David Kent - The Triangle Conspiracy

“You can’t let this happen,” Sean said as they wound toward the road.

“I know,” Daryn said, “but you heard him. I didn’t…dammit, no one stood up to him.” She dropped her head into her hands. “I’ve been an idiot. I believed him, I trusted him, and he’s taken my movement- my movement! I started this, not him! If we use violence, we’re no better than McVeigh or bin Laden or any of the cults and the antigovernment nuts. We’re better than this!”

She looked up. Her eyes burned into him. To Sean’s surprise, she began to cry. Tears were not something he associated with her-for some reason, he hadn’t thought she was capable of crying.

They reached the highway and the little caravan turned south toward Mulhall, toward Guthrie, the interstate, and Oklahoma City. Toward Bank of America Plaza.

“Michael,” Daryn said, still crying, tears streaking her pale face.

Sean glanced at her. He still saw Britt out of the corner of his eye. She was staring at him too.

“Michael, please,” Daryn said. “We have to stop this. Even if he says it’ll just break windows, it might not. What if someone is standing right next to the window when it breaks? We can’t…”

Sean pulled off the road in front an abandoned car wash just as they crossed into Mulhall. He took out his cell phone and started punching buttons.

“Who are you calling?” Britt said.

“Someone who can help.”

The phone rang three times. Look at the caller ID, Faith, Sean urged her silently. Come on, don’t be so pissed off at me that you won’t answer the phone.

A moment later he heard his sister’s voice: “Where the hell are you?”

“I don’t have time to explain,” Sean said. “Listen to me. Call your friend.”

“What? What friend?”

“What do you mean, what friend? The geeky one, with the bald spot. You remember him?”

Faith was quiet for a moment. “Why?”

“He needs to get some more friends and they need to go to the Bank of America in downtown Oklahoma City. It’s on…” He glanced at Daryn. “What’s the street again?” He realized he was supposed to live in Oklahoma City, and by asking the question, his cover may have been blown. But then, he was going to blow it himself anyway, very soon.

Daryn looked at him quizzically, turning the question over in her mind. “Well, it’s on Robinson.”

“Robinson,” Sean said into the phone. “It’s right downtown, near the memorial. Your friend and his friends should get there quick if they want to stop something from happening.”

“Sean,” Faith said. “I can tell that you feel like you can’t talk, but what’s this about?”

Sean took a deep breath. “It’s about preventing an act of terrorism. Please believe me. Whatever bullshit there may be between you and me, believe me on this. It’s real, and it’s serious.”

Faith waited. “I believe you,” she finally said. “I’ll call Scott.”

“I’ll talk to you later,” Sean said before she could say anything else, then clicked the End button on his phone.

“Who was that?” Daryn asked. She reached out and took Sean’s free hand. His other hand was gripping the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles were the color of paste.

“Just someone I know,” Sean said.

He pulled back onto Highway 77 and accelerated to catch up with the rest of the Coalition for Social Justice.

FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATERS EAN EXITED THECentennial Expressway into downtown Oklahoma City. He took Sixth Street west to Robinson, then turned south toward the heart of downtown. He recognized the area now-it was very, very close to the federal courthouse and his sister’s office.

With the stop he’d made to call Faith, they’d fallen a few minutes behind the other Coalition cars. As he slowed into the southbound flow of traffic, Sean searched for them. Bank of America Plaza was ahead on his right. He recognized the red, white, and blue logo and saw the courtyard, which was commanded by an unusual modernistic sculpture just off the street: huge reddish orange metal cylinders, each open on one side, all twining around each other, reaching toward the sky.

People were milling around the courtyard, up and down the sidewalks. Men and women in FBI wind-breakers were scattered about. A knot of people broke behind a car that was parked illegally right in front of the courtyard. Sean drew in his breath-it was Jeannie Davis’s van.

“My God,” Daryn whispered.

Sean angled the Jeep into the far left lane, away from the bank on the one-way street. As he drove slowly past the van and the courtyard, he could see more people. He recognized some of the Coalition members. They’d been cuffed and were standing alongside several unmarked cars. CJ was lying on the ground, his hands cuffed behind his back. Several feet away, with three officers standing next to it, was the suitcase full of explosives.

“Who did you call?” Daryn said.

“Someone who knows someone in the FBI,” Sean said.

Daryn bowed her head. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. If Franklin had just told me what-”

They had just crossed Couch Drive, approaching Park Avenue, when they heard the explosion.

Daryn screamed. Britt leaned forward.

“Jesus, what was that?” Sean said.

Then it came to him-he hadn’t seen Sanborn’s car or the truck. The truck into which Don Wheaton had loaded the other suitcase of explosives.

“Shit,” he muttered. “Where’s that other bank?”

“Main and Broadway,” Britt said. “The big tower. Chase Bank.”

Daryn was shivering, arms wrapped around herself. Britt stared at her as if seeing her for the first time.

“He blew the other bank,” Sean said. “He used this one as a diversion, sacrificed the people, and blew the other one.”

“He lied to me again,” Daryn whispered. “He lied again.”

“But Daryn,” Britt said, “what about The Cause?”

Sean jerked as if he’d been poked with something hot. Britt had just called Daryn by her real name.

Daryn seemed not to notice. She was staring forward through the windshield, eyes unmoving, as if in a waking coma.

Sean turned onto Park, a tiny downtown street that dead-ended one block later at Broadway. Directly across the way was Santa Fe Plaza and the Skirvin Hotel, the landmark three-towered hotel that was in a state of constant renovation, always seemingly on the verge of reopening, just to be sold again and again. So Faith had told him, in the early days of her life in Oklahoma City. She’d pointed it out to him during their sightseeing last week.

Was that only a week ago? Sean thought. Seems like a hell of a lot longer than that.

To the right was the Chase Tower.

Thick black smoke rolled out from the glass front of the ground floor. Sean could see broken glass on the concrete, but the smoke was so thick and so dark that he couldn’t tell the extent of the damage.

“Jesus,” he said.

On the far side of the building, along Main Street, was Franklin Sanborn’s car and the other Coalition truck.

“There!” Britt pointed.

“Son of a bitch,” Sean whispered. “Hang on, people.”

He whipped the steering wheel to the left, climbed the median, and came back down on the other side of Broadway. Contradicting its name, the street was very narrow in this stretch of downtown. Sean kept the Jeep pointed diagonally southeast, toward Sanborn’s car on the other side.

Sirens sounded. People were beginning to run, some toward the Chase Tower, some away from it. People fell to their knees, coughing from the smoke. One woman had blood on her face. But Sean could still see very little for the smoke. He drove under it and through it, across the sidewalk toward Main.