My earbud crackled.
Mahoney said, “Alex, repeat the location, you’re garbled.”
Varjan had seen enough. She spun around and headed away from the window fast. Before following her, Gabriel clubbed Bronson across the back of his head with the butt of his pistol, sending him sprawling.
“Cross?” Carstensen said. “Repeat?”
I jammed the binoculars in my coat pocket, pivoted, and headed for the exit. When I hit the hallway, I hesitated, knowing the skyboxes would be closer if I went left. Instead, I went right and broke into a dodging run through the growing crowd of fans, triggering my mike as I did.
“This is Cross,” I said. “Repeat, we’ve got two, probably three of the assassins right here in the building. The president’s killer and Varjan. She just made me. They’re fleeing the skyboxes. Look for a glam girl, a cowboy in a black hat and a long brown duster, and an angel in white robes and a latex mask. The angel has a clipped left wing, like the president’s assassin, and he is armed. Assume others are as well.”
“Copy,” Mahoney said. “I’m heading toward the closest exit to the skyboxes.”
Carstensen said, “I’m calling in SWAT, sealing the entire venue.”
I spotted a stairway finally and wanted to bound down it, but there were too many people coming up. I had to squeeze hard right against the flow, which cost me more time.
When I made it to the skybox level, I decided to keep going down. There was no doubt in my mind they were trying to get the hell out of the venue.
Varjan saw me just now. She saw me at the motel, and again the first day of the e-sports championships. She knows I’m FBI. They’ll all be on high alert.
I reached the hall’s lowest level and almost went toward the west entrance where Mahoney had gone in anticipation of the shortest line of flight from the skyboxes. But something told me to do the opposite, to double back and go east.
Moving as fast as the crowd would let me, I kept one hand ready to draw my service weapon and swiveled my head as I ran, scanning the faces and costumes.
I got a look at several girls dressed as Celes Chere and two cowboys in black hats. But they weren’t wearing the horseman dusters, and—
An alarm began to whoop.
Diversion, I thought. Just like the last time.
Fans froze in place, not knowing what to do. Several panicked and I heard people saying, “Fire?” Then I heard screaming ahead of me.
I yanked out my badge and gun and yelled, “FBI! Get down!”
People started running away instead of getting down, but it opened up a path through the crowd that allowed me to quickly round a curve in the passage and to see a red light flashing below an emergency exit sign. A security guard was lying in a pool of blood below the flashing light in front of an emergency door that was ajar.
“Help’s on the way,” I shouted at the wounded man as I vaulted over him, seeing that his pistol was missing from his holster before I threw my shoulder into the door.
It flew open, revealing a steel staircase landing and a short flight of stairs leading down to an empty ambulance parked in a bay.
Behind the ambulance, the overhead door was up. I ran toward it. Two EMTs carrying cups of coffee appeared.
“FBI!” I shouted. “Did you see people come out this door?”
“Two of them, a guy dressed as an angel and a glitter girl,” one of them said. He gestured with the coffee cup. “They ran like hell toward the boardwalk.”