Quinn eyed the gun. Thibodaux had obviously been successful with the high-striker mallet.
“Hell of a thing, Chair Force” his friend muttered, still gazing out the porthole with his good eye. “Having to decide whether your kids would be slightly less screwed up if they saw some dude get beat to smithereens with a wooden hammer instead of getting his skull blown across the concrete with this blunderbuss…”
Quinn knew it was a dangerous endeavor to engage in his friend’s battlefield philosophy. Everyone dealt with the vagaries and meanness of mankind differently. Quinn threw himself into the conflict, expecting some shrink would untie his war knots at some later date — if he survived. Jacques Thibodaux philosophized, often while the bullets were still flying.
“I have an empty FN,” Quinn said, nodding toward the submachine gun in Ronnie’s hands. “She took out a shooter in the ladies’ room but he was armed with a vintage STEN that looked like it hasn’t been cleaned since the Korean War. As far as working guns, we have the Remington and your .380 pistol.” Quinn looked back and forth between his two friends, seeking refuge from his thoughts in the formulation of a strategy. “Anybody have a best guess on the number of bandits?”
Camille Thibodaux stepped up, full lips set white in a grim line. She held baby Henry tight to her chest with one hand and grabbed her husband by the shirt collar with the other. Her grip was none too gentle. “Jacques,” she said, squeezing the baby hard enough to make him whimper. “You better go and bring back my Daniel right damn now. You hear?”
The Cajun put a monstrous arm around his wife and gathered her and the baby in close. She looked like a child against his barrel chest. “You can count on us, Boo.” He kissed the top of her head, his chin beginning to quiver. “I guarantee it. But we gotta make us a plan first or we can’t do Dan nor Mattie any good at all.”
Camille closed her eyes, pressing tears from clenched lashes, but said nothing.
“How many?” Thibodaux mused, turning back to Quinn, gulping back his emotions. “Hard to say for certain, but I’d guess at least six more. There’s gunfire and screamin’ all over the damn place, l’ami. Could even be double that.”
“Our cell phones aren’t working,” a man in a pirate hat and lacy white shirt said. He held his iPhone out in a trembling hand as if to offer proof.
“What’s your name?” Quinn asked, checking his phone again. He too found it impossible to get through.
“Larue,” the man said.
“Well, Mr. Larue,” Quinn said. “It could be that everyone is trying to call out at once. Or there’s a chance these terrorists are using some kind of swamper to jam our signal.”
“Do you think the police even know we’re in trouble?” a voice from the shadows said.
Quinn glanced up at Larue. The man looked ridiculous in his frilly shirt and pirate hat but he seemed squared away enough under the circumstances. “You work here?”
The man nodded.
“Does the park have security?” Quinn asked.
“Just two,” Larue said.
“Armed?”
“Yes.” Larue nodded. “But they’re only here to call the police… and to stand by when the armored car guys come for the daily deposit. My guess is they both ran off to save their own skins at the first sign of danger.”
“Fair enough,” Quinn said. “How many visitors come through the park each day?”
“Fifteen thousand, maybe, if we have a good day.”
“Okay, we’ll go with that,” Quinn said. “Let’s say a quarter of those were in the park this evening…”
Thibodaux gave a low whistle. “Hard to contain three or four thousand people. A shitload of ’em had to have gotten out.”
“Then where are the police?” a woman from the back said. “The people who got out must surely be talking to police, telling them what we’re up against. I mean, people are dying…”
“I’m sure they’re passing that information on,” Quinn said, trying to ignore the nervous banter. “Sometimes law enforcement will jump and run toward the sound of gunfire as soon as they arrive if they think it might stop an active shooter. But with so much gunfire and hundreds of potential witnesses pouring out toward them…” Quinn shook his head, imagining what he’d do. “Some of the departments around here use drones with remote cameras — but they’ll take time to get into the air and, frankly, it’s time we don’t have.” He looked at Garcia. “Let’s hear your best guess on numbers. How many do you think we’re dealing with?”
Garcia ran a hand through thick hair, pushing it out of her eyes. Though she was dressed in nothing but the yellow one-piece, the blood of the man she’d recently killed smeared across her front said she was all business. “I’m thinking at least eight or nine shooters from the various directions of the shots — but that’s not counting the three we’ve already taken down.” She paused. “And, of course, any sleepers.”
Quinn nodded at that. His mantra of “see one, think two” reminded him to take into account the unseen threats. There was the very real possibility that some terrorists had yet to identify themselves, but hid among the park visitors, waiting for the right time to step into the light and assist with the killing spree.
Nervous coughs and the scrape of shuffling feet suddenly ran through the belly of the pirate ship like a wave of some contagion. The group of people huddled near the door shrank back from a shadowed figure that stepped into view, backlit by the feeble emergency bulbs along the concrete pathway outside. He stepped forward, as if to highlight the particular worry over an unidentified killer.
“My name is Mukhtar,” he said.
Chapter 5
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.”