“I know. Great way to rain on her parade, huh?”
Sam said, “I told Dave to come check on you guys. I told him where you’d be. We’re still a few minutes out.”
“What’s wrong, though? And who’s we?”
“The DARC Ops team arrived this morning.”
“Oh.” She sounded concerned now. Maybe more so than the news about Kurt.
“Yeah,” he said, sweeping his eyes over Tansy’s screen. Still nothing. Shit. “We just wanted to be at the parade to monitor it. It’s no big deal.”
“Well, will you be watching with me or working?”
“Clara, would there be any way to pull Molly out of it and take her home?”
“I thought you just said it was no big deal.”
“It’s not.”
“Pulling Molly would be a pretty huge deal. Sam, what’s going on?”
He didn’t want to tell her. He couldn’t scare her like that. Not until she was in his arms. How many fucking minutes away were they now? “Nothing, nothing. I’m just being overly cautious. Really, you shouldn’t have to worry.”
“I don’t like this, Sam.”
“Me neither. But we’re working on it.”
“And this thing with Kurt, too. Do you think he could know where I am?”
Sam ran through all the possibilities. He thought he caught a glimpse of Clara on the tiny screen. She was alone, vulnerable in a crowd. “What kind of privacy settings do you have on your social media?”
“What?”
“Facebook, Instagram, whatever. Are they private? Are they restricted?”
“Why?”
“Because he can see where you are. I know what you’re like with those selfies.”
There was a long pause. Jackson had begun to look at Sam with a hardening glare as their van bounced along the pavement.
“Clara?”
On the other end, he heard some scuffling, mumbling, wind noise.
“Clara, are you there?”
Her voice came back on the line, but it was panicky and scared. “Oh, God.”
“Clara? What is it?!”
“He’s here.”
25
Clara
He hadn’t put his laces back in his shoes since jail. They would have taken his laces and belt, kept them safe in a plastic bag. And now he was walking around with shoes that looked enormously silly, the shoe’s tongues flopping out with each step, the shoes themselves almost sliding off his heels as Kurt staggered into the middle of the street.
There was an immediate reaction from the crowd. First, laughter. If you didn’t know what you were watching, it was simply hilarious, this poor vagrant stumbling around like a vaudeville clown. He looked slightly dirty, with dried blood on his nose. Hair and clothes disheveled. The ready-made audience enjoyed their opening act, a warm-up before the parade, the clown in full view, now straddling the road’s center line.
Clara was horrified to see the state he was in. She was no longer talking to Sam, but just holding the phone, her mouth open in horror, her gaze locked on the man who’d done so much damage to her and Molly. She tried to look away. She couldn’t.
But now it looked like he’d finally done some serious damage to himself. He looked half drugged. He looked lost.
Was he even looking for Clara, or was he just out of his mind and headlong deep into a crack binge?
No matter how sad and upsetting the scene was, Clara couldn’t worry about Kurt or herself. Her thoughts turned immediately to Molly. Even assuming Kurt wasn’t dangerous right now, not with all these people about, if Molly saw her father like this, it would ruin her. Unlike the attack, from which she’d bounced back amazingly well, this could do her real damage. Not just some lingering fears that had stayed with Clara since the attack. Seeing her father wandering down the main street—definitely drunk and probably also high—half dressed and covered in dirt and blood. She was too young. It would change something profound in Molly. She couldn’t see him like that. Clara turned to leave, to find her daughter.
“He’s got a knife!”
She spun around, looking back to Kurt, her mouth open, her feet frozen in place. He stood in the middle of the street, swaying, and wielding a small knife. He was saying something, something quiet and incoherent. He was rambling.
“Someone call the cops!”
But they had already arrived, walking slow, guns drawn.
It was pure horror, the crowd’s laughter faded to a silent shock. Parents covered the eyes of their children, those who didn’t try to leave the scene. Older kids struggled free to see, and to fail to comprehend what lay before their eyes, the adult reality in all of its twisted and fucked-up glory. Could they really understand it? They must have thought it was just part of the show. Maybe an example of how not be naughty during Christmas time.
Kurt was certainly being naughty, even to the police as they closed in on him. He wouldn’t put down the knife.
“Drop the knife!”
He wouldn’t drop it. It seemed like he couldn’t.
Could he even hear or understand them?
“Drop the knife and get down on your knees!”
The crowd had backed away, moving faster as they tried to get as far away as they could, far from the knife, the police with guns, and the crazy person. But Clara was glued to the scene. “Don’t shoot,” she yelled out. “Please don’t shoot.”
No matter how awful he was to her, she couldn’t let him just die in front of her. No one deserved to die like that.
Though perhaps that had been his plan all along. Suicide by cop. Fuck! He might be a complete bastard, but she wasn’t going to let him kill himself.
“Kurt,” she yelled. “Kurt!”
His head moved over to her, twisting slowly. Yes, he heard her.
“Kurt, it’s me!”
His shoulders slumped.
“Kurt,” she cried. “Drop the knife.”
He dropped the knife.
She stayed at the curb, stayed long after most of the rubber-necking crowd had moved on, meandering back to their preferred spot along the parade route. Long after any threat of bloodshed had passed.
She stayed to see Kurt lying on his stomach, hands behind his back, and then behind his head, cuffed. Other hands lifted him and then walked him away. She stayed when peace was restored, and the police left the immediate area, slowly idling away.
She stayed, watching for Molly.
26
Sam
“Tansy, aim that thing hard left,” Jasper called out from the back of the van. “Some crazy fucker with a knife wandered out into the parade route.”
Sam’s blood ran cold. “Who is it?” He barely managed to choke out the words.
Tansy took one hand from the controls long enough to slap Sam on the shoulder. “Lose the stress, man. Look—the locals have him already.” He hovered the drone over an already-dispersing crowd. In the middle a man lay on his stomach, held down by two police. As they snapped on the cuffs and then lifted him to his feet, Sam got a clear view of his face.
Kurt.
Where the fuck was Clara? “Jasper, did anything else happen before they apprehended Kur—the suspect?”
“Nope. Just a drunk idiot.”
“Who’s the source?”
“Captain Morin.”
Sam wasn’t sure whether that was any relief. Then again, maybe it might cause the delay they sorely needed.
“But it wasn’t anything to do with terrorism, and so according to the old bastard, the parade is still on.”
They were running.
Running with as much equipment as they could carry. No biohazard suits. No masks. No clue as to what or who to expect.
Jackson kept telling him that being there was a precaution. A necessary safeguard. Sam didn’t believe a word he said. Neither did Jackson, but it was nice of him to try to stop Sam from completely losing his mind as they rushed toward the scene.
After leaving Tansy back in the van to overse
e communications, the four other DARC men rounded the last corner before the parade staging area. There, they were surrounded by the backlog of parade floats, all of them covered with fake snow and dazzling greens and reds. Right away, Sam spotted the float that Molly would be marching in front of. Clara had told him about it, what and who to look for: the Three Wise Men. The three magi. Balthasar of Arabia, Melchior of Persia, and Gaspar of India. Sam just hoped there wouldn’t be Akmed from Somalia with his finger on the trigger of a biological nightmare.
“Two groups,” Jackson ordered as they came to a huddle on the busy sidewalk. “On either side. Sam, you know what to do.”
Sam nodded. He knew what to do. What he did best.
He knew how to differentiate between spectators in the crowd, and plotters. People watching the floats, and people overseeing a potential terrorist attack. The whole demeanor of the facial expression, the tight concentration.
“This is your show,” Jackson told Sam. “So this is your call. If there are some bad guys here, you better find them.”
And so they started out, Sam walking down the line, looking at both the crowd and the parade participants.
Who looked out of place?
It was a more difficult task than he’d assumed. Jackson checked in regularly for updates, but there were none.
“Keep looking,” he said.
But even Sam was beginning to feel discouraged now. The crowd was huge, and he would have to walk miles of it through the city. They were only in the staging area and it was set to start in minutes. Even if he got his hands on Tansy’s newest toy, there was simply too much ground to cover.
Fuck . . .
It was obvious. They were too late.
Way too overwhelmed and underprepared.
If he had time, days in advance to prepare, a system could have been put in place. They could have even rigged up air-sampling devices along the route, aimed at detecting even the smallest amounts of VX and commonly used explosives. A trace signature, maybe even from those transporting the detonation device.
But they had nothing. Just their eyes. Just hunches. Just old school.
Sam saw Molly, but he couldn’t go to her, let her see him. They were both too busy in completely different worlds. Here Molly’s world was baton-twirling and Christmas and Santa, at peace and happy after days of worry. Sam was looking for a genocidal madman embedded in the parade. The guy might even be dressed like Santa.
Over his radio, Sam heard chatter about two individuals wearing masks. And then a moment later, “All clear.”
It was a cold day and Sam supposed some people might have their mouths covered. Elderly people, those with long-term illnesses. It didn’t necessarily mean they were expecting to block out a poisonous gas.
“Sam? Got anything?”
But there was a certain deadened look about a man leaning against a mailbox, a certain cold stare.
“Sam?”
“Got something,” Sam said.
The man wore an earpiece. He was talking to himself. No, to someone over his radio. And then he raised his hand up, and Sam could see what he was holding: a respirator and eye protection. The man was slipping it on his head while staring out across at the three wise men float in front of Molly. It would give him just enough protection to ensure a complete dispersal of the VX before he died, writhing in pain with the rest of the innocent crowd. They were fucking suicide bombers! Ones the likes of which the world had never seen before. Ones with enough of the poison to kill thousands, millions if the wind was right.
“The fucking three wise men!” Sam cried into his radio. “Behind Molly!”
He charged onto the street, running toward the float. But Matthias had beaten him there, scooping up Molly into his arms.
Sam had no time to check on her, no time to make sure she wasn’t too scared from the stranger grabbing her like that. He had no time to worry about the thousands of spectators. He had to assume that at any moment, VX would be released into the air in downtown New Orleans, causing perhaps the world’s worst terrorist attack.
At the side of the float was a small ladder, like that of a swimming pool, and he scaled it quickly and then jogged over to a man, who, just minutes before, had been waving politely to the crowd. Now he was moving forward, toward Sam. He wore a long, billowing golden robe. Beard. Head scarf. But for some reason, there had been something curious about his costume, something a little off. An oxygen mask, buried beneath the scarf.
Did the three wise men need oxygen masks for their desert travels? Or were they just wearing them now to ensure the completion of their deadly surprise?
Sam wasn’t a man to take unnecessary risks. He understood how climbing aboard this float and tackling this man would affect his professional life. He’d probably lose his job at George Washington, maybe even end up behind bars. He imagined Clara’s shock and horror at how her man had gone insane, how he’d ruined a Christmas parade because his own paranoia.
He didn’t fucking care.
Sam tried first to reason with him. “Can I ask what you’re doing?”
The magi was silent.
“What is that?” Sam said, pointing to where he had been sitting. A stool next to a large box. “What were you doing there?” He took a step toward the box, moved one hand to slowly lift the lid.
He felt someone’s arm around his throat, from behind, a strong pressure around his airway so that breathing was hard and noisy. He couldn’t say anything. He could barely move.
And then he felt the smooth, cold blade of a knife against his flesh.
“Move and I’ll kill you,” the man from behind said. But he couldn’t have moved if he’d wanted. “You stay right here.”
Sam noted the North African accent. He noted how close he was to death. It was interesting, really, how sharply everything came into focus when facing your own death.
The other magi moved back over to where he had been sitting, saying something in Arabic before putting his mask back on and doing something with that box.
“What’s your friend doing over there?”
“Shut up.” He was wearing his mask now, his voice was muffled.
“What’s the mask for?” Sam asked.
The knife slid harder against his throat.
Was it worth having his neck slit open? He could try to struggle free and tackle the terrorist with the VX box. He could at least try. Even if he was wrong about the whole thing, how could he live with himself if he didn’t even try?
He wasn’t wrong.
His attacker, seeming to anticipate Sam’s last-ditch effort, wrapped his leg around Sam’s and leaned his weight onto him, the two of them crashing down on the top of the float. He pushed back, struggling against the other man, but the knife only pressed harder into his flesh.
Jackson was there, preoccupied with the two other magi. He wasn’t going to be able to help Sam. He at least seemed to be getting somewhere with stopping them fiddling with the damn box, though. Thank God for that.
The man shifted the knife against his skin. This current breath was likely to be his last. He’d never see Clara again, nor Molly. But in some way his actions had saved them. He was okay with that, okay with dying for them. Even if it was on a stupid parade float.
But then his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of screaming, and the screeching of tires, and the loud, splintering crash of wood. The float rocked backward and was now tipping at a steep angle. Sam and the masked man tumbled down onto the street, the knife slipping away from his neck. Only a fraction—just enough for Sam to grab the other man’s wrist. Just enough for him to twist his arm, forcing the knife to clatter to the ground. Just enough for him to duck under and behind, pinning the wise man’s arm and pushing him to the ground.
“Sam! Where’s the damn trigger?! These assholes don’t have anything on them.” Jackson’s voice bellowed from above, piercing any fog of relief. Still holding his wise man immobile with a knee in his back, Sam patted down his body with his free hand
.
“Tansy! Get the fuck over here and remove the detonator!”
The cavalry had arrived. Or at least Tansy had. It would only be a matter of time before the area was swarming with Feds. Even those idiots couldn’t miss this. Of course, they’d want their slice of the action, and probably all of the credit. Sam didn’t care about any of that. All he cared about in that moment was the asshole currently trying to worm his way out from under him.
There! Sam felt a small but solid lump sewn inside the man’s costume, a small seam already rigged to give way. He tugged and the device fell into his hand, just as Jackson jumped off the float and landed in front of them both. Sam held the device out, a grin forming on his face.
Strangely, he could breathe again. He looked over at the cracked windshield of the car, his unexpected saving grace. Dave was slumped behind the wheel. As Sam stared, Dave sat up, slowly, as if waking from some gentle slumber. He gave Sam a little wave and then fell back again, a smile on his face.
27
Clara
The elevator doors shut and they were alone again, briefly. Through the last few days they’d only had little snippets of privacy. Small blocks of time, minutes, between the all the questions and scrutiny of the investigation. When their elevator stopped and when its doors opened up to the sixth floor of the District Attorney’s building, they would be back in the bright lights.
After all the mess at the parade, she and Sam had been separated for hours. Despite nothing actually being released—and Clara thanked God every day since for that—those with badges who eventually arrived insisted on the entire DARC Ops crew following them for decontamination, and then a long debriefing. It was apparently nothing new to Sam, being tied up for hours with government agencies, but it frustrated the hell out of Clara. Especially when she found out every piece of Sam’s clothing was removed and destroyed, him being scrubbed down in some fancy-ass shower before being given scrubs to wear back to the hotel. He had even looked sexy in the thin, baggy material, his hair disheveled from running his hand through it way too many times. It was often the only outward sign of frustration Sam ever showed. She was learning to read him, though, and soon she’d know him better than anyone.
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