I wanted to lie there in the warm dark where nothing hurt. Where no one pulled at me or wanted anything from me. Where the memory of pain was just that – a memory. So, when the voices interrupted the quiet, I tried to ignore it, but the voices were so insistent.
Despite the burgeoning pain, I was forced to open my eyes and begin to make sense of my situation. I knew that I was lying on my back, on the cold tiles of the hallway floor in a house that was not my own. I knew that something was wrong. The pain in my chest, neck and back told me that.
I was cold, too. Lying on a cold floor in the long hallway, nearly at the foot of a grand staircase. It was the staircase that made me remember. I was in Matt’s dead brother’s house, hiding from my father or Johannsen.
For a few minutes, I stared at the curving arch of the oak stairs with their carved balustrades and banisters, at the soaring curves as it rose gracefully two stories above and separated the two wings of the house.
It was quiet. I didn’t hear the voices calling me anymore. When I moved, my feet hit something large which did not move. I kicked at it in sudden terror and it still didn’t move. Worse, it was lying across my legs so that I couldn’t move. I was pinned under Johannsen’s body.
The more I struggled, the harder it was to keep trying. Each effort drained more of my energy. There was a rushing in my ears which became a harsh throbbing in my chest – my heart beat struggling under my coat. I pushed my hands against my chest, and they came away wet. The copper smell of blood made me gag. It was creeping out around me in an ever-growing pool from Johannsen.
Wiggling like a frantic inchworm, I finally was able to get out from under the heavy weight of Johannsen and rolled over. My ribs screamed in protest. Something tinkled as it fell to the hardwood floor and I reached out for the object. Picked up the remains of a scallop shell and with it, my brain cleared enough to rewind. To remind me of the reason I was lying there and bloody, why I hurt and what had happened. That I had to get up and save my real father and best friend.
“Dad,” I mumbled.
Planting my hands underneath me, I scrambled to my knees and wobbled until I was ready to lift my body onto my feet. I only managed to do it when I crawled over to the foot of the staircase and used the banisters to pull my body upright.
The lights were flickering. On. Off. Made ghostly shadows of the bodies lying near the base of the stairs and painted in gruesome details what had occurred as I spotted the drag marks in blood which led to the basement door. I held onto the wooden risers looking first at the nearest telephone in the hallway on a small table and then back towards the access panel to the panic room. It had the dedicated phone line.
Deciding that getting help first was my priority, I forced my shaking body back into the hidden hallway and to the pair that were waiting for me. They were still there, sitting white-faced and sweating. Not that they could go anywhere, both were still tied to the chairs at wrists behind their backs, ankles to the chair legs and bombs strapped under their butts.
To my utter horror, the blinking readout of the LED was counting down to less than five minutes. No time to call 911 or wait for the cavalry to ride in. Certainly not enough time to call the bomb squad and wait for the FBI.
Both looked relieved to see me and then, the look on their faces when they really saw me turned to shock.
“Crispin! You’re bleeding! Are you hurt?” the Captain said in fear.
“What do I do, Dad?” I cried. “The timer -”
“Get out of here,” both urged. Ordered. “There’s nothing you can do.”
“No! There’s got to be something!” I denied. “I’m not leaving you!”
I reached for the phone, picked it up and dialed, not remembering that the bad men had cut the lines, even the panic room’s so-called safe one. I only realized it when there was no dial tone, no sound but dead silence.
“Cell phones?” I asked, and both shook their heads.
“Johannsen took them,” Captain Lacey said.
“I’ll be right back,” I promised. I refrained from staring at the counting down timer. Retracing my steps, I made it back to the hall and looked down at the body of Johannsen. With feelings of regret and disgust, fear and loathing in equal parts, I bent over and went through the pockets of his black tactical uniform. Most of it was still wet with blood, his body cooling and losing the deep tan of the outdoors, taking on the gray and pale look of a body leaching blood. I found his cell phone in the last pocket under his right butt cheek. When I rolled him halfway over, it drove the knife deeper into his chest.
I had to use his thumb to unlock it and the 911 operator didn’t believe my story about kidnapping, murder, bombs and the rest. I didn’t even try to convince her, I just left the line open as I went to the kitchen searching for the one thing that I thought might help save my father and Mr. Fitzsimmons. I’d seen one prominently displayed on the wall near the door to the laundry room.
It was almost more than I could lift and drag; the red cylinder was stamped CO2 from the Beacon Fire Alarm Company. The tag on it read that it had been filled and inspected less than a year ago. It certainly felt as if it were full.
I wasn’t sure if my idea would work, it depended on whether the fire extinguisher was loaded with CO2 or water. Or other fire-retardant chemicals. If it was CO2, and the tag said so, I might be able to freeze the mercury gimble switch so that it couldn’t move, and the bomb wouldn’t go off.
By the time I returned to the pair, I was down to 3:10 seconds. I ignored their yells to run, leave and then worried that there was enough stuff in the tank to do both bombs. Without thinking on what I was doing, I pushed the two devices closer together and waited. For ten seconds. Nothing happened. Except that I almost peed my pants. I sighed. Remembered to breathe.
Carefully, I pulled the pin on the side of the red metal and pressed the handle, directing the flow at the floor first. So that the initial forceful spurt would not knock anything over, or loose that could make it go boom.
I ran the cylinder dry, watching as the LED numbers, the metal of the pipes and wires turned white with frost and cold. It looked as if it were boiling, steam came off it. Cold steam.
At 1:03, the flashing numbers stopped. The next part of what I was going to do I wasn’t so sure or thrilled about but I couldn’t see anything else I could do. Tracing the wires back under their seats, I lay on the floor on my back to see how they were attached and to what. The blast material was gray, like putty. Or clay. C4 or something like that. Each block had four wires—red, green, blue and yellow. I didn’t know what else to do, which ones to pull so I just pulled all of them.
The Captain kept his legs braced to the chair not that he had a choice, both were tied like a stuffed chicken ready for the barbecue spit.
“Don’t go away,” I said to him. He looked at me funny. Like what I said made no sense. “What? We still had a minute to spare.”
It took me forever to roll the wires back to the bombs and carefully carry the entire mess down the long hallway to the top steps of the basement. I wished that I could have carried both bombs down to the shooting range where a blast would have less effect and be more contained. Two trips down to the firing ranges and back was beyond me. I sensed that my body was shutting down and that there was not much left of my strength or my will.
I could barely see, my breathing sounded like I was having an asthma attack and my legs barely held me up. The second trip took everything I had left. I wasn’t sure if I could make it back to the panic room, yet I knew that I still had to cut both men loose before I could kick the bombs down the steps. And I knew that there wasn’t enough left in me to run from the explosion once the bombs hit the cement floor.
I decided to leave the bombs on the top step, opting to close the door as if that would stop a blast. I couldn’t feel my hands; the chill from the fire-retardant chemical on the cold metal had given me frost burns. I saw my fingers move but couldn’t feel anything in my hands.
Standing in the hallway, I leaned against the wall and stared blearily at the body of my father, Tempe. He didn’t look like my dad anymore. At my nemesis, Johannsen. He lay almost where he had fallen, minus the small distance I had shoved him over trying to get out from under him. The knife was still in him, driven in deeper by my turning him.
With bile threatening to come up my throat, I wrapped both hands around the bloody hilt and pulled. It came out with a wet thump and he exhaled.
I shrieked, fell back onto my butt and sat down on the floor in an uncontrolled fall. I stared in horror at his corpse, expecting him to jump up and attack me. Behind me, I heard the shouts of my father and Mr. Fitz. Or maybe Matt and Jake. The dead man didn’t move, and I held my breath waiting for him to get me. But he didn’t take another breath. Scooting backward, I turned around on my hands and knees, crawling for the panic room. Stopped halfway there when I realized that I had dropped the knife in my panic.
It was still there. Gleaming bright and bloody in the lit hall. Light that explored every crevice, hollow and valley that was Johannsen’s corpse. He hadn’t moved and the look in his eyes was a blank stare. He didn’t look like Johannsen anymore and I felt a sharp pang of regret for what he’d had and thrown away. He had been my father, he was supposed to love me and take care of me. Teach me how to grow up to be a good man. He had done none of those things, yet I still mourned my loss.
Voices called to me. I lifted my head and stared at the two men bound to the chairs. There were tears on both faces as I used the Captain’s leg to climb up to where I could reach the zip-ties on his wrists.
My hands were almost useless, so I started with the ones on his ankles. Luckily, the blade was very sharp and didn’t need much strength to cut through the heavy nylon zip-ties. Once his legs were free, I tried to get to his wrists. I was afraid that I would cut him, so it took me a lot longer. Once one of his hands was free, he grabbed my coat and held me.
“Cris,” he said. “Give me the knife.”
I handed it over, fumbling with the blade. He exclaimed when he saw the red burns on both of my hands. Once he was loose, he stood up, transferred the knife and picked me up in his arm. It took him seconds to cut the zip-ties on Jake and free him. Instead of taking the front door to get out of the house, he laid me on the work table.
“Jake, lock the vault door,” he said over his shoulder. Carefully, he opened my coat, cut off my t-shirt and exposed my chest. I shivered. I was freezing and hot at the same time.
“Shock. You’re in shock. You’ve been shot, Cris.”
Jake turned towards us. “How bad? Did you call for help?”
“Did. Pocket,” I said. Matt checked my coat and found nothing. “I left the cell by his…body.”
He stared at me. “Oh God, Cris,” he said and stroked my face. “This is going to hurt.” He went through the first-aid kit and did things that I didn’t remember. Because I fainted.
The smell of salt water and sea air roused me. Cold. Blowing in from the water. Bright lights flashed everywhere. Red, blue, white and yellow. But the brightest lights were the flames that reached fifty or more feet into the air as the mansion exploded and burned in front of our eyes.
Matt and Jake stood near the boat house watching as fire fighters, police and bomb squad techs scurried over the property. It would only be minutes before someone spotted us on the dunes near the boat house.
“Cris, we have to get Cris to a hospital. The bullet is still in there,” Matt said. I looked at them. Matt was Matt again. Jake, too. “It must have been a ricochet.”
“What?” I said drowsily.
“Cris. You’re awake. The bullet must have been a ricochet; otherwise, it would have gone straight through your skinny little chest.”
“I fainted. I think.” I touched the sore spot on my chest and couldn’t feel anything anyway. My hands were still numb. “The bullet – he shot me point blank. The bullet—it hit the seashell that Jake gave me. I put it in my pocket.”
“You disarmed a bomb,” he said in awe.
I giggled. “I froze it. Must have melted and finally blew up.” We stared at the burning hulk of the mansion. “I hope your brother has insurance.”
Jake snorted and laid his palm on the side of my face. That was how the cops and the ambulance people found us. I didn’t want to let go of Matt, so they let all three of us into the back of the ambulance. Followed of course by the cops and the FBI.
Even though I had a hissy fit, the emergency people wouldn’t let them come into the ER bay or the surgery room. Most of that day and the next I didn’t remember. Not because of the trauma and all but because they kept me sedated most of that time.
A guard stood outside my door. Not just an armed cop but an FBI agent, too. There were a lot of people waiting to talk to me including the ATF, Homeland and the FBI.