As she hurried up the steps and fell in with the crowd of kids piling in through the school’s cathedral-like entrance, she found herself thinking about that Jeep, and about sixth-period math and a guy named Matt who sat across the aisle from her.
She wondered how he would look with a ponytail.
9
The hot item on drive-time talk radio was the transfer of Sara Reed Gunderson to yet another critical-care facility. This was the third such transfer in little over a month. The first came ten days after she was brought to Franklin Memorial, her baby lost, her pulse nearly nonexistent, and her brain showing little, if any, activity.
In other words, Sara was about as dead as you can get without actually crossing over to the other side. The doctors should have pulled the plug that first day, but Sara’s parents wouldn’t hear of it. They still held out hope for their little girl.
Sara’s father, the CEO of a top-flight investment brokerage, used his considerable influence and deep pockets to call in medical experts from around the world. They’d take his money and study her charts and quietly shake their heads.
Sara’s mother appealed to God, but her prayers had apparently fallen on deaf ears. Sara had been in a coma for a month and a half now, and the prognosis wasn’t even remotely hopeful.
Despite Sara’s crimes, and despite her leftist leanings, she was something of a cause celebre to the right- wing fanatics who dominated the talk-radio waves. Whenever a new transfer was announced, discussions about government agencies out of control were renewed with venomous vigor. Most of that venom was reserved for the ATF.
Remember Waco, they’d cry.
The children of Walter O’Brien, and the wife of fellow bank guard Samuel R. Kingman, pointed fingers at no one. They believed Sara Reed Gunderson was an icy-hearted bitch who got exactly the punishment God intended: an eternity in hell.
Their only hope was that her husband would soon join her.
Unfortunately, no one expected that hope to come to fruition anytime soon. Despite the best efforts of the Chicago Police Department, the FBI, and the ATF, neither Alexander Gunderson nor his two surviving comrades could be found.
The FBI, plagued by the more pressing concerns of Middle East terrorist cells, speculated that Gunderson and crew had fled the country, possibly to Cuba. The police commissioner, countering criticism that the CPD was asleep at the wheel, insisted they had headed for the mountains of Wyoming or Iowa, seeking refuge among the local militias.
Neither scenario made sense to Jack Donovan. And as the publicity surrounding the Northland First amp; Trust robbery sank deeper and deeper into the back pages of the daily newspapers, he refused to give up. He maintained that Alexander Gunderson hadn’t left at all, but was holed up somewhere within the city limits.
Waiting. Watching. Planning.
Gunderson would never, Donovan insisted, leave his beloved Sara behind.
10
Will you hurry up, for crissakes? He’s waiting.”
“I’m coming, I’m coming.”
The bitch in the Chevy Suburban dabbed at her nose, snapped her compact shut, then climbed out and slammed the door. The sound reverberated through the underground parking lot like cannon fire.
Her husband, a balding butterball in a three-piece suit, was already standing at the parking-lot elevator, watching with a scowl as she straightened her skirt and checked her reflection in the passenger-side window.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he said. “You’re not gonna screw the guy. Come on!”
Gunderson had half a mind to cap the butterball right then and there.
Count your blessings, asshole. At least she can walk.
Gunderson sat behind the wheel of his Jeep Commando, which was parked across the aisle from the Suburban. He’d been watching these two pathetic retards ever since they’d pulled into the stall five minutes ago. Neither looked particularly happy, and he had no clue where they were headed, but when they returned, they’d be considerably less jovial than they were now.
He was about to steal their wheels.
Gunderson had spent six months of his sophomore year of high school at the Illinois Youth Center downstate. His offense had been unsophisticated and impulsive: a smash and grab of his shop teacher’s prized Datsun 240Z.
If six months at the IYC taught him anything beyond what the juvenile-court schools called an education, it was the wonders of the slim-jim and the screwdriver. No more smashing and grabbing for Gunderson, he now had the tools he needed to forge a career, and forge it he did.
The next few years were spent organizing and operating a car-theft ring that quickly became a top priority for the Chicago Major Crimes Division. Cars were stolen, stripped, and dismantled in less than two hours, their parts often sold for three times the value of the car itself.
Those days were long behind him now, but Gunderson still knew how to use the tools of the trade. In fact, he’d copped this crappy old Commando with nothing but a slotted two-inch Craftsman. The Jeep had served its purpose well, but now he needed something roomier. Something that said soccer mom.
The Suburban was the perfect choice.
The elevator bell rang and Mr. and Mrs. Waste-of-Space stepped inside, the Husband of the Year still complaining about how late they were as wifey-poo adjusted and readjusted her ample, if sagging, bosom.
Gunderson waited for the doors to close, checked to make sure the aisle was clear, then swung his legs out of the Jeep and crossed to the SUV.
Approaching the driver’s-side window, he fed the length of a slim-jim down past the rubber, gave it a little shake and a tug. The lock popped open. Once inside, he pulled a stubby screwdriver from his pocket, jammed it into the ignition, and started the engine.
The whole operation took less than forty seconds.
On his way out of the parking lot, Gunderson paid the attendant five bucks (and they called him a criminal), rolled the Suburban up the ramp into traffic, and headed back the way he’d come.
As ripe little Jessie exchanged shy glances with the pimply-faced geeks in her biology class, Gunderson thought about his sweet Sara lying silently in her hospital bed and allowed himself the slightest of smiles.
Retribution is a wonderful thing.
11
When the buzzer buzzed, Bobby Nemo’s muscles tensed. An instinctive reaction. He’d been on edge for weeks.
“Oww,” Carla groaned, “you’re hurting me.”
“Shut up,” Nemo said. He got off her, told her to get dressed, then pulled his pants back on and eased onto the sofa, letting his gaze drift to the television set across the room. ESPN extreme sports.
He was trying to look relaxed, but he didn’t feel so relaxed.
“That’s it?” Carla said. “We’re not gonna finish?”
The buzzer buzzed again.
