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“Let us raise a hymn of praise to America.”
The Christian Crusaders took up their instruments once more.
Sarah stepped up to the microphone and let her voice rise: “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.…”
“Mabel!” Arthur called, desperate. “Mabel!”
“Arthur?” Mabel croaked out. She couldn’t move her legs.
“Help her!” Arthur growled.
“Stay where you are, Mr. Brown!” Brown Hat commanded as he moved closer. “Where are the others?”
Arthur said nothing.
“I’ll let her die,” Brown Hat said.
“They’ll be leaving the fair right about now,” Arthur said.
“Weston, Cooper!” Brown Hat called to two of the other agents. “Go find them. Make the arrest. Agent Lynch, stay with me.”
It was just Brown Hat and the other agent left now. From where she lay, Mabel could hear Sarah’s pretty soprano coming through the microphone, filling the Grand Pavilion above them.
“They’re st-starting,” Mabel murmured, and coughed.
“Please. She’s hurt,” Arthur pleaded.
Brown Hat’s expression didn’t change. “I don’t care.”
Arthur fell on the other agent with furious blows. Brown Hat answered with a bullet to Arthur’s thigh. Arthur cried out. The wound bled profusely. It had managed to hit in a very bad place, he knew. Above him, the band played on. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen. He had a knack for screwing up. Perhaps there was still a chance to correct that, to make one lasting contribution. Arthur Brown left a slug trail of blood behind him as he crawled toward the bomb.
Brown Hat kicked him in the face. Arthur fell back, and the agent brought his shoe down on Arthur’s outstretched hand, pinning him there.
“You idiot,” Arthur said through teeth clenched against pain. “I was trying to disarm it!”
Brown Hat nodded. “I know.”
Without another word, Brown Hat turned and shot the younger agent, who jerked like a marionette and dropped to the ground, dead. The man in the brown hat stepped calmly around Arthur and the dead agent and placed the still-ticking bomb high into an alcove underneath the stage, out of Arthur’s reach.
“So long, gutter rat,” he said, shutting and locking the door on his way out.
“Memphis!” Theta shouted. “Help!”
“Isaiah? Isaiah!” Memphis gathered his shaking brother in his arms, and they carried him to the grass. People were staring. “Isaiah?”
Isaiah’s eyes had rolled back in their sockets. “Fire,” he cried. “Fire!”
“Hey, now, boy, you can’t be yelling fire in a public place,” a man scolded, and Memphis wanted to hit him.
“My brother’s sick!” Memphis growled.
“Then get him outta here,” the man shot back.
“What’s the matter?” a policeman asked.
“That little boy’s calling fire.”
“Memphis, we better go,” Theta said.
