HOUSTON, TEXAS
Cort Wesley moved toward the closest X on his Ela’s map covering the Downtown Loop, pondering exactly how the ISIS fighters, and the young Comanche before them, intended to pull this off, as he weaved his way past a collection of retail stores, the names of which blurred into each other. There were covered concrete planters every few hundred feet or so, ornately concealing trash receptacles within. He quickly checked a few out and found them surprisingly free of refuse and thus perfect to plant the deadly bioweapon. Wouldn’t even need much explosive to ignite the blasts and spread a mist in all directions, carrying the deadly aroma and rising and clinging to the walls and ceiling within such a confined space. Doubtful it would even dissipate, in that scenario, until everyone within its reach was dead.
Cort Wesley reached the first concrete planter marked with an X on the map Ela had given Dylan. He held back, inspecting the area for the right face, the right bent of eyes, a still figure among all the moving ones.
He found a young man he first took to be a girl, thanks to hair clubbed back in a ponytail. The kid was pretending to push a broom, which he’d probably lifted from some maintenance closet. Cort Wesley headed in the kid’s general direction, appearing to look past him.
Cort Wesley’s eyes held there a moment too long, and the terrorist’s eyes met his, thoughts and intentions freezing as the kid reached into his pocket. Maybe for a phone, maybe for a detonator, maybe for a weapon.
Cort Wesley wasn’t about to wait any longer to find out. Before the kid’s hand had cleared his pocket, Cort Wesley was on him, slamming the kid’s head backwards until his skull cracked against one of the location markers. The glass lining it shattered, the impact strong enough to knock off all the interior lighting. The kid hung frozen there for an instant while Cort Wesley backed off as if nothing had happened. Then the kid slumped downward, leaving a wake of blood and glass above him.
Cort Wesley pretended to rush to his aid, perfect cover to check the kid’s pockets for a phone, something he would use to communicate and perhaps to set off the explosives. His hand closed around a smart phone and pulled it out. The home screen was dominated by a timer, just ticking down below the twenty-minute mark.
Cort Wesley clicked off the timer, watching it reset and freeze at 00:00. He hoped that meant this particular batch of the deadly cuitlacoche had been deactivated, hoped he could get to the rest of the terrorists before those twenty minutes clicked down, hoped ISIS didn’t have a backup plan in the form of a single operative who could trigger all the explosives at once.
Giving no further thought to the first man he’d downed, Cort Wesley moved on to the next red X on his map.
*
Dylan reached the food court, the tunnel widening to the size of a city block with restaurants crammed on both sides. He spotted a Wendy’s, a Whataburger, a Salata, a Subway, and Beck’s Prime, along with barbecue and sushi places he’d never heard of. Several jutted out at strange angles to conform to the spherical shape of this section of the tunnels. A collection of tables, benches, and thick plants lined the concourse before them. He figured the plants must be fake, given the soft, refractive hue of the lighting that made it seem somebody had turned the dimmer switch too far down. Various food smells flooded his nostrils, making him realize that the long, runway-like tunnel he’d taken here smelled of nothing at all, except for an industrial solvent in one patch where a slick spot and caution cones indicated a recent cleanup. He kept checking his watch as five o’clock approached, hoping to spot his father coming, as opposed to mass hysteria breaking out, in the upcoming minutes.
His dad had figured he’d be safe here, but that was wrong; he wouldn’t be safe anywhere—no one would. Those days were gone, especially for him, as long as he kept putting himself in situations like this. Ela Nocona wasn’t the first girl who’d manipulated him, but she had to be the last. Dylan promised himself that much, kind of a trade for him and his father getting out of this alive, along with everyone else currently occupying the tunnels of the Downtown Loop.
What was I thinking?
Walking away from school without a plan, missing spring football practice … for what exactly?
What was I thinking?
The more times Dylan asked himself that, the further he got from an answer. So he kept walking about the retail area, trying to sort it all out in his mind while he waited for his father.
Then Dylan spotted a bearded figure with a backpack slung over his shoulder, meandering around a concrete trash receptacle out in the open between a takeout sushi establishment and a Starbucks.