Hearts Under Fire (21 page)

Part II

April 30

9:22 a.m.

Chapter 11

The teacher’s lounge smelled like a slaughterhouse, and Daniel gagged again, kneeling in the corner of what had once been a safe haven. Retching sounds ended in a wet cough that died away into nothing, and Daniel breathed through his mouth. More gunshots rang out in the hallway, and the subsequent screaming, stampede of panicked feet, and slamming of doors blocked all other sounds.

With shaking hands, Daniel pulled his cell phone from his pocket. Staring at it, he sighed at the memory of Clark this morning, so peacefully sprawled all over Daniel’s bed in his little professor’s bungalow on the edge of campus. The man had looked so comfortable and relaxed that Daniel hadn’t been able to resist whispering, “See you at lunch?”

The answering grunt, equal parts irritated and affirmative, amused Daniel so much that he’d leaned forward and brushed the stubble-rough cheek with a light kiss before closing all the shutters in the house, drawing all the curtains, and hoping that, for once, Clark would sleep late.

Daniel knew how hard-won Clark’s peace was, and while he ached about disturbing that, Daniel also knew that Clark deserved to know what was happening. Missing the speed dial button twice, Daniel finally punched it correctly and hit “Send.”

“Hey,” Clark answered. “And you call me the mind reader. Was just thinking of you.”

Daniel closed his eyes. The cheerfulness of Clark’s voice was such a contrast to the scene before him and what he heard out in the hallway, it was like getting in touch with heaven in the midst of hell. Daniel fought down the emotions that threatened to strangle him, and he cleared his throat so he could speak. “Uhm... hey. You have no idea how happy I am to hear you’re thinking of me. There’s... uhm... how would you take down someone armed with... it sounds like a semi-automatic and a shotgun?”

The long pause at the question didn’t make Daniel feel any better.

“You don’t take them down,” Clark said, voice level. “You find a thick wall and hide or get the hell out of range. Tell me this is theoretical, Daniel.”

“Thick wall, hm?” Daniel sighed a shivering sigh at Clark’s carefully controlled tone. “I’m... I’m sorry, but none of them seem thick enough right now, and my kids...” His voice broke, and he whispered, “He’s killing my kids, Clark, and I can’t do a freaking thing.”

“Talk fast. Are you hurt?” Clark asked, and Daniel heard the traces of Clark’s military training in the question.

Daniel answered more crisply, “No. I’m not. Thompson’s dead, though, and I... I’ve called 911. Mary’s sending cars, EMTs, and ambulances. Security must be down, and he’s going through the goddamned undergraduate hallway.”

“Where are you precisely?”

“In the teacher’s lounge,” Daniel said. “I was in the bathroom, heard the shots across the hallway, and stayed there until I heard screaming... ah, shit...” More blasts and glass shattering made him cringe. Someone else in the room moaned. Daniel’s voice started shaky and then firmed as he continued, “Then came here to check, figuring he wouldn’t come back.”

“Good thinking. That’s very good, Daniel,” Clark said soothingly. “I’m less than ten minutes away and coming now.”

Daniel wanted to protest, to ask Clark what the hell he was thinking, and then remembered the Beretta. He’d been looking for Clark’s cell phone charger in the glove compartment of Clark’s Jag. Daniel had insisted that the gun be brought into the security of the house. Raised by policemen, Daniel knew the frequency of car break-ins, and he was far more comfortable having the firearm under their control.

So Clark was armed. It made Daniel breathe a little more easily, think a little more clearly, as Clark added, “Response time to the university, with as many calls as I’m sure dispatch is getting, will be a matter of minutes. Five at most. I want you to find something heavy -- desk, anything -- and get your head down. On your knees, curl in, back to the door.”

“I... Clark. I love you.” Daniel had to say that first. “But I can’t just sit here. I know what I promised you, but that’s five minutes. He’s headed toward the east wing, there are classes and meetings going on upstairs -- oh shit -- they can’t get through the windows, and I have to check on Mr. Wilson.” Daniel was shaking hard enough that he had to stop talking for fear that Clark would hear.

“I love you, too,” Clark said quickly. “But baby, listen to me. I know it’s hard. I know you want to help. But you’re unarmed and out of the line of fire. You’re the son of two policemen; you know how this works. Let the good guys fight the bad guy. Stay safe for me, do what you can if you find the injured, and... just...” Clark’s voice broke, and even over the cell phone connection, Daniel could hear Clark panting before he heard the distinctive sound of his own front door slamming. “Just get through this unhurt for me. You can do that. I know it.”

“I’ll...” Daniel closed his eyes at another rip of gunfire. “Oh God, Clark. Right.” He took a deep breath. “Yes. I’ll try and help the injured, let the pros do their work when they get here, and stay out of the line of fire while I can.”

“Good man,” Clark said. “I’m coming. And so is everyone else. Just hang on. Love you and see you soon.”

“Love you,” Daniel replied. “I’ll see you.”

When the line went dead, Daniel felt like throwing his phone. Instead, he tucked it carefully back into his pocket.

Five minutes.

Daniel knew how much carnage could happen in five minutes. After his parents died, he’d studied enough criminal cases to know that an assassination took less than two seconds. The time it took for a bullet to end a life was far too small compared to the time it’d take for the police or Clark to get here.

He glanced at the wide-eyed carcass of Professor Jerry Thompson. The pride of the university’s new quantum computing research efforts now lay dead with half his back blown out behind him. A shotgun at close range made quite a mess. Daniel gagged again, found the sink in the lounge, and rinsed his mouth. A hissing suddenly came from under one of the coffee tables, and he frowned, bending to find a terrified Professor Franks fluttering her hands at him.

“He’s not going to be back,” Daniel said, but she only flattened further, even more terrified than before. She must have been in the room when it happened, but she looked unhurt.

Unable to do a thing for either of the people in this room, Daniel suddenly felt a very familiar distancing. Some coldly logical portion of his mind took a step back, away from all his emotions, his shaking knees, the scent of death all about him. Just as in the middle of a heavy scene, he could step away from his adrenaline, the pain of his client, the physical mess, and concentrate only on what he saw rather than what he felt. The body on the floor became so much dead meat. Thompson was gone, and he, Daniel, had something he needed to do.

Five minutes, and Daniel had already wasted thirty seconds of it putting himself back together.

Daniel walked to the door, accompanied by a positive teakettle of hissing from under the table, but he listened to the sounds beyond the room. Nothing to the left. Whimpers, moans, and running footsteps to the right, but the voices were loud. Even if the shooter was still to the right, there would be other bodies in the way. Daniel would still have the cover Clark asked him to find.

Opening the door, Daniel took a quick look, ducked back into the room, and thought about what he’d seen. Daniel walked out, and a wail followed him into the hallway. He slipped into the stream of undergraduate students jostling for the front door. As more gunshots rang out, Daniel slid into the security guard’s room.

The scent hit him, and he staggered, biting hard on his lip. The pain got Daniel centered, and he took one step into the room, looking for Bernard Wilson. It seemed an eternity ago that he’d seen Bernard at the wedding. Blood lay everywhere. Pooling and running from under the security desk all over the tile, and the blood was still...

Daniel sprinted around the desk, careful not to slip, pulling his belt from his waist. Bernard’s bulk lay sprawled on the floor. Blood spurted from a wound in his upper arm. Daniel fell to his knees, wrapped his belt above the wound, fed the end through the buckle, and pulled tight. Bernard screamed and awoke, thrashing.

Daniel held on, and only when the spurting stopped did he try to figure out how to buckle the belt on so that it would stay tight. He ended up stabbing the tongue through the leather. The bullet had gone through Bernard’s upper arm and not his thigh, or he would have bled out by now. Daniel put a bloody set of fingers to the thick throat to find that Bernard’s pulse fluttered like a hummingbird’s, so fast it was dizzying, but steady.

That was when he saw the gun belt around Bernard’s waist. The Smith and Wesson M&P .357 automatic sat there, heavy and solid. Daniel sighed, mentally apologized to Clark, unbuckled the gun belt from Bernard’s waist, and then looked up into Bernard’s brown eyes.

“I’m afraid I have to take this, Bernard.”

“Didn’t see nuthin’,” the wounded man whispered. “You get him, Danny. Right?”

“Right.”

Daniel strapped on the belt. The familiar weight brought back memories of the gun range and the academy test he’d taken with his childhood friends. When he’d passed, Daniel had realized he just couldn’t do the job that had killed his parents. Ironically, this time it felt right, and he knew what to do.

Unsnapping the strap that held the gun in place, Daniel pulled out the pistol, checked the thumb safety, and flicked it off. He touched the magazine release behind the trigger and let it fall into his hand. It was full, and he counted noses. Fifteen rounds. Daniel slid the magazine back into the gun with a solid
thunk
, and he chambered a round before he put the gun back into its holster.

A whisper as thin as thread, “Frank ‘n Maria’d be prouda you.”

Daniel gave Bernard a wry grin and nodded. “Thanks. See you at the next wedding.”

Bernard weakly chuckled. “Yeah.”

Pulling his shirt out from his pants, Daniel made sure it hid the rig underneath. A panicked crowd would react badly to the sight of another gun. When Daniel went out the door, the stream of people pushed him toward the exit. He went against the tide and nearly knocked a girl off her feet.

Glancing at her, Daniel realized it was Ashley, his RA. “Ash,” he said.

Ashley stared at him wide-eyed and then shrieked. “Dr. Germain! You... are you hurt?”

Daniel looked down at himself and realized that he had blood all over him from where he’d knelt to get the tourniquet onto Bernard. “No, no, that’s not mine.”

Someone pushed Ashley to get by her, and Daniel pulled her to the side of his own body so that she wouldn’t get pummeled. “You’re safe,” he breathed. “Where are the others?”

Tears spilled from Ashley’s eyes. “De... Derek’s... he’s upstairs in the... the...”

“The goddamned department picnic meeting,” Daniel said grimly. “Who else?”

“Anne got most of our sections out the windows. The glass cut... I saw... saw... Laurie’s... Laurie was ahead of me... out the classroom with... with...” Ashley sobbed. “She got her whole section out the emergency door before... before he... he shot her in the back, Professor Germain. She’s...”

Daniel shook her. “And Paul?”

“Out... he came out this way...”

“So you’re the last of my folks. Good job, Ashley. I need you to do me another favor.”

She nodded, gulping back sobs.

“Good girl. You can do it. I need you tell the ambulance guys that the security guard is right here, and he’s got a tourniquet on a gunshot wound. They need to get to him so he won’t lose the arm. You got it?”

Ashley nodded, suddenly clinging to him, and Daniel wrapped his arms around her. “Go on.”

“You’re not coming out, too?” she asked, incredulous.

“I have to check on Laurie.”

“And... and Derek?”

Daniel met Ashley’s wide eyes. “Yes. I’ll make sure he’s all right, too.”

She shuddered and then took another deep breath. “All... all right...”

“Go,” he said. Daniel put her in the stream of people and watched her walk into the sunlight.

He’s killing my kids.

Daniel took a breath and walked along the wall, against the chaotic flood of people. Anyone who looked up and saw his blood-drenched form stepped out of his way. Glancing into classrooms, Daniel saw the far windows shattered and the reassuring sight of blue lights spinning beyond. Limp bodies were being lifted out through the first-floor windows by others. Those people on the second floor wouldn’t be as lucky.

Knowing the killer had already gotten to the emergency exit, Daniel ran for the end of the hallway. Before he went around the corner, he stopped and checked around it with a quick glance. He saw Laurie lying on her front, black hair covering her face, a small hole just below her right shoulder, and blood on the floor all around her. He ran to her and touched her shoulder. She twitched, and Daniel started breathing again.

Turning her, Daniel saw the pink and white of bone through her right shoulder. The enormity of the exit wound made him gulp and swallow until he had his stomach under control. When several other students crept out of classrooms at the end of the hall, Daniel barked, “You and you, come here.”

The two male students came. Laurie’s injuries made the smaller one throw up, but when he stayed anyway, Daniel was impressed. He searched his brain for names. Jeffrey from Glow. Clark’s boy at the bar. The other was Aquila, a beautiful young Argentinean, brilliant at system modeling.

“She’s going on your back, Aquila,” Daniel said to the taller boy, who nodded at him. “Jeffrey, help me get her up.”

Daniel took Laurie’s injured side; it wasn’t as if more blood was going to make any difference. If they could get Laurie to the EMTs, she’d have a chance. The police wouldn’t risk personnel who couldn’t defend themselves until they had the killer locked down.

Together, Daniel and the students lifted Laurie, one arm under her shoulders, the other under her legs. Daniel bit his lower lip until it bled at the wrongness he felt when her shoulder moved, and she moaned, unconscious. He hated hurting her, but they had to support her, had to get her up. Her head flopped forward onto Aquila’s back, and Daniel wrapped her legs around the kid. Daniel pulled her arms over Aquila’s shoulders.