Footsteps.
But then the car started forward again. The radio grew louder. The boy said he was hungry. The man – father, surely – muttered something unintelligible. The mother said, ‘At the hotel.’
After forty minutes they made several turns and stopped. The radio went silent and the car was put in park. Doors opened and closed.
The valet took charge of the car and drove for five minutes, up a series of ramps. Then he parked. Closed the door, locked it and left.
March gave it five minutes and, when he heard nothing outside, pulled the emergency release cord, climbed out as quickly as he could and looked around the garage.
Empty. And no CCTV.
He walked back and forth, stumbling like a drunk, to revive the circulation in his legs. Once, he had to sit down and lower his head to his shaking knees.
Then on his feet again and into the hotel itself. A Hyatt. He went into the restroom in the lobby and examined himself in the mirror. He didn’t look too bad. The glistening head, which he’d shaved the minute he’d heard his description on the radio several days ago, showed a bit of stubble. Like Walter White on Breaking Bad. He opened the Global Adventure shopping bag and pulled out his gym satchel. From this he retrieved the blond wig, which he’d been wearing since the shaving, at least when he was out in public.
Porn star meets Mad Men …
March pitched into the trash the wig, baseball cap and the worker’s jacket he’d worn at Stan Prescott’s apartment and when he’d first broken into the theme park. (He’d stripped them off as he’d stood in the interminable queue near the Tornado Alley roller-coaster, and donned a souvenir jacket that he’d bought. Nobody noticed the quick change: everyone was watching the flamboyant ride, racing overhead.)
He now dumped the Global jacket and shopping bag, too.
Then outside into the lobby. He got a look at the TV in the bar, reporting on the event at the theme park. No pictures of him, no artist’s rendering, no reference to Solitude Creek.
In the gift shop he bought a windbreaker, sunglasses and a tote – into which went his gym bag.
He took a cab to a downtown Hertz office to rent a car. There he told the clerk he’d be dropping off the rental in San Diego in three days – the police could be looking for rentals to the Monterey area. He’d call later to extend the rental and ultimately switch the drop-off to somewhere in Central California. A flight might be safer but he had only the one pistol: he couldn’t afford to leave it here – there was no way of getting a new weapon in California.
And he knew he’d need it before the week was out.
With his mind racing – Kathryn Dance figured prominently – March took surface streets and local roads on a mazelike route for miles, meandering north, until he figured it was safe to hop on the Ventura Freeway, the 101.
North. He’d be back on the Peninsula in five hours.
CHAPTER 47
Simple.
But effective.
Dance and O’Neil were at the front entrance to Global Adventure World, near the shattered gate. The unsub’s stolen Chevy sat nearby; under it, oil and coolant pooled. The panic had stopped and several thousand people meandered about in the front area of the park, not sure what to do.
Three dozen had been injured, none critically. Opening the two gates – the main and the disabled entrances – had largely relieved the pressure of the masses.
Dance had nearly been trampled but the security chief, Herb Southern, had saved her, the woman who’d fallen and her daughter. He’d driven a golf cart directly between them and the surging mass.
‘Go on,’ Dance now said to Southern and Sergeant Ralston. They continued explaining to the Monterey law enforcers what had happened.
Simple, effective.
No, the unsub hadn’t escaped through the security tunnels lacing the theme park. He hadn’t even given the fake terrorist announcement. Apparently he’d noticed entrances to the tunnels, as well as an extensive PA system, speakers hidden in trees and landscaping. He’d pulled on a ski mask and waylaid one of the security guards – easily spotted because he was carrying one of the fake ID fliers.
The guard – his name was Bob – was present there too. He continued, ‘Then he asked about the tunnels. I didn’t want to tell him but he had the gun. He was right beside me. It was … terrible.’
Dance said, ‘I’m sure it was. Of course.’
Bob, miserable, continued in a choked voice: ‘He took my wallet and called somebody. Gave my address. Told his friend to go there and keep an eye on my family. I had to do exactly what he told me.’
Ralston added to Dance and O’Neil, ‘We’ve got somebody on the house already.’
O’Neil said, ‘There’s no evidence anybody’s working with him. I think that was a sham.’
‘I didn’t want to help,’ the shaken employee said.
‘It’s all right, Bob,’ Southern said, ‘There was a panic and some injuries ’cause of it but nobody badly hurt. You did what you had to. I would’ve done the same thing.’
‘I was supposed to go down in the tunnel and give it five minutes, then he’d fire the gun. He promised me he wasn’t going to shoot anybody. He was just doing it to escape. If I thought he was going to shoot anybody, really was, I wouldn’t’ve done it. I—’
‘It’s okay, Bob.’
The man swallowed. ‘And I did what he wanted. I grabbed the microphone and said what I was supposed to.’
Dance shook her head, looking over the milling crowd, now easily three thousand people. As at Solitude Creek, in the snap of a finger they’d calmed, once they were out of the park and police on loudspeakers had reassured them there were no terrorists.