Trigger Warning

by William W. Johnstone

  The threat of the bombs still remained. Jake thought he had heard something as he was stealthily descending the stairs, something that might have been an explosion somewhere else on the campus, but in the stairwell it was difficult to be sure. If Foster’s men really had planted bombs all over the campus, the amount of damage they could do in human lives was incalculable. Jake’s doubts wouldn’t mean a damn thing in the face of that awful reality.

  So Foster had to be stopped, and he had to be stopped before he could trigger any more explosions. Jake was running out of time and he knew it.

  So whoever was on the second floor could wait until later. Right now, he needed to take out any of Foster’s men on the first floor, then move on to the lower level.

  There weren’t many shelves on the ground level, because mostly it was devoted to circulation, with self-serve checkouts and a long counter where books reserved online could be picked up, overdue fines were paid, and other tasks like that were handled. Even in this digital age, there was still a need for human beings to do some things, just like there were still plenty of print books in the library.

  There were also more than a dozen rows of computer stations that students could use. Everybody had the Internet on their phones and tablets, of course, but sometimes you still needed a good old-fashioned desktop and printer.

  A portion of the first floor was also given over to displays of sculpture and artwork. Kelton was proud of its arts program and showed off many works by students past and present. The front wall was mostly glass, giving the place plenty of light and a very airy feel.

  Jake had spent enough time in the library to be aware of all this. Just as a matter of habit, he constantly studied his surroundings, and he had the sort of brain that once something was noted in it, he tended not to forget. He had no real reason for doing that, other than he liked to be prepared for whatever might happen. He had never forgotten a quote he’d heard attributed to General James Mattis: “Always have a plan to kill everybody in the room.” That sounded like good advice to Jake, even though it came from a Marine.

  The stairwell entrance was in the back of the room, beyond the art display area, next to the snack bar. If Jake had been charged with keeping the hostages under control, he would have herded them all into the snack bar, well away from the windows where police snipers might be able to get a shot. You wanted prisoners in as small an area as possible, especially if you had a limited number of men to keep them under the gun.

  Knowing that, Jake wasn’t surprised when he leaned toward the door, listened closely, and heard a man saying in a loud, irritated voice, “Sit back down, mister! I want you down on that floor along with everybody else.”

  “You’re never going to get away with this,” another man said in a peevish tone. “The cops are going to storm this place any minute, and when they do, you’ll wind up dead! You may have started with high ideals, but now you’re just common crooks!”

  The second voice was familiar to Jake, and after a moment he placed it: Cal Granderson, one of Frank McRainey’s campus cops. The most annoying member of McRainey’s force, in fact. Jake remembered seeing Granderson on this floor when he came into the library. The guy had gotten swept up with the other hostages.

  In a way, that was surprising. Jake would have expected Granderson to try some sort of grandstand play that would get him killed. Clearly, that hadn’t happened.

  But it might yet, because Granderson was still mouthing off to the guards.

  “The best thing you can do is throw down those guns and surrender. I’m an officer of the law. I can guarantee your safety. I’ll see to it that you don’t get mowed down when the SWAT teams come in here.”

  “Officer of the law, my ass! You’re a cheap rent-a-cop with delusions of grandeur. Now sit down, or I’m gonna bust your head again—”

  In his anger, the gunman must have gotten too close to Granderson, because a third man suddenly yelled, “Hey, look out, he’s gonna—”

  A shot roared, drowning out whatever else the man was trying to say.

  Jake knew instantly that he was never going to get a better distraction than this. He yanked the door back and bulled out into the open as he lifted the 9mm in a two-hand grip.

  CHAPTER 41

  Jake instantly took in the scene playing out before him. Cal Granderson, in his campus police department uniform, was wrestling with a husky Hispanic man over a gun. The second guard was off to the side in front of the snack bar, nervously jerking both his gaze and his pistol back and forth between the desperate struggle and the prisoners he wanted to keep under control. Jake figured the shot had come from the gun the two men were fighting over, but he didn’t see any blood on Granderson or the other guy, so he hoped the bullet had gone wild.

  The way Granderson and his opponent were twisting and staggering around, Jake couldn’t risk taking a shot in their direction. But the second guard was a different story, so he called, “Hey!”

  The man turned his head first, to look over his shoulder, and then his eyes widened as he spotted Jake standing there drawing a bead on him. He tried to jerk around and bring his gun to bear, but the Glock in Jake’s hands had already spouted flame. The 9mm slug smacked into the middle of the guy’s forehead and blasted right on through his brain to hit the suddenly blood-splattered wall on the other side of him. His knees buckled, dropping him into a crumpled heap.

  Granderson and the man he was fighting with had to have heard Jake’s shot, but neither could afford to take their attention away from their battle. Granderson had both hands clamped around the man’s wrist. He wrenched on it, trying to get him to drop the gun, but as he was doing that, the man used his free hand to hammer punches at Granderson’s head. Granderson hunched his shoulders as much as he could, trying to protect himself, but his head was bleeding from several cuts that had been opened up already.

  This would have been a good time for the now-unguarded hostages to rush forward and overwhelm the gunman through sheer force of numbers. Considering the way that most of them were hiding under the snack bar tables, though, whimpering and crying because guns were going off, Jake knew that wasn’t going to happen.

  He bounded forward and chopped the gun in his hand down at the head of the man fighting with Granderson. The blow landed with a solid thud. Granderson grabbed the man’s gun and jerked it free. He slashed upward with it and crashed it against the man’s jaw. Jake heard bone crunch. The man staggered back a step and sat down hard, making grotesque noises as he clutched at his shattered jaw. Jake shut him up and laid him out with a swift kick to the head.

  Then he nodded to Granderson and said, “Good work.”

  Granderson didn’t seem to be in a mood to accept the compliment graciously. He said, “I had him! I would have put both those bastards down if you hadn’t stuck your nose in, Rivers!”

  “You’re welcome,” Jake said wryly. “How bad are you hurt, Granderson?”

  “I’m fine,” he snapped. “A little banged up, that’s all.”

  Jake looked at the group crowded into the snack bar and asked, “How about these other folks?”

  “I don’t think anybody is hurt. When this started, it all happened so fast, nobody had time to put up a fight.”

  Yeah, that was it, Jake thought. Just not enough time

  Granderson checked the magazine in the gun he had taken away from the now unconscious man, then slid it back into place. As he started to turn away, Jake said, “Wait a minute. What are you going to do?”

  “There are still a lot of people being held downstairs,” Granderson snapped. “I’m going to rescue them and apprehend the guy responsible for all this.”

  “That’s sort of what I had in mind, too.”

  A sneer curled Granderson’s lips. He and Jake might have been fighting as allies only moments earlier, but that didn’t mean his feelings had changed. Clearly, he still didn’t like Jake—and the feeling was pretty much mutual.

  “You’re not going to suggest that we work toge
ther, are you?”

  “That might be better than getting killed,” Jake said. “Might be. Listen, though, the first thing we need to do is get these other people out of here, just in case Foster really does have a bomb planted somewhere in or around the building.”

  Granderson looked like he wanted to argue, but he nodded grudgingly and said, “Yeah, you’re right.” He turned and waved the hand holding the gun at the hostages. “Come on, you people. Get out of here while you can.”

  “But . . . but is it safe?” asked a male undergrad with multiple piercings on ears, nose, and lips.

  A girl with pink hair said, “We should stay where we are until someone from the government tells us to leave.”

  “I’m from the government!” Granderson burst out in obvious frustration. “See? I’m wearing a uniform and everything!”

  “The administration needs to issue a statement and address this,” added a middle-aged man who Jake pegged as a professor. “This campus is supposed to be a safe space and a gun-free zone.” He looked pointedly at the pistols Jake and Granderson held. “Neither of you should have those. You should turn them in to the authorities immediately.”

  Granderson looked over at Jake and said, “Are they insane?”

  Jake just shrugged.

  “That’s the college experience for you these days,” he said.

  Then he walked over to the group cowering inside the snack bar and went on, “Listen, folks, I know you’re scared, but this is your best chance to get away from here before anything else happens. All you have to do is stand up, walk to the entrance, and go outside. There’ll be cops waiting out there somewhere close by, and when they see you coming out, they’ll hurry to help you.” He paused, thought for a second, and then added, “You can just go with them, and they’ll tell you what to do.”

  Several faces lit up at the phrase “tell you what to do.” Jake kept his face impassive. He didn’t want them seeing what his opinion of them really was. It was more important to get them to safety.

  He wasn’t one to smooth-talk anybody, though. Never had been. If they didn’t grab this chance while they had it, then it was on them.

  A couple of people stood up, sidled nervously forward, then broke into a run toward the entrance. That opened the floodgates. All the former hostages scrambled up and fled.

  Jake turned to Granderson and nodded.

  “Let’s go put an end to this,” he said.

  * * *

  The past twenty minutes or so had been dizzying. Reports had come in to Walt Graham from all over campus about how, in one place after another, freed hostages were emerging from the buildings where they had been held prisoner. Most of them were quite shaken, but they were all right other than a few minor injuries.

  The same couldn’t be said of the terrorists who had tried to take over Kelton College. Nine bodies had been recovered already, along with a couple of men who were badly injured but might live.

  It was almost as if some crack antiterrorism unit had swept through the campus, wiping out the bad guys and freeing the innocent people.

  But instead, all the former hostages told the same story, of how a lone man had killed their captors with stunning and brutal efficiency. Not a young man, either, but one who might have been anywhere from fifty to seventy years of age . . . although he moved like a man much younger.

  Graham was back in Frank McRainey’s office, along with Theresa Vega, Chief Hartwell from Greenleaf, and McRainey himself. Vega was upset and said, “What the hell is going on here? Somebody has to be lying. One man couldn’t have done all of this!”

  “All due respect, Agent Vega,” McRainey said, “but you’re wrong. I saw the guy, talked to him. If I’ve ever run into anybody who absolutely is capable to taking out this many terrorists and freeing that many people, it’s the man who was here earlier.”

  “Dog,” she said. “Is that what he told you to call him? Just Dog?”

  “That’s right.”

  Vega looked over at Graham and went on, “And he’s supposed to be some sort of super-vigilante working for the government.”

  “Nobody ever said he’s super,” Graham responded. “Just very good at what he does. I don’t know that the legendary Dog is back . . . but that would sure make some of this a lot easier to accept.”

  Vega just shook her head and turned away. She wasn’t going to be convinced. Some people were like that, Graham reflected.

  Hell, maybe he just wanted to believe that Dog was back. Who didn’t like to see a legend return just in time to save the day?

  One of McRainey’s officers, the young man called Bagley, hurried into the office after knocking on the door but not waiting to be told to come in.

  “Hostages are running out of the library,” he said excitedly.

  The two federal agents and the two police chiefs stiffened as they looked at Bagley. McRainey said in a strained voice, “All of them, Jeff?”

  “No way to know that, Chief, but some of them, for sure. I’m told none of them appear to be hurt, at least not much.”

  “Thank God for that,” McRainey said.

  Vega looked at Graham and said, “You think this is more work by your mysterious Dog?”

  “I don’t know,” Graham replied with a shake of his head. “But let’s get over there. Maybe we can find out.”

  * * *

  Too much time had passed. Matthias Foster had a very strong hunch that Natalie wasn’t coming back, and neither was the man he had sent to follow her.

  He hoped she was still alive. At least, he thought he hoped that. But he wasn’t really sure. She was beautiful, no doubt about that, and she had seemed devoted to their cause. Not devoted enough to go ahead and fall in bed with him, as he had assumed she would, but there would be plenty of time for that once they were filthy rich and far away from here.

  Now it was beginning to look like none of those things was ever going to come true. When shots blasted from the library’s ground floor, clearly audible right up the escalator, the certainty that he was screwed grew even stronger in Foster.

  Earlier, he hadn’t been able to raise any of his men on the third and fourth floors. Now he lifted the radio to his mouth and called, “Phil? Are you there?”

  He could have just stepped over to the escalator and yelled up the unmoving steps, he thought bitterly. That’s how close ruin had crept to him.

  Of course, Phil didn’t answer. Foster didn’t waste time trying him again. Instead, as a thought occurred to him, he switched frequencies, keyed the mic again, and said, “Lamar?”

  “I’m here, Matthias,” a slightly breathless voice came back. “What the hell is going on? There’s been shooting above us, and now below us—”

  “You and Tanner are all right?” Foster interrupted him.

  “Yeah, we haven’t had any trouble here. Matthias, maybe we’d better start trying to come up with some sort of exit strategy—”

  “There are only two exits from this, you know that. Victory or death.” Foster laughed. “Isn’t that what somebody said at the Alamo or somewhere? I know I remember hearing that in some history class.”

  “Yeah, but it’s all going bad on us!”

  “Get it together, Lamar,” Foster snapped. “We may have to make a stand. I want you and Tanner down here now. Forget about the hostages you have there. Use the elevator and come straight to the lower level.”

  “Are you sure—”

  “Just do what I told you, damn it!” Foster said. With an angry, frustrated snap of his wrist, he threw the radio away from him.

  He had two men left down here. If Lamar and Tanner could reach the lower level, that would make five of them against whatever the authorities could throw at them. Would the authorities actually attack head-on, though? He had set off two bombs already. Was that enough to convince the cops and the Feds that the entire campus was in danger?

  Or did they need another demonstration?

  Foster’s hand stole into his pocket. The fingers curle
d around the detonator. This one was separate. None of the others in the group, not even Natalie, knew about it. They were aware that he had been able to get hold of enough explosive to build only three working bombs. The others were decoys, intended to keep the bomb squad busy checking out the work done by the “groundskeepers” that morning . . . and to keep the cops worried, so they would hold back in order to prevent a possible holocaust.

  Two of the three bombs they knew about had already been detonated at different corners of the campus. The remaining working device was planted at another corner.

  But what no one knew except him was that ever since he had gone to work as a groundskeeper, under the name Rick Overman, he had been planting charges around the library’s foundation, one at a time, so nobody had ever noticed. He had gotten his hands on a lot more C4 than he’d ever let on to the others. They believed the bomb threat was largely a bluff.

  Foster wasn’t bluffing, though. From the start, he had known that he would either get what he wanted—the money, along with the freedom and power it would give him—or he would wreak his bloody vengeance on the world in a way that would never be forgotten.

  All it would take was for him to open the detonator and press the button. The charges around the foundation would detonate, and the library would come crashing down onto itself, killing everyone still inside—including Foster.

  But that was all right, if it came to that. Foster caressed the cold metal smoothness of the detonator and whispered to himself, “Victory or death.”

  CHAPTER 42

  Jake knew Granderson still didn’t like him, but the guy got caught up in planning their next move and didn’t seem to mind too much working with Jake to take down the rest of the bad guys.

  “Once the cops outside see those hostages escaping, they’re gonna come rushing in here to clear the building,” Granderson said. “So if we’re gonna get the son of a bitch who’s behind this, we don’t have very long.”

  The same thought had occurred to Jake. He nodded and said, “If Foster’s telling the truth about being able to blow up the whole place, or even just part of it, he’s more likely to push the damn button if he sees a bunch of SWAT types running in here. Two guys might have a better chance of taking him out.”