I take a look around the corner and see it—my locker door didn’t shut completely. It’s only open a hair, imperceptible unless you’re looking for it. But people skilled in stealth infiltration will look for it. Can’t go back now, can’t leave the alcove, so I stand there, waiting for what I know is coming.
And there it is. The sound of a doorknob turning, then my chemistry classroom’s door opening. I don’t hear any footsteps, probably because the thief is wearing rubber-soled shoes. But I know he’s coming. There’s a collapsible baton in my bag, at the very bottom, hidden beneath a bunch of harmless-looking stuff in case of a surprise locker check. But it’s the only weapon I have that might stop this guy. And he’s close, even though I still can’t hear him. The second I shove my hand into my backpack to feel around for the baton, my hand rattles one of my makeshift, locker-safe weapons—a sock full of ball bearings.
Oh no. Did he hear that? Now I don’t even have the element of surprise. Okay. I can either run, fight, or … hope he doesn’t know who I am. If he really is here for me, I’m screwed. But if he’s a thief, as far as this guy knows, I’m just a kid in a hallway. That’s a normal thing in a high school, right? I’m just Peter Smith. I’ll just act like—
That’s when my near panic attack is interrupted by a buzzing over the PA system.
It’s Headmistress Dodson.
“Students, faculty, and staff—I am calling an unscheduled assembly. Please report to the auditorium, in ABC formation, beginning at one o’clock.”
Her message is brief, but long enough for me to know the assembly is not the kind we’ve rehearsed along with fire drills. Dodson is trying to hold it together, and probably no one else detected it but me, but her Voice-of-God tone was gone. It had crept just a step higher. Dodson is terrified.
CHAPTER 8
I hold my breath and peek around the corner again. No one there. Guess the announcement sent him back into the room. I make a dash for the office again. Dodson obviously knows what’s going on, but if she’s afraid, there must be hostiles in the office, too. I have to figure out a way to find out what she knows without getting either of us killed.
Back in Corridor A, there’s no activity in the hall, but the service window is still open and I can hear murmurs of conversation. I drop to the floor and crawl until I’m just beneath the window, where I hear an unfamiliar female voice.
“Is this all of your office staff? Is everyone accounted for?”
“Yes, we’re all here,” Dodson says. “It’s just the four of us.”
I run through the list of office staff. There are usually five: Dodson, her assistant, the registrar, the financial officer, and Jonesy. Since Dodson doesn’t explain, I’m guessing someone called in sick or took a vacation day. But I’m hoping all five were here at some point, someone got away, and Dodson is smart enough not to mention that fifth employee.
“What was that about the ABC formation?” the woman asks in a Southern accent, maybe Mississippi or Louisiana, but only a hint. She hasn’t lived there for a long time.
“It’s a staggered movement plan, so we don’t have the whole school moving to one location at once,” Dodson explains, sounding calmer than she did just a minute ago on the PA system. “Students and staff move according to the corridor they’re currently in and where we’ve directed them to go. The auditorium is on Corridor B, so those students on all three floors will head out first. Corridor A will begin moving two minutes later. C is last. All of our clocks are digital and centralized. Everyone should be in the auditorium within six minutes.”
“You run a tight ship,” the woman says, and I can imagine Dodson smiling at the compliment if she wasn’t being held against her will. “Knowing two of us are on the inside should help ease the panic.”
Um, what?
“Yes, I agree, though I don’t expect there will be much of that,” Dodson says. “Given our student body—who their parents are—we drill them on this procedure every semester. Just this morning, we had a false alarm—but we take all possible threats very seriously until they are refuted or eliminated—and our students handled it perfectly. They may even think this assembly is related to that.”
I still don’t know what they’re talking about, but it’s clear Dodson is not afraid of whoever’s in the office. In fact, she seems almost hospitable, by Dodson standards.
“Very smart, ma’am. At this point, we believe there are two suspects currently on the campus, though we’ve not yet ascertained their location. We have units outside along the perimeter, and I’m sure these people know that. In case the suspects are already in the building, we don’t want to alarm them into doing something stupid by bringing heavy forces inside.”
I don’t need to see the woman to know who she is. That was total cop speak. My relief is almost overwhelming. I’m about to reveal myself, but Dodson asks a few good questions that make me hesitate.
“But why come here? Why not keep taking the road out of town, or up into the mountains? Or take the highway into Denver, where they could get lost in the crowd? You don’t think they’re here for one of our students, do you?”
“As far as we know, they aren’t after anyone here. They’re just looking for somewhere to lie low. We pursued them from that bank at the edge of town, the one just before Broadway turns into Highway Thirty-Six,” the officer says. “There isn’t much between there and here. Carlisle had the bad luck of being the place they decided to take cover in once they knew we were in pursuit.”
That explains why Dodson sounded so scared during the announcement—she must have just learned bank robbers were hiding out here. Or at least people who she believes are bank robbers.
I’m still holding out hope that’s who they really are. It’s a better scenario than what my gut is telling me.
“But they passed several homes on big sprawling acreages, even a few ranches, before Carlisle,” Dodson says, sounding tired, as though she realized the minute she said it that it didn’t really matter at this point.
“It’s the middle of the day, those homes are probably empty. And the ranches … Well, those places don’t offer what your school does.”
“What’s that?”
I know the answer before it’s spoken. It explains why the gunmen are holding my classmates in place.
“Hostages, and plenty of them.”
There is a collective gasp from Dodson and the staff, who have been silent until now. Dang. The officer could have lied a little, maybe said she didn’t know why they chose Carlisle, even if Dodson and the others no doubt expected that would be the reason. This situation calls for a softer touch. I sure hope this cop isn’t also the hostage negotiator.
“The students and staff may wonder about the change in protocol, since our normal procedure is to hold in place until the building is cleared by your people.”
“Yes, that is S.O.P.—uh, standard operating procedure, ma’am—but this case is a little different since there is the possibility that the suspects are inside the building,” the officer explains. “It would be safer to have the students in one place until we can find these men.”
“But there are only two of you, Detective Andrews,” Dodson says. “That could take a while.”
Good point, Dodson. If the police have tracked bank robbers to the school, and know they’re here, where’s the cavalry? Standard operating procedure is to move in immediately if a school is being threatened. The halls should be crawling with cops. Letting five hundred people move through a building hijacked by bank robbers without heavy police escort doesn’t seem right. The classroom doors are made of steel, and contain bulletproof windows, which Dodson has no doubt explained. She’s right. Everyone would be safer staying where they are until the building is cleared.
And about these guys being bank robbers. That might explain the gunmen’s infiltration skills and tactical gear—in the Hollywood version of a bank heist. In real life, the average bank robber does so on impulse and out of desperation, usually some loser met
h-head needing a hit. He won’t wear a ski mask or even a ball cap pulled low over his eyes because he probably didn’t plan to rob a bank that day—the opportunity just presents itself and he takes it. He hits a bank where he can do just as Dodson suggested: get on the nearest highway and blend into the crowd long before the police arrive.
“My partner and I will accompany you and your staff to the auditorium and hopefully provide a calming presence as you explain that the school is under lockdown,” the officer says without really addressing Dodson’s concerns. “It would be best if we get there before they start moving. We want this assembly to seem as normal as possible.”
I hear movement in the office, and then Andrews says, “Oh, it’s best you leave everything here. I know you want to contact your loved ones, but we don’t want the suspects to intercept any phone calls which might give them information about our presence here. The faster we can resolve this, the faster we can all get out of here and home to our families.”
I know I’m only a year out of training, but this sounds like a pretty crap plan to me. I’m about to stand up and tell them so, when Andrews’s partner speaks.
“I recently lost someone dear to me in similar circumstance, Ms. Dodson. It weighs heavily on me today, so trust that I will not fail. Detective Andrews and I have situation under control.”
It isn’t what he says that keeps me crouched below the window. It’s how he says it. He’s trying to suppress it, but I detect an accent that explains why he didn’t say “a similar circumstance” or “the situation.”
It may be Russian, but my money’s on Ukrainian.
CHAPTER 9
Now it makes sense why that first cop, the one calling herself Detective Andrews, didn’t try to soften the hard news—because she isn’t really a cop. She’s a terrorist or black-market arms dealer, probably both, considering who her partner is.
It isn’t just the guy’s accent that seals it for me. It’s what he said about losing someone “in similar circumstance.” Marchuk Sr. was a traitor to his country and a longtime regular on Interpol’s most wanted list, so not a lot of people miss him. The only one who does is supposed to be dead.
It wasn’t a fluke that those hostiles chose my classroom to make their incursion. It’s not a coincidence the hacker is helping them.
That girl took my picture fifteen hours ago, probably posted it straight after. It went viral between first and sixth period. Only two hundred people had seen it before first bell. Marchuk must have been one of them, which means the whole time we assumed he was dead, he has been watching, probably from somewhere close, Canada or Mexico maybe. Hell, he may have been stateside the whole time. It’s a great place to hide from assassins who are even more afraid than he is to be caught on our turf. Playing dead and just waiting to pick off any member of our Ukraine team that he could identify. I must be the first.
Lucky me.
Surely the CIA had some intelligence on his resurfacing. Doesn’t matter that I’m basically a burned spy, a heads-up from Rogers on that little development would have been nice.
I hear the shuffling of feet inside the office. They must be leaving for the auditorium, which means I don’t have a lot of time to put together a plan. I crouch low and move as quickly as I can away from the office and into the closest alcove, out of sight but still with an eye on them thanks to the periscope from my supply stash. From around the corner, I see the two hostiles are dressed in street clothes, like detectives, I suppose. I’m able to count four members of the office staff, including Dodson. All women. Jonesy’s headache must have sent him home. He must have gotten out just before the hostiles arrived. I’m glad someone did.
As soon as they’re out of sight, I run back around the corner, into the office, and begin checking every drawer, every purse hanging on the back of a chair, hoping to find a working cell phone. It must be the hacker who cut the landlines, but I’m hoping it was only my cell phone they blocked. They wouldn’t risk anyone in the building using their cells to call the police, but at this point, I’m guessing the only people who know there are bad guys in the building are in my chem class.
No luck. None of the office staff’s cell phones work either. The hostiles have somehow blocked the nearest cell-tower signal. I shove one of the phones into my pocket just in case the signal blocker is close, and the phone might work in another part of the building. Next, I start checking every computer in the office for network connectivity. I know it’s probably useless, but it gives me something to do while I think through the facts I know so far.
My chem lab must be the only individual class they took over. They’re probably still in there now. In order for the hostiles to take over each class in the same manner, they would have had to assign at least one agent to thirty classrooms, so that each breach happened simultaneously. They’d need another platoon of agents. While I was in Ukraine, I’d only counted a team of nine, and after the raid-gone-bad, our side left theirs nine men short. Or so we thought. Obviously Marchuk got away. He must have taken on some new team members.
I’m hoping there are only the four of them—two in chemistry, Andrews, and the grieving son.
Four operatives would probably be overkill if their original plan had worked: infiltrate Mr. Velasquez’s room, extract me, and get out. My good luck of being in the supply room meant everyone else’s bad luck. Now they’re going to use all those hostages Andrews spoke of to draw me out. Just thinking about it makes me want to puke. But I got work to do.
Not a single one of these office computers is online. I have to get help some other way. If I’m right and there are only four of them, this may be my only chance to move freely through the school. It’s a long shot, but maybe they haven’t put the security doors down on the rear exits. Since I’m closest to Corridor C and it’s the farthest point from the auditorium, I make my way to that exit first.
Like the side and back exits of a movie theater, the rear doors at Carlisle can’t be opened from the outside during the day. They can only be used to exit the building, and only in an emergency. If they’re opened, an alarm will go off and the hostiles will know someone has made their escape. They’ll likely assume that that someone is me, but it’s a risk I’ll have to take. I just hope the alarm won’t set them off and make them do something stupid to one of the kids in chem or one of the office staff in the auditorium. I couldn’t take it if they hurt someone else just because they’re after me.
I’m feeling hopeful when, from the end of the hall, I can see blue sky through the window of the south door. I run hard toward the light.
All that risk assessment I just did turns out to be useless. There is no alarm because the door doesn’t open, no matter how many times I throw myself against it. Hoping the signal is better here, I check the bars on my phone.
Nothing.
I’m getting jittery; the panic starting to set in. I’m feeling a lot like every time I met yet another foster family for the first time, wondering if they’d be decent people, or if I’d be better off back on the street, already planning my escape before the social worker drove away.
To push it down, I make my way back around to the other arm of the U, taking the stairwell to the second floor, running through all three corridors and back downstairs again, checking both phones all along the way. Once I get around to the other rear exit, I find this door is locked too, and the signal is blocked on both phones here as well.
Then I remember the window-breaker in my backpack. It’s a little orange hammer with a pointy metal end and a blade like a box cutter in its neck, designed to break water-jammed windows and cut stuck seat belts to escape a sinking car. You can buy them anywhere, but they make a perfect spy tool. I can feel the jitters beginning to subside as I pull off my blazer and use it to shield my eyes from shattering glass.
That precaution proves just as useless as my earlier risk assessment. The glass doesn’t shatter. All my hammer does is leave an impression, something like a bullet would leave in bulletproof glass. I
t would take a sledgehammer to break this window. I peer through the glass, hoping there’s someone out there—maybe one of the soldiers-turned-school-employees—anyone, really, who might notice me and understand my plea for help. But the only thing I see out there is the student parking lot and cottonwood trees just beginning to yellow.
I slide down the door into a sitting position, feeling déjà vu. Yes, I’ve been here before, in this exact moment, except it was in Ukraine, just before I passed out. I want to give up, curl myself into a ball and hope that somehow help will come soon, like it did then. All that training they gave me at Langley doesn’t make me feel like anything other than what I am—a scared kid who wishes he’d never said yes to the Company’s offer.
If I’d said no, I’d probably be in jail right now serving a sentence for hacking the National Security Agency, and not a juvie sentence, either. I would be doing some real time. But at least there’d be no chance of having blood on my hands. Or maybe I’d have found a way to hack myself out of it—destroyed all the FBI’s evidence before my trial. If I’d said no, maybe I wouldn’t blame my latest foster parents for not being my real parents. I wouldn’t be such an ass about it. I’d be grateful they said yes to me. I’d only be worried about grades and making varsity track. Maybe I’d be going out with a really dope girl.
But I didn’t say no.
And in ninety seconds, all of Carlisle is about to be rounded up in one place, making it easier for Marchuk and his team to control them.
I said yes, so now it’s my job to stop the bad guys. I’m not sure how I’m going to do that by myself with what’s in my backpack, but one thing I can do right now is keep everyone from reaching the auditorium. Even if I don’t know how to beat the hostiles, I can at least make it hard for them.
Prettyboy Must Die Page 6