Ray rolled off him, feeling close enough to death himself. He lay flat on his back, sucking for oxygen at the effort he’d spent, and it seemed he’d drained the mall of all of it, but then it flooded into his lungs, bringing coolness and clarity. He sucked hard through three or four strong breaths, felt his limbs tremble with salvation at having survived the ordeal, noticed how much blood he now wore on his jeans, and looked up into the eyes of his savior.
It was the black girl La-something, he couldn’t remember, Lamelba, Lavioletta, Laviva, Lavelva.
“Jesus Christ, you got here just in time.”
“I clonked his ass with a eight iron,” she said, holding up the now-bent club. “I hope they ain’t mad I busted it.”
“When this is over, I will buy you a bagful of clubs, sweetie,” he said. “Now let’s get out of here.”
Renfro called a press conference, fast, and still had to wait a few minutes for the network cams to set up. Colonel Obobo, flanked by the governor and all his majors except for Jefferson, took to the podium, nodded to a few friendly reporters, pivoting this way and that to accommodate the flash cameras of the print guys, then turned on the microphone. Renfro hoped he wouldn’t overdo the I-did-this, I-did-that shit, but then he always did.
“I am happy to report that I have achieved success,” he said. “I am happy to announce an end to the killing and the dying. I have been in discussion with a man calling himself the commanding general of Brigade Mumbai-a reference to the terrorist attack on Mumbai, India, in 2008-and I have negotiated an end to the standoff. He has made certain policy demands to which the state has acceded. When those demands have been met, he will release his over one thousand hostages, and we will retake possession of the mall.”
He left out any information about the man’s threat to have a nice little gunfight after the civilians were out of there. He didn’t want some orgy of recriminations and doubts exploding before his assault teams had even fired a shot.
The press reacted to this news with muted glee. Yes it was satisfactory, yes it was wonderful, yes this and yes that. But of course a narrative had been set up and a primal tradition evoked. Evil had attacked from nowhere and spilled blood; it must be punished in blood. Too many movies demanded a big climax. Without any man admitting it, the press as well as the millions worldwide who watched were subtly disappointed; they wanted a gun battle at America, the Mall.
Not Obobo. He saw this as another triumph of his theories of progressive law enforcement, evidence that if you treated even the most jaded of perps with respect and a view toward their common humanity, then great things could be achieved.
“What concessions were made?” shouted a dozen voices.
“For the time being that information is classified. You will be informed when the time is right. Meanwhile, I want to say that the first responders of Minnesota handled this unprecedented crisis with-”
“Suppose they’re lying. Suppose they just want to kill people but first extracted massive concessions out of-”
“I, personally,” the colonel said, “handled these negotiations. I listened carefully to this man’s voice and I believe I made human contact with him, and despite the gulf in our cultural systems and political beliefs, we both understood that the killing had to stop. I am extremely proud of the progress that was made here today. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.”
As he stepped away, Renfro collared individual reporters with unattributed stories.
“Actually,” the line went, “you should report that the old-line cops wanted to go in guns blazing, but Colonel Obobo had the guts to stand up to them. He himself worked the phone with this guy and he himself got us out of this jam. That should be your angle.”
Finally, a payoff. The Bureau tasked ATF to start checking wholesalers for unusually large shipments of surplus Russian or Eastbloc AK-74 rifles or 5.45?39 ammunition, preferably the 56-grain Russian 5S7 bullet, to the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area, and ATF operators got on the phone to wholesalers the nation over. In less than an hour Reilly’s Sporting Goods, Twin Falls, Minnesota, came up, which, according to West Texas Imports, had been steadily receiving a two-case crate-two thousand rounds-a month for six months. Moreover, WTI had shipped them sixteen of the rifles, rebuilt from kits by Century Arms, just a few months ago. ATF agents from Minneapolis got out to Reilly’s house fast, under siren, and rousted the old man from his afternoon nap. It was another ten minutes before the team brought him to the store and he opened the building, which was alarmed to UL-3 level protection.
He checked his records. No, no, he had no AK-74 kit guns on hand, though he did remember an accidental shipment weeks earlier that was never opened and returned, which is why it had been logged out of the big book beneath the line in which it had been logged in. Possibly it contained AK-74s? You see, the 5.45mm bullet isn’t big enough for a deer, which is why he had no interest in it. Now, the SKS, an earlier-generation Eastbloc assault rifle with a ten-round magazine, it fired a. 30-caliber bullet about the same power range as a. 30–30 so that Agents backchecked with WTI and discovered that they had never received the return and still held the wholesale money; they had assumed Mr. Reilly had taken the shipment. Moreover, the guns were AK-74s, they confirmed. UPS was alerted, and yes, they had a record of a pickup that particular day but none of a delivery. That meant it was probably in their undeliverable warehouse, which would mean some heavy record-searching One agent got the idea to track the ammo. Mr. Reilly opened the storeroom and discovered that he only had one tin of the surplus stuff left. Going to his computerized records, he went through his wholesale expenses and saw that the store had a steady order for a double crate-21,016 rounds-of 5.45 Russian combat ammo for six months. Only one tin of it was in the storeroom, which meant that eleven tins were not there, and he couldn’t believe that he’d sold that much of it in six months. He himself had never sold a box of it, just as he’d never sold anyone an AK-74, because he specialized in hunting rifles, not guerrilla raid and assault weapons. He was baffled, a little hurt, and in the dumps to begin with because his superb clerk Andrew had left a week ago, sadly, and he knew he didn’t have the focus anymore to run a retail business, especially now that the ATF rules had gotten so complicated and What was the name of the clerk? someone wanted to know.
His name was Andrew Nicks. College boy, very decent, hard worker. He was a fine boy. Mr. Reilly went to look for Andrew’s address. Could Andrew be in trouble?
Ray dragged the dead terrorist to the nearest store, the Mocha Spectrum chocolate shop, and stuffed him inside. A blood trail led to his body, but that couldn’t be helped now. He stripped him of combat gear and handed the rifle and the magazine bandolier to his new partner. Then he gestured and she followed, and they made their way down the corridor and dipped into a place called Pandora Jewelry, and both collapsed.
“Thanks,” Ray finally said.
“It’s okay,” said Lavelva, still wearing her name tag. “I couldn’t just sit up there during all this with all them ladies, yakyakyakyak. Lord, how they talk. I had to get out of there, like to give me a headache. Who are these guys? What do they want?”