The man pulled his Berretta from his holster and dodged to the side. Tim dropped to knee and hit the man four times in the chest as he fell to the ground.
“They are already here,” Tim said into his Ear-piece as he looked at the desolate hallway, “Tye, clear the HS, then head this way. Mal and Jace meet me in the atrium.”
The groan of Mal’s bike was so loud that it shocked the men outside of the school who had set a perimeter. Mal screeched his tires to a stop,outside of the building with Jace in front of him.
“Who is with me?” Mal asked as he throws his motorcycle helmet to the ground.
No one raised their hands.
“Fuck it, I am going inside anyways,” Mal said, “If you are willing to sit out here and let some children die, stay out here. I need one medic.”
The medic from Evansville ran forward, once again without anything but a pistol.
“Someone give…”Mal asked while snapping his fingers, realizing he didn’t know this kid’s name, as someone tossed the kid a M-4.
“Jonas, my name is Jonas,” He said, “I thought I just needed to do my job?”
“Right now, I need an extra gun plus a medic, you are a medic first though,” Mal stated as they stacked up near the entrance to the Junior High cafeteria.
Mal turned and kicked the door open, walking forward and scanning the room looking for a reason to shoot. Since it was 830 AM, it was pretty much empty except a few kids for an art class.
“Exit the building out to the soldiers, don’t stop running until you get behind the houses across the street,” Mal said as he kicked open the door to the hallway.
Mal knew the Junior High school pretty well, there was a time that he was stuffed inside a locker or two here. He was a late grower so he was an easy target at the time. Mal turned the corner with Jonas right behind him and Jace behind him. Common tactic of special operations units when they escort units of lesser skill sets is to pancake them between their members so that no mistakes are made.
“Mal, they massacred the administrative staff already,” Tim announced to Mal as he turned down another hallway.
Mal ejected his magazine, to count the rounds he had in it still before putting his hand Jonas’s shoulder.
“Alright, call it my spidey-sense or whatever but we are about to be involved in active combat,” Mal said, “Check your targets, switch your fire selector to single and just hit the middle of what you are shooting at. We will all be just fine.”
Jonas nodded back at him. At this point of this situation, they had a few skirmishes but Mal had a feeling this would the be the beginning of an actual battle.
We are most definitely, out-manned, out-gunned but not out-witted.
Mal turns the corner to see Tim’s team stacking up on the library door, Tim waved him to move forward.
“I am going to guess that they are in here you think?” Mal asked.
“It’s a perfect deployment point,” Tim said, “It has access points on both levels of the building and a side-conference room with no windows, directly above a sewer line.”
“Where do you want me, Tim?”
Mal said as one of Tim’s soldiers started to open the door, a glint of light blinked out of Mal’s vision.
“STOP!” Mal exclaimed but kept his voice down.
Mal grabbed his snake cam from his cargo pocket and slipped it inside the cracked door. There was a large device inside the doorway, drilled into the wall.
“It’s a device that will blow if the string gets cut,” Mal said, “We have to go in another way. Follow me.”
Mal walked down the hallway towards the women’s restroom next to the library.
“Shape charge, right here!”
Mal heard crying from the bathroom door as one of Tim’s soldiers turned his gun to the door. Mal put his hand on the rifle and pushed it to the ground.
“It’s a kid you dumbass,” Mal said as he leaned down to the floor to see the small girl with her feet up on toilet seat.
“Hello there, I am one of the good guys,” Mal said, “if you open the door we can get you out of here. I promise.”
She nodded her head in confirmation, Mal stood up to his feet. She opened the door and saw the child lean her head out.
“Okay,” Mal stated, “you are going to run out into the atrium and straight outside. You can’t stay here, things about to get very loud and messy in here okay?”
She nodded and started to run to the door.
“Jace, cover her,” Mal said as Jace followed her to the door.
Mal turned back to Tim’s men as they finish the shape charge at the door and they begun to stack up at the soon to be hole in the wall. Mal saw Tim about to press the explosive devices trigger.
“Wolf-1, I can’t see your son’s signature but I am getting a weird radiological reading from a classroom on the second floor,” Wallis said through Mal’s Ear-piece.
“Wait,” Mal said as Jace raced back into the room, “Now do it.”
Tim pushed the button on the trigger, the plastic explosives chopped the wall open one at a time, the brick flying and falling to the ground. Mal felt Tim’s hand on his shoulder and it squeezed.
“Moving!” Mal screamed as he ran into the library. Feeling the buzz of bullets cracking over his head, Mal slid into the librarians desk in the front of the library.
Mal looked over at Tim and they both shrugged. There wasn’t much good cover in the area as the entire area was wood for the most part, There was room for four behind the Librarians desk but Tim saw they had a more pressing problem, the twelve Sons inside the library. Tim nodded to Mal and as he put two fingers out to symbolize an “F”. Mal nodded as the bullets dings off the metal desk. Mal and Tim both grabbed a flash bang off of their vests.
“Protect your ears and don’t look,” Tim said, “We move on the bang.”
Mal pulled the pin and counted down to three before wrapping his fist around the grip again, Tim repeated the gesture. Mal put up his fingers as the men started to reload, they turned and threw the flash-bangs onto opposite ends of the room. A loud bang reverberates throughout the room as the Sons members flinched backwards moaned out in pain. Mal and Tim cleared their cover, starting to fire. The Sons on the first floor of the library didn’t stand a choice. Mal, Tim, Jace and the others advanced into the library shredding down the 10 plus soldiers who were on the first floor. Mal turned his view to the second floor to see three Reds retreating up there.
“GET THE DEVICE IN PLACE!” One of them yelled out loud as they try and rush to the door at the back of the second floor.
Mal and Tim advanced up the stairs to a pair of bookshelves that run down the floor to the doors to the second level of the school. Mal saw one carrying a backpack disappear into the hallway about forty feet down the hallway.
“Mal, can you make me a hole?” Tim asked.
Mal nodded. He would have to do what is called Shoot herding. Mal pulled a frag grenade and tossed it to the right of the Sons. The air was as thick as a stew as he waited for the pop of the grenade.
“BANG!”
Mal turned the corner to watch the four men stumble all over themselves to cross the aisle way, Tim raced ahead of him and out the door. Mal repeated fire at the Sons as they ran down to the other corner of the floor. Mal came to a stop at the side of the door, pulling another grenade and tossing it to the left of the men, they turned and ran back up the aisle towards Mal. Mal squeezed the trigger four times. All four of the men fell to the ground in a bloody mess.
“Jace,” Mal said as he looks down and sees that Jace was entrenched with two of Tim’s men. More men were inside the conference room.
“We got this,” Jace said waiving Jonas to go to Mal, Jace turned up to cover Jonas as Mal also fired down into the conference room. Jonas ran up the stairs as bullets slung out.
Jonas turned to Mal as he got to the top of stairs.
“Let’s move,” Mal said as he turned and walked past the bodies he had killed.
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“Damn, I have never seen one guy kill four people in CQC,” Jonas said as they walked to the door.
“Oh, boy,” Mal said, “you are just adorable aren’t you.”
Mal kicks open the door as it falls off the hinges and walks into the hallway. Mal searched the hallway with his eyes before as he keeps advancing down the right side of it. Darting near his line of sight was Jonas. Mal stopped at the next cross section put his hand out to stop Jonas. He was walking side-by-side with Mal instead in the proverbial, “Nut to Butt” way he should be.
“Stop. Stay behind me,” Mal said, “Walk in my foot steps, it’s the only way you are going to stay alive.”
Jonas nodded. Mal’s earpiece popped to life.
“Wolf-1,” Wallis said, “I have you on my drone feed, the classroom to your left is filled with children and has two tangos inside. One of them is straight ahead from the door, second is to the right. There’s a window to the opposite of the door, updating your tactical feed. There is a device in the middle of the classroom.”
“What type of device?” Mal asked.
“I don’t recognize it, Mal,” Wallis said, “I don’t think I have ever seen one like it before.”
Mal turned to Jonas.
“Two hostiles inside the room you take the first one,” Mal said.
“Shouldn’t I take the second one?”
“No offense,” Mal said, “I have no faith that you can make a shot that is on the move like that. This isn’t your primary job, all you have to do is wait for the charge to go off walk in four steps and shoot.”
“Okay, I got it, Mal.”
Mal hung the explosive charge on the door handle as he stacked up behind Jonas.
“You have 2.7 seconds once the charge is off to take your guy,” Mal said, “don’t be late.”
Mal held the detonator in his left hand as his he pulled the tactical eye piece over his right eye. These were the moments that Mal really enjoyed about the job, he fell into what he calls “The Zone”.
Being able to do something that maybe 2,000 people in the history of this world could do, that makes me feel powerful.
Mall gripped the detonator as the door blew off it’s hinges, Jonas took his first step into the classroom as the smoke obscured the entryway. Jonas takes his third step and squeezes the trigger lancing three rounds into the first gunman’s chest. That was the easy part as Mal had just made his way into the doorway.
This is when the world slows down to a stop, when I can see a hummingbird’s wings. It’s almost intoxicating, like a drug.
Mal turned as he swung his rifle to the side and lined up the scope with the left eye of the other shooter as he put his sights on Jonas. Mal squeezed the trigger. Then as if the world went back into real time, both bodies drop to the floor like most head-shot victims do.
“AHHHHHH,” Mal heard from the teacher, struggling with an abdominal wound.
Mal swung over to see her wound and touched her back to feel the blood from the Gunshot wound on the other side.
“Looks worse than it is,” Mal said, “Jonas, carry her and take these kids out. Tye’s team should be in the atrium by now, avoid the library.”
Turning his back he saw the intricate wires of an improvised explosive device. Mal turned and shot out the window above them so, Wallis could fly her drone in. Mal looked at the device and saw a powder contained inside of it and realized that it wasn’t a chemical weapon like he expected.
Quinn made a dirty bomb with spare nuclear rods.
“We are nuclear here,” Mal said, “get everyone out of the building.”
“I am trying to come up with a solution,” Wallis said as Mal ran to the back of the science room.
“I got this,” Mal said as he towed the bomb over to a vat.
“I can disarm this, Mal!” She exclaimed over the Ear-piece.
“I believe you,” Mal said as he turned over the vat of Liquid Nitrogen onto the device. “We just don’t have time.”
Mal stared at the device as froze and slowed.
“Jackpot on this one,” Mal said as he turned to leave the classroom.
Jace rounded into the classroom.
“Where’s Tim?” Jace asked.
“I have absolutely no idea,” Mal said as the device finished freezing and the beeping stopped, “I need bomb disposal on the third classroom on the second floor.”
Mal walked towards the door and runs down the hallway to turn to another hallway.
“There are no other radiological signals in the building, any other devices they have are…”
BOOOOOOOM!
Mal and Jace felt the shock-wave of the blast as it lifted them off their feet and down the hallway. As they hit floor and scooted Mal’s rifle off away from him, his head hitting the lockers at the end of the hallway. As he blacked out, Mal realized that he had failed.
Jonas saw the blast as it enveloped the North side of the school blowing out a wall in the school.
“Wolf-1, are you okay?” Jonas asked on his radio.
“Wallis do you have eyes on?” Tye asked as he stood next to Jonas.
“Drone was destroyed during the explosion,” Wallis said.
Jonas started running towards the atrium of the building as a man out front yelled at him.
“Don’t go in there!” Tye screamed.
Jonas kept running as if no one said anything as Tye stared.
“Fuck,” Tye said as he ran after Jonas.
Jonas kicked open the door as Tye came up on him from the rear.
“Stay behind me,” Tye said.
Tye swept the atrium as they climbed the stairs to the second floor and started to see the destruction that the bomb had wrought. There was a whole the size of classroom on the side of the building with Mal and Jace pinned against the lockers at the end of the hallway, covered in shrapnel from the blast. Tye and Jonas threw debris off of the top of them until they got to the solid wall on top of them. Reaching down Tye attempted to lift the corner of the wall but failed, as he realized that Mal wasn’t unconscious.
That tough son of a bitch. Tye thought as he saw, Mal’s look had changed, he wasn’t exactly turning into a were or anything but: his mannerisms weren’t that of the man that Tye actually admired. His teeth almost grinding, his mouth putting out a growl. The Wolf is at the wheel.
“Fuck that’s heavy,” Tye said.
Mal pushed at the beam that the two soldiers couldn’t even budge and it, moved. Something that scared Tye, to his core.
“I got it,” Jonas grabbed a pipe from the ceiling that dangled, ripped it from there, “One,Two, Three. PUSH!”
The wall toppled over from the pipe and Tye lifting it off of the Jace and Mal’s bodies. Jonas looked down at Mal as he tried to scramble to his feet but Jonas put himself over top of Mal.
“This is my job, Chief.” Jonas said.
Jace laid on the ground, out cold. Mal had shrapnel peppered through his arms and legs but didn’t look bad other than that. Jace has a piece of Rebar jutting out of her abdomen, in a fairly benign place luckily.
“I need two stretchers up here immediately,” Jonas said into his ear piece.
“They’re both alive,” Tye said, “I am going to check the rest of them out.”
Tye stood up as Jonas nodded and turned down the hallway, with his rifle up in front of him. Approaching cautiously, he realized that there wasn’t going to be much to see except small pieces.
“I have multiple dead bodies on the north side of the school, mostly children,” Tye said, “No adult males, all children. No sight of Commander Carpenter, we have to assume he’s been taken captive.”
Tye walked into what was left of the classroom and found a backpack, on that backpack was a golden pin. An eagle on top of a trident, with a gun in one hand.
“Fuck,” Mal said as he stirred back to being awake and tried to stand.
Tye turned the corner and ran back to Mal.
“Stay where you are at,” Tye said, “M
ed-evac is on it’s way.”
Mal looked up and saw the trident in Tye’s hands.
Another failure, Mal thought.
Mal sprang back to his feet, as he wheezed in and out, blood trickling away from his body at a slow interval.
“Where did you find this?!” Mal asked, knowing the answer.
“It was on a backpack in the blast zone! It looked like the symbol you and Tim wear,” Tye said.
It was. Kyle was in that room.
I am sorry, Kyle. I failed you.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Next steps
Inside Mal’s asleep mind he was back in that small room that The Hero had been trapped on for eight years. The death of Kyle had hit the Mal’s psyche very hard, he was ready to do whatever was necessary to stop this. The Hero was sitting in the middle of the room rubbing his knuckles, tending to his bloodied and scarred hands. Staring across the small walled room he saw his blood painted against the wall. Suddenly a sledgehammer appeared in the middle of the room and he scrambled to his feet and grabbed it.
“For Kyle,” The Hero said as the hammer slammed into the wall.
He jolted to being awake and he rolled up to his bedside, pulling the IV from his arm. Doctor Grayson entered the room, he gray hair starring at the man whose medical records she just read. A modern medical miracle if you would.
“What are you doing?” The doctor asked.
“I am leaving and unless you are trained well enough to stop me, you won’t be.”
“If I had it my way,” Doctor Grayson said, “you wouldn’t be moving for another week.”
Mal turned his neck and popped it.
“Unfortunately, the commander of this station is missing and some crazy ideas on how they will use him to access a WMD,” Mal stated as he got up from the hospital bed, “What’s the status of Jace?”
“The Rebar has been removed from her abdomen, she was pretty adamant that she needed to be discharged,” Doctor Grayson said.
Mal raised his hand.
“She’s not going anywhere,” Mal said, “I will talk to her.”
“Stop!” Doctor Grayson screamed. “I will let you leave…I just need to talk to you before that.”
Taking a seat on the edge of his bed, Mal looked back at her.
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