Calhoun had taken the pistol being carried by the man he'd knocked out, as well as the extra loaded magazines in the man's pockets, so he was well armed as he headed up the darkened stairwell toward the 4th floor. It would have been nice to have an M-16 or something like that in addition to the 2 9mm semiautomatics, but a man worked with the tools he had.
The 4th floor was where all the library's offices were located. He didn't know how many people would be up there, normally, but he guessed not many. That meant Barlow likely sent only two men to round them up. If he could take care of those guys, it'd open a path all the way to the roof....and that might be how the hostages could get out of here.
Barlow's men had to have heard the shooting from the other parts of the building, though, so they would be alert for trouble. Calhoun might not be able to take them by surprise.
He would deal with that when he got there, which wouldn't be much longer now, he thought as he rounded the landing halfway between the 3rd and 4th floors and continued upward.
When he reached the top of the stairs and the door to the 4th floor, he took hold of the metal bar and pressed it slowly and carefully until he heard the latch disengage. Then he pulled on it with just sufficient force to open the door an inch or so.
Unfortunately, it didn't budge as he rounded the landing halfway between the 3rd and 4th floors and continued upward.
When he reached the top of the stairs and the door to the 4th floor, he took hold of the metal bar and pressed it slowly and carefully until he heard the latch disengage. Then he pulled on it with just enough force to open the door 1 inch or so.
Unfortunately, it didn't budge. Calhoun pulled harder, then frowned as the door still didn't move.
It wasn't locked. He heard the latch click. He wasn't sure the stairwell doors even could be locked, since the stairs served as the building's emergency exit. But it wasn't opening, that was for sure, which meant the gunmen on this floor had done something to keep anybody from coming up the stairs and taking them by surprise, which was just what Calhoun had intended to do.
He put his ear to the door and listened intently, but heard nothing from the other side. No voices, nobody moving around. Someone had to be up here, though. The sabotaged door proved that.
Somewhere below him on the stairs, something thudded, followed immediately by a gasped "Dammit!" The a swift shuffle of footsteps before total silence descended.
Calhoun pressed his back to the wall beside the door and aimed the pistol in his hand down the stairs. He stayed there for a long moment, silent, motionless. Someone was following him up the stairs. Judging by the sounds he'd just heard, whoever it was had tripped in the dark, likely had fallen and banged a knee on the stairs, and cursed at the pain. Then, realizing he might have given himself away, he had frozen and was standing down there somewhere, not moving.
The question was whether the man was a friend or a foe, and since Calhoun didn't have any friends in this building right now, at least as far as he knew....
"Cal? Cal Weaver?!"
The call floated up the stairwell in a strained half-whisper. Something about the voice was familiar, but he couldn't place it.
He didn't respond, just in case someone was aiming a gun at him right now, just waiting for him to say something in order to pinpoint his position in the thick gloom. He figured that if he was patient, whoever it was might say something else.
Several long, tense moments dragged by in silence. Then the same voice said, "Cal, if you're up there, this is Donald Montecristo. You know, the guy who gave you that uncensored video...If nobody's up there, then I guess I'm talking to myself and I feel really dumb. But if one of those guys with guns is there...." Donald sighed. "I may be dead soon. I think I'd rather feel stupid. But one way or another, I'm not going to turn around and go back down there where everybody else has been taken prisoner. I'm coming on up, and I really, really hope I don't get shot."
Calhoun didn't respond, even though he could here the fear in Donald's voice and wished he could reassure the kid. But somebody could be listening right on the other side of the door, and he didn't want to confirm for them that somebody was in the stairwell. Without making any noise, he moved over to where he was standing beside the top of the stairs. He tucked the pistol behind his belt and waited.
He heard Donald coming up the stairs and could tell that the young man was trying to be quiet. However, Donald obviously didn't have much experience at being stealthy, because Calhoun was able to track his progress all the way up the stairs.
When Donald reached the top and stepped onto the landing, Calhoun was ready. He looped an arm around Donald's neck and jerked him back against him. Calhoun moved fast enough, and his grip was tight enough, that Calhoun wasn't able to make a sound before he found himself caught.
He fought, though, flailing his arms and jerking his body around for two seconds before Calhoun tightened his grip even more and growled in Donald's ear, "Cut it out!"
Donald went still. Air rasped in his throat as Calhoun loosened his arm enough for him to breathe. But just for 1 second before Calhoun clamped down again.
"Listen to me," he whispered. "This is Calhoun, like you thought. We're alone, and you're not in any danger right now, do you understand?"
He felt Donald's head move and recognized it as a nod.
"If I let you go, you're not going to yell and you're not going to fight. Right?"
Again a nod from the young man. Calhoun eased off the pressure on Donald's throat but didn't let him go completely. Instead he whispered in Donald's ear. "Keep your voice down when you answer me. Are you all right?"
"Y--Yeah," Donald managed to say. He still sounded pretty breathless. His chest rose and fell rapidly against Calhoun's arm as he tried to recover from being choked.
"I'm going to let go of you the rest of the way. Just stand there and don't try to do anything."
"All right," Donald's voice sounded a little stronger now.
Calhoun released his grip and stepped back a little. Donald was still close enough for him to grab in a hurry if he had to, but he didn't expect that to happen. Despite any disagreements they might have politically, right now he and Donald definitely ought to be on the same side.
"What're you doing here, Donald? You were down on the lower level, last I saw you."
"I was able to sneak out of there right after you got loose from them. When you killed those two guys by the stairs, there was nobody right there to see me start up after you."
The conversation was conducted in whispers. Calhoun could tell that Donald had turned to face him.
"Yeah, but why'd you follow me? You're not a fighter."
Calhoun didn't mean any offense by that, just stating a fact as far as he was concerned, but Donald sounded a little miffed as he said, "I can fight. I was an athlete in high school. I've been in a few fights in my life."
"Not like this one," Calhoun told him. "This is life and death. Barlow and his stooges don't care if they kill all of us. They just want that money they're demanding."
"I don't care what the guy says, he's not trying to make a point about income inequality," Donald said with an obvious note of bitterness in his voice. "He's just a crook."
"You're right about that. But it doesn't make him any less dangerous."
"I know, but I'm not scared. Well--- I am scared. I'm not crazy, but somebody's gotta stop those dudes. I'm with you Calhoun. What's your plan?""
Fate had given him some strange allies, Calhoun thought. A young black liberal and a middle-aged snowflake professor. Not much of a fighting force. In a way, Calhoun would've preferred to be on his own, but he supposed Donald and Nash were better than nothing. Maybe.
"So far my only plan has been to kill as many of them as I can and not get killed while I'm doing it. But I've cleared the 3rd floor and got the folks who were taken hostage there hiding until help arrives. If I can deal with the gunmen here on the 4th floor, that'll give us access to the roof. Maybe we can get in touch with the authorities and have them bring in a helicopter. If a chopper can land on the roof---and I don't know at this point if it can---then we can evacuate the freed hostages that way and get a SWAT team in here to finish clearing the building."
"What about the bombs?"
"I think that's mostly a bluff on Barlow's part," Calhoun said. He shrugged in the darkness. "If it's not, I guess we may die a little sooner than we would've otherwise."
"I don't suppose it'd be best just to wait and hope they get the ransom money they demanded....?"
"Trying to buy off evil never works. It's entirely possible that Barlow doesn't intend to leave any of us alive no matter what happens."
"So I guess we gotta dig in and fight," Donald said. "I never really believed in violence. Maybe we don't have a choice, though."
"You've got a choice," Calhoun said. "Find a corner away from everybody and everything and stay there until it's over."
"And hope for the best? I don't know.....My parents raised me to fight for things I believe in. They didn't mean it in terms of literal fighting, of course, but sometimes...."
"Sometimes there's no other way."
"You're right. I'll say it again, Cal; I'm with you. What do you want me to do?"
"That door won't open. It comes in toward us, not out, so blocking it wouldn't do any good. I think they must have tied a rope or something to the bar and then tied the other end around something that won't move. We've got to get it open, though. There's nowhere else for us to go. So what I'm going to do is try to budge whatever it is holding the door closed. I'm a pretty big, strong guy. If I can get it open even one inch or so, you'll be able to look through the gap and see what's holding it. Think you can shoot a rope in in 2?"
"Do I think I can....Wait---What?"
"Hold your hand out," Calhoun said. "I'm going to give you a gun. Don't shoot me. Keep your finger off the trigger."
"Cal, I don't know about this...."
Calhoun reached out, found Donald's hand in the darkness, and pressed one of the 9mm pistols into it.
"Careful," he warned. "Don't drop it. You've got it?"
"Yeah, I---I guess so. I've never fired a gun before. What do I have to do?"
First Nash, now Donald. How did people grow up without ever putting their hands on a gun, Calhoun wondered? He couldn't even start to understand that. But now wasn't the time to ponder such things, he told himself.
"This is a semiautomatic, and there's a round in the chamber. That means all you have to do is point it and pull the trigger, and it'll fire every time you pull the trigger until it runs out of ammunition. Look at what you're shooting at and point the gun at it like you'd point a finger. There's not enough time to get any more sophisticated than that. Can you handle it?"
Calhoun couldn't see it, but Donald swallowed so hard he could hear it. Donald said, "Yeah, I'll do my best."
"Okay. You can see where the door is, because there's a little light around the edges. Stand on the side where it opens, just to the left there, and turn so you can see through the gap when I pull on it. You won't have much time, so be ready. If there's a rope, shoot at it. If it's a chain, that probably won't work and we'll have to think of something else. Got all that?"
"Yeah. I'm ready, Cal."
The latch had clicked back into place. Calhoun braced himself, got his feet set firmly on the floor, and pressed down the bar on this side of the door, until he heard it unfasten again. Then he heaved with all his strength, putting so much into the effort that he grunted.
The door shifted toward him a little, just enough so that the latch wouldn't engage again. He relaxed for a split second, then threw his muscles into it again. Something scraped on the other side. They had tied the door to a desk or a set of shelves, he thought.
A narrow ray of light slanted through the gap Calhoun had made. In the glow from it, Calhoun saw Donald standing there and gripping the gun with both hands as he aimed it. The young man pulled the trigger three times fast. In the narrow confines of the stairwell, the reports slammed painfully against Calhoun's eardrums.
But the door sprang open, the sudden release of tension throwing Calhoun backwards. He caught himself before he tumbled down the stairs.
In old movies, guys shot through ropes all the time. In reality, it wasn't so easy. But here at close range, Donald had managed. Calhoun yelled "Stay back!" at him as guns began to go off on the other side of the door. Calhoun used the door itself for cover and heard slugs thudding into it as he dropped to one knee, pulled the other pistol with his left hand, and fired around the edge of the barrier. He wasn't as good a shot with his left hand as he was with his right, but he was good enough to plant a couple of rounds in the body of a gunman standing about 15 feet away behind a desk.
The man went over backwards. His pistol flew from his hand as he fell. Calhoun held his fire and waited, but no more shots sounded.
Instead, after two minutes that seemed even longer, a woman's voice asked in a quavering, frightened tone, "Who---who's there? Are you the police? Is it safe?"
Calhoun didn't answer the question directly. Instead he said, "Was there only one of them, ma'am?"
"Yes, and he....he looks dead. There's blood all over..."
Calhoun could practically hear the shudder in the woman's voice as he words trailed off.
"Stay here," he told Donald, keeping his voice down as he did so. "There might be a guy with a gun to her head, making her say that. Just one way to find out."
"And if----if I hear shots."
"Then I'll count on you to have my back," Calhoun said. Without giving Donald time to worry about that, he pulled the door open wider and stepped out onto the library's 4th floor.
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