Fires of Midnight (32 page)
Authors: Jon Land
Johnny Wareagle had been waiting in the darkness for Blaine McCracken to tell him where to go, when a high school band being given a tour forced him to move on. There were plenty of places for him to hide, in the form of storerooms, staff changing and locker rooms, lounges and closets. Each hallway featured clear markings indicating what lay ahead in all directions, both here in the tunnels as well as aboveground in the park itself. Johnny hadn’t been paying much attention because it didn’t seem to matter. He’d put plenty of distance between himself and the high school band when he had run into the cowboy stuck before him now.
“Well, I got the first stunt show in Frontierland,” he said finally. “Good luck.”
“Good luck,” Johnny returned.
The cowboy started to move on, then changed his mind. “Ran into another big guy not long before you, you know.”
Johnny felt his spine quiver, thinking of the monstrous thing Blaine McCracken had encountered in the New York Public Library and then again inside Group Six.
“Somebody did a great makeup job on him, let me tell you. I figured he was heading for the Haunted Mansion, ’cept I didn’t know we were adding live figures there, too.” He seemed to think of something. “Come to think of it, he was heading in the wrong direction.”
“Which direction?”
The cowboy pointed back, slid easily into his performance drawl. “He went thata way, off to the right. Hey, you know him?”
“Maybe.”
The cowboy tipped his cap. “Have a good day, pardner. Don’t scare too many kids in that cave of yours.”
“No.”
“Happy Fourth of July!”
J
oshua Wolfe reached the Magic Kingdom at dusk, covering the last stretch of the ride in a shuttle bus boarded in front of the local plaza hotels. The Magic Kingdom was the third stop after Disney-MGM Studios and Epcot, and the four-mile trek took a choking, churning forty minutes. Traffic was backed up for miles, everyone coming and nobody, it seemed, going. The parking lots, especially the Magic Kingdom’s, had turned into obstacle courses with buses parked anywhere they could steal a place to squeeze into, only to find themselves unable to maneuver in the mounting clutter. The driver of this shuttle repeated the pickup times but cautioned patrons to be patient. A long night was promised. Anyone who wanted to get home sanely, he advised, should leave before the parade and the fireworks got under way.
oshua Wolfe reached the Magic Kingdom at dusk, covering the last stretch of the ride in a shuttle bus boarded in front of the local plaza hotels. The Magic Kingdom was the third stop after Disney-MGM Studios and Epcot, and the four-mile trek took a choking, churning forty minutes. Traffic was backed up for miles, everyone coming and nobody, it seemed, going. The parking lots, especially the Magic Kingdom’s, had turned into obstacle courses with buses parked anywhere they could steal a place to squeeze into, only to find themselves unable to maneuver in the mounting clutter. The driver of this shuttle repeated the pickup times but cautioned patrons to be patient. A long night was promised. Anyone who wanted to get home sanely, he advised, should leave before the parade and the fireworks got under way.
The driver opened the doors and people crowded into the aisle impatiently. Josh felt his breathing shorten, suddenly claustrophobic. To settle himself, he focused on the task before him: retrieving the vial of CLAIR and retracing his steps out of the park. The front pocket of his jeans held the small vial of the compound he’d created in Group Six to mix with CLAIR, if he had to—if they made him.
Josh barely remembered leaving the bus, getting the admission ticket he had bought earlier in the week ready, and stepping onto the monorail. His life seemed to start again when the monorail doors opened before the entrance to the Magic Kingdom. They stamped his ticket, gave it back and
he was through the turnstile onto Main Street U.S.A. This was Disney’s elegant re-creation of a quaint small-town center, complete with horsedrawn carriages, antique car replicas, and old-fashioned trolleys, one of which now featured a barbershop quartet singing in perfect harmony.
he was through the turnstile onto Main Street U.S.A. This was Disney’s elegant re-creation of a quaint small-town center, complete with horsedrawn carriages, antique car replicas, and old-fashioned trolleys, one of which now featured a barbershop quartet singing in perfect harmony.
Josh moved farther into the world of simulated small-town life. Hair held back by a baseball cap that made him look like every other teenager in the park, Josh ambled dazedly on, lost in the swirl of lights and activity. He smelled fresh popcorn, heard the far-off sounds of a marching band making its way through the park.
And saw the Men. They stood out stiffly, eyes focused nowhere near the attractions. Josh walked toward the grassy, tree-lined park across the square where Disney characters were mugging for photos with speechless children. Nearer to him a group of teenagers in matching navy T-shirts squeezed together for a commemorative picture. Josh approached a boy about his age who was struggling to focus a camera before the group broke apart.
“Hey, want me to take the shot?” he offered. “That way you can be in the picture, too.”
“Good idea, man,” the kid returned, and looped the camera over his neck. “Just press here,” he said, handing it over.
Josh accepted the Minolta and waited for the boy to squeeze in amongst his friends before focusing. They were smiling, laughing, impossible to still. Josh felt the camera tremble in his hand. He didn’t want to be taking the picture—he wanted to be in it, too, wanted to be part of something.
“Whenever you’re ready,” one of them yelled out.
He pushed the button, snapped off a few more and then left them to their clowning. A sea of dark blue shirts, making the kids anonymous amidst the crowd.
“Hey, thanks, man,” said the kid, taking the camera back from him and extending his hand. “I’m Andy.”
Josh took it in the best grip he could manage. “Josh.”
“Hey, you got a camera? How ’bout I take one of you?”
Josh thought of the eyes of Fuchs’s drones relentlessly searching for him.
“I’ve got a better idea,” he told Andy.
M
cCracken greeted the dark like an old friend for the relative cool it brought. The hours had melted away between iced teas and lemonades purchased during sweep after sweep of the park. He pushed Susan Lyle’s wheelchair toward the Splash Mountain ride from the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, watching a constant procession of jammed cars reach the top only to be jettisoned over a fake waterfall on a seemingly straight drop down. Each landed with a thud and skidded across the water, spraying the gleefully screaming occupants who’d waited two hours for the adventure.
cCracken greeted the dark like an old friend for the relative cool it brought. The hours had melted away between iced teas and lemonades purchased during sweep after sweep of the park. He pushed Susan Lyle’s wheelchair toward the Splash Mountain ride from the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, watching a constant procession of jammed cars reach the top only to be jettisoned over a fake waterfall on a seemingly straight drop down. Each landed with a thud and skidded across the water, spraying the gleefully screaming occupants who’d waited two hours for the adventure.
“Hey, boss,” Sal Belamo called.
“Here, Sal,” Blaine returned, pretending to speak toward Susan instead of the jawbone microphone of his wireless communicator. “Where are you?”
“Just went through Alien Encounters in, what the fuck, Tomorrowland. You wouldn’t believe the shit they got inside this thing.”
“Glad you’re enjoying yourself. Our friends still in evidence?”
“Looking a little more nervous now that it’s getting dark.”
After twelve hours in the park, twelve hours of becoming intimately acquainted with the scope and layout of the Magic Kingdom, Blaine could best describe it as deceiving. On the one hand it seemed as if it must be larger than it really was to accommodate the seven different theme parks located within it. On the other, those theme parks had been fitted economically into a manageable but confusing area. It took Blaine several sweeps before he figured out which road went where. He had his bearings now, could recite all the various eating establishments and souvenir specialty shops, in addition to the rides, from memory.
As the day wore on, it had become increasingly difficult to negotiate the roads through the mounting crowds. Numbers had peaked during the last two hours to the point where moving atop the spotless avenues meant standing still much of the time. McCracken checked his watch. In a little over an hour’s time, the Spectromagic Parade would begin, followed immediately by a massive Fourth of July fireworks display in the Disney tradition, the highlight of which was going to be an American flag sewn in the sky by continuous explosions of red, white and blue.
“Fuchs’s people are looking for us as well as the boy, aren’t they?”
“Could be we’ve already been spotted.”
“Even though they haven’t made a move?”
“Insurance. Fuchs isn’t sure his people will be able to find Josh, so he’s hoping we do it for him. Remember, he doesn’t know the kid slipped away from us. Figures we’re all still together.”
“Like one big, happy family,” said Susan.
E
verything considered, this last day had been one of the worst in Turk Wills’s life. The Magic Kingdom was breaking attendance records every time somebody new came through a turnstile and, in between dispatching his men to hot sites spotted by his plainclothes detail, he had to deal with Mr. Washington. What he would have liked to do was take Colonel Asshole and string him up from the wire running from Cinderella’s Castle for Tinkerbell’s Flight. See if it would hold his weight.
verything considered, this last day had been one of the worst in Turk Wills’s life. The Magic Kingdom was breaking attendance records every time somebody new came through a turnstile and, in between dispatching his men to hot sites spotted by his plainclothes detail, he had to deal with Mr. Washington. What he would have liked to do was take Colonel Asshole and string him up from the wire running from Cinderella’s Castle for Tinkerbell’s Flight. See if it would hold his weight.
Mr. Washington had been watching the closed-circuit monitors and nothing else. He was soaked with sweat even though the air-conditioning was cranking as high as it would go. He spoke suddenly now, though his eyes never left the screens.
“I told you he’d be coming in after dusk. I told you to put your people on the alert.”
“We got a hundred thousand people in the park right now. My people been on the alert all day.”
The man from Washington swung his chair toward him stiffly, neck locked to his shoulders from staring at the screens too long. “I’d like to sympathize with your problem—”
“Thanks.”
“—but I need to remind you the matter that brought me here is one of national security.”
Fuchs started to come up out of his chair, but Wills spun it around so they were both facing the bank of monitors again. “See that?” he said, gesturing to a quartet of screens picturing different parts of Main Street U.S.A., stretching all the way to Cinderella’s Castle. “They’re setting up for the parade right now. In an hour I’m gonna have maybe sixty thousand people jammed along that route you see up there. Now, I’m figuring whatever’s going to go down here is likely to put plenty of them in danger. So what I can do, I can either pull my men to help you cause it, or I can keep them on watch to protect those sixty thousand from whatever might happen.” Wills turned the chair again and looked Fuchs right in the eye. “I choose option two.”
“I’ll have your job for this,” the colonel promised.
“Come midnight tonight, it’s all yours, Mr. Washington.”
T
he group in navy T-shirts was part of a teen tour that had originated in the Northeast ten days earlier. They had been working their way south through historical Philadelphia, Washington, Williamsburg, Gettysburg, reaching Disney World as planned on the Fourth of July. The boy whose camera Josh had taken the picture with—Andy—had given him one of the blue shirts and that made him, for all intents and purposes, one of them.
he group in navy T-shirts was part of a teen tour that had originated in the Northeast ten days earlier. They had been working their way south through historical Philadelphia, Washington, Williamsburg, Gettysburg, reaching Disney World as planned on the Fourth of July. The boy whose camera Josh had taken the picture with—Andy—had given him one of the blue shirts and that made him, for all intents and purposes, one of them.
The large group splintered off into several smaller ones, Josh trailing along with a dozen or so who opted to head for the Haunted Mansion. They halted just past Liberty Square when they saw how long the line was.
“Shit,” a girl named Wendy muttered.
“What about Splash Mountain?” a boy named David asked.
“Worse,” a gum-chewing girl replied.
“Tom Sawyer’s Island,” Josh suggested a bit nervously, realizing he was running out of time.
“What?” from Wendy.
“No line for the raft over. Entrance is right there and it’s closing at dark.”
“What the hell?” responded another of the kids. “It’s better than nothing.”
J
osh counted his blessings, concentrating on the matter at hand. He knew the Men would be riding the rafts one after the other. All those potential hiding places in the caves and mines on the island wouldn’t have been lost on them. Linking up with these kids was his only hope for safe passage over there.
osh counted his blessings, concentrating on the matter at hand. He knew the Men would be riding the rafts one after the other. All those potential hiding places in the caves and mines on the island wouldn’t have been lost on them. Linking up with these kids was his only hope for safe passage over there.
They packed onto the raft named “Huck Finn” and were squeezed back against the far rail. Josh kept his eyes down, knowing he mustn’t invite a chance glance, even in the coming dark. The straw-hatted driver repeated the “Closing in ten minutes” warning and urged all passengers to be quick in their exploring. The raft thumped against the dock on the island and the patrons disembarked into a shack labeled “Aunt Polly’s Restaurant.”
This really
was
an island, and that was what had attracted Josh to it initially on Wednesday. He had ultimately settled on it as the hiding place for his second vial of CLAIR because of the dark, cool hiding places it offered. After checking out all the possibilities, he had chosen Injun Joe’s Cave. When he discovered that finding the perfect spot within it was impossible, he had decided to create one by chipping out a large enough portion of rock with the help of his belt buckle. The resulting gap easily accommodated the vial but, even chipping away further at the shard of rock, could not stop it from protruding slightly once replaced.
was
an island, and that was what had attracted Josh to it initially on Wednesday. He had ultimately settled on it as the hiding place for his second vial of CLAIR because of the dark, cool hiding places it offered. After checking out all the possibilities, he had chosen Injun Joe’s Cave. When he discovered that finding the perfect spot within it was impossible, he had decided to create one by chipping out a large enough portion of rock with the help of his belt buckle. The resulting gap easily accommodated the vial but, even chipping away further at the shard of rock, could not stop it from protruding slightly once replaced.
That was a blessing now, since it would greatly facilitate his task of locating the spot again in the dark. Sure enough, he found the slight ridge quickly and removed the rock fragment. Then he slid his fingers into the depression and gripped the vial firmly. He eased it into the pocket on the other side of his jeans from the one containing the smaller vial he’d taken out of Group Six. Now that he had what he’d come for he could begin to think about exiting the Magic Kingdom, something that would surely prove more difficult than entering. But if he could stick with this group of teenagers for another hour or so, exit from the park would come infinitely easier in the postfireworks rush.
Moving swiftly, he caught up with the other kids and accompanied them to the landing where the last of the island’s patrons for the day waited to be ferried back to the Magic Kingdom mainland. His group squeezed onto the second-to-last raft, “Huck Finn” again. A few minutes later it thumped home against the mainland dock. The surge of the crowd pushed Josh forward onto the landing, then back up to the pedestrian road that sliced through the Magic Kingdom. He followed the others, who stopped when they caught a glimpse of roller-coasterlike cars careening through some nearby foliage.
“What ride was that?” Wendy asked.
“Big Thunder Mountain Railroad,” the boy named David answered. “Let’s check it out.”
And they headed off to the right, the ride just below them, with Joshua Wolfe following along as if caught in the flow.
K
rill checked his watch, satisfied that it was almost time to move. The fireworks display would be starting in barely an hour’s time at the conclusion of the evening’s Spectromagic Parade.
rill checked his watch, satisfied that it was almost time to move. The fireworks display would be starting in barely an hour’s time at the conclusion of the evening’s Spectromagic Parade.
Normally, the Magic Kingdom’s fireworks were shot off from a custommade turret pedestal poised in a cement courtyard behind Cinderella’s Castle. But tonight’s were too elaborate and required too many mortar tubes and Roman candles for the area to accommodate them. So they had been moved to a barge moored in the Seven Seas Lagoon between the Polynesian and Grand Floridian resort hotels.
The change of location, though, would not change the unique way the shells would be shot off. Instead of black-powder charges, Disney fired their charges by air pressure, known as the air launch pyrotechnic system. Similarly, the shells would be set off electronically as opposed to the standard timer launch. The result was a show far less dangerous and far more spectacular, since it allowed technicians to precisely time the release of every single burst of color.
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