“Yes.”
“Let’s get suited up; time isn’t going any slower.”
*
The school in East Brooklyn where Peter taught was five stories of pre-war brick and a fenced concrete yard. Only faint security lighting around the doors and windows lit the building. Wholly different from the sprawling, green San Diego school Lucy had attended.
“We’re early,” Noah said. “Let’s see if we can keep the element of surprise. Sean, at exactly twenty-nine minutes after the initial call, contact him. Tell him you’re me, that you’re out front. He’ll ask about his sister; tell him we couldn’t get her out of jail and we need more time. That you came in good faith to negotiate, and we’re trying to accommodate him. How much time do we have?”
“Six minutes.”
“Suzanne, stay with Rogan. DeLucca, come with us.” Noah said to Peter, “Stay back.” Then he looked sternly at Lucy. “You keep him safe.”
“Yes, sir,” Lucy said.
Peter said, “He must have bypassed the alarm system. But the gate is still locked.”
“Rogan would probably say it’s easy to crack,” Noah said. “We have to assume, if his sister was telling the truth, that he has above average computer skills. We know he was a computer engineering major. Do you have keys?”
Peter handed him his ring. “The blue-coded key is to the main door. The yellow key gets into any classroom on the second floor, plus common rooms.”
“What room is yours?” Lucy asked.
“Two-oh-one. It’s in the southwest corner.”
“That’s where he is,” Lucy said.
They quietly entered the building on the opposite side from 201. All security monitors were green-off, confirmation that Kip had disabled the alarms.
They stayed up against the walls as they walked down the hall toward Peter’s third-grade classroom. Two doors down, Noah motioned for them to stop. He unlocked room 205 and they slipped in. “We need eyes on Mead before we proceed,” Noah said. “I’m going through the ducts.” He pointed to the ceiling. The air ducts were easily accessible through worn ceiling tiles.
He stood on a desk and pushed open the tile. He looked inside. “Damn,” he said. “I won’t fit.” He looked at Lucy. “You.” He cupped his hands. “Stay put until we get the air-conditioning on to mask sound.”
“I’m on it,” DeLucca said. He called to his team who were in the basement control room.
A half minute later, the air-conditioning roared to life. The units were on the windows but controlled by a central switch so the school could turn them all on and off together. The ducts were for heating only, but the air- conditioning was loud enough to cloak Lucy’s movements.
“Visual only,” Noah told her. “Give me Mead’s exact location.”
Lucy moved through the filthy duct toward room 201. It was a tight fit, but she used her arms to balance and move along slowly. In her ear com, she heard Sean say, “One minute until I call.”
Lucy went slower as she neared room 201. She couldn’t hear anything over the air-conditioning units. She turned on her flashlight to check out where she was-she needed to find the main vent in order to get a visual.
The opening was ten feet ahead. She turned off her light and slithered toward it.
Mead’s phone rang at the same time she saw Kip Todd. He stood by the door. She didn’t see Charlie Mead.
Kip said, “You’re here?”
She rolled and craned her neck. She spotted Mead tied to a chair in the center of the room. His face was swollen and he had a cut on his arm that was bleeding.
She scooted away from the vent as Kip shouted, “That’s not good enough!”
She whispered in her com, “Mead is restrained on a chair in the center of the room. He’s injured.”
“Good. Come back.”
“I need to monitor this. Kip is angry.”
Kip paced back and forth along the front of the room. A chair braced the door to the hall. But there was a door to the adjoining classroom that wasn’t propped closed.
Lucy said, “The door in room two-oh-three isn’t blocked, but Mead will be in the direct line of fire.”
“How many weapons?”
“He’s holding a nine millimeter. A rifle is strapped over his shoulder. He has a knife on his belt.”
“Do you have a shot?”
Lucy wasn’t a sniper. Being a good shot at the target range was completely different from being a good shot at a moving target.
“If I miss-”
“We’re moving to room two-oh-three. Stay alert.”
Kip screamed at the phone, “I will bleed him dry! His blood will stain the floor. Unless you bring Peter here now, two minutes, I will kill him.” He walked over to the window. “I see you.” He fired out of the window with the rifle.
Lucy bit her tongue to keep from shouting out. Sean wasn’t in the southwest corner, but DeLucca’s men were exposed.
“A-ha!” Kip shouted. “One down, more to go.” He fired again.
Lucy pulled out her gun. She couldn’t use this vent; the openings were too narrow. And if she shot through the ceiling, she risked injury, loss of bullet velocity, and a skewed trajectory. She had to move to the larger vent in the center of the room.
She crawled as quickly as she dared.
“Status,” Noah demanded in her ear.
“Getting in position,” Lucy whispered.
The air-conditioning rumbled off.
Kip stopped shooting out of the window.
Lucy stopped moving. She was still three inches from the vent. She needed one more good slide to get into position.
She risked the sound.
She looked out the vent. Kip was staring at the ceiling, his expression alert.
Then she noticed this vent was too small to get her barrel through.
“I’ve been spotted,” she whispered.
Kip aimed his rifle toward the ceiling. Lucy punched out the vent with the barrel of her gun, aimed at him, and fired. The first bullet hit him in the shoulder. He fired his rifle three times into the ceiling. She fired again and hit his hand. He dropped the rifle and grabbed his nine millimeter. He didn’t aim at Lucy but at Charlie Mead.
She fired again as the door below burst open and Noah and Joe entered. They fired simultaneously at Kip. His body jerked and he stumbled backwards and tripped over a desk.
Joe rushed to Kip and kicked away his weapons, then checked his pulse. “He’s dead,” Joe said.
“Lucy!” Noah called.
“I’m okay. I might need a Band-Aid.” Or four or five. Her arm burned, but she didn’t think she’d been hit.
Noah pulled a desk over to the vent and jumped on it. Lucy saw the top of his head. She handed him her gun. He put it in his waistband. Then grabbed her by the arms and pulled her out headfirst. He held on to her as he scrambled off of the desk. He put her in a chair. “Were you hit?”
“No. I think it’s splinters from the ceiling tiles. Or maybe I cut my arm on the vent. Stupid. But he was going to shoot Charlie.”
Joe had untied Mead and was calling out for both a report and an ambulance.
Peter came in and rushed over to Charlie Mead. “Charlie?”
Charlie smiled. “You’re okay.”
“What about you?”
“Nothing broken.”
“Why are you here?” Peter asked.
