Both cops nodded agreement, and John saw in their eyes a desperate sort of respect. Proud and professional as they were, they had to feel some relief at having him and his team on the scene to take charge of the situation, and also to take over the responsibility for it. They could get credit for supporting a successful rescue operation, and they could also stand back and say that whatever went wrong wasn’t their fault. The bureaucratic mind was part and parcel of every government employee in the known world.
“Hey, John.” Clark turned. It was Chavez, with Covington right behind him. Both team leaders strode in, wearing their black assault gear now, and looking to the others in the room like angels of death. They came to the conference table and started looking at the diagrams.
“Domingo, this is Colonel Nuncio and Captain Gassman.”
“Good day,” Ding said in his Los Angeles Spanish, shaking hands. Covington did the same, speaking his own language.
“Sniper perch here?” Ding asked at once, tapping the Dive Bomber. “I saw the thing from the parking lot. Some ride. Can I get Homer there unobserved?”
“We’re working on that right now.”
Noonan came in next, his backpack full of electronics gear. “Okay, this looks pretty good for our purposes,” he observed, checking all the TV screens out.
“Our friends have a duplicate facility here.”
“Oops,” Noonan said. “Okay, first, I want to shut down the cell phone nodes.”
“What?” Nuncio asked. “Why?”
“In case our friends have a pal outside with a cell phone to tell them what we’re doing, sir,” Clark answered.
“Ah. Can I help?”
Noonan handled the answer. “Have your people go to each node and have the technicians insert these disks into their computers. There are printed instructions with each.”
“Filipe!” Nuncio turned and snapped his fingers. A moment later his man had the disks and orders, leaving the room with them.
“How deep underground are we?” Noonan asked next.
“No more than five meters.”
“Rebarred concrete overhead?”
“Correct,” the park engineer said.
“Okay, John, our portable radios should work fine.” Then teams -1 and -2 entered the command center. They crowded around the conference table.
“Bad guys and hostages here,” John told them.
“How many?” Eddie Price asked.
“Thirty-five hostages, all kids, two of them in wheelchairs. Those are the two who are not French.”
“Who’s been talking to them?” This was Dr. Bellow.
“I have,” Captain Gassman answered. Bellow grabbed him and walked him to the corner for a quiet chat.
“First of all, overwatch,” Chavez said. “We need to get Homer to the top of that ride . . . unseen . . . How do we do that?”
“There’s people moving around on the TV screens,” Johnston said, turning to look. “Who are they?”
“Park people,” Mike Dennis said. “We have them moving around to make sure all our guests are out.” It was the routine shutdown procedure, albeit many hours off in time.
“Get me some coveralls . . . but I still have to pack my rule. You have mechanics here?”
“Only about a thousand,” the park manager replied.
“Okay, then that’s what I am, toolbox and all. You have the rides running?”
“No, they’re all shut down.”
“The more things moving, the more they have to watch,” Sergeant Johnston told his boss.
“I like it,” Chavez agreed, looking up at Clark.
“So do I. Mr. Dennis, turn them all on, if you would, please.”
“They have to be started up individually. We can turn them off from here by killing the power, but we can’t turn them on from this position.”
“Then get your people out to do it. Sergeant Johnston will go with your man to the’coaster. Homer, set up there. Your mission is to gather information and get it to us. Take the rifle and get zeroed.”
“How high will I be?”
“About one hundred forty meters above the ground.”
The sniper reached in his pocket for a calculator and switched it on to make sure it worked. “Fair enough. Where do I change?”
“This way.” The engineer led him out the door and across the hall to an employee dressing room.
“A perch on the other side?” Covington asked.
“Here’s a good one,” Dennis answered. “The virtual reality building. Not anywhere near as high, but direct line of sight to the castle.”
“I’ll put Houston there,” Covington said. “His leg’s still bothering him.”
“Okay, two sniper-observers plus the TV cameras give us pretty good visual coverage of the castle,” Clark said.
“I need to take a leader’s recon to figure the rest out,” Chavez said. “I need a diagram with the camera positions marked on it. So does Peter.”
“When’s Malloy get here?” Covington asked.
“Another hour or so. He’ll have to gas up when he lands. After that, endurance on the chopper is about four hours, figure thirty minutes cycle time when he touches down.”
“How far can the cameras see, Mr. Dennis?”
“They cover the parking lot this way pretty good, but not the other side. They could do better with people on top of the castle.”
“What do we know about their equipment?”
“Just the guns. We have that on tape.”
“I want to see those,” Noonan put in. “Right now, if possible.”
Things started moving then. Chavez and Covington got their park maps-they used the same ones sold to park guests, with the camera positions hand-marked with black sticky-dots stolen from a secretary. An electric cart-actually a golf cart-met them out in the corridor and whisked them outside, then back into the park on a surface road. Covington navigated from the map, avoiding camera positions as they made their way along the back-lot areas of Worldpark.Noonan ran the three videotapes that showed the terrorists own takedown operation. “Ten of ’em, all right, all male, most of them are bearded, all wearing white hats when they executed their attack. Two look like park employees. We have any information on them?”
“Working on it,” Dennis replied.
“You fingerprint them?” Noonan asked, getting a negative headshake as an answer. “How about photographs?”
“Yes, we all have photo-ID passes to get in.” Dennis held up his.
“That’s something. Let’s get that off to the French police PDQ.”
“Mark!” Dennis waved to his personnel boss.
“We should have gotten uniforms,” Covington said topside.
“Yeah, haste makes waste, doesn’t it, Peter?” Chavez was peering around a corner, smelling the food from the concession stand. It made him a little hungry. “Getting in there’s going to be fun, man.”
“Quite,” Covington agreed.
The castle certainly looked real enough, over fifty meters square and about the same in height. Mainly it was empty space, the blueprints had told them, but there were both a staircase and elevator to the flat roof, and sooner or later the bad guys would put someone there, if they had half a brain amongst them. Well, that. was the job for the snipers. Homer Johnston and Sam Houston would have fairly easy direct shots, four hundred meters from one side ,gad a mere one-sixty or so from the other.
“How big do those windows look to you?”
“Big enough, Ding.”
“Yeah, I think so, too.” And already a plan was coming together in the two minds. “I hope Malloy is well rested.”
Sergeant Homer Johnston, now wearing park coveralls over his ninja suit, popped out of the ground fifty meters from the Dive Bomber. The ride was even more intimidating this close. He walked toward it, escorted by a park employee who was also a ride operator for this attraction.
“I can take you to the top and stop the car there.”
“Great.” It sure looked like a long way to climb, even though there were regular steps heading up. They walked under the canopied entrance, past the crowd-control bars, and Johnston sat in the lead seat on the right side, his gun case on the seat next to his. “Go,” he told the operator. The rideup the first hill was slow-deliberately so, designed that way to scare the bejeebers out of the riders, and that gave Johnston another insight into the mind of a terrorist, he thought with a wry smile. The gang of ten three seat cars stopped just at the crest. Johnston wriggled out, taking his gun case with him. This he set in an equipment bay, opening it to extract a rubber mat, and a ghillie blanket to drape over himself. Last came his rifle and binoculars. He took his time, setting the mat down-the decking here was perforated steel, and lying there would soon become uncomfortable. He deployed the blanket atop his prone frame. It was essentially a light fishing net covered with green plastic leaves, whose purpose was to break up his outline. Then he set up his rifle on its bipod, and took out his green-plastic-coated binoculars. His personal radio microphone dangled in front of his lips.
“Rifle Two-One to command.”
“This is Six,” Clark responded.