Another chaperone, a woman, joined him. “Did you hear? Terrorists in the park!” Her voice was ragged with fear.

Which shook the students even more.

And Antioch March basked in the seductive comfort of adolescent cries and screams.

The Get smiled.

The kids’ reaction had drawn a good-size crowd in this portion of the park. People milled about anxiously, uncertain about where to go. All talking, checking phones, making calls or texting. Gathering children.

And looking for someone with a backpack bomb, a suicide vest, a machine gun, an RPG.

One man stormed up to a sheriff’s deputy holding one of the ID sheets and confronted him. Other joined in.

“The hell are you doing about it?”

“Why aren’t there any announcements?”

“Do you even know?”

The officer looked flustered. Another patron, then two more, accosted the cop, demanding why they were covering up an attack and not evacuating. Was it, one man raged, so the amusement park wouldn’t lose face—or tax money the park would pay the county? The officers denied terrorists. But nobody was listening.

March stepped aside, watching the growing agitation of the crowd. Now about two hundred people were clustered, shouting at concession stand employees, groundskeepers, costumed characters.

Time to ratchet things up, March decided. He called 9-1-1.

“Police and Fire, what’s your emergency?”

“My family’s in Global Adventure. Somebody crashed into the gate and he’s loose. It’s a terrorist. They’ve seen him. He’s got a bomb!”

The dispatcher: “We have a report of an accident but there’s no report of any terror—”

“Jesus, there he is! He’s got a bomb! And a gun too.”

“Sir, what’s your name and location? Please—”

He disconnected and walked farther around the perimeter of the park, making a circle back toward the entrance. Looking in the trees, looking behind the buildings.

He made another voice call, to a local news affiliate. “Please, you have to help! We’re in Global Adventure World, the park, you know. Orange County. We’re hiding. My family’s hiding but he’s nearby. It’s a terrorist. A man with a machine gun. And another one, with a bomb! Please… There’s a terror attack going on! A suicide bomber. He crashed through the gate and he’s in the park. I’m looking at him now.”

“Sir, please, what’s your name?”

“Jesus, he’s coming this way.”

He disconnected and continued to walk through the park, noting the increasing number of people on their phones, desperate for news reports that the incident was over and that they were safe. But, of course, there could be no such reports. Rumors were still flying like leaves in a hurricane. The patrons tended to end up standing in protective groups, like wildebeest, though some were walking off the paths and into the bushes, peering out—as if in a scene from one of the amusement park parent company’s movies: the innocent about to be devoured by aliens.

March hurried along the pathway. He was about to play the scenario all over again, walking up to another family and stabbing them with panic, when the husband gripped March’s arm.