Jennifer Rardin [Jaz Parks series book 2] Another One Bites The Dust

 Poor Shao looked half dead himself, but he managed to say, “Chien-Lung is kidnap Lai.”

 “How?”

 “Lai strap in stroller. Ge sitting in front row, watching show. When evacuation begin she going out acrobats’ exit. That where Chien-Lung strike her down and take Lai away.”

 “Where’d he go?”

 Shao pointed back toward the marina.

 I squeezed Shao’s arm. “I’m going after him, Shao.” I wished I could promise to bring his baby back. But both of us knew we didn’t live in that kind of world.

 I took off after Lung. “Cole, I want you out looking too,” I said. “Not confronting, just looking.”

 “I’m on it!” he replied.

 Vayl said, “I am inside the camper trying to find something to mark it with, but I will be with you shortly.”

 “Try mustard,” I suggested.

 “Ahh.”

 “It shouldn’t be that hard to find the guy,” I told them. “How many Chinese men wearing gold robes pushing baby strollers do you see on a daily basis?”

 “None,” Cole replied. “But people are starting to trickle into the parking lot where I’m standing. I’ve got a pretty good view down the path behind them too, and the thing is, I’m not seeing any now either.”

 What the hell? He should be sticking out like Santa Claus on a nude beach!

 “Maybe he has the chameleon’s ability to blend in,” suggested Vayl.

 Bergman’s voice came tight and shaking over our earpieces. “Listen, when we put the armor on certain animals theywere able to blend in with their surroundings. And these were mammals whose coats did not typically change colors with the seasons. It could be that he’s ditched the robes and the armor itself has become his disguise.”

 Shit. Part of me just wanted to sit down on that dirty path along with the discarded candy wrappers, soda straws, bits of popcorn, and wads of tasteless gum and give the hell up. You think you’re almost to the top of that bastard of a mountain. You’ve killed the Empress of Doom. Saved the innocents. Staved off world war. And then some psycho dragon wannabe makes off with the second most adorable infant on earth,and he might as well be invisible. What the hell iswith that?

 But I kept moving, kept studying faces, kept following the path. Then I heard it. Not clearly, but not distant either.

 I couldn’t run. Not unless I wanted to start a stampede. But I picked up the pace big-time. Took that path nearly to the marina and then stopped again to listen. Above the babble of scared voices, crying children, and stern cop voices shouting directions, a baby screamed.

 I said, “Guys, I spent enough time with E.J. to know the kid I hear crying right now is not hungry, wet, or tired. That is a freaked-out baby who wants his mommy.”

 Vayl said, “I am on my way, but do not wait.”

 “Cole?”

 “I can see you.”

 “Good. Keep me in sight. Be ready for anything.”

 I zeroed in on the source of that sound. Within thirty seconds I found Lai, bawling so hard his chubby little cheeks were beet red and soaked with tears. Pushing his stroller was a person with Lung’s facial features. That was it. He had, indeed, shed his robes. His armor had crafted itself into a plain black suit, the long sleeves of which covered his hands. He even had matching shoes and a fedora.Bergman would be so proud, I thought bitterly.

 Reminding myself to behave exactly as Pengfei would, I marched up to Lung and wrenched the stroller out of his hands. Maintaining translating distance was tough with people jostling us from every side, but I managed.

 “Are you out of your mind?” I shrilled at him, remembering just in time to spread the fan in front of my mouth with my free hand.

 Lung jerked the stroller back. “Samos betrayed us, as I warned you he would! You should never have trusted our grand plan to one who does not put China foremost! Now we are going to do this asI wished to! This child will be the start of an army trained from infancy to our way of thinking. With Chinese boys outnumbering girls five to one there is no limit to our supply. And now that we have the armor, we can ensure their invincibility on any field of battle on earth!”

 Even in this horror-framed moment, when I understood if I so much as cocked my head in the wrong direction this lunatic would kill baby Lai, I couldn’t quite understand how Lung managed to contain all that insanity inside his spare frame. It seemed to me something monstrous should erupt from the top of his head, maybe a gigantic pus- covered fist holding a twenty-foot billboard flashing a warning to all comers not to be taken in by the fact that this guy could fake normality for long periods of time.

 The words came out so fast I suspected I might be channeling Pengfei. A pleasant thought, as long as she loathed every second of it. “We’ll never get out of Texas with this baby, Chien-Lung. His parents have already sent the police after him. The FBI will join the search soon. Before we are out of American waters his face will be on millions of television sets. Additionally, think about this, we don’t have the resources to take care of one baby, much less the thousands we would need for an army.” I grabbed at the stroller. Lung yanked it to his right, out of my reach.

 “Do not touch it!” he snarled.

 I kept talking, which was stupid, I know. Lunatics don’t follow logic. But we were still surrounded by people.