Judas Horse_ An FBI Special Agent Ana Grey Mystery - April Smith [125]
Okay, he’s seen enough. He can’t wait to drop the dye. Man, it would be cool to see it happen from this window as the water slowly fills with red like a slasher movie. Better than blood and harmless to the fish, Julius promised. He checks his watch. Allfather said to pull the cord at precisely 4:15. It is 4:10 now.
Slammer takes the elevator to the top level, where you can walk outside and have a view of the whole river, and get close to the salty smell of the fish ladders, which are basically steps flowing with water. You think of a dam like something out of a children’s book, all neat and sparkly, but when he looks around, he decides the place looks more like a prison. There are high barbed-wire fences to keep people away from the banks of the river. If you somehow fell in, you’d be swept into the rotor blades of giant turbine engines. The skies are gray and the water dark. He trudges up to the top of the weirs, out onto a catwalk where a toddler is squatting and pointing to the water.
He fingers the rope dangling from the backpack. Remembering the small explosion of gunpowder bound to occur when he pulls the switch, he moves away from the family.
“Don’t let the little dude fall in,” he advises.
“Slammer. Stop.”
Still smiling, he answers to his name, and there’s the chick from the farm coming toward him. She looks all different. She’s got on a baseball cap and a vest that says FBI, and she’s walking funny, tilted over to one side.
My left shoulder is bandaged up underneath the blastproof vest, but the pain is breathtaking.
“What are you doing?” Slammer asks.
“Don’t move. Do not pull that cord.”
“How’d you get here?”
Military helicopters fill the skies. On the shore, a fleet of cop cars and ambulances is lining up along the road.
I keep a distance.
“Slammer, please don’t move. Do you know what’s in that backpack?”
“Nothing is going to happen. It’s just dye, to stop them from destroying the salmon runs.”
“That pack contains explosives. Not just a blood bomb. Something a lot more powerful.”
“Why?” the boy asks, confused.
There is a ripple of anxiety in the crowd that moments ago had been peacefully watching the fish jump through the roaring water. SWAT teams in combat gear are quickly moving families away, while moon men in bomb suits and helmets with built-in microphones direct a score of firemen ready with hoses. The woman with the toddler picks him up and carries him away, staring at Slammer with hate.
“Julius wanted to blow up the dam. To get revenge on the U.S. government, and because he was a sick individual. A lot of innocent people could get hurt—”
Alarmed, he says: “Where is Allfather?”
“He’s dead. There was a fire at the farm. Everyone is dead except for Sara. She’s okay; you can see her as soon as we resolve this. Right now, it’s very important for you to listen to me. Do not move. The bomb squad will remove the backpack.”
Slammer laughs. “No way he’d do something like that. Besides, one little bomb can’t blow up all these tons of concrete. He wouldn’t send me here just to blow myself up? For a couple of fish?”
“We’re not going to let anything bad happen to you.”
“You’re trying to trick me.”
“I’m trying to save your life. I did that once before, when he buried you alive, remember?”
“You’re a liar!” Slammer screams. “You sold us out! You’re a fed! You’re a liar! You deserve to die!”
“I do care, Slammer. That’s why I’m standing here. These guys could take you out in a heartbeat.”
Slammer glances above him; the snipers are set up on the roof.
“You’re a good person. You know how I know? Because you didn’t kill Herbert Laumann when you had the chance. There is good in you, Slammer. It shines. You’ve had a real hard time of it. People haven’t let you be good. But I know you are. I wouldn’t be risking my life if I didn’t think your life was very important. More important than the fish.