“Thirty rounds total, between both weapons.”
“Same here.” For once I’m glad I have this damned heavy vest on.
On the third floor, Dean Watson, a mall cop who happened to be using the restroom when the pandemonium began, peeked around the corner of the short hallway that led to them. He saw a young black man wearing a tan camouflage tactical vest, firing a large pistol. The man’s attention was on the up escalator in front of him. Weapon in hand, Watson moved quickly towards the shooter’s back. Just then, the shooter began a magazine change. Watson aimed at him center mass, and shouted, “Freeze!”
The shooter did freeze. Time seemed to stand still for a moment, then the shooter slid the action on the black semi-automatic pistol, and shouted, “Allahu Akbar!” as he turned quickly, arm extended, pistol coming around.
Watson fired two shots directly into the man’s chest, which knocked him down the metal stairs of the escalator. Then he turned his attention away from him, to see if there was any other threat nearby. He didn’t see any, but could hear shooting and screaming from every direction. What in the name of God is going on? he thought, as a bullet from a shot he didn’t even hear cracked through the back of his skull and entered his brain.
The shooter lay on the floor at the top of the escalator, holding his chest where Watson’s two bullets had struck his body-armor plate. He jumped to his feet and pursued a trio of young women who had just run into the entrance of a clothing store. Three shots from his black pistol put them on the floor, each woman shot in the back. A male store clerk rose from behind a display, hands in the air. “Please, don’t shoot!” he pleaded, as a single bullet entered his upper stomach.
The shooter turned, and shot a man in the back who tried to run out of the store’s entrance. He calmly walked back out of the store and, stepping over a body, he fired at a woman running away to his right pushing a stroller. As she fell, he heard a noise behind him and spun around quickly, to receive a .38 slug directly in the face.
The 20-something male shopper, who had picked up Watson’s weapon, stood frozen, watching what he had just done. The young black man’s head had jerked backward extraordinarily fast, and a fine mist of red had flown into the air above and beyond him. His body dropped quickly, his pistol clattering to the floor. Another man and woman slightly older than him ran up to the fallen shooter, both retired military. He stomped the bloody head several times, before bending to pick up the pistol. The woman with him quickly began the task of relieving him of the many loaded magazines still velcroed to him. She dumped out the contents of her canvas shopping bag onto the floor and put the remaining 18 mags into it, handing one to her husband. He held the large pistol in his right hand and the extra mag in his left. More gunshots rang out somewhere ahead, beyond the masses of running people, along the curved wall. The woman left only a single hand grenade with the dead man that she found in a large vest pocket, knowing not to touch it.
More shots and screams came from the same general direction, which appeared to be the entrance of a store two doors further down the way. The couple turned immediately in that direction and moved tight against the wall. “You coming?” he asked the 20-something.
“I’m getting the hell outta here!” he said, moving quickly for the down escalator.
***
Miller had watched the exchange at the top of the second set of escalators. He saw the young black shooter fall after being shot, then roll over and raise his weapon, firing again as the steps moved him up to floor level. “Their vests are armored!” he shouted to Clay, as he ran across the open space to the foot of the escalator. He crouched tight against the right side, weapon up and ready. As Clay ran to join him, a brown skinned man with a black beard appeared at the top of the second floor to fire at him. Before he could, Miller put a slug in his head. Two down.
Together they ran up the moving steps. Miller, thinking quickly, took the pistol out of the dead man’s hand, and stripped him of his vest. He made sure his badge would still be visible after sticking his left arm through a blood covered arm hole to carry it, and then moved tight to the wall opposite the open space. Clay, who had been covering him, followed. “Let’s go up one more to the top,” he said. “High ground advantage.”
“Right behind you.”
As they crouched once again, letting the stairs move them upwards quietly, the 20-something young man ran down the down escalator above them, and to the side. Seeing Miller crouched, with a gun in his hand, he stopped and raised Watson’s pistol. Clay saw that, and double tapped him. They continued up; the dead man continued down. As they reached the top, Miller lay down, letting the moving stairs push him onto the floor with his weapon in front of him.
“Freeze!” the ex-military man commanded as Miller appeared, gun first. Then he saw Miller’s badge and lowered his weapon slightly. “Why the hell did you shoot him? He was just trying to get out of here!”
Clay appeared next, horrified at what he’d just heard. “I had no way of knowing that!” he admitted. “He was drawing down on my partner here.”
“Move!” Miller said, pointing to the wall. The four of them moved as one to safety, covering both directions. “Do you know how to shoot?” he asked the woman carrying the canvas bag.
“Yes. Ex-military,” she answered confidently.
Miller handed her his backup gun, a police issue weapon, and the spare mag. It was a .380, larger than the .22 magnum that the woman’s husband had taken from the terrorist. More shots rang out from the store down the way. Miller headed in that direction, tight against the wall. Clay followed him, one step away from the wall, weapon up. The woman was tight against the wall, covering behind them. Her husband was one step away from the wall, back to back with Clay. As their formation moved to the first of the windows of the store, Miller saw a lone shooter, outfit exactly as the others, pursuing a small crowd of shoppers, dropping them one by one. He signaled with his left hand to crouch and run, and as their formation cleared the doorway, Miller and Clay fired two shots apiece in quick succession, dropping the shooter. Miller shot the head; Clay shot the legs. They’d already had that planned.
Clay took the weapon as well as the vest, putting it on but not fastening it, so his chest and back were protected. They instructed the people in the store to run to the back room, lock the door and stay there until further instructions. Going back into formation, they exited that store, headed in the same direction. They passed two shops with scared people hiding behind everything. Miller gave them hand signals to stay put and stay down by closing his fist and pumping his arm up and down. Suddenly, a young woman outfitted the same as the others, came running out of the next shop ahead of them. Miller put two in her face, but Clay stood frozen. Their formation moved inside the shop, where every person was on the floor, either dead or gravely wounded, with one gunshot wound apiece. As soon as they cleared the small shop, Miller turned to Clay. “What the hell was that? You don’t hesitate. Do you hear me? I don’t care if it’s a kid. If they can fire on others, they can die for it! Do. You. Understand?”
“Yeah. Sure. But it was just a girl—”
“Who would’ve killed you just as dead as any man, if she’d had the chance,” the ex-military woman added, pissily. She equipped herself with the shooter’s weapon and gear and, after giving Miller back his unfired weapon, they moved on.
From the main floor, a man’s voice shouted, “Halt!” There was a three-person tactical formation with long guns pointed at them. They all froze, with hands up.
Miller yelled, “Police!” and, when instructed, showed his badge. The man who had spoken before twirled one forefinger in the air, telling them to continue. He silently signaled that they were moving in the opposite direction. As Miller indicated to his group to move, the rifles below all barked loudly, dropping a shooter on the floor directly beneath them. Right then, all of the steel curtains on the storefronts began coming down at once. It appeared that the terrorists had been trained for this to happen, and the
y all jumped outside the stores immediately. That was when all-out war began. That was also when the remaining shooters threw their second grenades into the stores and shops, just before the screens were all of the way down.
Miller’s group on the third floor and the mall’s counter-terrorism Special Ops team on the first floor began firing at will. This is stupid! Miller thought as the shooters began walking directly at them while firing. They didn’t try to take cover, and they didn’t try to retreat, they just walked into the fire and died. None of them surrendered. Suddenly, the gunfire stopped. Nothing could be heard except the screams of the wounded and frightened.
The mall Special Ops, from the center of the main court, shouted instructions for everyone to shelter in place, and assist the wounded. The two teams moved as quickly as possible to clear each floor. As they were almost finished, they could hear sirens approaching from all directions.
Chapter 15
Dharma & Jade
Hamtramck, Michigan
Tuesday, March 8th, 2016
At the same time, Dharma searched for a HERO Cast signature transmission coming from the Mall Of America. FCC Licensed spectrum (1.9-2.7 GHz) is required to use the HERO Cast broadcast system. In mere seconds, she had found one.
“Jade! Check this out. There’s a wireless hotspot transmitting HD video from two different GoPro Hero 4 cameras through a mini-web server. These have to be the drones that Detective Miller was talking about. What the fuck are these guys up to? Here’s the IP address…”
“Oh, my God, Dharma! I can’t watch this,” Jade sputtered, blasting vomit all over the floor next to her desk.
It was apparent that at least two individuals, close enough for RF signal, were flying the drones. They maneuvered the one inside skillfully, high above the rotunda, following shooter after shooter on the second and third floors as they unceremoniously shot shopper after shopper. Dharma immediately sent the IP address to the mall's Special Operations Security Captain, in hopes that he would take the hint and look. He did. After determining that there were, in fact, multiple active shooters on floors two and three, he implemented the enhanced counterterrorism capabilities and lowered the steel curtains to every store and restaurant in the mall with a single voice command to his Android phone. It worked exactly like the 2010 TLC series Mall Cops: Mall of America had shown, to lock down the mall. That action saved thousands of lives. Many thousands.
***
Dharma hit the hotkey command for screen capture and began recording the feed from inside the mall while she watched it, thinking furiously about what to do next. “Are you okay, babe?” she asked Jade.
“Yeah, that just seriously freaked my shit out! How can people do that to other people?”
“Beats me. Hey, can you send that IP to Jermane Williams and Kat ‘n’ Julie?”
“On it,” Jade answered, glad to have something positive to do.
“There are literally piles of bodies in every exit foyer, at the top of every up escalator, and the bottom of every down escalator. Whoever is flying this thing keeps switching between shooters and bodies. A ton of people are still alive in those piles, crawling around on the floor leaving blood trails.
“Wait! There’s a dead shooter. Female. And another a little ways forward. Male. Middle Eastern. Second floor. Another one! Black male. Third floor. Yuck. Shot in the face…
“Holy CRAP Jade! There’s Detective Miller leading three other people with guns on the third floor. They’re fighting back against these bastards! Do you still have the cell number for Miller’s partner here in Hamtramck?”
“Uh, yeah. I should. On it!”
“There are three SWAT looking guys on the first floor now with rifles. Must be counter-terrorist agents from mall Special Ops. They’re clearing out everyone who can run from the first floor, and returning fire at the shooters above who are firing on them.”
“You still capturing it all?” Jade asked.
“Inside only. I can’t get both.”
“Sorry, I’m a wuss. I can’t watch.”
“Dude don’t, I won’t ever be able to unsee this. Can you flip on the TV to a national news channel?” Dharma asked.
“Got it. Looks like there’s one live feed from a helicopter. Shows masses of people running out of all exits and into the parking garage.”
“Will you send that IP to Marie Krantz?”
“On it!”
“And that announcement they played, from my phone?”
“Yep.”
***
“Crap. Somebody must’ve shot down the drone. It’s on the floor somewhere now. I can just see feet running. I’m cutting over to the one outside,” Dharma said.
“Are the cops showing up out there yet?”
“Nada. Not a single flasher to be seen. I bet they’re all at the Islamic Center, on the other side of the highway. Man, these bastards set this thing up just a little too well. They timed the two events perfectly, so as to get every first responder of any kind over there!
“There’s a lot of people running out still... It looks like a big percentage of them are injured... Those that aren’t are helping someone who is... It looks like people are loading the injured into cars, and taking them out of there. Hopefully to a hospital.”
Jade came back to Dharma’s side and put her arm around her shoulder. She could barely understand her for the sobbing.
Chapter 16
TH Donald
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Wednesday, March 9th, 2016
“This is Marie Krantz, coming to you live, outside of a hospital (we were asked not to name it) in Wisconsin, where presidential hopeful TH Donald has been taken after being shot. Yesterday, right after his rally nearby, a pair of gunmen mixed in the crowd yelled ‘Allahu Akbar’, and then fired on him. I’m told that he is in stable condition and that his wounds are not life-threatening. I’m told that one bullet hit his left shoulder, and the other hit squarely on the body armor chest plate he wore beneath his suit.
“In a move that surprised everyone, Mr. Donald, a concealed carry permit holder himself, drew his own weapon and returned fire, even as Secret Service agents rushed to protect him after the initial shots were fired. Multiple private citizens in the crowd shot and killed the assassins before they could fire at Mr. Donald again, or anyone else.”
The male anchor back at the newsroom said, “I know Marie; it was fortunate. I have to say, though, I’ve always thought that this Republican candidate was inviting trouble by insisting that his rallies not be gun-free zones. Today we saw firsthand—”
“Today you saw firsthand what it takes to stop a bad guy with a gun!” Marie Krantz fired back.
Her response and the fire in her words left the male anchor stunned.
“And what was that?” he asked, after his producer insisted in his ear, that he keep her talking about this.
“A good guy with a gun,” Marie snapped back promptly.
“But… but… It wasn’t the police!”
“We all saw what happened in Minnesota yesterday too, Larry,” she said and rolled her eyes at him. “What if more good guys with guns had been in there to help stop the terrorists at Mall of America? That’s what gun free zones get us!”
“I… uh….”
***
At the same time, inside the hospital, the camera pulled in tight, framing his solemn looking face close up, as he said:
“Good evening America. This is Jermane Williams, in a hospital room somewhere in Wisconsin, bringing you an exclusive live stream interview with Mr. TH Donald, who is stable after being shot at a presidential primary rally here last evening, beginning what turned out to be an evening of pure horror for Americans everywhere.”
The camera zoomed out enough so that he could be seen standing beside the hospital bed of TH Donald, who looked a little pale, and was surrounded by equipment with blinking lights and tubes and monitors everywhere.
“Mr. Donald, first, I have to say that I’m so glad that y
ou’re alright, sir. What a terrible ordeal you’ve been through! In light of the horrible, horrible incidents in Minnesota, and you yourself being shot in Wisconsin at roughly the same time yesterday, in seemingly coordinated terrorist attacks, what would you like for America to know, besides that you will be alright?” Williams asked him. “Will this affect you continuing your candidacy?”
“In answer to your second question; hell no it won’t affect it. All they’ve done is make me mad now! Secondly, I want to know who the brave Americans were, that while exercising their Second Amendment right to bear arms, took out both of those lousy cowards in the crowd. If they hadn’t, I’m not so sure that I’d still around talk to you! I want to thank them, in person, when I get out of here.
“As for the rest of America, how about this?”
Donald turned himself directly at the camera, which zoomed in to frame only his face. He cleared his throat and put on that ‘looking over the imaginary glasses’ look.
“Alright dammit! That’s just about enough of this crap! It’s time for the American Majority to remind everybody that we are still in charge here and that these Muslim jihadists must be stopped! Like. Right. Now!
“I know the left will get their panties all up in knots because I said this, and because I’m speaking plainly. Frankly, I don’t care. They’ll say that my reckless words are dangerous, and could provoke trouble or something. Ya think? Folks, it’s way past time to worry about whose feelings we hurt, or who we make mad at this point. I mean, we have our President standing in a mosque, just prior to a total massacre of innocent women and children for God’s sake, by radical Islamic terrorists, telling us to go hug a Muslim and everything will be alright! Everything is not alright! We can no longer allow him, to allow them, to keep doing this to us! No more!”
***
Outside the hospital: “... more breaking news. We have audio, captured by a cell phone, of an announcement made from a drone that the terrorists were flying inside the Mall of America just prior to the attack. I have to warn you, this is chilling!” Krantz said. “Here we go.”
WAKING THE MAJORITY (Anonymous Justice Book 4) Page 9
