High Crimes

“Mr. Kubik, come along quietly and no one will get hurt.”

Puzzled, Claire laughed at the absurdity of this. “Sorry, boys.”

“You’re making some kind of a mistake,” Tom said, raising his voice, no longer amused.

The man on the right abruptly grabbed Tom’s arm, and Claire said, “Get your hands off my husband.”

Suddenly Tom swung his briefcase to the right, slamming the man in the stomach, knocking him backward and to the floor, and then, in a flash, he’d sprung forward and was running away, into the food court, at astonishing speed.

Claire shouted after him, “Tom, where’re you going?”

Annie screamed, “Daddy!”

A voice yelled: “Freeze.”

Claire stared in shock as the two men chased after Tom, and then from all around the atrium men began to move abruptly. Why was he running, if this was indeed a case of mistaken identity? On her left, a couple of short-haired men in their late twenties, who’d been sitting having coffee in front of the chocolate-chip-cookie place, jumped to their feet.

Claire shouted, “Tom!” But he was already most of the way across the court, still running.

One of the men, wearing a navy blazer and tie, had just left the line in front of the pizza place and began gesturing to the others. He was older and appeared to be their leader. “Hold it!” he shouted. “Hold fire!”

On her right, another short-haired man, who’d been loitering near Yogurt ’n Salad, whipped around and joined the pursuit. A pair of tourists with cameras around their necks who’d been inspecting the Williams-Sonoma window display suddenly turned and began running toward the far side of the atrium.

“Tom!” Claire screamed. What the hell was happening?

From every direction now men rose from tables, emerged from nearby shops. Tourists and casual loiterers were suddenly moving quickly, smoothly, converging on Tom from every direction.

A loud, metallically amplified voice came over a bullhorn: “Freeze! Federal agents!”

The place was in an uproar. People were crowding at the glass balconies on the upper levels staring down at the scene in disbelief.

Claire stood still, frozen in terror, her mind racing. What was going on? Who were all these men chasing Tom? And why was he running?

“Mommy!” Annie whimpered. “Where’s Daddy going?”

“Cover the emergency exits!” yelled the man in the blue blazer into the commotion.

Claire held her Annie tight, stroking her face. “It’s okay, baby,” she said. It was all she could think to say. What was happening? From all over, people streamed into the middle of the food court. A young boy clung to his father’s leg, crying.

At the far end of the atrium she could see Tom, running even faster, knocking over chairs and benches as he went, suddenly swerve toward the white-tiled wall next to the Japanese take-out kiosk and grab a fire-alarm pull-box. A deafeningly loud bell began to clang. Screams now came from all directions. People were running everywhere, shouting to one another.

“Mommy!” Annie cried in terror. “What’s going on?”

Hugging Annie even more tightly, Claire shouted, “Tom!” but her voice couldn’t be heard above the incredible din, the clanging fire alarm, the screams from all around. She watched Tom sprint toward the bank of escalators that led up to the movie theater on the floor above.

One of the pursuers, a tall, lanky black man, managed to reach Tom and lunged for him. Claire let out an involuntary scream. Then, suddenly, Tom whirled around and slammed the flat of his hand against the black man’s neck, grabbed the man’s underarm with the other hand, and forced the guy to the floor. The man bellowed in pain and lay flat on the floor, eyes closed, legs twitching, apparently paralyzed.

Claire watched in speechless astonishment, a dull, almost vacant state of horror and disbelief. None of this made sense. All she could think was, Tom doesn’t know how to do any of these things.

As Tom streaked past a stand marked PASTA PRIMO, another man lunged from behind the counter, and Tom tackled him to the ground, then sprang to his feet, weaving away from him. But the man managed to rise and kept coming at Tom, now pointing a gun. Tom grabbed a heavy-looking metal briefcase out of the hands of a horrified onlooker and flung it at his pursuer, knocking the gun out of his hands and sending it clattering to the floor.

Then he wheeled around and bounded toward the fake waterfall coursing down its granite wall at the end of the atrium, just as two other men emerged from an emergency door next to the Italian restaurant just a few feet away.

Tom scrambled up the rocks and boulders in front of the waterfall and in one great leap — Claire could barely believe what she was seeing — he began scaling the jagged stone wall, grabbing on to jutting edges of stone, using them as finger- and toeholds, pulling himself up with his hands, face-climbing up the wall like a skilled rock climber.