"What is that?" Lucy demanded. She already knew what it was. She just didn't know what Ramp planned to do with it.
He leaned across the console and placed the flat side of the package against her upper abdomen and chest, pressing down hard, separating her breasts. With economical motions, he affixed the package in place with duct tape, concluding with three quick bands of tape all the way around her back.
He raised his wrist, displaying the switch that was taped to his arm. With a magician's flourish, he reached behind the switch and touched something. A tiny red light began to glow on the plastic case, a light so small Lucy hadn't even noticed it before.
She knew that he'd just armed the damn thing. And she knew that it hadn't been armed until then.
She mumbled, "Shaped charge?"
"Again?" he said.
"Shaped charge," she repeated. It was no longer a question.
He smiled. "Yes, Lucy. A shaped charge. The energy of the blast is largely directed at your spinal column. But don't worry about paralysis. Before the blast ever gets to your spinal cord, it will liquefy your heart and lungs."
He saw a new level of fear spread across her eyes. It seemed to kill something healthy as it swelled, like a plague.
"I'll be in the back of the truck for a few minutes, getting ready. I'll be able to see you through the rear window the whole time. Do you understand?"
She nodded enthusiastically.
"You get off the floor, you're dead. You try to speak to anyone or get their attention, you're dead. Do you understand me?"
His voice told Lucy that he didn't want to kill her. Not that he wasn't willing to. Only that he didn't want to.
Ramp's eyes moved from Lucy's and rested briefly on the console. She felt certain he could see the status of the cell phone.
He moved his face to within a foot of hers. "Let me tell you something else, okay?" With an awkward motion, he sat back and crossed his left leg over his right knee, exposing the bottom of his hiking boot to Lucy. He pointed a finger at a tiny silver button taped to the sole of the shoe. "See that?"
A thin wire snaked through the treads. The wire was taped to the side of the boot and disappeared under Ramp's trousers.
She nodded. She saw it.
He uncrossed his legs, planting his left foot firmly on the floor of the truck. "It's a pressure switch. A dead-man switch. As long as I have weight on the switch, the circuit's closed. If I don't have weight on the switch for ten seconds, the circuit opens. When the circuit opens, the device on your chest will explode. If the police shoot me before I'm done, and I fall over, you will die ten seconds later. You won't believe how long those ten seconds will last, Lucy. It'll be a whole lifetime."
Involuntarily, she glanced at the cell phone. She regretted the act as soon as she did it.
Without hesitation, he lifted the phone to his face. "You guys get that? I hope so. Now pay attention to this, too. There are a series of explosive devices hidden in the chambers and courtrooms of the Colorado Supreme Court. The staircases and the elevators are wired. So are the fire exits. I want everyone in the building to get ready to come out through the front doors. You have ten minutes to get everyone organized. But no one leaves until I say so. The justices will come out last. I want them in their robes. No switches. I know exactly what they look like. Got it? Good."
He pressed the "end" button.
CHAPTER 57
I was relieved that Sam had the phone. I was terrified by what he was reporting to Rivera.
"Listen to this, listen to this. Ramp's at the Supreme Court Building. He says he's going to kill them, the justices. He says he won't get them all, but that he should get a few. That's his last stand. This is where it's going to end."
Sam made a perplexed face, then nodded to himself as he listened intently to the phone. When he winced, I did, too.
"Jesus. He's taped a shaped charge to Lucy's chest. He says he'll set it off if she does anything… They're in a truck. He's going to the back of the truck to do something. He can see her through the window. He's in a truck, Rivera. Tell them he's in a truck, okay? Do that."
Sam stopped talking for a moment, then his mouth fell open.
"Oh my God. He says he has a dead-man switch on the bottom of one shoe. We shoot him and Lucy dies ten seconds later." He raised his voice. "Ten seconds. Rivera, tell them a cop is wired with explosives. You tell them that, you hear me? Tell them that if they hurt him, a cop dies. You hear me?"
Rivera waved at Sam in a manner even I found dismissive. I assumed that the gesture left Sam homicidal.
Sam's eyes closed in an effort to shut out the chaos that was growing around us. He mumbled, "Oh no, oh no. Fuck me. No, no, no." He faced Rivera one more time. "He knows that we're listening to him, Rivera. He's been feeding us all this stuff. Who knows if it's true."
Rivera hustled next to Sam.
Sam went on with his report. "He's talking to us now. He says that the Supreme Court Building's wired. Chambers, courtrooms, elevators, staircases, exits. The whole thing. He wants everyone to evacuate through the front doors. Justices have to come out last, wearing their robes. We have ten minutes to get everybody organized, but nobody comes out until he says so. That's it. Ten minutes."
Rivera stared at Sam. Finally, he said, "Ten minutes?"
"Ten minutes to get everyone organized. Justices have to exit last. In their robes, Rivera."
Five seconds passed. Ten.
Sam's eyes burned into his colleague. "That's a cop in that truck with him, Rivera. You understand? She dies if we shoot him. You understand what I'm saying?"
Rivera's face was impassive.
Sam handed me the phone. "Line's gone dead. Where the hell's the Colorado Supreme Court Building? Anybody know?"
The motorcade of emergency vehicles plowed up Seventeenth Street like the leading edge of an assaulting battalion. Rivera's gray sedan was behind a phalanx of motorcycle officers. I was alone in the backseat; Sam was up front next to Rivera. Traffic cleared in front of us like delicate fish fleeing a school of sharks.
The sirens were deafening. Every sound reflected a thousand times off the glass, aluminum, and stone towers of the central business district. We weren't trying to sneak up on Ramp. That much was certain.
The procession headed south on Broadway before stopping at Fourteenth. Six or seven Denver Police cruisers and at least one fire-rescue vehicle were already in place at the corner. Rivera screeched to a stop and we popped out of the car.
The Colorado Supreme Court was housed in a modern, six-story building at the corner of Fourteenth and Lincoln, across the street from Denver's new main library and a block away from the state capitol. A wide plaza separated the building from the Colorado History Museum. I'd driven past the complex many times without realizing that the chambers and courtroom of the Colorado Supreme Court were inside one of the two buildings.
Everyone's attention was locked on a flatbed truck parked against the curb on Broadway. The truck was relatively new. There was an emblem on the door that I couldn't read. A man was standing on the bed in the back. He was partially obscured by a large metal equipment box and a steel rack filled with tall green gas cylinders. The tanks appeared to have been placed into the rack upside down.
The windshield on the truck was screened by a sunshade. I wondered if Lucy was inside the cab.
Someone with binoculars walked up to Rivera and said, "Everyone's concerned that he could have a big device-a fertilizer and fuel-oil type thing-in that equipment box that's on the back of that truck. He may be planning an Oklahoma City rerun. We need to move this perimeter back."