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  “It probably is,” she said, fighting to keep her voice level and her thoughts clear. “The minute you can get back inside, start putting together a list of anyone at all who might have a reason to want to put us through this. Have your security manager draw up a list of everyone who was detained for shoplifting, and have your credit manager give us a list of everyone denied credit in the last six months. Mark Braden, who heads our security division, will fly down there tomorrow to work with your people. Now, get out of there—just in case it wasn’t a crank.”

  “Right,” he said reluctantly.

  “Call me from wherever you decide to go and give me your phone number so we can keep in touch.”

  “Got it,” he said. “Meredith,” he added, “I’m really sorry about this. I don’t know why this store is suddenly a target. I assure you we bend over backward for customers, in keeping with company policy, and—”

  “Adam,” she interrupted emphatically, “get out of that store!”

  “Okay.”

  Meredith hung up and punched the button for the line where she’d left Wilder on hold. “Nolan,” she said, “I don’t have time to talk about a board meeting now. The New Orleans store just had another bomb threat.”

  “This is going to play hell with Christmas profits,” he predicted furiously. “Keep me posted, Meredith, you know where to reach me.”

  Meredith mumbled a distracted promise, and then launched into action. Looking at her secretary, who was hovering anxiously in the doorway, she said, “Have the paging operator give out the emergency code. Hold all my calls unless they’re critical, and if they are, put them through to me in the conference room.”

  When her secretary left, Meredith stood up and began to pace, telling herself this was nothing but a false alarm. On the store’s intercom system the emergency code was already beginning to ring—three short bells followed by three long ones—notifying all department heads to assemble immediately in the designated emergency location, which was the conference room adjoining Meredith’s office. The last time that emergency code had to be used was two years before, when a shopper had died of a heart attack in the store. Then, like today, the purpose for assembling everyone was primarily to keep them informed and, therefore, prevent a hysterical outbreak of gossip among the employees, and to plan what information would be given to the press. Like most large corporations, Bancroft & Company had an established set of procedures for dealing with emergencies such as personal injuries, fires . . . and even bomb scares.

  The possibility that a bomb might actually explode in New Orleans and injure people was more than Meredith could bear to contemplate. The thought of a bomb going off after the store was cleared was less horrifying but sickening nonetheless. Like all the Bancroft branch stores, the New Orleans store was beautiful, distinctive, and new. In her mind, Meredith saw its splendid white-pillared façade gleaming in the sunshine, then she saw it exploding and collapsing, and she shuddered. There wasn’t a real bomb in it, she told herself, it was another false alarm. A false alarm that would cost the store dearly in lost Christmas profits.

  The store’s executives were hurrying past her doorway, assembling in the conference room, but Mark Braden, according to established procedure, came straight into her office. “What’s happening, Meredith?”

  Meredith told him, and he swore under his breath, looking at her in angry consternation. When she finished telling him about the instructions she’d given MacIntire, he nodded. “I’ll catch a flight out there in a few hours. We’ve got a good security man in that store. Between us and the police, maybe we can turn up something that will point to a suspect.”

  The atmosphere in the crowded conference room was heavy with tension and curiosity. Rather than sitting down at the conference table, Meredith walked to the center of the room, where she could be seen and heard more easily by the men and women who’d assembled there. “We’ve had another bomb scare in New Orleans,” she began. “The bomb squad is on its way there. Since this is the second one we’ve had, we’re going to be hit with a lot of calls from the press. No one . . . no one,” she emphasized, “is to make any statements. Refer all inquiries from the media to public relations.” She glanced at the P.R. director and said, “Ben, you and I can work out a statement after this meeting, and—” She broke off as the phone rang on the conference table. “Excuse me,” she said, and picked it up.

  The manager of the Dallas store sounded frantic. “We’ve had a bomb threat, Meredith! The caller told the police that the bomb is set to go off in six hours. The bomb squad is on the way, and we’re clearing the store.” Meredith automatically gave him the same instructions she’d given the manager of the New Orleans store, then she hung up the phone. For a moment she was unable to think, then she slowly looked at the assembly. “We’ve had another bomb threat—at the Dallas store. They’re clearing it now. The call went to the police, just like the one in New Orleans, and the caller said the bomb is set to go off in six hours.”

  A flurry of furious exclamations and outraged curses erupted around the room, then died in the shock of the telephone shrilling yet again. The sound made Meredith’s heart stop, but she reached out and picked it up. “Miss Bancroft,” the policeman’s voice said urgently, “this is Captain Mathison over at the First District. We’ve just received an anonymous phone call from a man who said a bomb has been placed in your store and is set to go off in six hours.”

  “Hold on,” Meredith said, her dazed eyes leveling on Mark Braden as she stretched the receiver out to him. “Mark,” she said, automatically following procedure for the Chicago store and handing the matter over to him. “It’s Mathison.”

  She waited in a paralysis of fury and pain while Mark snapped questions at the captain, whom he knew well. After Braden hung up, he turned to the silent group in the conference room. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, his voice tight with anger, “we’ve had a bomb threat against this store. We’ll use the same procedure you’re familiar with for fire. You all know what to do and say to your people. Let’s get at it and get everyone out of here. If you’re feeling panicky, Gordon,” he snapped, looking straight at Meredith’s problem vice president who’d started to mumble frantically, “keep it to yourself until your staff has cleared out!” He threw a quick glance at the other faces in the room. They looked tense but composed, and he nodded curtly, already turning to leave and instruct his own staff to supervise the evacuation procedures. “In case you don’t normally use them,” he called behind him, “don’t forget to take your pagers with you when you leave.”

  Within ten minutes Meredith was the only one present on the executive floor. Standing at her window, she listened to the sirens wailing and watched as more fire trucks and squad cars jammed into Michigan Avenue to reinforce those that were already there. From her vantage point fourteen stories above street level, she watched the police cordoning off the store and shoppers pouring out of it in droves, while the knot in her chest grew and twisted until she could hardly drag air through her lungs. Although she’d ordered the heads of the other two stores to evacuate, she herself had no intention of leaving this one until she absolutely had to. This store lived and breathed for her; it was her heritage and her future; she refused to desert it or be driven out until the bomb squad needed it completely cleared. Not for a moment did she believe there was a bomb in any of her stores, but even if the threats were just that, the damage they were going to do to the company’s profits would be great. Like many other department stores, Bancroft’s depended on the Christmas season for over forty percent of its annual gross sales.

  “It’s going to be all right,” she told herself aloud. She turned away from the window, her attention caught by the twin computer screens on her credenza. They were flashing now because the computers were updating sales figures from the Phoenix and Palm Beach stores. Reaching out, Meredith pressed the combination of keys that showed the Phoenix store’s sales figures for this same day last year, and then those from the Palm Beach st