Staying Alive (2 page)

It wasn’t impossible that he was outside amid the throng of students. A couple of minutes were required for every single student to be counted. If so, someone would notice that he was out of place and escort him to his own group.

Just when her heart was about to rupture with fear, Mr. Allen’s walkie-talkie crackled. “Mr. Allen, Claire Grant is inside the building looking for Peter Reimes. Let her know he’s with his group now. He came out with the music class.”

Relief rushed through her and her knees wobbled just a bit. “Thank God.”

Mr. Allen, acknowledging the reaction, patted her shoulder gently. “It’s all right now. You get back to your group and I’ll finish checking this wing.”

She nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Claire trudged back outside, ignoring the continuing drizzle.

However bad she’d thought her morning had been, the rest of her day had just taken a major bad turn. Even the mere thought of losing a child tore her apart…made her second-guess the most basic of her teaching skills.

Darlene offered her a hang-in-there smile across the damp quad as Claire rejoined her students.

She surveyed her group and said a silent prayer of thanks as she caught her breath. The kids were okay and that was all that counted in the end.

By two that afternoon her world was back to normal. Claire doubted her blood pressure would be back below stroke range anytime soon, but it
would fall eventually. The mere idea of having one of her students left inside the building during an actual emergency situation still took her breath away. It would be days before she stopped obsessing on the horrific notion.

Thank God there hadn’t been a fire or any other threatening situation.

The alarm had reacted to an anomaly in the system, whatever that meant. All Claire knew for certain was that it hadn’t been a planned drill; it had been a mistake.

Peter had bounced back after a carton of apple juice. As she suspected, his sugar level had dropped and he’d put off taking care of the situation until he briefly lost consciousness. He didn’t like that he needed to monitor his levels. A typical man in the making, he assumed he could get through the low without asking for help.

With less than an hour to go, her students, who had all changed from their damp clothes into their gym attire, had settled back into their work. Instead of reading aloud this afternoon, she’d decided to have quiet, individual reading time. She could catch up on the lesson planning she’d missed during the unintended fire drill.

Like her, most of the teachers kept a change of clothes at school. Working with kids this age had taught her long ago to expect most anything.

Her hair, much to her dismay, had coiled into its natural abundance of unruly curls. The ponytail barely restrained the wild mass. She spent at least a half hour every morning smoothing the kind of mane others paid stylists top dollar to create.

Not Claire. She had always hated her naturally curly hair. Almost as much as she loathed her full figure. It wasn’t that she was fat, exactly. Darlene called her curvaceous.

Claire worked out. She really did. And she ate right…except for the chocolate. It was her one major downfall. There were far worse bad habits, she reminded herself on a regular basis. And, the fact of the matter was, all the women in the Grant family were healthy-sized…so to speak.

You couldn’t fight genetics.

Scuffling in the hall snapped her back to the present and jerked her head up. She was on her feet and moving toward the door before the possible sources of the sounds fully penetrated. Once in a while some of the boys came to blows, but not that often. She was shocked that anyone had been allowed in the hall long enough to get into trouble after the watery fire drill.

She turned the knob and pulled the door open far enough to ease out of the room. She’d just gotten her students settled. Whoever was making
all the ruckus was going to get a glimpse of her less-than-pleasant side. “What’s going on—?”

The rest of the words evaporated in her throat as her brain analyzed what her eyes saw.

Two men wearing black ski masks had Mr. Allen trapped against the wall, a gun to his head.

Fear throttled through Claire. Before her brain even gave the order she had already pushed the door closed behind her in hopes of somehow protecting her students.

An arm came around her throat and jerked her backward against a hard body.

“Don’t make a sound.”

The threat was whispered against her ear.

Her gaze met Mr. Allen’s and she saw the extreme fear that mirrored her own.

“Bring him into this room,” the man holding her ordered.

The two thugs jerked Mr. Allen away from the wall and started toward Claire.

…this room.

They meant her room.

“No. We can’t go in there. My students—”

Fingers twisted in her hair and yanked her head back. “Shut up!” he hissed in her ear.

Her captor opened the classroom door and shoved her inside.

“Lay your heads down!” Claire ordered, barely
catching herself from the momentum of his brutal push. She didn’t want her kids to see this. The terror she felt was nothing compared with what their impressionable minds would experience. “Lay your heads down!” she repeated. The longer she could put off their panic the better.

Heads went down onto folded arms. She let go a ragged breath and thanked God that they had obeyed quickly enough that they wouldn’t witness the horrible scene unfolding around them. The three masked men entered the room with Mr. Allen in tow. Claire kept a close eye on her students, hoping their curiosity wouldn’t have them peeking.

She should have known better than to hope.

“Down on the floor,” the goon in charge growled to Mr. Allen.

A single gasp ignited a rush of wide, curious eyes peeking above little arms.

That was when the screaming began.

C
laire moved from student to student attempting to calm them down.

The man who appeared to be in charge pointed at her. “You. Come here.”

He leveled his weapon on her as she approached. It was difficult for her to draw in a breath, much less put one foot in front of the other.

When she stopped about four feet away she looked him straight in the eye. “Yes?” Somehow her anger had overtaken her fear. Or maybe she’d gone numb or stupid with the business end of that automatic rifle pointed at her heart.
Whatever it was, she hated this man for scaring the children like this.

What kind of animal terrorized children?

“Move everyone to the back of the room.”

He gestured to the area behind the children’s desks, where a long window that filled most of the wall looked out over the inner quad. Claire blinked in disbelief. She hadn’t noticed until then that the police were already on the campus. Beyond the inner quad, just past the drop-off point, at least a dozen official vehicles had gathered in the front courtyard of Whitesburg Middle School.

She turned back to the man doling out the instructions and nodded her understanding. He was taller than the other three, but slight, not nearly as heavily built. His voice, though mean and uncaring, sounded young.

“Line up as many of the children as possible on the window stool with their backs to the room. Do what you must to keep them quiet.”

Her heart thumped hard at the oddness of his request. “Why?”

Cold black eyes glared at her. “Do it or die.”

Somehow the order to move made it from her brain to her legs and she took the necessary steps to follow his order. As she moved back across the room she glanced at Mr. Allen. One of the masked men had
secured him to the chair behind Claire’s desk with what looked like yellow nylon rope. The bindings were clearly too tight. Her heart went out to him.

What did these men want? Why were they doing this? Why her school?

She scolded herself for letting the questions splinter her attention. She had to keep her head about her.

One by one she ushered the children to the back of the room. “Help me move the projects and plants, okay?” She had lined the window stool with plants that the children helped water and projects that had been completed recently.

“What’s happening, Miss Grant?” Kira Hall stared up at her, her hazel eyes round with worry. “Why are those men wearing masks and holding guns?”

“I’m not sure, Kira. Let’s just do what they tell us to do and be very quiet. I think everything will be okay if we do that.”

Claire prayed she wasn’t lying to the child.

Please, God, don’t let this turn out badly.

Once the window stool was cleared, she assisted one child after the other onto the wide marble ledge. “Face out the window,” she told them quietly. They would be better off not seeing whatever was about to happen in this room.

By the time she’d reached the other end of the
window, her entire class stood on that ledge staring out at the cluster of law enforcement vehicles.

Claire chewed her lip. Maybe this was worse than sitting in their desks staring at those men. She just didn’t know. Seeing those police cars out there would only alarm the children all the more.

“You!”

She pivoted to look at the man, the one she presumed to be in charge.

“Come here.”

“Stay very still and quiet, boys and girls,” she said once more, her voice as soothing as she could make it. Then, with a deep breath for courage, she walked back to her desk where the three men waited.

“Go through each backpack and purse, including your own, and remove any cellular phones. Bring them here to me.”

Few of her students had cell phones but she knew she would find one or two. She nodded. “All right.” Her gaze met the principal’s briefly as she turned to do her captor’s bidding. The image of the children lined up in that window, their backs turned to the hateful intruders, had her stomach dropping to her feet.

It was at that exact moment that she realized the purpose of putting the children in the window.

The realization made her heart follow the path her stomach had already taken.

The window stool was about forty inches off the floor and the window towered another five feet above that. There were no drapes or blinds to draw.

He was using the children to block the view into the room. And, probably, as a reminder of what was at stake. No way could a sniper attempt to take out any of the bad guys with the children lining the window. It was too risky.

These evil men had considered every contingency.

But why?

As she checked the backpacks hanging on a line of hooks mounted on the wall that divided her room from the hall, she wondered again why this school had been chosen. Why her classroom? Was it simply because she’d stepped into the hall at the wrong time? Or was there some other reason she just didn’t comprehend yet.

Peter Reimes. A new jolt of fear shook her. His father was a state representative who took an aggressive stance on fighting terrorism. His name and face would be known to men like these. His family would be an easy target.

She couldn’t be sure…but it was the only theory that made sense so far.

The men spoke perfect English. Were these men terrorists in the most-prevailing sense of the word or were they just thugs?

By the time she’d reached the final backpack she’d discovered five cell phones. Her first instinct was to keep one. Somehow attempt to hide it in the pocket of her slacks. But if she was discovered, it could cost her more than she wanted to pay. The way things looked, it wasn’t like she would get the opportunity to use it. The chances of all three men stepping out of the room at once was about nil and if she turned on the phone and entered 9–1-1, the operator’s voice would give her away. And that wasn’t even counting the one man watching her every move. She might not be restrained the way Mr. Allen was, but she by no means had free rein. The leader knew the best way to use her to keep the children quiet. If she appeared under control, the children would respond better.

So she took the phones and placed them on the desk. She purposely avoided going around behind the desk to get the one in her purse. Maybe he wouldn’t notice that she hadn’t done that. Maybe he would assume her purse had been in one of the backpacks. Plenty of teachers carried backpacks, too.

“Remove the one from your purse,” he instructed when she met his gaze.

So much for that plan. She crouched next to Mr. Allen and reached into her purse. She took the phone and placed it on the desk with the others.

“What do you want me to do now?”

He gestured to the window filled with children. “Stay close to your students. Ensure that no one makes a mistake that would get him or her killed.”

Fear barbed ruthlessly. Still, she managed a nod before going off to do his bidding. Right now cooperation was essential.

Resuming her position in the row of children, who remained surprisingly quiet, Claire turned to face her desk. She didn’t want her back to these men. Whatever happened next, she wanted to see it coming.

The man giving all the orders used the muzzle of his weapon to slide Claire’s phone across her desk to Mr. Allen. “We’re going to make a call and you’re going to do the talking for us. Do you understand?”

Mr. Allen nodded, the movement jerky.

Claire thought about how he’d had a heart attack last year. The red blotches amid the pallor of his face had her worried. But what could she do?

Nothing.

The man in charge nodded to one of his associates who picked up Claire’s phone and entered a number before placing the phone against Mr. Allen’s ear.

“Identify yourself and state your situation.”

“This is Principal Dale Allen from Whitesburg Middle School,” he said. “Approximately twenty fifth-grade students, a teacher, Miss Claire Grant, and I have been taken hostage by what I believe to be a group of three terrorists.”

Shock rumbled through Claire. Terrorists? She looked at first one man then the next and the next. Were these terrorists promoting some cause or was this about money? Were they foreigners? She couldn’t see their faces. Their voices sounded as American as her own. She’d already considered the concept that this was a terrorist act…but somehow hearing Mr. Allen say it made it more real. Mr. Allen kept up with the ongoing terrorist threats of the world. He would have a better grasp than she.

What could they hope to accomplish for their cause at her school? It didn’t make sense. Kidnapping a state representative’s child wouldn’t carry the kind of worldwide leverage terrorists usually went after…would it? Sure, the Reimes name was one associated with antiterrorism, but was that enough to cause these men to promote their agenda in this manner?

She surveyed the students to ensure no one had turned to face the threat or had moved out of position.

“Tell them,” the man instructing Mr. Allen went on, “that we wish to speak directly with State Representative Paul Reimes.”

Reimes.
Claire’s gaze settled on the back of Peter Reimes’s head. So they were here about him. Again, she wondered if this was a kidnapping gone wrong. Maybe they weren’t terrorists. Maybe this was about money.

Mr. Allen repeated the demand as instructed.

Claire’s attention shifted from the boy to the scene playing out at the front of the room.

“The secretary says State Representative Reimes is out of the office but they’re trying to track him down.”

Claire’s heart bumped into a faster rhythm. What would these men do now? She sidestepped, taking her time so as not to draw the attention of the third man who now loitered in the middle of the room watching his comrades. She stopped dead in her tracks when he turned to survey her and the children.

When he turned back to his friends, she moved right a couple more steps until she stood directly in front of Peter Reimes.

“Find him,” Allen echoed the leader’s words. “Tell him to call this number immediately.” Mr. Allen blinked, looked confused a moment. “She wants to know what number she should call.”

The leader swung his cold gaze toward Claire. “What is the number?”

She called out her cell number without hesitation.

Mr. Allen repeated it.

The man holding her phone closed it, ending the call.

“Very good, Mr. Allen,” the man—no, the
terrorist
—in charge offered. “Continue to do exactly as I tell you and perhaps you will survive this day.”

Claire felt herself tremble. She tried to suppress the reaction but she couldn’t keep her body still.

This was not the kind of event you survived.

Oh, God.

“Where are the other kids going?”

Claire pivoted to the boy who’d spoken. Several of the other students began to talk all at once and point out the window.

“Quiet, boys and girls.” She strained to see the scene outside. Sure enough, children from the rooms in the rest of this wing were pouring across the quad. They rushed to meet the policemen.

Not just policemen, SWAT team members. Claire recognized the all-black combat gear, including the helmets. The realization that SWAT had been called in confirmed what she had already concluded.

They were going to die.

No. She squared her shoulders and refused to allow another tremble. They were not going to die.

These were children. She scanned the poor
kids watching their schoolmates run to safety. She couldn’t bear the thought of even one of them being hurt.

The door to her classroom flew open, drawing her thoughts back to the front.

“The other rooms have been cleared,” a fourth man dressed in black and wearing a ski mask announced. He closed the door and, rather than join his friends at Claire’s desk, remained at the door.

Were there more or was this it? Each man was armed with an automatic rifle. The fourth man spoke with the same smooth English as the others, maybe just the slightest hint of an accent but too vague for her to identify.

“Miss Grant, I’m tired.”

She spun quickly to scrutinize Peter Reimes who looked sickly pale. “Did you take your medicine this morning?” Usually he didn’t have this much trouble keeping his level steady.

He nodded. “But I still don’t feel good.”

All the excitement was having an adverse affect on his blood-sugar level. He would need food or juice.

“I don’t feel good either,” Penny Myers echoed.

Claire had to get this chain reaction under control before every single child started complaining. Antagonizing these men would not be helpful to their situation.

“Settle down, boys and girls. We have to be very quiet,” she said firmly.

She patted Peter’s arm. “I’ll find you something to snack on. That should help.” Then she turned to face the front of the room. “This child,” she said, deliberately not mentioning his name, “is diabetic. He needs a snack. May I look in the backpacks for something edible?”

The man in charge gestured to his cohort, the one standing in the middle of the room keeping an eye on Claire and the kids. The man strode over to where the backpacks hung and started rifling through them.

Claire’s cell phone vibrated, making a grinding sound against the top of her desk.

“Answer it.”

One of the goons picked up the phone, opened it and held it against the principal’s ear. “This is Principal Allen.” He looked up at the man who gave the orders. “It’s State Representative Reimes.”

The other man finished searching the backpack and abruptly thrust a pack of snack crackers at Claire. Her hand shaking, she reached out and took the small package. “Thank you.”

The man didn’t respond. He stalked back to his position. She quickly opened the crackers and passed the package to Peter. Then she moved down the length of the window and made soothing comments
to the rest of her students in hopes of keeping them calm. As she did, she took every opportunity to survey the goings-on beyond the drop-off area.

Were they planning a rescue attempt?

How in the world would they be able to do that? There was no access to the room other than the one door and this one long window. The emergency exit was actually an operational section of window at the southeast corner of the room. The rest of the window was sealed shut. Even if someone managed to open that emergency exit, no more than one or two of the children would be able to escape before the man watching them noticed.