Another squirt of static and voice.
‘Uh … yeah, he’s got a bit of a beard. They were both running from the gunfire.’
Static and voice.
‘Copy that!’ He hung the radio back on his belt. ‘You two raghead terrorist sons of …’ He bit his lip. ‘You gonna see a whole bunch of prison time.’
‘We are not terrorists!’ said Rashim.
‘You put a bomb in this mall somewhere? Huh? That it? You gonna blow up some more innocent people?’
‘Shadd-yah!’ Sal cursed. ‘We’re not terrorists!’
‘Shallah? What’s that? Some Ay-rab raghead-talk or something?’
‘She’s Indian,’ said Rashim. ‘I’m Persian. That makes a total of zero “Ay-rabs” here.’
‘SHUT UP!’ He jerked his gun at them. ‘Put your goddamn hands on the wall, Abu-Babu!’
Sal shook her head, pointing over her shoulder. ‘The bad guys’re back there! They’ve got guns and –’
‘You put your goddamn hands against the wall, miss, or I swear I’ll put a bullet in both of you right now!’
She could see the knuckle of his trigger finger bulging, the skin paler, drawn over tendon and bone. There were already several pounds of pressure resting on that trigger.
‘OK … OK …’ She placed her palms up against the rough breeze blocks. ‘Rashim …’ Silently, she urged him to do likewise.
‘Rashim, is it, eh?’ The mall guard shook his head as he approached. Then as Sal and Rashim adopted the legs-apart-hands-against-the-wall pose, the guard began to pat Sal down one-handed.
‘What is it with you goddamned Moslems? Uh?’ he huffed as he frisked them. ‘What the hell is it you hate so much ’bout America? What is it, the Big Macs? The freedom? The rap music?’
‘Look, please … we’re not actually terrorists –’
‘Or even Muslims,’ added Sal.
‘I lost a cousin in what you people did yesterday. Good man. Worked up in the top of the north tower in the restaurant. Took care of his folks, worked real hard.’
He began to frisk Rashim. ‘But that ain’t enough, is it? He’s gotta live your way, hasn’t he? Got to grow a goddamn Santa-beard and wear them stupid pyjama-suits. Gotta go an’ worship Buddha five times a day –’
‘It’s Allah actually.’
The guard pushed Rashim’s head hard against the wall. ‘You shut your goddamn raghead mouth!’
Chapter 23
7.34 a.m., 12 September 2001, North Haven Plaza, Branford
They regarded the body of the old man lying on the floor in front of them in silence. Beside him a young female was cowering on the floor, her hands clasped to a wound.
‘P-please … d-don’t kill me …’ she whimpered.
Both support units ignored her. She was irrelevant. Back to the dead man.
‘It is an older version of the one called Liam O’Connor,’ said Faith, studying the old man’s face. ‘A valid target.’
Abel nodded. ‘Good.’ He looked up. ‘The others will be nearby.’ They’d spotted the group heading into this store and briefly picked up the idents of the two support units with them. Those signals were gone now. Switched off.
Other than sneaking past them out of the store’s main entrance, he noted only two other possible exits for them.
‘We must separate.’
Faith looked at the escalator leading to the store’s upper floor. ‘I will go that way.’
Abel nodded and immediately strode towards the staff only door at the rear of the store.
> Locate and kill. We have six remaining targets, he added wirelessly.
> Affirmative, she replied.
Faith jogged up the escalator as another tannoy announcement reverberated throughout the mall. ‘Attention, attention … this is an emergency announcement. All customers and staff are asked to immediately leave the mall. This is an emergency and not a drill. Please leave the …’
The escalator jerked to a halt beneath her feet. She hurried up the rest of the way and at the top she scanned the shop floor. She spotted thirteen people, seven of them wearing the same pink shirts as the dying girl downstairs – she assumed the shirt was some sort of a uniform. None of them, or the others, bore any resemblance to the mission briefing images she’d started with, nor the library of fleeting shutter-frame images, glimpses of her quarry, that she’d managed to build up during the mission so far.
Faith emerged quickly from the store, tucking the gun away into the waistband of her jogging bottoms and hiding the gun’s protruding handle beneath her hoody. No need to attract any unwanted attention. They’d already done enough of that with the gunfight downstairs.
She joined the throng of people on the upper floor, emerging from store fronts. So many of them sluggish, uncertain: seemingly unsure whether this was a real emergency or a drill, unsure whether the exchange of gunfire minutes ago might have been stupid kids letting off some firecrackers.
She scanned the backs of heads, necks, shoulders. She had a comparison image of that particular view of one of the targets called Madelaine. From back in Times Square, when she’d crossed the street and chased them into the building. Madelaine: tall, slim. Long, light-coloured curly hair pulled into a ponytail. Jeans. Checked shirt. The other girl, Saleena: short, slim. Black hair. Dark leggings, black hooded top. Of course they could be wearing different clothes by now.
Her eyes coolly evaluated the people hurrying in front of her, one after the other in quick succession.
Maddy found herself in the middle of a milling crowd of people, a bottleneck at the top of both of the now stationary escalators leading down to the ground floor. Someone had turned them off. Probably a routine health and safety measure in the event of a mall evacuation. Stupid, though, being off. It was taking an age to get down. She was stuck at the top, waiting for an elderly couple in front of her to tramp slowly down.
Come on, come on.
She guessed she must be the last one in their group to get out. The others were probably already running back across the car park, along the pavement towards the motel and their waiting RV.
Her mind had yet to process what she’d glimpsed. It was there in her head. Foster being gunned down. But in the fleeting minute – two minutes – since then, she’d yet to digest it, make sense of it. Feel something about it.
That was going to come, of course. Tears. Probably lots of them. Fear, grief, panic, stress. Four excuses right there to let it go and cry like some typical movie girl-in-distress: all quivering, dimpled chin and smudged mascara.
If she managed to live long enough, that is.
A woman pushed past Maddy, pushed past the old couple in front of her. Heavy heels clanked on the metal-strip steps, wide hips bumping people aside as she pushed her way forward and wheezed a mantra of barely contained panic. ‘Oh my Lord, protect me! Oh my Lord, protect me!’
Maddy wanted to push her way forward like that. But didn’t. Too rude. Still …
Come on. Come on!
She wished she had Bob here with her. Even their half-grown Becks. She might only look like twelve or thirteen years old, but she could snap a neck or take a magazine full of bullets almost as well as Bob.
Then she saw her face. Becks. Only of course it wasn’t Becks.
‘Jesus! You guys took your goddamn time!’ the mall guard called out, relieved at the sight of five cops jogging along the narrow service passage towards him.
‘These the two perps you called in?’ said one of them. A police sergeant. He and one of the others were carrying shotguns.
‘Yeah. These are them.’
‘They don’t match the description our boys called in,’ he said, pumping shells into the weapon’s breech. ‘Armed male and female. Both adults, both Caucasian.’ He looked at Rashim and Sal. ‘These clearly aren’t them.’
‘But –’
‘Jason, take these two out!’
‘Yessir,’ said one of the cops.
‘You give your details to
him,’ he said to Sal and Rashim. ‘We’ll need witness statements off you later.’
‘Right,’ said Sal. ‘Thanks.’
The sergeant stroked his chin thoughtfully, his radio crackled with traffic. More cops on their way in. An armed response unit among them.
‘We got several officers down in there, sir.’
‘I know that!’ the police sergeant barked. ‘I know that. Lemme think. Lemme think.’
Just then they heard the echo of a door bang open, the slap of heavy footsteps on linoleum. Nothing Sal could see. It came from around the corner, from where she and Rashim had just emerged via the toystore’s stockroom some minutes ago.
‘Who’s that?’ whispered one of the cops.
The footsteps echoed. Heavy. Even. Measured.
‘It’s one of them!’ said Sal.
‘Them? Who?’ The sergeant cocked his weapon. ‘One of the shooters?’
She nodded.
‘POLICE!’ he called out quickly. ‘WE ARE ARMED POLICE.’ His voice rolled down the passageway and eventually faded to silence.
The sound of approaching footsteps suddenly ceased.
‘POLICE!’ he called again. ‘YOU BEST COME ROUND WITH YOUR HANDS UP!’
There was no reply. Just the sound of an ammo clip being ejected and rattling on the floor. The clack-snick of a new one being rammed home.
‘That don’t sound so good,’ said the mall guard.
‘Just get these two civilians the hell out of here before this turns nasty,’ whispered the sergeant.
The mall guard nodded. Grabbed Sal’s arm. ‘Let’s go, folks.’
‘OK … OK,’ she whispered eagerly.
The guard led the way. ‘Delivery bay six is right up here. Just ahead,’ he said quietly. ‘We can exit that way.’
He picked up the pace. Sal stole one last glance over her shoulder at the huddle of police officers in the anaemic, turquoise glow of the passage’s wall lights, checking their weapons and holding them up and steady in the trained and engrained two-hand legs-apart stance.
‘Here, this way,’ said the guard. He pushed open double doors that led on to an underground delivery bay.
As they stepped out, the mall guard holding the swing doors open for them, Sal thought she heard the police sergeant call out one last challenge. Then, as the echo of his shaky voice tailed away, the passage behind them suddenly sounded like a war zone.
Chapter 24
7.37 a.m., 12 September 2001, North Haven Plaza, outside Branford
Liam, Bob and Becks approached the RV cautiously. It sat in the motel’s small forecourt on its own. Overhead the sky was noisy with the thwup-thwup of a police helicopter, hovering above the pale slab of the mall several hundred yards away.
Liam could also hear the sound of several approaching police cars and ambulances coming from further up Interstate 95, brake lights winking on down the congested road like a Mexican wave as drivers slowed to pull aside and let them through.
Ahead of them, the RV.
‘Maddy said we should meet at the diner,’ said Bob.
‘I want to check on SpongeBubba,’ said Liam. ‘You think it’s safe?’ he added. ‘Maybe there’s another of them inside.’
‘I detect no idents,’ said Becks.
‘Just a moment,’ said Bob. He closed his eyes.
‘Why? What’re you doing?’
A few seconds later the rear door of the RV swung open and a yellow cube appeared on the top step.
‘Communicating with the lab unit,’ replied Bob. He smiled down at Liam. ‘SpongeBubba says it’s all clear inside.’
They crossed the last fifty yards, Liam gesturing at SpongeBubba to get back inside. They didn’t need the lab robot attracting attention. Liam climbed up and slumped down on the rear seat, damp with perspiration.
‘Gee!’ said SpongeBubba with a fixed plastic grin. ‘Fun and games!’
Becks looked down at the small robot. ‘No. Not fun and games. Danger.’
Bob clambered inside. The RV rocked. ‘Your warning saved us, lab unit. We are grateful.’
‘You’re welcome. Where’s my skippa?’
Liam looked out through the scuffed perspex, hoping to catch sight of the others weaving through the cars in the mall’s car park towards the motel. Nothing yet.
‘They’re coming,’ he said. ‘They were just behind us. I think.’ He looked at Bob and Becks. ‘Right?’
Bob shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Foster will have slowed them down,’ said Becks. ‘He moved very slowly.’
She was right. Liam decided he should have stayed behind, with Maddy, to help her with the old man. A dreadful thought occurred to him. That those killer meatbots had trapped and finished both of them off. Perhaps Rashim and Sal as well. He felt a growing surge of panic inside him. The idea of spending the rest of his life alone on the run with two support units and something that looked like a yellow bar of soap on stumpy legs terrified him.
Please … please … somebody else turn up.
Faith recognized the young woman instantly. The oval jawline, the glasses, the curly strawberry-blonde hair, all a perfect match. But even without the visual match the look of sudden recognition and sheer horror – as their eyes locked – gave the girl away. Faith reached round behind her and whipped out the handgun from her waistband.
‘Please move out of the way!’ she commanded the evacuating people all around her as she levelled the gun at her target.
‘OH-MY-GOD-SHE’S-GOT-A-GUN!’ someone screamed.
That worked better. The crowd, jostling to get down the frozen escalator, dropped to the floor as one, and Faith had a perfect line-of-sight on Maddy. The only person still on her feet.
Maddy pushed the large woman crouching in front, desperately trying to get past. But the woman was too big to make a space on the escalator. Maddy found herself clambering over her back.
‘Ow! Jesus help me! I’m being assaulted!’ screamed the woman.
‘I need to get past!’ Maddy replied. ‘I need to freakin’ well get –’
A shot rang out. The glass of the escalator’s side exploded. The woman ducked down as shards scattered over her rounded shoulders and Maddy rolled over the top of her, on to someone else in front. Another shot thudded into the thick rubber handrest.
She found her feet and decided she was far enough down the escalator to jump over the side. She landed on the top of a display of plastic tropical bushes embedded in a bed of pebbles. Not the softest landing, but perhaps far better than the mall’s faux marble floor. She scrambled on to her feet yet again, people all around her shrieking in alarm as several more shots rang out across the entrance foyer.
‘Get out, get out!’ Maddy screamed at the bottleneck of people fighting with each other to exit through the revolving door, and the fire exits either side of it.
Faith strode towards the safety rail of the concourse above, overlooking the escalator. She saw her target below on the ground floor, grappling with people, tugging at them to make way for her. She took aim again and fired two shots, emptying the clip. Downstairs, more glass exploded, and the screaming all around her took on a new shrill, intense pitch.
Faith clambered over the rail and let herself drop down. She landed twenty feet below on the hard floor, like a cat landing on its feet, legs flexed to absorb the impact like the over-pimped shock absorbers of a monster truck.
She reached into her waistband to pull out her last clip. The target – Madelaine Carter – was directly in front of her, trapped because the only way out was clogged with people tangled with each other and too petrified to sort themselves out. She would have smiled if she’d had that particular face gesture on file. Instead, her face remained impassive, as calm and expressionless as a person fast asleep as she rammed the last clip home into the grip of her handgun.
Sal and Rashim gave the mall guard – Kent – a thoroughly unconvincing pair of aliases and random contact numbers. The guard, though, seemed more t
han happy to take down what they said, no questions asked. Quite probably he was preoccupied with thanking God he was alive still. He offered a nod – Sal guessed that was his version of a ‘sorry for earlier’ – and told them to go home.
They now picked their way through the crowd at the front of the mall. A slew of police cars had parked up in a semi-circle just outside the entrance and officers were setting up a cordon around it, urging the rubbernecking curious back away from the rotating glass doors at the front.
‘Good grief … that was …’ Rashim wiped sweat from his forehead.
‘Close?’
He nodded. ‘Incredibly.’
‘They’re the same ones that were chasing me and Maddy before we came back in time to get you.’
‘Almost identical to your support units. They were definitely a similar batch number. Quite possibly from the exact same batch.’
A possibility occurred to Sal as they backed away from the crowd outside and studied the front of the mall from a comfortable distance. There were still people spilling out of the revolving doors, being hustled out of harm’s way as quickly as possible by paramedics, cops and mall guards. Maybe they were a batch of support units that had malfunctioned? Perhaps whoever was running their little agency from the future had decided to send them some replacement support units and something had gone wrong in the process?
She shot that idea down just as quickly as it had popped into her head.
No. There was the San Francisco drop point. That’s where they’d get back-up copies of Bob and Becks – frozen foetuses ready to grow. These were ones already fully grown and given a very specific mission. To come after the whole team and not rest until the last of them were dead. Apparently. So … no mistakes there. No malfunctions. Just deadly intent.
‘You think we should make our way back to that diner?’ said Rashim.
Sal was about to answer when two gunshots came from just inside the mall’s entrance foyer.
A moment later a large plate-glass window exploded and screams ripped through the air. The police who’d set up a cordon to hold the crowd back now drew their sidearms. All of them spinning round to face the glass frontage of the shopping mall. People spilled out of the slowly turning revolving door, the side doors, even through the jagged-tooth remains of the freshly shattered glass frontage.