Stephen White - Warning Signs

Lucy prayed that he wouldn't see the red light that glowed on her phone. To her, it looked as bright as a streetlight on a dark night. She screamed again to distract him.

He looked at her. "What?"

She screamed again. She was trying to say, "Take this off! Take this off!" She kicked at the floor.

The light changed. He said, "I'll take it off in a minute. We're almost at our next stop."

She pounded the console with her closed fists.

He raised his wrist, displaying the transmitter that was taped to his arm. "I said wait."

F rom the backseatof Rivera's car, I said, "Voices. Sam, I hear voices."

Sam spun on his seat.

I held up my finger, asking for quiet.

"The guy just said, 'What?' Then there were a couple of muffled screams."

Rivera stared at me in the rearview mirror.

"Now the guy said, 'Wait a second. I'll take it off in a minute. We're almost at our next stop.' And then another muffled scream, and… and some pounding.

"Wait. It's him talking again. He said, 'I said wait.' " I continued to listen intently. "Silence now, Sam. Just background noise."

I looked up. We'd pulled to a stop in front of Union Station. Uniformed cops were directing pedestrians and traffic away from the building. By now I knew the drill. The bomb squad would be evacuating the building prior to beginning a search for secondary devices. I couldn't shake the feeling that we were a step behind Ramp and that that was exactly where he wanted us to be.

Rivera ordered me to "Stay put and keep listening." He got out of the car and huddled in front of the train station entrance with a black man in a brown sport coat. Sam nodded his head in their direction. "The guy with Rivera? That's Walter. My friend Walter." For the first time all morning, Sam smiled.

I said, "The one whose name isn't really Walter?"

"Yeah, that Walter."

He pointed at the phone. "Anything?"

I mouthed, "No."

Sam said, "We're wasting our time here. Going from bomb to bomb after they go off isn't going to get us where we need to be."

"I was thinking the same thing." I raised one index finger. "They're talking again. I think I hear Lucy, Sam. I do. She's still alive."

He exhaled as though he'd been holding his breath for most of the morning. "What'd she say? Give me that thing."

R amp stayed southbound on Broadway untilhe was just past Fourteenth. He pulled to a stop by the curb opposite the plaza of the block-long complex housing the Colorado History Museum and the Judicial Heritage Center. He hopped out of the cab, fed the parking meter, and jumped right back in.

He stared at Lucy for a few seconds before he reached down and lowered her gag to her chin.

"Stop," she pleaded. "Please, stop. No more bombs, Ramp."

He smiled an ingratiating smile. "Don't worry. This is the last stop. This is where the day ends. If all goes well here, you'll be free."

She couldn't tell where they were parked. The landmarks she could see weren't familiar to her. He placed a nylon windshield screen across the inside of the windshield and pushed a piece of cardboard against the glass of the window above her seat.

"Where are we?"

He chuckled. "We're at the principal's office."

She was amazed at Ramp's calm demeanor. He was like a kid confident that he was about to ace a test. It was as though he already had all the answers.

She said, "What does that mean?"

"One of the many mistakes that Klebold and Harris made is that they failed to target the boss man. They went randomly after kids, and they didn't seem to care who they killed as long as they killed someone. That's unproductive rage. That's not my style. I've identified specific targets, deserving targets. And the final target on my list is the principal, the one who is ultimately responsible for the culture that took my mother from me."

"You're not even in school. Who's the principal? I don't get it."

"My problem is with the judicial system, right? Who makes those rules? Who's the boss?"

He was playing with her. "I don't know-the governor?" Were they parked outside the governor's mansion? From her position on the floor she couldn't tell where they were.

"Wrong. The head of the judiciary in this state is the Colorado Supreme Court. For me, that's the equivalent of the principal's office. That's where it all begins and that's where it will end."

"You're going to kill the Supreme Court justices?"

He reached down between his legs to the floor on the seat in front of him. "I know I won't get them all. But I should be able to get a few."

She had trouble grasping his threat. Kill the justices ? "Wouldn't you have to kill all the legislators? They make the laws. They write the sentencing statutes."

"No, no. It's too late to change. It's going to be the justices." His hand held a thick roll of duct tape. "I don't trust you not to interfere. I need a few minutes to get set up, and I can't risk you doing anything to draw attention."

She said, "I'll be good. I will."

"Sorry."

Ramp reached down below his seat one more time and came up with a neat package wrapped in brown paper. The package was about the size and shape of a roll of paper towels that had been sliced in half lengthwise. A loop of insulated wire emerged from the package and a slender antenna extended up from the top about three inches.

"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."