Anatomy of Fear

57

The minute my grandmother saw me she started struggling, but he got hold of her and knocked her to the floor.

I aimed my gun. I wanted to kill him on the spot, but didn’t dare take a shot, not with explosives strapped to his chest and now a detonator in his hand.

Above her taped mouth my grandmother’s eyes were wide with terror.

I didn’t know if Wright had the guts to blow himself up but remembered Dr. Schteir’s profile of zealots-men who have no trouble flying airplanes into buildings and dying for what they believe in.

I needed to see what he was thinking. Maybe I could talk to him. Maybe.

“You did a good job of imitating my drawing style. Of setting me up,” I said. “The cops think it’s me. Not you. You can walk out of here and they’ll never know who you are. It will be me who goes down for the murders.”

Nothing.

“You can be free. Do you understand?”

Another long moment passed. He said nothing.

“I’ll help you get out of here, okay? Give me your mask. I can be you.”

“It’s too late.” His words came out muffled, suffocating under the mask. “I have orders.”

You know him. You’ve been inside his head. Think.

“Are you sure that’s what He wants? What if you’re wrong? What if you…make a mistake?”

“He makes no mistakes.”

“No, but…mortals do. And you’re mortal, aren’t you? Or do you think you’re a god?”

His body went rigid.

My grandmother’s lips were moving beneath the tape and I knew she was praying.

We were only six feet apart. I could hear him breathing, almost feel him thinking. I pictured his basement hideout, the newspaper accounts he’d pinned to the wall, and remembered again that he was proud of what he’d done.

“Let me be a witness to what you are about to do. Let me see you, the man who is cleansing the race in the name of God.”

He yanked the ski mask off so fast I flinched, my finger twitching on the trigger.

Everyone was out of the church. Everyone but Rodriguez, thought Terri. If he hadn’t found Wright he’d have been out by now.

“Give me your two best shooters,” she said to the SWAT team leader. “I don’t want to freak him out with the whole battalion.” Then she turned to Perez and O’Connell, and signaled them to follow.

I stared into the face I’d been drawing, come to life. Flesh stretched over muscle and bone, his eyes narrowed, staring back at me.

I wanted to understand what had made Tim Wright the man he’d become, but all I could see was the hatred in his features.

I saw the anger in his eyes and the touch of madness that drove him.

But then I saw something else, something that cut through the madness and hate and anger. For just a moment his eyes widened, muscles working in tandem to wrinkle his brows up, not down.

The risorius muscle stretched his lips, but the depressor labii parted them. Then the muscles drew his lips tight across his bared teeth.

And the mentallis muscle set his chin to quivering.

It was fear beneath the hate.

A quote resonated somewhere in the back of my mind: We hate what we fear.

I watched his facial anatomy shift between anger and anxiety, muscles convulsing and twitching. He was struggling to tamp down his fear, trying to set the tough-guy features back in place, but it was too late; I’d seen it, how truly scared he was under all his armor.

“You use God as an excuse,” I said. “An excuse to hate-an excuse to kill. You want to justify the evil you do. But believe me, God is not on your side.”

That hit a nerve, the line between his brows deepening, lips stretched taut across his teeth, anger and fear battling it out on his face.

I should have seen it coming but didn’t: the lunge that knocked me off my feet.

My back hit the ground hard and the Smith & Wesson flew from my hand. He was coming at me again but I got my feet into his gut and sent him reeling, the detonator too. I held my breath, expecting the blast when it hit the floor, but nothing happened. Then he was on me and the room was spinning, his face inches from mine, a blur, the two of us kicking and punching, cries of pain and breath coming so close I didn’t know if it was him or me. I felt a crack across my nose and tasted blood in my throat, elbowed him hard in the ribs, and when he pulled back punched him in the face harder than I’d hit anything or anybody in my life, my knuckles searing with pain.

He fell away from me and I used the moment to tear the tape from my grandmother’s wrists and ankles. She was free, but she didn’t move, frozen, not wanting to leave me.

“Nato-”

“Go!” I yelled. “¡Vete!”

He was coming at me again.

It was Nate’s voice, Terri was sure of it. She signaled the cops and together they raced down the basement hallway and saw her, the old lady, coming toward them, shaking, unable to speak, pointing at the half-open door behind her.

Seconds later, Wright emerged, detonator in hand.

The two SWAT team cops dropped to firing position.

“Wait!” Terri raised her hands, displaying her gun, then very slowly placed it on the ground. “Easy now,” she said. She nodded for the others to do the same. “Everything is going to be fine.”

Perez and O’Connell put down their weapons and so did the SWAT team.

“On the floor,” said Wright. “All of you. Or I blow this place up.”

Terri took a minute to study his face. Was he going to do it? She couldn’t judge. She needed Rodriguez to tell her-and where was he? There was blood trickling from Wright’s nose and his lip was split. He’d been fighting. No doubt with Rodriguez.

Wright waved the detonator.

“Okay,” she said, “okay. Everything’s cool.” She laid her hand on Nate’s grandmother’s shoulder. “It’ll be all right,” she said.

“Down! Now!” Wright screamed, his chin quivering, eyes wild, and Terri could see he was beyond reason.

When they were all on the floor, Wright marched over them and Terri watched his boots pass in front of her eyes. For a second she thought-I can do this, I can grab him, knock him to the floor, and subdue him-but she couldn’t chance it.

When she dared lift her head, he was halfway up the stairs. He glanced back and shouted, “RAHOWA!” then disappeared.

Terri gave the signal and the two SWAT team cops charged after him. She got the old woman to her feet, then turned to O’Connell and Perez. “Get her out of here. Now.”

“My grandson-”

“He’ll be fine,” said Terri.

“What about you?” asked Perez.

“I’ve got to find Rodriguez.”

“I’ll go with you,” he said. “O’Connell, you take the woman.”

They didn’t have to look long. Seconds later Nate staggered out of the room, blood on his face, his shirt.

“My grandmother-”

“She’s fine. O’Connell just took her out back. Your face-”

“Tell me about it later,” said Nate. “Let’s go.”

The SWAT team was stalking Wright down the main aisle of the now empty church as Terri and I caught up to them.

Wright had turned to face the men, while inching backward slowly and deliberately. I didn’t know if they were going to try to shoot him before he had a chance to blow himself up. It was a huge risk and impossible to call.

I was several yards away but close enough to see something had shifted in Wright’s face, the muscles starting to relax, and it frightened me more than his anger.

“Don’t crowd him!” I shouted to the SWAT team. They were closer to Wright than I was, rifles aimed.

I turned to Terri and whispered, “I think he’s getting ready to blow.”

She acknowledged me with a slight nod.

The main sanctuary of the church seemed bigger than it had only moments before, the emptiness oppressive, clanging heat pipes playing a discordant dirge, light from the clerestory windows picking out worn tiled floors and pockmarked wood, everything in surreal detail.

Terri laid her gun down on a pew and raised her hands as she walked into the main aisle, totally exposed. “Tim,” she said softly. “You know me, Terri Russo, from the station. I can help you get out of here alive. Let me do that. Just put the detonator down.” She took a few steps toward him and he seemed to be listening, his hand slightly lowered. Then one of the SWAT team, a young guy, sweat on his brow, lower lip trembling, raised his rifle just a fraction of an inch, and Wright stiffened, thumb quivering on the detonator as he backed out the church door.