Brian Freeman - Marathon

Now she was back.

She couldn’t help picturing Paris in her mind. Another restaurant. Another terrorist. Each step reminded her of the tables in the outdoor café. She thought about Ron’s text. His photo. The Eiffel Tower behind him. Two tables away was a twenty-one-year-old Syrian who was ready to die and take Gayle’s brother with him in the explosion.

Not again. Not again.

Gayle’s grip tightened on the gun.

This time, she wouldn’t miss. There would be no bad shot in the rain and darkness. No ricochet.

She continued around the circle. Something was already happening; she heard voices, someone shouting. She started to run. Ahead of her, she saw a dark-haired woman in a booth, and even seeing the back of her head, she knew it was Dawn Basch. A clean-shaven waiter stood near her table. Behind him, also running, she watched a manager hurrying through the aisle, calling out. “Excuse me! You!”

She took a second look at the waiter. She’d expected a beard, but when her brain took it away, she recognized him.

“ Rashid! ”

The waiter stared at her. Their eyes met. He had his hand behind his back, and when she saw it again, he was clenching a pistol, his finger on the trigger. He slid into the booth across from Dawn Basch and pointed the barrel into her face.

One of the downtown patrol officers spotted Maggie’s truck on Superior Street near the Holiday Inn. The yellow Avalanche, pockmarked with dents and scratches, was impossible to miss. Serena parked around the corner from the vehicle on Third Avenue, and she dialed Maggie’s cell phone again as she got out. The call went to voice mail, as it had done for the last half hour. Maggie was off the grid.

She noticed a navy-blue Cadillac in the spot next to Maggie’s truck. It caught her attention because of the plastic toy hanging from the rearview mirror; it was an oversize mosquito. With a quick call, she checked the license plate and confirmed the owner of the Cadillac.

Wade Ralston.

Serena didn’t know where to start searching. The street. The hotel. The skywalks overhead. Then, standing on the corner, she saw the iron railing around the steps that led into the subbasement of the Third Avenue building. She thought about what Shelly had said.

Wade and Travis are in the downtown basements all the time.

It was a great place to hide. Or a great place for an ambush.

She called in her position and then jogged across the street. When she peered down the steps to the landing below her, she saw the metal door ajar. She ran to the bottom, and as she did, she unhooked the holster of her gun.

Beyond the door, more steps led into darkness. She followed her flashlight beam into a narrow tunnel with brick walls. She was tall enough that her head nearly grazed the utility pipes mounted above her. She listened, but she heard only the buzz of machinery. At the end of the tunnel, the corridor turned at a sharp angle. She saw what appeared to be storage rooms, many of them open, stuffed with file cabinets and old office equipment. She checked each cubbyhole as she inched forward. Ahead of her, the tunnel widened, like the entrance to a cave.

Serena called out, “Maggie?”

Instantly, from somewhere inside the next room, Maggie shouted, “Serena, turn off the light! Ralston has a gun!”

Serena spun into the shelter of a storage room, and as she did, a gunshot banged off the walls inches from where she’d stood. She switched off her flashlight, leaving the basement dark. She drew out her gun from the holster. When she checked her phone to call for backup, she had no signal.

She listened again. No one was moving.

She squatted, staying low, and inched beside the stone wall into the hot, larger room. She tried to keep her footsteps silent, but debris crunched under her feet in the quiet space. She couldn’t see anything. The interior was darker than a cloudy night.

Her foot bumped against something metal. She bent down and ran her free hand along the smooth surface of a toppled filing cabinet. Reaching out, she found a drawer that had come loose, and the floor was littered with paper. She nudged around the obstacles, but she made noise, and another wild gunshot made her dive to the floor. Rock and glass scraped her hands. She heard someone moving, but she didn’t dare fire back, not knowing where Maggie was.

Serena crawled now, using only one hand to prop herself up and the other to keep her gun pointed ahead of her. Her fingers landed in something sticky and damp. When she extended her arm, she felt warm skin. It was a man’s arm, but whoever was lying on the floor wasn’t moving. She followed the arm to the man’s wrist and found no pulse. He was dead.

She climbed over the body. When she stopped and listened again, she thought she heard the faint noise of someone hiding close by. She took a risk and whispered, barely louder than a breath.

“Maggie?”

Someone grabbed her wrist. Serena tried not to scream. She felt herself pulled sideways and then yanked down. Someone’s mouth was at her ear.

“It’s me,” Maggie said.

Serena found Maggie’s ear and whispered back. “There’s a dead body a few feet away.”

“It’s Travis Baker. One of Wade’s bullets hit him. Wade blew up the marathon.”

Their voices were too loud.

Another bullet pinged off the filing cabinet near their heads.

“His gun has to be almost empty,” Maggie murmured.

“Okay, hang on.”

Serena felt around the floor until she found something hard and round, like a marble. She heaved it toward the opposite side of the basement, where it landed with a sharp knock on the wall. The noise drew Ralston’s fire. He shot twice toward the wall, and the bullets ricocheted off stone and metal.

And then they heard it. Click .

“You’re out, Wade,” Maggie called immediately. “Give it up.”

They switched on their flashlights and scoured the basement. There were hiding places everywhere, behind the debris and among the tunnels and storage closets. Their weak beams barely cut through the shadows. They each had their guns in their hands, and with silent signals, they split up, taking opposite routes through the space. Serena veered back toward the tunnel that led to the outside steps, to make sure Ralston wasn’t able to slip out behind them.

“Hands up, Ralston, and come out where we can see you,” Serena called.

Ralston didn’t answer. Slowly, they cleared the interior of the basement from front to back. Twenty feet away, Serena saw Maggie’s flashlight beam swishing across the floor.

And then she heard something.

Something sizzling.

“Maggie, what the hell’s that? It’s coming from near you. Get down! ”

The warning came too late. A fireworks rocket exploded, as loud as a bomb, and a shell designed to burst in the sky instead hit the low ceiling and went off in a rainbow shower of color and flame. Serena saw the concussive wave knock Maggie off her feet, and her flashlight rolled away. Before it went dark, she spotted Wade Ralston jumping forward, a shovel in his hands, hoisting it high and arcing it toward Maggie on the stone floor.

“Maggie! Roll!”

Serena heard the shovel bang hard against the floor, but she heard a screech of pain, too. He’d hit Maggie. She charged toward Ralston, but he was already directly in front of her, swinging the shovel like a baseball player toward her head. She ducked and fired. The bullet missed, but the shovel smashed the flashlight out of her hand, leaving them blind again. The burnt smell of the rocket was in her nose. She heard a rush of air as he hoisted the shovel again, and she threw herself down hard and fired toward the ceiling. In the muzzle flash, she had a glimpse of Ralston with both hands over his head as he swung the shovel toward her like an ax.