from one of the floors above them. The building should have been empty this time of the morning on a Friday. But he would have sworn he heard a door open upstairs.
7:37 a.m.
LORNA MEMORIZED the men’s faces. If she were called in for a lineup, she wanted to identify these two without the slightest hesitation. The younger of the men grabbed her shoulder and tried to flip her over onto her stomach, no doubt so he could cuff her wrists behind her. He appeared to be in his thirties; his face was thin, hair dishwater-blond, and he looked slovenly even in the police uniform. Especially in the scruffy sneakers. He held some sort of assault rifle in his free hand, his fingernails grimy.
“Help me roll this bitch over,” he ordered the older one, his breath smelling of garlic and alcohol.
With the handcuff dangling from her wrist, Lorna gripped the canvas bag with her purse, lunch and the cookies inside. Her cell phone was palmed in her other hand where he couldn’t see it. She lay perfectly still, hardly breathing as he turned to the other man, the soft-spoken elderly man who’d first approached her.
“Lee? Are you going to help me over here or not?”
Lee was in his late sixties, early seventies, neat as a pin. Even his black lace-up leather dress shoes were shined, creases ironed into his uniform pants. He wore a large, bulky-looking uniform jacket, which, now that she thought about it, was far too heavy for Southern California. He was still kind of slumped over a little, looking uncomfortable, still giving her the impression that he was in pain.
But she thought she remembered where she’d seen him. Wasn’t he the man who had come to the council meeting the last two months? Something about his wife.
“Wait a minute,” the young one said, straightening as he stared back at the man. “Where the hell is your gun, Lee?”
“You said to bring firepower, Kenny.”
“Yeah, so where is your firepower?”
Lee carefully unzipped his coat.
“Holy Mother of—What the hell is that? A bomb, Lee? You got a friggin’ bomb taped to your chest?”
“An explosive device, yes,” Lee said.
“Why the hell did you do that? Jeez. What if it goes off before you want it to?”
“Little chance of that,” the older man said.
“Unless you get shot or fall down?”
“I have to discharge it with this switch,” Lee told him, calmly pointing to a hole in the green-colored plastic explosives.
The hole was just large enough for his finger and a small red toggle switch. Lorna knew the switch was attached to a series of colored wires that ran to a digital watch and a blasting cap. She had recently watched a show on TV about bombs, curious how they worked. But she’d decided bombs were messy and too obvious. She preferred a more subtle approach.
Kenny was shaking his head and running his free hand through his hair. “Oh, man, you’re crazy, you know that? Beyond postal.”
From what Lorna had seen, they both fit in that category.
Kenny was so upset he wasn’t paying any attention to her. His kind took one look at her and saw a forty-something old maid, a woman afraid of her shadow, no threat at all.
His kind deserved everything they got.
“Never mind,” Kenny said. “I can do this by myself. I don’t want you blowing me up because you accidentally flip that damned switch while you’re helping me.” He put down the rifle, though not within her reach, and turned back around to her on the floor.
As he straddled her and started to reach down to try to roll her over again, she kicked him in the groin.
His knees buckled and she had just enough time to pull her legs to her chest and roll away. Scrambling to her feet, with her bag and the cell phone, the handcuffs still dangling from one wrist, she ran toward the front of the building and the staircase.
Kenny let out a howl that echoed through the rotunda. She raced up the wide central staircase, looking down through the railing only once, with satisfaction, to see that her kick still had Kenny on his knees.
“Get her, damn it!” Kenny wheezed. “Don’t just stand there, Lee! Get her!”
Lee was handicapped by the bomb on his chest and his age. Lorna, on the other hand, took all three flights of stairs every day, many times. She hated elevators and closed-in spaces.
She bounded up the stairs. She could hear Lee laboring up the steps behind her. He was breathing heavily and falling behind.
On the second floor she looked up and was shocked to see a group of people coming out of the meeting room, obviously to see what the racket was about. What were they doing here? Lorna thought as she recognized three of the city council members: Gwendolyn Clark, Fred Glazeman and James Baker, along with District Attorney Henry Lalane and City Attorney Rob Dayton. A secret meeting?
They all seemed surprised to see her running up the stairs with a handcuff dangling from one wrist.
“What is going on?” Gwendolyn demanded. She was a frumpy matronly type, with a round face and a large mouth that dominated her face. It didn’t help that her mouth was usually open.
Lorna could have asked her the same thing, but it seemed pretty obvious. The city councillors were having a “secret” meeting, and there was only one topic Lorna could imagine they would be talking about: her.
“Why is that policeman chasing you, Lorna?”
For just an instant Lorna was too stunned to answer. Gwendolyn had called a special “secret” meeting with these council members to try to get her fired? Lorna should have known the woman would pull something like this.
Lee’s labored steps behind her brought her back to the present problem. “That’s not a cop chasing me. He has a bomb taped to his chest. There’s another one down below with an assault rifle. They’re taking city hall hostage. Get back into the meeting room. Now!”
Lorna herded everyone back down the hall to the meeting room, Gwendolyn arguing all the way. Lorna shoved her into the room after the others, closed the door and locked it. Lee had been only a few yards away. She leaned against the door and looked at the others.
She’d worked hard for these councillors, and here they were, meeting in secret to get rid of her. The traitors. She almost wished she’d left them all outside the door for whatever those two men had planned for them.
Except for Fred, she thought, letting her gaze fall on her favorite councilman. He wasn’t like the others. He was kind and intelligent. A nice man. But Lorna knew that Gwendolyn had been trying to turn him against her.
“Barricade the door,” Lorna ordered. She’d have to deal with that problem later. Right now, there was something more pressing to take care of. “Barricade the door!”
For a moment no one moved. They all just stared at her as if she was the crazy one. D.A. Lalane started to call someone on his cell phone. “Don’t touch that cell phone. It might set off the bomb. Barricade the door, then
