Penny Starr wasn’t there before.
The horrible, angry, gnawing that feels like it’s been eating at her insides since they took Mom away starts to fade. She still can’t see her dad, but Athena knows now, she’s certain that he is nearby, and relief, apprehension, fear, joy, all of them mix, make her breathing catch. She glances quickly around once more, and nobody is watching her. For the first time, maybe, nobody is watching her. Whatever Pooch and Vladimir/Kurkur and Oscar/Flashman and Sonny/Gordo thought would happen, whatever they expected to see, Athena realizes that they’re not seeing it.
Their tension is sudden, palpable in the way they move, in the way they don’t, in their new stillness, despite their costumes.
Athena edges closer to Joel, and nobody grabs her, and nobody tries to stop her. She reaches out for him, like she wants to see how he’s doing, and they let her. She wonders if they’re talking to each other, if they’ve even noticed, but it doesn’t matter. Turned like this, Athena is facing Rascal’s Tailspin, where one of the bowls moved when it shouldn’t have. Keeping her hands close to her body, she signs as quickly as she can, spelling the names.
K-U-R-K-U-R G-O-R-D-O C–L-I-P P-O-O-C-H K-U-R-K-U-R G-O-R-
Movement, the corner of her eye. She starts to turn her head, but not before she sees the bowl that she thought was moving spin around, the door in its side open, and there’s Uncle Jorge sort of half inside, half out. He’s got his gun in both hands, coming forward already, and she sees the gun rocking, feels the vibration of the gunshots.
Athena twists, sees the first group across from them, sees Penny Starr with a gun all her own, and she sees her put it against the helmet of Clip Flashman and pull the trigger, just like that. The people on the bridge start to scatter, and Lola tries to turn around, to face Penny Starr, an arm rising beneath the floppy wing, one of the guns like Vladimir and Sonny and Oscar are carrying, but it never gets to come up. Penny Starr shoots the giant toucan, and Lola falls down, wings flopping.
Movement erupts all around her, the vibration in the air and her body, shots and more shots. Pooch shoves her aside, rushing forward, and Kurkur/Vladimir is sweeping his cloak back and bringing up his gun. Athena shouts, throws herself into Joel, knocking them both to the pavement. She sees Oscar/Clip is on his knees, hands moving to his helmet, like he wants to take it off, and then the helmet shatters and he falls sideways. Gail, Lynne, Miguel, Leon, all of them in their costumes, they’re still standing, and Athena pushes herself to her feet, launches herself at Lynne from behind. They tumble to the ground together, landing absorbed by the Smooch costume.
Sonny is turning toward them, yanking his big gun free from where he’s been hiding it inside Gordo’s baseball glove. Big, happy Gordo eyes seem to find her, and Athena sees a shower of color behind him, plastic spheres suddenly erupting from the ball pit, bouncing every which way. Uncle Freddie is there now, and he’s shooting, too. Gordo’s eyes stay big and happy, but he twists, falls to his side like someone let the air out of him.
Athena rolls off Lynne, sees the second group, to the side. There’s a S.E.E.K.E.R. Robot down on the ground, clutching at his leg, and there’s a Pooch facedown, not moving.
She sees her dad, watches as he fires the gun in his hand. Soccer Betsy jerks like she’s been punched in the face, and he shoots her again, and she falls. He steps over her like she’s not even there, that pistol in both hands, swinging it around. The look on his face is one she’s never seen before. It’s not a scary face, but it’s not a happy face, either. For that instant, she thinks her father is feeling nothing at all.
“Dad!” Athena shouts, shouts as loud as she can, not even certain what that is. Using all her air, making the words, “Dad! Dad! Dad!”
His head snaps in her direction, but his eyes don’t find her, skip past her. Athena remembers the stupid Agent Rose mask on her face, yanks it off, knocking the hat away at the same time.
“Dad!” She’s screaming it, now, feels her throat tearing, wonders if she has ever been this loud before, wonders if it matters. “Daddy! Daddy!”
He finds her, and the blank face isn’t blank any longer, and he’s shouting something, starting toward her, gesturing with one hand while the other still holds the pistol high. Swiping, telling her to get down, and Athena thinks that all of this, it’s almost over, it’s going to be all right.
Her dad is here, and it’s going to be all right.
She’s wrong.
Chapter Thirty-two
Gabriel doesn’t know why they’ve stopped at first, only that they have, and Vladimir half turns, calls back to him, voice muffled behind the Kurkur mask.
“I don’t see them,” Vladimir says, using English. “Something’s wrong.”
He thinks that means Vladimir just can’t see the two other groups, Charlie One and Charlie Two, and Gabriel takes another few steps forward then. He is aware of Bell’s daughter in front of him, looking at her friend in the Flashman costume, but beyond the front of their group, where Dana is positioned beside Oscar, Betsy and Clip Flashman side by side, his vision is impaired. It’s hard to see extreme distance through the Pooch headpiece, and Gabriel wants to remove it, the same way he wants to answer Vladimir. Again, he keeps his silence, afraid of what his voice might mean to Dana.
“They’re not here.” Sonny, dressed as Gordo, anxious, nervous. Oscar starts to turn back his way. Just at the edge of Gabriel’s vision, fuzzy through the grille, he can see Charlie One coming in from the north. He moves his hand, thinking to reach into his suit and pull his radio, to ask Jonathan Bell just what he thinks he’s doing, if he really wants to do this, to play games with the lives of so many, with the life of his daughter.
Then it all goes to screaming hell.
“Contact!” This in Russian, Vladimir shouting, and Gabriel can’t tell where the shots are coming from, only that Oscar is going down, Clip Flashman helmet bursting into shards as a round finds his face. The reports echo across pavement and bounce from buildings, the rides, from the heavens, it seems, all of them muffled, confused, inside Pooch’s head.
The girl, Bell’s daughter, has fallen, or maybe she’s diving, knocking down the Flashman boy, and Vladimir is turning, freeing his submachine gun, but the others are only now beginning to respond. In the back of Gabriel’s mind he understands, intuitively, how this is happening, how Bell and his team are picking their targets, at least in part, at least in front of him. How can they tell who is a hostage and who isn’t? The last ones to move, those are the hostages. The last ones to move, because they are the last to understand, because they are deaf. They cannot hear the shots.
Sonny is falling, and just in the edge of his vision, Gabriel sees Vladimir with his weapon out, laying down fire. Gabriel starts forward, wanting to reach Dana, to protect her, but stops himself, instead steps back. Tears at the front of the Pooch costume, reaching for his own submachine gun, still trapped against his side.
Then the weapon is in his hands, and he swings it right, fires off a burst toward the spinning bowl ride, shooting blindly. Bell’s daughter is on her knees, screaming for her father, and he can see that Dana in the Betsy costume is trying to protect the kids, trying to pull them close to her with oversized arms, to pull them down.
“The girl!” Gabriel points at Bell’s daughter. “Vladimir! The girl, get the girl!”
He looses another burst, same direction as before. The fucking Pooch head has killed his peripheral vision, and what he can see as he moves comes stuttered, like broken film. He tries to back up, almost trips over his own paws, sees a man amid the bowls coming forward, pistol in his hands, firing at him. Something punches through his mask, creases pain along his scalp, and he lays on the MP5K again, watches the man jerk backward, fall out of his line of sight.