Lark Barlow paced to and fro, his anger visible in the fast, catlike strides. His final radio check had gotten no response from the administration building, as well as two of the other buildings his men had taken over. That could only mean the situation was continuing to deteriorate.
Was this because he'd spread his forces too thin? Would it have been better if he'd concentrated on the library and brought all of his men here? He would've had fewer hostages that way, but the chances of holding out would have been better.
The alternate scenario had seemed so much more dramatic, though. Taking over an entire college campus and threatening to blow it off the face of the earth....! That was the kind of thing legends were made of! If he was able to pull this off, his name would go down in the annals of terrorism, right next to Osama bin Laden.
Of course, in reality he was more like D.B. Cooper, he supposed----a guy who got away with a fortune through sheer daring and audacity. And like Cooper, if he pulled this off, he would never be seen or heard from again.
Now, though, with things going wrong, it felt like all that was slipping away from him, and that angered Barlow. He paused in his pacing, lifted the radio to his mouth, and called the language-arts building, where three of his men had been in control of 87 hostages, the last time he'd checked in.
"Alex?" Barlow said. "How's it looking there? Alex?"
This time there was no response. Barlow cured and was now about to lower the radio when it suddenly crackled to life.
"This isn't Alex," a strange voice said.
The resonant voice belong to a man. It held just a trace of a Southern drawl, almost indistinguishable, but there. Barlow's hand tightened on the radio as he said, "Who're you?"
"No one you want to know, Lark. But I've got a feeling we'll be making each others acquaintance before the day's done."
"Weaver? Weaver, is that you, you son of a bitch?"
"Well....not exactly."
"Where are my men?"
"They're all burnin' in Hell, more 'n likely," the answer came. Barlow expected that, but it felt like a knee in the crotch anyway. Things were getting worse instead of better.
But he still had some cards up his sleeve, fortunately. He said, "Well, I guess you got everybody out of the building."
"It's just me 'n thee now," the man said. "And soon, it won't even be thee---if you get my drift, son."
"I don't, asshole."
Barlow's other hand dived into his pocket and fished out the radio he used for a detonator. Each of the bombs had a specific frequency, ones that were out-of-bounds for normal voice communications. One-handed, Barlow changed the switch on the hand-held unit to the frequency of the bomb planted next to the language-arts building. He thumbed the transmit key and with satisfaction heard the heavy thump of the explosive going off across campus. That was enough to make the hostages here on the lower level of the library scream and yell again. They probably thought they were next.
Not yet, but soon, perhaps. Barlow had long since decided that if he put his plan into action, he'd never be taken alive.
But with any luck, he wouldn't have to worry anymore about whoever had been disrupting things. There was a chance that the blast hadn't killed him, but in all likelihood, it had.
A smirk was forming on his face when the radio crackled again. That same voice drawled, "I never said I was still in the building, Lark, just that all the hostages were out. I'm coming for you, once I've finished with all your flunkies."
Barlow jerked the radio up to his lips, but he was too filled with rage to form words. Instead, he let out an incoherent sound that was half-growl, half-shout, and flung the radio away from him. It bounced and slid across the floor.
He stood there for a long moment, trembling inside from the depth of his anger. He hadn't heard anything from Brooke since she'd gone up the stairs after Weaver----or the guy he'd told to follow her, since he didn't fully trust her. Had something happened to them? Could things really get any worse?
Barlow took a deep breath and looked around, studying the scared faces of the hostages. He had only 2 men besides himself left on this level, and he'd had to pull one of them down from the 1st floor. Those weren't good odds. If the hostages ever decided to rush them, it wouldn't end well for Barlow and his allies.
Fortunately, the chances of that happening were insignificant, in his opinion. These were college students and faculty, after all. They had been thoroughly indoctrinated in the same sort of progressive bullshit he'd once himself believed. They considered themselves superior, the elite who were too smart, too "woke," to ever embrace violence. Unless, of course, it was as part of a mob, preferably in hoods so their identity would be safe and they wouldn't get in trouble with the law or with Mommy and Daddy. The college administration would let them get away with anything, that was a given----the "inmates" had long since taken over these particular academic "asylums"---and chances were, their families would, too, but there was just enough of a chance that wouldn't happen that they would want to be careful. The resistance was super important, but not at the expense of tuition, housing, and a mega-generous allowance.
So, not much chance of this bunch risking their lives by fighting back. They were used to being sheep, being told what to think and do every moment of their waking lives by the government and the media, and sheep they would remain. Scared little sheep.
Barlow stalked over to the radio, picked it up, and keyed the mic, saying, "Brooke? Brooke, are you there? Answer me, dammit!"359Please respect copyright.PENANAMzCuxvKriX
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Calhoun had taken Brooke's radio and stuck it in his pocket before he started down the stairs. He heard Barlow calling on it and was tempted to answer, just to toss a surprise at the son of a bitch.
He decided not to. Better to let Barlow stew in his own juices for a while and wonder what had happened to Brooke.
Calhoun wondered himself how she was doing. Liberal or not, Donald seemed halfway competent, and Nash had proven not to be totally worthless. Calhoun would have hated to place his life in the hands of either of them, but he supposed they were better than nothing. Maybe somebody among the freed hostages had some medical experience. Stonewall College had a pre-med program, he seemed to recall.
He shoved his worries about Brooke out of his mind. It hadn't been much more than an hour since she'd shoved a gun in his side and threatened to shoot him in the heart, so no matter what he had believed he was starting to feel for her, he didn't owe her own goddamn thing. He could have left her to bleed to death on those damn stairs and not felt one damn thing!
Maybe if he told himself that lie often enough, he might come to believe it.....
But more pressing concerns took precedence. He had cleared Barlow's minions from the 3rd and 4th floors, but that wasn't true of the 1st and 2nd. He didn't know how many gunmen were on those floors.
The 2nd floor wasn't that important now, Calhoun decided. He could afford to bypass it, because whoever was posted there wouldn't be able to come to Barlow's aid right away if shooting broke out on the lower level.
The same couldn't be said of the men on the first floor. They could reach the lower level quickly just by bounding down one of the escalators, which were stopped now because the power was out. If he could deal with them, Calhoun thought, then Barlow would have no backup left him. He'd be all alone with however many of the men he had left--and that couldn't be many at this point.
But Barlow still had guns and plenty of ammunition and dozens of innocent hostages. If he and his men opened fire, they could slaughter many of the prisoners before they were overwhelmed, a scenario Calhoun wanted to avoid if humanly possible.
The threat of the bombs still remained. Calhoun thought he had heard something as he was stealthily descending the stairs, something that might have been an explosion somewhere else on the campus, but in the stairwell it was hard to be sure. If Barlow's men really had planted bombs all over the campus, the amount of damage they could do in human lives was incalculable. Calhoun's doubts wouldn't mean one damn thing in the face of that horrifying reality.
So Barlow had to be stopped, stopped before he could trigger any more explosions. Calhoun was running out of time and he knew it.
So whoever was on the second floor could wait until later. Right now, he needed to take out any of Barlow's men on the 1st floor, then move on to the lower level.
There weren't many shelves on the ground level, because mostly it was devoted to circulation, with self-serve checkouts and a long counter where books reserved online could be picked up, overdue fines were paid, and other tasks like that were handled. Even in this digital age, there was still a need for human beings to do some things, just like there were still plenty of print books in the library.
There were also more than 12 rows of computer stations for student use. Everybody had the Internet on their phones and tables, of course, but sometimes you still needed a good-old fashioned desktop and printer.
A portion of the 1st floor was also given over to displays of sculpture and artwork. Stonewall was proud of its arts program and showed off many works by students past and present. The front wall was mostly glass, giving the place plenty of light and a very airy feel.
Calhoun had spent enough time in the library to be aware of all this. Just as a matter of habit, he constantly studied his surroundings, and he had the kind of brain that once something was noted in it, he tended not to forget. He had no real reason for doing that, other than he liked to be prepared for whatever might happen. He had never forgotten a quote he'd heard attributed to General James Mattis: "Always have a plan to kill everybody in the room." That sounded like good advice to Calhoun, even though it came from a Marine.
The stairwell entrance was in the back of the room, beyond the art display area, next to the snack bar. If Calhoun had been charged with keeping the hostages under control, he would have herded them all into the snack bar, well away from the windows where police snipers might be able to get a shot. You wanted prisoners in as small an area as possible, especially if you had a limited number of men to keep them under the gun.
Knowing that, Calhoun wasn't surprised when he leaned toward the door, listened closely, and heard a man saying in a loud, angry voice, "Sit back down, fella! I want you down on that floor along with everybody else."
"You're never gonna get away with this," answered another man in a peevish tone. "The cops are gonna storm this place any minute, and when they do, you'll wind up dead! You may have started with high ideals, but now you're just common crooks!"
The 2nd voice was familiar to Calhoun, and after 1 moment he placed it: Sam Jaywick, one of Neil Holt's campus cops. The most annoying member of Holt's force, in fact. Calhoun remembered seeing Jaywick on this floor when he came into the library. The guy had gotten swept up with the other hostages.359Please respect copyright.PENANAZtFf8q8hDb
In a way, that was shocking. Calhoun would've expected Jaywick to try some kind of grandstand play that would get him killed. Clearly, that hadn't happened.359Please respect copyright.PENANAz7ezRiiUgY
But it might yet, because Jaywick was still mouthing off to his captors.359Please respect copyright.PENANAKqgZB0mWGq
"The best thing you can do is thrown down those guns and surrender. I'm an officer of the law. I can guarantee your safety. I'll see to it that you don't get mowed down when the SWAT teams come in here.
"Officer of the law, my ass! You're a cheap rent-a-cop with who thinks he's God. Now sit the hell down, or I'm gonna bust your head again..."359Please respect copyright.PENANAaomPkZxq2f
In his anger, the gunman must've gotten too close to Jaywick, because a third man suddenly yelled, "Hey, look out, he's gonna...."
A short roared, drowning out whatever the man was trying to say.
Calhoun knew instantly that he was never going to get a better distraction than this. He yanked the door back and bulled out into the open as he lifted the 9mm in a two-hand grip.
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