I looked directly across the auditorium and one deck down, toward a row of skyboxes. Most were dark, which surprised me. Maybe e-sports weren’t a big enough business yet to attract a skybox sort of corporate clientele.
Whatever the reason, there was only one that appeared occupied. The lights were on. I moved over until I was directly across from that box and looked through the binoculars.
The first thing I saw was a woman with her back to me. She wore a glam outfit and a black wig, like the avatar Celes Chere. Beside her, also with his back to me, stood a big lanky guy wearing a black cowboy hat and the sort of long, hemmed duster that horsemen wear in the rain. Just like the avatar Mr. Marston.
I almost took my attention off the skybox but then noticed movement beyond the two. I moved another five feet to my left and saw Austin Crowley and Sydney Bronson, the wunderkind founders of Victorious Gaming, and Philip Stapleton, the company’s director of security.
Crowley was sitting forward in a club chair, fingers pressed in a steeple pose, staring through his thick black glasses at Bronson, who had his head down and was working furiously on a laptop. Stapleton was slumped in a chair behind Crowley. His eyes were closed and he was bleeding profusely from a head wound. Standing behind Bronson was a man wearing the white robes of the Victorious avatar Gabriel.
I could see only part of the angel. The cowboy blocked my full view of his head.
“Cross?” the pilot called. The static was heavy.
“Copy.”
“You asked how the assailants at the Tropicana were dressed. A cowboy, an angel, and a punk rocker.”
In the skybox, Bronson took his attention off his computer, looked toward the big cowboy, and nodded.
The cowboy walked away from the window and straight across the room to Bronson, then paused, his back to me. Bronson handed the cowboy his computer, and the cowboy left the skybox.
But if I hadn’t been standing in that exact spot, I might have missed the latex mask the guy dressed as Gabriel wore, the way his left arm dangled oddly, and what looked like a pistol in his right hand. The veterinarian and Jared Goldberg both said that the president’s killer had been wounded in the left elbow.
I fiddled with the focus, trying to make sure. But then the woman dressed as Celes Chere turned to peer out the window and down on the building audience.
I lowered the glasses and triggered my mike, trying to remain calm.
“This is Cross. I’ve got Bronson, Crowley, and Stapleton in the middle skybox, south side of the auditorium. If I’m right, there are three assassins in there with them, including Kristina Varjan and possibly the president’s killer.”
Before Mahoney or Carstensen could reply, I raised my binoculars again and found Varjan, hand to her brow to cut the spotlight glare, staring right back at me.
CHAPTER
98
MY EARBUD CRACKLED.
Mahoney said, “Alex, repeat the location, you’re garbled.”
Varjan had seen enough. She spun around and headed away from the window fast. Before following her, Gabriel clubbed Bronson across the back of his head with the butt of his pistol, sending him sprawling.
“Cross?” Carstensen said. “Repeat?”
I jammed the binoculars in my coat pocket, pivoted, and headed for the exit. When I hit the hallway, I hesitated, knowing the skyboxes would be closer if I went left. Instead, I went right and broke into a dodging run through the growing crowd of fans, triggering my mike as I did.
“This is Cross,” I said. “Repeat, we’ve got two, probably three of the assassins right here in the building. The president’s killer and Varjan. She just made me. They’re fleeing the sky-boxes. Look for a glam girl, a cowboy in a black hat and a long brown duster, and an angel in white robes and a latex mask. The angel has a clipped left wing, like the president’s assassin, and he is armed. Assume others are as well.”
“Copy,” Mahoney said. “I’m heading toward the closest exit to the skyboxes.”
Carstensen said, “I’m calling in SWAT, sealing the entire venue.”
I spotted a stairway finally and wanted to bound down it, but there were too many people coming up. I had to squeeze hard right against the flow, which cost me more time.
When I made it to the skybox level, I decided to keep going down. There was no doubt in my mind they were trying to get the hell out of the venue.
Varjan saw me just now. She