“Stay here in Chelsea’s lab, so we know where you are when we need you,” he said. “We may need you very soon.”
It was a white lie — there was very little a young girl could do — but he wanted to make sure she stayed where she was safe.
“I will.”
“Good.”
Johnny was ready with a list of what the SWAT team needed by the time Massina returned to the Box.
“Surveillance overhead is great for the grounds and the roof, but real-time surveillance inside would be gold,” he told his boss. “Telakus says we could bring one of our computers there, set up a mobile connection, then show them what’s going on. It’ll be quicker than trying to cobble a connection together.”
“That’s true,” said Telakus. “Time is running out.”
“Let’s do it,” said Massina.
“We need some sort of building diagram,” added Johnny. “Can we get somebody to call over to the building inspectors or something like that? Architectural review or—”
“We’ll launch a UAV with penetrating radar,” said Massina. “Tommy! We need you to set something up.”
“Heard ya. Workin’ on it. We have a Nightbird outfitted for that mining company and—”
“Do it!” said Massina.
“I want to go with them,” said Johnny. “I’ll take the computer there.”
“Are you sure?” asked Massina.
“Damn sure.”
“Good. Because I think Chelsea’s in that hotel.”
11
Chelsea opened her eyes, dazed. Victoria pulled her into her arms, rocking her gently, half sitting, half crouched against the floor. The room smelled of spent gunpowder and blood. People screamed and cried, wailed and moaned in agony. Many of the men who’d been shot were still alive, but the terrorists didn’t allow anyone to help them.
“Savages,” said Victoria softly, her voice trembling. “They’ll kill us all.”
“Help will come,” insisted Chelsea. “I’m sure. Just stay strong.”
“I am.”
The terrorist who’d been on the stage earlier began shouting. The women were to move toward the door. A few seconds later, convinced that they weren’t moving fast enough for him, he raised his gun and fired toward the ceiling.
A few of the women ran toward the door, but most continued at a slow pace, cringing, unable to force more movement from their bodies. They had entered a fugue state of fear, paralyzed by the certainty that they were going to die.
One of the men near the door stepped forward and began directing them, waving his hand silently as he counted them into groups of five. Chelsea stayed close to her aunt, realizing that they might be split up, but it was no use — the man pointed at her and motioned for her to begin a new group.
Chelsea shook her head.
“I’m staying with my aunt,” she said.
Chelsea mustered a death glance as the man stalked toward her. He stared back, eyes locked with hers.
For a moment she thought he was going to shoot her. She stiffened, extending her barely five-foot frame to its full height, and took a deep breath, holding it, waiting for the inevitable — but instead of raising his gun, he grabbed her shoulder with his left hand and hurled her toward the wall.
“You and you,” said the terrorist, choosing two other women from the small cluster. Victoria started to join Chelsea, but the terrorist pushed his gun into her chest, nudging at first, then ramming her backward when that failed to stop her.
Chelsea raised herself to her knees and watched as her aunt’s group was led from the ballroom. Victoria walked with her head down, bent over, undoubtedly hurting from the blow.
Pressure had begun to build behind Chelsea’s eyes, a pain that felt similar to eyestrain. She rubbed her temples, then sat back, not wanting to kneel — it was too much like surrender.
The power flicked back on, fans whirring up, lights flooding bright.
The other groups were led out of the ballroom, leaving only Chelsea and the two other women selected with her. They were both about her age, twenties, slim. One looked Latin, the other Irish, with red curly hair. She had a large wet mark in the front of her taupe-colored leggings, running down her leg. The other woman wore a miniskirt and a sleeveless top that revealed well-toned muscles. There was something hard in her face, a kind of frown.
“Up!” yelled the terrorist who’d been on the stage. “Up!”
He waved his gun.
As she walked into the hallway, Chelsea thought of making a run for it. But there was nowhere to go — another terrorist was standing a few yards away.
“That way, right,” he said. “Right.”
“They’re not going to rape us, are they?” asked the girl in the leggings.
“What do you think?” answered the other.
12
The commander on the scene outside the Patriot Hotel was a police captain whose oversize balding head contrasted sharply with his toned, sleek body: the face of a sixty-year-old above a thirty-year-old’s frame. Johnny had met Kevin Smith several times when he was an FBI agent and so wasn’t surprised at Smith’s blank expression as he detailed the resources he had brought with him from Smart Metal.
“That will all be very useful,” said Smith finally, with all the excitement of a man making out a check to the IRS. “Lieutenant Steller is handling intel for the SWAT team, and Percy is in charge of the assault unit. You know Percy?”
“A bit,” said Johnny. Johnny thought it best not to give the details; he and Percy had not particularly gotten along.
As in, shouted at each other and nearly come to blows.
“Good.” Smith nodded. “This communications specialist — when’s he getting here?”
“Any minute,” said Johnny. They had biked over, at Ciro Farlekas’s suggestion. A fellow security officer who like Johnny had worked with the FBI, Farlekas was an avid biker, to the point of having a Carbondale bike he rode to work every day. Johnny had borrowed something more akin to a tank, but managed to beat him here, thanks to his legs.
The police were working out of a mobile command center — a large, heavily modified van — around the corner of the hotel. Cameras on two police cruisers fed real-time visuals of the building’s front. Information on the other three sides depended on spotters who were calling into one of Smith’s own com specialists.
“Damn, you’re fast,” said Farlekas, riding up after being let through by the officers up the block. “Where are we setting up?”
“Right here,” said Smith.
“We’re gonna fix ya right up,” Farlekas told him, his Tennessee drawl unchallenged by Bostonian vowels or idioms. “Jest gimme a few seconds here.”
“He’s good, don’t worry,” Johnny told Smith. He didn’t know Farlekas really, but everyone at Smart Metal was pretty much the best at what they did. “We’re online with their security videos, and we’re getting a, uh, drone with radar to map the insides. Do you need mechs?”
Smith tilted his head.
“Mechs are like robots,” explained Johnny. All of this had been foreign to him just a few months before; he’d spent several weeks training with them and now could work with them the same way he’d work with a human partner. “They’re designed to handle specific tasks, and while they can generally complete that task without detailed instructions, they don’t have advanced AI, so they can only do what you tell them to do.”
He pulled over the backpack he’d brought with him. “These are small units designed to enter buildings and rubble sites. We can tell them to go somewhere and they’ll figure out how to do it.”