Fires of Midnight

by Jon Land

  Hearing the rustling of many footsteps approaching him, Blaine took to the water. He sank into its murky four-foot depth, aware for the first time how much the simulated sounds of birds and insects mirrored the real versions in true jungles. He swam beneath a cascading waterfall and followed the flow of the man-made river toward a family of bathing elephants, taking cover amidst them as another pair of boats cruised by. He could see gunmen perched on every shoreline searching the waters for him as tour boats snailed past. Too many of the opposition covering too many different angles to contend with at this point.

  What did that leave?

  Another boat sailed by him, its tour nearing an end, and Blaine noted the mooring rope dangling over its side just below the waterline. He took a deep breath and swam out underwater, catching up with its stern. He reached up and took hold of the rope, pulled along for the ride. The boat provided enough cover for him to pop his face above water from time to time for breath.

  He hung on until the boat glided up to the dock and was tied down. As passengers began disembarking, McCracken pulled himself on board into the center of the people climbing off. The passengers either assumed that was part of the ride or assumed nothing, because no one said a thing, not even the shocked safari-dressed monitor who eyed him as he passed.

  “I guess I got my money’s worth,” Blaine said and headed off.

  Having dispensed with her wheelchair, Susan Lyle pushed herself through the crowd along the parade route searching for Joshua Wolfe. The fact that many of the men from Group Six were posted along the route indicated the boy had not been found yet. If he had managed to recover his remaining vial of CLAIR, this would be the time to escape with it. Right now the second of two high school marching bands was striding down Main Street U.S.A. in the shadow of Cinderella’s Castle. The sidewalks along the route were so jammed with people that movement had become extremely difficult.

  “Excuse me, excuse me,” Susan kept muttering, her voice like a tape playing in her head.

  She had reached the sidewalk in front of the Penny Arcade when she saw a familiar shape dodging through the crowds on the other side of Main Street.

  Josh!

  Dressed in a blue shirt and wearing a baseball cap to hold back his long hair. Baggy jeans sagging toward his hips.

  Susan squeezed forward, reaching the front of the curb and ducking under the rope placed there to serve as a barrier. Once in the street, she ignored the protests of blazered Disney personnel and dodged the horn section of the high school marching band to make it across.

  She had lost track of Josh, but he was somewhere up ahead, just beyond her, and she continued to push on in his trail.

  Once out of the water, McCracken tried unsuccessfully to raise Johnny and Sal on his communicator. Evidently his stay in the man-made river had short-circuited one of its more tender operating chips, leaving him cut off from them.

  Hoping the darkness would provide sufficient camouflage for his soaked clothes and thankful for the warm summer night, Blaine headed toward Main Street and the parade in search of Joshua Wolfe. His wet shoes sloshed as he walked, drawing curious stares he did his best to ignore.

  He managed to catch up with the evening’s second preliminary band as it crossed between the Penny Arcade and the Plaza Ice Cream Parlor. Twenty feet ahead, just past the Main Street Bake Shop, he saw a woman forging determinedly through the masses of people on the sidewalk. He recognized Susan Lyle just as she reached out to grab the shoulder of a boy dressed in a dark blue shirt and raced toward her.

  “Josh …”

  Susan spun the boy toward her and froze. Her face fell.

  It wasn’t Joshua Wolfe. She had lost him somehow. She swept her eyes both forward and backward, desperately scanning the huge mass gathered along the whole of Main Street.

  He had to be somewhere around here … .

  She wouldn’t give up, wouldn’t—

  Thirty feet in front of her, another figure making his way through the crowd stopped and swung round. His eyes met hers and Susan’s insides turned to jelly. She thought at first he was going to come back for her, but he smiled slightly, then turned back and headed on toward the front of the Magic Kingdom.

  Susan’s blood turned to ice. She shivered and wavered on her feet, feeling suddenly faint when a pair of hands grasped her shoulders and held her tight.

  “Nice spot to watch the parade from,” said McCracken.

  Krill had recognized the woman and was briefly tempted to approach until he saw McCracken coming up behind her. No sense lay in risking a confrontation with his task this close to completion, so he simply pressed on through the crowd.

  Once he reached the shores of the Seven Seas Lagoon, the only thing separating him—and his three fireworks shells—from the unmanned barge would be the security boats enclosing it.

  Easily overcome.

  The high school band’s performance ended abruptly just as Krill passed under the arch leading out of the Magic Kingdom and started for the lagoon.

  Susan sank against McCracken. “I saw him. I saw Josh.”

  The last of the marching band was just passing them.

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. Somewhere close. I followed him, lost him.” She looked down the street. “I thought he must have been up ahead, hurried after him when I saw …” Her breathing caught up with her words and swallowed them.

  “Easy,” Blaine tried to soothe. “Take it easy.”

  “Krill,” Susan finished finally. “He’s here.”

  McCracken held her tighter. Neither of them noticed a man not far away raise a walkie-talkie to his lips.

  Turk Wills looked from the communications console to Lester Fuchs. “One of my people just spotted the bearded man.”

  “Where?”

  “In front of the Main Street Cinema. Woman’s with him. Hostage, you figure?”

  “She’s more likely to be an accomplice,” Fuchs responded, keeping his jubilation down as he prepared to speak into his headset.

  Wills continued before Fuchs could issue his commands. “I can have my men close in, take him before the parade starts.”

  “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

  Wills made sure Fuchs could see the hard stare in his eyes. “Neither do you, Mr. Washington. I let your people handle this, things could turn out bloody.”

  “Not as bloody as they will if your people botch it, Chief.”

  “You trying to pull rank on me again?”

  “I’d hate to see you prosecuted for treason, Chief, but if your stubbornness ends up aiding and abetting a wanted fugitive, I’m afraid you will leave me no choice.”

  “The fuck you say?”

  “This will all be over soon, Chief. Just leave everything to me.”

  A subordinate summoned Wills back to his console and handed him a microphone. Turk accepted the report, then looked again at Fuchs.

  “Another of your man’s apparent accomplices has just been spotted, Mr. Washington. Real big guy. An Indian.”

  “Prepare to move,” Fuchs said into his headset, not about to wait any longer. “On my signal.”

  Blaine saw Johnny Wareagle only at the last, when the big Indian had drawn abreast of him. His expression was grim.

  “They’ve made us, Blainey.”

  “I figured as much. How many we talking?”

  “Fifty, sixty maybe, along this street alone. More coming.”

  “Rooftops?”

  Johnny’s eyes darted briefly upward. “Well hidden.”

  “Another problem: Krill’s here.”

  Wareagle stiffened, didn’t look surprised. “I know. I found a storage room in the tunnels where he’d been.”

  “He was heading out of the park, Indian. You figure maybe he planted something? You think Haslanger wants to make sure he can walk away from this no matter what?”

  Johnny recalled the supply of fireworks loaded in the storeroom: one of the crates had been pried open and several
shells were missing from it. “Yes, Blainey, but not planted.” He gestured at the sky.

  “Oh, shit …”

  “I must stop him.”

  “And now, ladies and gentlemen, on this magical Fourth of July night, the Magic Kingdom proudly presents Spectromagic. To fully enjoy the performance …”

  “I’ll cover you as long as I can …”

  “ … the Kingdom’s lighting will be shut off … .”

  As Johnny started off, all of Main Street went black at the same time a calvacade of multicolored lights approached from Cinderella’s Castle, accompanied by music blaring from unseen speakers.

  “ … unless I don’t have to,” McCracken completed to himself, Wareagle having disappeared into the darkness.

  “What happened to the lights?” Fuchs demanded. “What happened to the goddamn lights?”

  “Let me see what I can do,” Wills replied quickly, moving for the communication console.

  “There isn’t time!”

  “Just wait a—”

  “I won’t risk losing him!”

  “Shit, in the dark you—”

  “Take McCracken!” Fuchs ordered into his headset. “Take McCracken now!”

  Arm clasped to Susan’s elbow, McCracken turned from the head of Main Street U.S.A. and squeezed along the sidewalk in search of the first route away from the pedestrian clutter. Gunmen were likely to be closing on them even now and he kept his eyes alert for any sudden movement.

  Suddenly the dark he’d been relying on for camouflage was pierced by the lead figures of the parade in the form of neon-costumed, silvery shapes perched within moving balls down the center of Main Street, waving to the crowd as they spun one way and then back the other. Behind them loomed a seemingly endless procession of floats and attractions recreating favorite Disney characters and films, all ablaze in bright spectral light.

  The music reverberated loudly and McCracken found himself even with Mickey Mouse wearing a sequined tuxedo atop a golden harp float by the ice cream parlor, when he spotted a trio of men plowing relentlessly his way. He swung back around only to see another two closing from the rear.

  He drew his SIG as stealthily as he could manage. “When I push on your shoulder,” he told Susan, “hit the ground.”

  “But—”

  “Just do as I say and keep looking for the kid, no matter what.”

  The bright light from the Spectromagic Parade was enough to catch flickers of motion on the rooftops behind the facades of the buildings on the other side of Main Street, concentrated atop the magic and bookstores all the way down to the arcade. His Splat bullets had gotten wet back at the Jungle Cruise, rendering them useless. He was facing an army with only a pair of standard nine-millimeter clips to wage a defense.

  A float lined with musical notes come-to-life slid past, followed closely by one manned by characters from The Little Mermaid as the song “Under the Sea” played. Blaine chose that moment to abruptly push on Susan Lyle’s shoulder. He squatted as she went down and turned toward the advancing gunmen, ready for anything except what happened next.

  The second-story facades of the buildings lining the other side of Main Street exploded one after the other, taking out large concentrations of the enemy. Hit by what McCracken recognized as grenade fire.

  Fired by whom, though?

  Shards of wood sprayed into the air, showering the audience as well as the Spectromagic participants. The parade ground to a halt. The Little Mermaid float rocked and then listed heavily to the left, mounting the sidewalk and slamming into the bakeshop. Another series of flashing balls manned by silver-faced figures spun wildly across the road, seeming to chase some of the fleeing crowd. People scattered in all directions as muzzle flashes filled the night with fresh color, aimed expertly and discriminately at Fuchs’s troops who’d been closing on Blaine.

  What the hell was happening?

  McCracken grabbed Susan and shielded her against the ice cream parlor’s frame, back to her so he was facing Main Street, watching Fuchs’s men swing wildly about in search of the unseen force that was killing them. Panicked throngs of spectators were tripping over the spilled bodies as they screamed and struggled to flee. Blaine glimpsed additional members of the opposition darting for the remaining strategic positions in the buildings across the street. More grenade fire peppered those troops as well and the shower of debris started up anew, intensifying the panic.

  McCracken used the opportunity to smash the ice cream parlor’s front window with his SIG-Sauer. He shouldered through the remnants of the glass and lifted Susan inside, ignoring the jabs from the remaining shards. He led her around behind the counter, remembering the men Sal Belamo had found inexplicably dead back inside the “Pirates of the Caribbean.”

  “What’s happening?” she managed, ducking low for cover.

  “I don’t know. Stay here.”

  Blaine bounced over the counter, ready to join the chaos outside, only to find himself facing an impossibly familiar figure standing sideways to the door.

  “What do ya say, Captain?” greeted Harry Lime.

  FORTY-THREE

  Joshua Wolfe had hoped the Spectromagic Parade would prove enough of a distraction to let him escape from the Magic Kingdom. The darkest moments would come when the section featuring Fantasia passed the center of Main Street and, ironically, the eerie chords of the film’s soundtrack had just begun to play when the explosions erupted.

  Like many others the ensuing chaos caught Josh with the force of a Midwest twister and spun him around at will. He slammed into one person, then another, might have collapsed if there’d been any room on the street to do so. He managed to separate himself from the panicked horde of parents desperately trying to find their children and backed free of the riotous throngs.

  The dark Fantasia float featuring the Black Demon had tumbled over, and one of the demon’s still-extended wings tripped Josh up and spilled him to the ground when he tried to backpedal. Unhurt, he regained his feet, realizing that escape toward the main entrance of the Magic Kingdom was out of the question. He had no choice but to turn and try looping around the worst of the congestion.

  Two men extricated themselves from the crowd and started in his direction. Josh glimpsed them long enough to find the recognition on their faces before he rushed off.

  “And me thinking you were dead,” Blaine said to Harry Lime.

  “That’s the way it was supposed to be.”

  “You were in on this with Livingstone Crum’s bunch, Thurman and the rest of them.”

  “Just doing my job, Captain, same as you.”

  “A lot of people got hurt.”

  “That’s why I’m here.”

  “How’d you find out?”

  “Thurman called me. Said he owed you.”

  “And the others you brought along for the ride?”

  “Key West Irregulars you met that night in the bar, Captain. They always did love a good fight.”

  A fusillade of bullets shattered what little glass remained of the ice cream parlor’s front window. McCracken dropped to a crouch and opened up with his SIG on the enemy troops darting across the street. Harry instantly swept a submachine gun from his shoulder and added his fire to Blaine’s. A grenade launcher dangled menacingly behind his back.

  “They’ve certainly got one tonight,” said Blaine.

  “I’m going down there!” Wills insisted, strapping a gun belt around his waist.

  “You’ll be killed,” Fuchs told him, with a calm that seemed just as unsettling as the chaos that had overcome the park.

  Turk wanted to shoot the bastard. “You expected this, you son of a bitch!”

  “No, but I should have.” He should have known McCracken would have brought reinforcements with him, lying in wait until they were needed. “An unfortunate distraction, that’s all.”

  “Distraction? Are you fucking crazy? Look at what’s happening out there!”

  “The price is well worth the cost, Chief. Res
t assured.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to rest again.”

  Fuchs completed the instructions to the rear-based team of his men and then started for the stairwell leading into the tunnels.

  “Where the fuck do you think you’re going, Mr. Washington?”

  “Out there as well, Captain. To a different section of the park entirely, where my quarry awaits me.”

  “Fuck you,” Wills said loudly, too late for Fuchs to hear as he disappeared down the stairs.

  A single guard had been on duty on the lagoon dock when Krill got there. Krill dispatched him without incident and settled himself into a launch that was identical to the three watching over the barge.

  He had almost reached the first when the explosions began inside the Magic Kingdom. Krill paid them little heed, other than to realize what a blessing they were for helping him reach the security launches one after the other virtually unnoticed and dispatch those on board.

  Krill tied his launch up to the barge and mounted it quickly. He checked his watch: two more minutes to go before the fireworks commenced. He could see easily enough through the darkness but the sight atop the barge confused him.

  Mortar tubes of various diameters were lined up in neat, symmetrical rows interspersed with thinner launchers loaded with Roman candles. Dozens and dozens in all. Disney had also perfected a system for automated reloading, so the number of shells filling the air with color and sound could stretch well into the hundreds. But which would be the tubes to be fired first?