by Marc Cameron
“My name is Mukhtar,” he said.
Chapter 5
8:13 P.M.
The Middle Eastern newcomer, a teenager really, held a small boy of two or three in his arms. He looked to be protecting the child, but the thought occurred to Quinn that the young man could just as easily be using the small body to conceal a suicide vest. Just like the shooters he and Jacques had taken out, the newcomer wore the uniform of a park employee.
A woman with gray hair, frizzed and tightly curled from the humidity, snatched the child away, nearly falling backward into the crowd in an effort to get away. She looked to be in her late fifties. Her last name was Hatch, but she’d been as stingy with her first name as she was with kind words.
“I’m afraid we’re full, dear,” Ms. Hatch said, through a tight, pasted-on smile. More gunfire and broken screams underscored the thinly masked hatred. “You should just move along.”
“My name is Mukhtar Tahir,” the boy said again, dipping his head slightly. “I only wish to help—”
“Well, Mukhtar,” a skinny man in a Toronto Blue Jays ball cap sneered, eyeing the boy up and down. “How about you tell us what you use that box cutter hanging off your belt for?”
“Opening boxes.” The boy held up his hands. “You must believe me. I am in no way a part of this madness.”
Quinn stepped forward. “You said you want to help?”
“I believe I know the people responsible for the shooting,” Mukhtar said.
“Oh, I’m certain you do, my dear,” Ms. Hatch said through a clenched jaw that made her sound like a transatlantic snob. Quinn was sure he could hear her teeth cracking. “But we really are full to capacity here. You run along now—”
Thibodaux pointed at the woman, glaring at her with all the intensity of his good eye to shush her. “I’d prefer honest mean to insincere sweetness,” he said. “How about you shut up and let the boy say his piece?”
The man in the Blue Jays hat pushed his way through the milling crowd. He wore only a pair of white board shorts, which contrasted sharply with his deeply tanned chest. His teeth and darting eyes stood out clearly in the scant light from the emergency bulbs outside the ship. The man looked at Thibodaux and grunted, as if he wasn’t having any of it. “You’re big as a house,” he said. “I’ll give you that, but being big don’t make you the one in charge.” He rested a hand on top of his ball cap and looked directly at the boy. “Innocent bystander or not, the needs of the many outweigh being politically correct at the moment. This haji puts us all in danger just by being here.”
Mukhtar’s shoulders fell. He sighed and turned to leave. “I am sorry. I meant no ha—”
A rapid string of shots cut him off. Quinn held up his hand to keep everyone quiet. Thibodaux kept the shotgun but passed Quinn the little .380. They took up positions on either side of the door. The pirate ship itself was little more than a façade of plastic and wood that offered concealment but not real protective cover. Lead bullets would punch through without so much as slowing down. Thibodaux shot a glance at his wife, who put all her boys flat on the ground without being told, as if they’d practiced this very scenario. Garcia stood off Quinn’s right shoulder, far enough away to allow him freedom of movement, close enough to pick up the gun and defend should he become unable to fight.
On the sidewalk just thirty feet away a group of kids in blue and orange University of Virginia T-shirts had run headlong into one of the killers. Had they not, the shooter would certainly have discovered the pirate ship full of stowaways.
The jihadi was partially hidden from view by a grove of trees, but Quinn could tell from the size of his exposed arm that he was tall and well muscled. He barked orders in heavily accented English. The UVA students raised their hands, the three boys attempting to shield the two girls.
Mukhtar’s mouth fell open. “I know that one,” he whispered. “His name is Kaliq.”
“Please!” one of the girls sobbed, an audible catch in her throat.
“Have you got a clear shot?” Quinn hissed, glancing at Thibodaux.
“Neg-a-tive,” the Cajun said under his breath, the shotgun pressed to his cheek. “Bastard’s behind a tree. Buckshot pattern will spread from this distance and I’m liable to pop one of the kids. I could maybe get him in the knee but if he falls the wrong way and starts to spray us, we’re hosed.”
Outside on the sidewalk, one of the girls whimpered again. “You don’t have to do this—”
Her plea fell on deaf ears. Kaliq, who looked as if he could have played football at the same university, mowed the cowering youths down with a derisive chuckle as if he didn’t consider them worthy of taking the time to aim.
Quinn forced himself to watch the massacre, fearing he’d miss valuable intelligence if he looked away in disgust. All five of the youth collapsed under the gunfire. Mercifully, most died quickly, but one of the boys continued to struggle, attempting to put his body between the jihadi and one of the girls, even after he’d been shot. The gunman finished him off with a shot to the head. They were close enough that Quinn could hear the familiar thump of lead on bone, smell the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood on the night air.
Thibodaux cursed under his breath. “If he’d take half a step more to the right I could wax his ass—”
“Wait!” Quinn held up his fist when he caught movement through the trees. Even under the emergency lighting he could tell from the affected swagger that this was another gunman. “Second shooter at one o’clock, fifty meters out, coming this way.”
“Shit!” Thibodaux said through clenched teeth.
“Can you take them both?” Garcia said.
“Maybe.” The big Cajun shook his head. “But maybe ain’t good enough. They’ll have to get some closer to make it clean with the buckshot. If I only wing ’em . . .” He shook his head. “Well, you know what that would mean.”
Instead of waiting for his partner to approach, the first gunman walked through the trees to join him.
“Remind me to feed this Kaliq guy his guts when I see him next,” Thibodaux whispered so his sons couldn’t hear.
The man in the Blue Jays hat staggered back a few steps once the immediate danger passed, vomiting on his own flip-flops. His queasiness turned to rage when he looked up at Mukhtar.
“You . . . you get your ass outta here,” he said, stifling a sob as he stepped forward with a piece of concrete, intent on taking out his fear and frustration on the Iraqi boy.
Quinn slapped the chunk of concrete out of his hand. “Listen to me,” he said. “Everybody’s scared. But we have got to work together if we want to live through this.”
Thibodaux put a hand on Blue Jay’s shoulder. “Look, brother, it won’t do any good to be goin’ all Lord of the Flies on us.”
“I get it.” The man shrugged off Thibodaux’s hand. “You have the gun, so you make the rules?”
“Didn’t you hear what my little buddy said about working together?” Thibodaux said.
The man stooped to pick up the chunk of concrete again, homing in on Mukhtar. His voice was much louder than it should have been. “I don’t give a shit what either of you say. I got as much say as you do, and this guy is outta here.”
Thibodaux’s face fell dark as he leveled the muzzle of the shotgun at Blue Jay’s temple. “I just beat a man to death with a wooden mallet, dumbass,” he said. “I will not hesitate to end you right now.”
The man froze, eyes rolling toward the gun barrel. He choked back a frustrated sob. “Who put you guys in charge?”
Quinn shot a glance toward the door. “Seriously, you need to be quiet.”
Blue Jays shook his head. “You’re not the boss. I’m telling you, that haji’s gonna cry out to his own kind and get us all killed, slaughtered like fish in a damned barrel.”
“I said shut up,” Quinn hissed, fearing the man’s blubbering would draw the shooters back.
“I don’t want to die.” The man sobbed in earnest now, out of his head. “But when I do
, I want to die with some dignity—”
“Then wipe the snot off your lip and live with some.” Thibodaux cuffed him in the ear, rattling his teeth and knocking his hat to the ground. “In the meantime, shut the hell up.”
A young mother with tears streaming down her face stepped up from the mass of huddled bodies clutching her little girl. Blood from the wounded child smeared the belly of the poor woman’s swimsuit. “My daughter needs an ambulance. I heard you say the police are on the way . . .”
Quinn nodded. “I’m sure they are, ma’am,” he said. “But I have to be honest. The first responders will come in fast once they think they know what’s going on. These walls and fences will funnel them into a death trap.”
A high school kid in an open Hawaiian shirt shook his head in sophomoric disgust. “Way to keep everybody positive, mister,” he said.
Quinn stared at the kid hard enough to send him shrinking back into the shadows. “I prefer to see things as they really are,” he said. “Painting a rosy picture of how I wish they would be will just get us killed. I’m afraid we have to save ourselves. The police aren’t going to be much help right now.”
“They better help,” another woman said. “That’s what we pay them to do. You guys look like you’re planning something that will just get us all shot. I say we work our way to the gate. The police are probably already there.“
“Ordinarily I’d say that was a good idea,” Quinn said.
“Well, I think it’s a good idea now,” the woman said.
Quinn shrugged. “Do whatever you want. So long as you’re quiet and don’t get in my way. But I was just out there and saw a couple of shooters hiding near the gate.” It wasn’t in Quinn’s nature to try and convince people of anything. He looked around the room, working out the rudiments of a plan as he spoke. “Anybody in here have medical training?”
A young woman flanked by two teenage boys raised her hand.
Quinn didn’t even ask what sort of training. “You’re in charge of medical needs,” he said. “See if you can stop the bleeding on this one and then triage anyone else who’s hurt.”
“Run, hide, fight,” another man said. “I read online that’s what they say to do?”
“Yeah,” Ronnie said, “But who’s ‘they’? Every instance is different. ‘They’ don’t know shit about what’s going on here and now.”
“Maybe,” the man said. “But these guys have guns and we don’t. We can’t very well fight them off. Running might be our best option.”
“It may come to that,” Quinn said, holding up his hand at the sound of more gunfire as it illustrated his point. “But these shooters are moving around in ones and twos. The shotgun will hold off an immediate threat.”
“Excuse me for saying this,” Larue said, pushing the pirate hat back on his head. “But I heard you say you’re going out to find your kid. What are we supposed to do without the shotgun?”
Quinn shot a glance at Thibodaux, then looked back at Larue. “The shotgun stays here. We’ll take what we need from the terrorists. If you do have to run and it comes to a fight, swarm the bad guy. Everyone go at him at once. Attack back, so to speak. These guys are young. They won’t be expecting that.”
“A lot of people will die if we do it that way,” Larue whispered.
“They might,” Quinn said. “But it’s a certainty if you don’t. This can’t be handled with some easy checklist you read on the Internet. You have to be fluid, willing to change your strategy.”
“What about the police?” Larue asked. “Surely—”
“Look,” Quinn cut him off. He looked from face to face in the terrified group. “We have to rely on ourselves for the time being. These terrorists picked this park for a reason. High walls, limited access points. If the police that get here first make it inside without getting killed—and that’s a big if—they’ll move directly toward the sound of gunfire, working to stop the threat before more people are killed. They will step over the wounded—even children—and keep going, in an effort to get to the shooters as quickly as possible.”
“And you know his how?” the gray-haired woman asked, turning her glare on Quinn.
“Because that’s what I would do,” he said.
“We’re staying here,” Camille Thibodaux said. She gathered her remaining sons to her like bear cubs around a very protective mama. The desperate look in her eyes was clear, even in the dim belly of the ship. She seemed to force herself to look out the porthole, peering across the deserted walkway at the bodies of the murdered students.
“Jacques,” she said, her eyes still locked on the horrific scene outside. “You go bring back my Daniel. You hear me?”
“I’m sure he’s with Mattie,” Garcia said, the guilty catch still in her voice. “They probably ran together while I was busy fighting the guy in the restrooms.”
The Iraqi boy stepped forward, holding up both hands to show he was not a threat. He tipped his head to Ronnie, averting his eyes as he did. “A small girl wearing a yellow swimsuit much like yours and a boy with a very short haircut?” He turned quickly toward Quinn, as if gazing for too long on Garcia’s voluptuous figure might turn him to stone. “I saw these two little children on my way here. They ran toward the mechanical room above the log ride.”
Quinn’s head swam at the news. This boy had actually seen his daughter alive.
Garcia put a hand on his arm, seeming to read his mind. “Go,” she said. “I’ll stay here and look out for Camille and the others.”
Quinn opened his mouth to object, but she shut him down.
“I’d just split your focus—and we can’t have that.” She kissed him fiercely on the lips, something she rarely ever did in public.
“Boys,” Jacques said. “You protect your mama while I go and retrieve your brother. You hear me?” All six of them nodded. Even baby Henry.
Thibodaux passed Ronnie Garcia the shotgun, patting the wooden stock with the flat of his hand. “I’m much obliged, chérie,” he said. “Plug’s out of the tube so you got ten rounds of big mamma jamma buckshot in here. That’s ninety little lead chances to send some of these bastards to hell before you even have to reload. Don’t you let anyone near this place. Got me?”
Garcia nodded. “I’ll use them wisely,” she said.
“And some extras if you need them,” Jacques said. He gave her a handful of loose shells he’d got from the dead shooter’s pocket.
Quinn eyed the Iraqi boy. “You said you want to help?”
“I do,” Mukhtar said. “Very much so.”
“Then you’re with us.”
The boy gave an emphatic nod. “What are we going to do?”
Thibodaux scoffed as if the answer was all so clear. “We’re gonna go save our kids, and then hunt these sons of bitches down and kill every last one of ’em.”
Chapter 6
8:17 P.M.
The park was eerily still as Quinn and Thibodaux ran with the Iraqi boy through the darkness, past the restrooms. They kept to the cover of now-deserted snack stands and carnival games, working their way toward the fort-like wooden structure that housed the workings of the log ride. Gunfire popped and cracked at various points around the park, but the broken cries of victims seemed to pour in from every direction. Here and there, dark shadows crept and scurried through the trees like terrified rats—surviving patrons and park employees, all desperate to stay hidden but unable to find a way outside the high park walls. Any of them foolish enough to try the gates were cut down on the spot.
Quinn kept Mukhtar between him and Thibodaux as they ran. He shot a glance at the boy. “When we run into any of the shooters, you stay out of the way and let us handle it. Hear me?”
“Obviously,” Mukhtar said, trotting easily beside the men. “You appear to know what you are doing. I assume you were both in the U.S. military. Did you ever go to Iraq?”
Both men nodded.
“My father,” the boys said, “he was interpreter for the United States Marine Co
rps in Fallujah.”
“Well, ain’t that somethin’,” Thibodaux said, sounding unconvinced.
Mukhtar’s shoulders slumped. “It does not matter what I do,” he whispered. “No one here will trust me . . .”
“Well, son,” Thibodaux said, still jogging, “you gotta admit, these murdering sons of bitches who happen to all dress and sound and look just like you have put us in a tough spot. Makes it hard to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys. Sometimes profiling is the only thing between a bullet in the brain and makin’ it home to see your kids.”
“But they do not all look like me,” the boy said, his hands up and open, pleading to be understood. All three slowed to a stop, thirty meters from the hulking shadow of the log ride. “Tariq,” the Iraqi boy continued, “the one who I believe to be in charge, he is American.”
“A convert?” Thibodaux mused. “Are his parents refugees?”
“You do not understand.” Mukhtar shook his head, then shrugged, hands still up, and moving to emphasize each and every word. “His real name is Terry, Terry . . . Spencer, I think, but everyone calls him Tariq. He says his father is some kind of lawyer in Washington, D.C. He is as white as you.”
Chapter 7
8:18 P.M.
Fadila stood at the base of the Dead Drop waterslide and turned away from the young couple she’d just cut down at point-blank range with her pistol. They had tried to help her, believing that because she was a female, she was also a victim. Fools. Weak, incompetent fools.
Pistol still in hand, she used her forearm to wipe a spatter of blood from her cheek. She shot a triumphant glance at her boyfriend, a sly smile spreading across her angular face. The killing—all of it—was even more exhilarating than she had imagined it would be.
“It is working,” she said. “Just as you said.”
The boy with a mop of blond hair grinned back at her, brandishing a stubby black semiautomatic H&K MP5 that made him look even handsomer than she already thought him to be. He’d taken up the war name Abu Tariq—the Night Visitor. He was no longer boring Terry Spencer, only son of a mindless pawn for wealthy American pigs. Abu Tariq assured everyone that Terry Spencer was a disappointment to his father, but Abu Tariq did not care. Abu Tariq had left Terry Spencer behind and now wanted nothing more than to submit himself to Allah, to make a difference, and to eventually die a martyr alongside his new friends—especially Fadila.