“Amanda and I met a Sister at the grocery store and we went there this morning and asked her for sanctuary.” Solange looked at the confused look on Michael’s face. “We can hide in the church.”
“OK. Let’s go,” replied Michael.
The group kept moving, walking quickly but not too quickly so they would not look that different from any of the other students making their way to the University for an early morning class.
Soon they were at the Church and Solange took them to the side door which was still open and they were back in the sanctum where Sister Ignatius was waiting for them. After brief introductions to Michael, Thibodeaux, and Peter, Sister Ignatius asked, “What happened?” You look like someone died.”
“A man had a gun to my brother’s head and was threatening to kill him so I shot him. I don’t think he is dead, but I shot him and I have never shot anyone before and I never wanted to shoot anyone and I did, I did,” said Amanda bursting into tears.
Solange, Michael, Thibodaux, and Peter all rushed to Amanda and tried to wrap their arms around her all at once which obviously did not work out very well.
Amanda looked at Peter with a tear stained face, “I’m sorry I scared you. I had to shoot him. Mom told me to look after you and make sure nothing happened to you.”
“Hey, I’m just glad that you are a really good shot,” replied Peter.
“Hey, you’re right. It’s lucky for you that Amanda could shoot an apple off your head,” replied Thibodeaux.
No one laughed.
“I am so sorry that happened, but did it occur to you that you could have killed your brother instead?” asked Sister Ignatius.
“No,” replied Amanda.
“Well, it should have,” replied Sister Ignatius.
“Actually, there was not much danger of that happening,” replied Thibodeaux.
“Well I want to spend some time with you talking about what happened but now we need to move,” said Sister Ignatius.
“What? Move where?” asked Michael. “We just got here.”
“While you were gone, I called a former student of mine who is a producer at the local television station. I told her your story…” said Sister Ignatius.
“You did not?” asked Amanda who was coming out of her stupor. “We told you our story in confidence. I knew we shouldn’t tell anyone else about our problems.”
“Listen to me. The only way you will ever be able to get away from those terrorists is if you tell your story. If everyone knows who they are and what they did, they won’t need to kill you. You might be the only witnesses now, but all kinds of people will come forward when they hear what they did. Sunlight is the best disinfectant and it’s time for you to name and shame,” replied Sister Ignatius.
“But we don’t know their names yet. Peter just found out about Knightsbridge and Cerebrum. We don’t know who they really are,” said Amanda.
“Oh yes we do. Cyrus’s contact came through for him last night and he emailed me the names of all of the officers and the board of directors of Cerebrum. And those guys who chased us to New Orleans, Natchitoches, and Los Angeles used to work for Cerebrum. Cyrus’s contact found their security clearances from when they were in Iraq,” said Peter.
“What about Kilgairn?” sobbed Amanda.
“Nothing yet about him but Cyrus thinks that could have been a code name or his working name,” said Peter.
“So there you have it. Come along now,” said Sister Ignatius leading them down the hall.
“Wait. Wait! We can’t go to a television station. We are hiding,” said Amanda.
“If you tell the world everything you know, you won’t ever have to hide again,” said Sister Ignatius.
“So what do you want us to do?” asked Michael.
“You’ll see,” said Sister Ignatius continuing down the hall.
When they reached the end of the hall they entered a choir room and Sister Ignatius said, “Here, everyone put on one of these,” as she opened a closet filled with choir robes.
“Why?” asked Amanda.
“So when we drive you out of here in a school bus, you will look like choir members not fugitives,” replied Sister Ignatius.
Everyone looked at each other and then at Sister Ignatius and said, “OK.”
As they were putting on their choir robes, they heard a noise. Michael peeked out the window and said, “The police are here. We can’t let them arrest us. The guys who are chasing us are probably former FBI or CIA agents or their contractors and they could have fake ID’s and tell the police that they need to take us back to New York. We won’t be safe if we are arrested.”
“Let me think, let me think,” said Sister Ignatius.
“Okay,” replied Thibodeaux. “But can you do it fast?”
“I got it. Follow me, and be very quiet. Let’s go out the back door of the annex,” said Sister Ignatius as she quickly left the room and headed to the back of the church.
Everyone quickly followed her, running into an annex which looked like the church’s education building. They were running down the hallway towards the back door when they heard what sounded like cops outside of it; the door must have been locked because they could hear them try to open it and one of the cops saying, “Go get the key from the priest.”
Sister Ignatius turned abruptly, “Up the stairs. Now!”
“The stairs?” Amanda asked.
“Just follow me. We need to get to the bus,” said Sister Ignatius.
“We are going upstairs to get to the bus?” asked Thibodeaux. But it did not matter. Sister Ignatius was already up a flight of stairs.
Everyone quickly and quietly followed Sister Ignatius up two flights of stairs to the third floor of the education building. Sister Ignatius ran down the hallway and entered one of the classrooms at the back of the building and opened a window.
“Quick, down the fire escape. The bus is over there and if we are fast, we can be gone before the police search the back parking lot,” said Sister Ignatius.
“You’re good!” said Thibodeaux.
Sister Ignatius gave Thibodeaux a stern look but then all they could see was her backside as she climbed out the window and started down the fire escape.
Everyone followed her down the fire escape. They could still hear the sirens from the police car wailing from the front of the building.
Amanda asked Solange as they climbed down the fire escape, “How did you know she would be like this?”
“They are all like this,” replied Solange.
As soon as they were all on the ground, Sister Ignatius led them to the back of the parking lot to a school bus. They all climbed in. Sister Ignatius turned to them and said, “Everyone—down on the floor.”
So they all lay down flat on the floor and Sister Ignatius drove the bus out of the parking lot and onto the street.
“So much for needing these choir robes,” said Solange.
“We are always making plans we don’t use. Thibodeaux and I attending Catholic school, Amanda being a dancer, the school books, pilot season, Miss Gaby taking us to Los Angeles and on and on…,” said Peter.
“You drive a school bus?” interrupted Thibodeaux.
“Well it certainly does not drive itself,” replied Sister Ignatius changing gears.
“Where is this television station?” asked Michael lifting his head up from the floor.
“Keep your head down. It’s downtown,” replied Sister Ignatius.
“Downtown, but where are you going to find a place to park this monster?” asked Michael.
“You’ll see,” replied Sister Ignatius.
Michael did not like Sister Ignatius’s response, but he figured that was all he was going to get so he just lay back down.
Amanda looked at Michael who was lying next to Solange holding her hand and thought about how amazed his buddies in the hip-hop business would be to see him wearing a choir robe while riding in a school bus filled with kids including a thirteen-year-old girl who j
ust shot a terrorist. Amanda was always thinking about how her life had changed, but look at Michael. His life certainly had changed for the worse since his Dad called him and asked him to pick up two kids at the Tick Tock Diner in Manhattan.
Sister Ignatius kept watching her rearview mirror, but did not see anyone following them.
When they reached the downtown television station, Sister Ignatius showed them what she was going to do about the parking problem. She pulled the school bus up to a cleared space around a fire hydrant and then drove the school bus up onto the sidewalk.
Everyone peeked out the windows to see that the bus was on the sidewalk and looked at Sister Ignatius with a stunned look on their faces.
“Well, get out and get into that television station before those thugs find you here,” said Sister Michael.
And so they did. They left the bus and entered the lobby of the television station where they were met by a pretty young Indian woman who threw her arms around Sister Ignatius who looked quite uncomfortable about being greeted with such enthusiasm.
“Hi, I’m Kali. Please come in. We have been researching your story ever since Sister Ignatius called and I am so glad to have a chance to meet you and help anyway I can,” said Kali.
“Please we are in a lot of danger and I am not sure it is safe for us to be here,” said Michael.
“I have called my station manager and the security company that takes care of the station and asked them to send more guards. They should be here any moment, but in the meantime, let’s get you out of this lobby and would someone get that school bus off the sidewalk. Jerry, take the Sister’s keys and move that thing as far away as you can,” said Kali.
“But where am I going to park that thing, it is huge,” said Jerry.
“You’re the intern. Roll with it,” said Kali.
“The unpaid intern,” Jerry muttered quietly but then seeing the look on Kali’s face he said, “Right, I’ll roll with it.”
Jerry took the keys from Sister Ignatius and left to deal with what was now obviously his problem.
Everyone followed Kali back into the newsroom to see a group of people hunched over their computers. When they walked in, everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at the choir that had just walked into their newsroom.
“I think we can ditch the choir robes now,” said Solange who was back in Mom mode.
Everyone took off their choir robes and left them in a heap on the floor because there wasn’t an empty chair anywhere in the newsroom except for right in front of the cameras. Everyone in the room was frantically typing on their keypads.
“We are going to go live with the first segment in about two minutes and then we will broadcast throughout the day as we get more information from both you and our other sources,” said Kali.
Kali looked at Amanda and asked, “You’re Amanda, right?”
Amanda nodded.
“I understand you have been there from the very beginning, back when New York City was evacuated because of the bombings. Are you ready to tell your story?” asked Kali.
Amanda looked at her and said, “Yes, I am. I want to tell the world about how I used to worry about things like how annoying my cousin was and because of what those terrorist did to me, to my brother, to my friends and I guess all of us, this morning I shot a man. I’m a thirteen-year-old girl who is supposed to be in the eighth grade…”
Kali, grabbed Amanda’s arm, ushered her to a chair and gave her an earpiece. “This is Arnold. He is our news anchor and he will be interviewing you.”
Arnold looked to be in his late thirties with a dark tan and a full head of highlighted blonde hair. He was wearing a sharp gray suit, the kind that Michael and DJ wore when they first met them.
Amanda looked at Arnold and nodded. She could hear Arnold telling everyone who was listening to record what they were about to hear and if they can’t set up their DVR quickly enough to pull out their cell phones and set it to video. Amanda’s head was swimming with everything that had happened, but mostly with the memory of pulling the trigger and hitting that man’s head and seeing blood spatter on the wall, all over her brother and even on her. When she looked at her jeans, she could see small flecks of blood. She knew Arnold was talking to her but she could not understand what he was saying, but then she saw that he was looking at her like he expected her to say something and all of a sudden, she knew what she had to do. She would tell her story so the world would know what happened, how there was something really evil out there that had to be stopped.
Amanda looked into the camera. “My name is Amanda Wolinski. I’m from Greenwich, Connecticut where I was supposed to be attending the eighth grade. Six months ago, my mother took my brother Peter and me into New York City to see my cousin perform in Annie and this is what happened.”
The End
The Big Apple Posse Trilogy Page 39