CHAPTER 66
I shook my head furiously from side to side, trying to send a signal to Higgins that the mission had failed, but I couldn’t look to see if he understood. If Higgins sent in the cavalry, the Fiend might still detonate the bomb. Something had gone wrong. There wasn’t a switch to deactivate the device, and I had no idea how to shut it off.
“What’s going on? What’s happening?” Dobson shouted at me. “What’s that note?”
His shaking returned. The strength and resolve he’d shown earlier seemed to have abandoned him. His eyes betrayed his state of mind. I’d seen it on the mountain. Brooks had the look. Clegg did, too. “I’m going to die.” That was what his eyes said. “This is it. Sayonara. Arrivederci. This is the end.”
“Come on, Henry. Get inside with me. You can do it.”
I shuffled to my left, one sliding step scraping across the concrete, followed by another. Dobson came along, shuffling in sync with me. I reached the window, slipping a leg inside, bending at the waist, and getting another leg in there. Awash with relief, I glanced behind me and saw Ruby still thrashing about on the floor.
“The bomb isn’t deactivated,” I said to her. “I don’t know what to do. If I untie you, he might detonate the device. I’m going to get Dobson back in here. Stay patient, sweetie. Just hang in there.”
She didn’t like my words. Not one bit.
I poked my head back out the window, encouraging Dobson along. He got to within a foot of his portal to safety when a gust of wind slapped at his knees. Dobson lurched forward, arms flailing for balance. At the same instant, I leaned out the window and reached for him as he fell. My hand clasped his forearm just as the rest of his body vanished from my view.
The collective holler of the onlookers lifted skyward in a singular crescendo. I gripped his arm with my other hand and used the windowsill as a barrier of sorts to keep the pull of his body weight plus the added weight from the vest from dragging me out. He grabbed hold of me as well. I could feel him but couldn’t see him.
Dobson swung pendulum-like against the outside of the building, scraping the side of the wall from left to right, then back the other way, the force of his grip crushing the bones of my wrists. My throbbing hands threatened to release the tenuous hold I had on his forearms. I leaned farther out the window, our eyes locked, Dobson’s terror becoming my own. I had no idea what was happening on the street below us. Had the fire department set up any netting? One of those inflatable mattresses, perhaps? I didn’t know the answer, so I pulled, feeling the snap and stretch of the muscles in my shoulders, arms, and legs as they exerted themselves against an unrelenting strain. They burned for relief as Dobson’s terrified screams ripped through me. Here was my chance to make some amends for the sins of my past. The rope I had to cut. The life I had to take to save my own. Here was a piece of salvation.
Pressing my feet against the underneath of the windowsill, I pulled hard enough to dislocate Dobson’s shoulders. I felt him inching upward, so I pulled even harder. There was Brooks on that mountaintop again. I saw him waving to me from somewhere, from that great beyond. Who knows? I pulled, my body shaking, teeth clenched, making savage grunts and groans.
No more death. No more dying.
Thrusting with my legs, I allowed the full force of my backward momentum to carry Dobson up the side of the building like he was hitched to a pulley system. Dobson came tumbling through the window and landed right on top of me. I felt the nails from the bomb vest poke against my chest. Dobson rolled off me, breathless and heaving.
I stood up first and then helped Dobson to his feet. Marimba chimes rang out. My phone. I answered.
It was Clegg. “What’s going on, John?” he said. “Are we sending people in?”
“The bomb . . . is . . . still active,” I told him, hands on my knees, body bent, heaving and struggling for breath. “I don’t know what’s happening.”
“Should we come up there? You give the word,” Clegg said.
“He might detonate it if you do.”
“Let me talk to him,” Dobson said, tapping me on the shoulder. “The kidnapper said something to me that might help.”
I handed Dobson the phone. He turned his back to me. Ruby was screaming through her gag. My stomach threatened to rebel. It wanted me to untie her. But if I did . . . if that was the wrong choice . . .
I went to her, caressing her face, trying to calm her down. Smoothing her hair, I told her it would be all right, just stay patient, that sort of thing. I turned back around and saw Dobson standing in front of me. He held up the phone, offering to give it back, and I reached for it.
“Congratulations, Johnny. You’re a real criminal now,” Dobson said. His voice had shifted into a rasp familiar and chilling enough to set goose bumps on my skin.
I was confused, trying to process what I just heard. I was looking at the phone, still reaching for it, getting my brain around the strangeness of Dobson’s voice, which was why I didn’t see his other hand, the one holding a knife. As I took the phone, Dobson plunged a seven-inch blade into my stomach.
Again.
And again.
And again.