Three of the homegrown terrorists, Billy Koval, Milton Jordan, and Danny Woods, shouldered through the congested rotunda and rushed down the hallway to secure the north entrance overlooking the sheriff’s office. Their faces were concealed by ski masks that looked like skulls.
The remaining attackers dumped their first load of equipment in the middle of the rotunda floor and charged back outside, knowing they had but a few minutes to unload as much as possible from the horse trailer before first responders could mount a defense.
* * *
Mr. Beck Terrill heard a commotion in the hallway as he stepped out of the restroom, a place he needed more and more as the years passed. He found himself staring down the muzzle of a dangerous-looking firearm and his mouth went dry.
The man threatening him with an M4 issued orders in Spanish. “Manos arribas!”
The old veteran raised his hands as other armed men rushed past. “I’m a-doin’ it.”
“Síguelos. Muévete!”
Terrill remained where he was, his hands in the air.
The lower half of the man’s face was hidden by a bright blue bandana. He jerked his head toward the men dressed in tactical clothing of various styles, some with faces hidden by bandanas and ski masks. Four of them wore headgear that Terrill recognized as wrappings favored by Muslim terrorists.
Shemagh popped into his head and he grunted in disgust. “Can’t remember the name of my favorite brand of sausage, but I know what them damned rags are called.”
Bandana grabbed his shoulder. “Siguelos!”
“All right. I don’t follow the lingo. Simmer down. You speak English? Hablas Inglés?”
“No. Muévete!”
Terrill realized he couldn’t hesitate any longer. “Good. You oughta file the front sight off that rifle when you get a chance, ’cause it won’t hurt as bad when I shove it up your ass later.”
He fell in behind other stunned hostages herded by their disguised captors.
Chapter 14
“No one’s answering nine one one!” The woman’s shrill, terror-filled voice stopped when DeVaca kicked open the wood and glass door to the tax office. He paused in front of a plump secretary, who glanced up from her phone with wide eyes.
DeVaca glanced down at a photo in his hand and spoke first. “You’re not Katie Bright.”
Terrified, she held the phone to her ear. Gunshots echoed in the hall, and she yelped. “No.” Her eyes flicked to Dorothy, whose face was obscured by the hijab.
He noted the nameplate on her desk. “Carlita, that’s too bad.”
He drew the Glock and shot her in the forehead.
The report slapped the walls as a fine red mist splattered the shelves behind her. Carlita’s arms flapped in a bizarre backstroke and one leg pushed hard, rolling her chair back as if she wanted to stand.
On the other side of the office, a young woman shrieked and did the smart thing. She raised her hands. DeVaca dropped the photo on the floor. “Katie Bright?”
Both her hands and voice trembled. “Yes.”
He pointed. “That one.”
Dorothy started forward at the same instant a door at the rear of the office slammed open.
* * *
Judge Dollins was in what he considered his “satellite” office where he could work without climbing up and down the stairs all day. He sometimes rode the ancient elevator but conceded that he needed the exercise, so he used the stairs despite his knees to quiet his wife and the girls in the office. Sometimes, though, he couldn’t bear to do either, so he used the tiny room in back of the tax office.
He dropped his Montblanc at the report of automatic weapon fire somewhere in the building and listened, making sure he wasn’t hearing things. Frightened voices coming from the tax office confirmed his mental faculties were intact. Yanking off his reading glasses, the judge jerked open the top right-hand drawer of his borrowed desk and grabbed a Taurus Ultralite revolver he kept there for just such an incident.
He’d dealt with plenty of angry citizens through the years, and had always expected some nut to do more than shout and make threats. Even though the sheriff’s office was right across the street, he knew it’d be up to him and the .38 to protect himself and his girls until someone with a badge arrived.
Another slap of a gunshot told him the Crazy Person was in his outer office. Overweight and out of shape, Dollins didn’t feel his knees pop when he rose and rushed through the door, intending to shoot the Crazy Person as soon as he saw him.
He yanked the wooden door open and pushed through to find his fury vanish at the sight of Carlita sprawled in her chair, the back of her head destroyed by a massive exit wound. The judge’s mouth went coppery at the sight of four terrorists with automatic weapons.
He knew he was outgunned, but surprise was on his side.
Out of practice and frightened, he shot one-handed and too fast with his little snub-nosed revolver. The round passed between the terrorists and buried itself in the door facing.
He jerked the trigger again.
* * *
Wicked and Dorothy were caught unawares when the imposing figure of a large man appeared in the doorway of his office and started blazing away with a pistol. Two of the shots missed.
The big man fired a third time and behind DeVaca, Tom Jordan ooofed, stumbling backward.
DeVaca glanced around to see one of his homegrown terrorists slam against a filing cabinet. Of course, bullets would find someone else, because he was destined to live and do great things.
Dorothy pointed her H&K and fired at the same time DeVaca opened up with the Scorpion. The swarm of bullets ended the big man’s response. He fell back into his office and lay still in a growing pool of blood.
Shaking, Richard Carver knelt beside Jordan. “Tom, you hit bad?”
The white-faced American-born terrorist took a deep, shuddering breath. “Vest. He hit me in the vest and that saved me.”
“Come on!” Carver helped him up and they bracketed Katie Bright. Angry and scared, Carver leaned in to the crying woman. “Don’t fight, and you’ll be fine. We have this planned down to a T.”
Disgusted that they were talking and not acting, Dorothy elbowed Jordan out of the way, pushed between them, and grabbed a handful of Katie’s blond hair. She jerked the young woman off balance. “Come on, bitch!”
* * *
A shrill voice down the hall screamed and screamed and screamed. The shriek that could have been male or female ended with the flat report of a single gunshot that sounded like a firecracker. Several more in quick succession told even the most clueless that something more serious than fireworks was making that noise.
The Ballard courthouse drew up a crisis plan after 9/11, but it was only a dim memory of a one-sheet handout distributed two days after the towers fell in New York. However, it never addressed the first critical moments of an assault other than to “shelter in place.”
In other offices throughout the building, a few quick-thinking workers attempted to do just that by barricading themselves in a workroom. Had the takeover been orchestrated by a single active shooter, the shelter-in-place concept might have been successful, or at least bought them some time.
The attack wasn’t a lone gunman wandering through a building after targets of opportunity, though. The authors of the shelter-in-place plan never expected twenty armed professionals operating under a strategic plan.
Chapter 15
Dorothy yanked Katie along, still bracketed by Carver and Jordan. Jordan’s mouth was twisted into a painful grimace as he applied more pressure than necessary on Katie’s arms. Instead of shoving her into the growing crowd of frightened hostages on the rotunda floor, Dorothy led the trio toward the open elevator.
The corner of DeVaca’s mouth rose, and he shifted the short Scorpion in his arms as he watched Katie stumble between the men, bent almost double by the pressure on her arms. He preferred the stubby little machine gun for close-quarter work, but had provided the others with Co
lt M4s he’d bought from a man who worked with the CIA.
The twist was beautiful and ironic.
DeVaca adjusted the glasses on his nose. His people were still herding the last of the hostages toward the two staircases on either side of the rotunda. “This is taking too long! I need this floor clear right now!”
The rotunda cleared and the southern doors slammed open once again. DeVaca’s people lined up, passing metal cases from the rear of the open van backed as close as possible against the double doors. Icy wind sucked through the opening, dropping the interior temperature.
* * *
District Attorney Todd Calvert trudged through the snow toward the courthouse, late for work because of the falling weather. For once his titanium legs were coming in handy. Diabetes had taken them from the knees down six years earlier and he’d learned to walk again with a slow, deliberate gait.
At least my feet aren’t cold.
Living with his disability was better than bitching and moaning about it for the rest of his life. Tieless for the first time in months, he wasn’t in any hurry, confident Judge Dollins would shut the building down by noon. He was looking forward to settling into his chair in the den after dinner, sipping Glenlivet and enjoying a rare afternoon off.
Calvert remembered his son Mark was inside with his class and he grinned at the idea of the stodgy courthouse coming to life with young energy for a couple of hours. Because of the snow, the kids would be bouncing off the walls with excitement.
The smile disappeared at the sight of the conversion van backed up to the door. He wondered if someone might be servicing the heating system, but damn they’d pulled up close, and besides, it wasn’t a panel van. He was relieved to see he had enough room to squeeze past. Had it been blocked, he’d have been forced to walk around the corner and into the teeth of the steady north wind.
The muffled sound of gunfire rolled through the open doors, and he stopped.
“Shit!”
His son. The kids.
Calvert assumed a lone gunman was inside. His instinct was to drop to one knee, forgetting that those days were long gone. Instead, he balanced his briefcase in the palm of his left hand, using it as a rickety platform. Fingers trembling, he snapped the latches open and withdrew a Glock 19. Calvert pitched the briefcase aside, not caring about the papers that scattered in the snow. He sidled to the right, trying to see around the van. His stiff foot caught and he stumbled.
Recovering his balance, he braced his legs and readied the weapon. He’d practiced on a homemade range in the desert dozens of times, but no amount of conventional shooting prepared him for the man that appeared with a firearm pointed in his direction.
Unlike the times Calvert popped away at paper targets, adrenaline flooded his system. The sights that were steady on the zombie target shook like a leaf. Calvert shot first, but missed. The +P bullet punched a hole in the van’s side with a hollow, metallic chink. He sidestepped, lost his balance, and shot too fast, missing again.
That’s when two streams of automatic weapons fire answered. Hot lances of pain exploded in his chest and torso. A round slapped his titanium shin and knocked him down, whining away as he fell, landing hard on his face.
He didn’t feel the icy crystals against his cheek. Calvert blinked a couple of times to clear his vision. Still game, and with the genetic programming of all humans to protect their children, he struggled to raise his pistol. Bullets stitched the ground around him, sending bursts of black dirt and dead grass into the air.
Several of the rounds found flesh and the DA stilled.
Chapter 16
The sheriff’s office on the east side of the courthouse was much too modern for most people’s taste even when they put it up in 1950. Opposite in style from the magnificent courthouse a hundred yards away, the uninspiring glass and brick monstrosity didn’t belong in West Texas.
The central reception area was the first thing a visitor or prisoner encountered. Past the waist-high Formica counter, the sheriff’s office was to the left, and a cluster of other offices took up the right. A plain door at the back led to six cells stretched the width of the building, three on each side of the rear exit.
Sheriff Ethan Armstrong hooked the handle of his stained cup with an index finger and drug it off the shelf above the ancient Mr. Coffee the deputies referred to as the Johnny Holmes edition. The coffeemaker earned its nickname from the moans and groans that accompanied a string of obscene gurgling noises during the entire drip process that ended with a drawn out ahhhhhhh as the reservoir boiled dry.
No one ever used Ethan’s cup from Bubba’s Bar-B-Que in Jackson Hole because it had never been washed with soap. In Ethan’s opinion, the dark glaze improved the coffee’s flavor.
He filled it from the steaming pot and took a sip, catching the unfamiliar aroma. He grimaced and sniffed the brew again. “What’n hell’s this?”
Deputy Frank Malone followed Armstrong into the sheriff’s office. He tilted his hat back. “Emily said she wanted to celebrate the snow with something different.” He saluted with his own mug. “She calls it ‘snickerdoodle. ’”
Ethan thumped the cup atop a pile of papers on his desk. “Y’all can drink that crap if you want to, but not me. Tell her to go buy one of those fancy one-cup coffeepots if she wants to celebrate with this foo-foo stuff and leave mine alone. If there’s not a fresh pot on there in ten minutes, I’m gonna pour it in the commode, make my own, and find a new secretary.”
Frank took a sip and winced. “Don’t worry. I’ll do it right now.”
“Have Emily make some more.”
“She ran over to the courthouse.”
Ethan unzipped his coat just as the reverberation of gunfire reached them. “What’n hell was that?”
“Sounds like somebody’s shooting.” Frank smacked his cup down on Ethan’s desk, splashing snickerdoodle on a stack of manila file folders. Separating the venetian blinds on the front window, he peered into the snowstorm. “What fool would be cranking off rounds in town in this weather?”
* * *
Two long bursts of fire erupted at the south entrance. DeVaca pressed the communication button on his chest. “Team Two. What was that?”
A second exchange swelled and stopped. There were no more answering shots.
Muhammad Qambrani came on the radio. “A suit tried to be a hero.” He might have wanted to say more, but his voice was drowned out by another volley of fire. “That one was someone in a uniform.”
“Is this Qambrani?”
“Yes.”
DeVaca’s face flushed. “Why are you at the south entrance?”
“They needed my help unloading your gear.”
A voice in the back of DeVaca’s mind growled in a high, irritated voice. He was familiar with the Demon. It had been part of his life since he was a child. “Hurry up and finish, then get back to your assignment.”
He watched Dorothy step out of the disabled elevator where they’d tied Katie Bright into a chair. “What use is it to make assignments if these fools refuse to listen?”
She knew better than to answer.
* * *
Sheriff Armstrong’s radio came to life.
“Sheriff, this’ Eric!” Deputy Goodlett was breathless, running. “There’s shootin’ coming from the courthouse, but it’s snowing so hard I can’t tell for sure what’s going on! Aw shit! There’s a van and somebody shot Todd Calvert! They shot the DA! I see two men! Put the gun down! Show me your hands! Show me your—”
Deputy Goodlett’s transmission ended with a long burst of automatic gunfire.
“Aw hell.” Ethan rushed past Deputy Frank Malone and into the reception area. “Who’s here?”
“Just us!”
Ethan snatched the radio off his belt and yanked the front door open. “All units! All—”
A wave of snow-filled air swirled around Deputy Tommy Pelham, who was reaching for the handle when Ethan jerked the front door open. The deputy’s eyes were wide in sho
ck. “Sheriff, you hear that?”
The whip-crack of bullets slamming into the bricks and glass cut off Armstrong’s response. Pelham absorbed several rounds with a gasp, falling over the threshold and into the sheriff’s arms. Ethan threw himself backward, pulling the limp deputy inside as the windows and doorframe exploded under a volley of fire.
“Get down! Get down!” Ethan twisted out from under Deputy Pelham’s body and crabbed through splintered glass and wood, dragging him to cover behind the counter.
In the dispatch office, Karen Anderson crawled through the door. Deputy Malone pointed toward the rear exit. “Go! Get out now!”
Incoming fire raked the building as Deputy Malone grabbed Pelham’s belt and helped Ethan pull. Behind the counter, Ethan was surprised to see the radio still in his now-blood-splattered hand. “All units! All units! This is Sheriff Armstrong. Officer down! Officers under fire at the courthouse! We’re taking automatic weapons fire at the station!”
Ethan pointed at the shattered door. “Stay down and keep that door covered!”
“I see armed men at the courthouse door!” On his stomach and shooting around the built-in reception desk, Deputy Malone returned fire with his Glock 21, with the deliberation he used at the shooting range.
Ethan keyed his radio. “Officers down at both the north and south ends of the courthouse! Do not approach the courthouse. The sheriff’s department’s also under heavy fire! Repeat, we are under automatic weapons fire by multiple individuals in the courthouse!”
Ethan left Pelham and scooted across the linoleum floor to the gun safe. Bullets punched through the walls, spraying dust and splinters. The safe was unlocked, and Ethan didn’t need to fumble with the combination. A round slammed through the counter and ricocheted off the floor, barely missing the sheriff’s boot.
Staying low as possible, he reached inside, withdrew an AR-15, and slapped in a full magazine. “Frank.” He slid the rifle across the floor.
Deputy Malone ejected an empty mag from his pistol and reloaded. Muscle memory took over as he released the slide with his thumb and jammed the hot weapon back into his holster. He grabbed the automatic rifle, charged the bolt, and snugged the synthetic stock against his shoulder. Bullets raked the building as he cranked off half the magazine, hoping to slow their rate of fire. Ethan took down another rifle, repeated the loading process and slid three full magazines to Malone.
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