The Point Of A Gun: Thriller

by Steven W. Kohlhagen

  He looked up at the sound of her cell’s beep. Stared back at the ladies room.

  “Mine’s making a call,” Cheese had texted.

  She turned her phone to vibrate, hopefully not too late.

  The guy took his eyes off the ladies room and looked down at his phone. Answered it.

  “Just a sec,” he said into the phone as he walked out of the shop’s front door, looking back at the ladies room door.

  May stepped out when he turned around. Looked to the back of the shop.

  The clerk was watching the kid, Coke still in his right hand, phone held up to his left ear.

  There was a delivery door at the back. No sign of an alarm.

  The kid started up the street, talking. Back from where he had come, away from the park.

  The clerk stepped out on to the sidewalk. “Hey. You didn’t pay for that Coke.” Pointing at the kid.

  May sprinted for the back door, opened it and ran into the alley out back, closing the door as quietly as she could.

  She walked in the direction the guy had headed, counting on the clerk to get him to return.

  When she edged around the corner back out on the street, she could see the kid arguing with the clerk from thirty yards away, gesturing with his phone. His back to May.

  She found a spot from which to watch and wait.

  Her phone buzzed.

  “You ok?”

  “Yes. Mine took the call. Gimme a minute.”

  *

  Cheese watched as his guy hung up. Looked at his watch. Looked around.

  The dirtbag headed to a bus stop and sat down.

  Opened his backpack and took an apple and a candy bar out.

  A woman walked up and sat next to him. Glanced without an ounce of self-consciousness down into the backpack.

  He said something to her and she slid over and looked away.

  “No bomb in the backpack,” he texted to May.

  “Never was. They’re using Glocks. You knew that.”

  “Can’t be too careful. My guy’s just sittin’.”

  “Mine’s back on the move.”

  Good to know, Cheese thought.

  At some point, this has to all be going somewhere. Even if May’s Intel was wrong in some specifics, this guy wasn’t wandering around Little Rock being a tourist. Or looking for the Clinton Library. It was three, four miles back from where they’d come. The guy’d taken him by it twice.

  And then the guy looked at his watch, got up and started off toward the west with a greater sense of urgency.

  “Mine too,” he wrote. “And now in a hurry.”

  “Mine, too.”

  *

  A half hour’s hard walk later, Cheese realized where the guy was going.

  “No black church,” he texted. “Jewish Temple.”

  Nothing back from May.

  “Ten minutes ahead,” he wrote.

  “Ten minutes here to the black church he keeps returning to.”

  “Show time.”

  Cheese put his phone back in his pocket and headed off to the right to try to outflank the guy. He wanted to be in the Temple when the guy entered.

  *

  Ten minutes to three, May thought.

  All this walking just to coordinate the timing. Why hadn’t they just sat and waited? Conserve their energy.

  No idea. Maybe just nervous energy? Maybe they figured if they were wandering randomly, they wouldn’t be spotted as a threat.

  Maybe they were afraid of being stopped for loitering.

  Maybe they weren’t too bright.

  Well, if they could avoid killing them both, maybe the FBI could find out the answer.

  May didn’t care.

  With apparently less than ten minutes to go it was now clear where he was headed. They’d gone past that church three times today already.

  She dashed across the street to skirt some of the Jackson traffic and took a shortcut she’d noted earlier.

  She wanted to be in that church when he arrived.

  *

  Cheese stayed behind the guy until he watched him stop in the trees across the street and stare at the entrance.

  Cheese ducked down and headed out, sure he could stay out of sight through the cars in the parking lot. Once through the cars, he stood and headed for a side door as though he were just another member of the congregation heading in for services.

  As he entered the building, he saw the guy leave the trees and head straight for the entrance.

  Cheese looked around inside. There was a small group of people down the hall to his right. Standing outside what looked like a classroom. To his left, the hall curved around toward the entrance. Best guess was the guy would enter the front entrance. Two minutes, maybe three at most.

  Cheese heard organ music coming from the door in front of him, apparently the side entrance to the synagogue inside.

  “I’m in the synagogue,” he texted. “Good luck.”

  No return message from May.

  *

  May reached the church enough ahead of her guy that she had time to enter, look around, and then peer back out of the entrance. She was between the front doors and the actual entrance to the chancellery or whatever AME called it.

  She could hear organ music from inside the church. People talking.

  And there he was, now on this side of the street. Staring at the entrance. She was looking through the crack between the doors. She was sure he couldn’t see her.

  Coming down the sidewalk straight at her, between the guy staring in from the sidewalk and the front doors of the church, she could see five African Americans, a family, walking up the sidewalk toward her. All dressed in their Sunday finest.

  She looked around. No place to go but into the church.

  As she entered, there were maybe thirty or so worshipers, all sitting in the pews. Half looked up curiously at her as she entered. Her jeans and hoodie didn’t fit in here. There was a Minister in a robe sitting up next to a lectern.

  He looked at her. Gestured for her to come in.

  She stepped aside, counting on the incoming family as a distraction.

  There were some stairs to her left, heading up, she presumed, to the organ. It offered her a place to stand out of sight from anyone walking into the church.

  *

  Cheese stepped into the side of a large place of worship. There were maybe fifty people in the synagogue. Three men were sitting up at the pulpit under what he knew was called the Ark, inside of which would be the Torah.

  Nobody paid him any mind.

  He looked around and realized that there was a flaw in what passed for his plan. If the guy walked into the Temple and then came in through the second set of doors where Cheese waited, then all was fine. The guy would be no threat to anyone in short order.

  If, however, he came through the front doors and there were people outside in the hallway and he started shooting out there, Cheese was in no position to help. He would be too late. Might even become a target himself.

  Quickly checking to make sure he wasn’t attracting any attention and that there weren’t any security personnel that might mistakenly get in the way, he hurried toward the two front doors which opened out into a lobby.

  Through the doors, he saw a table covered with prayer books and yarmulkes in the lobby, but no people.

  And then his guy walked purposely through the front doors, past the prayer books and into the Temple.

  His eyes were on the pulpit and the Rabbi ahead of him.

  He stopped uncertainly as he got three strides past Cheese, his sunglasses apparently making it hard for him to assess what he was walking into.

  He was carrying his Glock in his right hand.

  He lifted it and started shouting incoherently above the organ music.

  Cheese made out the words. It sounded like, “It’s time for you Jews to stop running America.”

  *

  May watched from the third stair up toward the organ.

 
The Minister now looked at her with more concern, but, just as she had hoped, was distracted by the entrance of the family. He and the others in the Church greeted the family, everybody’s enthusiastic greetings clearly heard above the organ music.

  May pulled her gun out of her holster at the small of her back. Steadied her breathing. Eyes on the front doors. Not allowing herself to be distracted by the activity of all the worshipers.

  Or the unwelcome attention of the Minister.

  The guy walked in through the front doors. Started shouting obscenities. Waving his Glock over his head. Only a couple of the parishioners noticed him through all the enthusiastic greetings and the organ music.

  May could make out the words, “I’m not going to let you ruin us anymore.”

  The guy shot into the air. Once. Twice.

  And the congregation turned toward him as one. In shock, not initially sure what was happening.

  He lowered his Glock. Aimed it at the Minister and started shouting obscenities and racial slurs.

  *

  Cheese didn’t wait for the shooter to get his bearings or to get the attention of the congregation. He raised his gun and shot him once in the upper torso.

  He went down.

  Cheese then shot him once behind each knee and kicked his Glock up the aisle.

  He didn’t have time for niceties.

  He could hear the growing buzz of the congregation over the screams of the guy. He avoided eye contact with anyone as he ran toward, then out, of the internal synagogue side door. Ten more steps and he was through the outside door and into the parking lot.

  He was counting on nobody chasing him or seeing him enter the woods on the edge of the lot.

  Everybody’s attention should be on the guy on the ground. And the screams. And the blood.

  *

  May lifted her gun with both hands, aimed, and pulled the trigger three times in rapid succession.

  The first bullet hit the guy in the left shoulder, the second in his buttocks as the force of the first bullet pirouetted him clockwise. The third bullet hit him in the side of his right knee, and he went down hard.

  She sprinted toward the writhing gunman. Kicked the Glock out of his reach and shot him in his right hand before he had a chance to utter a sound.

  Without a glance she rushed out of the church, and sprinted to her right, toward the building she had had the chance to evaluate four times today. The one that would give her the protection she needed for her escape.

  *

  Twenty minutes later, a little less than a thousand miles away, their lawyer entered the room.

  “I thought everyone was already here,” she said. “Where’s Licht?”

  “He was here,” Tom said. “He got a call less than a minute ago from the White House that he said he had to take.”

  Linda looked at her watch, “He’s not late yet. He’s got two minutes still.”

  The lawyer’s phone rang.

  She looked at it, answered, “Yes.”

  She looked at the three as she listened. “Yes, I understand. When should we reconvene then? Okay, I’ll tell them.”

  She looked down at her notes. “Looks like we’re cancelled.”

  “Any explanation?” Linda asked.

  “No. He said the Paladins Task Force was to table this discussion and go back to business as usual. Eight am tomorrow at the White House. He said you would understand.”

  “He actually called it ‘the Paladins Task Force’?”

  The lawyer nodded.

  “And his answer to when we’re reconvening on our agreement?”

  “He said he’d get back to us on that. Anybody interested in looking over the draft agreement in the meantime?”

  They each took a copy.

  “What about Licht’s copy?” she asked.

  “I’ll give it to him at eight oh five,” Linda said and took a second copy.

  Chapter 52

  At eight am, Moose passed out copies of the morning’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and Jackson’s Clarion-Ledger to the Task Force.

  “Do we know for a fact yet that these were our Paladins?” Linda asked.

  “As of yet, we have found no card from Samms. So in a sense, we don’t know for certain. But it is either them or a copycat gang. If the latter, then our national problem with vigilantes is growing.”

  “How does the President want to play it?” Nancy asked.

  “Well, as you can see from the local papers, the Little Rock Rabbi is saying it was a Guardian Angel and the local police are insisting it wasn’t one of their guys. The Little Rock cops and the local FBI are merely saying for now it’s under investigation.”

  “Our guys are saying everything was just a mass of confusion at both locations,” Nancy said. “The civilians in the Synagogue couldn’t agree on whether there had been two or three gunmen. Or who had shot whom. Some thought a Temple security guard had shot the gunman, but then it turned out he was in the bathroom at the time of the attack. He arrived at the scene before the police, and all he could do was provide first aid to the gunman.”

  “Did he see the other gunman, or gunmen?” Tom asked.

  “No, and he couldn’t get everybody calmed down enough to find out what had happened. Our guys said that by the time the Little Rock police arrived, the vigilante gunman or gunmen could have been ten miles away in any direction.”

  “So what do we think happened?” Linda asked. “Do we even know who the two kids are who were trying to attack the Church in Jackson and this Little Rock Temple, and whether they are related?”

  “Yes,” Moose said. “But we’re not making it public yet. They’re from St. Louis. From the CCC there. They travelled down South to kill Jews and African Americans. To, as they so elegantly Tweeted each other and their colleagues in St. Louis, ‘get America back on track’.”

  “Were they known to the authorities?” Linda asked.

  “To NSA and the FBI, but not to local authorities.”

  “Anybody know they were down there?” Tom asked.

  “Not officially.”

  “Not officially?”

  “Homeland Security, NSA, and the FBI received anonymous tips, which we now assume were from the Paladins, about their whereabouts and intentions, but…”

  “No need to finish the thought, Moose,” Linda said. “We get the picture.”

  They glared at each other.

  “There’s less confusion in Jackson,” Moose finally said. “Everybody in the Church agreed that there were two gunmen.”

  “One gunman and one gunwoman, actually,” Nancy said.

  “Oh?” Linda said.

  “Again,” Moose said, “nothing’s been made public. The Jackson cops say she wasn’t one of theirs. The Minister said they didn’t have any security there. The local SAC says he’s investigating any leads and any connections.”

  “Unfortunately, the kid at the church talked,” Nancy said. She pointed at the lead article in the paper. “Says he and a buddy were trying to make America safer. But he didn’t mention where they were from or who or where his buddy was.”

  “When the Minister asked him if the girl was his buddy,” Nancy said, “he asked them ‘what girl’?”

  “We get a description of the gunwoman?” Linda asked.

  “Four descriptions, actually,” Moose said. “A tall African American, a short African American, a short Mexican, and a short Japanese woman. A Ninja, actually.”

  “I think we’re safe going with short and non-Caucasian,” Colonel Edwards said.

  “I’ll ask again, how does the President want to play this?” Nancy asked, ignoring Tom.

  “I think we need to determine the likelihood it was our Paladins doing the shooting before we can decide.”

  “Apparently, the press in Jackson and Little Rock hasn’t really tumbled to the existence of the Paladins as a vigilante group yet,” Tom said, “But it’s only a matter of time. There’s been very little publicity, even after the Post article. T
herefore if it’s copycats, they have to come from one of the Agencies. The general public doesn’t know enough about them to even start copying them. And there’s no evidence it’s been picked up much even in St. Louis yet.”

  “Are we possibly dealing with two groups on identical vigilante missions?” Linda asked.

  “They reached out to the FBI and NSA this time,” Tom said. “That hasn’t been the Paladins’ usual procedure.”

  “They have reached out sometimes when they felt it might be more than they could handle,” Moose said. “That’s what we think happened here. They had to coordinate separate, simultaneous attacks on two terrorists…”

  “While at least one of you who is their boss or colleague were distracted by meeting with us and our lawyer yesterday afternoon,” Licht said. “It’s becoming increasingly intolerable that one or two or all three of you know all this and are toying with us. It’s past time to stop these games.”

  Patience, Licht. We’re almost there. Patience.

  “The President actually asked about that,” Moose said. “He wondered if maybe it was more than Samms could handle while in a conference room with you and the lawyer. That maybe that’s why they reached out.”

  “We’ll all know the answer to all these questions in a day or so,” Nancy said. “Just let us get back with the lawyer. You can berate whichever of us you want after we’ve signed the documents and agree to the next step.”

  “Good point,” Licht said.

  “On the point of who it is, we did recover the two abandoned Glocks used in the shootings near the scenes,” Nancy said. “The Paladins have always left their weapons at the scene. So we’re leaning toward believing it was them.”

  “In the meantime, we’re leaning to claiming publically that it was undercover FBI agents who moved in from their surveillance positions to protect the two congregations for now,” Moose said.

  “Especially after the D.C. fiasco, that sounds easier than admitting to the American people that their collective national security forces aren’t up to the job,” Linda said.

  *

  That evening, the lawyer reconvened the contract drafting meeting with the four of them.

  She passed out a three page red-lined draft. “I think I’ve responded to all your comments. And I’ve highlighted the areas of inconsistent requirements.”