On Borrowed Time (27 page)

“There’s an annex building behind Ardmore Hospital. It’s the small building in the back,” I said.

“I know where it is.”

“Good. Everybody who works in that building is there now; they’re having a going-away party or something. They are all going to be murdered.”

“What?” he screamed.

“You heard me. There’s no time to tell you how I know, just trust me. You’ve got to get those people out of that building. You’ve only got about ten minutes.”

“How is it going to happen?”

“I’m not positive, but I think there are explosives there,” I said, remembering that Craig had said “kaboom.” “They’re probably on a timer, or it might be set to be detonated from a remote location.”

“Where are you?” he asked.

“Nowhere near there. I’ve got something else to do. Please hurry.”

“I’m on my way,” he said, and I believed that he was.

When he got off the phone, I took the card out of my wallet that Agent Emmett Luther had given me. He was based in the Bureau’s Newark office, about forty minutes from where I was calling.

Once again the screaming about multiple deaths did the trick, and they patched me through to Luther, who was not in the office.

“What have you got, Kilmer?” He seemed calm; apparently the prospect of mass murder was not serious enough to shake him up.

“Everything. I know it all.”

“What does that mean?”

“I know all about the memory implants; I know who’s behind it, and I know where he is.”

“I’m listening.”

“No, listening won’t cut it,” I said. “I will meet you at Teterboro Airport in a half hour. You have a plane and a bunch of agents with guns waiting there, and once we’re in the air I’ll tell you where I’m going.”

“This is bullshit,” he said.

“Then don’t meet me,” I said, and hung up.

My next call was 911, and I told them that there was a shooting, with one confirmed death and another probable. I didn’t know the address, but I gave them the street and told them it was Lassiter’s house.

They asked for my name and I gave it, but told them that I wouldn’t be here when they arrived.

“You need to stay on the scene, sir.”

“Sorry. If you have a problem, call Agent Emmett Luther at the FBI, Newark office.”

They were still arguing with me when I hung up the phone. I had to move quickly, or they’d be there and I’d never get out. I quickly felt Craig for a pulse; I didn’t want him to get up and walk away once I left. I’m not great at pulse-feeling, but I don’t think he had one.

I was four blocks away when I heard the sirens, but even if they drove by me, they would have no way of knowing who I was. I’d have a lot of questions to answer later, and I had probably violated about a hundred laws by leaving the scene, but I didn’t care.

Nothing was going to stop me from getting on that plane.

Kentris immediately knew he was not going to make it in time. Not if Kilmer was right about the timing, and it was quite likely that he was. It was going to happen in less than ten minutes, and it would take him a minimum of twelve to get there, maybe longer.

He screamed instructions to two sergeants to call the Ardmore police and the hospital security and tell them that a bomb was going to blow up the Annex building in a few minutes. The building was to be cleared immediately, and Kentris was on the way with a bunch of cops.

He had his doubts that even the phone calls would do the trick. It takes time to get through to people, and to get them understanding and moving. Then it takes more time to get a crowd of potential victims themselves to understand and move out in a safe fashion.

Kentris was in a squad car; others would follow momentarily. He would call on the way and direct that the bomb squad, ambulances, fire and emergency personnel, and a SWAT team be sent to the scene immediately, and that the area be cordoned off.

Then it was out of Kentris’s hands; in fact, he believed it was so already. He was close to certain that everyone was only going to arrive in time to help count the bodies.

Once I was in the car, I did the math in my head.

My best guess was that the annex building was going to explode in about six minutes, and there was no way Kentris could get there in time. I had very grave doubts that he would be able to get others to do it either.

I had to try another way.

I pulled over to the side of the road and took out my wallet. I found Marie Galasso’s cell phone number, and called her as I started to drive again.

There was no answer, and after five interminable rings it went to voice mail.

I didn’t bother leaving a message; there was no way that was going to work. Instead, I dialed the number again, and was surprised when she answered just before the fifth ring.

“Hello?” she said, and by the tone of her voice and the boisterous noise in the background, I could tell they were having a good time, probably lubricated by alcohol.

“Marie, this is Richard Kilmer.”

“Richard! Today’s the last day! Can you believe it?”

“Marie, listen to me. There is a bomb, probably more than one, set to go off in the annex building in less than five minutes. You’ve got to get everyone out of there now!”

“What?” she asked, but I know she heard me the first time.

“Marie, you’ve got to get everybody out of there. There is not a second to lose. Everybody’s life is in your hands!”

The tone of her voice had turned to panic; that was better than levity, but not by much. “How do you know that?” she screamed.

“Marie, control yourself. Please believe me, I’m not making this up. The people running the operation want you all to die.”

“But Dr. Gates is here.”

“He’s not running things; he’s going to be another victim.”

“Oh, my God!”

Click.

She hung up on me. I didn’t know if that meant she had heard enough and was going to do what was necessary, or if she thought I was crazy and didn’t want to talk to me anymore.

Or something in between.

Except something in between was not going to be close to enough.

The Stone was watching CNN. He rarely did that; in fact he rarely watched the news at all. He couldn’t trust what they said; it consisted mostly of propaganda or overhyping to generate ratings. That was ironic, because the Stone was in the process of generating a massive ratings boost for CNN and news stations all over the country.

Langel was not going to call him when Kilmer and Lassiter were taken care of, that was not necessary. He would instead come to where the Stone was, to collect his money and clean up the loose ends.

The only way Langel would call was if Kilmer was the shooter, but events seemed to have overtaken that possibility. Once Kilmer learned of the implant and realized his memories of the girl were artificial, the overwhelming need for revenge on Lassiter would be lessened below the level to get him to commit murder.

But you never know.

The real news would come from the television. Once the hospital building blew up, the cameras and talking heads would descend on the wreckage area, and every nuance would be breathlessly reported. That would tell him and his buyer everything they needed to know.

Their secret would be safe; no one working on the physical project, including Gates, would be around to ever reveal it. Only Langel would be left alive, simply because at the moment there was no one left to kill him. That would go on the Stone’s to-do list.

Once today’s operations were completed, the money would be wired, the material and designs turned over, and the jet readied. If all went well, and it always did, the Stone would be out of the country in two hours.

But this was the calm before the storm, and for the Stone right now there was nothing to do except watch some television.

Marie Galasso wanted to get the hell out of that building.

She had no doubt that Kilmer was telling the truth, and she didn’t want to be there when he was proven right. But she couldn’t just run; she had to get her friends and coworkers out as well.

One glance told her what she already knew. This was a relaxed crowd, talking, drinking cocktails, and listening to music. It was going to take extreme measures to get them up and out in the time required.

“EVERYBODY OUT! THERE’S A BOMB IN THE BUILDING.… IT’S GOING TO GO OFF!”

She screamed that three or four times, but it had far less effect than she had hoped. Most people just looked at her, concerned and puzzled, and some even thought she might be joking. But none of them were moving.

“Marie, what are you doing? What are you talking about?” her friend Sandy Miller asked. Marie just screamed at her that they needed to get everybody out of the building.

Marie screamed her warnings again, as loud as she could, but while she certainly attracted attention, she still didn’t generate any movement. Most people assumed she was drunk and was handling it badly. How would Marie Galasso have suddenly gotten information about a bomb? It was ridiculous.

“Is this a joke?” Sandy asked, but Marie was on the move and didn’t hear her. It was time for desperate measures.

Marie ran to the front of the room and starting turning over all the tables, including the ones with the punch bowl and all the chafing dishes with the food. This created chaos in the room, but still didn’t get people to register the fact that they had to get out.

All they were doing was wondering why Marie was going nuts, and trying to decide what they should do about it.

Dr. Gates was in the restroom when he came out and saw what was going on. When he finally realized what Marie was saying, the cold realization hit him in the face. She had to be right, the building must be coming down, and his partners clearly had planned for him to die in the explosion. There was no way he was going to let that happen, and he heeded Marie Galasso’s warning and ran out.

Marie had one final idea. She grabbed the gas lighter that was flaming under one of the hot chafing dishes, and she started to set fire to tablecloths, all the while screaming, “GET OUT OF THE BUILDING! NOW!”

She knew that setting a fire in the middle of a building filled with bombs might not be the best idea, but the tables were in the center of the room, and there was no time for the fire to spread enough to impact anything before the time of the explosion.

If Kilmer was right, this was her best chance of saving these people. If not, she would have a bit of explaining to do.

The fire got the people moving, not so much because they understood that there were bombs about to go off, but rather because they didn’t want to die in a fire.

Satisfied that she had done all she could, Marie ran out as well. Ninety-four of the one hundred and three people made it out and to safety before the building was obliterated in a massive explosion.

Security arrived in time to see it; the Ardmore police got there three minutes after that, with Kentris four minutes behind them.

The media arrived eight minutes later, just after Dr. Gates was read his rights.

I heard the radio report about the explosion as I was nearing Teterboro Airport. I had no way of knowing how bad it was, or how successful Marie Galasso had been in getting herself and the others out of there. The preliminary report simply said that there were fatalities, but then it added that a large number of employees had escaped the building.

Way to go, Marie.

Teterboro is a private airport, so most of the planes in and out of there are either personal propeller-driven aircraft or corporate jets. One of the advantages of being on a corporate jet is that you don’t have to go through the check-in/terminal/security/gate experience. In fact, very often they let cars, mostly limos, drive right out to the tarmac where the planes are waiting.

A man in a suit and tie was waiting at a fenced gate, and when he saw me, he opened the gate and motioned me in. He pointed toward a jet with a half dozen similarly clad men standing next to it. One of those men I recognized as Agent Emmett Luther.

I pulled the car near the jet, got out, and left it there. I moved quickly toward Luther, but he and the others were already climbing the steps into the aircraft, motioning for me to follow. I did.

When I got through the door and onto the plane, Luther was standing there waiting for me. Next to him was a man I assumed to be the pilot, since he had wings on his jacket and literally had one foot in the cockpit and one out of it.

In the main passenger area were eight men and two women. I assumed all were FBI agents, but I wasn’t sure, and I had a feeling there weren’t going to be any formal introductions made.

“Where are we going?” Luther asked.

“North.”

“You’re going to need to be more specific than that.”

“First we have to make our deal,” I said. “Before we go anywhere.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I told you, we’re going to do this on my terms,” I said.

“Don’t fuck with me, Kilmer. I’ll throw you off this plane, but I’ll wait until we’re at thirty thousand feet.”

I was not in the mood to argue with him, so I decided to set out the conditions. “I believe that Allison Tynes is being held captive by the man we’re going after. His plan is to use her as a hostage if anything goes wrong, and for him something is about to go very wrong. I’m worried about her safety.”

“We need to file a flight plan,” Luther said. “We can talk about this on the way; just tell me where we’re going.”

I wasn’t having any of that. “First I want your word that her life will be the priority; that every effort will be made to keep her safe and unharmed.”

Luther thought about that for a moment, then said, “Okay.”

“And I am with you every step of the way. Where you go, I go.”

“You think you’re a hero?”

“Not even close. But I want to be there to watch you heroes in action, otherwise there’s no deal.”

“You’re a pain in the ass, Kilmer. Okay, you have my word. Now, where the hell are we going?”

“Damariscotta, Maine.”

“Who is going to be there when we get there? Besides your girlfriend.”

“Philip Garber. He’s been behind this from the start.”