Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement.
"What the hell do you mean, you're alone at your position? Really alone – as in "no one but you"? The police officer whose telephone conversation Chance was overhearing, let out an explicit curse.
It was 9.30, according to schedule they needed to open the gates now for the first concert goers, but they were getting calls from all over the place that the private security personnel was significantly undermanned. Great, now HQ didn't only, thanks to the handwritten duty roster, have a hard time figuring out who was where when, they also didn't know if some positions were manned at all.
With radio equipment clarifying this particular point would have been easy, but since they had to rely on mobile phones alone... A dozen police officers was put in charge of calling the different positions, trying to figure out who was missing and then transmitting the names to the security companies who were trying to reach the absentees.
If the security companies – the city had hired three altogether – had set up their own headquarters at the premises this maybe wouldn't have been so complicated, but it was standard operation procedure for all of them that their stuff was under police rule during events. No need for a company representative to interfere, especially not when there would have been three of them around.
Well, apparently on the day of the Solemnstone Festival standard operation procedure didn't cut it.
In addition to the chaos with the missing security personnel – "What do you mean, he received a message he wasn't needed?", another police officer, apparently on the phone with the security company, yelled into his cell – Guerrero had anonymously tipped HQ off to the flash mob thing. Another group of officers, in conference via cell phone with the fire brigade, tried to develop some sort of strategy on how to deal with this unforeseen obstacle, but it was already too late for preventive measures such as blocking off roads.
And they didn't have enough people.
Outside the sun was rising steadily in a blue, blue sky. It was going to be a gloriously sunny day. Throngs of people were already gathering at the gates. They needed to let them in, there was no other option, because the stream of concert goers would continuously swell during the next few hours. If they didn't open the gates, they'd produce a jam around the premises of gargantuan proportions. One they hadn't taken into consideration while planning the event and thus had only very little means to counter. If anything happened inside such a giant crowd, with no clear escape routes...there was no way around it, they needed to let the people in.
"Any idea where to find Walding?", Ames asked via earpiece. Posing as a reporter, she had already made it into the area where the actual festival was going to take place and was now wandering from one security post to the next, looking for their target.
Chance turned a little away from the officers getting more and more hectic by the minute. "No go so far. They're seriously disorganized. Something's very off with their planning."
"Mr. Murphy doing OT?" Ames smiled, then turned a little more serious. "At such big events some stuff always goes wrong. I used to exploit that when I wanted to get in somewhere."
Chance remembered very well how cleverly she had wriggled herself into Ilsa's big charity party. Gosh, how much time had passed since then...
Winston's voice quickly brought him back to the present. "All this organizational BS is slowing us down. The faster we talk to Walding, the faster we can get back to Frisco and concentrate on the important stuff."
Everybody knew what he was talking about.
And everybody quietly stifled an enervated groan.
"We should have just grabbed him at his home, poked him a bit till he spilt the beans and then cut him loose again", Winston kept on grumbling. "Why all this unnecessary hide and seek?"
"Dude, stay in character!" Guerrero chimed in from San Francisco.
"This is all a giant waste of time!" Winston was still outside the gates, stomping in circles.
"Winston, why don't you sit down in the shades somewhere, get yourself some ice-tea and take a look at Michele's telephone records once more? I know you've got them saved as pdf documents on your smartphone." Trust Ilsa to figure out how to calm the waves. Despite what Guerrero and Chance thought, conference rooms could be great training grounds for certain situations. "Once Chance knows where exactly to find Walding, you can go in as backup."
It was not that Winston hadn't already studied those records so meticulously, he knew them by heart...
Grateful, he retreated to a bench in front of the main entrance.
Unfortunately, his peace and quiet didn't last long.
"GAAAH! What was that?"
A horrible screeching sound had almost rendered him temporarily deaf. Him and all the others wearing an earpiece. And pretty much everyone else on the premises.
"Backcoupling! Looks like there's a problem with the loudspeaker system", Ames winced. "I think it just went dead. "
"The public loudspeaker system, meant to inform and direct the concert goers?" Ilsa, who had by now made it into the VIP box, took a critical look at the area stretching in front of her. So far there was still much space left on the lawns in front of the stages, but it was filling up fast.
"It looks as if 500 guards are pulling a no show today!", an outraged police officer just then told a fellow colleague right next to Chance. "Goddamn private security companies! Never reliable!"
"Even with Murphy doing OT, there's quite a lot going wrong here", Chance mused.
"I've seen events organized miles worse", Winston replied, but he did look up from his smartphone and thoughtfully studied the people passing him by, heading towards the main entrance, a large tunnel, about 800 yards long, originally built to drive cattle through, on their way to the slaughter.
It provided an enormous amount of space and was strictly one-way, only in. The matching exit, that the cattle never got to use, was a little to the right, so that the streams of arrivers and leavers wouldn't block each other.
To provide the now human passers-through a maximum of comfort, the city had equipped the tunnel with a brand new ventilation system and upped the lighting inside significantly. Winston could hear the big fans swoosh even on the bench where he was sitting.
Nevertheless somehow, he couldn't help but think, the tunnel looked a little like a giant jaw.