Black Swan Rising

by Lisa Brackmann

  “Heard what?”

  Her phone rang just then. “Pressure Drop,” the ringtone she’d assigned for anyone having to do with the campaign. “Excuse me,” she said. She unstrapped her phone from her arm. Jane.

  “Hello?”

  “Where are you?” Jane asked right away. That was Jane. She didn’t like to waste time.

  “I’m out running. Why?”

  “Tell me where you are.”

  “I’m … ” She’d jogged down here a few times before, but she hadn’t ever noted the exact address. “I’m in Clairemont, in Bay Park or Western Hills, I guess. What’s going on?”

  For a moment, she heard nothing. Then, an intake and exhalation of breath. “Lindsey, there’s been an incident. At the park. A guy with a gun and … we don’t really know what happened.”

  “A gun?”

  “Matt’s hurt,” Jane said. “I think … we think he’s okay but I don’t know for sure. People are dead.”

  “What?” This didn’t make sense. Her ears were buzzing, and then there was an empty sound, a dull roaring. “What … what happened?”

  “I need to know where you are, Lindsey. We’ll send a police car to pick you up.”

  “I’m … ” She looked around, trying to find a street sign. Wasn’t there some way she could share her location on social media? Through Facebook, or Instagram? On a Google Hangout, or even through Chat?

  All those apps, they wanted to know where you were.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Matt’s okay?”

  “We think so. Look,” Jane said, “I want you to take a deep breath and see if you can find an address. The police need to come and get you. They want to make sure you’re safe.”

  “Safe? What do you mean?”

  “Can I give you a ride someplace?” Kimberly Tegan asked.

  “I … ”

  Tegan rested her hand on Lindsey’s shoulder. “It’s not a problem. You just let me know.” Then Tegan patted her hip. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We’re protected.” She hitched up her bright orange blouse a few inches. The edge of a black elastic band with flirty pink trim was just visible above the waist of her pants—a holster, the butt of a pistol in easy reach.

  18

  NEIGHBOR2NEIGHBOR/CLAIREMONT/NEWS_FEED

  Scott Larson, West Central Bay Park

  Gunshots fired?

  Scott Larson, West Central Bay Park

  I’m hearing gunshots and helicopters, can’t tell for sure but think it’s around Clairemont Drive and the park.

  Scott Larson, West Central Bay Park

  Anyone have any insight?

  Standing in front of the makeshift memorial to Riley James and Elray Harrison yesterday, Casey had finally agreed it was time to tell the police. She hadn’t sat easily with the decision since then. She wasn’t willing to go on the air and call Lucas Derry a killer—that was what the standard should be for contacting law enforcement—but the way everything had added up …

  Could she live with herself if they didn’t say anything, and the worst happened?

  “So, I called Helton,” Rose told her. He was one of the detectives on the Morena shootings and had been on their list to interview for the series. (“We go with the personal angle, right? What was it like, investigating a crime like this, a mass slaughter? Does he still think about the victims?”) Helton hadn’t said yes yet, but he had said maybe.

  She’d found Rose at her desk in the newsroom after the morning meeting. Casey had missed it because of her PT appointment, but then, she hadn’t made a morning meeting since The Event. She was still on light duty, officially.

  But it was time, she thought. No reason not to go to the meetings. There was work she could do here. She could go out on stories if they weren’t too physically challenging, she’d already proved it with the Chastain package. Reasonable accommodation, didn’t they have to provide that?

  Looking around the room, at the monitors that seemed to fill up every available space on desks and on walls, at the cubicles cluttered with photos of people’s kids and spouses and partners, water bottles, food wrappers and half-eaten bagels on paper plates, cameras, at a Dejero GoBox ready to go, spare battery packs, at the wall of photos and cards and clippings and the shelf of Emmys, the battered filing cabinets and furniture that looked like higher-end Ikea stuff that had fallen out of the truck a few times, everyone plugged in and working … she could feel the place, the whole thing. The parts she didn’t like—the strange politics and often trivial stories and the sometimes brutal schedule and the surprisingly shitty pay—and the parts she loved. Getting out there. Seeing something she hadn’t seen. Telling a story the right way.

  “What did you tell Helton?” Casey asked.

  “I just laid it out. What happened and what we know. What other people said about him. A screenshot from the footage I got of Lucas’s apartment door.”

  The door. In another context it might have been funny.

  It was covered with stickers. One with an assault rifle that said, You Can Live Scared—Or Be Prepared. Another praising the Second Amendment—America’s Original Homeland Security. Then, Ideas Are Bulletproof. Enemy of the State. And Got Liberty?

  And finally, Do Or Do Not, There Is No Try, with a silhouette of Yoda.

  “So what did he say? How did he react?”

  Rose shrugged. “He said they’d look into it.”

  “Did he mean it?”

  “Who knows? But I made him promise if we were right that we’d get confirmation ahead of any presser.”

  “You think he’ll honor that?”

  “Again, who knows? But if he doesn’t, we still have an angle. We’re the first to make the connection between Alan Chastain and Lucas Derry. Plus, you were stalked by a killer.”

  Casey supposed that had to count for something.

  Rose looked away, as though she were embarrassed. “Also, I left out the comic book.”

  “You did?”

  Another shrug. “For now. It’s pretty tenuous, and if Helton screws us over, we still have something no one else has.”

  SD Baseball Mom @SDBaseballMom

  Cant believe what I just saw guy shooting at

  @RepMattCason and Cason beat the shit out of him Im shaking

  San Diego Police Department @SDPolice

  Active shooter incident at Mid-Clairemont Rec Center, Stay away from the area. Media: Don’t call for updates at this time, more to follow

  They were meeting in the small conference room just off the newsroom about the Helen Scott package, about Lucas Derry, what made sense to run, and when. If they got confirmation on a connection between Chastain and Derry, they had something cut together that would only take a few tweaks before it was good to go. In the meantime, did it make sense to hit with Helen Scott as planned?

  “I vote we promo a couple more days,” Gloria said. “There’s no urgency to get it on tonight. Let’s build it.”

  “Slow night tonight though,” said Chris, the six o’clock newscast’s director. A new guy, he’d come in since the Morena shooting. “We’ll run short without it.”

  An intern—Casey couldn’t remember her name, she was new too—stuck her head in and said, “Active shooter incident at the Mid-Clairemont Rec Center, multiple casualties, Congressman Cason’s there.”

  You could feel the room go on alert, everyone suddenly tense, upright, focused on the intern’s bright face, her excitement.

  This was the shit they all lived for.

  “Where’d you get that?” Gloria snapped.

  “Twitter and Facebook, SDPD’s confirmed.”

  “I’ll go,” Casey heard herself say.

  Everyone’s head swiveled toward her: Rose, Jordan, Gloria, Craig and Elise, Chris.

  “I don’t think—” Rose began.

  “I can do
it.”

  “You’re sure you’re up to it?” Gloria asked.

  She wasn’t sure, but she forced a smile and said, “Yeah. I am.”

  Jordan and Gloria exchanged a look. Then Gloria nodded. “Go for it.”

  Blood really did smell like metal. Like the old, dirty pennies she’d collected in her piggy bank when she was a kid. Like metal and raw meat.

  The person lying next to her was Ben.

  She couldn’t see where he was shot, at first. His head, his torso, she couldn’t see any blood. Then he’d rolled over onto his back, and she saw his leg, soaked in blood, blood pulsing from his thigh, pooling on the ground around it.

  “Somebody do something,” she said, and she couldn’t make her voice loud enough over the screams and the shouts, two policemen yelling for everyone to stay down, surrounding the man that Matt had beat up, planting a foot in his back and cuffing his hands, Matt sitting on the ground looking dazed.

  Finally, she did the only thing she could think of to do: peeled off her black blazer, wadded it into a ball, and pressed it against the wound on Ben’s leg. He let out a high-pitched cry, weaker than she would have thought given how much it must have hurt, but he was so pale, and there was so much blood.

  “Help’s coming,” she told him, but she didn’t know if it was. She thought she heard sirens.

  She looked up for a moment. More police arriving. And something else. Someone, a man with a camera, aiming it at her.

  News 9 San Diego @News9SanDiego

  BREAKING: Gunfire and multiple casualties

  reported at @RepMattCason community event

  in Clairemont

  The videos were coming in as fast as the police, several uploaded as squad cars and a tactical team arrived at the scene.

  Most of them weren’t very good, taken at a distance after the gunfire had stopped. But there was one that stood out. Someone, @SDBaseballMom, had been live-streaming on Periscope just before the shooting started, capturing Cason speaking to a man who looked like he might be drunk or drugged. “I promise we’re going to do our best to help you,” Cason had said. A moment of silence, someone yelled, “Congressman!” and then a gunshot, and another, and screams. The camera POV jerked and swung, catching a glimpse of a stocky guy in a black jacket and sunglasses, holding something dark in one fist, then a flash and another gunshot, and a plunging blur as the phone hit the ground.

  Casey watched it on her phone as they sped to the park in the live truck. “Shit,” she said. “Shit. It looks like him.”

  “Wait, what?” Rose twisted around in the front seat. “What are you watching?”

  “Video of the park shootings. I think it’s Lucas.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “It’s a Twitter video and I’m watching it on a phone, I can’t be sure.”

  But she’d managed to freeze the video on the man. The shooter. It was him.

  “Shit,” she said. “Can we call your detective? There has to be some way we can get a positive ID.”

  “I’ll call. You’ve got a stand-up to do,” Rose said.

  Right, Casey thought. Get as close as she could get to the crime scene, the yellow crime tape, the flashing sirens, the police securing the area.

  She shuddered, thinking about it.

  They’d gotten close that night at the brewery. They were looking for a good angle, and they’d found one. She’d thought it was okay, and the police hadn’t stopped them, maybe because units were still arriving, still setting up a perimeter.

  Too close.

  You can do it, she told herself. You want to work. Even if you aren’t fast on your feet, you can still do the job.

  Besides, she knew that park. No tall buildings anywhere close to it.

  It won’t be dangerous, not this time.

  Clark Went @ClarkWent

  Someone just shot my congressman,

  @RepMattCason. Hope he makes it

  SanDee @SanDeeinSD

  Cannot believe this is happening again, this

  has to stop, get guns off the street!

  Pepe Got Your Number @PepeGotYourNumber

  Go ahead get rid of your guns moar for us LOL

  #AlanJayLiberationArmy #AJLA

  Liberty Tree 17 @LibertyTree17

  Criminals will always find guns, sadly.

  Truth Is Glorious @TruthIsGlorious

  Sorry @RepMattCason you keep pushing people too far theyre going to push back #AlanJay­LiberationArmy #AJLA

  Melody @MelodySoulSinger

  #PrayForSanDiego

  Casey Cheng, brave survivor, reporting from the latest massacre.

  Of course they wouldn’t say that. But she knew that was how Jordan was thinking about it. About her.

  What’s my excuse, she thought?

  “Casey, hit time’s in thirty seconds.” That was Chris. The show director’s voice faded in and out in her ear. She fiddled with her IFB.

  It was a beautiful day. Perfect blue sky. A gentle breeze. In front of her, three other stations’ live trucks. To one side, a reporter from CBS setting up; to the other, the park’s half-pipe and skateboard park. Empty now, cleared by police.

  Behind her, a phalanx of squad cars, red and blue lights pulsing, and a matte-black SWAT vehicle that looked like it had been shipped from a war zone. Next to them, ambulances—one had pulled away, sirens wailing, while they were parking the van. Knots of bystanders gathered by police barricades.

  It would make a good backdrop.

  News 9 had been first, getting here in just under twenty minutes after they’d given her the green light to go. That made her happy, in spite of everything.

  “Case? Can you hear me?” Chris again.

  “You okay, Casey?” That was Gloria. She’d be sitting next to Chris in the booth in her producer’s chair, back at the station.

  Casey took in a deep breath. Focused on Diego in front of her.

  Accompanied by her Hero Photographer.

  How was he doing? He’d been quiet in the van, but then he generally was.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I’m good.”

  It will be fine, she told herself.

  “Witnesses describe a scene of terror and chaos as a gunman opened fire on a crowd of people gathered for a meet and greet at a community fair with Congressman Matt Cason,” said Elise’s voice, live on camera back in the studio. “Witnesses” were mostly tweets and posts from Twitter and Facebook. “Terror and chaos” seemed safe enough to say, under the circumstances.

  “Okay, we’re in the double box,” Chris said.

  She was on, a split-screen graphic with Elise on screen left and Casey on screen right.

  “Our own Casey Cheng is at the scene. Casey, what can you tell us about what happened?”

  “You’re out of the box, Casey.”

  Back in the booth, they’d cut away from the two-shot and the studio, and now what was going out was just Diego’s shot.

  It was all on her now.

  “Elise, details are scarce at this moment but I can confirm that there are multiple casualties. Police have told us that they believe we are no longer in an active shooter situation, but they aren’t taking any chances and are searching the area as we speak.”

  (“Yeah, he’s down,” a cop had told them. The “search” part was obvious—police poured into the park, some with dogs.)

  “If you look behind me and to my left, you can see the search in progress.”

  She watched as Diego panned away from her and zoomed, trying to get a shot that would sell the search.

  “And Representative Cason, any word on his condition?”

  Rose’s voice came in hard and fast over her earpiece. “Hey, I’ve got a witness who says Cason took out the shooter himself. Says Cason walked away from it. He’ll talk on air.”

 
; That ought to make for one hell of a campaign ad, Casey thought.

  “Go for it,” Gloria said in her ear.

  “Nothing confirmed,” Casey said, “but we’re hearing from witnesses that Congressman Cason may have played a role in subduing the gunman, and that he was able to move under his own power, so the hope is that his injuries are not serious. I want to repeat that this is unconfirmed, but we should have more information for you on that shortly.”

  Chris in her ear: “Elise, on you till Sharp Hospital’s up.”

  “All right, Casey, we’ll be waiting to hear from you,” Elise said. “We’re continuing with our live coverage of the shootings at Congressman Matt Cason’s event at a Clairemont park community fair.”

  “Social media OTS is up, Elise. Casey, you’re out.”

  “We’re getting a lot of tweets and posts from the scene,” Elise was saying, “and though we cannot vouch for the accuracy of everything that’s been posted, here are what witnesses are reporting. A warning: some of this content may be graphic.”

  “Can you get over here?” Rose again. “We’re behind the rec center.”

  “He just pounded on him! The guy’s face looked like hamburger at the end. I got photos, you can see.”

  Rose tilted her head toward the rec center. “Police are taking witness statements inside. But Mr. Stewart here wanted to talk to us first.”

  Lucky us, Casey thought.

  “Yeah, I bailed,” he said. He was barely out of his teens, if that, a long, lanky kid with baggy cargo shorts that hung off his butt and a T-shirt from the Clairemont Surf Shop. He stuck his hand out at Casey for a quick shake. “I’m Gio.”

  She put on a smile. “Hi, Gio, I’m Casey. It’s great to meet you.”

  “It’s great to meet you too! I watch you all the time. It’s so cool you’re the ones seeing these first.”

  Casey’s smile felt frozen in place. It was a nice thing to say, she told herself. Not something to be afraid of. Not like with Lucas.

  “Can she take a look?” Rose asked.

  “Sure.” He handed Casey his camera, a Canon PowerShot. “I got some good stuff.”