"Freeze!"
Jack heard the word but it didn't register. Stiff and slow, he kept moving, a living zombie.
"Freeze, goddammit, or I'll drop you where you stand!"
Jack kept moving, forcing himself forward a few more steps until he reached the corpse. He dropped to his knees in a pool of still-warm blood, grabbed one of the shoulders, and rolled him over.
The face—his lips were pulled back in a horrific, agonized grimace, but his glazed eyes left no doubt about it.
Dad.
Dead.
Jack felt as if his chest might explode. He let out a sound that was equal parts moan and sob.
He shook his father. It couldn't be. They'd been talking just a few minutes ago. He couldn't be dead!
"Dad! Dad, it's me, Jack! Can you hear me?"
The voice said, "Are you fuckin' deaf? I told you to freeze!"
Jack looked up into the muzzle of a pistol held by a mustached security guard.
"This… this is my father."
"I don't give a fuck, I told you to—"
"That will be enough!"
An older man had come up behind the guard. He looked to be about fifty and wore a blue NYPD uniform with sergeant stripes. His nameplate read DRISCOLL.
The guard backed off a step. "I found this guy wandering around. He could be—"
Sergeant Driscoll's voice dripped scorn. "He wasn't wandering around. I saw him come in. He was looking for someone." His eyes dropped to Jack's father's inert form. "And he found him."
"But—"
"But nothing." He shoved the guard away. "Get over by the door in case anyone else tries to wander in."
The guard moved off.
Driscoll muttered, "Asshole," then squatted beside Jack. "Look, I'm sorry about your dad, but you've got to go outside."
"What happened?" His own voice sounded far away. "I left him here just a few minutes ago… we were talking about going to the Empire State Build—"
"I'm really sorry, but you're going to have to wait outside. This whole area is a crime scene and you're contaminating it, so you've got to leave."
"But—"
He pointed to the floor beneath Jack. "Look at what you're kneeling in. If we're gonna catch these guys, we need every scrap of evidence we can get." He slipped a hand into Jack's armpit and lifted. "Come on. If you want to help us catch the fucks who did this to your dad, wait outside."
The cop's touch lit a flicker of rage that flashed through the dead, dumb grayness that filled Jack, but he quickly doused it. Lashing out at this man who was trying to do the decent thing would solve nothing. He could walk away or be carried away; either way, he'd be leaving his dad behind. And if he was carried away, they'd find his ankle holster and the unregistered AMT .380 it held.
So he let the cop help him to his feet and shuffled toward the shattered doorway where the security guard stood.
He watched Jack's approach.
"Hey, sorry about back there. Case like this, you don't know who's friend or foe."
Jack nodded without making eye contact.
Outside—chaos. EMS trucks screeching to a halt, shuttles trying to get out of the way, limos inching out from the curb, hundreds of people milling about, some weeping, some hysterical, some in slack-faced shock.
He saw a harried-looking cop standing by the Vic, shouting, "One last time: Who owns this?"
Jack hesitated, unsure of what he might be getting himself into, then decided that stepping forward would be less complicated, especially since his fingerprints were all over the car and it was registered in someone else's name—someone unaware of that.
Jack waved and hurried toward the cop. "Me! It's mine!"
"Then move it! You're blocking the—hey, you hurt?"
"What?"
He pointed to Jack's legs. "You're bleeding."
Jack looked down and saw the wet red splotches on his knees. For a few seconds, he didn't understand. Then—
"No…" His voice caught. "No, that's my father's."
"Jesus. He all right?"
Jack wanted to tell him what a stupid fucking question that was but bit it back. He simply shook his head.
"Listen, I'm sorry." The cop pointed to the Vic. "But ya still gotta move it. Just drive it into the garage. Then you can come back and wait with the rest."
"Wait for what?" Dad was dead.
The cop shrugged. "I dunno. News about survivors, I guess. Not like you gotta choice. Airport's locked down. Nobody out, nobody in."
Jack said nothing as he slipped behind the wheel and pulled away.
5
Dad… gone…
The words registered but his mind couldn't get a grip on it, the… finality.
He'd returned to the garage, found a spot on the perimeter of an upper level, and parked facing west. The falling December sun gleamed through the crystalline sky and stabbed his eyes. The sky had no right being so bright. It should be dark, with wind and hail and lightning.
Numb, he lowered the visor and… just… sat.
Gone… one minute alive and full of plans and enthusiasm, the next a cooling lump of meat in a pool of blood. Part of Jack insisted it was all a bad dream, but the rest of him knew he wouldn't wake up from this.
Knowing nothing made it worse. Who? Why? Some al-Qaeda strike? Or maybe al-Qaeda wannabes massacring a crowd of Orthodox Jews? Was that what this was all about? Made a sick sort of sense. But what made no sense was why, with all the flights from Miami to New York, his father had to wind up on that one.
Jack had a blood-red urge to gun up and shoot down every Arab he could find. He knew that insanity would pass, but he reveled in the fantasy until it reminded him of the backup piece strapped to his ankle.
He glanced around, saw no one about, so he reached down and pulled the little AMT .380 from its holster. When the FBI and CIA and NYPD and Homeland Security and whoever else would be involved began allowing people to leave the airport, he'd bet the ranch they'd be searching every person, every car. He wasn't sure his tried-and-true John Tyleski ID would hold up—Ernie was painstakingly thorough when he created an identity, but no fake was perfect.
And even if it did pass, he couldn't risk carrying. Had to dump the pistol.
He turned the little backup over in his hands. He'd bought it from Abe six months ago after his trusty old Semmerling had been connected to the subway massacre. Hadn't had to pull it once since. Now he was going to have to toss it away unused.
Unused… he wondered if it could have made a difference in there. The shooter—probably more than one—must have used an automatic, machine pistol, most likely. He couldn't have killed so many in so little time with a single-shot weapon.
I should've been there, goddamn it.
He didn't know what use his little six-shot .380 would have been against Mac-lOs or HK-5s. Not much, probably, but you never knew.
Another fantasy… taking down a single shooter with a couple of .380s into his face… or, if there'd been two or three, taking one down, tossing his AMT to Dad, then grabbing the downed shooter's weapon and the two of them taking on the others… just as they'd taken on Semelee's clan in the Everglades.
More likely he'd now be lying dead beside his dad.
At least they'd have put up a fight, kept whoever it was from getting clean away.
And maybe being dead wouldn't be as bad as dealing with this blistering guilt for not being there when his father needed him most.
Jack forced himself out of the fantasy to deal with the reality of the moment: The gun had to go.
He popped out the magazine, removed the chambered cartridge, then pulled out the old, oil-stained rag he kept in the glove compartment. He emptied the magazine, wiped it down, then did the same with each casing.
He removed the leather ankle holster and wiped that down. Then he removed the slide assembly from the pistol frame and wiped each part.
He opened the car door. A look around showed no one in sight, so he got out and leaned over the edge of the parapet. No one below. He dropped the slide onto the pavement six stories down.