Soft Target Read Online Free PDF Page B

their possibly autistic (how else to explain it?) coordination of front sight and target and sometimes not even front sight.
    But . . . now? Here? He thought he was home free from the suck, but the suck had followed him home and he was not free. Someone had given him another mission, and though his bones ached and his breath came in hard spurts, he had some obligation to . . . well, he knew the obligation more than he knew the name of the force that had generated it. So he pushed on.
    Again, checking the hallway and seeing no signs of movement, he edged out and slithered in the low crawl. He stuck close to the wall, figuring that he was in a zone of shadow, and unless one were looking carefully at the feed from a particular camera, itself mounted a good hundred feet down the corridor at the intersection, he ought to be okay. He got by several stores and became aware that each contained people as well. The smart ones, the lucky ones, the strong ones, the young ones had beat it to the exitways and gotten out to the parking areas.
    He could see the balcony ahead and, beyond it, the looming strut-work of various thrill rides, the buttresses of the coaster tracks, the log chute, the top of the whirling two-seat swings. The noise from just beyond had gotten more intense. He had to know what was going on below.
    He slid forward just a few feet to the very edge of the balcony, lifted his head, and took a quick scan, then withdrew.
    Shit.
    First, of course, in the center of the park, dead Santa atop his throne of blood presided, head tilted, inert as the earth itself. He was the king of death. Beneath His Majesty, sitting disconsolately on the pathways that crosscut the amusement park, were at least a thousand people, packed closely, most in a state of shock. He saw what had happened.The gunmen had begun at the outer ring and, shooting wildly, killing enough to compel instant, terrified obedience, had driven shoppers forward to converge in the amusement park in the center. A thousand hostages, under the struts and buttresses of the roller coasters, under the vastness of glass above shaped like Lake Michigan. He hadn’t time to check closely, but he imagined they were now circled by gunmen. That was two gunmen per corridor, eight gunmen at least, a team for each “river,” in the wacky scheme of the mall, the Colorado, the Hudson, the Rio Grande, and the Mississippi.
    He scooted low along the balcony railing, out of view from beneath, and popped up again for a look at the shooters. He could see them as if from his own nightmares: the insouciant postures, the raffish
shemaghs
thrown loosely around the neck in gaudy variations, otherwise in jeans and hoodies and sneaks. All carried some kind of AK, though from the distance and given the time he had, he couldn’t tell if it was a 47 or a 74. They carried the guns with that movie-driven stylishness of the young jihadi, aware how cool and badass they looked, self-consciously modeled on the same figure they had worshipped for years on television. Thin-hipped, sexy, anonymous, deadly: the warrior of the East come to slay in the West.
    And he saw what a mess they had crafted. The situation instantly became clear in Ray’s tactical mind. Those on the upper floors will be abandoned there, too terrified to move downward, basically not a part of the equation. The young, the spry, the brave: they had escaped, running crazily past the gunmen, getting out of ground-floor exits, climbing, finding other ways out or secure hides. Who was left? The weakest of the weak, the most defenseless of the defenseless. The old. The very young. Mothers and fathers tethered to children.
    At any sign of an assault, the gunmen could open fire. Even with semiautomatics, as his ears told him their weapons were, they could kill hundreds, while at each corridor their brothers held off the assaulters for a few minutes more. Ray looked up, saw the lake-shaped skylights. They appeared deserted, but at any moment