Journey (32 page)

Maddy left work in one of the network cars, since Jack had their usual car and driver. She was happier being alone just now anyway. It gave her time to think and dream about Bill. She parked at the mall, and went into a large drugstore to buy ribbon, tape, and wrapping paper, so she could wrap her presents.

The store was full to the rafters with Christmas shoppers, women with crying kids, men looking confused at what they were supposed to buy, and the usual shoppers who filled the mall during the nights before the holidays. Not surprisingly, it was busier than ever. And the toy store next door had a Santa Claus who had people lined up all the way into the parking lot to see him. It put Maddy in a good mood just seeing all of it. It felt like the spirit of Christmas, and suddenly, thanks to Bill, she was beginning to enjoy it.

She had a dozen rolls of red wrapping paper in her arms, and a cart full of perfume and tape and chocolate Santa Clauses and small Christmas ornaments, when she heard a strange sound from somewhere above her. It was so loud that it startled her at first, and she saw others stop and look, not able to understand it either. It was a loud
boom!
and then a sound like a waterfall, like a wall of rushing water. She couldn't hear anyone. The music stopped, and suddenly there were screams as the entire mall went dark, and before she had time to panic or even open her mouth, she saw the entire ceiling cave in just beyond her. And as it did, Maddy s entire world suddenly vanished into blackness, and everything around her disappeared.

Chapter 20

W
HEN
M
ADDY WOKE UP, SHE
felt as though there were an entire building lying on her chest. She opened her eyes and was aware that they hurt and were filled with dirt, but she couldn't see anything, and there was a strange smell of dust and fire all around her. She was aware that she was warm, and every part of her body felt very heavy. And then she realized that something had fallen on her. She tried to move, and at first, she thought she couldn't. She could move her feet, but there was something holding her legs down, and her entire upper body was pinned down, but little by little, as she struggled to get free, she found she could move the various weights that had fallen on her. She didn't realize it, but it took her more than an hour to free herself until she could sit in a little ball in the small space she was confined to. And what she noticed as she worked on it, at first, was that all around her was silence. And then, after a while, she began hearing moans and screams, and people calling to each other in the distance. And as
she sat up, she was sure she could hear a baby crying somewhere. She had no idea what had happened or exactly where she was.

And in the parking lot, far from where she lay, cars had been blown up. The front of several buildings had been blown away. There were fire trucks everywhere, and people were running and shouting. People bleeding from everywhere were running into the parking lot, and injured children were being put on gurneys and rushed into ambulances. It looked almost like a movie set, and the people who were talking to the police and firemen in a daze said that the whole building had collapsed in a single instant. In fact, four of the stores in the mall had been destroyed, and there was a huge crater outside the drugstore where Maddy was. The crater stood now like a yawning hole where only instants before a truck had been. There had been an explosion of such magnitude that windows in buildings as much as five blocks away had shattered. And as the news crews arrived, the Santa Claus from the toy store was carried out with a tarp over him. He had been killed instantly, along with more than half of the children who had been waiting to see him. It was a tragedy of such huge proportions that no one could quite absorb it.

And deep inside the store where Maddy sat curled in a little ball, she was trying to figure out how to get out from under the rubble that held her prisoner. She tried clawing at it, pushing it away, bracing herself against it, but at first nothing moved, and with a sense of total panic she was having trouble breathing. And then, in the darkness, she heard a voice very near her.

“Help … help … can anyone hear me?” The voice
sounded weak, but it was comforting to know that someone was close by, as Maddy listened.

“I can. Where are you?” There was so much dust that Maddy could hardly take a breath. But she turned in the direction of the voice, as she listened carefully in the darkness.

“I don't know. I can't see,” the voice answered. They were all enveloped in total blackness.

“Do you know what happened?”

“I think the building fell on us … I hit my head … I think it's bleeding….” It was a woman's voice, and Maddy thought she could hear the baby again. But she couldn't hear much else. An occasional voice … a scream … she was listening for sirens, hoping for help, but she couldn't hear them. There was too much concrete blocking them to allow any of them to hear the chaos outside or the rescue vehicles that were shrieking toward them from all over the city. Calls had even gone out to Virginia and Maryland. No one knew anything yet except that there had been a huge explosion and a lot of people injured and killed.

“Is that your baby?” Maddy asked, as she heard it crying again.

“Yes …” the voice said weakly. “He's two months old. His name is Andy.” The girl sounded as though she were crying. And Maddy would have been too, except she was still too much in shock to feel her own emotions.

“Is he hurt?”

“I don't know … I can't see him.” She sobbed then, and Maddy closed her eyes for a minute, trying to think straight. Something terrible must have happened to bring the whole building down on them, but she couldn't figure out what yet.

“Can you move?” Maddy inquired. Talking to the girl was helping her keep her own sanity as she tried to push various places again, and what felt like a boulder behind her moved a little, though barely more than a few inches. It was in the opposite direction from where the voice was coming.

“I can't move at all,” the voice answered, “there's something on my legs and my arms … and I can't reach my baby.”

“They're going to send us help, you know.” And as Maddy said it, they were both aware of the sound of muffled voices in the distance, but there was no way to know if they were rescuers or victims. And then, as Maddy tried to think of what to do, she remembered that her cell phone was in her handbag. If she could find it, she could call for help, or maybe they would find her more easily. It was a crazy idea, but it gave her something to do, as she groped the area immediately around her and found nothing except dirt and rocks and jagged pieces of broken concrete. But she had a better sense of the small area surrounding her, as she did it. And she tried again to move the walls of her makeshift cell, and at one end, she was able to move some boards about a foot from her and enlarge her airspace. “I'm trying to get to you,” she told the girl encouragingly, and for a long moment, there was silence, and it scared her. “Are you okay? … Can you hear me?” There was a long pause, and then the voice again.

“I think I was sleeping.”

“Don't sleep. Try to stay awake,” Maddy said firmly, still trying to think, but nothing would come. She was still in shock herself, and she was aware, as she moved, of a blinding headache. “Talk to me … what's your name?”

“Anne.”

“Hi, Anne. My name is Maddy. How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“I'm thirty-four. I'm a reporter … on TV….” But there was no answer again. “Wake up, Anne … how's Andy doing?”

“I don't know.” He was whimpering so Maddy knew he was alive, but the girl sounded weaker. God only knew how badly injured she was, or when anyone would find them.

And as Maddy continued to struggle within her cave, outside fire trucks continued to arrive from every district. Two of the stores were in flames, four had collapsed, and dismembered bodies were being removed from the areas closest to the center of the explosion, some of them far beyond recognition. There were hands and feet and arms and heads everywhere. Everyone ambulatory was being removed, and ambulances were taking away those who couldn't move under their own steam. They were trying to clear the area for rescue workers and volunteers. The Center for Disaster Control and National Emergencies had been called and they were organizing teams as bulldozers began to arrive. But the balance of the remaining structures was too delicate to use them, and there were too many victims to jeopardize by using machinery that might ultimately create a bigger problem.

There were scores of news crews on the scene, and broadcasts all over the country had been interrupted to bring viewers the news that the biggest disaster in the nation's history, since the bombing in Oklahoma City in '95, had occurred in Washington. There were already over a hundred known casualties and no way to assess
how many more there would be, and a screaming child with her arm blown off had already been filmed by every camera crew on the scene as she was rushed away by rescue workers. Her identity was unknown and no one had claimed her yet. But there were dozens of others like her. Hurt, dazed, injured, maimed, dead, and dying, being brought out of the wreckage.

Bill had been watching television peacefully in his den, when the first bulletin flashed across the screen, and he sat up with a look of horror. Maddy had told him she was going there after work, and he instantly ran to the phone and called her. There was no answer. He called her cell phone next and a recording told him the subscriber he had called was out of range, and as he continued to watch the news, he felt a wave of rising panic. He almost called the network to find out if they knew where she was, but he didn't dare. There was always the possibility that she was on the scene, covering it herself, but he decided to wait to see if she called him. He knew she would if she had time, and if she wasn't trapped somewhere beneath the rubble. All he could do now was pray she wasn't. And all he could think of was the moment when he had first realized that Margaret had been kidnapped by masked men carrying machine guns.

Jack was aware of the situation too. His cell phone rang within instants of the blast, and he looked at the woman he was with, with dismay. This was not the evening he had planned. He had set it up so carefully, as he always did, and he was irritated by the interruption.

“Find Maddy and tell her to get her ass over there. She should be home by now,” he directed, and then hung up. They already had two crews on the scene, and
a third one was on its way, the producer had said. And the pretty blonde he was with at the Ritz Carlton asked him what had happened.

“Some asshole blew up a shopping mall,” he said, and flipped on the TV. And they both sat and stared at what they saw. It was a scene of total destruction and utter chaos. “Jesus,” he whistled through his teeth. Neither of them had realized the magnitude of the disaster until they saw it. They sat there silently for a while, and then he picked up his cell phone and called the network. “Did you find her?” he barked into the phone. It was a hell of a story, but even to a practiced eye like his, there were moments of what they were shooting that brought tears to his eyes. And next to him the girl he had only met the week before was crying softly. A fireman had just carried away a dead baby and its mother.

“We're trying, Jack,” the frazzled producer said. “She's not home yet, and her cell phone is off.”

“Goddammit, I told her never to do that. Keep trying. She'll turn up.” And then as he snapped his phone shut, a strange thought wandered across his mind, but he rejected it instantly. She had said she was going to buy wrapping paper and some things, but she usually hated malls and shopped in Georgetown. There was no reason on earth why she would be there.

“Can you hear me, Anne?” Maddy's voice penetrated through the concrete again, but it took her longer to rouse the other voice this time.

“Yes … I can …” and as she answered, they heard another voice. A man's this time, and he sounded surprisingly close to Maddy

“Who is that?” the voice asked. He sounded strong and loud, and he said he had dislodged some rocks and a beam and crawled a long way to get to them, but he had no idea which way he was going, or where he was.

“My name is Maddy,” she answered firmly, “and there's a girl here called Anne … she's not with me, but I can hear her. I think she's hurt and she has a baby.”

“How about you? Are you okay?” She had a headache, but it wasn't worth reporting to him.

“I'm fine. Can you move any of this stuff around me?”

“Keep talking, and I'll try.” She hoped he was big and strong. Strong enough to move mountains if he had to.

“What's your name?”

“Mike. And don't worry, lady. I bench-press five hundred pounds. I'll get you out of there in no time.” But she could hear him struggling as he continued to talk to her, and Anne dropped out of the conversation again, as Maddy called out to her, but the baby was crying louder than ever.

“Talk to your baby, Anne. If he hears you, he might not be so scared.”

“I'm too tired,” Anne said weakly, as Maddy continued to talk to Mike, and he sounded a few inches closer.

“Do you know what happened?” Maddy asked him.

“Damned if I know. I was buying shaving cream and the goddamn roof fell on top of me. I was going to bring my kids. I'm glad I didn't. Was anyone with you?”

“No, I was alone,” Maddy answered, while she tried clawing at the rocks and dirt again, but all she did was break her nails and hurt her fingers. Nothing was moving.

“I'm going to try and dig in the other direction,” he finally said, as Maddy felt a wave of panic wash over her. The thought of the friendly voice leaving her aroused a sense of abandonment in her like no other she had ever known. But they had to get help, and if one of them could get to it, the others would be saved too.

“Okay,” she said. “Good luck. When you get out,” she made a point of saying “when” and not “if,” “I'm a reporter, tell my network I'm here. I have a feeling they're out there somewhere.”