Dead Drop

by Marc Cameron

  Blue Jays looked up at Ronnie with squinting eyes, mouth opening and closing—teetering on the verge of a scream. A trickle of blood ran down the side of his head in front of his ear. “You . . . you’re supposed to be some kind of law?” His voice rose in tremulous anger and indignation until it became a ragged scream. “What are you gonna do about this? Huh? Are you just gonna stand there and—”

  Ronnie answered his question with a quick thump to the face with the butt of her shotgun, knocking him out cold. “Hot tamale, eh?” Ronnie said, fire flashing in the depths of her eyes. “No, postalita, I am not going to stand around and let you give us all away.” She gave Larue a wink in the darkness. “A necessary evil. He was making far too much noise.”

  “I hate to say it,” Larue said, eyeing Ronnie and keeping his voice to a judicious whisper. “But it is true that your friends aren’t back yet. It’s been over a half an hour. We may need to try another option.”

  Ronnie took a deep breath. Maybe the man was right. Jericho and Jacques had been gone too long.

  The scrape of a boot on gravel outside the ship caused Ronnie to wheel back to the porthole. She held up her left hand to silence everyone in the crowded ship, and pointed the shotgun out the porthole, toward a man wearing a park uniform approaching from the shadows.

  * * *

  Fadila Baghdadi watched as a flower of orange flame erupted like cannon fire from the side of the wooden ship. A hundred feet away in the trees, she clutched her pistol and watched as Abu Nasser pitched forward into the darkness, cut down by the sudden blast. She’d witnessed many deaths that night, and expected to witness many more. Her own death was inevitable, part of the plan—but she still found it painful to see her friends die.

  This was not part of the plan at all. Abu Nasser was not supposed to go yet. They would all go together when the cameras arrived and police stormed the park in a final, glorious battle. But somehow, someone inside the ship had gotten their hands on a gun.

  Fadila kept to the shadows, working her way toward the dark hulk of the pirate ship, stopping alongside a wooden shack that smelled of sweets, less than twenty yards away. There were definitely people inside, several of them from the sounds of murmuring—hiding there, waiting to cut down her friends as they walked past. The thought of it set a hot ball of rage alight in her belly.

  She wondered if the people inside the ship were the ones responsible for the incessant music that had cut off their communications and rendered the radios useless. Hers was off, but she abandoned it on the sidewalk anyway, realizing it would give her away.

  Lifting the black polo, she shoved the pistol down the waistband of her khaki shorts in front of her hip bone. She took a deep breath to steel her resolve, then pulled a green egg-shaped object from her front pocket and held it in her open palm, staring at the oblong outline of a RGD-5 hand grenade. There were only two. Tariq had one and she had the other. They’d planned to use them together, taking many infidels with them at the time of their own deaths. Not as powerful as the American grenades, the Russian weapon was far cheaper, and much easier to obtain. It would most certainly kill anyone hiding in the stupid ship.

  She stuffed the grenade back in her shorts, leaving it high in her pocket so she could reach it easily. The fuse would burn for less than four seconds, so Fadila knew she would die as well—but that was of no consequence.

  She mussed her hair to look as if she was also being hunted, then affected the terrified expression she’d seen on the faces of the people she’d killed that night. Americans were quick to trust a woman in jeopardy. Whoever was in the ship, police or otherwise, would believe her long enough to give her the opportunity to kill them all.

  Chapter 15

  8:43 P.M.

  Quinn gave the base of the AK-47’s magazine an upward smack with the flat of his hand, and then racked the bolt and pulled the trigger. Years of training had embedded the tap, rack, bang drill in his brain for a failure-to-fire malfunction—

  Tap, rack . . . but no bang. Quinn chided himself for not checking the chamber when he’d picked up the weapon, realizing Saqr must have run it dry.

  Abu Kaliq turned out to be much more athletic than the others in his group and jumped sideways at the first sight of Quinn, as if to try and dodge his fire. The jihadi smiled when the gun malfunctioned, and then dove for his own rifle that leaned against the wall. Quinn threw the useless AK like a spear, crashing in behind it with the point of his shoulder.

  Quinn felt the other man’s rib cage bend inward as they came together. It would have been a devastating blow, but the knife wound in Quinn’s thigh throbbed as if it had been stuffed with hot coals and robbed him of a considerable amount of power as he sprang forward. Still, it knocked the wind out of Kaliq long enough for Quinn to get him rolled back on his heels—for the moment.

  Quinn saw the black plastic box that had to be the cell phone jammer and tried to work his way to it, but Kaliq circled, putting himself in front of the device. Tariq was nowhere to be seen, but Quinn didn’t have time to worry about anyone who wasn’t trying to kill him right then and there.

  Battle, especially in close quarters, was frenetic and unpredictable—but for a victory, it had to be fought with an end goal in mind. Inflicting pain might slow down the opponent or redirect his energy, creating a different avenue for attack. But pain didn’t stop a determined fighter. In the end, blood or oxygen to the brain had to be interrupted, from a correctly applied choke, a bullet, a blade—or the sudden fatal meeting with the concrete after a fall from twenty-one stories.

  Quinn pressed forward, shoving Kaliq backward toward the rail, driven by momentum and rage. But the young jihadi had other plans, and stepped off-line to slow Quinn’s attack. At the same time, he reached over Quinn’s shoulder to yank the T-shirt up his back toward his neck, gripping all the gathered fabric from neck to hem in a stout fist. Crossing his forearms, Kaliq snaked in to grab a second handful of shirt and collar on the other side of Quinn’s neck—and then squeezed.

  His turn to push, the heavier man drove Quinn backward as he pulled his forearms together, bashing Quinn into the clear Plexiglas tube that covered Dead Drop’s entry. The flimsy tube was meant for safety, not security, and it separated from the wall under the force of Quinn’s body. Tipping sideways like a tree, it rolled across the concrete to expose the trapdoor.

  The collar of Quinn’s own shirt pressed against the arteries at the side of his neck, cutting off the blood to his brain. With only seconds until he passed out, Quinn shot his left arm between Kaliq’s elbows, putting the flat of his own hand to the side of his head, wedging open the jihadi’s grip with his arm and shoulder—a simple but effective choke escape called “answering the phone.”

  Quinn felt the tingling rush as blood returned to his brain, and he used the renewed energy to pummel Kaliq’s open left side with a series of brutal uppercutting hooks, digging deep into the soft underbelly just below the man’s rib cage. Kaliq struggled to put some distance between himself and the brutal beat-down to his spleen. Smart enough to know he shouldn’t run, the jihadi mounted another attack the instant he felt any relief from Quinn’s punches. Injured and fatigued, the kid lumbered forward, intent on using his greater mass. Quinn sidestepped, throwing out the inside of his forearm like a club and letting it thud directly across the brachial plexus on the left side of Kaliq’s neck. The disruption of nerve impulses caused the jihadi to gurgle unintelligible sounds as his feet outran the upper portion of his body. He tried to regain his balance, but found himself caught in an explosive flurry of hooks and crosses that sent him staggering back directly over the slide’s now-exposed trapdoor. Slamming against the control column, his back collided with the red button and the door fell away, sucking him out of Quinn’s grasp.

  Unwilling to let Kaliq escape to the bottom and alert the rest of his crew, Quinn dove in before the door could swing shut, following Kaliq headfirst into the gurgling darkness of the tube.

  * * *

  As
the name implied, Dead Drop’s tubular slide fell away at a stomach-churning near-vertical drop for the first ten stories, or ninety feet, with riders’ bodies gradually coming back into greater and greater contact with the slide itself as the angle increased with each passing foot. A steady spray of water greased the way.

  Diving headfirst with his arms outstretched, Quinn was in virtual freefall, coming into far less contact with the slide and producing greater speed than Kaliq, who slid on his back, feet forward. Obviously terrified, the young jihadi screamed at the top of his lungs. He flailed wildly as he slid, causing him to careen back and forth inside the tube, slowing him down even more.

  Rocketing down the slide near highway speeds, Quinn gritted his teeth, arching his neck to keep his nose above the jet of water that rushed down the base of the slide. A rooster tail of spray flew up behind Kaliq as he slid. Quinn’s fingers curled around a knot of his trailing hair two seconds into the ride. The jihadi went apoplectic, screaming even louder, a hollow, otherworldly sound inside the close confines of the plastic tube. He’d had no idea Quinn was behind him, and flailed wildly when he felt something out of the darkness grab his hair.

  They reached fifty miles an hour about the time the angle of the slide rose up to meet them. Quinn pulled himself forward with Kaliq’s hair as if it were a rope. Both men careened up on the side of the tube as it curved sharply to the right in a series of two downward spiraling corkscrew loops. Unable, or at least unwilling, to put his arms up over his head and fight back, Kaliq jerked his head from side to side as he sped along, in an effort to shake off the unseen attacker. Quinn tensed his core, locking his ankles and tucking his shoulders to gain as much speed as he could. Kaliq’s fighting only slowed him all the more, allowing Quinn to move forward enough to slide his right hand over the screaming face, groping forward to claw at the man’s eyes. Thrashing like he was out of his mind, Kaliq arched his back, inadvertently allowing Quinn to sink his fingers into the man’s eye sockets up to his knuckles. Kaliq tore at his own face with both hands, but it did no good. Pain and physics made his efforts hopeless. Quinn gripped the young terrorist’s face like a bowling ball, allowing his legs to come apart slightly, slowing him, forcing Kaliq to drag him along by the eyes.

  The jihadi screamed a broken scream. Quinn’s stomach fell away as the two men shot out of the final loop and plunged downward another twenty feet. The angle decreased and the top of the slide opened up to form a trough instead of a tube. What had been a lubricating spray became two feet of water, slowing the men’s forward motion as surely as if they’d deployed a parachute. Eighteen seconds after they’d dropped through the trapdoor twenty-one stories above, they reached the end of the Dead Drop.

  Maintaining the claw grip, Quinn arched his body and let his legs fly past the thrashing jihadi, flipping on his belly and clamoring onto the man’s back to hold his face underwater. Expecting to be shot at any moment by one of Kaliq’s compatriots, Quinn locked his legs around the man in an effort to quiet the sound of splashing water. It was over much more quickly than Quinn expected it to be and he lay there on the man’s back, holding him under long after he’d stopped his struggles.

  Drenched and oozing blood from the knife gash in his leg, Quinn left the dead jihadi floating facedown in the slide. He took a quick moment to look around and gather his thoughts, finding himself alone in the shadows. A blue glow from the lights in the wave pool flickered up through the trees to his right. Apart from the music coming from the speakers, the park was eerily silent.

  He’d hoped to find Terry Spencer at the top of the slide, kill him, and disable the cell jammer. The immediate scrap with Kaliq had left the swamper operational—and Terry hadn’t even been there. Quinn took a series of deep cleansing breaths, trying to make sense of things. Terry wasn’t at the top, but he had to be somewhere.

  The Lynyrd Skynyrd version of “Call Me the Breeze”—another song from Quinn’s playlist—began to play over the speakers.

  If Terry Spencer had any knowledge of the park at all, he’d go straight for the office to fix the problem with the radio and reestablish communication with his team.

  Quinn kept to the shadows and sprinted toward the park office. Once more he found himself without a rifle. The Benchmade folder had slipped out of his shorts during the slide, so now he didn’t even have that. He saw two shooters as he ran, loitering in the trees just inside the side gate. He noted their positions, but gave them a wide berth.

  Fifty meters out, Quinn saw the front door to the park offices swing shut. He dug in, ignoring the sickening ache from the wound in his thigh, and picked up his speed.

  Mattie and Dan were still in the pool along with over a hundred other hostages—all surrounded by cruel men with their fingers on the trigger, waiting for an order.

  Chapter 16

  8:44 P.M.

  Ronnie Garcia watched the dead jihadi for over a minute. She’d seen him topple over in the shadows but wanted to make sure he was going to stay down. At just under twenty-five meters away, most of the nine lead pellets had slammed into his chest and neck, rendering him DRT, as Jericho would call it—Dead Right There. Garcia thumbed another shell into the shotgun, topping it off. The tight yellow swimsuit offered no pockets to store extra ammo. She’d tried to tuck a couple of shells down the front of her cleavage, but they’d both become irretrievable without stripping off the suit. In the end, she’d asked Camille to stand near her with a handful of shells, passing them to her as needed. She didn’t trust anyone else.

  “Any more out there?” Camille whispered, almost reverently, leaning forward to peer through the porthole. Her broad shoulders suddenly tensed, as if she’d seen another threat.

  Ronnie didn’t want to expose their position by sticking the shotgun out the window, so she had to lower it in order to get a wider view.

  “What is it?”

  “Someone else,” Camille whispered.

  “Shoot him!” An unidentified voice, but the murmur rippling through the crowd said it was the general sentiment.

  “Hang on,” Ronnie said. “It looks like a girl. She’s got nothing in her hands.

  Ms. Hatch crept up closer to one of the portholes. “She’s a park employee,” the woman said. “That means she’s one of them.”

  Mr. Larue scoffed. “I’m a park employee,” he said. “Not all of us are part of this.”

  “She looks the part,” the woman said. “If you know what I mean.”

  Ronnie raised the shotgun, but glared sideways at the bony woman. “Because she has dark skin? You need to keep a lid on your trash, calaca.” Literally, skeleton. “I’ll shoot who I have to shoot. Killing isn’t quite as simple as you make it sound.”

  The woman ruffled like an angry hen. “Well, dear, you seem to know a great deal about it.”

  Outside, the young woman walked past the porthole with tentative steps. She approached the door with her hands in the air, looking back and forth as if afraid she might be shot. Garcia felt a sinking feeling burble through her gut, but reminded herself of the boy who was helping Quinn.

  Garcia nodded to Camille, then glanced toward the porthole. “Do me a favor and keep a watch for more bad guys.”

  “Roger that,” Camille said, sounding like her husband.

  Garcia turned, moving to put the rest of the group behind her. The threshold of the door was made of metal, likely the best cover on the entire ship. She cocked a hip out to steady herself against the frame, allowing her to peek out at the approaching woman without making herself too much of a target. Some might have felt overly exposed, dressed in nothing but the tight yellow bathing suit, but Garcia had gotten over such a notion a long time ago. She knew how to use her body—and the temporary lapse in judgment it caused—to gain the upper hand.

  The tactic worked most of the time, but when she stepped into the doorway holding the shotgun, the young woman who approached the ship seemed to look right past her. When Ronnie called out in challenge, she realized that what she ha
d perceived as fear was actually anger.

  “Stop right there!” Ronnie gave a whispered hiss. “Let me see your hands.”

  The young woman dipped her head submissively. She was close enough that a blast from the shotgun would cut her in half, but she hardly seemed to notice it. Apparently oblivious to the gun, she shot furtive glances over her shoulders, then back at Garcia.

  Garcia raised her head, giving the girl a jaundiced look, and kept the shotgun trained at her belly.

  “What’s your name?” Garcia said.

  “Fadila,” the young woman said. “Please, I am frightened.” She cast another look over her shoulder. Ronnie couldn’t tell if she was afraid or waiting for backup.

  “Please,” the girl asked again. “May I come inside?”

  Garcia didn’t budge from her spot by the door. “You work here?” she asked.

  Fadila nodded. “I know the people who have done this,” she said, her voice breathy. “They are killing everyone. I only just managed to get away.” She leaned forward. “Whichever of you shot that one out there certainly saved my life.”

  Garcia took a step back, holding the shotgun up with one hand and motioning the girl inside with a flick of her wrist. “Get in before someone else sees us,” she said.

  Fadila let out a long sigh. Her shoulders dropped. “Thank you,” she said, stopping just inside the door.

  She stood up straighter as she surveyed the crowded interior of the ship before looking directly back at Garcia. “There are so many of you,” she said, as a dark smile spread across her face. “It is good.” Her eyes crawled up and down Garcia, appearing to see her for the first time. “Are you not ashamed?” The words came out on a hateful whisper that caused the tiny hairs on the back of Garcia’s neck to stand on end. “How can you walk around dressed like that?”