Page 112 of At Midnight Comes the Cry

The chief jogged back toward her, and now she and Flynn were on point. Pick up two IEDs. Move them forward. The purely decorative boxes had already been flattened. Back to the fire line. This time, someone was running toward them from the barricade. One of Mr. Schlesinger’s grandsons. “Chief Van Alstyne?” He skidded to a stop. “I have a message from your wife.”

The chief gestured for Johnson and Khalil to keep going. Hadley turned around into a covering fire position, but stayed close enough to the chief to listen in.

“She said she had someone time it, and it’s averaging one every five seconds. Um, and the number is seven hundred fifty.”

“How did you get this message, son?”

“Your wife told Rabbi Jess and she told me.”

“Is your granddad out?”

“Yes, sir, he just went up with my mom and my brother.”

“Good. Let the rabbi know I got the message.” The slap-slap of sneakers on the tile floor told Hadley the kid was running back. “You two hear that?”

She echoed Flynn’s yes. Khalil and Johnson were jogging toward them, gesturing for the next round of “move the box.” The chief pointed to the near wall. “Everybody over, we’ve got new intel.” The two security guards seamlessly shifted direction, while the rest of them trotted to the spot he had indicated. “We’ve received numbers suggesting when we can expect the militia to reach its target goal. Kevin, you’re good with math—”

“Twenty minutes, based on what he said, but that’s not counting the time it took for the message to get from the street, to the corridor, to us. So more like fifteen. Maybe less.”

The chief pressed his lips together. “You took the first group up. How much time if we start sending people up nonstop?”

“Loading, unloading, which is slower than normal because we’re moving one at a time through the curtain—”

“Can we do away with that?”

Khalil shook his head. “We’ll literally be spotlighting our people every time the elevator door opens. They won’t just be visible, it’lldrawattention from anyone on the crane.”

“So…” The chief looked back to Flynn.

“Six minutes per group.”

Flynn’s calculations hung in the air. Hadley voiced what they were all thinking. “That’s not enough time.”

“No.” The chief took a breath. “If any of you want to join the civilians in the corridor, that should provide some protection.”

No one moved.

“Okay.” He nodded. “Okay. Change of strategy. Kevin’s always gotten the top marksmanship scores in our department. Either of you two noticeably gifted in that area?”

Johnson and Khalil shook their heads.

“Then here’s what we do. Kevin, you’re going to move up close to the corridor where the gunman was. Be ready to shoot on sight. The rest of you, shift as many of the IEDs to the food court entrance as possible. In ten minutes, no more, drop everything and run for that corridor. No exceptions, no ‘just one more.’”

“Chief, what are you going to be doing?”

He pulled out his gun and handed it to Flynn. “I’m going to go up there and try to talk that sonofabitch on the crane out of it.”

14.

Russ had sent Knox back with a message to speed up the exfiltration as much as possible, and as he mounted the unheated stairway to the plaza, he wished he’d asked her to bring his parka. On the other hand, showing up in nothing but his jeans and flannel shirt would make it easy for anyone to see he wasn’t armed.

Not having a convenient flag of truce, he cracked one of the glass doors and waved a white tissue. His gesture wasn’t answered with gunfire, so he slowly opened the door and stepped outside, hands raised.

“I’m Russ Van Alstyne.” He made his voice as big as possible to carry across the plaza. “If you were at the encampment, you know who I am.”

No response.

“I’m unarmed.” He slowly turned in a circle, pulled off his empty pancake holster and tossed it away. “Can we talk?” He squinted toward the top of the crane. He was dead sure—bad phrase—there were at least two men up there; one with the rifle and one doing the PR. Plus, maybe one in the cab. He wondered what their getaway plan was. It could be a murder/suicide, of course, but that didn’t seem like a strategy the militia would embrace. Live men held for trial would generate a lot more publicity than a few more bodies.