Spilled Milk, no. 1 Page 6

  Now came the hard part. First, I opened up all the windows and the back door, and made sure no one was looking. I didn’t have a vent hood in the camper, and didn’t relish the thought of breathing the fumes I was about to create.

  I poured a gallon of bleach into the glass pot and put it onto the hot plate, heating it to a boil. I waited until the bleach just started to form crystals on the top, and then took it off the burner. It stank to high heaven and I had to step outside for a while, waiting until the noxious fumes dissipated. After a few minutes, it was safe to return.

  Next I made a saturated solution of potassium chloride from the salt substitute I’d picked up from the grocery store. Mixing the two together in equal proportions, I stuck the mixture into my ice chest and started on a second batch.

  I kept going until I had several jars of solution cooling in the chest. I took the first one out and, using my coffee filters, began separating the potassium chlorate crystals from the rest of the mixture. After emptying each jar, I took the filter out and set it to one side to let the crystals dry.

  As the powder dried, I took the money and fake ID from Judge Rawles’ and slipped them into plastic bag, and then stole back into the bathroom with the package tucked inside my coat. In the last stall, I climbed on top of the toilet and thrust the drop panel in the ceiling to one side. I shoved the bag on top of the adjacent tile and put the panel back in place. I doubted anyone would look for it there.

  It was time to move again. I disposed of my trash in a nearby dumpster, started the truck and moved down the highway, turning south and starting what would turn into a wide circle around the city. I only hoped to keep the cops off my trail for a while. I had no intentions of leaving the area.

  Toward dinner time, I pulled into another rest stop along the highway and parked. This spot provided me a wide view overlooking the city. I made a quick supper of canned stew and a little more coffee, and then sat outside at a picnic table for a while, watching the sun go down and staring at the town in the valley below as the lights came on.

  Somewhere down there, some other family was tucking Matt and Sara in for the night. Reading them a bedtime story. Perhaps trying to comfort them in some way. I wondered if my kids cried themselves to sleep. I hadn’t spoken to them in two days. Been even longer since I’d seen them.

  I could feel that darkness in my soul bubbling just under the surface. I didn’t harbor any hostility toward the good folk that took them in. They were doing me and my kids a favor. But they weren’t family, and there was no way they could take my place.

  Not if I had anything to say about it.

  Chapter 10

  I finished my dinner and went back to the truck. I still had a little more work to do before I was ready to reclaim my kids. First, I had to assemble my bombs. I started by taking the threaded pipe and screwing caps onto each end. Next came the shrapnel, which was a mixture of the nails with the glass and shredded aluminum from the caps of the light bulbs. Finally, I filled each pipe with the potassium chlorate powder. I drilled holes in each of the remaining caps, threading my matchstick detonators through with the wires dangling on the outside, and glued everything in place. Then came the cell phones. To make the detonators, I took the phones apart and soldered a pair of leads to the phones’ armatures, so that when the phones rang on ‘vibrate’ mode, it would set off the bombs. I ran one of the leads to a nine volt battery and then both wires out to the ends of my detonators. I kept the batteries unplugged for now.

  Once fully assembled, each bomb took up less space than a clock radio. I could set them off either by dialing in, or by setting the alarms on the phones. Either way, they’d go off when I wanted them to.

  I’d toyed around with the idea of using mercury switches in addition to the phones. It wouldn’t have taken nothing to create a jumper attached to a mercury switch, so that if my bomb were moved or tilted one way or the other, it’d go off. In the end, I decided against it. I wasn’t aiming to kill indiscriminately. I needed my explosives to go off with a purpose.

  Lastly, I entered each of the cell phones’ numbers into my main phone’s speed dial memory. After I put the last number in, I sat there and stared at them a while. There was some kind of finality about it all. I was about as prepared as I could be now—munitions-wise. It was time for the second stage of my plan—choosing the targets that would give me the maximum impact, and so distract the police that I could escape with Matt and Sara right under their noses. To be sure that I got away Scot-free, I had something special planned, but it carried so many risks that I didn’t really want to think about it just then.

  I was about to enter the most dangerous phase of the operation. I had to select my targets ahead of time and plant the bombs without being seen, and without the bombs being discovered until I wanted them discovered. I didn’t have any immediate plans to actually detonate them, though I reserved that right should things start going south.

  Before I did, however, I needed to talk to Angie again.

  She picked up the phone on the third ring. “Hello?”

  “It’s me.”

  She didn’t say anything, but a small sound escaped her mouth. I imagine she’d been steeling herself for this conversation for hours, now. I’d probably ruined her entire day. Too bad. It was nothing compared to what I was going through. Or what Matt and Sara were going through.

  “Did you make the call?”

  “Yep.”

  “And?”

  “And then I made another call, and another call after that, and then, oh yes, let’s see, at least four or five more phone calls after that. I’ve been on the damn phone all day!”

  “Take a shot of whiskey. You’ll feel better.”

  Angie replied with an anatomically impossible and completely un-Angie-like expression.

  I ignored it. “Just tell me you got through to them.”

  “Yes, I got through.”

  “And?”

  “I hate you for this.”

  “Damn it, Angie! Did you talk to my kids or not?”

  “Yes! I talked to them. They’re upset. They’re scared. They’re confused. And they’re seriously pissed off at you. I could totally relate.”

  “Yeah, look, I’m real sorry about that—”

  “Are you?”

  “Hell, yes! But there’s nothing I can do about it now, is there? They took my kids from me. It’s not like I gave them up. And why? ‘Cause they think they can do a better job raising them.”

  “Well, maybe they can!”

  A burst of rage so visceral blew through my mind just then that my jaw stopped working. I gripped the phone so hard I could hear the plastic start to split. I took a deep breath, and then through clenched teeth spoke very quickly, and very quietly.

  “Don’t you ever say that again. If I even think you’re taking their side on this I won’t hesitate. You betray me and we are done. I will burn you to the ground. You’re my blood, Angie, but those are my kids. And nothing comes between them and me. You never had kids, so I don’t expect you’d understand. I would burn the world for them.”

  “I don’t doubt that you would,” she answered evenly, her voice in a harsh whisper, “but if you did, then there wouldn’t be nothing left for them, now, would there? And that’s all I’m saying. I’m not trying to come between you all. And I don’t doubt that you love them. But you gotta think about what’s best for them. What’s gonna be left for them when all this is through? Hell, maybe you can pull this off. Maybe you can even get away. But what then? You’ll be on the run the rest of your life? You gonna drag them with you everywhere you go? What kinda life is that?”

  “It’s a damn sight better than being in the system.”

  “Well maybe it don’t have to come to that.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Frank and I’ve been talking. We’ll take them in. If it comes to that, y’know? Maybe it’s not your first choice. Hell, maybe it’s not your best choice, but it’s got to be a whole lot be
tter than the foster system. And it’s a damn sight better than living on the lam.”

  She’d used my words against me. I wanted to argue back, lash out, but what would be the point? She was right, and at least on some level I knew that. Matt and Sara probably would be better off with Frank and Angie—not that I could particularly stomach the thought of Frank raising my children.

  Then again, she didn’t know about Judge Rawle’s fake passport and driver’s license, nor the plans I had for all of it. I had a better option for my kids than both the system and Frank and Angie—but it wasn’t the kind of thing I could discuss over the phone. Maybe not even in person.

  “Did you get the number?” I said.

  “Gerrold, ain’t you been listening to me? I talked to the people in social services. They’re gonna send me and Frank the paperwork, so we can do this nice and legal-like. You don’t have to do this.”

  “That’d take months. Maybe even years. You do what you think is best on that front. Me? I gotta do what’s best right now. And that means getting Matt away from those people before they kill him.”

  “Kill him?”

  “That’s right. That’s exactly the sort of thing that can happen with these experimental drugs and stuff they want to try. I’ve seen him go into anaphylactic shock, and it ain’t pretty. The stuff they want to pump into Matt is toxic. It’s poison. It might not kill him right away, but it’ll shorten his life as surely as if they’d put a gun to his head. I’m not gonna have them turn Matt into some kind of damn government guinea pig. I won’t let them. The boy needs an all natural diet. The way God intended.”

  After a moment, she said, “So you’re gonna go through with this.”

  “What choice do I have? I gotta save my son.” When she didn’t answer, I said, “Just tell me you got the number.”

  “Yes, I got the number, for all the good it will do you.” She gave me the number and I wrote it down. From what I could tell of the prefix, it was a land line.

  “I don’t suppose Frank could look this up and get the address.”

  “Really? You want to ask him? He’s already hotter than a hornet’s nest at you. I don’t think he’s gonna do you no favors.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right. No worries. I’ll find it on my own.”

  We said our goodbyes and I hung up the phone, then sat there staring at the number for a while. I wondered how much sweet-talking she’d had to do to get me this much.

  I folded the number and stuffed it in my pocket. I’d have to do a reverse phone search to chase this number down to an address, and for that I’d either have to go to a library or an internet café and look it up on a computer.

  As it was, I needed to scope out the locations for my bombs. I started the truck, and drove back toward the city.

  I chose the public library in Whitsburgh, on the east of town. I wanted to stay away from the scene of my recent crimes, but still be close enough to get there quickly if need be.

  Walking through the glass entryway doors, I felt suddenly self-conscious, as if everyone in the building were staring in my direction, weighing my face against their memories and trying to decide whether or not I sufficiently resembled that guy on the news enough to call the police. I tried to paste on a happy smile and look harmless, hoping I was just being paranoid and that no one would make the connection.

  I slipped over to the bank of computer terminals and logged onto an open PC with my library card. It took a few minutes to bring up a search engine and type in the number Angie had given me.

  The first few sites that came up offered to find the number for a fee. I skipped past these and kept looking. I felt certain that any online transaction of this sort would result in my credit card number pinging out an alert to someone, and they’d have the IP address of the computer I was using in mere moments. I could just see a host of jack-booted SWAT members descending upon the library in full flak gear and helmets, shouting for everyone to get down. I smiled for the first time in days when I pictured some white-haired librarian sticking her finger to her lips and shushing the cops.

  The next several pages were nothing but gobbledygook. Random listings of phone numbers filled with complaints of people getting SPAM calls from various obscure telemarketers. I doubted my number would be listed among them, unless they just listed everything.

  On the seventh page I found a pdf file posted online as part of a FOIA request. I wondered why my search had brought up this document. I clicked on the website, but it came up as 403 Forbidden. Backing up, I selected the cached page instead. This time, the page loaded without a hitch. I found the pdf icon located a third of the way down. Opening the document, I did a search for the number.

  It was a form listing recent attendees at a foster care class, and probably shouldn’t have been made available online. Odds are good that someone checked recently and ordered it be taken down as a precaution. Regardless, I now had a name to put with the number.

  Donald and Janet Bauer.

  Chapter 11

  Armed with the name and phone number to match, I quickly found their address. They were housed in a middle class suburb not far from where we lived. I should’ve known. They were keeping my kids in the same school district as before. I suppose I could have lain in wait for them outside their classrooms, but then again, that’s probably what the cops would be looking for.

  I made a map to their house just the same and printed it out. This done, I moved on toward selecting my targets.

  In the end, I settled on five locations scattered throughout the city. Each one designed to strike a blow against the government that had pushed me to the edge and invited me to jump. I’d already torched the courthouse, so there was no real value in going back there. The structure was a total loss already. Instead, I selected the federal building.

  If I’d have had the time to prepare, I’d have chosen a van filled with barrels of ammonium nitrate parked in the lower garage, Timothy McVeigh style. But my goal wasn’t so much to destroy as to distract. Besides, the federal building was so well-guarded, I doubted I’d be able to penetrate it very far. I made a mental note to scope it out more thoroughly later.

  My second target was the local police station. This seemed such an obvious choice, I hesitated to make it. Nevertheless, I wanted the cops to know I could get to them—stir them up and make sure they pulled out the big guns to come after me. SWAT teams especially. Like the federal building, I would scope it out and plant my bomb once I was on site.

  My final two targets included a shopping mall and the school where CPS workers abducted Matt and Sara from their classrooms. I chose to hit the school’s administration wing, because I wasn’t really trying to hurt the kids—though I figured a bomb at the school would raise an enormous ruckus. The shopping mall I chose for the same purpose. I wanted to cause mass panic, and tie up as many emergency personnel as I possibly could. I made this selection last, and chose to go there first due to easy access.

  The shopping mall was located on the north end of town, and I got there in about twenty minutes. I parked in a far corner of the lot. After slipping the first bomb into my backpack, I threw it over my shoulder and hurried through the glass entrance doors to the mall. The sign on the doors said the mall closed at ten pm, and it was already nine-thirty.

  The food court was on the second level of the mall, and as I rode the escalator, I could see that most of the patrons had already left the area. A mall cop wandered around up there, keeping an eye on things. He didn’t give me a passing glance.

  I purchased an order of fries and a Coke, and took a seat near the large glass windows at the back end of the court. The windows overlooked the parking lot, just above the main entrance to the plaza. A row of artificial planters ran along the low wall in front of the windows.

  I sat there a moment and sipped my drink, nibbling away at my fries, while keeping an eye on the mall cop. He wandered the floor in a clockwise pattern, occasionally chatting with someone he must’ve recognized, or givin
g a gaggle of teenagers a baleful glare.

  I took the bomb out of the back pack and set it on the seat beside me, waiting until he passed nearby and started his circuit toward the front. Then I made my move. I slipped the bomb into the planter, cramming it beneath the fibrous “soil” in the window boxes and throwing the arming switch I’d attached to the side. Quickly, I slipped the back pack over my shoulder, gathered up my leftover fries and drink, and left the table. I deposited my trash in the receptacle and left the same way I’d come, passing just behind the guard as he strode in front of the escalators.

  I checked my watch. It said nine forty-five. Only five more bombs to place. I was making good time.

  ***

  The school proved harder to set up. For one thing, I didn’t arrive in the parking lot until almost ten thirty at night. Naturally, it was closed and locked up tight at this late hour. I’d been sort of hoping there was a late night game in progress, or perhaps a school play—something that would get me easy access.

  No luck.

  If I’d have had time, I’d have made myself a bump key and gotten access through the doors, but there was no time to go studying the locks to figure out which key type would’ve been the right fit, much less to file one down to the proper shape.

  Instead, I checked the windows. Each of them was also locked, but on the third floor I witnessed one that had been left partway open. It was my best bet.