Simple Simon

Chapter Twenty Five One on One on One

Art did two things at once, three if it mattered that he was cursing at the top of his lungs. He gathered Simon’s sweatshirt in his fist and heaved him to the floor several feet away behind a pallet of dwarf I beams, and with his other hand he drew his weapon.

He might have fired if Kimura hadn’t had the same idea, and as the first muzzle flash spurted from her weapons, he dropped to the floor and rolled toward Simon.

Bullets were not her concern. She had plenty, and therefore Keiko had set both compact submachine guns on full automatic. As she squeezed the triggers, she swung one left and the other right, driving sixty rounds into tools, and materials, and fixtures, and the ceiling, and the bare floor. But the greatest result of her wild firing came when stray bullets, of which almost half of them were, peppered the large window panels on the east side of the Skydeck. At fourteen hundred plus feet in the air, with the tail of a Canadian low driving fog in from Lake Michigan, the wind load on the exterior of the tower was enormous. And on the window panels in particular. They were designed to accept the load, but not when being punctured by dozens of hollow point rounds that sent spiderweb cracks in all directions from each point of impact. They were strong, but not that strong.

The winds, gusting upward of fifty miles an hour, slammed into the suddenly pulverized panels, which exploded inward, showering the unfinished room with hundreds of thousands of tiny, crystalline blocks. Keiko Kimura fell back as the shower swept over her. Art, in covering Simon, felt the sting of hundreds of the tiny particles pecking at his skin.

And then there was the wind.

Art got to his knees and was almost pushed over by the gusts now invading the east side of the 103rd floor. The howl caught his sweater and lifted it over his head, and he was forced to pull it off entirely and discard it. He grabbed Simon and pulled him along the floor by his sweatshirt, toward the elevator core, keeping behind pallets until he reached a spot of open floor where it seemed a million tiny sparklers danced on the floor in the little light there was.

The elevators were across the open space. The elevators were a way out. Kimura had come in the door.

The elevators it would have to be.

Keiko, huddled behind a stack of boxes containing heavy ceramic tiles, reloaded her weapons, and shook as much of the glass as she could from her hair.

She peered over the boxes and went to her stomach, covering the major part of the room from just south of the door. She could hear nothing but the cry of the wind and the crackle of glass still being torn from the window frames.

This was not a good position, Keiko knew. The stacks and pallets of construction materials ran north to south in rows, cutting the room off every ten feet or so. She needed a field of fire down the rows. Down each if she could clear them. One at a time. Make her targets’ safe zone smaller and smaller.

With a plan, now, she came to a crouch and duck-walked south, toward the beginning of the rows.

Art helped Simon to his knees, and tried to tell him something, but the noise was just too intense. Simon’s hands were pressed to his ears, his eyes flitting open only sporadically. He would have to lead him to the elevators. No, carry him. Or at least drag.

Son of a bitch! Where did she come from?! Art allowed himself that brief venting, then took Simon’s shirt in hand once again, and, keeping his weapon in the direction he had last seen Kimura, made a low dash for the T shaped elevator core.

He moved as fast as possible, his eyes moving, looking up the rows between the pallets, and then taking a quick check of the space between the two elevators, the doors of which opened into the vertical base of the T. Beyond the elevators, two small alcoves that would soon be walled in formed the cross of the T, and looking back to the room from just outside the elevators, Art could see nothing but debris being swirled in mini cyclones.

He could not see Kimura, and considered that a possible break in his luck, until he pressed the elevator button and saw that there was no light behind it. Nor above in the readout of its location.

The elevators were not working.

“Shit!” he said aloud, losing the word to the wind.

The only choice now was the door to the hallway, and then to the stairs. Art pulled Simon up again and eased back toward the spot where the T let into the room, his weapon sweeping the path ahead, his eyes moving, moving, looking for anything that migh—

BRRRRRR-RRRRRRR-RRRRRR-RRRRR.

The bursts of fire caught Art completely by surprise, coming up the row that looked directly down the base of the T, driving hot spikes into his arms, and sending him backpedaling, still holding Simon’s shirt through pain that seemed to course through him from fingers to shoulders on both sides, and sending him into one of the alcoves at the top of the T, where he collapsed against a pile of cardboard refuse, Simon at his side.

Keiko came up to a half crouch and set one of the Mini-Uzis on a stack of boxes. She’d emptied it, saving the other, and now wanted to have a hand free. She moved down the row and, even in the low light, could see the spray of red on the floor and the bare gypsum wallboards.

She had made contact. Removing the straight razor from her pocket with her free hand, opening it with a snap of the wrist, she hoped, actually prayed, that she hadn’t killed him. Not yet.

Art looked down at his arms and saw immediately two neat punctures in the skin over each bicep. His weapon was still in his hand, loosely, and when he tried to squeezed his fingers around the grip the reply was a buzz of hot sparkles that dazzled his senses and forced a scream from his lungs.

Unfortunately, in the windbreak of the alcove he could hear himself perfectly.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!”

Now what? Now fucking what? Art would have liked to wait for an answer to present itself, but he knew there wasn’t time. Either Kimura would make her way to him, or he’d bleed to death. He had to do something, something to save Simon. But what? He was alone and wounded.

Well, wounded, yes, but not alone…

No. No. Art repeated it again, over an over in his head, telling himself that there was no way, absolutely no way he could…

Then you die. And he…

Art looked to Simon, who had let his hands come away from his ears and was blinking and twisting, his body rocking where he sat on his knees, blood dotting one side of his face. Art’s blood.

Oh, God, why?

Do it! Now! Before it’s too late!

“Simon,” Art said, grimacing as he pushed with his feet until his back was against the wall. He let his weapon slide out of his hand and to the floor. “Simon. Can you hear me?”

“Simon hears Art. My friend, Art. There’s a loud noise.”

Art nodded. “Simon, I want you to do something for me. All right?”

“For my friend Art.”

“Simon…” Forgive me. Please. “…take out your cards.”

“So,” Angelo Breem said, then cleared his throat, all the while Anne’s gaze crossing the distance over the U.S. Attorney’s desk to peck at his frightened eyes whenever they chanced contact with hers. “We are extremely sorry for what has happened. But, you have to understand, this was an orchestrated ploy. We were as much victims of it as you and your husband.”

If her jaw had been removable it would have detached itself and taken the elevator to the lobby. Was he really saying this? Was this an apology? Did he learn tact from some Nazi?

“So…you are free.”

Lomax, standing behind Anne, could only shake his head. “Breem, you are one smooth fellow.”

“Pardon?” Breem said.

Anne slowly stood from her chair, still wearing the smock from her time in detention. “What are you doing about Art?”

“Well…”

The door to Breem’s office opened, and Janice Powach poked her head in. “Agent Lomax. Call for you out here. Urgent.”

“Be right back,” Lomax said, and left the office to take the call. “Lomax here.”

“Sir, it’s Nels Van Horn.”

“What is it?”

“Sir, I’ve got some strange message on my machine. I think you should listen.”

In the office, Breem stammered through what efforts were being made to find Art, to notify him that all charges had been dropped. Anne would not release him from her stare. Not until Bob Lomax burst into the office and grabbed her by the Arm.

“Bob? What is it? Where are we going?”

He pulled her toward the door. “Sears Tower. No time to explain. Come on.”

Keiko was now at the elevator core, where the base of the T began. She was about to begin her advance past the elevators when, moving from right to left, Art Jefferson bolted from one of the alcoves, arms dangling, and dove for the other.

She fired a quick burst at him, aiming low, but saw the bullets stitch along the base of the far wall. But even above the roar of the wind she heard a cry borne of a terrible pain rise from where Jefferson had landed.

They were hers. Him now, the kid later.

Keiko moved with cautious steps toward the alcoves at the top of the T.

Every square inch of skin on his arms felt as though someone had bathed them in hot oil, and had then taken a wire brush to them. Art pushed himself to the back of the alcove, though it wasn’t very deep. His arms lay almost limp at his sides, hands in plain view, his skin covered by curving streams of blood. He lay there and looked out of the alcove and saw Keiko Kimura ease into the space where she could see him and, in the opposite alcove, Simon.

Keiko gave Art a good look, her weapon covering him, and then a less careful once over of the kid, who sat on his knees, some sort of book thing that hung around his neck held in both hands. He looked to be reading from it. Good. Whatever kept him occupied.

She looked back to Art. She had quick work to do.

“Hey, big man,” Keiko said, a tributary of the wind pushing strands of black hair across her face. She brought the straight razor close to her cheek and touched the wound ever so gently. “Keiko’s gotta give you something.” She eased into the alcove, facing Art fully now, standing over him near his feet, the submachine gun held low and casual, the straight razor her weapon of choice. “Cause you gave her something.”

Her nails were blue, Art saw, and she made a face at him that might have been mistaken for a smile, but only because she was showing teeth. He saw it as a silent growl.

“I’m gonna cut you bad, big man,” she said, and took another step toward him, between his legs now. “Real bad.”

“Mayfly!” Art said as loud as he could, right at Kimura’s face, and she instantly puzzled over his use of that word.

Why in the hell would he say that?

But Simon knew why. He had his cards out. He had been listening. Art had said ‘mayfly’. And it said on his card: IF ART SAYS MAYFLY, THN TAK TH GUN OUT FROM UNDR YOUR SHIRT AND HOLD IT LIK ART SHOWD YOU AND POINT IT AT TH STRANGRS BACK

Art was his friend. The card told him what to do. He took the gun out and held it with one hand like Art had shown him. He looked over the long top part like Art had shown him. At the end of the long top part he saw the stranger’s back.

He was doing what the card told him. But there was more on that card.

“Say goodbye to your face, big man,” Keiko said, beginning to bend toward Art, the sharp flat blade of the razor coming his way.

“Kiwi!” Art screamed.

For a second Keiko paused.

Simon glanced at the card again.

IF ART SAYS KIWI THN PUT YOUR OTHR HAND ON TH GUN LIK ART SHOWD YOU AND PUT YOUR FINGR ON TH TRIGGR LIK ART SHOWD YOU AND PULL TH TRIGGR

Simon let the cards drop so they dangled by the lanyard around his neck, and he put the other hand on the gun like Art had shown him, and he put his finger on the trigger, and he pulled the trigger—

BOOM!

Bending as she was, the bullet that might have hit Keiko Kimura mid-back instead ripped through her spine and traversed her torso toward the front, cutting a swath of vital muscle from her heart and pushing her onto Art Jefferson like a puppet whose strings had been snipped.

The straight razor fell onto his chest. He felt a warm ooze trickle onto his stomach from the front of Keiko Kimura. She wheezed once, but never moved. He rolled her off of him with a lift of one knee.

In the alcove opposite him, Art saw Simon sprawled back on the pile of flattened cardboard boxes, the gun on the floor, his tiny head shaking from side to side. Art wriggled his way to his feet and went to Simon. “Are you all right?”

“That was a loud noise,” Simon said.

Art went to his knees and put his head against Simon’s. “Have you got your cards?”

Simon took them in hand.

“Take the card you just wrote, with ‘mayfly’ and ‘kiwi’ on it, and tear it out.”

Simon did, pulling the three-by-five piece of sturdy stock away from the tiny ring binders with a zipping sound.

“Fold it up,” Art told him, and when Simon had he said, “And put it in my pocket. Good. Like that.” No one is going to think you did this. I pray to God you forget that you did this.

Simon looked to the gun on the floor, eyes dancing all around it. “Loud.”

Art struggled to his feet and had Simon get up with him. “We’ve got to go up.”

“Up, up, up!” Simon said.

A smile beat through Art’s pain. Let that mean he forgot. Please.

“You follow me,” Art said. “Understand?”

“Simon follows Art.” Art was his friend. He would follow a friend.