2nd Chance (30 page)

I shook my head. “I hope not. We won’t need them if Coombs got spooked and split.”

Just then, we heard shots. I knew that none of the police would fire first. Besides, it sounded like rifle fire.

“I think he’s still here,” Warren Jacobi deadpanned.

Screams of panicked students echoed down the loggia. Then they started to run toward us, fleeing the Quad.

Someone shouted, “He’s in the Hoover Tower. The fucker, the fucking madman!”

Jacobi, Kimes, and I ran right into the stampeding students. Joe Kimes was on the radio. “Shots fired! All personnel and
EMS
to the Hoover Tower. Use extreme caution!”

We got to the green in the next few seconds. Students were hiding behind trees, pillars, large flower pots, anything that afforded some cover.

Two students were down. One of them was a black woman, a bloody circle widening on her chest. Goddamn him. Goddamn
Chimera.

“Stay down! Stay where you are!” I yelled across the Quad. “Please keep your heads down!”

A shot rang out from the tower. Then a second and third. A male student dropped from behind a slatted bench.

“Please stay down!” I screamed again. “Stay the hell down!”

I fixed my eyes on the belfry of the tower, searching for a shape, a gun, anything to set Rusty Coombs’s position.

Suddenly, two more shots echoed from the tower. Coombs was definitely up there. There was no way we could protect this many people. He had us where he wanted us. Chimera was still winning.

1 grabbed Kimes. “How would I get up there?”

“No one’s going up there,” Joe Kimes snapped back, “without a
SWAT
escort.” His eyes were wide and frozen. He shouted into the radio. “All
SWAT
and medical teams to the Main Quad! Sniper is shooting from the Hoover Tower. At least three down.”

1 looked him in the eye. “How do I get up there, Joe?” I demanded. “I’m going, so tell me the best way.”

“There’s an elevator on the ground floor,” Dean Stern cut in.

I pulled my Glock out of my side holster and checked the smaller Beretta I had fastened to my ankle. Chimera was up in that dome, raining bullets down.

My eyes fixed on a building that would provide some cover. Jacobi reached for my arm. But he knew he wasn’t going to stop me.

“You wouldn’t give me a minute to grab us both a vest, would you, L.T.?”

“I’ll see you up there, Warren.” I winked. Then I broke for the tower in a tight crouch.

And somewhere in the back of my mind, I wondered —
why am I doing this?

J
ESUS
, HE
FELT
GOOD
.

Chimera pulled back the rifle and sat against the hard concrete wall. In a moment, hell on earth was going to bust loose in the Quad.
SWAT
teams, snipers, maybe even helicopters. He knew he had the advantage — he didn’t care if he died.

He fixed on the big carillon bells. He’d always liked the stupid, damn bells. When they played, you could hear them all over campus. He wondered, when this was over, when he was no longer around, if he could have bells played at his funeral. Yeah, right.

Then he realized he was alone in the Hoover Tower and had just killed five people. What a fucking day this had been — what a life he’d had. He was going down in history, no doubt about that anymore.

He lifted himself up and peered over the side. Suddenly, everything was pretty quiet down there. The Quad had been cleared. Soon there’d be a high-tech
SWAT
team on the scene, then he’d just have to take out as many as he could get. They were going to have to earn their overtime pay.

But for now, up here, man, everything was beautiful….

Then he spotted Lindsay Boxer! He squinted through the rifle sight to be sure. The “hero cop” who had killed his father. She had run from the cover of the administration building, zigzagging in a crouch toward the tower. He was glad she was here. Suddenly, everything changed. He
could still bring this bus in on time….

He followed the darting shape and gently closed his left eye. He let his breathing slow to an almost meditative rate.

He was thinking that his father had taken nine shots.

So should she.

He drew in a breath and fixed the crosshairs on her white blouse.

You’re a dead woman.

I
T
WAS
QUIET
NOW
in the quadrangle. Rusty Coombs was either taking a breather or reloading.

Let’s
do it. Me and you, pal.

I headed for the building in front of me. I felt a kind of controlled hysteria. Not good. I knew I was a target, and that Coombs could shoot.

Suddenly, I heard a gun burst
behind
me. I glanced and saw Jacobi firing at the tower.

Before Coombs could train on me, I darted under the cover of thick poplar branches, then around the building to within a few yards of the base of the tower.

I looked around and saw Jacobi with Kimes. He shook his head at me. I knew it meant,
Please, Lindsay, stay put.
I
can’t do backup once you’re in the tower.
I winked at him almost apologetically.

I ran around the tower until I found an entrance on the north side. I headed up the stairs and found myself in a marbled WPA-style lobby.

Elevator straight ahead.

I pressed for the elevator over and over, my gun trained on the doors. They didn’t open. In futility, I slammed my fist against the polished chrome doors. I screamed,
“Police.”
The shout echoed down the halls. I needed someone, anybody. I had no idea how to get to the top of the tower from here.

An older man in a maintenance uniform emerged from down a corridor. He recoiled at the sight of my gun.

“Police,” I yelled. “How do I get up there?”

“Man’s blocked the elevator,” he said. “Only way up is the auxiliary stairs.”

“Show me. Please. It’s a matter of life or death.”

The caretaker led me through a door and up to the third floor, then down a corridor to a narrow set of stairs. “You got yourself thirteen flights. Fire door at the top. Opens from both sides.”

“Wait
in the lobby and tell anyone who comes that I’m up here,” I said as I headed into the narrow stairwell. “That’s a matter of life or death, too.”

“Yes ma’am. Understood.”

I started up. Thirteen flights. And I didn’t know what to expect at the top. My heart was racing and my blouse clung to my back with cold sweat.

Lucky thirteen. With each story, my breaths grew tighter and sharper. My legs began to ache, top to bottom, and I run four times a week. I didn’t know if I was crazy, going in there without backup. No, hell, I
knew
I was crazy.

Finally, I pushed past twelve and reached the top. Jesus. Only a solid metal fire door separated me from Chimera. My heart was exploding.

Through the door I heard more shooting.
K-pow, k-pow, k-pow.
He was at it again. I was scared that someone else might be killed. I was angry, pissed, I wanted him so bad. I checked my Glock and sucked in a breath.
Oh God, Lindsay… whatever you do, do it fast.

The fire door had one of those heavy emergency levers that had to be pushed down to release.

I pressed it down and burst onto the observation deck.

I
WAS
STRUCK
with a blast of blinding sunlight. Then the chilling sounds:
k-ping, k-ping, k-ping…
the ejecting shells from the rifle jangling to the floor.

Rushing onto the deck, I spotted Coombs. He was kneeling in front of an opening with his rifle extended through the bars.

Suddenly he pivoted toward me.

His gun exploded in my direction. A deafening burst, orange flashes all around. Loud metallic dings.

I dove away from the door, peeling off a burst of four shots. I didn’t know if I’d hit him. I sucked in a breath, waiting for a stab of pain to see
if he’d hit me.
He hadn’t.

“It’s a lot harder when somebody’s shooting back at you,” I yelled.

I was crouched behind a tall metal grating. It housed a collection of seven massive bells. Each looked as if it could shatter my eardrums with a single ring. The rest of the observation deck was no more than an eight-foot-wide path. It circled the bells with viewing openings every six feet or so in the wall.

Coombs was on the other side — the bells acting as a cover for both of us.

His voice called out, an easy, arrogant twang, “Welcome to Camelot, Lieutenant. … All these big-shot brains down there… and now you coming all the way up here just to talk to me.”

“I brought along friends. They won’t be talking, Rusty. They’ll be looking for any shot to take you down. Why die like this?”

“I don’t know, seems like a good plan to me. You want to die up here with me, be my guest,” Rusty Coombs called back.

I squinted through the grating, trying to get a fix on where Coombs was. Across the belfry, I heard him shove in a fresh clip.

“I’m glad it’s you. I mean, it’s fitting, don’t you think? You nail my dad, now I get to do the same to you.”

His voice seemed to shift, as
if he was circling.

I started to circle as well, my Glock aimed toward the corner of the bell housing.

“I don’t want you to die up here, Rusty.”

“A little slow on the uptake, aren’t you, Lieutenant? Just like always. I gave you everything I could think of. The chimera symbols, the van, the nine one one… What did I have to do, send you a fucking E-mail and say,
‘Hey, fellas, I’m over here?’
Took you long enough to figure it out. Cost a few lives along the way.”

Suddenly, a burst of gunfire rattled the iron grating, bullets clanging loudly off the bells.

I ducked down, holding my head between my hands.

“Your father’s gone,” I shouted. “This doesn’t bring him back.”

Where was he now? I peered through a gap in the grating.
Brain freeze.

There was Rusty Coombs.
He was smiling at me, his father’s smug, hateful grin. I saw the rifle extended through the bell housing.

In that instant, I saw a sudden flash, felt a recoil of brute force. Then the powerful impact of the shot hurled me backward.

I landed hard on my back, scurried for cover as Coombs rushed around for a clear shot. My fingers groped for my Glock. Jesus,
my gun… wasn’t there.

Coombs had shot it out of my hand!

He walked forward until he stood over me. His rifle was pointed at my chest. “You have to admit, I sure can shoot, huh?”

Every lingering hope was gone. His eyes were green and held such a cold, impassive burn. I hated this bastard so much.

“Don’t add any more deaths,” I said, my mouth completely dry. “
SWAT
teams are coming. Kill me, five minutes later, it’ll be you.”

He shrugged. “At this point, it’s gonna be a bitch to square myself with the coach. People like you” — he stared blankly — “you don’t have the slightest idea what it’s like to lose your father. You bastards took my father.”

I watched his finger move to the trigger and realized I was going to die. I said a silent prayer and I thought, I
don’t want to die.

Then the deepest, ear-splitting sound interrupted. It had the force of a building crashing down. One resounding gong was followed by another, then another. I had to grab my ears to keep from going deaf.

It was the bells. They were going off, and it was the loudest noise I’d ever heard — by a lot. The entire tower shook with the thunderous sound.

Coombs’s face twisted into a contortion of shock and pain. He staggered, reflexively crunching into a ball to protect himself.

When I saw him coil up, I reached inside my pant leg. I pulled out the Beretta strapped to my ankle.

Everything happened so quickly, like a film with the action running but the sound a high-pitched distortion.

Coombs, seeing me, swung his rifle into firing position.

I fired three times, spurts jerking back my hand.
The bells continued to gong… over and over.

Three crimson bursts spattered across Coombs’s broad chest. The force sent him tumbling backward.

Then the bells again. Each earsplitting clang felt like a sledgehammer slamming into my skull.

Coombs came to rest in a sitting position. He gazed down, saw his torn flesh. He blinked with a glazed, mystified look. He raised his rifle toward me. “You die, too, bitch!”

I squeezed the trigger of the Beretta. The bells gonged as a final blast thudded into his throat. He grunted loudly and his eyeballs rolled back into his head.

I realized that my hands were cupping my ears again. My head ached. I crawled to Coombs and kicked his rifle away. The bells continued to sound, a melody that was unidentifiable to me, maybe an answer to my prayer.

My eye fixed on something as I knelt beside Coombs. “There it is,” I whispered.

A curled, reptilian tail in red and blue, leading into the body of a goat with the fierce and proud heads of a lion and a goat.
Chimera…
One of my shots had pierced the wicked beast’s torso. It looked dead, too.

I heard shouts coming from behind, but I continued to kneel over Coombs. I felt I had to answer what he’d said at the end.
You don’t have the slightest idea what it’s like
… to
lose your father….

“Oh, yes I do,” I told his still eyes.

T
HIS
TIME
the newspapers had it right.
Chimera was dead.
The multiple-homicide case was closed.

There was no great joy in the final outcome, at least not for me. Homicide didn’t get together and wipe the board clean. There were no toasts with the girls. Too many people had died. I was lucky not to have been among them. So were Claire and Cindy.