Strong Cold Dead (Caitlin Strong, #8)(102)
“Not enough. But the fungus isn’t the real weapon here; the water that produces it, the way it interacts with cuitlacoche, is,” Cross told him, thinking of the still pond he’d found inside a cave just off the reservation. “With that water, I can figure out how to synthesize as much of the weapon as you need, a potentially unlimited supply.”
Daniel Cross cast his gaze beyond al-Aziz, toward the now jam-packed crowd. Barely any foot of space on the former overpass was unoccupied for more than a second. Kids dragged their parents toward the rides, which spun in elegantly graceful motion, in stark contrast to the way the world really worked. Nearby, water splashed into the air from the mini flume ride, where cackling children rode faux motorized logs about a sweeping course. Cars clanked past them on the roller coaster that wound its way over the entire length of the carnival.
“It would take time, but I could do it,” Cross heard himself tell al-Aziz, hating all the smiles more than anything else.
Smiles that disappeared when the first gunshots rang out.
101
KLYDE WARREN PARK, DALLAS, TEXAS
Except it wasn’t gunfire at all but fireworks Caitlin had purchased at a nearby stand, which was already selling them in anticipation of the coming Fourth of July.
FIREWORKS! TWO FOR ONE SALE! read the banner she’d spotted.
She’d lit four packs aflame within seconds of each other, tossing them in that many different directions in the immediate area of the picnic table where the ISIS commander was seated with Daniel Cross and the kid’s homegrown handlers. At first, all she could feel was a collective ripple in the crowd, as the press of startled carnival patrons reacted instinctively, before almost settling back down, once the truth became clear.
And then the ISIS fighters appeared, bursting out from everywhere at once, it seemed.
The crowd packed along the midway saw the gunmen first, the assault rifles sweeping about behind hateful, determined glares, fingers ready on triggers, waiting for their targets to appear, initially believing the firecrackers had been real gunfire. The chronology tightened, unfolding in still shots instead of video, starting with the recognition that it had been merely fireworks that had drawn them out, not gunshots.
The gunmen froze, eyes shifting but holding.
The carnival patrons froze, too, for the length of a breath, maybe two. Then they began to run, scattering in all directions at once, a swarm quickly filling what little space remained between the rides that swept and soared about the landscape, packed with children and families.
Leaving the ISIS fighters alone, holding their ground.
Exposed for Guillermo Paz’s men to fire upon.
*
Al-Aziz had his own pistol out by then, aimed across the table at Zurif and Saflin, who had already lurched to their feet, backing off.
“You betrayed me…”
“No!”
“And now you pay the price for your treachery before Him!”
With that, al-Aziz shot them both in the face as Daniel Cross watched, realizing only then that he’d risen to his feet, too, and that urine was running down his leg. Al-Aziz swung toward him, pistol leading.
“We will kill them,” the ISIS commander sneered hatefully. “We will kill all of them! Allahu a’lam … Allah knows best!”
Al-Aziz grabbed Cross by the arm and dragged him into the panicked throngs, as actual gunfire burst from everywhere at once.
*
The familiar scent of gun smoke filled the air as Caitlin shoved her way against the grain of the crowd, in al-Aziz’s and Daniel Cross’s wake. Every time she drew reasonably close, another surge from the crowd forced her back. The jostling was uneven, unpredictable, thrown to the whims of the gunfight that had erupted between Paz’s troops and the ISIS gunmen.
The clang and echoing racket of fire made for a constant din in the air, like soft thunder rumbling from one clap seamlessly into another. The panicked cries and screams drowned it out in splotches, the whole scene backed by the melodic hum of the local radio station’s greatest hits medley playing over a set of freestanding loudspeakers, which toppled to the ground under the panicked flight. Divergent streams of patrons fled the park in all directions, in the shadow of the skyscrapers enclosing it, darting into traffic running east and west, which had almost immediately ground to a complete snarl punctuated by screeching brakes and honking horns.
Caitlin lost track of al-Aziz and Daniel Cross and focused her efforts on the nearest ISIS gunman instead. He was firing a shaved-down Kalashnikov with one hand, using a teenage girl as a human shield with the other, to ward off Paz’s men. More than one bystander had fallen to his fire, when Caitlin mounted one picnic table and then leaped onto another, which brought her over and behind him. The ISIS gunman was twisting his weapon on her when she fired twice, one bullet taking him high in the shoulder and the second obliterating the right side of his jaw.
That was enough for his hostage to tear free of his grasp. The man still had the presence of mind to swing in the direction of a pair of Paz’s soldiers, who pulverized him with twin automatic bursts. Fired from opposing directions, the bullets had the bizarre effect of holding the ISIS gunman upright until both stopped firing and he crumpled in a heap.
Caitlin had moved on by that point, focusing her efforts on shepherding as many of the panicked to safety in the adjoining streets as she could, amid the traffic clog. The windshields of numerous vehicles had been struck by stray gunfire, which continued to clack away in a constant cacophony, courtesy of a close-in firefight like nothing she’d ever witnessed before. Paz’s men swept and swerved about the crowd, paying little heed to the collective safety of bystanders, whose presence didn’t seem to fully register with them. They were killers, plain and simple, chosen by the colonel for their prowess and their willingness to utilize it.