“Each between fifty and a hundred yards apart, all centered around this part they call the Downtown Loop.”
“Highly congested for sure and accessible via the McKinney Garage where the terrorists can all park.” Cort Wesley checked his truck’s dashboard clock. “Give me my phone back. I need to try Caitlin again.”
*
Cort Wesley had never driven faster, the miles to Houston along U.S. 290 East dragging on forever. Caitlin wasn’t answering her phone, Jones wasn’t answering his phone, nobody was answering their phone. And he didn’t know if he was going to reach Houston in time for it to matter. His navigation screen had read 166 miles at the outset of the trip, and they had covered the bulk of those already, slipping from one lane into another, then veering sharply across traffic when space allowed, the whole time holding his breath against the possibility of congestion or an accident snarling traffic. He was ever so glad, in that moment, that he’d let Dylan and Luke talk him into buying the more expensive truck model, which included the sport package.
“I’m sorry, son,” he said, breaking the silence that had settled between them.
“For what?”
“For Ela.”
“She’d tried to stop them, Dad. She changed her mind.”
“I know.”
“I was holding her when she died. It brought me back to when Mom died. I never wanted to feel that way again.”
Cort Wesley swallowed hard. “You said it yourself, son. It was different this time.”
The boy twisted toward him, tugging against the bonds of his shoulder harness. “Sure it was. Because you were right all along. I let myself be duped. I didn’t see it coming ’cause all I saw was Ela. I feel like an idiot. I feel like it’s my fault.”
“How’s that?”
“I should’ve known I was getting played. I should have played her instead.”
“You mean, like, show her the error of her ways?”
“Something like that. At least get her to change her mind, get her to realize she had things wrong.”
Cort Wesley took a deep breath that dissolved into a sigh. “I believe you did that, son.”
“I don’t know if I can ever go back to school now, not after this.”
“Not a decision you need to make today.”
Dylan turned back toward the windshield, board-stiff in his seat. “We’re gonna kill them, right? These ISIS fighters who killed Ela. Just tell me we’re gonna get some payback here.”
Cort Wesley’s expression fixed as flat as the windshield glass. “Count on it.”
103
KLYDE WARREN PARK, DALLAS, TEXAS
Caitlin’s grandfather always talked about vision, when it came to gunfighters. Not that they could see better so much as they could see more. Like, three things at once: left, right, and center.
Caitlin’s center was dominated by the huge, looming shape of al-Aziz’s chief henchman, Seyyef, his head like an anvil atop his shoulders.
To her right, the whirling shape of Guillermo Paz barreled forward against the grain of fleeing families, a path seeming to open for him down a center his charge created.
To her left, al-Aziz was pushing his way through the mass of people fleeing the park on the Pearl Street side, dragging Daniel Cross with him.
Center and right merged as Paz slammed into Seyyef in a collision akin to a pair of semis in a head-on, the two huge forms hurtling backwards. The collective force pitched them up and over the lead car of the roller coaster, which had just discharged the last of its riders.
Dazed, Caitlin fought to reclaim her footing, feeling instantly woozy when she did, the world all out of kilter. She leaned against a stanchion, holding on to a rope divider for balance, vision clearing all the way to reveal Jones yanking Daniel Cross from al-Aziz’s grasp, the kid surging away toward the exit beyond the botanical garden.
The two men struggled amid a brief rainbow of muzzle flashes. Jones staggered now, still pushing on as al-Aziz retreated, charging in the opposite direction, to the east, clinging to the tree line.
Caitlin steadied herself against the stanchion, turning back to see the twin hulking shapes of Paz and Seyyef in hand-to-hand struggle. Their search for any advantage they could muster generated enough force to send the gravity-fed coaster rolling down the track, where it banked into the initial climb and then picked up speed as it crested, into the first dip.
Caitlin’s head was on fire. Her teeth were chattering. She realized she’d dropped her pistol and she stooped to retrieve it, her mind clawing at the memory of al-Aziz sprinting across the park, likely toward the exit that spilled out on Harwood Street.