of conventioneers, heading toward the front doors of the hotel.
Spurred to action for yet-unclear reasons, Cade glanced around for a way
through the crowd by the elevators, but he realized that backtracking to the
stairs near the con suite would cost him too much time. He looked over the rail
at the lobby below.
The fountain below the balcony was the only area clear of people. Swinging
his legs over the balcony rail and letting himself dangle at the bottom of the
rail, Cade dropped perhaps seven feet into six inches of water.
Amid cries of "Jesus!" and "Holy shit!", he clambered out of the fountain
and bored through the crowd after the knight and his entourage, nearing them
just before they'd reached the sidewalk at the end of the hotel's carport.
"You! The knight!" yelled Cade.
The knight and most of his group stopped immediately. They saw Cade, soaked
to the knees, running toward them.
One woman shrieked, "He's got a gun!" and pointed when she saw Cade's
shoulder holster, but someone else laughed and said, "So do all the
stormtroopers, Sandy. I don't know who he's supposed to be from what movie,
though."
Cade hauled out his wallet and flashed his Atlanta PD Auxiliary Services ID
as he came to a halt and said, "I'm not a character from a movie. The gun's
real."
Turning to the knight, he said, "You were taking pictures in the street
before the explosion. Did you get any closeups of the blonde who took the car?"
"Hey, man!" said the knight, "What I got in this camera's worth some money!
I've already called World News Net..."
"Yeah, fine," interrupted Cade. "WNN can wait. I need to see what you've got
in that camera."
Someone said, "Then you can catch the six o'clock news, just like everybody
else, man. This isn't evidence, it's news."
Glancing at him, Cade said, "She grabbed a taxi and took off with it. I'm
calling that grand theft auto. That makes this camera evidence, so you can show
me what's in it or you can spend the weekend in jail."
A guy behind the knight whined, "That's bullshit, man! She saved the
goddamned hotel and everybody in it. They're saying she was killed in the
explosion and now you're saying you're gonna call her a car thief?!"
"Only if your friend, here, doesn't cooperate."
The knight stood tall and said, "This is a four hundred dollar digital
camera. I can't give you a tape and there's no way in hell you're getting th