Instinctively, Quinn lowered his center, capturing the hand that held the dagger and turning it back on its owner. Falling, as much from nausea as any martial arts technique, he drove the dagger into Saqr’s chest. He felt the familiar pop as the blade punched through the cartilage connecting the man’s ribs to his breastbone, and slid into his heart.
Quinn left the quivering knife where it was and pushed away. He scooped up the dying man’s rifle, a short AK-47 carbine with a folding stock, and then stood to test his damaged leg. He could put weight on it, so that was a blessing. The entry wound was located just below the hem of his swim trunks. It was a good two inches across, made deeper by the lateral movement of the double-edged blade when Saqr had stuck him. The exit wound was small enough it could be covered with a Band-Aid. Quinn didn’t want to think about the damage done inside. A more experienced man would have slashed the inside of the leg, severing the femoral artery, bleeding Quinn out in a matter of minutes. As it was, his wound wept a steady flow of blood. But nothing arterial, Quinn thought. That was blessing number two.
The elevator doors chimed as they slid open behind him. Quinn spun to find a muscular man with a black beard peering over the railing toward the base of the slide. It was Kaliq, the young jihadi who had laughed while he shot dead the group of UVA students. Music from the Black Keys still played from the two-way radio in his hand. His gun was parked against the rail ten feet from where he stood.
Blessing number three.
Bodies lay strewn around the concrete deck — groups of teens, families, middle-aged couples — arms and legs tangled, stacked as if they’d been dropped on top of one another. They’d been trapped at the top of the waterslide when the shooting began — and eventually murdered as they tried to run.
The top floor of Dead Drop was wide open but for the trapdoor entrance that gave the slide its name. A two-foot-wide column beside the hard plastic door was home to a small panel that housed the simple controls: a green light to signify the bottom of the slide was clear, and a large red button that tripped the door like a gallows, sending the rider on a near vertical drop for the first ten of the twenty-one-story journey. Wooden stanchions and yellow rope, meant to keep people in line as they queued up for the ride, were now a tangled knot, overturned by the stampede of victims as they attempted to flee back down the stairs. Those who had made it out the small doorway accounted for the pile of dead he’d passed at the bottom.
Saqr’s AK at his hip, Quinn aimed at the jihadi’s belly and pulled the trigger. Fresh out of blessings, he heard nothing but the resounding click of the firing pin on an empty chamber.
Chapter 14
Ronnie Garcia had long since given up hope that anyone crowding around her in the belly of the pirate ship would stay anything close to calm. Instead, she tried to keep the noise down to a level that might, if they were extremely lucky, keep them undiscovered and alive. She knew from experience that few people could keep still, let alone quiet, when they were afraid. The more heightened the sense of fear, the jerkier and more vocal the human body became — as if every muscle and bone was crying out in terror. Breathing became ragged, knees jumped uncontrollably, teeth chattered to the point of breaking. Pent-up words hummed and buzzed, struggling for release behind pursed lips. Children and adults alike sobbed and shuffled, embarrassed at not being able to control their bladders. Jericho called it terror-piss, and the smell of it was overpowering in the dank surroundings, adding to the misery — and the noise level — of the little band of refugees.
Thankfully, the port side of the vessel faced away from the concrete pathways and concession vendors, open to the shallow wading pool. In less violent times, this gave parents a place to sit and watch their toddlers play in the water, protected from the sun and general hubbub of the park. Slides came down from the top deck into the water, and ladders made it possible for small children to climb up from inside the ship’s hold. A half dozen plastic picnic tables were situated around the toddler-size play equipment below. It should have been a fun place, full of splashing and laughter, but hope had vanished with the breeze. The fans that normally kept the shady playground cool had clicked off with the lights shortly after the shooting had started.
Forty minutes had passed since the first explosion. The gunfire had slowed, but errant shots and screams still popped and wailed throughout the park, ripping at the last shred of Ronnie’s nerves and keeping everyone huddled in place.
Though physically sick with worry over Jericho and Mattie, Ronnie had no children and could only imagine the stress Camille Thibodaux was going through. So far, the tough little brunette had been a rock, working to fight what had to be bone-crushing despair while she faced the realities of keeping her remaining six sons as quiet and upbeat as possible.
“Mama,” Denny whispered, his voice as frail as he looked. “My nose is starting to bleed again.”
“Hush now,” Camille said, drawing her little boy closer. She removed the sheer cover-up, making her look all the more vulnerable wearing nothing but her swimsuit. Blood dripped onto her bare thigh. “Just hold it there like that. You’ll be fine.”
One of the men in the back scoffed. “Fine?” he mumbled. “That’s laughable. We’re a long way from fine, kid. It’s only a matter of time—”
Camille glared daggers at the man, her intent clear even in the darkness. He turned away and melted back into the crowd.
“I’m thirsty,” a little girl who couldn’t have been over three whimpered.
Her mother, a near catatonic young woman who had watched her husband and in-laws murdered just minutes before, patted the child on the back, but said nothing.
“I could get her some water from the wading pool,” twelve-year-old Shawn Thibodaux whispered. “It’s gross, but it would be better than nothing.”
“It might come to that,” Camille said, giving her eldest boy a proud smile. “Let’s give your daddy a few more minutes before we venture out. He’ll take care of this, I prom—”
“I am sorry,” Ms. Hatch said, speaking through lips pulled as tightly as her gray curls, “but that gentleman is right. We are in serious trouble, and it’s time we admit it.”
Ronnie held up the shotgun as if to illustrate how aware she was of the dangers. “What do you think we’re doing?” she said.
Ms. Hatch rolled her eyes. It was obvious she was used to being in charge and the fact that someone else was calling the shots had crawled up under her skin and galled her.
“It seems apparent to everyone in this place except you two that your men have been… taken…”
“You mean murdered,” Camille said, her chest heaving, chin quivering. Ronnie knew the poor thing was beginning to crumble. And who could blame her? Her little boy, and now Jacques.
“I didn’t say that, my dear,” the woman said, as disingenuous as ever. “I only mean to say you might want to season your hope with a little dash of realism.”
“You have no idea what my husband is capable of,” Camille whispered.
“If he’s smart,” the man in the Blue Jays hat said, “he’s found a way out of this shithole and saved his own ass.”