Hawk - James Patterson Page 0,91
is,” Max went on mildly, walking around the stage. “If it wasn’t okay, you would have done something about it. Right?”
“You don’t understand!” someone shouted, and a few voices agreed.
“I do understand,” Max said with solemn authority. The crowd went quiet again. “But I’m here not to be your fairy godmother and wave my wand and make everything okay. I’m here to teach you how to make it okay.”
Concerned silence. I watched Angel intently, but Max was grabbing my attention, I had to admit. My eyes kept pivoting back to her, riveted. She was magnetic. She was my mom.
“Each of you has the power to change things in this city,” Max said, coming back to the middle of the stage and putting the mic into its stand. “But just a little bit, right? Because each one of you is only one person. But take all of you—”
Suddenly there was a reverb on Max’s words. All the vidscreens changed to show Max’s face, then pulled out to encompass her with her arms outstretched on the stage. The huge vidscreen Max looked this way and that, searching for the camera. I looked, too, and didn’t see anything.
Frowning, half watching the vidscreen, Max went on. “All of you together—look at how many of you want change! All of you together are as big as an army! And you have the power! The power to take ba—”
Just then a screaming sound made me clap my hands over my ears. Something hot whizzed past us, maybe three meters away? In the next second the upper part of the stage’s ceiling exploded and burst into flame!
“We’re under attack!” Max spoke from where she crouched on the stage. She gave a cough from the smoke and said again: “We’re under attack!”
CHAPTER 90
A harsh cry from above rang out, recognizable even in all the chaos. Above me, Ridley tilted her wings back and forth: danger coming. Then a clanking, rolling roar filled my ears even as the huge statue shook.
I leaned past Clete to look down the street, nearly losing my balance when I saw what Ridley was trying to warn me about. There was a tank rolling down Fourth Street. An actual tank, marked with the lotus flower symbol of the Chung army! Chung soldiers marched alongside it, roughly pushing people out of the way.
“Hawk?” Clete said, sounding worried.
“It’s okay,” I said softly and patted his hand, but I could tell that it was not okay at all. Sure, this was an anti-government, anti-McCallum, anti-Six rally, but a peaceful rally. At least… it was until someone blew up the stage. But, the armies of the Six never get involved—they let the police force handle everything. Yet here they were, in uniforms and helmets and guns, like a private army. An army of Chung fighters.
Because I was so high up, I could see far across the park. Diaz tanks and soldiers, marked with their gold crosses, were entering the park from all sides. The marching soldiers shoved people out of the way, and the long guns on top of the tanks circled threateningly.
“What’s happening, Hawk?” Clete sounded scared, so I’d have to make this lie good.
“Um, the army is here to go to the rally,” I said as I made sweeps of the park, rating the likelihood of danger. About an eight on a one-to-ten scale: it was all going to shit. How could I get Clete out of here? Fang had been able to carry him, but I couldn’t, and I’m the strongest fifteen-year-old ever. But we were way high up. Maybe we could just stay here, ride out the clash? Mostly I had to keep Clete calm through it all, which… he was already rocking back and forth, as much a danger to himself as the gathering armies below. If he slipped off this statue…
Suddenly I heard a horribly familiar sound: machine-gun fire. It was unmistakable, even after only hearing it once in my life, on a bad, bad night. Now I saw it in daylight: the flaring sparks from the barrel of the guns; bright red splotches exploding on people’s backs, sides, faces, heads; how those people crumpled; how other people screamed and ran, some trying to carry the injured, others trampling them in their rush to save their own necks.
The line of soldiers at the edge of the park was just firing into the crowd. Not even aiming. On the huge vidscreens, Max’s face looked outraged, even amid the smoke and falling embers.
“Gaz!” she