Ed shrugged. “We don’t do it, a lot of people are going to get hurt.”
Sam said, “And if we do it, there’s a damn good chance we might get hurt.”
Ed lifted his eyebrows. “Never knew you to be scared.”
“Not scared, brother. Just . . . concerned. Driving busloads of hate ain’t my idea of a good time.”
“Me neither, but you got something better you’d like to do with your time?”
“Yeah. How about driving a bus full of swimsuit models out of the city?”
“Shit,” Qween cut in. “You boys be driving me around. What else you want?”
Sam watched the warehouses and fast food joints give way to the bars and upscale shops and tourist honeypots of the Near North Side. They drew closer to the bridge. On the other side of West Kinzie, two police cruisers were cutting off both lanes, directing people to take alternate routes. Ed flashed his star at them and they moved aside.
As they hit the incline for the Clark Street Bridge, they saw that instead of another police car and sawhorse like they had seen last night, constricting the bridge down to one lane, there was now a Stryker and sandbags, blocking both lanes between the faded purple trusses.
The Stryker was a no-nonsense military vehicle, no less than eight wheels slapped under a wedge of gray, riveted steel, with a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on top like some cherry on a sadistic birthday cake.
“Fuck me sideways,” Sam said. It was one thing to hear about some military force taking over the Loop and quite another to witness it firsthand. Ed pulled up to the gap between the walls of sandbags. A soldier stepped away from the Stryker, holding his assault rifle casually, though it was still pointed in their general direction.
Three more soldiers materialized, ready behind the sandbags. The first soldier said, “Please roll your window down, sir.”
Ed rolled the window down and held up his star. “We’ve got urgent business downtown. You make us late, you can talk to my commanding officer, Commander Arturo Mendoza. You go ahead and take the time to ask him, you feel it’s necessary. Don’t blame me when he rips you a new one, dickhead.”
The soldier eyeballed Qween and Dr. Menard. “You all cops?”
“My partner just explained that we have urgent business downtown. You born this stupid, or did you have to work at it?” Sam said.
A belligerent cabbie pulled up behind the Crown Vic and hit his horn. He rolled down his window and started yelling. “Hey! Hey! You have no right, no right, to block traffic. I am a man making a living here. Hey! I am talking to you. I pay taxes. I am a legal immigrant. Legal! You cannot cut off the streets! Hey! You listening to me?”
“What Detective Johnson means to say is that these people would not be with us at this particular moment unless their services were required,” Ed said. “Seems to me you got your hands full with more important problems.”
The soldier finally stepped back. “Drive safe,” he said, and waved them through.
The cab tried to follow close behind, but the soldiers formed a line across the bridge. Another soldier was now behind the .50 caliber. He racked the bolt back and settled the crosshairs on the cab’s windshield. That got the driver’s attention.
As they crossed over the bridge, a deep thrumming sound reached them. Ed hit the brakes. They twisted in their seats to watch as the bridge, split in the middle, began to rise. It took less than two minutes. The Clark Street Bridge was up. A quick glance up and down Upper Wacker revealed that every bridge in sight had been raised.
As they headed south down Clark, Ed noticed lines of CTA buses, dozens of them, maybe even hundreds, lining the streets that ran east and west. More Strykers and low walls of sandbags had been set up during the night at nearly every intersection.
“Better call Cecilia. Neither one of you is making that interview,” Sam said, nodding at the clusters of soldiers at the corner of each block. “It’s already a done deal. This city has given up.”
“The real question is, for the moment at least,” Dr. Menard spoke quietly from the backseat, “is what are we going to do? You two have a job. Personally, I’d like to get closer to the hospital. See if I can’t grab anything that looks like it might indict Dr. Reischtal. Records. Videos. Something.”
“Doc, you want to go after him, fine,” Ed said. “I don’t know how you can, but understand this—we can’t help you.”
“I know. It’s okay.”
Qween said, “You’re kinda cute, sugar.” She gave Dr. Menard a wink. “I’ll show you a few shortcuts.”
CHAPTER 54
10:24 AM
August 14
Mr. Ullman was almost glad that the president had declared a state of emergency and ordered the evacuation of the Loop. It saved the general manager the embarrassment of explaining to the guests that they were being kicked out of the hotel so the management could exterminate a colony of bedbugs. This way, he could simply spread his hands in mock impotence and point to the official orders coming from both Washington and Chicago’s City Hall. It was all the government’s fault.
Not the hotel’s.
Not the bedbugs’.
In fact, he didn’t have to mention bedbugs at all. Most of the guests were more than happy to check out, and couldn’t get on the hotel’s shuttle buses fast enough. A few, though, were refusing to leave immediately. They were either waiting for their own limos or thought the whole thing was a hoax or wanted to simply sleep through their hangovers. Some of the guests didn’t answer their room phones.
Mr. Ullman guessed he had at least an hour or two before the soldiers entered the hotel and forcibly ejected the stragglers, something the TV newscasters breathlessly told their viewers would happen with each and every building in the Loop.
Since there were still guests inside the hotel, he gave strict orders for what was left of the staff to remain. They weren’t happy, but it wasn’t his job to make sure his employees enjoyed their jobs. It was his job to make sure the hotel was in the best possible hands, and therefore, he wanted everyone on hand in case the guests needed anything. He suspected that many of them had already left before being given the official green light.
He decided that he would give them the benefit of the doubt, and when all of this nonsense was over, he would welcome them back to start with a clean slate. The only problem, a minor irritation really, was that the ineffectual little man from the pest exterminator company, Roger Something or other, had never checked back in with him. He had probably run off with all the rest.
Mr. Ullman rode up to the top floor alone in the elevator. He was determined to verify that every single door to every single room in the hotel was not only shut, but locked as well. He did not trust the officials, some of whom were trying to quell panic by reassuring the city that this evacuation was only for twenty-four hours. The possibility of looters was very real and he couldn’t stand the thought of someone soiling the image of this pristine hotel. So he started at the very top and worked his way down.
On the fourteenth floor he came to room number 1426. The door was still open, forgotten in the chaos. The detectives poking around had suddenly been called away, and even the uniformed officers had vanished, pulled by more pressing matters.
Mr. Ullman couldn’t help himself; he had to step inside and look around. The room was still a mess. The shattered window had yet to be repaired. White fingerprint dust filled the air and formed a fog that clung to the floor and roiled in the ebb and flow of the hot wind.
He made a note to get on the phone immediately and get this window replaced. He could only imagine the shots from the helicopters, zooming in on the lone shattered window in a high cliff of glass, occasionally catching a glimpse inside the sad, empty room. Those soulless producers would die for a shot like that.