Black Friday (14 page)

The priest just looked aghast. Charles frowned and made a slashing motion, hoping the priest would understand he was telling him to cut it out. He didn't want the gunmen warned that resistance was developing.

Charles fumbled one of the arrows from the box and managed to fit it onto the bowstring. He had never used a bow and arrow before—his parents hadn't believed in violent toys—but the procedure was simple enough. Charles drew the string back a little, testing its strength. It was hard to pull. He would need to put a lot of effort in it.

He couldn't hope for much accuracy, since he was a complete novice, so he needed to wait until his targets were as close as possible. Would he have time to shoot one of the men, fit another arrow to the bowstring, and fire again before the second man shot him? Not likely, Charles realized, but the slight chance was better than waiting to be killed.

Of course, the most probable outcome of this insanity was that Charles would miss with the first arrow and then both men would shoot him. He knew his life was nearly over and could be numbered in minutes, perhaps only seconds.

But the madness was on him, he supposed, because he found to his utter shock that he wanted to do this. No, he
had
to do this.

He heard one of the men ordering prisoners along, threatening to kill them if they didn't cooperate. The terrorist was only a few feet away now. Charles took a deep breath, pulled the bowstring back more, and suddenly wheeled around the end of the display. He shouted wildly as he put all of his strength into holding the bow as tight as he could with his left hand and pulled back on the arrow with his right.

The string and the arrow slipped from his grasp without him really meaning for it to happen. The shaft flew so fast that Charles's eyes couldn't really follow it.

He saw where it ended up, however.

The point struck the terrorist in the hollow of the throat with such force that it went right on through and emerged bloodily from the back of his neck. He staggered and dropped his gun as both hands went to his transfixed throat. He clutched at the arrow. Blood welled out over his fingers in a crimson flood.

Charles was so shocked by what he'd done—and he knew it was almost entirely pure luck—that he stood there staring for a couple of heartbeats before he remembered the second terrorist.

The curses that the other man screamed jolted Charles back to awareness of his perilous situation. He turned and saw the second terrorist lunging toward him, gun outstretched to end his life. All the noise around Charles receded into an echoing silence as he watched his doom about to overtake him.

Chapter 23

T
he big guy—Tobey, Calvin recalled—had told him to gather people in the sporting goods store, arm them with the guns and ammunition that were there, and organize a defense.

That was all well and good, in fact it was a great idea, but Tobey had entrusted the task to a kid less than a year out of high school, a rent-a-cop who wasn't carrying a gun himself and didn't exactly command a lot of respect.

Calvin wished he'd been able to find Dave Dixon. He had a feeling the older guard would have known what to do.

But he hadn't found Dixon, still had no idea what had happened to him, and now it was up to him to try to forestall this catastrophe in the making, Calvin thought as he hurried around the store. He wasn't sure what to do first . . .

Any plans he might have started making evaporated abruptly as he found himself face to face with a black-bearded man holding an ugly, boxy pistol with a stubby barrel. The long magazine extending down from the gun's grip told Calvin it had plenty of firepower.

“Go into hall!” the man screamed at him. “Everybody go into hall! Now!”

Eyes bulging in surprise and fear, Calvin backpedaled. He held his hands up in front of him, palms out. The gunman stalked after him and swung the gun from side to side to gather up more of the people who'd either been in the store when the trouble started or retreated there hoping it would be safer.

Clearly, the terrorists had made sure that it wouldn't be safe here or anywhere else in the mall.

Calvin was certain now that the men behind all the bloody chaos
were
Islamic terrorists. He didn't like the idea of racial profiling, but really, what else could you think when there were a bunch of swarthy, bearded guys waving guns around and screaming orders in foreign accents?

Calvin supposed he was lucky this man hadn't shot him on sight, since he was dressed in a guard's uniform. Maybe the terrorist had seen that he wasn't armed, not even with a Taser or a baton.

Partway across the store, another man with a gun herded shoppers toward the mall proper. Calvin glanced out there, saw people cowering on the floor and knew that they were being threatened, too.

That was what these guys intended for the people in the store. Herd them out like sheep, force them to lie down with the other prisoners, and then wait . . . for what?

Nothing good, Calvin knew. When an attack went on as long as this one already had, it usually turned into a hostage situation. The terrorists hadn't been content just to smuggle bombs into the mall and set them off. That would have been bad enough.

The fact that they were taking prisoners told Calvin they wanted to make some sort of statement by doing so. They knew they would be getting a ton of media attention very shortly.

He and all the other people being rounded up were pawns in a game, Calvin thought. He didn't like being a pawn.

He was still pretty close to one of the men. Close enough to jump him, maybe take the gun away without getting killed? It would be a risk, but if he could do that, maybe he could accomplish the task the big guy out in the mall had given him.

Maybe he could get people to start fighting back.

All he had to do was overcome his fear, move faster than he had ever moved in his life, and outfight a crazed, ruthless terrorist like the hero in a movie or a video game. And not get killed in the process.

Calvin was working up the courage to give it a try when across the store, a tall, skinny guy jumped out from behind a display, gave a crazy yell, and shot an arrow through the throat of the other terrorist.

That was such a shocking development, for a second Calvin couldn't believe what he had just seen. Evidently, neither could the other terrorist, because he just stared as his comrade fell to the floor to bleed out.

Then the man yelled furiously and charged the guy with the bow, who still stood there looking as shocked as everybody else at what he'd done.

Something about him was vaguely familiar to Calvin, but he didn't take the time to try to figure out what it was. He just ran after the terrorist and left his feet in a diving tackle as the man raised his gun.

This was his second tackle in a matter of minutes, which was one more than he'd ever managed to make in a game, and it was a good one, too. His arms wrapped around the man's thighs from behind and his shoulder drove against them. The man pitched forward as he pressed the gun's trigger, but instead of shredding flesh, the bullets just shattered floor tile in front of him because everybody had leaped out of his way when he started his murderous charge.

The man didn't drop the gun, but the weapon fell silent. Calvin hoped that meant it was out of bullets. He started punching at the back of the man's head.

The terrorist drove an elbow up into Calvin's guts. Calvin gasped and felt sick. The man bucked out from under him, spilling him off to the side. Calvin rolled away and clutched his belly. His eyes watered from the pain, but his vision was clear enough for him to see the man surge to his feet and grab a big knife from a sheath that must have been hidden under his coat.

He snarled and took a step toward Calvin as he raised the shining blade.

Two shots boomed. The terrorist stopped short and did a little jittering dance. Calvin saw a pair of bloodstains bloom like crimson flowers on the man's shirtfront. The knife slipped from his fingers and dropped point down, piercing the top of his shoe and probably the foot inside it. The guy didn't even seem to feel that, probably because he was practically dead on his feet already from being shot twice in the chest.

Then there was no more practically about it. His eyes rolled up in their sockets and he fell like a puppet with its strings cut.

Calvin, still hurting from that elbow in the breadbasket, pushed himself up on one hand and looked toward the front of the store.

Tobey Lanning stood there, both arms outstretched as he held the black semi-automatic pistol in a two-handed grip.

* * *

It had taken Tobey a little while to work his way back to the sporting goods store, staying low and using all the cover he could find so the terrorists wouldn't be as likely to notice him. Once he was there, though, he had to abandon that discretion because one of the bastards was about to go after the security guard kid with a knife.

He squeezed off two swift rounds and was rewarded by the sight of the bastard dropping the knife and falling in a limp sprawl that signified death.

The body of another terrorist lay a few feet away, an arrow through his throat and a pool of blood slowly spreading around his body.

To Tobey's right stood the tall, skinny guy he had shoved toward the store earlier. The man held a bow in his left hand. “You got . . . the son of a bitch!” the old man in the wheelchair exclaimed. He was there, too, leaning forward avidly. The priest stood behind the chair. He hung on to it tightly as if it were the only thing holding him up. His face was pale and drawn, and he kept swallowing hard.

“Any more of them in here?” Tobey addressed his brisk question to the skinny guy with the bow.

“I . . . I don't think so,” the man replied.

Tobey looked around, saw the security guard getting up. The kid had told him his name, but Tobey didn't remember it. He pointed and said, “Kid, get his gun.”

The young guard picked up the Steyr and said, “I think it's empty.”

“Check his pockets for more magazines.”

The kid looked down at the corpse. Seeing his hesitation, Tobey added, “He's dead, he can't hurt anybody now.”

“Yeah,” the kid said. He swallowed, and bent to search the dead man's pockets.

Tobey turned back to the skinny guy. “You're good with that bow.”

The man shook his head.

“It was luck, pure luck. I never fired an arrow before.”

“Well, for your first time, you did good. Can you handle a gun?”

Again a shake of the head as the man said, “I never shot one of them, either.”

Tobey pointed and said, “Go up there to the front of the store, then, and stand behind that pillar. Keep an eye out. If you see any of those bastards with the machine pistols heading this way, let out a yell and get back here as fast as you can.”

“Should I . . . should I take this with me?”

The guy held up the bow.

Tobey shrugged and said, “Couldn't hurt.”

The man grabbed a quiver from the bow-hunting display, spilled some of the arrows out of the box they came in, and crammed them into the quiver. He slung it over his shoulder and started toward the lookout spot Tobey had pointed out to him. His movements were awkward and nervous, but he didn't hesitate to do what Tobey had told him.

The kid came up and showed Tobey the three full thirty-round magazines he held in his left hand. The Steyr was clutched in his right.

“I found these,” he said.

Tobey slipped the S&W Shield back into his pocket and took the machine pistol and magazines from the kid. He figured he could put them to better use.

“Round everybody up and get them to the back of the store, behind the gun counter. Anybody who knows how to shoot needs to grab a gun and some ammo for it. What was your name again?”

“Calvin.”

Tobey nodded and said, “Get moving, Calvin.”

Calvin nodded and started to turn away, then paused and asked, “Are you a cop?”

“No,” Tobey said. “I'm just a guy. I used to be a soldier, but I was a grunt, not an officer or anything.”

“Maybe so,” Calvin said, “but I'm really glad you're in charge here.”

Tobey grunted. He hadn't actually given any thought to being in charge. He'd just started giving orders because somebody had to.

He dropped the empty magazine from the Steyr and seated a full one, then turned to the priest and the old man in the wheelchair and told them, “You guys need to get back away from the front of the store, too.”

“Yes,” the priest said, but as he started to turn the chair the old man told him to wait a minute.

“I can . . . shoot,” he said to Tobey. “During the war . . . I was in . . . the First Infantry.”

“The Big Red One,” Tobey said. He didn't have to ask which war the man was talking about.

“Damn . . . straight.”

“Get him a gun,” Tobey told the priest. “And you'd better get one for yourself, too.”

The priest looked shocked and said, “I can't . . . I'm not . . . I mean, I'm a man of God.”

“I believe in him, too, Father, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't want us to just stand around and let ourselves be murdered in the name of religion.”

“I don't know . . .”

The old man said, “I'll handle . . . the shootin' . . . for both of us.”

Tobey grinned and said, “You were a sergeant, right?”

“Corporal . . . Corporal Pete McCracken.”

“All right, Corporal McCracken. I'm counting on you.”

“I won't . . . let you down,” the old man wheezed.

Tobey didn't doubt him for a second.