by Jon Land
“Believe me, I don’t have a choice.”
“Like me with the boys?”
“Sort of.”
Hope’s eyes swept through the shanty again and came to focus on the stinking sewer stream running down the channel in its side. “Ain’t much, but the boys think they’re livin’ like kings. Compared to most around here, they are, too. Given a choice not a one of ’em would leave, neither. This is all they know, and none sees a reason to know any more.”
Just then, the sound of feet pounding quickly up the steps leading to the shanty made both Blaine and Reverend Jim turn toward the doorway. Hope met the trio just inside, and the lead boy whispered something in his ear.
“They found the woman, governor,” he reported, turning back toward Blaine.
Blaine rose rigidly to his feet. “Where?”
More whispering. “It ain’t good, governor.”
“Where!”
“She’s holed up at a circus in Barra da Tijuca, and Da Sa’s men are gonna move on her come the opening tonight.”
Blaine came forward. “Da Sa’s men? Why?”
“I reckon whoever turned them against you, turned them against her, too.”
“Just tell me where, and if one of your boys can get me a gun…”
The much smaller Reverend Jim stopped him with a hand pressed flat against his chest. “Need yourself an atom bomb to go against these odds, and one of those ain’t easy to pick out of a pocket.”
“You got a better idea?”
Hope’s wide smile revealed the brownish edges of his teeth. He spoke as the complement of boys present in the shanty came forward to enclose him.
“When going up against an army, governor, it’s best to bring one of your own.”
Chapter 24
“HIDING WOULD SEEM a safer bet,” Patty suggested as she walked alongside John Lynnford toward the Ferris wheel, her post for the evening.
“Meaning a concealed place where you have limited range of motion. They find you and it’s over.”
“True.”
“And if they aren’t supposed to see you, neither can we. We wouldn’t be able to help you…. Patty, have some faith in Teresa’s work. All these people have to go on is a description you don’t fit anymore. Now do you want to hear the rest of the plan or not?” John asked her.
“I’m in your hands, right?”
“You’ll be taking tickets right in front of the platform. Someone else will run the ride, so you won’t have to worry about pushing any buttons or controls. You’ll be on ground level and not in plain view.”
“Why the Ferris wheel?”
“Central location on the midway in a relatively dark spot.” John pointed with his cane to the shopping mall parking lot on the circus’s right. “We’ll plant a car there this evening. When we close tonight at twelve o’clock, I’ll have one of our roadies escort you to it—just a couple melting into the crowd—and drive you to the airport. The professor’s working out the airline schedules.”
“What about tickets?”
“I’ll give you some cash to buy them out of tonight’s receipts.”
“That’s the problem,” Patty said, with a sigh.
“What is?”
“Where exactly do I go? I came down here to find the only man I could trust. I’ve got to get that message to him. If I don’t, he’s dead, and so am I. Eventually. Soon.”
“You want to stay with us, that’s fine, too.”
“Thanks for the offer, but no can do. What I know now goes way beyond me.”
“This a vendetta?”
“It used to be. Now I don’t know what it is.”
The yellow truck rumbled toward Barra da Tijuca, the boys filling its open back clutching the rails for handholds.
“Makes me feel like Bill Sykes,” Blaine said to Reverend Jim, who was squeezed next to him in the front seat.
“Bill who, governor?”
“Nevermind.”
Originally the plan was to take buses to the site of the circus, but seeing the yellow truck hauling fresh gas cannisters for the stoves of the favela gave Hope another idea. He knew the driver, and a quick exchange of words convinced him it would be in his best interest to drive the group to Barra da Tijuca. Blaine, dressed in native garb, could pass well enough for a local. The biggest problem was his muscular chest and arms, which made him stand out. The Brazilians were built lean and sinewy and the people of the slum seemed most impressed with such a well-developed stranger.
The favela’s construction boasted no overall plan. Layers piled atop layers, shanties tucked in wherever space permitted, created the serpentine structure of the steep, narrow walkways squeezed between them. Privacy was nonexistent, and ownership often changed as quickly as it took a pair of fast hands to pull clothes from a makeshift line.
Which was how McCracken’s tattered outfit had been obtained.
The sun was down by the time the truck dropped them off in the field adjacent to the Orlando Orfei Traveling Circus. Before entering the grounds, Reverend Jim gathered the boys around him, then gave each of them money for enjoying the attractions. Hope had also brought a pocketful of firecrackers with him; setting them off would be the signal that there was trouble. Beyond this, they had no plan. All Blaine could be sure of was that, according to Da Sa’s people, Patty was here, and that they were going to move on her tonight.
“Wait a minute,” Blaine said to Hope before the boys were dismissed to run amok. “Can they spot Da Sa’s men? I mean, can they tell them apart from the rest of the patrons?”
The boys’ collective smirk provided their answer as Reverend Jim nodded proudly.
“Interesting.”
“Got yourself an idea, governor?”
Blaine nodded. “Gather round, boys,” he said, “and pay attention….”
The crowds had begun arriving an hour before sunset, somewhat before the scheduled opening. The midway was already fully functional, although there were still some finishing touches to be added to the big top. The first show was scheduled for eight o’clock; succeeding shows would continue every hour on the hour throughout the evening. It was not an elaborate or lavish setup so far as such things went, but especially for the economically depressed people of the region, the circus was a not-to-be-missed highlight.
Patty quickly fell into the flow of taking tickets from the people forming an eager line in front of the Ferris wheel. The creaky apparatus whined into motion at the start of each ride, a speaker pounding out the same tune in rhythm with every turn.
She surveyed the strollers and ticket holders alike as inconspicuously as she could. She felt safe even in the spill of the thin light, even though she knew that, in all likelihood, the people who were after her had to be somewhere in the crowd. But they would be looking for the woman they got a glimpse of at the hotel, not the person Teresa had created. That, more than anything, gave her reason for hope and security.
Still, she had never felt more alone, and thinking of that made her think of Blaine McCracken. He lived in a world apart, alienated from the rest of a civilization that needed him to maintain its balance. He once told her how much he envied Johnny Wareagle’s reclusive existence in the forest, not realizing how much his own life had come to resemble it. You don’t have to pull out to pull away. McCracken had helped teach her that much back in the Pacific.
The Ferris wheel spun into the start of another ride, and Patty stuffed the tickets through the slit in the box in front of her. By sunset the ride was running at full capacity, seeming to strain under the weight. The entire midway was jammed now, no game or ride spared the inevitable line. Even the professor’s booth boasted a few skeptical patrons eager to test his knowledge.
Before her, the huge, muscle-bound Zandor was strutting proudly down the midway. He obliged children by letting them feel his muscles in the hope their parents would come to the entertainment tent, where he performed his act. Patty knew the steel bars the strongman bent were the real thing.
She concentrated on taking tickets, but once the ride started, she let her eyes roam. So far she hadn’t spotted anyone who looked suspicious. She took a deep breath. The chances of her being spotted had been reduced significantly now that it was getting dark.
A pop! sounded suddenly; behind her the Ferris wheel ground squeakily to a halt. A few of the people caught near the top screamed. Patty shuddered. Talk about bad timing! The damn thing had broken down, and now practically everyone at the carnival was looking in her direction.
“A cable broke loose down below,” the man running the ride told her. “I can see it. I’ll try to fix it.”
The man grabbed his tool belt and moved off toward the wheel itself, dropping down below it to get to the works and the faulty cable. The racket made by the stranded riders continued to attract bystanders. Although the true villain was the broken cable, accusations were hurled at her—in Portuguese, to boot—which she barely spoke at all.
She saw John’s face in the crowd. He was coming toward her, to rescue her from this mess! Then she noticed he was walking without his cane. Two men on either side of him were supporting him. The men were smiling. John wasn’t. They’ve got me, she realized, actually more worried about John than herself. They’ve got me….
Blaine had been walking about for twenty minutes when he first noticed the ticket taker at the Ferris wheel. He looked away, but something made him gaze back her way. The hair was the wrong color, the age, too, but something, something…
Could this be Patty?
He wasn’t sure until he saw the two men moving the woman’s way, dragging a third between them. Da Sa’s soldiers had one captive in hand and were now heading for the woman.
“Now!” McCracken ordered, rushing up to Reverend Jim. “Now!”
Hope’s hands jammed into his pockets and emerged with some fireworks and a lighter.
“Come on!” Blaine urged, just ahead of the first hiss, as flame met fuse, and Reverend Jim tossed the initial trio forward.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
McCracken shoved him aside. “Keep your eyes on the boys, Reverend. Keep them safe.”
“Where are you going?”
Blaine looked back one last time before sprinting for the Ferris wheel and the men approaching Patty Hunsecker.
“To work,” he said.
The popping sounds cost Patty a heartbeat, as John and the two men holding him captive neared the platform. The Ferris wheel had started to spin again, and behind her customers were piling out. She stood frozen, unable to move.
Turn myself in and maybe they won’t hurt him. What choice do I have?
That thought had been barely formed when she saw the shape whirling toward the platform, just to the rear of the trio approaching her. The night was dark, and he was darker, but Patty saw the beard, recognized him as his hands shot out in the direction of the men holding John Lynnford.
The goons holding the man with the limp never even turned. Blaine’s approach angled slightly from the left. He grabbed the one on that side by the scruff of his collar and heaved backward. When the man resisted, Blaine went with the motion and smashed him facefirst against the steel railing meant to keep eager patrons back. The one on the right had turned by then, the gun that had been pressed against Lynnford’s side coming up but not getting there before Blaine smashed the whiskey bottle against his face. It shattered against bone and flesh and the man reeled backward, crumpling, his cheeks and nose a spider web of blood.
“Come on!” he yelled to Patty.
Instead she leaned over to help John, who had been thrown down in the struggle.
“There are others!” she screamed at Blaine.
“I know,” Blaine said, ducking the gunfire that pulsed their way, bodies toppling in the path ahead of them. “The kids didn’t have enough time!” he shouted. “They didn’t have enough time!”
The plan McCracken had outlined to the boys was risky at best. Once they heard the sound of the firecrackers, they were to move in pairs on targets chosen by themselves. Not to lift wallets from pockets, though, not tonight. Tonight their targets were the pistols the enemy force undoubtedly wore beneath their jackets or clipped to their belts. Blaine had hoped to give them plenty of leeway. To pick and choose the time after he spotted Patty. As it turned out, he’d given them a minute at most, which meant few if any had completed their assigned task.
As he grabbed for Patty and Lynnford, he would have been surprised to learn that six of the fourteen additional gunmen had already been stripped of their pistols. Others either were equipped with minimachine guns or wore their pistols too well secured to make off with. But for these, the boys had an answer as well.
McCracken had expressly forbidden them to use the guns they had pilfered; nothing could have seemed worse to him than turning children into killers. But they had brought an assortment of other weapons that worked just fine. When a number of the still-armed gunmen drew their weapons, the boys were all over them with spray-paint cans, distorting their vision and confounding their aim. This much was accomplished ahead of the initial bursts of fire. At the sound of the gunshots, the boys scattered among the rest of the patrons along the midway, which had been turned into chaos.
A stray bullet caught John Lynnford in the shoulder as Blaine and Patty helped him backward. McCracken heard him gasp; he shielded the man with his own body as they dragged him into the cover provided by the guts of the Ferris wheel.
In the process, McCracken realized angrily that some of the boys had totally disregarded his orders and were in the process of firing back at the gunmen. For a time they held their own, but now those of Da Sa’s soldiers who had been stopped temporarily by the spray paint were joining the battle, shots firing wildly in all directions. Bodies surged down and through the midway, changing directions from one burst of fire into another. Booths toppled as patrons sought refuge. McCracken watched as a bald strongman lifted a gunman brandishing an Uzi up overhead and tossed him effortlessly into a neon sign advertising the TEST YOUR STRENGTH booth. Bulbs popped and crackled. The bell at the top chimed as the gunman crashed into the apparatus and tumbled it with him.
“Zandor!” Patty cried happily.
“Stay here!” Blaine ordered.
“Where are you going?”
“Out there to do what I do best, lady. And do it fast.”
McCracken had just slid out from the makeshift hiding place when five trucks roared onto the scene with gunfire marking their path.
He should have figured the opposition would have left some reinforcements back a bit—to be used only if needed, like now. The trucks roared onto the scene. The gunfire surging from them was indiscriminate, and bodies fell everywhere, some hit, some trying to find cover.
Blaine’s first order of business was to get a gun. He had scarcely left the cover of the Ferris wheel when he spotted the dark figure of Reverend Jim waving to him with pistol in hand. In a crouch, he rushed toward Hope, only to be caught in the spill of a truck’s headlights, making him an easy target for the gunmen on board. At the last possible instant, a shape lunged between the truck and him. The angle allowed Blaine to see the young American-looking boy named Edson, who had been part of that morning’s demonstration back at the slum, firing straight at the truck. It veered and crashed into the Ferris wheel, tearing away some of its supports and forcing it into a dangerous list.
Edson was turning proudly toward McCracken when a bullet smacked him in the stomach and blew him backward.
“Shit!” Blaine shouted, reaching the boy just ahead of Reverend Jim.
He grabbed for the boy’s pistol and rolled, bringing it up to fire on the gunman who had done the shooting. The three remaining bullets excavated the man’s chest, and he fell over backward. Blaine moved on toward Edson, who was twisting on the ground and screaming, greenish-blue eyes filled with fear. Reverend Jim got there ahead of him and was holding the boy still as best he could. He raised one hand long enough to give Blaine the pistol he had been waving.<
br />
“Get him to safety,” McCracken ordered. “Stay with him.” Blaine looked at the writhing boy. “When you get him quieted down and more comfortable, round up as many of the others as you can. I’ll join you later.”
“Sure about that, governor?”
McCracken looked at the four trucks still barreling through the midway spitting death.
“You can bet on it.”
The members of the circus had responded as well as could be expected, not fleeing but choosing to defend their patch instead. John had obviously prepared them for this kind of battle—Blaine could see men and women—every kind of crude rifle hidden behind the cover of what had been booths and stands—firing resolutely at the gunmen and the trucks. Their bullets kept the enemy at bay, allowing at least a portion of the crowd to dash to safety.
For his part, Zandor was hurling shards of steel rail used to fasten down the big top at the trucks as they passed by his position. Blaine saw one of his tosses strike a driver square in the face. The truck crashed into the refreshment stand and spun onto its side.
He felt he could handle the three trucks that now remained. The problem was how to stop the enemy still patrolling the grounds, shooting at anything that moved.
The answer occurred to Blaine when his eyes found the big top. He and Reverend Jim had taken stock of its contents when they had done a fast walkabout through the circus grounds earlier.
He dashed toward the big tent against the tide of people streaming out from it. Those inside were late finding out what was happening outside, but now they were joining the flow of the escaping mass. McCracken held fast to his two pistols, ready to use them at an instant’s notice if necessary. For now, though, even if he had been able to pick out the gunmen, it would be all but impossible to hit them without risking the lives of innocent people. Well, he was about to make what was already chaotic worse, though to his own advantage.
Dropping to all fours, he lifted a flap of the big top and crawled under, then made his way beneath the steel layers of platform seating. The show featured the circus’s fifteen trained lions, perhaps the attraction it was best known for. All the lions were still in the large performance cage, left there when the shooting started. They prowled anxiously about, roaring and bellowing. Blaine reached the door to the cage; it was locked. He fired one of his pistols at an angle certain to keep any ricocheting bullets away from the great beasts. Two shots were all it took. The lock lay in pieces. McCracken climbed up onto the heavy steel of the cage and swung open the gate. The lions emerged and padded silently toward freedom.