you?”
“No,” I admitted. “But they haven’t done anything to hurt me either.”
“It has to be personal with you, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I really hate that about you,” he said. He looked down Main Street. He took a deep breath, sighed. “But sometimes I wish I was that way too.”
“Do you really want to go through with it?” I gestured around us. “I mean this is
He was about to reply, about to say something, when he stiffened, looking furtively around.
“What is it?”
“Something’s changed. Don’t you feel it?”
I shook my head.
“They know. They’re looking for us.”
“What —?”
“The letters must have gotten there early. Fucking post office.” He stared up the street, scanning the crowd. “Shit. I see them.”
Panic welled within me. “What are we going to do?”
“Get the others and get the hell out of here.”
I looked around, saw a lot of short-haired, gray-suited men on the sidewalks and in the street. Some of them seemed to be wearing walkie-talkies on their belts, speaking into transistor headsets. They’d infiltrated the crowd without me even noticing.
We hurried through Old Town toward Futureland, where Bill and Paul were supposed to be planting explosives under a seat in the Journey to Jupiter ride. “Who are those guys?” I asked.
Philipe shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“I didn’t see them until you said something. They’re almost as hard to notice as we are.”
“That’s what scares me.”
We found Bill and Paul waiting in line for Jupiter. We told them what was happening and the four of us hurried over to the Submarine ride to find Steve and Mary.
The gray-suited men were all around.
“Do they work for Familyland?” Bill asked. “Or are they cops?”
“I don’t know,” Philipe repeated. He sounded tense.
The men were everywhere, but they didn’t notice us. I was not even sure that they knew who or what they were looking for. We rounded up Steve and Mary and were about to head over to the Enchanted Mountain when, from hidden loudspeakers all over the park, a calm and reassuring, serious yet friendly voice announced: “Due to unforeseen circumstances, Familyland will be closing in five minutes. Please proceed to the main gate.”
Around us, rides were shutting down. People were being quickly and efficiently herded by cheerful young red-coated men and women toward the park entrance.
“ — All guests will be issued complimentary return passes for two days at Familyland, the Home of Fun!”
The message was repeated.
“Get a move on,” Philipe said. “They’re closing in on us. Without a crowd for us to hide in, they’ll see us for sure.”
We found Pete and John waiting by the African Princess, Don and James standing in front of the High Seas Adventure ride. By now the park was almost emptied of normal tourists. Teams of the gray-suited men, accompanied by what looked like uniformed policemen, were patrolling the walkways and thoroughfares, walking into the rides and shops and attractions.
Philipe looked at his watch. “That’s it,” he said. “The others should still be outside. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
All ten of us ran back through Wild West Land. We hurried past the shops and arcades.
And saw Tommy and Buster walk through the front entrance of the park into a deserted Old Town.
They got several yards up the street before they were spotted. Then the gray suits were talking frantically into headsets and walkie-talkies, uniforms were drawing guns, crouching into firing positions.
“Run!” Philipe yelled.
“Get out!” I screamed.
We were all yelling, shouting at the top of our lungs for them to hightail it out of here, but they could not hear us and seemed oblivious to the fact that Familyland was practically deserted save for themselves and the gray suits and the uniforms.
A couple of the suits looked in our direction as we screamed, but we ducked into a doorway, were quiet for a moment, and were forgotten.
“Stay where you are!” someone announced over a loudspeaker.
We came out of our hiding place and saw Tommy running like hell back toward the entrance, having obviously figured out that something was wrong. Buster, though, looked confused. He stood in place, turning back toward Tommy, then back toward the men, not moving in either direction.
“Surrender your weapons!” the loudspeaker said.
For a second, it looked like a scene in a silent comedy. Buster stood there, puzzled, glanced around as if searching for someone else they might be addressing, then pointed quizzically toward himself as if to say, “Who? Me?”
Then there was a shot.
And Buster went down.
“No!” I screamed.
I started toward him, but Philipe grabbed my collar and pulled me back. “Forget it,” he hissed. “It’s too late for him now. We have to save ourselves.”
“He might still be alive!”
“If he is, they have him. Come on.”
We cut through the open patio of a restaurant, ran down a side path past some restrooms and a diaper- changing station, through a gate marked EMPLOYEES ONLY.
“What about Tommy?” Mary asked.
“He’ll make it back,” Philipe said. “He’s smart.”
We were behind Familyland’s false front, in what looked like a parking lot between office buildings, and we ran toward where we knew the main public parking lot was located. We sprinted past one of the buildings and through an unattended open gate, and found ourselves in front of Familyland. We were far away from where our cars were located, but amazingly, idiotically, they did not seem to have staked out the parking lot, and we ran unchecked to our cars.
Tommy was waiting by the Mercedes, and Junior and Tim were parked nearby. All looked worried and frightened, and Philipe shouted at them to get the hell out of here and make sure they were not followed.
I got in the Mercedes with Philipe, and we flew over the parking lot’s speed bumps, bottoming out as we skidded onto the main road. Philipe turned, then sped over the freeway, zigzagged through a residential neighborhood, and drove all the way down Lincoln to Los Alamitos before doubling back and hitting Chapman and heading home. We were not followed.
The rest of them were already waiting for us when we arrived, and Philipe parked in front of the sales office and told everyone to pick up personal effects, it was time to move.
“Where are we going?” Mary asked.
“We’ll find someplace.”
“Maybe they won’t find us here.”
“We can’t take that chance,” he snapped. He looked quickly around the group. “Everyone still have the explosives and detonators?”
We all nodded.
“Good. Let’s take this place out. I don’t want any trace of us left.”
“It’s daytime,” Tim said. “The models are still open.”
