He resumed his progress through the fairgrounds, fixating on the face of every short, thin person he came upon. Better to study too many than too few. If someone of the right size happened to be looking away, or if their features were obscured by glasses, a beard, the brim of a hat, he followed them discreetly, angling for a better view.
With a rising sense of possibility, he followed one tiny, ageless, genderless creature in loose black jeans and a baggy sweater until a wiry, sunburned man in a John Deere hat greeted her warmly in a tent sponsored by the Evangelical Church of the Risen Christ, called her Eleanor, and asked about the condition of her cows.
Two more such “possibilities”—discovered in the next two concourses and collapsing in similar absurdities—were draining the hope out of his search, while the nasal country lyrics blaring from the giant four-sided screen at the fair’s central intersection were saturating the atmosphere with a disorienting sentimentality. There was a similarly disorienting combination of odors, dominated by popcorn, French fries, and manure.
As Gurney rounded the corner where a room-sized refrigeration unit with a glass front was displaying a huge bovine butter sculpture, he caught sight of the same roving band of a dozen or so face-painted kids he’d seen before. He picked up his pace to get closer.
Apparently they’d been successful in their flowers-for-donations pitches. Only two members of the group were still carrying bouquets, and they seemed in no hurry to give them away. As he was watching them, he spotted the cop from the exhibitors’ gate coming along the concourse from the opposite direction with what looked like two plainclothes colleagues.
Gurney ducked through a doorway and found himself in the 4-H Club exhibit hall, surrounded by displays of large, shiny vegetables.
As soon as the search party had passed, he stepped back outside. He was closing in again on the face-painted kids when he was startled by another explosion, not far away. It was a powerful whump—incendiary style—with maybe twice the force of the one that had destroyed the flower stand. But it had little immediate effect on the meandering mass of fairgoers, probably because the fireworks had been louder.
It did, however, get the attention of the face-painted kids. They stopped and gaped at one another—as if the explosion had awakened their appetite for disaster—then turned and hurried back along the concourse toward the origin of the sound.
Gurney caught up with them two concourses later. They had drawn together at the edge of a larger crowd, staring. Smoke was billowing from the arena that was home to the nightly demolition-derby events. Some people were running toward the arena. Some were backing away from it, clutching small children. Some were questioning one another, wide-eyed with anxiety. Some were pulling out cell phones, tapping in numbers. A siren began wailing in the background.
And then, barely discernible above the general din, there was another whump.
Only a few members of the little posse Gurney was focused on showed any immediate reaction, but the ones who did then appeared to be passing the news of it to their companions. It also appeared that this was breaking the group apart—that there were those who’d heard the latest explosion and those who hadn’t (or who had, but considered the commotion in front of them more interesting). In any event, three individuals separated themselves from the larger group and headed off in the direction of the latest scene of destruction.
Curious himself about the pattern of Panikos’s attack, Gurney decided to follow the splinter group. As he passed those who were remaining at the periphery of the unsettled crowd of onlookers, he tried to get a good enough look at each little face to judge its compatibility with the mental images he carried from the videos.
Failing to see any resemblance convincing enough to demand a closer examination, he continued after the departing threesome.
His progress was slowed by people beginning to flow out of the arena. From what he overheard of their comments to one another, he concluded that the audience in the stands hadn’t come close to grasping the significance of what they’d just witnessed—the massive, fiery explosion of one of the cars in the final event of the derby, the horrifying immolation of the driver, and multiple injuries to other drivers. They seemed to be attributing all this to some sort of gas-tank malfunction or the use of a prohibited fuel. The darkest suggestion was that there might have been some sort of sabotage arising from a family feud.
So, two firebombs within a twenty-minute period, and still no panic. That was the good news. The bad news was that the only reason there was no panic was that no one understood what was happening. Gurney wondered if that third whump he’d heard would change things.
A couple of hundred yards ahead of him, a fire engine was trying to clear a right-of-way through the throng with repeated blasts of its air horn. Overhead, smoke was blowing in the wind—coming from the area toward which the fire engine was heading. It was a cloudy, moonless night, and the smoke was weirdly illuminated by the concourse lights below it.
People were starting to show signs of unease. Many were proceeding in the same direction as the fire engine—some walking fast beside it, some running ahead of it. The expressions on faces ran the gamut from apprehension to excitement. The three small figures he’d been following had been swallowed up in the moving mass of bodies.
Turning the corner into the intersecting concourse about a hundred yards behind the engine, he could see flames against the black sky. They were coming from the roof of a long, single-story wooden structure, which he recognized as the main shelter for the animals entered in the various demonstrations and competitions. As he drew closer, he saw a few cows and horses being led out of the building’s main doors by their young handlers.
Then others, unattended and skittish, began coming out through other doors—some hesitating uncertainly and stamping on the ground, some bolting into the crowd, generating cries of alarm.
One overwrought individual with an unfortunate sense of drama shouted “Stampede!” A sense of panic, the absence of which Gurney had noted minutes earlier, now appeared to be infecting pockets of the crowd. People were jostling one another to get to what they probably imagined were positions of greater safety. The noise level was rising. So was the wind. The flames on the barn roof were being lashed sideways. Loose canvas panels on the exhibition tents along the concourse were flapping sharply.
It appeared that a sudden summer storm might be blowing in. A flash of light in the clouds and a rumble in the hills confirmed it. Moments later the lightning flashed more brightly, and the rumble grew louder.
Chapter 59. All Fall Down
More security people were rushing to the scene now. Some were trying to get the fairgoers away from the barn and the engine, out of the way of the fire crew deploying the hoses. Others were struggling to regain control of escaping horses, cows, hogs, sheep, as well as a pair of giant oxen.
Gurney observed that word of the two earlier fire explosions was spreading, producing a rising level of fear and confusion. At least a third of the people were now glued to their phones—talking, texting, and photographing the fire and the turmoil around them.
Scanning the shifting mass of faces for the trio who’d slipped out of sight, or for anyone else who might resemble Panikos, Gurney was taken aback to catch a glimpse of Madeleine emerging from the barn. Angling for a less obstructed view, he saw that she was leading two alpacas by their halters, one in each hand. And Dennis Winkler was right behind her, leading two more the same way.