Extinction by J.T. Brannan Page A

struck him suddenly, and he thumbed the microphone. ‘Use your police IDs,’ he ordered his team. ‘Clear the area beneath the scaffold. When she gets down, arrest her.’
    The original plan was for his men to pretend to be with federal law enforcement, telling the park authorities that they’d had the area under surveillance and removing the two dead bodies from the coaster before the real cops could move in. But for the time being, there was only one dead body, which put something of a spanner in the works.
    Still, Anderson knew that plans rarely survived contact with the enemy. Flexibility was the key, and Anderson issued his new orders. They would claim that the woman killed Janklow – it wouldn’t be immediately obvious that the shot had been long-range – and then some of his men could take Janklow’s body whilst others could move in to ‘arrest’ the woman, and kill her someplace away from the park; away from prying eyes.
    Halfway down, Alyssa saw the crowd dispersing and wondered what was happening. And then six suited men arrived, looking up at her. They had handguns drawn and what looked like badges pulled out. Cops?
    Alyssa allowed herself to relax ever so slightly. It was OK. She was going to be OK. The police were here, and they would handle it. She looked further across to where the six-car train had come to a halt, saw other men extracting Karl’s dead body and restraining the shocked and screaming teenagers. Park security were erecting a cordon around the area, sealing the ride off from the rest of the park, ushering the other riders out of the way. Yes, she thought, it would be all right.
    But then she paused, going no further, her mind racing furiously. Why were they moving the body? It was a murder scene, wasn’t it? And she’d covered enough of those in her time to know that the body shouldn’t be moved. The cops should be leaving it for the forensics people and other members of the crime scene investigation team. And come to think of it, what the hell were non-uniform police doing here anyway? There were six below her, another six taking care of the body. How could they have got here so quickly?
    Something wasn’t right, and Alyssa knew immediately what it was: the twelve suits weren’t the police at all. They were here because they wanted to kill her. It was the only explanation that made sense; they were clearing the body before Karl could be identified, and they were waiting for her so that they could finish the job.
    She checked around her, looking for avenues of escape. The faces on the ‘cops’ below her changed from expressions of welcoming helpfulness to ones of concern as she stopped moving towards them. She watched as they spoke into lapel microphones, listened to their earpieces, looked up at her again with even greater concern as she still refused to move.
    Anxious, she scanned the area. The scaffold she was on was wrapped round one section of track and led all the way down to the ground. She was on the internal side of the scaffold but she noticed that the bare metal structure went further out into the park. She peered between the thick metal struts and saw that there were stalls below on the other side, the scaffold just feet away from the rear of their canvas coverings.
    Without a second thought, she turned her body, twisting through the metal to head towards the outside of the structure. Gripping the metal tightly, she manoeuvred past the track and out into the abyss, nothing below her for thirty feet except exposed metal bars and the solid, unforgiving concrete of the park floor.
    She heard the fake cops shouting to her from below, bellowing instructions for her to come back, but she ignored them and headed quickly for the other side of the scaffold. The people below her would have to head back out of the entrance and race all the way round the structure to get to her. She turned to look at them, saw that they were already setting off at a run. Trying to keep calm, she