Score one point to Blackwood. I cuffed his wrists and tightened two interlinked zip ties just above his knees, allowing him enough movement to shuffle but not to run. Race, bless him, pulled off one of his socks and stuffed it into the asshole’s mouth. I hoped it was nice and sweaty.
Time to let the others in.
“Guys? One down, and Race is safe. Let me know when to open the door.”
“Fifteen seconds,” Dan said, the relief evident in her voice.
“Race, can you open the door for your mom when I tell you?”
He nodded. By then, I’d turned the flashlight onto its economy setting, and I took a moment to study our captive. He’d cut his hair, but there was no doubt about his identity.
“Hi, Kelbyn.” His eyes widened at the mention of his name. “Didn’t your parents ever tell you not to play with guns?”
“Three… Two… One…” Dan said in my ear, and I half turned to Race.
“Now.”
Light flooded in from outside, but only for a moment. Then the whole team was beside me. Dan hugged Race while Ana moved a little way along the passage to watch our six.
“Are you okay?” Dan asked. “Did anybody hurt you?”
“Nah, they didn’t see me. I don’t think they’re all that smart.”
Race may have been young, but he’d already faced more shit on the streets than most people would see in a lifetime. I trusted his judgement. And if the bad guys were dumb, that was both a good thing and a bad thing. Good because we could out-think them. Bad because stupid people were unpredictable.
I took out a gun of my own. With a family day out having turned into a rescue mission, I’d relegated my CCP to an ankle holster as my backup piece—thank goodness Bradley had laid out looser-fitting trousers for me to wear today—and tucked my new Walther PPQ into a shoulder holster under my jacket. Now I cocked it and pointed it at Kelbyn’s head.
“We’ve lost Vine’s feed,” Mack told me. “Possibly due to battery issues.”
There wasn’t much I could do about that right now, but it did underscore the urgency of the situation.
“Make a peep without permission, and the next sound you hear will be your brains splattering against the wall.” A physical impossibility with his auditory cortex missing, but it scared him nicely. “Nod if you understand.”
He nodded.
“Good. I’m going to ask you some questions, and I want brief, honest answers. If I don’t get those, it’s going to hurt. Got it?”
Another nod. I fished Race’s sock out of Kelbyn’s mouth. So far, this was going quite well, monkey business excepted. In fact, it was more fun than the actual park.
“You’ve taken a roller coaster full of people hostage, correct?”
“Y-y-yes.”
“Just one group?”
“Yes.”
“How many people are you working with?”
“T-t-two.”
“Your father’s one of them? Jeffrey Monteith?”
“How did you know?”
I applied just a tiny bit of pressure to his windpipe. “I’m asking the questions, not you.”
“Yes. Yes!”
The faint smell of urine drifted on the air. Good grief, I’d barely touched him.
“Who else?”
“N-N-Neil Robinson. He works on the ride.”
“Are they both on the platform?”
“Neil was in the control booth at the back.”
“How do we get there?”
“You won’t hurt them, will you?”
“Did we hurt you?”
“Y-y-yes.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake. If you think that’s pain, you’ve led a very sheltered life.” My words didn’t seem to comfort him. “Look, if they cooperate, we’ll just secure them and turn them over to the authorities. How do we get to the train?”
Kelbyn deflated a little. Hadn’t he realised arrest was inevitable? Nobody got away with holding hostages in the middle of a busy theme park, not unless they were a hell of a lot better prepared, anyway.
“If you follow this hallway and go up the stairs, it brings you out at the far end of the platform.”
“I came along the track,” Race said. “It’s basically a ladder. There’s a door on the right, like, twenty yards along.”
Good. We could split up. Two on the track and one on the stairs. Somebody needed to stay with Kelbyn and Race, and I was inclined to give that job to Carmen. She was a superb shot, but I wanted to avoid gunfire if at all possible, and Dan was sneakier. She could take the passage, Ana could take Race’s route, and I’d go the other way around the track to flank our two targets.
“How does a person get into the booth?” I asked.
Kelbyn looked more miserable than anyone I’d ever seen. “There’s a door.”
“Which end?”
He had to think about that for a moment. “This side. Facing away from the wormhole. Uh, the main entrance.”
“Any steps?”
“Two? Three, maybe?”
“Why did you take those people hostage?” Dan asked. “I mean, it’s a hell of a risk.”
Good question. Sometimes, I tended to get caught up in the nuts and bolts of the operation, but understanding our opponents’ motivations could help us.
“We n-n-need drugs.”
“Drugs?”
“Y-y-yes.”
If they were junkies, that could certainly explain the lack of competence. “And who were you expecting to pay for these drugs?”
Surprisingly, it was Race who answered.
“Artemis and Isolde Sacker. Is that right?”
Kelbyn nodded.
“Who the hell are Artemis and Isolde Sacker?” I asked.
“They’re on Instagram.” And I wasn’t, which probably explained why I’d never heard of them. “We were talking to them in the line.” Race stood on tiptoe to whisper in Dan’s ear, but because she was wearing an earpiece, I heard every word. “Trick likes Isolde, and Vine kept teasing him, so Trick made us sit at the back while he sat at the front with her.”
“Mack, are you getting this?” I asked softly.
“Sure am. Artemis and Isolde are Instagram influencers. Three million and two-point-five million followers respectively. They’ve both made posts about their visit to SciPark today, which means they were probably gifted free tickets, but they mostly seem to focus on make-up. Seems they’ve recently started their own brand. It’s called Artis. Hey, the lip gloss is on special offer.”
“So you’re expecting the hostages to pay their own ransoms?” Dan asked. “That’s new.”
“No, th-th-their father,” Kelbyn said. “We were going to call him.”
“This was a spur-of-the-moment thing? You just saw the Sacker girls walk into the park this morning and thought you could make a few bucks?”
“We found out yesterday that they were c-c-coming. They were on the VIP list.”
I had one more question before we headed up to the platform. “Are your cohorts armed?”
“They both have pistols.”
Oh, fantastic. More guns. But on balance, walking into the line of fire was still better than visiting the gift shop with Bradley.