by Sijal Aziz
Carson was shouting into the radio, “Officer shot, officer shot, send medics immediately to Blommer Library, Reiss Science Center 3rd Floor at Georgetown University”
Kate walked over to Derek, “Are you shot?”
Derek looked at Kate. The blood from her face seemed to have drained and there was fear in her eyes. Derek had seen that fear many times. It was the fear of losing a loved one.
Derek wanted to wrap his arms around Kate and tell her that he was alright, but they needed to save thousands of people first.
He cleared his throat and said, “I am alright. It’s just a through and through wound. The bullet entered my arm and exited. It’s nothing to worry about”
“But why so much blood?”
“It must have hit an artery or something. Don’t worry the medics are on their way”, Derek felt a wave of dizziness. He held Kate by the arm to steady himself.
Pat walked over to Derek and said, “We need to tie your arm before the medics arrive, you are losing too much blood”
“Does anyone have a muffler or tie in the room?”, Jeff asked.
The students who were all huddled in front of the door, started looking at each other to see if one of them had a tie on.
None had any ties or mufflers. Kate looked around and saw that Abdul Shakeel was wearing a tie. She dropped to her knees and took his tie off and brought it to Derek.
“Please just tie it very tightly above the wound”
Kate tied the tie in a very tight knot just above the wound.
The blood flow slowed down a little bit, but it was still there.
“Have you stopped the attack?”, Derek asked Kate.
“No, not yet”, Kate said still looking at Derek’s arm with a worried look on her face.
“Kate! I want you to focus. Check the laptops. We are talking about the lives of hundreds if not thousands of people. I feel fine and will be fine. Don’t worry. Now go do your job!”
Kate breathed deeply suddenly aware of how little time they had left to thwart the attack. She said out loud to Jeff, “I want you to start checking Abdul Shakeel’s laptop. I am bringing Hassan’s laptop here”
Kate ran off and brought Saad Al Hassan’s laptop and sat down with Jeff who was already typing away on Abdul Shakeel’s laptop.
“What are we looking for?”, Jeff asked exasperated because he had no idea how the drone policing software worked.
“Look”, Kate said pointing to Hassan’s laptop, “this is the drone policing software, Saad had given this command to the drones to disperse and cover the front and the left-hand side of the event grounds and then shoot all moving objects indiscriminately.
See if Shakeel has given the same commands. We now need to figure out how to kill the commands they have given or at least kill the power to the drones.
I can see from Hassan’s computer that his commands were set to be executed within 5 minutes. I bet Abdul Skaheel’s will be within 5 minutes as well”
Jeff went through the commands at the bottom of the screen and his commands were the same except the facts that his drones covered the right-hand side front and righthand side of the event grounds and some specific targets based on the facial recognition software. Jeff and Kate didn’t have time to check which specific targets the drones were commanded to kill, but they knew they must be important people.
Kate started going through the software line by line to see which commands she could give to kill the previous commands or at least disable the drones. She asked Jeff to do the same. They had less than 4 minutes left now.
Eric Norman was giving an extraordinary speech with several praises for the president. He mentioned the drones several times in the speech and pointed to them, which made people look in the direction of the drones.
There were two hundred drones each hovering in the air on the left and right of the podium, “And now ladies and gentlemen, here is the man himself who has made it all possible. The history will thank him for centuries to come. Without this man we will have never seen a day like this, the president of the United States of America. He has made America great again.
President Trump made his way to the podium in deafening applause. Once he was at the podium, he raised both his arms. The people became quiet.
The president began, “Today we have showed the world that United States of America has left the other countries far behind in advanced avionics technology.
It is under my leadership that people of the great United States of America will feel safe again. Our next step will be to use intelligent drones for military operations and our forces will be able to destroy enemies like ISIS without even leaving their homeland.
Gone are the days when our troops had to leave behind their families. Together we will make America great again”, the drones spread across the event grounds as per the commands given by Hassan and Shakeel. President was quiet for a few seconds but then continued, thinking it was part of the show.
The controllers at the headquarters had lost all control of the drones and they could not see anything on their screens. They were typing frantically on their systems to get the drone control back again and shouting.
Kate found a line in the software she was looking for with just two minutes left. It did not tell her how to kill the commands, but it gave her an idea on how to kill power to the drones. She shouted at Jeff about what to type and they started typing in unison.
People were hanging on president’s each word and as the president motioned to the drones and said, “Look at this. This here is where the future will begin…”.
The president looked at the drones and the people started looking at the drones too. Then the drones started falling on the people and on the podium as if their batteries had just died.
People started running in all directions. The secret service personnel ran to the president and covered him from all sides and started taking him to his car with hundreds of drones falling around him.
The secret service for the two ex-presidents shielded them and they also started making their way towards the exit.
The dignitaries were desperately trying to save themselves from the drones that were just falling form the sky everywhere. The people started running in different directions, trying to save themselves from the falling drones.
By the time it was over, hundreds of people were injured due to stampede and the falling drones. But no one was killed.
CHAPTER 33
Kate looked around her and found that Derek, Pat, Carson, Finn and all the students in the library had gathered around her and Jeff, “It’s done. I think we may have just stopped it”
Some of the students were streaming the event live on their phones and they saw what just happened. Derek saw what just happened on one of the student’s phone and said, “You did it, Kate! You just saved thousands of Americans”
Derek wanted to put a hand on Kate’s shoulder, but both his hands were covered in blood. So, he just bent down and kissed Kate on the head.
The students in the room started clapping. Kate got up from her seat and gave Derek a long kiss. The medics arrived and took Derek to the hospital with Kate travelling back to the police station along with Pat, Carson, Finn and Jeff. Once at the police station the team updated the captain on the whole thing.
Captain Todd had watched the whole thing on TV.
“I want to thank all of you for your extraordinary service. Ms. Hawkins you know there is still the matter of your escape. So, I have talked with the DA and he has asked that you be formally charged”
He started walking towards Kate. Kate put both her hands in front of her so that the captain could put handcuffs on her but instead of putting handcuffs on her, captain Todd shook her hand and said, “Never in my life, have I had the privilege of working with such a fugitive. The DA and I are thankful to you and so are thousands of Americans. I have been instructed to charge you and not put you under arrest. Tomorrow, you will appear before a judge at 9:00AM and he will exonerate you. You
are free to go where ever you please”
“Thank you, captain. I will go to the hospital to check up on Derek. But I do not have any money or credit cards on me”
“I will take you”, Jeff said coming up from behind Carson, Pat and Finn.
“Thank you”
Jeff dropped Kate off at the hospital where Derek was undergoing surgery. She went straight to the reception and said, “A detective Derek Markus was brought here with a gunshot wound to the arm. How is he now?”
“What is your relation to Detective Derek Markus miss..?”
It took Kate some moments to get the words out but once she said them, she liked how they sounded, “I am his girlfriend and my name is Katherine Hawkins”
“Please wait a moment”
Kate waited patiently while the receptionist worked on her computer.
“Mr. Markus is in room 306. He is out of the surgery but had to be given blood since he had lost a lot of it”
“Can I see him now?”
“Yes, he is awake. You can visit him now”
Kate headed to the elevator and made her way to Derek.
Once she reached his room’s door, she opened it quietly and peeped in. Derek was awake.
“Hey, what took you so long?”
Kate walked over to Derek and lied down on the bed beside him and snuggled into him, “There was that matter of me running away from you. So, I had to go down to your station and deal with it”
Derek kissed her on the forehead, “Don’t ever run away from me again!”
“I won’t if you don’t arrest me”
“So how did things turn out. Guessing from the fact that you are here, I am thinking everything turned out to be alright?”
“Yes, captain Todd formally charged me and had asked me to appear before a judge at 9 tomorrow as a formality. He also said that the DA has advised him not to arrest me. Derek, I would never have been able to do this without you. Thank you!”
“Always! By the way the media is going crazy. They are trying to figure out what happened. I bet captain Todd is going to have the time of his life, he is appearing in a news conference along with the president, the mayor and the chief of police at 1 or 2 AM tonight. He is going to be a very famous man”
“Why this late?”
“I don’t know maybe the president doesn’t want the press to take the story way out of proportion or maybe he wants to tell them what to write”
“Whatever, I am just happy that things turned out to be fine!”
“Me too”, Derek said and then tenderly kissed Kate on the lips. The very touch of her lips took his breath away. Derek felt as if he had never kissed before.
Kate was swept away by the tenderness and love in Derek’s kiss. He heard what sounded like a rap on the door from far away. Jeff opened the door and cleared his throat loudly, “Excuse me”
Derek and Kate reluctantly broke away from each other. Kate got off the bed and took the seat right next to Derek’s bed and held his hand in hers. Her face and lips looked flushed.
“I just thought I would come here and warn you two that there is going to be a steady stream of detectives coming through this door any moment now. You are a hero at the station, and they want to pay their respects to you”
“I wanted some time alone with Kate. When are they going to discharge me?”
“I asked at the reception and it’s not going to be anytime soon, but they told me you can leave here after 12 hours. So, I am guessing maybe by 6 in the morning. They have said that you have lost a lot of blood and they don’t want to take any chances”
“Ok. It is what it is. How are things back at the station?”
“Captain Todd’s phone has been ringing off the hook and he is a very happy man”
“I bet he is”
There was another rap on the door and Pat and Carson appeared.
They inquired about Derek’s health as a formality.
Carson turned to Kate and said, “You need to appear at the station and receive your personal property back from us. I bet you have been having a really tough time without your wallet.
Captain Todd has personally sent us to inform you of this and we have put in a request to unfreeze your credit cards. We hope that you will be able to use them within a couple of hours”
“Thank you”
“We are here to escort you to the second district”, Pat added.
“I better leave. I will be back as soon as things clear out”, Kate said to Derek and gave him a short kiss on the lips.
“I will be waiting”
After Kate had left, Derek turned to Jeff, “Jeff I need you to do me a favor”
“Anything”
Derek got up from his bed and walked over to the hanger where his pants and coat was hanging. He took out his credit card from his wallet and handed it over to Jeff, “I want you to book two tickets for me and Kate to Bahamas and also book a nice hotel there at a nice quiet beach. We want to leave day after tomorrow and Kate should not find out about this”
“Sure”
“Also, my car is still parked at the university and here are the keys. Can you please bring it around so that I may drive home in the morning?”
“Are you sure, you will be able to drive with this arm?”
“It doesn’t hurt that much, and the doctor has asked me to do everything as usual if I want it to recover soon”
“Ok. Captain Todd may be appearing to check up on you later tonight”
“I am stuck here, so anyone can visit me any time until I get out of here. Then I am going to take a long break from all of this”
“Ok. I better be on my way”
“Jeff, thank you for everything”
“Sure thing”
After Jeff had left Derek drifted into a deep sleep. After an hour, detectives started appearing to check up on him.
He checked the time and wondered what was taking Kate so long.
After receiving her wallet and keys from the police station, Kate headed straight to her apartment. Once she opened the door, the stench of blood hit her. She left the door open to let it escape and walked over to the windows, carefully navigating around the huge blood mark and the chalk mark in the middle.
Once she had opened all the windows, she placed a call to the cleaning service to have them clean her apartment. She then sat on the couch for a long time and closed her eyes.
The scene of Matt’s murder played in her mind as it had just happened yesterday. She cried for him and for her.
With all the commotion during the last few months, she had never found the time to mourn Matt’s death. He was a sweet man and Kate knew he would understand that she wanted to be with Derek now.
After she stopped crying, she walked over to her wardrobe and started getting ready for Derek. She took a quick shower and put on some nice clothes.
When she was done, she heard a knock on her door. She opened the door and the cleaning service was there. She showed them the mark and asked them to clean it.
She then took a taxi back to Derek.
When Kate arrived back at the hospital, Derek was surrounded by some detectives. It was already 11 PM.
Derek gave Kate a smile.
When they finally got free it was midnight.
“I hope there are no more detectives left?”
“I hope so too. You look nice”
Kate had put some make up on and changed into a nice black dress.
“I was hoping to look nice for you. I went back to my apartment. It looked the same way, I had left it earlier. I called the cleaning crew and they are cleaning it at the moment”
“I was hoping to do that for you, but we were busy saving the world”
Kate walked over to the door and locked it and came back to Derek and lied down with him and hugged him. Derek held her for as long as she wanted and then said softly, “I love you Kate”
Kate looked into his eyes and replied, “I love you too Derek”
“After
my discharge from the hospital, I am going to take you to my apartment and show you how much”
“I can’t wait to find out”
“Now where were we”, Derek said and kissed Kate on the forehead, then he moved over to her eyes and kissed both of them softly and then moved over to her lips and gave her a soft tender kiss first. They were still kissing when the bedside phone started ringing. Derek ignored it but it was incessant.
“I turned my cellphone off, just for this and now they are calling me on the hospital phone. They are not going to let me make love to you in peace, are they?”
“It could be important besides we have all the time in the world, afterwards…”
Derek reluctantly let go off Kate, walked over the bedside phone and picked it up, “Detective Markus”
“This is captain Todd. I have been trying to call you on your cell, but its turned off. I am on my way over with the chief of police and the mayor. We are almost there”
“I am sorry captain! My battery ran out”
“I just wanted to give you a heads up. Is Hawkins there with you?”
Derek looked at Kate and said, “Yes sir, she is with me”
“Good, then we can meet you both at the same time”
The captain hung up.
“What was that all about?”, Kate asked still lying down in the bed.
“That was captain Todd. He is on his way here with the chief of police and the mayor. They want to meet both of us”
Kate checked the time on her cellphone, “It’s 12:15 AM in the morning! Couldn’t they have waited until the morning”
“From the looks of it, no”
Kate got off the bed and unlocked the door.
Captain Todd, the chief of police and the mayor entered the hospital with their escorts. They made their way to detective Derek’s room.
When they entered, detective Derek got off his bed and shook hands with them.
“What you did today, son, makes us all proud of you”, the chief of police said.
“Mr. Markus, you have pulled something impossible today and the city is thankful to you”, the mayor said.
“I could not have done that without Ms. Hawkins”
