“We need to set a line. She’s lost a lot of blood,” Sara was calling out as two nurses were handing her an IV kit and hanging bags of blood on an IV pole. Debbie was lying there with her eyes closed. She was taking shallow breaths, and Alan saw it and asked, “What’s happening to her?” Karen turned to him and said, “She’s in shock. We are trying to save her life.” Sara got the line set, but there was no other doctor in the room. She looked at Karen working down on Debbie’s nearly amputated foot and said, “We can’t save the foot. We have to amputate.” Alan pointed the gun at Sara and said, “You’re not amputating anything. You can put her foot back on. I’ve seen it on TV lots of times.” Sara shook her head and said, “This isn’t TV, kid. This is real life and real death. Your friend needs to have her foot amputated and the wound cauterized, or she will be dead in minutes.”
Alan fell back against the wall and said, “She can’t die…she has to have her foot. She dances…she’s a beautiful dancer. You have to save her foot.” Karen looked over at Alan and said, “We can only save your friend not her foot. Would she rather live and learn to dance with a prosthetic foot or would she rather be dead and never dance again?” Alan was displaying all the signs of blood loss, and his behavior got more erratic as he got weaker. “She’s a dancer. She dances…I want to see her dance again.” Alan was waving the gun around, and Karen said in a soft voice, “You will see her dance again…Ted.” She smiled, and he smiled back at her, and she said, “Please don’t wave around your gun. You might accidently hurt someone.” Alan put the gun against his stomach and watched as Sara and Karen were working on Debbie and felt himself growing weaker and weaker.
Chapter Sixteen
“Ted, I promise you that the blood
will by flying in this room in
less than two minutes.”
John and Chris had made it into the doctor’s medical building of Northridge Hospital, and Chris asked, “Where the hell are we going?” John put his fingers to his lips as he saw two people hiding behind a hospital laundry hamper. He moved out into the open and behind the two, a man and a woman, and said in a whisper, “FBI.” The two turned to see them and threw their arms in the air and fell onto the two men, crying. John pulled them into the office building entrance and asked, “What did you see?” The older white man in dress clothes said, “I didn’t see anything. I heard a few loud pops, and then this woman ran me down, and we have been here behind this hamper. It feels like forever.”
Chris was talking to the middle-aged Mexican woman in Spanish and after a few minutes of back and forth said, “She saw a man pull up in front of the ER entrance in a silver car. She says that he got out and took a girl from the passenger seat and walked into the ER and shot two security guards who were standing near the front door.” Chris was listening as the woman in hospital cleaning clothes chattered on and then said, “She said that Dr. Swenson and Dr. Faber came around the corner and led the man with the girl into ER room two.” John pulled out his tablet and activated its tracking software. The green GPS he had put on Alan’s car on Valley Circle after their confrontation with Belk was blinking near the ER entrance. He looked at Chris and said, “Let’s move.” Chris asked, “Don’t you want to know more?” “I don’t need to. I know who it is, and I know what he is capable of.”
Chris followed him down a long hallway in the hospital to a service closet. John picked the lock, and the two men got in. He said, “We have five or six minutes, and then this situation is going to go from bad to worse.” Chris just looked at him as he took out his cell phone and dialed a number. There were a few moments of silence, and Chris could hear Jim’s voice on John’s phone. “Where are you?” Jim asked. “Chris and I are in a storage closet that has a large industrial vent that will drop us right into where the hostages are.” “Well fuck me…do you know who the hostages are?” Jim asked. “Yes…Sara and Karen.” “I pulled a trace on the plate of the silver car in front of the hospital entrance. It belongs to an eighteen-year-old named Alan Marks.” There was a moment of silence, and John said, “Yes…I figured that out.” “Do you know the kid?” “I met him briefly once,” he said.
Jim said, “Well, word just came over that there has been a homicide at the old Watson house in Northridge, and the victim turns out to be the son of one of the nurses that works with Sara here at the hospital.” John was unscrewing the vent cover and asked, “What’s the guy’s name?” “Tim Elliott. His mother’s name is Linda. His old man is overseas and is a brigadier general named Gary Elliott. Anyone you know?” John said no as he climbed up into the vent and asked, “Who’s my negotiator?” “Barry.” “Hmm…has there been contact with Marks?” “We have made a few bull horn calls, but he has not responded. Barry has called into the ER. Sara and Karen are in room two. We have a line directly into the room, but no one is answering.” John said, “There won’t be an answer. Marks’s cheese has slid off its cracker. He’s going to massacre all of them.” “How the hell could you possibly know that?” “I just know. I have maybe five minutes to get to him before he starts killing everything that moves.”
John hung up the line, and he and Chris crawled through the vent passing over exam room one where John pushed down on one of the side panel outlets, and it gave way, and the steel grate almost fell to the floor. He grabbed it at the last second, and the two men dropped to the floor of the room, and he said, “Okay, here’s where it’s going to happen, and it’s going to happen fast.” “What’s the plan?” Chris asked, looking into John’s contemplative eyes. “For a few seconds just listen.” John sent a text message to Sara. He could hear Sara’s voice calling out instructions; he could also hear Marks getting belligerent and more threatening.
Sara was swapping out the third IV bag of blood as Debbie continued taking deep breaths, her eyes still closed. Sara felt her cell phone buzz in the pocket of her medical coat as Alan asked, “What’s going on? What’s happening to her?” “She needs more blood, Ted; I need to order more blood.” “No, fuck no… you’re keeping her down. You’re not treating her because she’s fine now. You’re trying to trick me, thinking that it will save your lives. You’re not using the damn phone.” Karen said, “Look Ted…if we don’t get more blood all of this will be for nothing, and your girlfriend is going to die.” “She’s not my damn girlfriend. She’s my friend, and she’s not going to die because you are going to save her. The longer she lives the longer all of you live.”
Alan pointed the gun around the room. Three other doctors had joined in the fight to save Debbie’s life, and now there were ten people in the cramped room all being kept at a good distance from Alan who was sweating profusely. He pulled off the sweatshirt that he was wearing, and he had at least ten extra capacity clips for his modified Glock spread around his waist band from front to back. Karen saw the lost look in Sara’s eyes as Alan’s shirt came off, and she knew that they weren’t coming out of this alive. Sara said, “I can use my cell phone and send a message directly to the lab, and they will send up more blood for your friend, Ted. There’s no way anyone on the outside will know.” Alan pulled a fresh clip out of his pants, popped it in the weapon, pulled back on the mechanism, and loaded a shell into the barrel.
“That’s just fine, doc, go ahead…text the lab and get the blood. If it’s not here in two minutes, I will know you lied, and I will start blowing everyone in this hospital away starting with you.” Sara pulled out her phone and saw the text from John. It simply read, “Exact location of gunman?” Sara typed in the location and then looked at Alan and said, “Ted, I promise you that the blood will by flying into this room in less than two minutes.”
It was just five p.m., and the Northridge Mall was closed. There was no one around as Jerry pulled up outside the empty Anchor Store and parked next to the two containers. He entered the lock’s combination, and the door unlocked. He smiled and opened the door and walked into the store. It was all dark. Jerry made his way to the main lights for the store
and pressed a couple of buttons, and the two-level store lit up like a Christmas tree. He walked out into the main store, and it was decorated in his high school colors. It looked like someone had been working on the place for a month. He walked around looking at the decorations and lights in his school colors of white and blue and started laughing. “What the fuck…shit, man, someone has been busy.” There was a table set up near the store entrance. The doors and windows were covered in paper, and he walked up and looked at a table that was all set up to receive guests.
He picked up a flyer that was on one of the tables along with a random name tag. The flyer read, “Come one, come all to the Regents Homecoming party of parties. Sunday the seventh at eight p.m.” Jerry looked at his watch. It was five. He looked at the date on his watch, and it was the seventh. He started to laugh hysterically all the while heading back to the entrance where he had come in and said, “There is no fuckin’ way I could get this damn lucky.” He opened the two containers, and they were stocked to the hilt with plastic explosives, readymade pipe bombs, detonator pins, and a box of hand grenades as well as ten M-16s with an uncountable amount of ammunition. Jerry didn’t miss a beat. He started grabbing case after case of material and hauled it into the store. He said to himself as he started to unpack the bombs, “Fuck, man. I really did need those fuckers. There is no way I can booby trap every entrance and exit to this place.” He stood up and spread his skinny arms and said with a loud and excited laugh, “But I can sure as hell try. Come to Jerry, folks. It’s going to be one bloody fuckin’ homecoming!”
John’s cell phone buzzed, and he read the message from Sara. He put his fingers to his lips and motioned for Chris to follow him. The two men entered the hallway next to the room. He could see the flashing lights of the police cars outside the building and heard Barry over a loud speaker calmly calling for the hostage taker to pick up the phone line, so they could talk. He got on the far end of the double doors into room two and Chris was on the other. John pressed his chest and legs hard to feel his full body armor in place. He looked at Chris and said, “Stay behind me when the shooting starts. It’s not going to last long.” With that, John pressed the automatic doors on ER room two and walked in with two modified nine millimeter handguns out and aimed.
Alan was leaning with the gun on his stomach when the doors to the room opened. He looked up to see a giant man with two weapons in his hands walking straight toward him. He got off three rounds, all striking the man in the chest, but they had no effect. The man kept moving, not flinching, just shooting. John fired three shots as well; the first struck Alan in the left thigh, the second in the right thigh, and the third in his right wrist, knocking the weapon out of his hand. John kept moving, not speaking as Alan hit the floor. Chris was behind him. John got over to Alan, and he looked up at John and said, “I know you.” John said, “I told you that this was going to happen. Where are the others?” “Dead except for Jerry Pinskey, and you know who he is, don’t you?”
“Where is he?” “I would guess that he is at the Northridge Mall putting the finishing touches on the murder spree that you have been working to put down. The party for the school is tonight…and he will have to set it up alone.” Alan let out a soft laugh as Debbie coughed and started to move her arms. Sara gave her a sedative. Debbie looked over at Alan lying on the floor in a pool of blood and said, “No…Alan, no!” “It’s over, Deb…don’t tell these fuckers anything…let Jerry finish off the massacre. I was wrong. I should have seen it through.” And with those words Alan’s pupils dilated, and his head fell back onto the cold concrete floor. Debbie was calling out his name as he died.
Chapter Seventeen
“Poor old, Tim. All that work to
collect weapons for this rampage.”
It was half past seven, and several students from Rosedo High School had arrived to finish the final touches for the homecoming dance. Jeremy Levine was setting up the PA system and making sure that things were ready for the DJ who was due at any moment. Gabriel’s Catering had two vans backed up to the store entrance, and several of the employees were setting up the food and snacks for the student body.
Cathy Hines was the coordinator of the whole event, and she had been working on it along with Mary Rubin throughout the summer. Cathy asked Mary, “Do you think we got the word out about the party to the whole student body?” Mary laughed and said, “Cathy, we got the word out to the whole San Fernando Valley.” Cathy was setting up the last touches on the greeting table and said, “I don’t know. There were a lot of people who thought that this was going to be on campus in the football stadium like previous years, and they think it’s next Friday night.” Mary shook her head and said, “The word is out there and unless someone has been under a rock, they know that it’s tonight.” “What’s the head count?” Cathy asked. Mary pulled out her tablet and opened an Excel spreadsheet and said, “Shit, Cathy, we have over nine hundred students. Homecoming is open to everyone, so your guess is as good as mine as to the turn out. However, based on last year’s numbers when we were juniors and running this, I think we can easily say half of the student body as well as all the faculty will show.”
Cathy looked around and said, “Well if we are going to have near a thousand students and teachers, this is the perfect forum for it.” Mary was following Cathy’s eyes looking up at the open store building and the second floor railing that overlooked the lower floor. “It was really nice of the mall to donate this vacant store to us for our homecoming,” Cathy said as she put out the sign-in sheet and made sure there were pens and blank name tags for everyone.
The last bomb had been set at the emergency exit, and Jerry was sitting with his back against the wall, sweat dripping down his face. He had changed into his black outfit and had several extra capacity magazines ready for his M-16 rifles. He had set guns in out of the way corners on all levels. He had also made it so he could move freely from section to section of the store, shooting his victims without being discovered. While looking at a slit of light coming through the semi-closed door of a janitorial closet, he said, “All you fuckers are going to die tonight, and by this time tomorrow my name and the names of those lost before this battle was raged will be known by every person in America and beyond.”
He pulled back on the weapon to load it then set the safety. He also knew that school police would be monitoring the event, and there would be metal detectors as well as heightened security at the entrance to the dance. Jerry read over the manifest of all the weaponry he had in the store and said to himself quietly, “I will need to start rounds and take out cops as they start checking out the location. They will have the bulk of their detail at the entrances, and once the party starts, they will seal the entrances, so that no one can get in or out in case there is an incident like last year with the gang violence.”
Jerry rose and took two Glocks from a case and loaded the clips and screwed on silencers. He laughed to himself and said, “Poor old, Tim. All that work to collect weapons for this rampage, and in the end the weapons I will be using came through the TOR black market.” He stood up and headed for the closest exit to him to lay in wait for the first police detail to come through.
Sara and Karen were treating Debbie when Jade showed up with her team to deal with Alan’s body. Debbie was feeling no pain after the amputation of her foot. Two surgeons had worked on her in the ER after John and Chris killed Alan as they were unable to move Debbie because she was part of an active crime scene and investigation. She was staring off at the ceiling, and John motioned for Sara to come close and whispered, “Do you have any SP-117 here?” She nodded, and he said, “We need to get this kid alone, and we need to get the drug in her and fast. Something horrible is about to happen.” Jim walked over to the two of them and said, “Well, it looks like the Iron Eagle’s not the only fuckin’ guy who knows how to use a weapon or ambush someone.”
Chris was standing off by himself when Karen walked over to him and
asked if he was okay. He nodded and said, “Um…yeah…I have never been in on a kill before. That guy was going to kill you and Sara and everyone else in this room.” “Hospital, Chris…that guy would have killed every person in this hospital if it had not been for you and John.” “Yeah…I’m just starting to realize that what I learned in books and in controlled police environments doesn’t prepare you for the real thing.” Karen smiled and kissed his cheek and said, “Welcome to the real world of law enforcement. Your job is to swear an oath and protect people you don’t even know, even if that means losing your own life.” Chris nodded slowly and saw Jim, John, and Sara talking off in a corner of the room. He saw Jade over near Alan’s body, and everything was just moving. He said to Karen, “Everyone is going on about their business as if what just happened didn’t happen.” Karen smiled and said, “Life does not stop because someone dies, Chris. There’s still a lot of police work to do, and John and Jim are planning their next move.”
Jim and John looked over at Alan’s bullet-riddled body, and Jim said, “If there is one thing I can say about you, you know how to leave a lasting fuckin’ impression.” John looked at Jim and said, “I need to get the girl out of here and to the lair.” Jim pulled him out of the room and asked, “Just how the fuck are you going to do that without attracting a shitload of attention?” “You’re going to do it!” Jim shook his head and said, “No…no way…not again. You just about got Chris killed this time, and you want me to interfere in an interdepartmental investigation?”
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