Mom, I'm Bulletproof

Chapter 6: Murder in London, part 4

At around 6 p.m. the next day, Sam stood alongside the Thames River, admiring Cleopatra's Needle, when he heard the explosion.

The loud boom came from the West End, from the area of the telescope and Dr. Friday's office. Sam ran to St. Martin's Lane as fast as he could.

Smoke flowed from the roof of the Coliseum. Fire trucks and police cars lined the already narrow and congested street. A crowd of spectators gathered along the sidewalks, looking up at the building. Sam recognized several of the ballet dancers and theater personnel among the crowd. He didn't see Dr. Friday.

"Doc!" he shouted. "Dr. Friday!"

"Shut up, you stupid," a Londoner yelled at him.

With a ground-shaking boom, another plume of fire shot out of the top of the building. Some screams came from the crowd, along with a few ironic rounds of applause.

Sam heard a loud groan of metal rubbing against metal. The globe on top of the building slowly pitched forward, rolling over the statues beneath them, crumbling them into chunks and clouds of dust.

With a final metallic clang, the globe rolled off the top of the building, falling straight down, right over the heads of the crowd.

All the people in front of Sam stood motionless, staring upward with fear.

Without thinking, Sam shouted as loud as he could, "Move!"

What happened next came and went so quickly, Sam barely had time to take it all in until it was over. Wind blew down the street in a sudden force, knocking Sam forward to the ground. Instinctively, he reached out and grabbed a hold of a nearby lamppost and wrapped both arms around it.

The wind blew hard and loud, lifting Sam upward, making him horizontal as he clung to the pole. His legs felt like they tried pulling away from him, flailing about uncontrollably.

The worst of it was the sound. Sam felt the roar of the wind not just in his ears but throughout his whole head. He kept his eyes tightly shut, fearing that if he opened them, the wind might blow them right out of their sockets.

As soon as it started, it ended. Sam fell straight downward onto the sidewalk.

He took some deep breaths, and then weakly got onto his feet. The globe had fallen onto the street, covering it from sidewalk to sidewalk. It had embedded itself deep into the pavement, cracking the ground all around it.

Sam didn't see any people, but he heard them, crying and shouting farther down the street.

He saw a lot of smashed windows on the buildings around him, but only on the first few floors. Cars were overturned. A fire hydrant had been cracked open and became a miniature fountain. The top of the lamppost Sam had held onto had snapped off and was nowhere to be seen.

Sam put two and two together. The wind blasted through at street level, powerful enough to pick up all the passersby and blow them farther down the street and safely away from the falling globe.

"You all right?"

Sam spun around to see a London police car pulling up next to him.

"You!" a police officer said from the car's rolled-down window. "You all right?"

"I think I'm good," Sam said. "Go help the others."

The car pulled up onto the sidewalk, around the globe and farther down the street. Two other police cars followed. Black smoke still floated out of the Coliseum building.

The wind picked up from behind Sam again, blowing his hair from the back of his head forward.

Sam reached out to grab the lamppost again, but wasn't fast enough. The second hurricane-like blast of air lifted Sam right off the ground, with his body spinning and twisting in midair. Sam kept his eyes and mouth shut, but his arms and legs were at the mercy of the wind.

The gust stopped, and Sam felt a floating sensation for a moment. He then hit the ground with a fleshy thud. He landed on his side, with his shoulder and hip taking the most of the impact.

He was no longer on the street, but on the roof of the Coliseum. He knew that the wind had carried him up there. He recognized the roof even without the statues. The smoke came from the opposite corner, where the emergency door was located.

He thought of Dr. Friday. He stood with a pained groan and hurried over to the door. It was already open, and Sam ran inside.

Black smoke filled Sam's nose, mouth and eyes. Small pockets of flame burned on the floor all around him. Remembering some long-ago elementary school lesson, Sam got down on all fours, hoping the rest of the smoke would carry up to the ceiling.

He coughed a few times and called out for Friday. No answer. Although disoriented, Sam had his bearings enough to crawl in the direction of Friday's office. He recognized several pieces of the flaming rubble that had been strewn about. They were pieces of the telescope.

The air cleared for a second, filling the destroyed observatory with light from outside. It came in for a few seconds. The light came in through a gaping hole where the telescope once stood. Sam could hear the police and ambulance sirens from the street below.

The light also revealed a body partially burned in rubble not far from Sam. He hustled toward it as black smoke filled the room once more.

Sam had always assumed he'd see a dead body someday. He hadn't figured on it being a friend and mentor.

About two-thirds of Friday's body was blackened, burnt flesh. One arm was missing, and the other had been burned to the bone, which was splotched red with blood.

Sam coughed, and his eyes watered. He tried to convince himself it was because of the smoke.

The room filled with light again for a few seconds as some fresh air temporarily displaced the blackness. Turning his gaze from away from Friday's body, Sam tried to survey the rest of the wreckage.

That's when he saw another man in the room.

# # # # 

Into the wind.