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.
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.