Innocent Blood by Graham Masterton Page A

Wrong ! It’s C4 – plasticized RDX.’
    Matty turned to Irene Wallach. ‘Irene, get all the kids off the tram, now.’
    â€˜What?’ she frowned.
    â€˜Get all the kids off the tram and do it now. Please.’
    â€˜Unh-unh,’ said the young man in the mirror sunglasses, shaking his head. ‘Nobody’s getting off. You’re all coming with me.’
    Matty shouted, ‘No!’ and made a lunge for the wire that ran down the young man’s arm, trying to wrench it free. At the same time, Jaws reared out of the lake in a blast of compressed air, its eyes staring and its teeth bared. With the exception of Kevin, all the children screamed.
    Saturday, September 25, 10:34 A.M.
    The blast was heard five miles away in every direction – a dull, emphatic thud. The front car of the tram was blown apart so violently that there was nothing left of it but a blackened chassis and a surreal arrangement of twisted seats. Most of the second car was burned out, and hundreds of windows were broken, all over the lot.
    Jaws, the great white shark, was wrecked even more comprehensively than it had been in the movie. All of the latex was blasted away from its frame, leaving a smoking, grinning skeleton.
    But the human litter was so terrible that when the first police and security officers arrived at the scene, they couldn’t understand what they were looking at. As a Times reporter was later to write, ‘They looked not like cubs, but like cherubs, shot down by anti-aircraft fire.’

Seven
    F rank rang the doorbell. Through the intercom, Astrid said, ‘Hold on,’ and then she pressed the buzzer so that he could let himself in. He walked across the Mexican-tiled hallway and climbed the stairs. She was waiting for him outside apartment three, wearing a very short white muslin dress and bare feet, with silver rings on her toes. She was looking pale and fretful, as if she had taken too many pills.
    â€˜There’s been another bomb,’ she told him.
    â€˜I know. I actually heard it. I was out in the yard, putting out the trash. Then bamm! like somebody slamming a door.’
    â€˜They said on the news that nineteen people were killed. Eleven cub scouts. They showed pictures. God, it’s so terrible.’
    â€˜Hey, you’re shaking.’
    â€˜I’m upset , Frank. I’m so upset. All those little boys.’
    Frank closed the door behind them and laid his hands on her shoulders. ‘I know. As soon as I heard about it, I thought about all of their parents. Nobody should have to suffer like this. Not for the sake of some crazy idea about religion or politics or whatever.’
    â€˜Do you think the same people could have done it?’
    â€˜Those Arabs? Who knows. But who else could it be? The cops are pretty sure that it was a suicide bombing and Western terrorists don’t go in for blowing themselves up, do they? And you heard what they said yesterday about wrecking the entertainment industry.’
    â€˜Do you want a drink?’ Astrid asked him.
    He nodded. She went to the white wicker table on the opposite side of the room and poured out two long-stemmed glasses of Shiraz Cabernet. He could see her face in the mirror on the wall, and he was surprised how different she looked, in reflection. Perhaps it was the lack of symmetry that made her face so striking.
    She brought him his wine. ‘They said that all of the studios are going to suspend their tours. And they’re closing down Disneyland.’
    â€˜A little too late for that, don’t you think?’ said Frank. ‘The next time they’ll probably hit someplace totally different, like a TV studio, right in the middle of a game show or something.’
    â€˜Eleven children killed,’ said Astrid. ‘And what’s it all for?’
    The French windows were open. Astrid stepped outside on to the narrow tiled balcony and Frank followed her. Below them was a small