off.”
Webb
laughed.
“Me too.”
George had
two cracked ribs, a long, shallow cut on his back, a badly strained forearm,
and more bruises than he could count. But he was alive, his friends were alive,
and Strasser had been stopped. That was a lot to be thankful for, he thought,
as he lay in his hospital bed that night. Gidan had escaped, but it was only a
matter of time before they tracked him down.
As for
George himself, he felt…different. The night had changed him, he knew, but just
how or to what extent only time would tell.
Suddenly,
the phone next to his bed rang.
Perplexed,
wondering who on earth could be calling him, George picked it up, wincing
slightly as his stiff, sore body protested the movement.
“Hello?”
“George,”
came Joshua’s voice on the line. “Can you come around to the lab tomorrow?”
George
really couldn’t believe his ears.
“Uh…I think
they want to keep me here tomorrow.”
“The day
after then.”
“You know,
I’m not trying to make excuses, sir, but do you really need me back to work this soon?”
“It’s not
about your job,” said Joshua. “It’s about mine. And trust me; it’s
important.”
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