Chapter 26

My blessed Uber driver hit the gas as we reached the rural road leading to the park. I couldn’t reach Graham. Julie’s frantic messages about bulldozers and Lucas filled me with confused horror. I checked over my shoulder but no one was following.

That was because they were ahead of me, I realized with shock, looking out the front window as the park gates opened. A woman in a fur coat stepped from a high-end Mercedes limo.

“Turn around!” I screamed at the driver.

My ex-vet driver performed an acrobatic U-turn in the middle of the narrow road. That maneuver earned him a tip of every bill in my purse. “Is there a back entrance?”

“Construction road,” he said tersely. “It’s likely to rip out the suspension.”

“Just drop me off near it. I can climb fences.” I emptied my wallet on the front seat. “I don’t have enough in here to buy you a new car.”

He glanced at the cash, then at me in the mirror. “What’s going on out there?”

“I don’t think Arden is running the show anymore.”

Before I could say more, the earth shook and flames shot in the air from along the fence in the field. My driver hit the brake and ducked. “IED,” he shouted with the lungs of experience.

I mentally repeated every curse word I knew—in twelve languages. He wasn’t kidding. Either the truck or the fence had been booby-trapped. As the car stopped, I opened the door and shot out, keeping low.

Insanely, a loudspeaker blared “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Bombs bursting in air was not a peace anthem or even an appropriate metaphor at the moment.

Flames ate at the sky. That was more than an IED. That had been a truck full of explosives. I’d seen them before and had hoped never to see them again. What the hell had Julie got into?

A rusty creak dragged my gaze upward. In the far distance behind the flames revolved the skeletal Ferris wheel, its garish lights blinking weakly against the winter-gray clouds.

In the distance, a police siren finally screamed.

I leaned in the passenger window. “Go find a safe place and have a cup of coffee. The cavalry is on its way.”

“You’re some kind of crazy, lady,” he said in what sounded like approval. “You’re sure? I’ve seen worse in the war. Maybe I should go with you.”

“These are homegrown terrorists. You’ve done your duty for the country. Let the locals handle this one.” I hit the roof of his little car, and heart in throat, trudged into the underbrush around the construction fence—in the direction of the front gate and my family.

If paranoids had planted booby-traps around the perimeter, I didn’t mean to find them by going in the back. I’d rather take on the fur coat lady.

My ride lingered until the driver saw my direction. Then with a wave, he drove sedately away from the park, in the opposite direction of the approaching sirens. Smart man.

I don’t carry guns, but I do carry a few other weapons in the capacious pockets of my army jacket. With Julie and Zander trapped inside the park, presumably surrounded by explosives, arsenals, and terrorists, I had no compunction about using what I had, if necessary.

The whole park puzzle was coming together in my mind. We’d been approaching it from the financial angle, silly us. Crazies may like money, but only because it buys them power. The paranoid like control and require lots and lots of security. Things that go bang in the night apparently let them sleep well. It wasn’t a mindset that I understood, but I’d had lots of experience with the build-a-better-arsenal mentality in my travels.

Paycock, Parker, and Gregory were all gun enthusiasts. A blue collar wife-beater like Gregory fell into my admittedly biased image of the usual AGA supporters. I’d thought wealthy CFO Paycock and Harvard alum Parker’s enthusiasm was all about lobbying the AGA members to support Paul Rose’s candidacy.

I’d forgotten the other end of the stick—they supported Rose because he promised them a gun in every closet. An explosive arsenal in a Jesus theme park carried that capacity one step too far.

As I walked toward the front gate, fur coat lady was nowhere in sight. The driver of her Mercedes was smoking a cigarette. Obviously not a bodyguard, he just watched me trudge in. He may have called a warning on his phone. I wasn’t trying to be invisible.

The sound system now played what sounded like a dirge, presumably for whoever had hit the IED. My heart thudded in dread at the possibility that Julie and Zander had been the ones attempting to break the fence, but I didn’t think so.

The Ferris wheel and sound system actually gave me hope. My family tended toward purposeful, creative lunacy.

I might have short legs, but I walked with fury in my heart. I caught up with fur coat, who was sauntering along with her phone to her ear, giving orders.

“If you killed Reverend Arden, you’re going to fry,” I called after her.

She swung around, phone still to her ear—Laura Jeffrey, of course. Her pale brown eyebrows raised, and she clicked off her call. “I’m guessing your name is really not Linda,” she said, irrelevantly. “Arden spoke of Magda’s daughter, and I surmise that’s you. Magda warned me to stay away from you, you realize.”

No, I hadn’t realized, and I didn’t much care. “Did she also warn you to stay away from the park? That would have been more sensible.” I didn’t know Laura’s position in all this or her relationship with my mother or Arden, so I was fishing for information.

She didn’t oblige, just shrugged. “Judging by your reaction to my father’s bodyguards at the hospital, you’re as crazy as she is. What do you think you can possibly do to me?”

Arrogance goeth before a fall. Much as I would have loved to discover how Laura knew my mother—they vied for the attention of the same football hero in junior high would be my guess—I had to reach Julie and Zander. Fortunately, I keep my coat loaded with fun and games. I removed the grenade from a utility pocket and said, “Catch!”

I mocked pulling the pin and lobbed the bomb at her. She shrieked hysterically, dropped her phone, and stupidly did just as I’d ordered—tried to catch it.

While her hands were otherwise occupied, I pepper-sprayed her with my Mace squirt gun containing my own unique formula of pepper and perfume. The grenade rolled away as she grabbed at her eyes and screeched in decibels high enough to alert satellites. I was too furious to feel sympathy, even though I had some notion of the pain she suffered. If my theories were anywhere close to correct, she had caused far more pain and suffering than a squirt of high-class pepper.

She dropped to her knees holding her eyes with one hand and groping for her phone with the other.

“You’d be dead by now if I were as cruel as you,” I said conversationally, catching her shoulder with my army boot and shoving her backward. I planted my foot on her middle to hold her down. She flailed frantically, but she couldn’t see what she was doing even if she tried to bite me.

“I’ll sue you for this!” she shouted. Unfortunately, pepper doesn’t stop mouths.

“I’ll make certain Melissa’s family sues you in return,” I said with a verbal shrug, since she couldn’t see me. “What could that poor girl do to you that deserved shooting?”

“She upset Arden!” she spit angrily, wriggling harder now and pushing up. “Between the two of them—” Finally realizing she was talking too much, she shut up. “I didn’t shoot anyone.”

She started wriggling beneath my boot, trying to reach for her coat pocket. What were the odds that she kept a gun in here? I stomped her wrist, probably crushing bones, if her scream was any indication. “If you pull a gun, I have to pull a gun. And then if my sister shows up, she’ll need a gun in case we start shooting. Then the cops show, and they all have even bigger weapons. Guns beget guns. See why it’s best not to carry them?” I leaned over and yanked hers from her pocket, kicking it under a thorny bush.

She grabbed my ankle with her uncrushed hand. I’m sturdy and low to the ground and don’t topple easily. I stomped her again, hopefully cracking a few ribs. She screamed and held my boot. This was one determined lady. Too bad she hadn’t applied that strength to the greater good. Selfishness begets greed which begets evil. Maybe I’d get into this religion thing after all.

I didn’t think I could pry any more out of her, and I was still worried about the twins. I could hear machinery running in the distance.

I breathed a small sigh of relief as two police cars and an ambulance squealed through the gates.

At the arrival of the screaming sirens, the loudspeaker blared a triumphant “We are the Champions.”

Watching her security monitors, Julie saw Ana arrive after the Mercedes lady, and the police racing toward the cave and bulldozer. With reinforcements on the ground, she felt comfortable leaving her post to join Zander at the Ferris wheel. She left the loudspeaker booming, slipped out the back, and drove the little bakkie up the hill to the side field. Parking off the dirt road, she scanned the winter-sparse shrubbery until she spotted her brother knotting an old piece of twine. He was making a sling. Ag man, the boy never grew up.

He twisted the final knot just as she crouched down beside him. “What do you do?” she asked in irritation. “How does this help?”

He nodded at the road. “They only sent one man after me. I took him down with a stone to the back of his head, but that requires being too close. A sling will give me distance and more power if others follow.”

“You knocked a man out?” she asked in incredulity, peering over the bushes. “I see nothing.”

“I tied him up with some wire I found in a pile of construction material. That’s what gave me the idea for the sling.”

“You think quickly under pressure,” Julie said in admiration of her nerdy brother.

He shrugged off the praise. “Look, here comes a truck. Did you see where the police went?” He tested the strength of his rope sling, then picked a rock from a stack to set in the cradle he’d knotted.

“One police car headed toward Lucas. The other is with Ana. She’s standing on some woman bigger than she is.”

Zander raised his eyebrows in surprise, but the big truck barreled closer, erratically careening from side to side.

They ducked down. Not daring to make a sound, Julie texted Ana of their position and asked about Lucas.

The roar of a helicopter overhead drew her attention skyward. Did police send helicopters?

“Gregory’s truck,” she whispered as she recognized the monster white truck approaching up the hill.

Zander nodded his understanding. Gregory had the authority to order the bulldozer to slam into the mountain. It paid to be wary of him.

Gregory’s truck stopped before it reached the Ferris wheel. It looked as if the man behind the wheel was using binoculars to survey his surroundings.

“Looking for snipers maybe,” Zander said with a snort of amusement. “There are only three seats on the wheel. They’d be ideal for peppering the park if I had a rifle.”

Julie didn’t find any of this amusing. She swallowed hard and prayed.

She prayed harder when Gregory climbed out of his truck in camouflage suit and heavy boots, looking like a soldier. He opened the massive tool box in the truck bed and removed something long and dark.

She gasped when he turned around, cradling an assault rifle.

Zander muttered a bad word. “Lay flat. Don’t move.” Frantically, Julie texted a warning to Ana. Perhaps Ana could steer the police here before the madman realized the pretty park ride made an ideal sniper’s nest.

To her surprise, Lucas texted her. Where are you?

Lucas was alive! And out of the cave! Fingers flying, Julie explained their predicament.

Got it. Coming.

She showed the phone to Zander, who just nodded tersely and watched Gregory.

“He’s looking for an offensive position,” Zander whispered as the contractor examined a pile of boulders left from one of the unfinished exhibits. “He has to know the police will see his truck and come looking for him. He wants a fight. Why?”

“Because he is bosbefok? Or just drunk,” Julie suggested. “Lucas can warn the police away, can’t he?” she inquired anxiously, texting the new horror to both Lucas and Ana.

Gregory turned in their direction, and she shut up.

A motorcycle roared up the hill in their direction. Lucas had arrived at the park on a motorcycle.

Julie covered her mouth as Gregory swung to face the road. Zander set his mouth in the grim, stubborn look directly reflecting their father’s fierce warrior heritage.

Gregory aimed his rifle as the motorcycle came closer. Was Lucas suicidal?

The helicopter dropped lower, startling Gregory but not the motorcycle rider. The rifle rattled off gunfire, just as the cycle deliberately veered off the road at a sharp angle.

With Gregory concentrating on the bike, Zander loaded his sling, stood up, and swung with all the force of his well-trained arm, hitting the gunman on the temple.

Gregory toppled. His rifle shot aimlessly at the sky as he fell.

The helicopter rose and flew away.

I was already trotting toward the Ferris wheel when all hell broke loose. I nearly expired on the spot at the rattle of high-powered weaponry from the hill where Julie and Zander hid. In the distance, from behind Jesus Cave, more explosions lit the sky, and a helicopter zipped in overhead.

I had no doubt that Graham was in the ’copter, directing operations from a visual advantage. I just didn’t know what the devil he was doing because the bull-headed man didn’t communicate. He gave orders, not explanations.

I kept heading toward the twins, even though I had next to no cover. As Maryam had said, this was an excellent field for seeing stars—and anything approaching.

Heart in my throat as the gunfire broke out again, apparently aiming at the helicopter, I dropped to the ground and studied the situation. Julie had said Gregory was up there with an assault rifle, and they were hiding. Who was he shooting at?

The gunfire stopped. A motorcycle started. And the helicopter bobbed, hovered, and flew toward the back of the park. Mission accomplished?

I didn’t know whether to curse Graham or thank him.

A text came through from Julie saying only Hurry.

Trying to breathe a sigh of relief that my siblings were alive, while imagining blood and gore, I trotted up the hill. I didn’t know whether to expect dead bodies, the walking wounded, or Disney fireworks. The Ferris wheel was still running. Half of its brightly colored lights were out and more were blinking erratically. I realized the time had got away from me, and it was late afternoon because the sky behind the lights was almost black. The shortest day of the year had been yesterday.

EG would be home. Mallard would have to look after her.

The shooting began again. This time, I could see the laser light and spit of fire—from the Ferris wheel. As the ancient wheel turned, so did the gun.

I crept up the back of the hill hoping the growing darkness provided cover. Below, more police cars were arriving—an entire SWAT team from the looks of it. Man, we’d really stepped in a fire ant nest this time.

Authorities took too long. My family was trapped up there, and that freakin’ gunman was going down. Well, literally going down right now as the wheel swung his seat away from us and toward the ground on the far side. The blasted ride had only three seats and he’d claimed one of them.

Finally finding Julie’s ugly pink coat behind some ragged weeds, I belly-crawled up behind them. Julie poked the long, lanky body lying beside her, and Zander turned. He held up his sling shot and shrugged, indicating their helplessness.

“Zander knocked him down with a stone,” Julie whispered proudly.

“And then Lucas arrived, and Gregory got up and ran,” Zander explained in disgust. “The wheel is slow, so he can climb on and off easily, but he just sits there, shooting at anything that moves.”

“A dream come true for a real sportsman,” I said sardonically, judging the angle of the wheel and our hiding place and deciding we were safe enough if we kept our heads down. “Where is our super-genius FBI informant?” I didn’t know Lucas, but in my opinion riding up on an assault rifle was not a good tactical maneuver.

“He learned Gregory killed his sister,” Julie whispered in a voice full of horror. “Lucas has been trying to confront him, but Gregory is always surrounded by men, until now.”

Since they all had access to my findings about Gregory’s prison record and theories about Rebecca, I didn’t even bother asking how Lucas knew. With the FBI at his fingertips, he probably had access to more records than I did.

I wondered if Laura Jeffrey had bothered sending Gregory a warning, and if he knew the jig was up.

I pulled out my phone and showed the twins the air-to-ground photos Graham was sending me of the cops in a stand-off with the bulldozer guys at the Jesus Cave. “Looks like they’re holed up in that cement bunker with an arsenal. Gregory must have decided he’d rather die on high ground than starve to death with Jesus.”

Zander snorted. Julie glared at my disrespect. The assault rifle continued spitting fire but mostly as laconic warnings. Or look at me, I’m up here, pigs.

“You can’t touch me,” he slurred as the wheel circled downward. “I have a second amendment right to bear arms and protect myself from a government I don’t recognize!”

Oh yeah, here came the drunken justification. A man who beats up his wife and murders his girlfriend, probably hadn’t the ability to calculate any further than a grandiose super-stud ending like in the movies. The news was filled with idiots like that.

“I ain’t goin’ back to prison,” our bright bulb shouted.

If he thought we’d respond to that and make targets of ourselves, he’d seriously underestimated the enemy. Of course he had.

Julie nodded worriedly in the direction of the road. “Lucas is armed, too. He has a rifle.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake,” I said in disgust. “Stay here.”

I gauged the distance to Gregory’s monster truck where it blocked the road, then found the shadowy figure kneeling in a pile of boulders with his rifle in the ready position. When Gregory’s amusement park seat revolved down the far side of the wheel from the road, I darted out of our hiding place. He might see my movement, but he’d have to shoot through the wheel supports and his truck to reach me.

Lucas heard me coming, swiveled, rifle ready, then made a gesture of disgust, and returned to following his target like any good sniper.

In my fury, I felt his disrespect justified my reaction. I picked up a good-sized rock, smashed it against his trigger hand, kneed him in the back, and ripped the rifle away. Half of my success is surprise. No one expects a shrimp to attack. I heaved the weapon down the hill as he turned to grab me.

“Don’t make a bigger asshat of yourself by hitting me in front of Julie,” I warned. “Going to jail and ruining your career for revenge is the act of a temper-tantrum-throwing toddler.”

“How many more people does he have to kill before I’m allowed to take him down?” Lucas asked angrily.

“You are not judge and jury. The cops will be sending in experts shortly. It’s just you down here wanting to kill right now, which makes you as bad as him. You and the twins could drive away, and he’d be up there all by his lonesome. How long do you think that would last?”

He growled an expletive and glared at the sky. “The cops will let him surrender when he gets tired. He’ll lawyer up. There won’t be enough evidence against him. He’ll get away to do it again.”

Possibly, but I could not condone his testosterone-addled version of justice. Young men simply did not have the brain wiring to think through the hormones, which probably explained half the world’s problems. Still, I had enough experience to sympathize with his frustration and the need for release. “If I bring him down, will you promise not to kill him and to keep me and the kids out of it?”

I was hoping Graham’s men were handling Laura Jeffrey and any other killers on the premises. I could manage only one situation at a time, and the twins came first. I would not let them think it was okay to kill, or take justice into their own hands. But I wasn’t averse to teaching lessons.

If laughing wouldn’t have drawn attention, Lucas probably would have rolled around and howled at my suggestion that I could do what he could not. Instead, the snot looked me up and down and made a rude noise. “Sure, knock yourself out.”

After that, I had enough rage to knock him out. Instead, I pointed at the boulders we were hiding behind. “At the count of three, push.” I placed my palms squarely on the top rock.

I couldn’t see his expression in the dark, but he caught on quick. He raised his head above the rocks, gauged the angle of our target, placed his greater muscle power in a strategic position, and we rocked and rolled.

The first boulder bounced off the rest of the stack and only rolled half way toward our target. Gregory shot in the direction of the noise, and fragments spattered.

“What did Rebecca do to you that she deserved to die?” Now that he knew our position, I felt free to shout at the wheel as we rocked another boulder.

“I didn’t kill her!” Gregory shouted. “She couldn’t swim. That ain’t my fault.”

“It’s hard to swim if you’ve been strangled to death,” Lucas roared at his sister’s killer.

Gregory answered with gunfire. So much for making him talk like they do in the movies. I didn’t expect to get sense out of him anyway.

Having a better idea of how much strength we needed now, we gauged the next boulder better, and the one after that. They bounced and rattled and flat-lined while Gregory emptied his ammo using them for target practice. Eventually, a boulder slammed into the Ferris wheel mechanism.

The wheel slowed down.

“Ancient engine,” Lucas said in satisfaction. “We’ve got him.”

“Remember, you promised to keep us out of this. You can have all the glory,” I warned before pushing the next rock.

He didn’t argue but shoved.

Sure enough, the next rock bounced off the others, arced through the air, and smashed into the lever that operated the engine. The wheel shuddered, groaned, and Gregory—standing up to better aim at us—flew over the back of the seat. Fortunately for him, he was on the downside roll. His gun went one way, he went the other, hitting the ground hard enough to knock the breath from him.

I ran for the rifle. Lucas ran for the man.

It might have been better if Gregory had fallen while the wheel was at its height. Then he could have broken his neck and not known what hit him.

Colored lights flashed across his stunned expression as Lucas grabbed his shirt, hauled him to his feet, and slammed a fist into the gut of his sister’s murderer.

I walked away from the one-sided battle. Cop cars were on their way up the hill. I’d done what I could. Let them handle the rest. The twins and I were outta there, escaping authority—as Magda had taught me.