Although Brooke had asked him to keep his head down and not draw attention to himself, Calhoun had managed to sneak enough looks around over the past 30 minutes to have a pretty good idea how many gunmen there were on the lower level and where they were located.
For one thing, the leader had left his position by the escalators and swaggered around arrogantly, checking with his lackeys. With the hostages terrified into being quiet, it wasn't hard to track the movements of the gunmen. Calhoun heard the leader having conversations with several of them, although he couldn't make out the words.
There were three men down here in addition to the leader, Calhoun decided: one by the elevator that was there for handicapped accessibility, in the back of the big room; one by the reference desk at the front of the room; and one by the little break area where there were vending machines with soft drinks and snacks. Students weren't allowed to take food or drinks out into the main room, but there were several tables and chairs in the alcove with the machines where they could sit and get away from their work for a while.
These four, including the leader roaming around, could cover the entire lower level of the library. This was where most of the students currently in the building would have been when the gunmen took over. There probably hadn't been many people at all on the 3rd and 4th floors. Two or at most 3, terrorists would have been necessary to control those floors. And then, if the leader was smart, he would have all the hostages brought down here and gathered in one place.
So that meant 10 or 12 of the bastards here in the library. Calhoun had no idea how many other buildings had been targeted, or how many members of the gang had been assigned to each building. How many total were on campus? Forty? Fifty?
Enough to spill a lot of innocent blood, that was for sure, even if the bomb threat was really a bluff, as Calhoun suspected. Even armed with pistols, if shooting broke out they could kill dozens, even scores, before they were stopped.
That raised the issue of communications. Calhoun assumed they were using cell phones, maybe walkie-talkies. If someone on the outside was smart enough, they might think of shutting down all the cell towers around the campus. They might even be able to block walkie-talkie signals. That would leave the gunmen unable to communicate from building to building, and if the bombs were on cell phone triggers, assuming there were any bombs, that would prevent them from detonating.
Calhoun just hoped that whoever Neil Holt called on for help had some experience with explosive hostage situations.
* * * *
Alan Gibbs hurried up to Holt and stopped to stare at his boss in shock.
"Thought they were takin' you to the hospital, Chief," Gibbs said.
"Change in plans," Holt said. "I'm staying here until this is over, one way or another."
Gibbs gestured over his shoulder with a thumb and said, "The FBI's here. They just pulled up at the command post Chief Wallace established at the edge of campus."
The two police chiefs looked at one another and nodded.
"Let's go talk to the Feds," Wallace said.
Not surprisingly, three black SUVs were parked in the blocked-off street that ran along the western edge of the campus. The federal agents like their sinister-looking vehicles.
One man turned to greet Holt with an outstretched hand, though. With his burly shape, chocolate skin, and close-cropped gray hair, he looked like somebody's affable black grandad.
"You Chief Holt?" he asked in a deep voice.
"The one and only."
"Special Agent Jonell Boone," the man said as he gripped Holt's hand. "And you must be Chief Wallace," he went on to the boss of the Brookhedge PD.
"Yup," Wallace shook hands with Boone, too. . "Are you running this operation for the FBI?"
"I am," Boone said with a brisk nod. "I'm trained to deal with messes like this."
"Not like this one, I'm sure," Holt said.
Boone smiled thinly and said, "You'd be surprised."
An Austin Police Department van pulled in behind the SUVs that had brought Boone and the other FBI agents to the scene. Several officers in tactical gear piled out. One of them had a dog with him, a good-sized German shepherd.
"Bomb-sniffer?" Holt asked.
"Sometimes the old-fashioned ways are the best," Boone said. "But, yes, we do have a robot equipped with sensors that'll detect explosives. If one of you could show the Austin officers and my men the locations where you suspect bombs might be planted.....?"
Wallace said, "I can do that."
"I'll need an overview of the situation and the layout of the campus, as well," Boone went on.
Holt nodded and said, "I got a map in my office. I'll show you everything I can."
They turned toward the campus police department while Wallace hurried off to join forces with the bomb-squad officers from Austin. Holt and Wallace had taken just two steps, though, when a dark-colored sedan joined the other vehicles parked in the street and a woman in a midnight-blue dress got out. Her long brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail that hung halfway down her back. She was about 40 years old, Holt estimated, and striking in her appearance without being classically beautiful.
"Agent Boone," she said as she strode up to the two men.
"This is Agent Ferrant," Boone said.
From the sound of their voices, neither had much liking for the other, despite the obvious fact that they knew each other.
The woman turned to Holt and continued, "Regina Ferrant, Homeland Defense. And you are....?"
"Neil Holt, chief of the campus police," he introduced himself. He saw the abrupt lack of interest in Ferrant's eyes and knew that she had dismissed him out of hand as being irrelevant in this crisis.
He didn't suppose he could blame her for feeling that way. He was only a campus rent-a-cop, after all.
She turned back to Boone and asked, "What have we got?"
"I'm sure you've seen the video that streamed out of the library."
"Of course. The man's name is Lark Barlow. He was a student here several years ago."
Boone nodded and said, "Correct."
"Hold it right there, buster!" Holt said. "You know who the guy behind this nightmare is? Why the hell didn't you tell me?!"
"I hadn't had a chance to," Boone said. "I was going to brief you while we looked at that map in your office."
Holt supposed that was reasonable enough, but he still felt a little irritated. He knew that federal agents were sticklers for keeping local law enforcement in the dark. There were two reasons for that. If there was any glory attached to a case, the Feds wanted it to land at their feet. And many of them genuinely regarded local cops as being incompetent at best, corrupt and stupid at worst.
Holt hadn't really detected that kind of arrogance from Jonell Boone thus far, but it fairly oozed from Regina Ferrant.
"If we're going to debrief Mr. Holt before we start planning our next move, we need to get on with it," she snapped.
"Chief Holt to you, lady," he said. It probably wouldn't do any good, but he was going to have to stick up for himself.
Ferrant made a slight face but said nothing. After one moment, Holt went on, "My office is this way," and pointed toward the campus police department.
As the three of them walked along, Wallace said, "I heard that you killed one of the terrorists that were injured in the fight."
That appeared to make Ferrant's interest perk up a little.
Holt told them about the desperate fight in the groundskeepers' shed after his discovery of John Handel's body. He held up his bandaged hand and said, ":I got a pretty good cut on my hand and a knock on the head."
"Maybe you should be in the hospital getting an examination," Ferrant suggested.
"That'll wait. I'm responsible for the safety of this campus and everybody on it."
"Forgive my bluntness---Chief Holt---but I think you suck at your job. How many fatalities so far? At least five confirmed, the man you killed among them?"
Holt stopped on the sidewalk. Anger hardened his face.
"I had no warning of any of this," he said. "Isn't it the job of the FBI and Homeland Defense to sniff out terrorist plots and stop 'em before they can get started? Was this guy Barlow already on your radar?" He looked to and fro between the two federal agents. "Is that how come you know his name already?"
"I'm sorry, I can't....." Ferrant began.
Wallace interrupted her by saying, "Barlow's name surfaced in an investigation we've been carrying out involving some illegal gun sales. That's all I can tell you, Chief, other than we've had reason in recent days to grow more concerned. It's likely we would have brought him in for questioning in the next few days." The burly special agent grunted. "He acted sooner than we expected, though."
Ferrant glared at Wallace and said, "You shouldn't have told him that. It's none of his business."
"This is his campus that's being threatened. I think that makes it his business."
Holt didn't know if there had been bad blood between the two federal agents before now, but there would be in the future, it seemed.
He didn't give a damn about that. He said, "What do you know about Barlow?"
"Let's talk about in on the way to your office, okay?"
Holt was all right with that. The three of them started along the sidewalk again.
"Barlow was enrolled here for three semesters," Wallace continued. "You probably don't remember him. He didn't get into any trouble while he was here, as far as we've been able to uncover."
Holt shook his head and said, "The name doesn't ring any bells, I gotta admit, none at all. Stonewall's a small school, but there are still too many kids who go here for me to remember 'em all."
"Barlow was what used to be called a radical. Went to some protests and helped organize a few of them. Posted a lot of Hashtag Resist and pro-Bloods stuff on social media. He strayed close to advocating the violent overthrow of the government but never was blatant enough about it to draw any real interest, at least from us. His name was in our database, but most of what I mentioned was dug up in a hurry today after we were called in on this. After Barlow dropped out of school here, he dropped out of sight as well. Obviously, though, he's been hanging around and putting this plan together a least part of the time since then." Wallace shrugged. "If Homeland knows any more than that about him, Agent Ferrant will have to tell you."
Ferrant's expression made it clear that she wasn't going to tell Holt anything.
He didn't really give a damn, though. It didn't matter to him who Lark Barlow was or what his motivation might be, unless that information would help to end this hostage situation somehow, with as little loss of life as possible. Holt didn't think that was likely.
When they reached the station, an air of tense urgency gripped the place. The dispatcher came out from behind the counter where she worked and hurried over to meet Holt.
"Chief, we heard you were hurt," she said. "Everybody's been so worried about you."
"I'll be all right, Jenda," he told her. "I just need some stitches in my hand and some antibiotics when this is over. No need to fret over me. Has anything new come in?"
Jenda shook her head and said, "We're all just waiting to see what's going to happen."
She looked at Wallace and Ferrant and seemed to be waiting for Holt to tell her who the two strangers were, but he didn't. Instead, he said, "We'll be in my office if you need me." Then he led the two federal agents down the short hall and through the door into the office.
The big, framed map of the campus took up most of one wall. Holt pointed out the various landmarks situated around Pleasantview Plaza, including the library, the administration building, the student union, and the other three buildings that according to reports were under the control of armed terrorists. He tapped a finger against the library and said, "That's where Barlow was when that video streamed, and he must still be there since Chief Wallace set up perimeters around all those buildings. The library and the student union will be the places where the hostages are."
"Any way to get SWAT teams in there?" Wallace asked.
"Sure," Holt said with a shrug. "You can breach all these buildings without too much trouble. They weren't designed for defense, after all, and I doubt if there are enough terrorists to cover every point of entry. But if Barlow can set off bombs all over the campus with one push of a button, a direct assault's probably not a very good idea.
Ferrant said, "He's bluffing about the bombs."
"We don't know that," Wallace said, "and it's too big a risk to run until we do have confirmation one way or the other."
"What're you going to do? Negotiate with that prick?"
"Not so much negotiating as playing for time."
Holt said, "Between the dog and the robot, will you be able to tell for sure whether there are actually any explosives planted in those places Barlow's goons dug up this morning?"
"We should have a pretty good idea..." Wallace began.
He didn't get very far before a blast somewhere not far away shook the floor under their feet.
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