He came up quickly to the office, moving closer to the wall, almost hugging it. The office had a door and an interior glass window that as he passed, he snapped a look into the office. There was a second set of sliding glass windows in the back, looking out into the parking lot.
Alarms rang in his head at the sight of the parking lot and, as if on cue, a gas-masked head appeared behind the glass. The man inside the hazmat suit saw Will a split second after Will spotted him.
Will spun to his left, his forward momentum carrying him across the window, the M4A1 rising to his shoulder. The man’s eyes went wide inside the gas mask just a heartbeat before Will fired a burst. His bullets shattered the window in front of him, continued on, shattered the second window, and finally caught the man in the head. The man snapped back and fell, vanishing from the window frame.
A second man scrambled out from behind the window, and as he ran away, threw back his right hand and the AK-47 in it and squeezed off a blind volley through what was left of the glass. Will was already lunging to the floor, and he scooted underneath the inner windows as the man’s bullets pelted the brick wall outside and strafed the interior of the office walls. Window frames broke, wood splintered, and bullets screamed as they whipped over his head, traveled through the length of the auditorium, and smacked against the wall on the other side. A white mist filled the office, floating out through the destroyed window above his head.
And the man kept blindly firing until he had wasted his entire magazine.
Amateurs.
Will snapped up to his feet the second the man stopped shooting and saw the figure fleeing across the parking lot. Twenty meters. Maybe twenty-five. Getting farther and farther way. Not far enough, though.
He fired a shot. The man seemed to stumble, as if he had tripped over something, fell, and lay still.
Will sat back down underneath the window when his radio squawked and he heard Danny’s voice: “You still alive back there?”
“Two down, six to go,” he said.
“And here I thought we were in trouble.”
“Perish the thought.”
Lara’s voice cut in, and he could tell she was more than slightly annoyed: “Would you please stop with the manly bullshit and concentrate on trying not to get killed, please.”
Danny laughed. “I think she likes you.”
“Shut up, Danny,” Lara said. Then, in a softer voice, “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Danny said. “You were talking to me, right?”
“I’m fine,” Will said. “Everyone stay where you are.”
“Are you sure?” Danny said. “I was about to head over there. After all, I don’t want Lara to lose her new boyfriend so soon.”
“Danny, shut up,” Lara snapped.
“Keep an eye on the hallway,” Will said. “I’ll call if I need any help.”
He scooted closer toward the office door and had reached for the doorknob when he heard gunfire from the parking lot.
That was followed by additional gunfire, this time coming from the school hallway outside the auditorium.
An AK-47, answered by an M4A1.
Then moments later, the unmistakable sound of a G36 firing on full-auto.
Will started to get up, to retreat back to the hallway, when a bullet smashed through the door in front of him and zipped past his head by half an inch, so close that he thought he could smell pieces of hair burning. His.
Will lunged back to the floor as more bullets punched through the door, splintered cheap wood raining down on him. He heard the familiar scream of an AK-74, the more modern version of the Russian AK-47, clattering from the other side of the door, outside the window.
He crawled back down behind the wall, sticking low to the floor, listening to the very distinctive rattle of the AK-74. The door offered no resistance against the fusillade. The wall around him exploded, bullets ripping effortlessly through the Sheetrock. The man was strafing from left to right, but hadn’t bothered to move the barrel up or down, which meant he expected Will to be crouched and not flat on the floor the way he currently was.
Will listened, waiting for the man to stop shooting, when a single shot from a handgun rang out inside the auditorium. He spun to his left, toward the sound of the gunshot.
Lara was at the doors, the Glock in her hand, shooting across the auditorium. He looked at where she was aiming and saw that the farthest door at the other side of the gym was open. He caught a glimpse of a masked head hidden behind the door. For a moment his instinct was to tell Lara to stop shooting, that she couldn’t possibly hit anything from that distance with a Glock, but he realized that hitting the man wasn’t the point — pinning him down and keeping him from shooting him in the back was.
Meanwhile, behind him, the AK-74 had stopped firing.
The realization hit him like lightning. They were using a specific tactic on him. One man fired from the window to pin him down while the other one entered from the door across the auditorium.
Not so amateurish after all.
Will sprung up, moving left at the same time, and squeezed off a short burst on full-auto into the window even before he saw anything. He caught a glimpse of a black and green blur lunging out of his line of vision, disappearing behind the cover of the wall.
He kept moving until he was now on the other side of the interior window, where he quickly turned his attention to the opened door across the auditorium. He switched the fire selector on the M4A1 to semi-automatic and lowered himself into a crouching position.
The man in the hazmat suit hiding behind the door leaned back in and took aim with an AR-15 across the auditorium at Lara. Before he could get off a shot, Will fired two shots in the man’s direction. His first shot hit the door, but his second shot was true and hit the man in the left calf. The man stumbled backward through the doorframe, the door slamming shut behind him.
Keeping as low as possible, Will ran back toward Lara.
She watched him coming, one eye focused on the doors across the auditorium. He slid the last meter along the smooth floor and came to a stop next to her. She flashed him a brief satisfied smile.
He laughed. “My hero.”
“You make it look so easy, I thought I’d give it a shot.”
“Give it a shot?”
“Oh right,” she said and laughed.
“I’ll be right back.”
He pushed himself up and jogged to the corner, looked up the hallway. Danny had moved back three meters from his last position, but still had his attention focused down the other side of the school, where another body in a hazmat suit was slumped on the floor. From his angle, Danny could see both the front doors and the hallway, allowing him to defend both points of entry without any extra movements.
Five down, five to go.
Davies had also backed away from the door and was now crouched on the floor against the wall about two meters behind Danny. He was reloading his G36 and fumbling with the magazine.
Will clicked his radio. “We good?”
“Hunky dory,” Danny said. “You?”
“I might have grazed a third one.”
“You mean after your girlfriend saved your butt?”
Will looked back and saw Lara smiling at him.
“Yeah,” he said into the radio. “I don’t know what I’d do without her.”
“So what’s the plan, boss man?”
He walked back to Lara, crouched next to her. He glanced down at his watch. 10:41 a.m.
“They took their shot,” he said. “Now they’re down to half their original number. Unless they’re getting reinforcements, I’m guessing they’ll probably decide to wait us out. It’s the smart thing to do.”