The Madison Jennings Series Box Set

by Kiara Ashanti

  “The lists are ready, and I got the Twitter accounts for the breaking news desks of CNN, Fox, and the three networks,” Mako said.

  “What about MSNBC?” asked Dale.

  “Fuck MSNBC. They’ll be blaming America for this shit tomorrow.” To George he asked, “Impact, are you calling 9-1-1 back?”

  “Hell no,” George answered. He hit speed dial on his phone. “Dad. Dad, listen. I need you to come upstairs.”

  George pulled the phone slightly away from his face, his thoughts interrupted by what he was seeing on the video feeds. The men by the exits were taking aim down the hallways.

  “Dad, I need you to get up here right the hell now!”

  Chapter Eight

  While three teenage boys were hacking back into the camera system, three hundred moviegoers turned their attention to the giant movie screen as the looped preshow commercials ended and the screen went black. As the lights dimmed, leaving the theater dark as night, the only illumination came from cellphone screens as a few people continued their social media conversations.

  Zavier had eyes only for the two men on opposite sides of the front row, his attention shifting from one to the other. As he studied the men, Vonda studied Zavier, a rising concern building in her by the millisecond. She followed where his eyes were locked but could not discern what he was staring at or what was alarming him.

  “Zavier, what’s wrong?”

  Her tone more than her question caught Tina’s and Derek’s attention. Quizzical looks crossed their faces. When Vonda did not speak further, they shifted their focus to Zavier, who had not acknowledged Vonda. Finally, his head shifted to the right, along with his eyes.

  “Maddie.”

  He said it low, so that only Vonda could hear him. An undercurrent of controlled panic sent alarm bells through Vonda like a lightning strike. She whipped her head around just as the first preview began playing on the screen, providing enough illumination to see in the theater.

  Zavier turned his attention back to the men just as the one on the left side glanced down his row toward his companion. He nodded ever so slight in a manner imperceptible to anyone who was not looking for a signal. They both got up and moved to the entrance wings on their respective sides of the theater, where they were out of everyone’s view.

  Instincts honed in military training and tempered in the inferno of war screamed through Zavier.

  God no. Please no. He sent the unvoiced prayer, but his left hand reached down to his side to clear his jacket from the concealed holster holding his CZ P-09 nine-millimeter handgun. Unconsciously, his right hand reached out to clutch Vonda’s leg; his only words were “Jack Bauer.”

  Zavier’s hands felt like iron claws as they dug into her leg, causing Vonda to momentarily miss his words. She grimaced, reaching for Zavier’s hand, and then the words broke through her mental fog. Her eyes widened as the message dawned on her. Some people had a safe word. After too many Netflix marathons watching 24, Vonda and Zavier had an emergency name.

  It is not something Zavier would ever joke about. If he said it, trouble was here or on the way.

  Vonda turned to Tina and Derek but didn’t get a word out before Zavier leapt to his feet.

  “Everyone get down!” he screamed.

  All heads turned toward Zavier just as the two men moved from the entrance wings back into the theater, each carrying what appeared to be AR-15 semi-automatic rifles. Surprise and a crowd stuck like fish in a barrel were no doubt part of their plan. The fire rate of an AR-15 could kill everyone in the theater in short order.

  Except the surprise was on them.

  Zavier cleared his gun quick and clean. Sighting to his left, nearest the emergency exit, he fired a three-round burst just as one of the gunmen was bringing his rifle up. He never got a chance as Zavier put the three rounds into his body.

  A splash of dark liquid exploded from the gunman’s neck but nothing else as Zavier dove to the floor for cover, pulling Vonda with him. A warm splash on his face sent a river of worry through him, but he pushed it from his mind.

  The rapid sounds of the AR-15 reverberated in front of him, but he could also hear muffled gunfire off to his left. The stereo sound of automatic fire, coupled with the acrid scent of spent ammunition, reminded him of his time deployed. He knew that he had taken out one gunman, so the implications of hearing automatic fire from the same side as the man he shot sent a wave of worry through him.

  Mixed in with the machine fire were the sounds of wood and plastic breaking and screams of fear and pain as bullets from the rifle impacted bone and flesh. The punctuated barrage told Zavier the rifles had been modified to shoot in full automatic mode.

  The people in the front rows had little chance. The modification meant one lifeline for the people who managed to take cover or were just wounded. The terrorist would have to reload soon.

  The moment the break in fire came, Zavier bolted upright but plopped back down as a shotgun blast obliterated a seat behind him. Zavier then fast crawled over Derek, who was covering Tina. He needed to get to the stairwell in order to get a good shot.

  Another blast sounded behind him. Close, much too close. Throwing his arm above the aisle chairs next to him, Zavier let loose three blind shots in the direction from which the shotgun fire was coming. There was the possibility of hitting an innocent bystander, but he needed to make the shooter pause and take cover.

  Reaching the main aisle, he rolled to his right, coming up with his gun in front of him. He could see his gambit had paid off. The shooter was crouching for cover as he moved up the opposite stair aisle.

  The shooter was scanning for Zavier and began to stand as he saw Zavier rise up. His arms moved around to sight in on Zavier, but it was already too late.

  Zavier fired off a single shot, sending a bullet into the shooter’s left shoulder. Never hesitating, he then jumped onto the armrest of the end chair to get a better angle. It was the type of thing you saw in movies and one operators scoffed at constantly. Standing on anything made you an easier target, but Zavier felt safe taking the risk, knowing one of his shots had hit home.

  Two more shots ended it as Zavier sent bullets into the shooter’s throat and forehead.

  The kill shots reverberated in the theater but did not leave silence. The sounds of gunfire could be heard through the theater walls.

  “Everyone get ready to leave through the emergency exit,” Zavier screamed. He sprinted down to the exit door but paused before opening it. There was no way to tell if a shooter was waiting for anyone that had escaped the attack. Taking a deep breath, he kicked the door open. He followed the kick with a step out of the door and crouched low in case a shooter was outside. Not seeing anyone, he turned back and ran back inside. He waved frantically toward the exit door.

  “Come on people, move. Move!”

  Those that could ran, while others who were wounded moved as fast as their injuries would allow them. There were not nearly enough people.

  Zavier saw Tina standing but looking down toward the floor where they were seated. His throat clenched. Leaving the flow of survivors moving outside, he ran up the wide stairs two at a time. When he reached their aisle, he looked down to see Derek on the floor bleeding. Beyond him lay Vonda. She was not moving.

  “Hey, you,” he said to a shell-shocked male staring at the carnage. “Help me get him up and out of here. Come on!”

  The insistent shout shook the man into action. He followed Zavier, and they helped get Derek up.

  “You got him?”

  “Yeah, yeah I got him,” said the man as he slung Derek’s arm over his shoulders. Derek was conscious, but bleeding bad.

  Zavier let him take Derek’s full weight. He turned his attention to Vonda’s still form on the floor. He did not need to check her pulse. The large pool of dark liquid flowing out from underneath her body told the story. Red-hot pain pierced Zavier’s chest hard enough to make him gag.

  Movement detected in his peripheral vision shook hi
m out of the painful daze into which he had slipped. He saw Tina struggling to move past fallen bodies toward the opposite main staircase. There was no doubt where she was going, but he had to stop her.

  He caught her just as she reached the end of the aisle. He grabbed her arm, whipping her back toward him.

  “Tina, no!”

  “Maddie. I’ve got to get Maddie.” The fear and anguish in her voice was soul crushing, but Zavier let it flow over him.

  “No,” he said, his voice a stone wall. “I will find her.”

  “I’m not leaving my daughter!” she shrieked in his face.

  Zavier grabbed her by one arm and pointed down the aisle. “Dammit! You’ve got a husband who’s wounded and needs you. And you’ve got another daughter at home.” Zavier faced her before she could respond, putting his free hand on her other shoulder. He squeezed them both as he caught her in his eyes.

  “It’s Maddie, Tina. It’s Maddie.” Zavier compressed five years of accumulated love for Tina’s youngest into her name and across the space between them. His eyes bore into Tina as his hands squeezed her tighter.

  “I will find her. I will bring her back to you. You hear me?”

  Tina nodded.

  “Now go!”

  Tina moved past him toward her wounded husband. Fear deep and thick clawed into her chest, but she knew two things.

  Zavier would find her daughter.

  And he would end the life of anyone that got in his way.

  Chapter Nine

  Thirty seconds after George called his father, Mr. Rhee burst into the bedroom. The improper tone and impetuous command given on the phone had spurred him upstairs like a cheetah chasing a gazelle. His anger dissipated like smoke caught in a fan as his eyes fell to the monitor that held the three boys’ attention.

  On screen was the video feed that a few thousand people were just now seeing but that would soon be delivered en masse to the rest of the Internet-surfing world. Mr. Rhee had stepped in the room just as the video streams the boys had created displayed all hell breaking loose.

  In each of the six feeds, people could be seen running out of various theaters. There were not many at first, but every single one ran into a buzz saw of lead. They meant to flee the deranged men with guns in the theater but became human-sized fish in a barrel in the narrow hallways. Mowed down did not describe the horror playing on the monitor before them.

  “Is, is that a movie, Gyeong?” Mr. Rhee asked his son by his real name. “Tell me that’s some twisted, violent movie that I forbid you to watch.”

  “No, Dad. It’s no game. It’s the Palace. It’s real.” Despite the horrific video playing on George’s television, it was the meekness in his tone that stole Mr. Rhee’s voice from him.

  It took a full minute before the people looking online realized the feed was real. The moment they did the number of people watching rose exponentially as thousands began sharing the links. The sites carrying the feed began to crash from the traffic, but the feed was popping up elsewhere as hackers and web bloggers set them up on other sites. In short order hundreds of thousands, and soon to be millions, would be watching the events taking place in the theater.

  George had turned his attention to his keyboard. He had more control over the cameras now, and he started cycling through different views of the theater complex. In one camera he could see men with pistols and automatic guns running into the restrooms. In another, people were trying to hide behind abandoned concession counters. As he brought up views of the lobby, the distant sound of police sirens could be heard outside his home. Each second, the cacophony of sirens got louder. It did not take long before the red and blue colors of police cruisers flashed bright from outside his window.

  “That was fast,” said Dale.

  “I didn’t cover our location,” said George. He turned to his father. “Dad, no matter what, you cannot let them turn this feed off. These are regular cops. They—”

  George’s words were drowned out by the sound of the front door being kicked open and his mother’s screams.

  Urgency flooded through George. He had to make his dad understand. “Dad, they won’t think this through. We can’t shut this down.”

  A stampede was heading toward his room. George threw his hands in the air seconds before his door burst open. Mako and Dale followed his lead, but his father simply stood in place like a limp plant. The rush of police with guns drawn snapped him out of his fugue state quick enough, though, and he stepped between the cops and his son as he shouted at the officers.

  “Dad, no! Don’t.” To the cops, George screamed, “We’re not armed. We’re not terrorists. Please, we’re not terrorists.”

  “Get on the ground. Now!”

  Dale was the first to comply. Mako began to follow suit when a flurry of movement on the monitor caught his eye. On screen, groups of three gunmen gathered near the main doors.

  “Impact, what the hell are they doing?” Mako cried, completely forgetting grown men were pointing guns at him.

  Mistaking his comment as directed toward them, a cop grabbed Mako by the shoulder and shoved him to the floor. George looked at the monitor. Ignoring the fast approaching cop to his left, he squinted and his blood froze over.

  George turned to his father just as the cop reached him. “No, no, no. Dad, you gotta stop them.”

  Mr. Rhee knew his son was precocious, rebellious, and a prankster. He had seen him get into trouble at home, school, even in church. There was not a plea or excuse his troublemaker son had not used. If there was a single “don’t punish me” look a child could make Mr. Rhee had seen it. Now, the look on his son’s face was different.

  Never had he heard the pleading tone his son’s voice carried at this moment, nor seen such desperation on his face.

  The combination pierced into his very being. The pure instinct of a parent that knows this is different, took over. Mr. Rhee moved, grabbed the cop’s arm and reversed his momentum. It was a classic aikido move that sent the cop flying through the air and onto the floor.

  The sudden attack caught the remaining cops off guard, costing them precious seconds that Mr. Rhee took advantage of to disarm one cop and throw him into his partner. Mr. Rhee did not advance. He just stepped between the fallen men and his son.

  “Holy shit!” exclaimed Dale. “Your dad is fucking Jason Statham.”

  “Really, dude,” said Mako. “A white actor is the best comparison you could come up with in this scenario?”

  George ignored his friends’ characteristic inappropriate comments and moved to his keyboard. A scream of pain whirled his head around. A large bull-necked cop was standing in his doorway with the business end of a Taser pointing at his father.

  Without hesitation, Dale charged the cop, but only made it two steps before a flash of silver signaled another Taser being deployed into Dale. Dale screamed once and then dropped to the ground.

  Mako knew what was coming. “Fuck it!” He rose from the floor and threw a football-worthy kick into the third cop before he could pull his own Taser out. Grabbing a pillow to hold in front of himself, Mako stood between George and “Bullneck” at the door. “Whatever you are gonna do, Bullneck, you better do it now,” Mako yelled.

  “STAND AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER!”

  George ignored the cop’s command and spun around back to his keyboard. His fingers moved like quicksilver over it as he deployed a second hack. It allowed him to control the security cameras’ zoom and pan features. Selecting a video stream from a hallway, he zoomed the camera in all the way.

  The quality was degraded, but he could still see what the men in the lobby were doing. He took the selected camera feed and blew it up to full-screen view. There was no doubt that his next words could determine life and death for someone. So he screamed like own his life depended on it.

  “STOP! IF YOU DON’T LISTEN TO ME, COPS ARE GONNA DIE. WE GOTTA WARN THEM.”

  His words cut through the adrenaline and fight of the

  police. The wa
lking-steroid commercial at his door flared his nostrils, but the man stopped pumping electricity into George’s dad. He placed the Taser on the ground, then strode over to stand by George. “What’s this you’re saying?”

  George put his finger next to a spot on the screen. “Right now there are police getting ready to go in. I’m sure they think they can’t wait for SWAT to arrive.”

  Confusion and uncertainty rippled across Bullneck’s face as he studied the video image, not sure what he was looking for. Then his eyes bulged. He grabbed the radio on his shoulder.

  “Dispatch. Dispatch. This is unit 567. Order officers on the Palace scene to stand down. Stand down. They cannot go in. The doors have explosives rigged to them. Over.”

  “Come again Unit 567.”

  “Jesus, you knew enough to get to my house, but you’re telling me no one at the station is watching the video?” George said in disbelief.

  Annoyance flashed red and hot across Bullneck’s face, but he kept his attention focused. “Dispatch. Get eyes on this fucking video these dipshit kids uploaded. Do not, I repeat, do not breach the theater. The exits and God knows what else are rigged with explosives. They’ll blow themselves to hell if they attempt to breach. Over.”

  A moment passed and then the cop’s radio squawked. “Be advised 567, officers on scene have been notified of a bomb threat and bomb units have been called. CTCEU and Homeland are en route to your location. Over.”

  “Affirmative. Over,” he said and let out a long breath. Turning his attention to the three boys, he looked at each one for a few seconds.

  “You may not be terrorists, but you got a lot of fucking explaining to do.”

  “Yes, sir,” said George. His voice held more deference than his own father had ever heard. He moved to his father’s side to help him up. When he was standing, George hugged him tight.

  “Thank you, Father.” There was humility and respect to the term this time, perhaps for the first time in his young life.

  “What is your name, sir?” asked Bullneck.