Even farther behind he saw a bursting eruption of red and orange flame leap out of one of the science center’s second-story windows, followed immediately by a rolling cloud of black smoke that climbed the side of the building toward its flat roof. Moments later came the jarring sounds of the detonation, the dull boom of the initial ignition, and the follow-up blast of overpressure powdering glass and concussing the cold winter air.
For now, all Mercer could do was curse again and concentrate on steering them out of this mess.
The far side of the pond, if the fence line was to be trusted, was a solid three hundred yards away. Knowing that ice near the shore is thicker than ice toward the center of a body of water, Mercer was sure that at the rate they were traveling, they were going to crash through. Their only chance was the frozen-over stream that fed the pond. The tiny lake’s discharge was too well hidden by the snow, but he could see the silver husks of rushes sticking up where the feeder entered the pond. As gently as possible he turned the wheel, dropping his speed ever so slightly. As he’d experienced while working in the Canadian Arctic for DeBeers, too much speed on an ice road could build a sine wave of water under the truck and split the ice even before the front wheels hit it. He couldn’t speed up, and with the ice breaking in their wake, he couldn’t slow down either. It was a delicate balance.
Jordan finally realized their predicament and went ashen. “Mercer, we’re on a pond.”
“I know,” he said tightly, easing off on the turn when the Yukon’s nose was pointed between the two stands of water plants. He had been so easy on the wheel that the back end didn’t so much as twitch on the grease-slick surface. The stream was about eight feet wide and would be shallow enough for the truck to remain in the clear should they crash through its crust of ice.
And as he neared the stream, the ice beneath the truck grew thicker. It still cracked under the SUV’s crushing weight but didn’t shatter. Snow lay deep around the edges of the pond, windblown into drifts of inestimable height. The front of the SUV plowed into one such drift just as they were exiting the pond and entering the feeder stream. Again, Mercer’s lack of knowledge about the campus was his downfall. The pond was an artificial construct, the stream a man-made channel that fell into the usually bucolic water body from a three-foot-high brick-and-mortar waterfall that currently lay hidden under a mantle of powdery snow.
The wall was just high enough to catch the underside of the front bumper, and they were traveling hard enough to accordion the Yukon midway down its hood. Airbags deployed with explosive efficiency. Mercer just managed to keep from having his nose broken by one, while a still unbuckled and discombobulated Jordon bounced into hers with a shoulder and tumbled to the passenger-side footwell. The collision was enough to break the ice under the truck, and frigid water quickly began seeping in around the doors and rear gate, which had popped open once again.
Mercer’s first concern was his passenger. “Jordan, are you okay?”
“Jesus, this water’s cold.” She quickly hauled herself up onto her seat. “And your driving sucks.”
He almost smiled. That she could complain was a sign that she indeed was all right. “You wanted to come with me. Remember?”
Her dark eyes hardened. “You could have warned me you were nuts.”
“You should have figured that out the moment you met me.” Mercer lowered his window and flattened the already deflated airbag against the steering wheel. He pushed his body out of the truck and onto the door, making sure Abe’s pistol was still tucked into his jacket. The front tires were fully submerged and had grounded on the bottom. The SUV’s lighter back end still floated amid the broken chunks of ice. He swung up and out onto the hood.
The Honda continued to race for the back gate, probably unaware that the chase had ended, the sound of its trick exhaust diminishing with every passing second.
“Give me my phone,” he said to Jordan as she climbed over the center console and made ready to join Mercer on the Yukon’s wrinkled hood.
“Remember when I said the water was cold?” she asked. “Yeah, well, I had my hand in it as I tried to rescue your phone from a watery grave.”
“What about yours?”
“A melted puddle by now. I left it charging in Abe’s kitchen.”
It really didn’t matter now. Mercer could make out the Doppler whine of approaching sirens. The authorities knew something had happened at Hardt College and were racing to investigate. Even if he somehow got a cop’s attention and reported the fleeing Honda, the local authorities didn’t have the manpower to secure the campus and go after the gunmen. Besides which, in the next ten or so minutes the shooters would steal another car and be making their way anonymously out of Killenburg, Ohio.
Mercer helped Jordan climb onto the hood. The metal was warm under their bodies, and he could hear the engine hissing and bubbling as it bled heat into the stream still trickling under all the ice and snow. He looked over at the Lauder Science Center expecting to see the wing where Abe Jacobs must have kept his office fully engulfed in flame.
Instead he saw wisps of white smoke coiling out of some shattered windows and icicles forming on the outside of the sills from the sprinkler system’s discharge freezing against the cold metal framework.
There was hope of salvaging something from this mess after all. He yanked Jordan off the truck. “Come on. We’re not done yet.”
7
The sound of sirens grew steadily louder as the pair raced hand in hand across the campus. The snow was deep enough that Mercer needed to hold on to Jordan so he could help tow her through the taller drifts. If he hoped to find anything before the cops shut down the campus he would have to hurry. And because Jordan had spent time with Abe more recently, even if she hadn’t been to his office here at Hardt, she might see anomalies that he did not, so he didn’t consider abandoning her and sprinting ahead.
Mercer had no idea how long they would have once they reached the science center. Units from nearby towns would roll in to assist, and eventually county and state cops as well. Still, Mercer figured ten minutes at least before one of the responding officers left their cordon and actually swept the Lauder Building. After that, everything would become a crime scene, and they’d be faced with the same bureaucratic obstacles he’d managed to avoid in Minnesota.
Students had scattered from the building. Many were rushing across the rural campus for the purported security of their dorms. Others remained hidden behind cars in the adjacent parking lot. As they approached the battered front entrance doors, Mercer made sure no one could see his weapon and start a fresh wave of panic. A boy and girl huddled behind a bench on the cleared flagstone plaza in front of the modernist building. The science center’s fire alarm wailed in rhythmic pulses that beat in on Mercer’s brain.
He approached the duo hiding behind the bench. “Listen. I’m an off-duty cop,” he said, and let them see the butt of the pistol. “When the uniforms arrive, make sure they know we’re inside.”
The wide-eyed girl and the goateed boy both nodded, not questioning why an off-duty policeman would need to bring a civilian woman into the building with him.
Mercer led Jordan inside. The lobby was a mess, with broken furniture, ruined carpeting, and junked bits of the SUV scattered on the floor. It was also thankfully deserted. But as loud as the alarm had sounded outside, now that they were in the building, the shriek was enough to make the two of them physically cringe. It was nearly impossible to talk.