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.
Caitlin added her help and fire to bystanders, pulling the wounded to safety, as far out of harm’s way as she could. Amid it all, in insane counterpoint, the rides continued to twirl and spin, on three-to five-minute looped cycles that swept riders about, through, and above the carnage and panic, as more people rushed to flee Klyde Warren Park.
“Go, go, go!” she instructed, herding panicked patrons along, ready the whole time with her SIG Sauer.
An ISIS fighter, wounded by fire from Paz’s troops, snapped a fresh magazine into his Kalashnikov and started to sweep it forward. Caitlin poured bullets from her SIG into him, punching him backwards until he flopped over a trash container and took it down with him to the grass. Gunfire continued to sound, a bit more sporadically now, as she turned her attention back to protecting the crowd.
And spotted al-Aziz dragging Daniel Cross with him toward the botanical garden and the nearest exit, which spilled out not far from Captain Tepper’s and Beauchamp’s position.
“You read me, Captain?” she said into her hand mic.
“Got ourselves a genuine shit storm out here.”
“It might be about to get heavier. Al-Aziz is headed your way with Daniel Cross in tow.”
“Jesus H., Ranger. Where’s Lee Harvey Oswald when you need him? The Mountie and I will be ready.”
Caitlin lit out after al-Aziz, stopping just short of the boarding point for the roller coaster, pistol steadied, with al-Aziz square in her sights. She was about to fire, when a huge shape obscured her vision of everything ahead, seeming to block out the whole world, in the last moment before she was launched airborne.
102
HOUSTON, TEXAS
Dylan could only shake his head when Cort Wesley finished explaining Ela’s map. “Pedestrian tunnels? Beneath Houston? How could I never have heard of them?”
“Because you never had call to use them, son,” Cort Wesley told him. “Twenty feet below street level, spanning six miles over maybe a hundred city blocks. Whole bunch of access points from buildings and off the streets. A subterranean world all onto itself.”
Dylan looked down at the map lying on his lap, as Cort Wesley sped down an access ramp to Route 290 that would connect up with the 610 into Houston. “Then these ten red X’s…”
“Major chokepoints at what’s got to be one of the most congested areas during rush hour, all centered around the Downtown loop where lots of the retail establishments are concentrated.”
“Let me have your phone.”
*
“Jesus,” Dylan said, jogging through the app he’d just downloaded for Houston’s underground tunnels on Cort Wesley’s smart phone, “there’s like two hundred stores. They got everything down there.”
“Including people, lots of them. In a confined space where that shit can spread at will.”
Dylan was trying to compare a schematic featured on the app to the red X’s on Ela’s map. “You’re right. They’re all in one central area, along the tunnels converging on this food court here. Shit, you wouldn’t believe how many Starbucks are down there.” He shook his head. “Near as I can tell each of the X’s is located near one of the entrances.”
“Chokepoints,” Cort Wesley repeated, “like I said.”