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he could run in them if necessary.
    The jogging shoes he’d kept and thrown into a duffel bag with everything else he would need including a syringe filled with a toxic cocktail he always carried for himself. It was one more detail, a safeguard for a project manager who insisted on controlling even the details of his own death if it came to that. Today he’d need to use it on the surviving carrier instead of on himself.
    He had never intended to return to the scene but took every precaution if it became necessary. He had researched and studied the mall’s routine until he knew it by heart. Within seconds the mall’s security would come over the public address system announcing “an incident” and ordering a lockdown. Shops would pull down their storefront grates. Kiosks would close down and secure their merchandise. By now the sprinkler systems on the third floor would have been activated. Escalators and all portions of the amusement park would come to a screeching halt.
    The fire department would be alerted as soon as those sprinklers opened. Asante expected their sirens any moment now. In fact, he was surprised he didn’t hear them already, but the snow might slow them down. The local police would follow. As soon as a bomb was suspected, a bomb squad and a sniper unit would be sent. Mall security carried no weapons. Asante figured he had ten minutes at least, thirty minutes at the most, before he had to deal with a ground and air mass invasion of armed responders.
    As he plodded through the snow he set his diver’s watch to count down the seconds. Thirty minutes should be more than enough time to find the errant carrier and terminate him.

CHAPTER
8
     
    P atrick shattered the glass to get the fire extinguisher. Yards away, the explosion had blown out storefronts and ripped open brick walls, yet here it hadn’t left even a crack in the glass case that housed the fire extinguisher. He pulled the extinguisher’s pin, ready to use it, but found only smoke, no fire. Still, he pushed his way through the gray mist, thick and wet like a fog on a humid summer morning. Again, he was going the wrong direction. He waited until a stream of shoppers shoved by, then he tried to move forward.
    Over the intercom he heard the mechanical voice repeating the same calm message, “There’s been an incident at the mall. Please remain calm. Walk, don’t run, toward the nearest exit.” The Muzak system was still playing holiday songs. No one noticed either.
    Patrick stopped to help a woman who had gotten shoved to the side. She was wrestling her baby out of a stroller. The infant looked unharmed but was screaming. The mother was wide-eyed and panicked.
    “Oh my God, oh my God!” she kept mumbling.
    Her hands were shaking and jerking at the blankets and straps that kept the baby restrained inside the stroller. She stumbled and rocked back and forth, losing her balance like someone who had too much to drink. Patrick noticed she didn’t have any shoes on. Her feet were already bloodied from the shower of glass that glittered the floor. He looked around and discovered the three-inch heels tossed aside. He scooped them up and offered them to her.
    “Your feet,” he pointed.
    She didn’t seem to hear him. She didn’t even look up at him. Once she had the baby in her arms she ran for the escalators, leaving behind the stroller, a diaper bag, a purse…and her shoes. She didn’t notice the trail of blood her feet left.
    Patrick put out one fire, a kiosk of cell phones already charred from the blast. He recognized a couple of stores and knew he was close to the food court. It had to be just around the corner. The smoke was thicker here. Harder to see. He had to feel alongside the wall and watch his feet. Debris littered the floor, slick and crunchy. He worried the rubber soles of his One Star high-tops might not be thick enough to withstand the larger pieces of glass and metal. Through the smoke he saw a sign for the restrooms. It