Enough to spill a lot of innocent blood, that was for sure, even if the bomb threat was actually a bluff, as Jake suspected. Even armed with pistols, if shooting broke out they could kill dozens, even scores before they were stopped.
That raised the issue of communications. Jake assumed they were using cell phones, maybe walkie-talkies. If somebody on the outside was smart enough, they might think of shutting down all the cell towers around the campus. They might even be able to block walkie-talkie signals. That would leave the gunmen unable to communicate from building to building, and if the bombs were on cell phone triggers, assuming there were any bombs, that would prevent them from detonating.
Jake just hoped that whoever Frank McRainey called on for help had some experience with massive hostage situations.
* * *
Jeff Bagley hurried up to McRainey and stopped to stare at his boss in surprise.
“I thought they were taking you to the hospital, Chief,” Bagley said.
“Change in plans,” McRainey said. “I’m staying here until this is over, one way or another.”
Bagley gestured over his shoulder with a thumb and said, “The FBI is here. They just pulled up at the command post Chief Hartwell established at the edge of campus.”
The two police chiefs looked at each other and nodded.
“Let’s go talk to the Feds,” Hartwell said.
Not surprisingly, three black SUVs were parked in the blocked-off street that ran along the western edge of the campus. The federal agents liked their sinister-looking vehicles.
One man turned to greet McRainey with an outstretched hand, though. With his burly shape, chocolate skin, and close-cropped gray hair, he looked like somebody’s affable black grandpa.
“Chief McRainey?” he asked in a deep voice.
“That’s right.”
“I’m Special Agent Walt Graham,” the man said as he gripped McRainey’s hand. “And you’d be Chief Hartwell, I’m betting,” he went on to the boss of the Greenleaf PD.
“Yeah.” Hartwell shook hands with Graham, too. “Are you running this operation for the FBI?”
“I am,” Graham said with a brisk nod. “I’ve dealt with a few of these messes before.”
“Not like this one, I’ll bet,” McRainey said.
Graham smiled thinly and said, “You’d be surprised.”
An Austin Police Department van pulled in behind the SUVs that had brought Graham and the other FBI agents to the scene. Several officers in tactical gear piled out. One of them had a dog with him, a good-sized German shepherd.
“Bomb-sniffing dog?” McRainey asked.
“Sometimes the simplest methods are the best,” Graham said. “We also have a robot equipped with sensors that will detect explosives. If one of you could show the Austin officers and my men the locations where you suspect bombs might be planted . . . ?”
Hartwell said, “I can do that.”
“I’ll need an overview of the situation and the layout of the campus, as well,” Graham went on.
McRainey nodded and said, “I have a map in my office. I’ll show you everything I can.”
They turned toward the campus police department while Hartwell hurried off to join forces with the bomb-squad officers from Austin. McRainey and Graham had taken only a couple of steps, though, when a dark-colored sedan joined the other vehicles parked in the street and a woman in a midnight-blue dress got out. Her long brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail that hung halfway down her back. She was about forty years old, McRainey estimated, and striking in her appearance without being classically beautiful.
“Agent Graham,” she said as she strode up to the two men.
“Agent Vega,” Graham said.
From the sound of their voices, neither had much liking for the other, despite the obvious fact that they were acquainted.
The woman turned to McRainey and went on, “I’m Theresa Vega from Homeland Security. “And you are ... ?”
“Frank McRainey, chief of the campus police,” he introduced himself. He saw the abrupt lack of interest in Theresa Vega’s eyes and knew that she had dismissed him out of hand as being unimportant in this crisis.
He didn’t suppose he could blame her for feeling that way. He was just a campus rent-a-cop, after all.
She turned back to Graham and asked, “What do we have here?”
“I’m sure you’ve seen the video that streamed out of the library.”
“Of course. The man’s name is Matthias Foster. He was a student here several years ago.”
Graham nodded and said, “I know.”
“Wait just a minute,” McRainey said. “You know the identity of the guy who’s behind this, and you didn’t tell me?”
“There hadn’t been a chance to yet,” Graham said. “I was going to fill you in while we looked at that map in your office.”
McRainey supposed that was reasonable enough, but he still felt a little irritated. He knew that federal agents were notorious for keeping local law enforcement out of the loop. There were a couple of reasons for that. If there was any glory attached to a case, the Feds wanted it to land at their feet. And many of them genuinely regarded local cops as being incompetent at best, corrupt and stupid at worst.
McRainey hadn’t really detected that sort of arrogance from Walt Graham so far, but it fairly oozed from Theresa Vega.
“If we’re going to debrief Mr. McRainey before we start planning our next move, we should get on with it,” she snapped.
“That’s Chief McRainey,” he said. It probably wouldn’t do any good, but he was going to stick up for himself anyway.
Vega made a slight face but didn’t say anything. After a moment, McRainey went on, “My office is this way,” and pointed toward the campus police department.
As the three of them walked along, Graham said, “I heard that you killed one of the terrorists and were injured in the fight.”
That appeared to make Vega’s interest perk up a little.
McRainey told them about the desperate battle in the groundskeepers’ shed after his discovery of Charlie Hodges’ body. He held up his bandaged hand and said, “I got a pretty good cut on my hand and a knock on the head.”
“Maybe you should be in the hospital getting checked out,” Vega suggested.
“That’ll wait. I’m responsible for the safety of this campus and everyone on it.”
“Well, you haven’t done a very good job of it so far, have you? How many fatalities so far? At least five confirmed, including the man you killed?”
McRainey stopped on the sidewalk. Anger hardened his face.
“I had no warning of any of this,” he said. “Isn’t it the job of the FBI and Homeland Security to sniff out terrorist plots and stop them before they can get started? Was this guy Foster already on your radar?” He looked back and forth between the two federal agents. “Is that how come you know his name already?”
“You have no need to know that—” Vega began.
Graham interrupted her by saying, “Foster’s name surfaced in an investigation we’ve been carrying out involving some illegal gun sales. That’s all I can tell you, Chief, other than we’ve had reason in recent days to grow more concerned. It’s likely we would have brought him in for questioning in the next few days.” The burly special agent grunted. “He acted sooner than we expected, though.”
Vega glared at Graham and said, “You shouldn’t have told him that. It’s none of his business.”
“This is his campus that’s being threatened. I think that makes it his business.”
McRainey didn’t know if there had been bad blood between the two federal agents before now, but there would be in the future, it seemed.
He didn’t care about that. He said, “What do you know about Foster?”
“Let’s talk about it on the way to your office, why don’t we?”
McRainey was all right with that. The three of them started along the sidewalk again.
“Foster was
enrolled here for three semesters,” Graham continued. “I doubt if you remember him. He didn’t get into any trouble while he was here, as far as we’ve been able to uncover.”
McRainey shook his head and said, “The name’s not familiar to me at all. Kelton’s a small school, but there are still way too many kids who go here for me to remember all of them.”
“Foster was what used to be called a radical. Went to some protests and helped organize a few of them. Posted a lot of Hashtag Resist and pro-Antifa stuff on social media. He strayed close to advocating the violent overthrow of the government but never was blatant enough about it to draw any real interest, at least from us. His name was in our database, but most of what I just mentioned was dug up in a hurry today after we were called in on this. After Foster dropped out of school here, he dropped out of sight, as well. Obviously, though, he’s been hanging around and putting this plan together at least part of the time since then.” Graham shrugged. “If Homeland knows any more than that about him, Agent Vega will have to tell you.”
Vega’s expression made it clear that she wasn’t going to tell McRainey anything.
He didn’t really care. It didn’t matter to him who Matthias Foster was or what his motivation might be, unless that information would help to end this hostage situation somehow, with as little loss of life as possible. McRainey didn’t think that was likely.
When they reached the station, an air of tense urgency gripped the place. The dispatcher came out from behind the counter where she worked and hurried over to meet McRainey.
“Chief, we heard you were injured,” she said. “Everybody’s been so worried about you.”
“I’ll be all right, Doris,” he told her. “Just need some stitches in my hand and some antibiotics when this is over. No need to fret over me. Has anything new come in?”
Doris shook her head and said, “We’re all just waiting to see what’s going to happen.”
She looked at Graham and Vega and seemed to be waiting for McRainey to tell her who the two strangers were, but he didn’t. Instead, he said, “We’ll be in my office if you need me.” Then he led the two federal agents down the short hall and through the door into the office.
The big, framed map of the campus took up most of one wall. McRainey pointed out the various landmarks situated around Nafziger Plaza, including the library, the administration building, the student union, and the other three buildings that according to reports were under the control of armed terrorists. He tapped a finger against the library and said, “That’s where Foster was when that video streamed, and he must still be there since Chief Hartwell set up perimeters around all those buildings. The library and the student union will be the places where the most hostages are.”
“Any way to get SWAT teams in there?” Graham asked.
“Sure,” McRainey said with a shrug. “You can breach all these buildings without too much trouble. They weren’t designed for defense, after all, and I doubt if there are enough terrorists to cover every point of entry. But if Foster can set off bombs all over the campus with one push of a button, a direct assault probably isn’t a very good idea.”
Vega said, “He’s bluffing about the bombs.”
“We don’t know that,” Graham said, “and it’s too big a risk to run until we do have confirmation one way or the other.”
“What are you going to do? Negotiate with him?”
“I wouldn’t call it negotiating as much as I would playing for time.”
McRainey said, “Between the dog and the robot, will you be able to tell for sure whether there are actually any explosives planted in those places Foster’s men dug up this morning?”
“We should have a pretty good idea—” Graham began.
He didn’t get any further before a blast somewhere not far away shook the floor under their feet.
CHAPTER 31
“All right, let’s move,” the tall black man with a gun said as he approached Jake and Natalie where they still lay on the floor. The left sleeve of his shirt had something bulky under it, Jake noticed, as if that arm were bandaged. If the man was injured, though, he didn’t seem to let it bother him.
“Where are we going?” Jake asked as he pushed himself up. “Disneyworld?”
“Don’t give me any trouble,” the gunman said as his lips drew back from his teeth in a grimace. “I’d just as soon shoot you, you son of a bitch.”
That sounded personal, Jake thought. He wondered if the guy had a real reason to hate him, or if his skin color and political views were enough to justify that hatred. As far as Jake recalled, he had never seen this man before.
Of course, in recent days he had clashed with plenty of guys whose faces he’d never seen, because they were concealed under black hoods . . .
That opened up an interesting chain of thought, but Jake didn’t really have time to follow it right now. He didn’t want the gunman going unhinged while Natalie was right there in danger, so he climbed carefully to his feet and said in a calm voice, “No trouble. Just tell us what you want us to do.”
Being so cooperative went against the grain for him, but there were innocent lives to think of.
Natalie was pale and looked scared, but she appeared to be calm and had her emotions under control, too. The same couldn’t be said of most of the other people who had been taken prisoner. Some were sniffling, some were outright crying, and everybody looked scared as the three gunmen who had been positioned around the edges of the room began herding the hostages toward the center of the lower level. There was an open area there, near the escalators, that was large enough for all of them to huddle together. It would be easier to guard them that way, Jake knew.
And once he was surrounded by innocents, there was no way he could make a move without endangering all of them. Even though he had said that he wouldn’t cause any trouble—even though he was worried about Natalie—he had to go back on that promise if he was going to have any chance to fight back against these guys.
A glance to his left showed him that Pierce Conners and the people he was with were being marched toward the middle of the lower level, too. Jake caught Pierce’s eye. He had no idea if he could count on the young man for anything, but instinct told him that if he had any allies in here, Pierce was the most likely to be one of them. Maybe the quick look Jake flashed toward him would be enough to tip him off that something was about to happen.
Jake stopped short and said in a loud voice, “Wait just a damned minute. They’re bluffing.”
That drew the leader’s attention. As he swung around to look at Jake, for a second his face was contorted by naked fury before the look of cold, smooth menace came over his features again. He smiled thinly and said, “Bluffing? Do you really think so?”
“You’re not crazy enough to blow yourself up along with everybody else,” Jake said. “I can tell that by looking at you. You’re no martyr. You don’t believe there are ninety-nine virgins waiting in heaven for you.”
The Middle Eastern–looking guy standing with Pierce glared at Jake when he said that. Jake ignored him.
“Keep talking,” the leader said. “You’re smart. I want to hear your thoughts.”
“No, you probably don’t.”
“Do you honestly believe we didn’t plant bombs all over this campus? Is that what you mean by bluffing?”
“That’s right,” Jake said. “You just want everybody to believe you did, so they’ll be too scared to make a move against you.”
The leader took a cell phone out of his pocket and held it up.
“So I won’t push a button on this phone and send out the detonation signal?”
“Won’t do you any good if you do. By now all the cell phone towers in the area have been taken offline.” Jake turned to address the crowd. “Check your phones. You won’t have any service.”
As far as he could tell, nobody did what he said. They were too afraid—with good reason—of the guns pointed at them.
But the leader, smiling wi
th a self-satisfaction that Jake found worrisome, turned his phone so he could look at its display and said, “Well, what do you know? No service, just like you predicted.” He put the phone back in his shirt pocket and reached for his pants pocket instead. “It’s a good thing the triggers on those bombs are linked to sat phones instead.”
The phone he pulled out of his pants pocket was bulkier than the slim little cell. As Jake tensed, the leader thumbed numbers into the satellite phone, held it to his ear, and smiled.
The boom was muffled by distance and building walls, but it was clearly an explosion. Many of the hostages screamed and grabbed at each other, thinking that the end had come.
But as seconds ticked by and the library didn’t erupt in a holocaust of flame and destruction, they began to calm down a little, although there was still a lot of sniffling going on.
“Still think I’m bluffing?” the leader called out in a ringing voice. “That was one bomb. Call it a demonstration. I can set them off one at a time, or I can call a number that will detonate all of them at once. If I do that, this whole campus will be blown off the face of the earth. Is that what you want?” His mouth twisted in a snarl as he went on, “Is it?”
He was staring right at Jake as he asked the question, so Jake responded, “Take it easy. Nobody wants you blowing things up.”
So the business with the bombs wasn’t a complete bluff. He’d been wrong about that, Jake supposed. But he still didn’t believe that this man intended to die today. The leader wasn’t doing this to make a point. He was doing it because he wanted that ransom money.
But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t slaughter dozens, maybe even hundreds, of people to get his hands on it.
In fact, the guy’s eyes did look a little more crazed now as he stalked toward Jake and waved the pistol in his hand.
“Nobody wants to be blown up,” he said. “Nobody wants to die. So you’d better all hope the authorities cooperate with me, hadn’t you? You’d better hope all those rich bastards on the outside whose kids go to school here come up with that hundred million! Otherwise—and I don’t care if you believe me or not—nobody leaves here alive today!”
Trigger Warning Page 19
