Triple Threat

Fast
    They were just about to see the octopus when she received a text alerting her that two hundred people were going to die in two hours.
    Kathryn Dance rarely received texts marked with exclamation points—the law enforcement community tended not to punctuate with emotion—so she read it immediately. Then called her office, via speed dial three.
    “Boss,” the young man’s voice spilled from her iPhone.
    “Details, TJ?”
    Over their heads:
    “Will the ticket holders for the one-thirty exhibition make their way inside, please.”
    “Mom!” the little girl’s voice was urgent. “That’s us.”
    “Hold on a second, honey.” Then into the phone: “Go on.”
    TJ Scanlon said, “Sorry, Boss, this’s bad. On the wire from up north.”
    “Mom…”
    “Let me talk, Mags.”
    “Long story short, Alameda was monitoring this domestic separatist outfit, planning an attack up there.”
    “I know. Brothers of Liberty, based in Oakland, White supremacists, antigovernment. Osmond Carter, their leader, was arrested last week and they threatened retaliation if he’s not released.”
    “You knew that?”
    “You read the statewide dailies, TJ?”
    “Mean to.”
    “… the Monterey Bay Aquarium is pleased to host the largest specimen of
Enteroctopus dofleini
on exhibit in the Northern California area, weighing in at 121 pounds! We know you’re going to enjoy viewing our visiting guest in his specially created habitat.”
    “Okay. What’s the story?” Dance persisted into the phone as she and her children edged closer to the exhibit hall. They’d waited forty-five minutes. Who would have thought octopuses,
octopi
would be such a big draw?
    TJ said, “Everybody believed they were going to hit somewhere up there, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Fran, but maybe there was too much heat. Oakland PD had a CI inside the group and he said two of their people came down here, set up something. And—”
    She interrupted. “ ‘Set up something.’ What does that mean?”
    “An attack of some kind. He doesn’t know what exactly. Maybe an IED, maybe chemical. Probably not bio but could be. But the number of victims is for sure, what I texted you. Two hundred plus or minus. That’s confirmed. And whatever it is, it’s up and running; the perps set it and they were headed back. The CI said 4:00 p.m. is when the attack goes down.”
    Two and a half hours. A little less. Lord…
    “No idea of the victims, location?”
    TJ Scanlon offered, “None.”
    “But you said they ‘were’ headed back.”
    “Right, we caught a break. There’s a chance we can nail ‘em. The CI gave us the make of the car—a 2000 Taurus, light blue. CHP spotted one in Marina and went after it. The driver took off. Probably them. They lost the pursuit on surface roads. Everybody’s searching the area. Bureau’s coming in from the field office. Hold on, Boss. I’m getting something.”
    Dance happened to glance up and see her reflection in the glass panel on the other side of which elegant and eerie sea horses floated with sublime, careless ease. Dance noted her own still gaze looking back at her, in a narrow, Cate Blanchett face, hair in a ponytail, held taut by a black and green scrunchy installed that morning by her ten-year-old daughter, currently champing beside her. Her mop-headed son Wes, twelve, was detached from mother and sister. He was less intrigued by cephalopods, however big, and more by an aloof fourteen-year-old in line, a girl who should have been a cheerleader if she wasn’t.
    Dance was wearing jeans, a blue silk blouse and a tan quilted vest, comfortably warm. Sunny at the moment, the Monterey Peninsula could be quite fickle when it came to weather. Fog mostly.
    “
Mom
, they’re calling us,” Maggie said in her weegee voice, the high pitch that conveyed exasperation really well.
    “One minute, this’s important.”
    “First, it was a second. Now it’s a minute. Jeez. One one-thousand, two one-thousand…”
    Wes was smiling toward, but not at, the cheerleader.
    The line inched forward, drawing them seductively closer to the Cephalopod of the Century.
    TJ came back on the line. “Boss, yep, it’s them. The Taurus’s registered to the Brothers of Liberty. CHP’s in pursuit.”
    “Where?”
    “Seaside.”
    Dance glanced around her at the dim, concrete and glass aquarium. It was holiday break—ten days before Christmas—and the place was packed. And there were dozens of tourist attractions like this in the