“Rose Bowl? Are you at the PFL Cup, Riley? Is someone planning to-?”
“Never mind that. Is there anything else on the paper?”
Riley heard a new note of icy resolve in Meg’s voice. She spoke rapidly and matter-of-factly. “There are four small Xs on the paper. One near the end of each of the lines. Each X has two letters next to it-the first has CC, the second AL, the third MT, and the fourth TL. Then there’s a pointy arrow-like a pyramid with no bottom. And then right in the middle is a square with some pointy-ended rectangles jutting out the top. The only other thing is a big X down below the square, about halfway between the square and the bottom of the last line.”
“Is there anything else? Anything at all?” Riley asked.
“No, that’s it. Please, Riley, please tell me what’s going on.” Her resolve quickly disappeared again into fear and sorrow.
“I have to go now. You’re going to have to trust me that I’ll give you all the answers soon. Now go get Aly, and go to your neighbors’.”
“Please, Riley…”
“Meg, I’m sorry. Now do what I asked you!” Riley hung up the phone feeling like a total jerk for speaking to her that way. He turned to Scott.
But Scott was already zoned out.
Scott’s eyes were closed as he brought up a mental image of the paper Meg Ricci had just described.
A square with pointy rectangles… missiles?… He could be planning to hit a missile silo, but what good would that do?… Overtaking a missile silo and launching-impossible; that stuff only happens in old Frank Zagarino movies.
Xs with initials: CC, AL, MT, and TL. AL and MT could be state abbreviations, but what about the others? “Khadi, start googling combinations of those letter pairs,” Scott called out of his haze, and Khadi quickly went to work on the Toughbook.
So, scratch missiles… Pointy rectangles… Washington Monument… skyscrapers… turrets… turrets coming out of a square… or towers… Yeah, towers out of a square… a castle… Yeah, okay, good call; he’s probably going to hit one of the many southern California castles.
Scott took a deep pull on his Yoo-hoo without opening his eyes. Focus, focus! A church? Unlikely… and it doesn’t have the layout for a broadcasting zone… What if it is a castle… maybe a replica of some kind?… A castle next to a pyramid… Las Vegas? No, that dead border coyote points to Hakeem being in L.A., not Nevada… Is it a movie studio?
“Somebody call Tara and tell her to have her minions check for a studio lot that might have a castle and a pyramid on it,” Scott said as he blindly tossed his phone toward anyone who would catch it. “Speed dial 6!”
But a studio isn’t big enough… Not a pyramid… maybe a tent… A castle next to a tent? Sounds like a So-Cal used car lot… Not a tent… Maybe the pyramid’s a mountain… A castle next to a mountain?
Abruptly Scott’s eyes opened. “Oh no,” he said out loud. “Khadi, give me the computer!”
Scott typed a couple of words, tap-tap-tapped the backspace, corrected his typing. Everyone gathered around the screen, then gasped as they saw what he had brought up.
He pointed to an illustrated map as he read off the locations. “CC… to the left up here; AL… below it over here; MT… up top here; and TL… over on the far right. Folks, Hakeem’s not coming to the PFL Cup. We were set up. He’s gone to Disneyland.”
Chapter 37
Sunday, February 1
Rose Bowl Stadium
Pasadena, California
4:15 p.m. PST
“Li, tell the folks at Edwards that we’re taking two of their Black Hawks!” Hicks yelled into his comm system as he ran with Khadi, Scott, Skeeter, and Riley through the tunnel under the stands. “I want one with rotors spinning in three minutes on the north fairways! You and the rest of the team will take the other one! Logan, let the control tower know we’re heading out and have them plot us a course so we don’t run into some idiot news chopper! Hummel and Kruse, let Director LeBlanc know what’s going on! Tell him we need SWAT at Disneyland ASAP and have him contact security at the park to let them know what’s going down! The rest of you, get out of those scoreboards and to the helipad-I want you off the ground no more than four minutes after us!”
Skeeter led the group as they came out into the sunlight. His shoulder was like the prow of an icebreaker as it cut through the solid mass of people. Scott was on the phone behind him, asking Tara Walsh to send full schematics of Disneyland to his Toughbook. Hicks and Khadi were immediately behind Scott, and Riley brought up the rear. The run had brought back Riley’s cough, and he seemed to be having a hard time keeping up.
Hicks could hear the assault helicopter winding up as they approached. As they broke through the row of trees lining the fairway at the golf course, he spotted the Black Hawk with its rotors up to speed. Twenty yards east, another helicopter was just starting its spin. Hicks and the others finished their run in a crouch and jumped into the cargo area.
Hicks gave the pilots a thumbs-up, and immediately the wheels left the ground. All five passengers slipped on helmets, adjusted their intercom mics, and gathered around Scott’s Toughbook screen.
Scott shouted over the sound of the helicopter, “Tara just sent me this architectural map. You can see the way the park kind of spokes out from the central hub of Cinderella’s castle.”
“Sleeping Beauty’s castle,” Riley corrected, causing the three men to give him a questioning look. “What? It’s written on the map!”
“Yeah, whatever, Pach,” Scott said with a grin.
“Just shut up and show us again where Sal had his Xs.”
“Each one was near the end of one of the spokes. You got Critter Country, Adventureland, Mickey’s Toontown, and Tomorrowland.”
“What about the big X?” Khadi asked.
“That one was halfway between the center hub and the end of the lower line. That would put it right about here,” Scott said, pointing right to the middle of Main Street, USA.
“Okay, so why all the Xs? What’s he got planned?” Hicks asked.
“Scott, pull up a Google Earth view of Disneyland,” Riley said. When the image was up, Riley leaned close to the screen. “Okay, I’m thinking back to when I was there as a kid. There were shops-tons of shops lining Main Street,” Riley remembered.
“Isn’t it the first thing you come to after you enter?” Scott asked.
“Yeah. I remember thinking it was pretty boring as a kid; I wanted to get to the real rides.”
Khadi pushed her way in front of the computer screen. “So, why all the Xs? The most logical use for the markings are that they are bomb sites. But why bomb the extremities? There’s no real impact out there.”
“I hear you, Khadi,” Riley said. “The only other reason I can think of for Xs is to indicate meet points. But it really seemed to me that Sal was planning on going this alone.”
“Quit telling me everything the Xs aren’t and start telling me what they are!” Hicks commanded.
“They’re whip cracks,” came a deep voice. Everyone turned to see Skeeter leaning over Khadi’s shoulder, looking at the screen. “You got yourself a mule don’t wanna move, you crack him a whip ’crost his back. He’ll start movin’. That’s what hajji’s doing with those other four Xs. He’s cracking his whip.”
“Of course,” Riley said. “You set off those blasts, people start running away. The only route clear of destruction is the one to the main entrance. But to get to the main entrance, they’ve got to squeeze through the Main Street funnel. Sal waits for the big rush down Main Street, and then he detonates the big one.”