“Don’t do that!” Danny whispered, throwing himself against her.
“Eight,” Tisha replied.
“What?” Danny asked.
“There are eight of them,” she reiterated. “Eight that I can see anyway. Not counting these fellas. Couldn’t count the hostages if I had help, but the good news is they’re all shoved in a back corner of the room, on the right hand side.”
“And that’s why we brought her,” Alex said. “While we were busy playing kick the sandbag, she was doing recon. Good job, Tisha.”
“When we get out of here,” Danny said to Tisha, “I’m busting your head and putting you up for promotion and commendation.” Turning his attention back to Alex, Danny said, “Okay you heard the woman. Eight of them, four of us and a tub full of hostages in the middle. What’s your bright idea now, Boss?”
“I suppose the O.K. Corral approach is out of the question.”
“How about the bait and switch?” Moe offered.
“Beg your pardon?” Alex asked.
“Well, we need a diversion. I believe we decided that earlier, right?”
Alex nodded.
Producing his cell phone from his pocket, Moe continued, “I get on the horn here and my two agents take those two Gilmer cops in the side door, giving us the chance we need to come at these suckers sidewinder style.”
“That puts them in danger,” Alex said.
“Alex we have to do something. They’re cops, they know the risks. It’s not a bad plan, evens the odds if nothing else. Unless you have a better idea?” Danny interrupted.
“What about the hostages?” Alex reminded them. “We spook these guys, they’re strapped with explosives, and that ends our rescue mission real quick now doesn’t it?”
“Well we can keep sitting out here on our brains if you’d like,”
Danny nearly growled.
His eyes narrowed, Alex tightened his jaw. Glaring at Danny he snapped, “Say that to me when it’s your family on the line in there.”
Placing a hand on Alex’s shoulder, Tisha interrupted. “Alex, these guys aren’t strapped with explosives.”
“How do you know?” he asked.
“Well,” she said, pointing to the two bodies in the walkway, “these two weren’t. And I think we can safely say the door isn’t wired.”
“It only takes one,” Alex insisted. “It only took one to put my wife in the hospital to begin with.”
“And only God knows how many,” Danny said. Alex looked at him. His face was a mixture of remorse and righteous anger. Once again, Alex knew what it was Danny was feeling. Alex hadn’t been there. And now “Johnny Come Lately” was leading the final charge. No doubt they were hip deep in danger. And now he was about to put four more of America’s finest in the line of fire. He had done it before. For many years he’d asked rookie cop after rookie cop to put his life on the line to uphold his sworn duty of protection. To aid the innocent and rescue the helpless—to do their jobs.
And now he was being asked to do it again—to be Police
Lieutenant Alex Mendez.
“So basically we are alright with the O.K. Corral approach?” Alex asked.
“Ready when you are, Wyatt.”
“Moe,” Alex said, rubbing a nervous hand across his face. “Make the call.”
CHAPTER 41
Raging
“I know this isn’t exactly kosher to do,” Alex whispered, looking from Danny to Moe to Tisha and back again. “But I want to let you know that if anyone wants to back out right now…”
Danny cursed. “I told you before if you weren’t up for this you needed to let me know.” Danny interrupted. “Quit your stalling and let’s move!”
“We have to wait for it,” Alex reminded Danny. “Moe, where are your boys?”
Turning away from the door to the cafeteria, Moe triggered the redial on his phone. He’d already told the agents to put their phones on vibrate, so there’d be no danger of alerting anyone through an ill-timed chirping, buzz or ringing.
“Where are you?” Moe whispered into his phone. “Are you in position?”
Moe looked at Alex and nodded, “They’re in position, waiting for orders.”
“Orders are don’t shoot the hostages,” Alex said, “Tell them there is easily-accessible cover inside the door. Stay low and try to get to the doorway that’ll be down the wall on their right about twenty feet. It’s the entrance to the lunch line. Don’t fire unless fired upon. But if you are fired upon, draw their fire. Tell them these guys have automatic weapons we think. Chances are they’ll be fired upon. We count to ten and sneak in. Do not let them get behind the hostages. Whatever they do, tell them stay alert and no one leaves out of that door. Keep them busy and keep them distracted. If all goes well, they might not even notice us until we start firing.”
“The odds are as even as we can get them,” Danny said, looking straight at Tisha.
“Then I guess you have nothing to worry about, do you, sir?” she returned. Her face filled with a determination Alex hoped would rub off on him as the next few minutes played out.
“Two by two,” Alex said, “Moe, you and Tisha on the left door.
Danny, you’re with me.”
“Alex?” Danny said.
“What?”
“Just in case something happens…”
“Danny…”
“No, Alex, listen. Just in case, I just want you to know I’m going to get you out of there. No matter what I do and no matter what happens to me, you get your butt out.”
“Don’t talk like that, Danny,” Alex whispered, choking back an eerie sense of nerves. “Nobody talk like that. Nobody think like that, remember? We go in, we get them out. We make sure these psychotic nut bags don’t hurt anyone else again. We are not arresting anyone today. We are here to stop them. Are we clear on that mission?”
Everyone nodded, though it seemed as if Danny had singlehandedly let the air out of the entire team’s confidence.
“I said are we clear?” Alex said again, a little louder and with authority that even surprised him. Eyes brightened, filling with determination, everyone nodded again, each in his own way verbally acknowledging readiness for the approaching storm.
“Leave your yellow streaks at the door,” Alex reminded them, “But don’t be a hero either.” A noise from inside the cafeteria drew their attention.Shouting.It had begun.
“They’re in!” Alex said, sneaking a peek through the small window in the cafeteria door. “Danny, count off ten and it’s our turn.”
Gunshots—automatic weapons.
Screams!
“Four. Five,” Danny whispered aloud.
Okay! Now! Danny, get there faster!
***
Lisa was face down on the ground cradling Christina’s face before she realized what had compelled her to such a course of action. Her mind was digesting thoughts in microbytes—one or two word thoughts.
“Rescue,” she thought. “Alex!”
Get out! Protect Christina!
Don’t let me die!
Eric!
Gunshots! Shouts!
My side!
Sudden movement had brought home a reality previously denied her. She’d lost an ungodly amount of blood. Her body had been through hell and back in the last however many days. Stitches popping, reattached. Bleeding. She’d been relatively still for some time. She hadn’t expended any real energy since her capture, but she’d hardly had time to get any real rest, to recuperate the energy lost since the explosion at the police station. Now, her body told a most unsettling truth.
At risk of blacking out, possibly smothering her daughter in the process, Lisa’s mind embraced her uselessness.
Bullets bounced off walls, table tops and shattered ceiling tiles.
Strange voices filled her ears, some didn’t appear to be speaking English.
She looked for Alex but saw only a rampaging horde running for the doors that had just flown open.
“Lisa
!”
Alyson’s voice gave Lisa something to which she could cling.
Perhaps she wouldn’t drown in the darkness after all.
She fought for the words. Her mind battled to send signals for her mouth to form the words. She couldn’t acknowledge Alyson. Their eyes met, but communication was impossible. All she could do was try and send the message with her eyes.
I’m not okay. I’m dying. Get Christina out of here!
Behind her, another door burst open. More gunshots followed.
Screams of agony filled the air.
A young blonde woman fell beside her and Lisa recognized her as one of the Pre-kindergarten teachers. Not Christina’s teacher, she thought to herself, as if that fact was supposed to be comforting.
“Lisa! We’ve got to get out of here!”
“Mother M-Mendez.” Lisa finally managed. If they were all going, they were all going.
“I think she’s already out!” Alyson said. “We need to go!”
“Christina!” Lisa shouted, sitting up just enough to pull the young child from the limited safety of a mother’s flesh and bone force field.
“Get her out,” she managed.
“What about you?” Alyson said, pulling at Lisa’s arm as if trying to lift her to her feet.
Shaking her head violently, Lisa broke free from Alyson’s grasp.
“Christina!” she repeated. “Go!”
“Lisa!” Alex’s voice sent a shiver through her entire body. It was relief, fear, anxiety, confusion, uncertainty, calm and calamity all rolled into one.
“Alex,” Lisa said, still slurring her words. She looked for him in the sea of bullets and rampaging hostages. Unable to focus, she turned back toward Alyson and pushed Christina into Alyson’s arms. “Find Mother,” she stammered. “Get out.”
“Not without you!” Alyson insisted.
Again, shaking her head violently, Lisa swallowed, stretched her throat. Her head swam. She felt a sharp pain in her leg. Without being commanded to do so, her leg rocked forward suddenly, kicking the wall nearby. She screamed a horrific scream, eliciting horrified looks from Alyson and Christina. Still shaking her head violently, Lisa fought for the ability to communicate. “I’m okay,” she said, fighting impossibly powerful needs to lose consciousness. “Alex is here. Now go!”
“Come, child.” Mrs. Mendez’s calm voice broke undeniably through the echoes of bullets and screams. She did not shout, but her voice was as authoritative as any announcement made over Gilmer Elementary’s intercom system.
“What about Lisa?” Alyson asked. “I’m not leaving Lisa!”
“Leave,” Lisa whispered. Her voice was dry and cracking now. She nearly choked on the single word. “Alex. Here.”
Her leg was throbbing now. She did her best to hide not only the pain but the leg itself. She knew without even looking that she’d been shot. Well aware of what was happening, she fought clouding vision and searched for her daughter’s face. Fighting tears, pain and unimaginable weakness, she smiled as best she could.
“Take care of Grandma,” Lisa said. She swallowed hard, willing her voice not to fail her in Christina’s presence. “Don’t be scared.
Daddy’s here.”
Looking back toward Alyson, she smiled a knowing smile. A smile, she hoped, would speak of her dire situation—her need not to let Christina sit there and watch her mother die.For God’s sake, Alyson,
Lisa thought.Don’t let this be the image of me she remembers!
“Go!” Lisa whispered again.
Leaning forward, Alyson kissed Lisa’s forehead. “I love you.”
Fighting a twinge of pain in her back and leg, Lisa whispered, “I love you too.”
“You heard the lady,” Alyson said, turning toward Mrs. Mendez.
“Stay low and let’s go!”
“The hostages!” someone shouted, with a thick accent. “They are escaping!”
Shouts turned to their native tongues. Dr. Death seemed to be giving instructions to the few of his soldiers that remained standing.
From outside the cafeteria—somewhere else in the school, Lisa didn’t know where—an explosion rattled the windows and doors.
Instantly, smoke seemed to seep into the room. It came from the air vents, but also appeared to come through the wall, like a ghostly apparition unfettered by the laws of mortal physics.
Screams of horror again filled the air as two hostage takers jumped in front of the far doorway, blocking any more hostages from leaving.
Brandishing what looked like automatic weapons, they wasted no words. Opening fire with reckless abandon, the two terrorists mowed down innocent after innocent. It was a blood bath, filled with shrieks and the sound of flesh being torn from bone.
Child and adult alike fell in a matter of seconds. A wall of blood and flesh exploded in front of Lisa making it impossible to tell who had fallen victim and who hadn’t.
God, not Christina! She thought. Not my family!
As shots rang out from the far wall, the two terrorists fell to their own deaths, their automatic weapons still firing as each corpse fell hard to the cafeteria floor. What felt like hours had transpired in less than five seconds.
Lisa felt blood splatter on her face and knew that someone near her had also been shot. A small black woman Lisa did not know fell almost atop the young Pre-K teacher who had died just moments before.
“God, Alex!” Lisa thought, covering her head, “Where are you?”
As her mind cried out for her beloved, the room suddenly went silent. Only the echoes remained and Lisa wasn’t sure if the echoes were actually in the room or merely in her head, still swimming below a fog of confusion and terror.
Perhaps she had died, she thought to herself.
“I love you,” she whispered, hoping each one of the family members for whom that message was meant would accept it into their hearts through whatever unseen force bonded members of families.
Sound seemed to leave her. It felt as if God was allowing her to hear on a “need to” basis. Echoes of soft screams filled her ears. Moans of pain. Victims shot by the raging psychopaths whose only mission was to spread as much carnage as possible.
When she heard the man she had known only as Dr. Death speak in his native tongue, she grew incredibly nervous.
“You’re in America,” she thought to herself. “Learn English so the rest of us can at least understand your psychotic ramblings!”
Shouts in English and, she guessed, Arabic were followed by a silence broken only by the riveting echoes of bullets and the metal beasts launching them.
Her mind drifted back to the police station, moments before being dragged from what would be living carnage.
Living carnage had once again promised itself to the world.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
***
He spoke something in Arabic. Though it was clearly meant for his ears, Alex had no idea what the fake Agent Tucker had just said. Too, he was incoherently distracted by Lisa’s body as it lay bleeding less than ten feet from him. She had made occasional small, subtle movements but he could not tell if she were alive or dead. Still, his only thought was shut this idiot down andget her out.
“Anyone here speak English?” Alex inquired, his gun still pointed at the would-be terrorist. “Anyone know what this idiot just said to me?”
Alex looked around for his mother. For his daughter. For Alyson.
He looked but he did not see them. Perhaps they’d gotten out before the two idiots had gone on their shooting rampage. Yes, he thought. They must have gotten out because the alternative was too grave for Alex to consider.
There simply weren’t enough bullets to exact the vengeance that was sure to build in his heart, should he find himself burying his entire family.
“He said ‘Allah will be your undoing. The sword of Islam will carve a path of redemption deep into your heart.’” Moe Sutton’s quick, sure interpretation of the man’s words caught Alex off guard. “Or, well, somethi
ng to that effect.”
“You speak Arabic?” Alex asked him, momentarily shifting his gaze to Moe Sutton then returning it back to his target.
“Yep,” Moe Sutton confirmed, offering no explanation.
“Well good,” Alex finally decided.
“Tell him the bullets of Peterson will castrate him rendering him unable to satisfy all those seventy virgins in the afterlife.”
“Then tell this jack monkey that the foot of Mendez will blaze a trail of justice straight up his colon.”
Chuckling, Danny nudged Alex, “Hey that’s good.”
“You like that one?” Alex asked, chuckling, unable to look anywhere but in the direction his gun was currently pointed.
“Original,” Danny said, “Better than hisSword of Islambit.”
Turning back to the terrorist, Danny continued, “Heard that one, Dude. Turn the record over will ya?”
“Enough!”
The voice wasn’t the ring leader facing down the barrel of Alex’s gun. In fact, the voice wasn’t a man’s at all. To his surprise, it was Tisha’s voice that had declared an end to the maniacal levity being shared between himself and Danny.
All eyes focused on her. Alex didn’t know when nor how she’d managed it, but Tisha Warner now stood before them frighteningly unstable, wearing a vest that was anything but bulletproof. Revealing wires of various colors, the sight of the vest sent chills through the nape of Alex’s neck. Alex was no expert, but he knew what he was looking at. Only Tisha’s intentions remained unclear.
“Tisha?” Danny said, in as authoritative a voice as Alex had ever heard him use. “Stand down.”
“Stand down? No sir!” she said.
“I said stand down, Officer!”
Bad enough that his attention was already divided between Ibrahim and Lisa. Now he had a rogue cop turned human bomb on his plate and if he wasn’t overwhelmed before, to say he was now would have been the biggest understatement of his entire law enforcement career.
“Little girl,” Ibrahim hissed, his piercing eyes launching daggers in Tisha’s directions. “Your heart does not burn with the fire of Islam.”
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