Jeffery Deaver: The Steel Kiss

The sound came from the top of the up escalator, connecting the floor below with this one.

Oh, Jesus...

The top panel of the device, which riders stepped onto from the moving stairs, had popped open and a passenger had fallen into the moving works.

“Help me! No! Please please please!” A man’s voice. Then the words coalesced into a scream once more.

Customers and employees gasped and cried out. Those on the steps of the malfunctioning unit, which were still moving up, leapt off or charged back down against the upward motion. The riders on the adjoining escalator, going down, jumped too, maybe thinking it was about to engulf them as well. Several landed in a heap on the floor.

Sachs glanced toward the coffee shop.

No sign of 40. Had he seen her badge, on her belt, or weapon when he, like everyone else, turned to stare at the accident?

She called Everett and told him about the accident and to call it in to Dispatch. Then to cover the exits; Unsub 40 might’ve seen her and now be escaping. She sprinted to the escalator, noting somebody had pressed the emergency button. The stairs slowed and then halted.

“Make it stop, make it stop!” More screams from the person trapped inside.

Sachs stepped into the upper part of the platform and looked into the gaping hole. A middle-aged man — around forty-five or fifty — was trapped in the gears of the motor, which was mounted to the floor about eight feet below the aluminum panel that had popped open. The motor continued to turn, despite someone’s hitting the emergency switch; she supposed that doing so merely disengaged a clutch to the moving stairs. The poor man was caught at the waist. He was on his side, flailing at the mechanism. The gears had dug deep into his body; blood had soaked his clothing and was flowing onto the floor of the escalator pit. He wore a white shirt with a name badge on it, an employee of one of the stores probably.

Sachs looked at the crowd. There were employees here, a few security people, but no one was doing anything to help. Stricken faces. Some were calling 911, it seemed, but most were taking cell phone pics and video.

She called down to him, “We’ve got rescue on the way. I’m NYPD. I’m coming down there.”

“God, it hurts!” More screaming. She felt the vibration in her chest.

That bleeding had to stop, she assessed. And you’re the only one who’s going to do it. Just go.

She muscled the hinged panel farther open. Amelia Sachs wore little jewelry. But she slipped her one accessory — a ring with a blue stone — from her finger, afraid it would catch her hand in the gears. Though his body was jamming one set of them, a second — operating the down escalator — churned away. Ignoring her claustrophobia, but barely, Sachs started into the narrow pit. There was a ladder for workers to use — but it consisted of narrow metal bars, which were slick with the man’s blood; apparently he’d been slashed when he first tumbled inside by the sharp edge of the access panel. She gripped the hand- and footholds of the ladder hard; if she’d fallen she’d land on top of the man and, directly beside him, a second set of grinding gears. Once, her feet went out from under her and her arm muscles cramped to keep her from falling. A booted foot brushed the working gears, which dug a trough in the heel and tugged at her jean cuff. She yanked her leg away.

Then down to the floor... Hold on, hold on. Saying, or thinking, this to both him and herself.

The poor man’s screams weren’t diminishing. His ashen face was a knot, the skin shiny with sweat.

“Please, oh God, oh God...”

She jockeyed carefully around the second set of gears, slipping twice on the blood. Once his leg lashed out involuntarily, caught her solidly on the hip, and she fell forward toward the revolving teeth.

She managed to stop herself just before her face brushed the metal. Slipped again. Caught herself. “I’m a police officer,” she repeated. “Medics’ll be here any minute.”

“It’s bad, it’s bad. It hurts so much. Oh, so much.”

Lifting her head, she shouted, “Somebody from maintenance, somebody from management! Shut this damn thing off! Not the stairs, the motor! Cut the power!”

Where the hell’s the fire department? Sachs surveyed the injury. She had no idea what to do. She pulled her jacket off and pressed it against the shredded flesh of his belly and groin. It did little to stanch the blood.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he whimpered.

Looking for wires to cut — she carried her very illegal but very sharp switchblade knife in her back pocket — but there were no visible cables. How can you make a machine like this and not have an off switch? Jesus. Furious at the incompetence.

“My wife,” the man whispered.

“Shhh,” Sachs soothed. “It’ll be all right.” Though she knew it wouldn’t be all right. His body was a bloody mess. Even if he survived, he’d never be the same.

“My wife. She’s... Will you go see her? My son. Tell them I love them.”

“You’re going to tell ’em that yourself, Greg.” Reading the name badge.

“You’re a cop.” Gasping.

“That’s right. And there’ll be medics here—”

“Give me your gun.”

“Give you—”

More screaming. Tears down his face.

“Please, give me your gun! How do I shoot it? Tell me!”

“I can’t do that, Greg,” she whispered. She put her hand on his arm. With her other palm she wiped the pouring sweat from his face.

“It hurts so much... I can’t take it.” A scream louder than the others. “I want it to be over with!”

She had never seen such a hopeless look in anyone’s eyes.

“Please, for Chrissake, your gun!”

Amelia Sachs reached down and drew her Glock from her belt.

A cop.

Not good. Not good.

That tall woman. Black jeans. Pretty face. And, oh, the red hair...

A cop.

I’ve left her behind at the escalator and am moving through the crowds at the mall.

She didn’t know I’d seen her, I think, but I had. Oh, yeah. Seen her nice and clear. The scream of the man disappearing into the jaws of that machine had prodded everybody to look toward the sound. Not her, though. She was turning to look for me in the friendly Starbucks.

I saw the gun on her hip, the badge on her hip. Not private, not rental. A real cop. A Blue Bloods cop. She—

Well. What was that?

A gunshot. I’m not much on firearms but I’ve shot a pistol some. No doubt that was a handgun.

Puzzling. Yeah, yeah, something’s weird. was the police girl — Red I’m calling her, after the hair — planning to arrest somebody else ? Hard to say. She could be after me for lots of the mischief I’ve been up to. Possibly the bodies I left in that sludgy pond near Newark some time ago, weighted down with barbells like the sort pudgy people buy, use six and a half times and never again. No word in the press about that incident but, well, it was New Jersey. Body-land, that place is. Another corpse? Not worth reporting; the Mets won by seven! So. Or she might be hunting for me for the run-in not long after that on a dim street in Manhattan, swish goes the throat. Or maybe that construction site behind club 40°, where I left such a pretty package of, once again, snapped head bone.

Did somebody recognize me at one of those places, cutting or cracking?

Could be. I’m, well, distinctive looking, height and weight.

I just assume it’s me she wants. I need to get away and that means keeping my head down, that means slouching. It’s easier to shrink three inches than grow.

But the shot? What was that about? Was she after someone even more dangerous than me? I’ll check the news later.

People are everywhere now, moving fast. Most are not looking at tall me, skinny me, me of the long feet and fingers. They just want out, fleeing the screams and gunshot. Stores are emptying, food court emptying. Afraid of terrorists, afraid of crazy men dressed in camo, stabbing, slashing, shooting up the world in anger or thanks to loose-wired brains. ISIS. Al-Qaeda. Militias. Everyone’s on edge.