“Shut it down!” Chief Baines issues the command into his radio microphone. We run down the sweeping staircase outside the Weese house. “Shut the Tower down, now!”
Fortunately, we have plenty of guys patrolling the boardwalk on account of the big holiday crowds. Dominic Santucci, the hardass of all hardass cops, the guy who constantly busts my chops, is in charge down there. He'll get the job done. In fact, I'm sure the Tower of Terror is already frozen in mid-hoist, stranding confused thrillseekers in their seats with nothing to do but dangle their feet and check out that view.
“Lights and sirens?” Ceepak asks the chief as we slide into our vehicle and the chief jumps into his.
“No. No noise. Just haul ass. Flashers only.”
“Ten-four.” Ceepak slams his door shut and snaps on the roofbar. The lights swirl their reds and blues to request that anyone driving in front of us kindly get the hell out of our way.
Malloy and Kiger will stay here with the Weeses. McDaniels and her techs will swab George's bathroom. Ceepak, the chief, and I?
We shall proceed to haul ass.
“The ride is shut down,” our radio cackles. “Repeat. Tower of Terror is shut down.”
“Good work, Dom,” we hear the chief reply.
We're doing about 75 mph up Ocean Avenue. Ceepak grabs the radio mic. Now he's doing 75 one-handed. “Any sign of Weese?”
“Not here,” Santucci comes back. “Not at Tower of Terror.”
“Do you know what he looks like?” the chief asks over the radio.
“Sort of.”
On the radio, we hear the chief's curt reply. “Not good enough, Sergeant Santucci!”
Ceepak gestures for me to take the George Weese wedding photo we grabbed out of its frame.
“Dom, do you have your computer up?” he says into his hand mic.
“Ten-four. Up and operational.”
“Danny's going to e-mail you an image.”
I use our in-car digital video camera to grab a still frame of the wedding photo. It shows an open-mouthed George wearing the same glasses he wore when he was fifteen-at least the same style. His bride, Natalia, at his side looks impassive. Kind of glum. George's own expression is difficult to read.
I squeeze off a freeze frame, punch a few keys, and zap the image off to Santucci.
“Brace yourself,” Ceepak says.
I brace my hand against the dash. Inertia thrusts me forward. It'll do that when your partner goes from 75 to zero in ten seconds.
Another sloppy parking job for Ceepak. We're right near a flight of steps leading up to the boardwalk. We hop out and start running.
“Excuse me. Pardon me.”
Ceepak is polite even as we shove our way through the crowd. It is a total teeming mob scene. Thousands of kids. Teenagers. College girls. Bare skin and bikinis everywhere. The place is packed. There's so much coconut oil on the breeze you can't even smell the Italian sausage sandwiches.
“This is Two,” a voice crackles off our walkie-talkies. “Suspect spotted. Headed south. He is carrying a black duffel bag.”
The Tower of Terror is north. George must've changed his mind when he saw the crowd of cops converging on that ride, realized the elevator wasn't going up to the top anymore.
Ceepak scans the horizon. I follow his eye line. The Tower of Terror pokes up against the cloudless blue sky to the north. We swing to the south. I see the Ferris wheel and the Paul Bunyan-size statue of a Muffler Man someone repainted to look like a giant pirate holding a treasure chest. In front of us is the Atlantic Ocean. Behind us the shops-the mile-long row of arcades, food joints, tattoo parlors, T-shirt places.
“There!” Ceepak does his three-finger point to the south and east. The Mad Mouse roller coaster. “That'd be my fallback position.”
I see what Ceepak sees. The Mad Mouse is the second-tallest steel structure on the beach. The twisting track is at the end of a short pier that juts out across the beach and over the ocean. The turns on the track are tight, sharp. The track itself, narrow. It's steep in places, but you could run up it like you were running up a ladder leaning against the side of your house, no need to wait for a seat like back at the Tower of Terror. You could hop the line, knock over the kid taking tickets, scamper up the track, and be at your sniper post in no time.
There's jagged, light-bulb letters up top spelling out the words “MAD MOUSE.” Each of the Ms is at least six feet tall. Weese could slip behind one, prop his rifle in the giant Ms V-shaped crotch and start picking off targets down below.
“Excuse me. Pardon me. Coming through.”
We play Ceepak's hunch, work our way through the mob and head south, over to the Mad Mouse.
I see Ceepak touch his pistol. He doesn't unsnap the holster, doesn't want to start shooting, not when we're surrounded by this tight a pack of innocent bystanders. But he wants to make sure it's still there in case he needs it.
“This is Four. We've got him.” Another one of our foot soldiers has spotted Weese.
“Go, Four.” It's Baines. He's in his car somewhere, coordinating.
“Suspect … south …”
Unit Four's broadcast breaks up, but we catch the gist.
“Middle of crowd … now east … Swirl Cone.”
Ceepak stops in his tracks. Tries to get his bearings.
“All units,” Baines voice comes over the radio. “Move south. Surround suspect.”
“This a drug bust?” This chubby guy in a Speedo blocks our path. He licks an orange-and-white ice cream cone, stands with one hand nestled against the belly roll where his hip should be.
“Sir, where did you purchase that?” Ceepak asks him.
“Why? Is something wrong with it?”
“No, sir. Where did you purchase your cone?” Ceepak sounds like he really, really wants softserve ice cream.
“Over there.” The guy gestures with his cone and it drips down his pudgy fist.
“Danny?”
“Sand Castle Swirl Cones. I know it.”
“Is it near the Mad Mouse?”
“Yeah. Top of the pier. Fifty feet from the roller coaster.”
Swirl Cones. We heard the words in Unit Four's call. Ceepak's hunch was right. We need to hustle.
“There,” I say, pointing to the glowing orange-and-white swirl cone turrets poking out from Sand Castle's roof. We weave our way down the boardwalk, reach the top of the pier.
There's a commotion by the Mad Mouse ticket booth. A wave ripples through the line like somebody is pushing and shoving everybody else.
“Watch it, asshole!” Someone screams. Whoever she is, she has a mouth on her. “Fucking asshole is cutting the line!”
“There.” Ceepak points to a silhouette of a skinny man lugging a duffel bag. He is climbing over coaster cars and scrambling up the track. He's only a silhouette against the bright morning sky, but I recognize the loping gait. It's definitely Wheezer.
Now what?
Ceepak punches his radio's shoulder mic.
“This is Ceepak. Suspect is scaling Mad Mouse.”
“All units, this is Baines. Move in. Move in. Mad Mouse. Mad Mouse! Move!”
Ceepak stays calm.
“Suspect appears to be carrying his weapon concealed in a duffel bag,” he says into the radio. “Repeat. His weapon is still cased, he is not currently armed.”
“All units, all units. Move in on the Mad Mouse. Take him down!”
The screams at the base of the ride grow louder. The people don't yet sound scared, just mad.
“Get off the track, asshole!”
The ride they've been standing in line for has all of a sudden been shut down because some idiot with a suitcase is climbing up the tracks.
“We've been waiting!” One of them shouts. “It's our turn!”
So far no one suspects anything worse than a jerk with a gym bag.
Weese stumbles on the steepest hill of the track. Slips. Almost drops the duffel bag. He pulls himself back up, holds on to the guardrails like he's climbing a gangplank, checks his grip on the bag, and continues toward the top. He's heading for those blinking Ms.