Supernatural 10 - Rite of Passage (10 page)

A row of lockers lined the near side of the hangar. Offices ran along the back. Three red and white airplanes faced the entrance. Angie had informed Sam and Dean that she’d cancelled all scheduled jumps for the foreseeable future, pending a full investigation.

Dean tried and failed to suppress a shudder when he looked at the airplanes. Thinking about flying in one of those small planes was enough to make him queasy. The idea of intentionally hurling himself out the side door of one of them at thirteen thousand feet would probably give him nightmares. A belly-flop at terminal velocity onto the unyielding tarmac?
No thanks!
He’d keep his feet firmly planted on the ground.

“What about the reserve chutes, who packed those?” Sam asked.

“We pack the reserves here, every few months so they don’t
get stiff,” she said. “We have a certified rigger. He’s in Antigua this week on a family vacation. He’s due back Monday.”

“Did the reserves deploy?” Sam pressed.

“Only one out of the three, apparently,” she said. “I was in my office when it happened. All three men died within thirty seconds of when their chutes should have opened, maybe ten to fifteen seconds apart.”

“Did anyone see the whole thing?” Dean asked.

“You should talk to the pilot.”

“Is he here?”

“She,” a woman said from behind them.

The attractive woman was in her late twenties and wore a brown leather bomber jacket, black top, distressed denim jeans, and scuffed brown leather boots. Naturally tan, she wore little makeup and her dark brown eyes were red rimmed, as if she had been crying.

“Luna was their pilot,” Angie explained. “Luna, these gentleman are insurance adjusters investigating the accident.”

“Luna Checchini,” the pilot said, offering her hand to shake Sam’s and then Dean’s before continuing. “I took those guys up a half dozen times. Maybe more. Since they got out of college. They always jumped together. They’d hit on me on the ground, kind of like it was expected of former frat boys, but once we were airborne, they were totally focused on the jump, the thrill of it.”

“Any drinking or controlled substances involved?” Dean inquired.

“No, they weren’t like that,” Luna said. “They got a natural high from the jump itself. I doubt they’d ever mix
that with… recreational substances.”

“Luna, did you see what happened?” Sam asked her. “After they jumped?”

“Mac—Bob McGlaughlin—jumped last. Just as he pushed off, the plane hit a bit of turbulence and he fell awkwardly. It happened in a split second. I came around as quick as I could. From what I could tell, he never attempted to open his chute. The AAD should’ve fired, but never did. He hit the ground first.”

“What about”—Sam referred to his notes—“Art Polan and Dave Jackson?”

“Art’s chute came out tangled,” she said softly. “I knew it was his because it was red and green. Christmas colors. Dave’s was red, yellow and black. From what I could see, Art tried to fix his chute, but gave up and released it. Right after that he should’ve pulled the reserve handle. Either he didn’t pull it or it malfunctioned. Regardless, his AAD should’ve fired, releasing the reserve. That never happened.”

“And Art?” Dean prompted.

“His main canopy opened too fast and began to tear,” Luna continued. “He released it and pulled the reserve. For a few seconds, I thought he, at least, was fine. The reserve opened. But…”

“What happened?”

“His harness seemed to… to slip off him. It pulled away completely.”

Sam frowned. “Those harnesses are sturdy, right?”

“Very,” Angie interjected. “They have to be.”

“The police recovered some of the material,” Luna told
them. “One of the forensic guys said the seams came apart and the material crumbled, like it was rotted or something.”

“The kind of thing you’d notice when gearing up,” Dean said.

“And how do you explain three AADs all malfunctioning?” Angie said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

By the time the Winchesters exited the Skydive Launchers hangar, one news van had already left the scene, but the other reporter had finished her interview with the maintenance worker and was headed their way. Fortunately, she and her cameraman were engaged in an animated conversation and failed to notice as Dean and Sam turned toward the parking lot.

Dean was driving out of the lot when Bobby called.

Sam answered and Dean only caught his side of the brief exchange.

“Hey, Bobby, what’s up?

“The mall? Hold on.” Sam pulled a map out of the glove compartment. Roy had left it for them on the kitchen counter, next to the spare set of house keys.

“Browning Avenue and Route 38—found it. We’re less than a mile away.

“Okay.”

“What?” Dean asked as soon as Sam ended the call.

“It might be unrelated,” Sam prefaced, “but there’s a guy waving a handgun around, threatening to shoot people at the mall.”

“Wearing a bowler hat?”

Eight

The Laurel Hill Mall was a sprawling shopping complex extending over several blocks, with the main mall and its upscale anchor stores in the middle and smaller shopping centers and franchises scattered around it like retail ripples. The largest of the satellites was the Hillcrest Shopping Plaza on the opposite side of Route 38. Shoppers could leave their cars parked in either the mall or plaza parking lots and traverse a covered pedestrian walkway from one side to the other.

Route 38 was a major east-west traffic artery through the heart of the commercial district and convenient for drivers coming from or returning to Philadelphia. Browning Road bisected Route 38 and Dean raced through the lower volume of northbound traffic to the mall’s west entrance, darting between cars and interpreting yellow lights as hints to floor the accelerator.

Early into the evening rush hour, the mall parking lot was filling rapidly with after-work shoppers. Many people were paid on Thursdays and felt the need to unburden their bank accounts before the day rolled over. Rather than seeking the closest parking space, Dean swung into the first available slot on the north face of the L-shaped mall. According to Bobby, they would find the gunman in the turn of the L.

As they jumped out of the Monte Carlo, Dean reached under his suit jacket for the automatic tucked in the back of his waistband. Sam caught his elbow and pointed. In the middle of the north face of the mall, an empty police cruiser was parked in a loading zone with its lightbar flashing. That meant at least one cop had already answered the call.

“Remember, we’re insurance adjusters,” Sam warned. “Not FBI agents. We can’t go in guns blazing.”

Dean didn’t like it, but couldn’t argue. In addition to that first responder, more uniforms would likely swarm the mall in minutes and the Winchesters couldn’t flash phony FBI credentials this time to excuse gunplay. They had to act as concerned citizens—and as anonymously as possible. Anything to stay off Leviathan radar until they were prepared to take the fight back to the Big Mouths.

As he and Sam entered the mall through the southwest corner doors between Jamaican Nights Restaurant and Urban Apparel, Dean heard a gunshot, followed by panicked screams. People scattered away from the shooter, who stood in front of a display counter at Sparkles Jewelry, waving his gun—a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson—from the crowd to the scared saleswoman behind the counter. No bowler or
cane in sight, and the guy looked too short to be the man Ms. Sloney had seen.

A mall security guard in a brown and gold-striped uniform sat slumped against the wall beside the jewelry store, unconscious. At first Dean thought the gunman had shot him, then he saw another body, obstructed by a colorful mini-train, the kind with wheels that drove toddlers in circles in open areas of the mall. Only the victim’s leg extended beyond the red caboose of the train, but that was enough to reveal a charcoal gray uniform with gold piping. The leg twitched.

“Sam, he shot a cop,” Dean said. “Behind the train.”

From the same vicinity, a woman screamed, “Help! He’s dying!”

People with wide eyes, clutching shopping bags, streamed past the Winchesters, heading for the nearest exit. Others hid behind support columns or display racks in nearby stores, afraid to move into view and risk the gunman firing at them.

“I’ll take the gunman,” Sam said. “Go around. Check on the cop.”

Sam took a stealthy approach to close the distance to the shooter, while Dean crossed to the far side of the hallway and hurried toward the center of the mall. He looked like another frightened shopper, but with a poor sense of direction, moving away from the exit. As the gunman swiveled his arm back to the saleswoman, Dean moved forward, taking cover behind the locomotive of the train. Ducking, he ran along the arc of the train cars, hidden from view.

A young woman kneeling amid dropped shopping bags was squeezing the left hand of a trembling police officer
lying on his back, bleeding from an abdominal gunshot wound. He was moaning and mumbling, eyelids fluttering.

“Please! Help him! He’s dying! Do something please— please!”

Untended, the cop would bleed out in minutes, and he was going into shock. Dean peered over the caboose and spotted Sam edging toward the gunman, just on the periphery of his vision. As soon as the guy noticed Sam moving in, he would panic and start shooting in his direction.

Dean grabbed a package of three white T-shirts that had spilled out of a bag. “Listen to me,” he whispered urgently to the woman, “I need you to—”

“Please! You have to help him!”

“Lady, you—”

“Hurry! Do—”

“Lady, what’s your name—your name?”

“What? Mimi—Mimi Gendron. But I’m not—”

“Mimi, you can do this.”

“I don’t know h—”

“We need to stop the bleeding,” Dean said as he ripped open the pack of T-shirts. He folded two on top of each other and pressed them against the wound.

“Press your hands against this. Now!” Mimi nodded and put her hands against the T-shirts, which were already soaking up blood. “Apply pressure. Don’t let up. Paramedics will be here in a couple minutes. Just hold tight. Can you do that?”

“Yes—yes!”

“Good,” Dean said. “He’s going into shock, so we need to keep him warm.”

Dean grabbed a sweater dress and two pairs of jeans and wrapped the extra clothing around the trembling cop.

His gun must have flown out of his hand when he was shot. Dean glanced around and spotted the automatic twenty feet back, on the floor under the information counter. After he had lost the gun, the cop must have reached for another weapon from his belt—a black cylinder was slipping from his weak grip. Dean grabbed the extendable baton and snapped it open.

He looked at Mimi, who continued to hold the reddening T-shirts firmly against the cop’s blood-soaked abdomen. “You good?”

Lips pressed together nervously, she nodded.

Dean turned away. He lifted his head high enough to peer over the train’s red caboose.

“Stop right there!” the gunman shouted. “Or I’ll blow your brains out!”

Dean froze.

But the man was facing Sam, who stood ten feet away from him, beside a mirrored support column, hands up, palms out.

“Easy, buddy,” Sam said calmly. “Nobody else needs to get hurt here.”

“She does,” the man shouted, briefly pointing the gun at the saleswoman. “Wouldn’t give me a refund for the engagement ring because I didn’t have a receipt!”

“Take the money,” the woman said. “Take everything you want!”

“I want what’s mine,” the gunman insisted. “That’s all! But you had to be a bitch about it, didn’t you? Just like my girlfriend.”

“She wouldn’t want you to do this,” Sam said, taking half a step closer.

“Lousy bitch! Says I have ‘anger management issues!’ The hell does she know?”

Sam edged another half step closer.

The man lunged forward and shoved his gun toward Sam’s head. “One more step and I ventilate your face!”

“Hey, douchebag,” Dean called from behind the gunman.

With the counter on his right, the man spun counter-clockwise, bringing the gun across his body toward the new threat. But before he could complete the 180-degree turn, Dean whipped the extended baton down on his wrist. He roared in pain, the revolver falling from his numb fingers, and clutched the injured wrist to his chest. Sam immediately stomped on the back of his right knee and the man collapsed, face first, with Sam following him to the ground. Sam pressed his knee to the gunman’s back to subdue him and Dean tossed his brother the pair of handcuffs he had removed from the injured cop’s belt.

While the gunman wailed in protest at Sam cuffing his injured wrist behind his back, Dean checked the unconscious security guard. The man was bleeding from a lacerated scalp, but his pulse and breathing were regular. It was probably a concussion, nothing worse.

Shoppers who hadn’t fled the mall after the initial gunshot raised their heads slowly from behind displays or came out of stores where they had been hiding, taking in the scene,
determining if the situation was safe and, if so, who had neutralized the threat.

Too many eyes,
Dean thought,
and cell phones with cameras and internet connections. We cannot be here. Might as well hang out a “come get me” sign for the Big Mouths.