by Marc Cameron
“Well, we made it, Chair Force,” he said, never missing the chance to take a jab at Quinn’s branch of the service. “And that ain’t no small feat. Getting all my boys here without someone throwin’ up or one bitin’ a hunk out of another is a minor miracle. Know what I’m sayin’?”
Mattie ran up and tugged on Quinn’s arm. “Come on, Dad. Shawn says the line to Dead Drop probably gets even longer after the sun goes down.”
“He does, does he?” Quinn shot a glance at Thibodaux. “Do I need to worry about your boy there, partner?”
Jacques gave a solemn sigh. “I would,” he said. “Poor kid’s just like I was at his age.”
Mattie ran ahead with the two oldest boys so they could stare together in awe at the distant waterslide. All three had carefully measured themselves several times over the last week to make certain they would meet the fifty-inch height requirement to step on the trapdoor that would take them down the Dead Drop. Now, even Shawn looked a little shaken by the sheer height of the monstrosity.
Camille stooped beside the van to blot Denny’s bloody nose with a tissue that she dug out of the pocket of the sheer nylon cover-up.
“You sure you don’t want to put on more clothes, Cornmeal?” Jacques called his wife by her pet name, throwing a diaper bag over his shoulder. “I ain’t gripin’ about the peek at your legs, mind you, but it’s liable to get chilly after the sun goes down.”
Camille shot him an impatient glare. “I shaved those legs in great anticipation of this trip,” she said. “And I’m not about to waste a wax by covering everything up.” Leaving Denny pressing the crumpled tissue to his nose, she leaned into the van to drag the baby out of the car seat and then nodded to the diaper bag in Thibodaux’s hand. Quinn had seen the big man in so many firefights and bloody brawls that it was odd to witness him acting like the big teddy bear that he was.
“Don’t forget to put a half dozen more diapers in there,” Camille said, strapping the baby into the stroller she expertly unfolded with one foot. “I just put a new bag behind the seats.”
Quinn walked with his friend to the twin ambulance doors at the back of the van. He shook his head as Jacques stuffed diaper after diaper into the pack. “The park closes in less than four hours. How many do you think he’ll go through?”
Thibodaux gave a long, low whistle while he mashed in more diapers. “I swear my Henry’s like some baby alchemist. He can manufacture a half gallon of poop from two tablespoons of strained peas.”
Quinn grinned, then turned more sober, nodding toward the park gates. “What do you think about all this?”
“I’m with you, l’ami,” Thibodaux said. The big Cajun looked sideways at the high walls and constant flow of people coming in and out of the park. “My first instinct is to keep ’em all stashed away behind the safe walls of my home. But I guess there’s risk in everything. There’s sure enough risk in makin’ our little ones grow up locked inside a fortress, that’s for certain.” A wide smile spread across the Marine’s face as his wife walked up beside him, pushing the stroller. “As it is,” he said, “I get to spend the next few hours looking at the best pirate booty around.”
Camille punched him in the arm, but the glow on her face said she never got tired of the attention he heaped on her.
Ronnie sidled up next to Quinn, holding one of the younger Thibodaux boys by the hand. Mothering suited her, but Quinn didn’t dare point it out. Apparently able to read Quinn’s worries from the look on his face, she fell easily into the conversation. “I have to admit I don’t like being unarmed, either,” she said. “I thought about putting a gun in my bag, but then I wouldn’t be able to leave it anywhere. There’s just no way to carry in a water park.”
“Speak for yourself,” Jacques said as the group began to walk toward the gates. Mattie and the three eldest boys took the lead, scampering ahead. Camille pushed the stroller while Jacques threw one boy up on his wide shoulders and took another by the hand. Quinn was the only one not watching out for a Thibodaux boy, which was all right with him. It allowed him to keep an eye on his daughter. He knew she felt like he watched over her with the intensity of a thousand suns—but he didn’t care.
“Wait a minute,” Quinn said, picking up his pace so Mattie didn’t get too far ahead. “You’re armed?”
“Damned right I’m armed,” Thibodaux said. “Got a little Ruger .380 under my board shorts.” He shrugged. “It ain’t much, but it’ll do for a gun-gettin’ gun. I figure if it ever hits the proverbial fan, there’s liable to be guns aplenty. I can use this to get me something bigger.” He gave the crotch of his shorts a tap. “Crossways, right here.”
“Looks like a way to shoot yourself in the femoral artery,” Garcia chuckled.
“Well,” Thibodaux raised the brow over his good eye and wagged his head. “I ain’t pointin’ it at anything important.”
Mattie drifted back, falling in beside Quinn as they neared the gate. “Dad,” she said, apparently having forgiven him for their late arrival. “Shawn says he’ll save me a place in line, but I’m so excited I have to go to the bathroom.”
“We’ll find one as soon as we get inside,” Quinn said. He tried to give Shawn Thibodaux a fatherly glare, but Ronnie punched him in the arm.
“That’s okay,” Mattie said. “I memorized the map. We turn left and walk through the food court. Restrooms are right on the way to Dead Drop.”
“Good job on the map, kiddo,” Quinn said. “But are you sure you want to start with the biggest slide in the park?”
“Daddy!” she said, lowering her voice so Shawn Thibodaux couldn’t hear. “Don’t act like I’m a baby. I’m almost nine, you know. We’ve been waiting all week to do this.” She blushed. “Anyway, Shawn said he’d go before me so I can see what it’s like.”
Quinn sighed. Maybe the nagging feeling in his gut had to do with Mattie discovering boys. If Shawn hadn’t been Jacques Thibodaux’s son, he might have taken the Dead Drop together with the boy and had a little man-toman talk—even if he was only twelve.
Chapter 2
8:00 P.M.
Mukhtar paced back and forth in the outer waiting area of the park offices. He’d demanded to see the manager, Mr. Cunningham, but Ms. Tiffany, the two-hundred-pound ball of rules and regulations who was his personal assistant, had decided any meeting would just have to wait.
Before now, Mukhtar had never known the sun to sink at such an alarming rate. It was well below the trees, and he could picture his father joining other neighborhood men at the mosque down the street from their apartment for Maghrib, or sunset prayer. The stone in the boy’s chest grew heavier at each passing moment.
Mr. Cunningham made it a point to tell all of his employees when they were hired that while he did not want to interfere with any religious practices, park rules forbade them from praying in public and frightening the guests. Mukhtar knew this was probably against some law, but decided he needed the job. Fadila did not argue with the boss, but made it clear to anyone who would listen that Buccaneer Beach was an evil place and Mr. Cunningham was little more than a dog. If she and Saleem were going to do something violent tonight, it would happen during Maghrib.
Mukhtar wheeled from the window and stood directly in front of Ms. Tiffany’s desk. “He is coming back soon?”
Ms. Tiffany was high enough up the park pecking order that she didn’t have to wear one of the stupid pirate costumes. Her green blouse and round figure made her look like an unripe tomato. A pair of white earbuds hung beneath frizzed red hair.
“I told you, hon,” she said, popping out one of the earbuds. “I do not know. Tell me what it is you need and I will pass it on to Mr. Cunningham.”
“You have to listen to me,” Mukhtar said. He leaned across the desk, talking through clenched teeth. “This is a matter of life and death.”
“I see.” The woman’s jowly face blanched white. She picked up the desk phone with one hand and her cell with the other. “Are you threatening me? Because I will not
hesitate to call the police.”
“By all means,” Mukhtar said, looking over his shoulder to stare out the window at the orange glow to the west. He looked back at the woman who sat frozen at her desk, then slammed his fist down in front of her, knocking a pile of papers to the floor. “Tell them the threat is to all of us!” Spittle flew from his teeth. “Have you ever seen what explosives can do to a crowd of innocent children? Please, call the police at once!”
He punched in 911 himself on the desk phone before turning to shoot a frantic glance out the window again. The last rays of golden light flickered out in the tops of the oak trees.
The call to prayer would begin any moment.
It did not matter now. The police would never arrive in time.
8:02 P.M.
The gathering darkness of late evening did nothing to thin the huge crowds. Strings of electric lights illuminated the concrete pathways between grass huts and wooden stands selling corn dogs, shaved ice, and pork chops on a stick. The smell of fried grease and chlorine filled the humid air and Quinn could not help but think there wasn’t enough oxygen to go around.
Immediately to their right, off the main path and next to a large wading pool, sat the hulk of a wooden pirate ship, complete with miniature slides coming off the deck. It was hollow inside with places for families to get out of the sun during the heat of the day.
“Listen up, powder monkeys!” Thibodaux bellowed. “If anybody gets separated, we meet back at this here pirate ship.” He raised his brow and looked from son to son. “To konprann?”
All the boys nodded to show they understood. When their daddy broke into Cajun, he meant business.
Mattie sprinted ahead as soon as she saw the long stockade-like building where the restrooms were located. Thick oaks that gave welcome shade during the day provided far too many dark places for bad things to hide to Quinn’s way of thinking.
Garcia stood next to him, patting his shoulder. “I’ll keep an eye on her,” she said, starting for the restrooms.
Quinn stifled a gasp when she walked past him. He’d been right about the yellow swimsuit. Theoretically a modest one-piece, there was little that was modest about it. With her build ever so slightly on the zaftig side of athletic, there was really no piece of clothing beyond a loose flour sack that could be considered anything close to modest on Veronica Garcia. She wore a black swimming wrap tied around her waist and a light shawl jacket much like Camille’s over her shoulders. Neither did much to cover anything up. The suit certainly offered no place to hide a weapon, even one as small as Jacques’s gun-gettin’ gun.
“I’ll go with them,” Camille said. “After seven kids, I know better than to pass up a chance to use the little girls’ room.” She took the baby out of the stroller. “It’s been fifteen minutes. I know this one will need a change anyhow.”
“I’ll wait here with the kids,” Thibodaux said, nodding to a bored-looking kid standing beside the high-striker attraction. “When you come back I’ll ring the bell with that big freakin’ hammer and win you a teddy bear or something.” He shook his head and winked at Quinn before staring back at his wife. “I hate to see her leave, but I sure like watchin’ her walk away.” He nodded to the milk can game next to the high-striker but kept his good eye focused on his wife’s back end. “You’re a hell of a pitcher. You should try and win Ronnie somethin’.”
Brad, the three-year-old, suddenly decided he needed to go to try out his new potty training. Jacques told Shawn to take him, but Dan, the second oldest at ten, volunteered. He was quiet, more reserved than any of his brothers.
“Go now or forever hold your pee,” Thibodaux said, rounding up the remaining sons. “The rest of you men stick with me.” Quinn appreciated the way Jacques expected even his youngest boys to act like men—though Shawn might consider himself a bit too much of one.
Streetlights blinked on up and down the park pathways in the gathering darkness. The last feeble rays of the sun finally winked out behind the trees as Quinn looked at his watch.
A fiberglass log splashed into the pool at the end of the log flume fifty meters away, sending up a chorus of giddy screams along with a huge spray of water.
A moment later and the entire park shook with the sound of an explosion.
Quinn and Thibodaux exchanged worried looks. A hot wind, the kind that came on the heels of a blast, blew in the men’s faces, bringing with it the smell of concrete dust and hot metal. Both had been downrange enough times to know the sound of a bomb when they heard it—and both knew full well that the smell of charred flesh would come later.
The Cajun scooped his boys closer in big arms, nodding back toward the gate where they’d entered the park. “It came from that way,” he said to Quinn, his face set in a grim line.
Terrified screams punctuated by sporadic gunfire filled the night air. People fled in every direction, disoriented and panicked from the blast and the ensuing gunfire. A woman ran past holding the limp body of a toddler that looked as if it had been dipped in blood. A man dragging what was left of a shredded leg pulled a woman much older than himself to a nearby patch of grass, where they both collapsed.
Camille ran from the restrooms. She pressed baby Henry tight against her chest with one hand and dragged little Brad along by a chubby arm with the other.
Jacques gave an audible sigh of relief at the sight of his wife. “Thank the Lord,” he said.
“Mattie and Ronnie?” Quinn shouted above the panicked crowd that ran in all directions.
“I thought they were behind me,” Camille said. She did a quick head count and shot a terrified look at Jacques. “Where’s Dan?”
Quinn nodded toward the pirate ship at the end of the kiddie pool. Rifle fire popped in front and behind them, bringing more terrified screams. The hulk of the wooden ship appeared to be the only safe direction to go.
Thibodaux put a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “Take the boys and hide in the boat. I’ll go get Danny.”
The acrid smell of smoke drifted on a wind from the initial blast. Thibodaux was already moving. Quinn ran beside him against the flow of a fleeing crowd, toward the sound of screams, gunfire—and his little girl.
Chapter 3
Mukhtar stood over Ms. Tiffany with both hands flat on her desk when the explosion rocked the building. The windows nearest the front gate shattered, showering the room with tiny shards of glass. Large white tiles fell from the suspended ceiling. Bits of fiberglass insulation drifted down onto the desk like snow. He’d spent his younger years in war-torn Iraq and knew the bomb was close when it went off.
Ms. Tiffany clutched the phone to her ear with white knuckles. “What was that?”
The flat crack of semiautomatic gunfire and the screams of the dying answered her question.
A rampant twitch spread from the corners of her mouth to her round cheeks, her chin, and then her eyes—as if she’d lost all control over the muscles in her face.
“P-p-please don’t hurt me,” she stammered. “Only Mr. Cunningham and the security guys have the combination to the safe. It’s impossible for me to get to the money.”
Ms. Tiffany obviously thought he was there to rob her. Mukhtar threw up his hands in disgust, causing her to hold up the desk phone receiver like a shield between them.
“I do not want the money,” he said. “I am here to help.”
“I have two kids,” Ms. Tiffany babbled, breaking down in earnest. “Please . . .”
Mukhtar pushed away the fear knotting in his belly and looked down at the pitiful thing. “What must I do to show you I am not your enemy?”
The woman stared at him, blinking back tears, her brain playing some perverse loop of what she thought he was saying. “I don’t have the combination—”
“Ms. Tiffany,” he said, affecting what he hoped was a soft and calming tone. “We need to call the police.” Perhaps a task would calm her down.
She pressed the phone against her ear in a shaking hand. “The line is d-d-dead,” she
said, dropping the phone and cowering lower behind the desk. “Please, I am a mother, for heaven’s sake. I beg—”
The office door flew open, causing both Mukhtar and Ms. Tiffany to flinch. Mukhtar felt certain he was about to be shot. Instead, the park manager, Mr. Cunningham, stumbled across the threshold clutching a wide-eyed little boy tight in his arms. Wearing only a bathing suit, the child was maybe two or three years old and covered from head to toe in gray soot. He blinked, staring at nothing with huge brown eyes, likely deafened from the initial blast and too frightened to utter even a whimper. Mukhtar heaved a sigh of relief when he saw it was the man he’d originally come to see. Mr. Cunningham was smart. He would know what to do.
“I believe Fadila and her friends are responsible,” Mukhtar said, spilling all his information at once. He felt a pressing need to explain everything he knew to someone in authority. “I came to tell you I saw Saleem had an explosive belt—”
Mr. Cunningham’s eyes fluttered. He pushed the child at arm’s length as if he wanted someone to take him. His shoulders sagged, and it was obvious he would not be able to hold the position long. Only then did Mukhtar see the jagged shard of wood sticking from his boss’s bloody shirt just below his ribs. Mr. Cunningham’s face grew more ashen by the moment. He gave the boy a final shove, pressing him into Mukhtar’s arms before staggering over to push Ms. Tiffany out of the way and collapse in her chair.
“Park . . . lights,” he gasped, his breath barely strong enough to propel the words. Sooty, bloodstained hands trembled over the computer keys. “Have to . . . turn off lights. Make it . . . easier . . . for everyone . . . to hide . . .”