The Chef Read online

  Gotta stay cool, I tell myself. Eyes open. Stay alert. Trust your training.

  If there’s another concealed explosive device somewhere in the vicinity, I know I won’t be able to spot it. Everywhere I look, there are hundreds of hiding places. Trash cans, discarded backpacks, overturned coolers. And there’s no time and no resources to search these hiding places.

  But I might be able to pick out a human threat.

  I take a deep breath, an attempt to stem the adrenaline rush that’s making my body tremble.

  Then I start searching for anyone who looks out of place.

  Anyone acting suspiciously calm.

  Anyone not in uniform carrying a gun of his own.

  And anyone I recognize. Like one of the monsters who terrorized Vanessa. Or anyone who showed up at that scrapyard meeting.

  Or of course, Billy Needham himself.

  Seconds tick by. Nothing.

  The air begins to take on the bitter smell of a cocktail of gunpowder, smoke, and the stench of human fear. Sirens wail in the distance.

  I can feel something coming, but there’s still no sign of what it might be.

  Another bomb? A sniper? A chemical attack?

  I stay low. Knees bent. Head on a swivel.

  Scanning. Scanning.

  Until…I hear it.

  The revving of an engine. As loud as an Indy stock car.

  What the hell?

  My eyes focus on the source.

  It’s not a race car at all.

  It’s the big-wheeled tractor that was pulling the Roman Coliseum float.

  It’s idling in the middle of the street, belching a plume of black exhaust.

  The tractor has been modified. It has a bigger-than-normal vertical muffler. An additional fuel tank. And an expanded metal grille, lined with horizontal spikes jutting out like a torture device from the Middle Ages.

  I take a few steps and realize the tractor is no longer hooked up to its float.

  And its driver—a gladiator wearing a costume of body armor, a metal helmet, and a pair of sunglasses with one red lens and one green—is settling back into the driver’s seat.

  And buckling his seat belt.

  My mind races, piecing everything together. It all makes terrifying sense.

  The tractors in the safe houses weren’t being packed with explosives.

  They were being taken apart and put back together.

  Customized with powerful after-market engines. Fitted with police-style tactical bumpers. Modified to carry out a European-style vehicle attack here in the US, to cause the maximum amount of damage to people in the shortest amount of time. London, Nice, Barcelona…and now, New Orleans.

  Panic surges through my body as the driver engages the clutch and puts the tractor into Drive, and without the weight of the float behind it, it quickly roars ahead, chasing after the fleeing partygoers.

  Chapter 79

  I LIFT my pistol.

  Aim.

  Fire.

  POP!

  The driver flinches from my gunshot—damnit, I’m sure I hit the bastard!—but he keeps on driving, and the cursed thing roars by me, getting way too close to the throngs of fleeing people.

  Lowering my pistol, I start running, desperate to line up a better shot, the tractor moving away from me.

  But I can’t get there soon enough to stop the madness.

  The helmeted driver cuts the wheel sharply and plows straight through the metal police barricades, as easily as if they were made of Styrofoam.

  The tractor keeps going, barreling right into the crowd. Zigzagging wildly. Wounding people with its spiked grille. Tossing them aside from its massive wheels.

  More screams pierce the air and there’s another roar, and I look behind, seeing another souped-up tractor emerge from the chaos, the one hauling the Superdome float, and never in my life have I felt so helpless, so alone, as this float roars up, like it’s providing backup to its blood-spilling partner.

  I can get a better shot here, and I whirl and lift my pistol in the approved two-handed grip, when—

  The tractor halts.

  The driver leaps from the raised seat.

  The float—

  It falls apart, pieces dropping to both sides, large plywood and papier-mâché pieces tumbling to the still-crowded streets, and—

  Armed men emerge from it, where they had been hiding all the while.

  Good God!

  I’m heavily outgunned, overwhelmed by the force that’s spilling out from the disassembled float, and I can just imagine the carnage that’s about to erupt, all of these men in black battle rattle, holding automatic rifles in hand, lowering them, and I know in seconds I’m going to witness a bloody massacre.

  And there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

  But I can at least make them pay a price.

  I take aim and—

  “Rooney!” comes a shout. “Don’t shoot, you moron!”

  Then I look closer at the armed men jumping off the float.

  Bright-yellow NOPD letters are on their backs.

  And a near figure comes to me, stripping away a black balaclava from his sweaty face.

  It’s Cunningham.

  “What a goddamn shit-show, right?” he yells.

  Chapter 80

  BEFORE I can reply, two other members of the police department’s tactical force run by him, and start shooting with their M4 automatic rifles at the driver on the first float. The driver arches his back and then collapses, and the tractor roars backward, until it hits a hydrant, letting loose a geyser of water.

  I join the other two cops as we run to the tractor, and damnit to hell, the driver swivels in his seat, draws out a pistol and—

  I fire once, twice, and catch him in the head.

  This time he slumps down for good.

  Body armor. If there are others out there like him, it’s going to be a long, bloody mess to take them down.

  I turn. Cunningham is urgently talking into a radio. I say, “How many dead from the bombs?”

  “What bombs?” he asks.

  “Jesus, Chief, I heard the goddamn things!”

  He shakes his head. “They weren’t bombs. They were concussion grenades! Meant to scare the crowds and move them into a kill zone…which is probably down the block.”

  I see more of the tactical cops racing along the sidewalks, and two of them are also providing first aid to the revelers caught by the heavily armored and spiked tractor. Water continues to spout and flow from the shattered hydrant.

  “Does Morgan know you’re here?”

  Despite the chaos, the shouts, the sound of sirens, and the exhaustion on Cunningham’s face, he grins. “Not yet, but I sent the son of a bitch a memo. Via snail mail. He’ll probably get it next week. Hey, Rooney, love to chat and catch up, but we got work to do.”

  Then he trots off, speaking again into the radio microphone.

  Even with the injured and the possible dead around me, I feel better than I have in a long while: at least my folks in the NOPD weren’t going to stand by, weren’t going to ignore the threats.

  I only pray they’re not too late.

  Then I hear more gunfire, and race to the sound.

  Chapter 81

  THE SOUNDS of the gunfire aren’t the measured, paced reports of police returning fire.

  It’s the fast rat-a-tat-tat-tat of someone firing at full auto, trying to cause as many casualties as possible in a short time.

  Jesus Christ, the French Quarter is turning into a war zone!

  I scurry over to the nearest abandoned float and slam my back against it for cover. After catching my breath, I peek around the side and steal a glance down the street.

  More shouts, more screams, more gunfire.

  Clusters of people are still frantically running in every direction, and there’s a haze of gun smoke in the air. There’s lots of panic but I practically weep at pride at what else I’m seeing:

  A New Orleans EMS ambulance pulled up on
to the sidewalk, the rear doors wide open, the two EMS personnel—both women—frantically working on two figures stretched out on the street, ignoring the sounds of the gunfire.

  An older African American, standing at the open door of her souvenir shop, waving in people running by so they can take shelter.

  A husband and wife team, it looks like, performing CPR on a heavyset man clad in a T-shirt and shorts.

  My Crescent City is still alive, unbowed, and standing strong.

  And some of us are fighting back.

  I get up from my shelter, stay close to the buildings, stop at a corner where an NOPD officer is on her knees, hat gone, peeking around the corner. I race up to her and say, “I’m on the job! What’s the situation?”

  She looks up at me, Hispanic, late twenties, tear marks down her cheeks, but anger and defiance in her brown eyes.

  “We’ve got a shooter down there, but I can’t see who it is,” she says.

  I sneak a peek and hear the rapid automatic fire of the shooter, but I see what she means: there are still knots of people down the street, fleeing or running into the buildings. More sirens sound and I know the wise thing is to wait for backup, but whoever said I was wise?

  “Hang tight,” I say. “I’m taking a run.”

  She says something but I can’t hear her, and I run down Canal Street, using everything I pass for cover: a mailbox, shrubs, even the skinny palm trees lining the streetcar tracks. Anything is better than nothing.

  Along the way I see a college student crumpled on the street, his Tulane T-shirt stained with blood, pass piles of beads, Solo cups, sneakers, and flip-flops, and as I near Bourbon Street, I crouch behind a bus shelter—and finally get a chilling glimpse of the shooter.

  Marching through the intersection, he’s calmly moving along, spraying bullets in long bursts in every direction at the fleeing crowds, as casually as a gardener watering a bed of roses.

  He’s wearing a colorful costume—a court jester—and a masquerade mask with a giant hooked nose, disguided like the tractor driver I had dropped a few minutes earlier.

  His weapon looks small, compact. An Uzi, perhaps, or a civilian version of the HK MP5. Something light and nimble. Easy to conceal under a billowy costume, and still packs one hell of a punch.

  The strategy comes to view.

  Shoot for a few minutes, hide the weapon, join the scurrying crowds, and then stop, take the weapon out.

  Fire, kill, repeat.

  Steeling myself, I creep even closer to him as he keeps on shooting.

  Closer. Closer.

  Barely a few dozen yards away from him now, I duck down behind a trash can and hold my breath.

  I’m not counting his rounds. I have no clue how many his magazine holds. But I’m going to guess—no, pray—he’ll have to reload soon.

  After a few more spurts of gunfire, he does.

  As soon as the gunman pops out his magazine, I spring up from behind the trash can.

  I aim and squeeze the trigger three times, steady and controlled.

  POP! POP! POP!

  My first shot nails him in the thigh, knocking him off balance.

  My second shot misses him entirely.

  But my third shot strikes his neck. Blood spurts. He goes down hard.

  I cross the street and approach the gunman with caution, my sidearm aimed and ready to fire, just in case he’s still alive.

  But by the time I’m standing over him, I see he’s not moving at all. His head is surrounded by a puddle of blood. His weapon dangles limply in his arms.

  I kick it away anyway—down into the sewer, where a civilian or child or another bad guy can’t pick it up. Old police habit.

  Then I squat down beside him—and give his chest a few hard raps with my knuckles. I’m not checking his pulse. I’m seeing if he’s wearing body armor like the tractor driver.

  Shit. Just what I was afraid of.

  He is.

  Body armor, automatic weapon…I was lucky with a head shot.

  But how lucky will me and other cops be again? Especially if the bastards are wearing Mardi Gras costumes, blending in, shooting, and then hiding their weapon to pop up a block later to start killing again.

  I’m about to stand—when I notice the dead jester is wearing sunglasses over his masquerade mask—one red lens, one green.

  Just like the first tractor driver.

  Odd. No way it’s a coincidence. Is this a way for the attackers to identify one another in the melee? Or something else?

  I lift them off the shooter’s face and place them up to my eyes.

  They feel like some kind of tactical, vision-enhancing 3D glasses. Everything I see looks just a little crisper.

  But then I glance down at the gunman—and see something even wilder.

  His jester costume looks practically luminescent.

  Like it was sprayed with some kind of fluorescent paint, but a kind only visible with these special polarized shades—and maybe under a black light, too, like the one I found inside that safe house!

  It makes bloody sense, to be able to quickly ID your fellow shooters, your fellow terrorists, among the screaming crowds, so you don’t accidentally kill one of your own, while killing so many innocents.

  A good strategy.

  Which I’m going to use against the bastards.

  Chapter 82

  I STUFF the sunglasses into my pocket and scramble off the street. I take cover in the closest spot I can find, the doorway of a tacky souvenir shop.

  Inside, it’s eerily quiet. Rack after rack of T-shirts, keychains, and other trinkets have been toppled over in the chaos, as if a tornado had passed right through.

  But outside, in the distance, I hear more screaming, more gunfire.

  I also hear raging sirens. And two Black Hawk helicopters are circling overhead.

  Thank God! The FBI is finally mobilizing a tactical response to this mayhem, joining up with my NOPD. I don’t know what the hell is taking so long. By my count, the first blast went off almost eight excruciating minutes ago.

  But in a situation like this? That’s an eternity.

  I take out my phone and, no surprise, I get no signal. For years politicians have been talking about increasing redundancy in cell tower coverage, because during a terrorist attack, all service would be overwhelmed.

  Those plans went right on top of the pre-Katrina plan to repair and strengthen our vulnerable levees.

  I put the phone back. I’ve caught my breath.

  I’ve got my pistol, two spare magazines, and evidence of how the terrorists are identifying themselves.

  Time to haul ass away from this place of safety and get the job done.

  I run back out to the streets, down Bourbon Street, looking for NOPD members, EMS, firefighters, anyone with a working radio, because I’ve got to get the word out.

  The street is eerily empty, with piles of trash, empty cups, strings of tangled beads, more sneakers and flip-flops. There are also drying pools of blood and discarded bandage wrappers, but no people, though I do see some scared folks, huddled in the now-quiet bars and stores, looking out with fear and hope that someone will come riding to the rescue.

  I trot down the street, weapon out, waiting for something, anything, and wishing right now that I was wearing my NOPD blazer or at least my detective’s shield, bouncing on a chain around my neck, because it sure would be damnably ironic if a SWAT sniper taking position saw me and took me down.

  Yeah, real ironic.

  As I reach Conti Street, I hear a commotion around the corner. A crowd of civilians, in total panic, are rushing in my direction.

  One of them, a middle-aged woman, a crying toddler in her arms and blood dripping from her ear, shouts, “Somebody’s shootin’ back there! Run!”

  The crowd blows past me—but I don’t move an inch.

  I whip out those two-toned sunglasses. Put them on. Look at the pack.

  Sure enough, toward the rear of the group is a man wearing a blue and p
urple samurai warrior costume…whose torso is mottled with that iridescent paint.

  The costumed son of a bitch’s hands are empty, but that could change in an instant, and he could start hammering bullets into the back of the unarmed and frightened civilians running past me.

  “Hey, sensei!” I yell. “Police! Don’t move!”

  The man in the samurai suit glances back at me.

  He’s wearing a pair of red-green sunglasses, too. He does a double take when he sees me aiming at him—and realizes he’s caught.

  So he reaches into the folds of his costume and starts to pull out what looks like an HK MP5, and without hesitation, I fire three rapid shots.

  POP! POP! POP!

  The man grunts and collapses to the ground.

  The rest of the civilians disappear around the corner of the block, terrified—but all of them are alive.

  “Show me your hands!” I shout at the assailant as I move in closer.

  He’s writhing in pain, struggling to sit up. I definitely landed a shot or two, but I guess the real body armor under his fake samurai battle garb did its job.

  “Hands, hands!” I repeat.

  But he doesn’t obey. He tries to lift his weapon.

  So I fire mine again. Twice. Emptying the magazine until the slide of my pistol snaps back and doesn’t slide forward, meaning I’m out of ammunition.

  Both bullets strike the gunman’s head, sending a reddish-pink mist into the air.

  He slumps back down. Dead.

  I rush over and pick up his rifle and sling it over my shoulder. Yes, it’s an MP5, all right, with two spare magazines taped to the one in use. Very professional.

  Now I’m better armed.

  Which doesn’t mean a goddamn thing.

  I resume my run.

  Chapter 83

  INFORMATION. THAT’S what counts now, that’s what’s important, not what firepower I now possess.

  I know how to spot any assailants still lurking among civilians. How to pick out the bad guys from the good and neutralize any remaining threats.

  I’ve cracked the terrorists’ code, but I can’t assume the NOPD or FBI have done the same. And my phone is useless with the overwhelmed cell towers, and damnit to hell, I still don’t see anyone in the area that has a radio I can use.