He could just start firing, of course. It would be the easiest thing in the world, a turkey shoot. But he needed Banner’s daughter.
Plans are often useless; planning is indispensable. Wardell made a snap decision. The situation had shifted, but was still eminently salvageable. He needed only to secure a handful of hostages, Banner’s daughter among them. That meant he would need to descend to the hall. He laid the Remington down and selected a handgun — the Glock — from the canvas duffel. He reached down to the floor to open the access panel.
The hall beneath him was still in darkness, but his eyes were beginning to adjust to it. Below him he could make out figures fumbling around in the dark. Wardell stepped through the hatch and slid down the sides of the ladder. A woman brushed past him, apologizing briskly. Others passed by, wondering aloud what was going on. Still plenty of people, plenty of potential hostages.
Just a minor setback. There was still time to turn it into a positive.
76
People were still flowing out from the main entrance, adding to the swelling crowd outside the school. Many of them looked back at the building as they exited, evidently expecting to see smoke or flames or some other reason for the interruption to their evening. A couple of children were crying, but the presiding air seemed to be one of bemusement tinged with irritation. A tall, bespectacled woman in her early thirties with long strawberry-blond hair and a red skirt was holding one of the main doors open, ushering people out and looking official about it. I pushed through the mass of disgruntled parents and excited kids and tapped her on the shoulder.
“Do you know if Miss Bass made it out yet?”
The woman broke off from hollering instructions and looked me up and down. “You’re looking at her.”
“I’m Blake,” I said. “We just spoke on the phone.”
She stared back at me, “I seem to recall that,” she deadpanned.
“Thank you,” I said with sincerity.
“No sweat, but I have to say, even though I’ll be in trouble, I sure hope you’re wrong about this.”
I indicated the doors and the stream of refugees from the school, a stream that appeared to be slowing. “Many more to come out?”
“Hard to say. After what you said was about to happen, I didn’t think we had time to take attendance.”
“You cut the lights on the stage?”
“Uh-huh. Every light in the gym. Fire alarm virtually simultaneously. There was one right next to the fuse box.” She paused and looked at me over the rims of her glasses. “What?”
“Nothing. I just don’t generally meet people this… efficient.”
“Mister, I teach drama in an elementary school. Those little bastards will eat you alive if you don’t have your shit together. Pardon my French.”
I put a hand on her shoulder as I moved past her and through the door. “Miss Bass, I’ll pardon you pretty much anything.”
I moved through the doorway and into a wide foyer, about a hundred feet square. The foyer was low-ceilinged with ancient polystyrene tiles. At the far side of the scuffed linoleum floor was a glass case displaying various cheap trophies accumulated for soccer or cake decoration or whatever the hell students compete in these days. The space was entirely empty of people. Which meant that either the flow of families leaving the gym had naturally petered out, or it had been stemmed. Two corridors led off the foyer at either side. A sign on the right-hand wall sported blue arrows labeled for various classrooms, upper levels, cafeteria, and a couple of other selections. There were only two arrows on the left side: small gym hall, large gym hall.
I approached the corridor slowly, conscious of the thick silence between the urgent clangs of the fire bell. The familiar school smell of pencils and disinfectant seemed ridiculous in the situation. I reached the wall at the edge of the corridor and backed against it, pausing for a second to listen between clangs. I stuck my head around the corner in time to see twin wood and glass fire doors slam outward, rebounding violently off whitewashed cinder-block walls.
Half a dozen kids ran toward me. It was difficult to guess what ages they were. There was a foot in height variation from the tallest to the smallest, and they were decked out in costumes from the show. Every last one of them was terrified. The first couple of them blew past me, apparently not even seeing me. I grabbed the upper arm of the tallest kid as he swept past. His momentum actually took his feet off the ground as I gripped him. He turned around, letting out a scream that would have impressed Janet Leigh, struggling to get loose.
“It’s okay. I’m with the police,” I said. Not true, but a scared child doesn’t often need to hear the truth. “What’s happening?” I said, indicating the direction from which they’d come.
The kid was around ten or eleven, wearing blue jeans, a checkered shirt, and a black waistcoat. I guessed he’d lost the Stetson somewhere back along the corridor. He stopped struggling a few seconds after he realized it wasn’t making any difference and turned his tearstained face up to mine.
“Please, mister, let me go.”
“Sure. Just tell me what’s happening.”
“A m-m — ma—” he stuttered, either through fear or inability to get the word out through the sobs.
“A man? With a gun?”
The kid swallowed and nodded fiercely.
“Is anybody else back there?”
The kid was trying to pull away again, his head moving side to side. I didn’t think that was in response to my question, but more a denial of the whole situation. I glanced back down the corridor. The double doors had settled back into place, guided gently by torsion springs. The two wire-glassed windows in the doors showed nothing in the corridor beyond.
I tightened my grip and pulled him closer, hating the anger in my voice as I growled, “Listen to me, kid. This is very important. Is anyone back there?”
He blinked tears out of his eyes and seemed to calm himself for a moment, my words having the effect of a bucket of cold water. “Yes, sir. Annie Banner and Mr. Bence. The m — the m—” He stopped, blinked again. “He wanted us all to stay, but we ran. Please.”
I relaxed my grip. As I felt my fingers slip from the kid’s arm I knew I’d probably added a pretty good bruise to his night of trauma. “You did great. Thank you. Now I want you to run outside and tell Miss Bass exactly what you told me. Make sure nobody comes back in.”
His head bobbed up and down gratefully. “Where are you going?”
I looked back down the corridor. “To get Annie and Mr. Bence.”
I moved down the cinder-block corridor toward the double fire doors. Behind me I heard the exit door open and slam shut again. A niggling, doubting voice in my head whispered three words in the space between fire alarm clangs.
Last one out.
I answered the voice by telling it to go fuck itself.
The doors parted before me, and I was reminded of saloon doors in an old Western. Through them was another forty feet of cinder-block walls that sank into darkness as they entered the part of the school where the power had been cut. I ran toward the darkness, the soles of my shoes cracking off the linoleum and bouncing back to me off the walls.
Then I heard another noise, coming from up ahead. Sharper than the cracks of my footsteps. Louder than the clang of the fire bell. A sound that I knew better than my own heartbeat.
And then I heard it again.
77
It took only until the first intersection for Banner to realize she’d made a bad choice of vehicle. The Bureau Sedan had simply been the nearest available car after she’d picked up Blake’s voice mail. Only as she slowed for the red light and started slamming the horn with the heel of her hand did she realize she should have had one of the uniformed cops drive her in a black-and-white.