Delmonico and Shea disappeared from view, temporarily lost in a cocoon of officers. They were at least two hundred yards from Thornhill. Maybe two-fifty. A few cops moved ahead, clearing the rest of the way to the police van.
Evan swept his view back across the park, the street, and up the stairs to the roof of the school. Shouldered into the A/C unit, Thornhill was so still he might have been part of the building.
Two hundred seventy-five yards, at least.
The clump of blue uniforms reached the intersecting street. Two transport officers emerged from the paddy wagon, laying open the rear doors.
The arresting cops jerked Delmonico and Shea to a rough halt and stepped forward to confer with the transfer officers. The other cops milled around, spreading out into the street.
Creating gaps.
On the roof, the .45 twitched in Thornhill’s grip.
Delmonico fell, a crimson firework painting the side of the van.
Confused, the cops crouched and ran for cover.
Having his hands cuffed at the small of his back put Shea on a half-step delay. His head was cocked with confusion, the cloud-muffled sun gleaming off his bald dome. For an instant he stood wide open there in the street, twisted around, looking in the wrong direction. The cuffs yanked his shoulders back, nicely exposing the expanse of his chest.
A dark flower bloomed on his shirt. He staggered backward, his spine striking the side of the police van. His knees were bent, tilting him into the vehicle, physics momentarily holding him on his feet.
Then his heels slipped and he fell, landing with his legs splayed before him.
Evan turned to look again at Thornhill way across on the roof and was not surprised to see Thornhill looking back.
Fifteen dead.
Ten left.
Evan gave a respectful nod.
Thornhill placed one hand on his chest and flourished the other as if to accompany a bow, accepting the compliment. He holstered the pistol and stepped back from sight.
Gone.
Pandemonium swept across the park. The cops spread out, weapons drawn, eyes whipping across rooftops and vehicles in every direction. The remaining students stampeded out of the park, trampling abandoned backpacks. Pages of dropped textbooks fluttered in the breeze. One girl stood frozen, sobbing amid the chaos, fists pressed to her ears. Parents hauled their children away, one father sprinting with his son flopped over his arm like a stack of dry-cleaned shirts. Horns blared. Brakes screeched. Fenders crumpled. A girl had tripped near the fountain and was curled up, holding a bloody knee.
David yanked on Evan’s arm. “What happened? What’s going on?”
“We gotta move,” Joey said. “Ride the chaos out of the park.”
Evan took David’s arm in his hands, turned it to show the slice. “This first.”
He sat David on the wall of the fountain and moved his thumbs along the sides of the forearm scar, pressing gently. David winced. Behind him in the fountain, the black ducks glided by, unperturbed by the commotion.
Cops moved swiftly through the park, corralling stray students. Joey vibrated with impatience, her head swiveling from the approaching officers to the surrounding streets. “We don’t have time for this.”
Evan felt nothing unusual around the scar. He ran his fingers across the unmarred flesh up toward the boy’s elbow.
Something hard beneath the flesh pressed into the pad of his thumb.
A thin disk, about the size of a watch battery.
“What is it?” David asked.
“A digital transmitter.”
“Up there?” Joey said. “How are we supposed to get it out?”
The tiny bulge was about six inches up from the incision; it had been slid up toward the elbow to conceal it. Seventy-eight percent of Orphans were left-handed. Van Sciver had inserted the transmitter on the left side, Evan assumed, so that if David noticed it and tried to cut it out, he’d be forced to use his nondominant hand to do so.
Evan said, “We need a magnet. A strong magnet.”
Two of the cops had closed to within a hundred yards of the fountain. Joey ducked behind its low wall. “We have to figure this out later.”
“As long as this is in him, Van Sciver has our location.”
Joey’s wild eyes found Evan.
His hands went to his shirt buttons, but the magnets wouldn’t be strong enough; they were designed to give way readily. He said, “Think.”
Joey snapped her fingers. “Hang on.” She reached for the purloined Herschel backpack and whipped a silver laptop out of the padded sleeve in the back. She smashed it on the lip of the fountain, dug around in its entrails, and tore out the hard drive. Gripping the drive in both hands, she hammered it against the concrete until it split open. She yanked out the spindle, revealing a shiny top disk, and then dug out a metal nugget to the side. With some effort she pried apart its two halves, which Evan was surprised to see weren’t screwed together.
“Wa-la,” she said. “Magnets.”
Evan checked on the cops. The nearest pair were now thirty yards away, temporarily hung up with a sobbing mother. He reached into his front pocket for his Strider, raking it out so the shark-fin hook riding the blade snared the pocket’s hem and snapped the knife open. He spun the blade around his hand, caught it with the tanto tip angled down.
David said, “Is this gonna—”
Evan slipped the knife beneath the sutures. With an artful flick of his wrist, he laid the four-inch cut open. David gaped down at it.
Evan held out his hand. “Magnet.”
Joey slapped it onto his palm with a surgical nurse’s panache.
Evan laid the magnet over the bulge in David’s elbow and tracked down to the incision.
Joey’s head flicked up. “Cops’re almost here.”
The transmitter followed the magnet down the forearm, tugging the skin up, and popped out through the wound, snicking neatly onto the magnet.
David expelled a clump of air.
One of the black ducks hopped up onto the concrete ledge, bobbing its head, its pebble eyes locked on a stray rind of bread by Evan’s shoe.
From the far side of the fountain, a young cop shouted, “Stand up! Lemme see your hands!”
Evan peered across the fountain at the cop and his partner. The park was dense with officers. Two SWAT units rolled up in front of the high school, new cruisers screeching to block the intersections in every direction.
“Too late,” Joey said under her breath.
Evan rose slowly, hands held wide, and stared into two drawn Berettas.
57
What He Thought He Knew
David stood on shaky legs between Evan and Joey. Across the dancing water, both cops aimed at Evan’s head.
The entire block was now locked down by backup officers and SWAT.
Evan gauged his next move. The young cop stood in front of his partner, taking lead. He seemed capable, more confident than nervous.
Evan could work with that, play to the cop’s ego. He let a worried breath rattle out of him. “Thank God. Is it clear, Officer? I was picking up my daughter, and… my son, he got knocked over. His arm’s cut open, and—”
“Calm down. Sir? Calm down.”
David cupped his hand over the wound, red showing in the seams between his fingers.
The officer’s elbows stayed locked, but he swung the gun down and to the side. “Does he require medical attention?”
“I can take him to urgent care,” Evan said. He put his arm around Joey’s shoulders, gathered her in. “I just want to get my kids out of here. I wasn’t sure it was safe to come out yet.”