Fire Point (23 page)

85

Tufts of grey-black smoke whipped across the Audi’s windshield. Lock could barely see the narrow, twisting canyon road. He moved forward, hunched over the wheel, and clinging to the white center line. On one side the road fell away into a ravine.

For once, he had defaulted to using the Audi’s GPS system. The blinking dot on the map told him he was within touching distance of the Barnes College campus. He kept driving.

A further hundred yards down the road he braked hard as he came up fast on a fire truck and a couple of pick-ups. He pulled in behind the truck, switched his hazard lights on and got out. The truck crew were gathered in a huddle. Lock walked over to them, the gun on his hip clearly visible.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

One of the firefighters turned to him. ‘Who the hell are you?’

‘Ryan Lock. Work out of Sherman Oaks. My daughter’s down there,’ he said, with a wave down the burning slope toward the rear of the college buildings.

The firefighters traded a look. Lock guessed it wasn’t a million miles away from the look they gave each other when a relative arrived at a smoldering damped-down blaze when they hadn’t been able to get everyone out.

‘You spoken to her?’ the firefighter said. ‘Is she definitely down there?’

Lock nodded. ‘Think so. I’m going to go take a look anyway.’

The firefighter put his arm across Lock’s chest. ‘You might want to stay here.’

Lock stared at the man’s arm. He dropped it back down. ‘What’s my best route to get down there?’ he asked.

‘You want to get yourself shot, be my guest,’ said the firefighter. He pointed to their immediate left. ‘That gully over there will give you some cover.’ He swept his hand back up the slope to a stand of sycamores that, so far, had gone untouched by the fire. ‘But the wind changes, and they catch . . . you won’t have to worry about catching a bullet.’

‘Thanks,’ said Lock.

There was the sound of more live fire from the campus below. A police car was rolling down the road toward them. If Lock wanted to go it would have to be now. No cop in their right mind was going to allow a civilian to wander into the middle of the shit storm. They also weren’t about to fall for some vague working-out-of line. They’d want to see a badge.

He yanked the top of his shirt up over his mouth and headed for the gully. It was about a ten-foot drop. He scrambled over the side. At the bottom was stony ground. It must have been a stream or culvert that had long since dried up in the months of dry, hot weather. It offered some protection from the fire. But if the trees and bushes that ran alongside it caught, he would be trapped with no exit.

Lock put his head down, and began to scramble over the loose rocks and stones. Staying on his feet was harder than it looked. Even in boots, and watching every step, he slipped a couple of times. The final time, he went down hard, banging his left knee against the edge of a boulder. The smoke in the air made breathing hard. His eyes stung to the point where they teared up.

Glancing back, he saw the fire jump suddenly to catch one of the furthest trees. At first nothing happened. Then one of the higher branches caught. Even if he’d wanted to, going back was no longer an option. His route to where the firefighters were on the road would be blocked by the flames.

Lock jogged along a ridge that ran parallel to the rear of the college. The wind had changed temporarily, pushing some of the fires back up the hills. Down below, beyond the college buildings, he could see a couple of Malibu fire trucks parked at the entrance, their entry blocked by a truck. A couple of Sheriff’s Department cars were parked next to them. The deputies had their weapons pointed at the driver. He wasn’t making any moves to exit the vehicle.

With the truck parked there, the fire trucks had no way of getting into campus. It was also blocking any evacuation. If students and staff were to get out, they would have to do it on foot. Right now, with gunfire still crackling through the air at regular intervals, that was a high-risk strategy. Any sniper worth their salt would just find high ground and pick off anyone fleeing one by one.

Lock could go after the shooters. But that would take time. And with every second that passed, the fires were drawing closer.

There was no good option available. Only a series of bad options. Lock guessed that was part of the plan.

86

Janet Cristopher unlocked her office door and stepped out into the corridor. It was empty. Every door was closed. She knew there were people in some of the offices and classrooms because she could hear the ping of incoming text messages and muttered conversations.

The gunfire had been steady. At first it had been distant. It sounded like the shots were being fired in or near the student residences. But over the past five minutes it had seemed to move closer to the main teaching and administration area of the campus.

Janet walked to the end of the corridor. She could hear sirens. Finally. Although perhaps only a half-hour had passed since her cell had buzzed with the text message alerting her to an ‘incident’ on campus, it had seemed like eternity.

Ahead of her was a door that led outside. It was clear glass. Looking through she could smoke rising from the hills overlooking the campus. The whole area was ablaze. The door itself was locked. That was part of the security procedures.

There was a button next to it. If she pushed it, the door would unlock for a few seconds. She could open it and step outside. But once she was outside the only way she could get back in was for someone to buzz her in. That was unlikely. Procedure said that no one was to allow anyone inside a building once it had been locked down. If she stepped outside, that would be it.

She took a deep breath, opened the door and stepped outside. It closed behind her. A second later she heard it click. There was no going back.

She walked down a pathway. She was out in the open. There was no one about. No sign of life.

Janet kept walking. There was a sudden staccato burst of gunfire from the administration building on her left. For a moment, Janet froze. Several seconds passed. She started walking toward the sound of the gunfire.

87

His SIG Sauer 226 punched out in front of him, Ryan Lock rounded the corner of the building. He’d followed the sound of shooting to this location. He held his breath as the wind changed again and a fresh wave of smoke swept toward him. Red hot cinders stung his face. His eyes watered. He swiped the tears away with the back of his sleeve and hunkered down to find some fresher air.

Visibility was maybe twenty feet. From the design of the building he was fairly certain that it was one of several dorms. In military terms it was what would be termed a ‘target-rich environment’. From the number of rounds he’d heard fired, and the pattern of their timing, he guessed that a number of those targets had already been dispatched.

With his back to the wall, Lock skirted it. Blinds fluttered through the first window he came to. Here goes, he thought, pushing them to one side and stepping through the window. Glass crunched over his boots. It took a second for his eyes to adjust to the gloom.

It was a standard two-person dorm room. The kind that you’d find on campuses across the country. A single bed either side of the window. Two small desk/study areas. An open cupboard with rails and drawers for clothes. A cell phone buzzed on one of the desks, still attached to its charger.

Lock crossed to it. The display read: ‘Mom’. The three letters and what it held caught him unawares for a split second. He focused, pushing his emotions away from him. Now was not a time for reflection.

He reached over and flicked on a light. As he did so, the toe of his boot hit something. He looked down to see a young woman lying in a fetal position next to the door. Her hands were up over her head. That hadn’t stopped someone shooting through them and into the back of her head. Her roommate lay next to her, her body position more open, her legs twisted over each other. She had been shot in the back. They were both dead.

Reaching down, Lock had to drag them out of the way to get to the door. He did it as quickly as he could. He didn’t look at their faces, just hauled them out of the way. As he unlocked the door, the cell phone on the desk rang once more. He didn’t look back. A cold rage had welled in him. He tamped it down, and stepped out into the corridor.

He walked along the corridor to find doors kicked or shot off their hinges. Some victims were still lying against the doors where they had tried to stop the shooter forcing their way in. Others were inside. He reached a communal bathroom. He pushed the door open. It was a slaughterhouse. Blood coated the floor and walls. He counted six young women, all dead. A couple had been shot multiple times. Three had died huddled together, arms around each other for comfort.

Pushing his way back out of the bathroom, he called 911, using a Bluetooth headset to ensure his hands were free for his weapon. In the corridor he heard fresh gunfire. It was close in, maybe on the second floor, but the echo told him it was inside the building. He heard a woman scream.

Lock ran down the corridor, pushing through double doors into a communal living area. There were two bodies here, one behind a sofa, the other just lying on the floor.

Another scream. Lock hit the stairs. He took them two at a time, racing up them. He heard a fresh shot. The shooter was definitely up here, roaming this corridor, picking out his victims.

At the top of the stairs, Lock stopped for the briefest of moments. He had just connected to a dispatcher. Bad timing. He couldn’t start talking and risk giving away his presence. He was almost certain that the shooter was toting more than a handgun. If they had any sense, they’d also be wearing body armor. All Lock had was his SIG and regular clothes. If it came down to a gunfight at distance, he was toast. Surprise was what he needed, and even that might not be enough.

He reached up with his left hand and killed the 911 call. On tiptoe, he pushed through the door and into the corridor. The scene that greeted him was a mirror image of the downstairs corridor. Doors forced open. Bodies lying everywhere. But it wasn’t an exact copy.

Peeking round the corner, Lock could see at least a half-dozen doors at the far end of the corridor that were still closed and intact. He ducked back as he saw a flash of movement. The shooter strolled out of a dorm room. Lock’s guess had been correct. He had an assault rifle in his hands. He was wearing body armor. He had a handgun on either hip and what looked like spare mags dangling on a clip from his belt.

The shooter was white and male, which ruled out Gretchen and Krank. He stood about five ten. He was early twenties. He moved with purpose.

For Lock to step out now, and offer his whole body as a target would be suicide. A three-round burst would end it before it had begun.

Situations like this were close to triage. Calculations had to be made in order to minimize the loss of life. Like triage, sometimes saving the most lives entailed sacrificing others. It sucked. But it was the reality. It was where military training truly separated men like him from anyone else.

He waited. He could hear screams from behind a door. The shooter was shouting for the people or person on the other side to open up. When they didn’t, Lock heard him kick out at the door.

There was the sound of wood splintering followed by another kick. Lock counted to three and took another peek. He was just in time to see the shooter push his way in through the door, the rifle raised.

That was Lock’s cue to dash for the door. As he reached it, he heard someone inside the room reciting the Lord’s Prayer between sobs.

‘Our Father, who art in Heaven, thy kingdom come, thy will be do—’

The
thwump
of a round hitting flesh. A scream close by. The prayer continued, the crying sharper and higher-pitched. The shooter must have just killed the room mate. The person speaking was number two.

Lock conjured the dorm room in his mind. The victims must have hidden at the far end, close to the window, away from the door. If Lock pivoted in now, he’d have the same problem he would have had confronting the shooter in the corridor, only at a shorter distance.

He said his own prayer, asking whoever was up there for forgiveness. He closed his eyes for a split second and waited for the shot. When it came and the praying stopped, he opened his eyes. God forgive me, he thought.

He was already positioned so that he was on the side of the door that was opposite to the shooter’s direction of travel. Eyes open, he raised his gun, his finger on the trigger. Using the SIG for years gave him intimate knowledge of the trigger pressure. He squeezed, stopping just short of firing.

The next part was a blur. The shooter stepped out. Lock leveled the SIG at point-blank range to the back of the shooter’s head. The inner pad of his index finger travelled the last fraction. The gun fired. A single shot. Straight into the back of the shooter’s head.

One shot.

One down.

More to go.

Lock reached down to check the asshole was dead. He was. Satisfied, Lock took his rifle and the clips. He hit the call button on his Bluetooth, and waited for a fresh 911 connection.

88

Janet Cristopher felt the rifle jam painfully into the small of her back. She was trying her best to contain her fear. It was a losing battle. She knew she was going to die. She had figured that by confronting Gretchen she could buy her students and colleagues some extra time, and perhaps the chance to escape. It was a noble act. She now realized that noble acts didn’t take the edge off the thought of a painful death. Part of her wished that she had done the selfish thing and made a run for it into the hills and taken her chances with the fires.

The pressure in her back relented. Behind her, she heard Gretchen say, ‘Okay, you can stop now.’

They were standing at the front of the college’s main auditorium.

‘Turn around,’ said Gretchen.

Janet faced the hundreds of empty seats. Gretchen had retreated to the front row. She was completely composed, in the way that only a true psychopath could be. Even with the intense heat from the fires her body didn’t betray even a single bead of sweat.

‘Now what?’ Janet asked her.

Gretchen reached into the pouch of her flak jacket and pulled out a small handheld video camera. ‘Now you are going to apologize to the world for the damage that you’re ideology has done.’

To emphasize her point, Gretchen laid the rifle down flat on the desk in front of her, and pulled out a handgun. She pointed it at Janet.

Janet was about to tell her to go to Hell. Then she remembered why she was there. If an apology would buy time, then who cared? Let her have her apology. Even if it was released at a later date, the world would know that it had been given under duress. Did anyone watch some poor hostage of Islamic militants and believe a word of their denunciations of Western depravity? If Gretchen wanted an apology, she could have one.

Standing there, trying to think of how to begin, Janet’s heart almost stopped beating as she saw one of the doors at the very top of the auditorium begin to open. She couldn’t see anyone, just the door slowly opening, half an inch at a time. She looked back at Gretchen, who was staring at her expectantly.

‘Do you want a general apology or one for how I treated you?’ she said to Gretchen.

Gretchen smirked. She was clearly reveling in having the upper hand. ‘However you want to begin.’

Janet cleared her throat as the door slowly swung shut. Gretchen’s head whipped round. There was no one there.

‘Did you hear that?’ Gretchen said.

Janet shrugged it off. ‘What?’

Gretchen turned back round.

Ryan Lock crawled on hands and knees along the back of the auditorium. As he’d been walking from the dorms he’d caught a glimpse of Janet being forced at gunpoint into the building by Gretchen. He’d already briefed LAPD dispatch about what he knew, and alerted them to the fact that he was also wandering campus with a Bushmaster assault rifle. The captain he’d spoken to had ordered him to drop the weapon and make his way out unarmed. Lock had politely declined. He had the feeling that, even if he survived this, Los Angeles might be off his list of places to stay for a while.

Following Janet and Gretchen, and with no clear shot, he’d circled around, and found a way in through the rear entrance. At least this time he wasn’t outgunned.

With the rifle in his hands, he crawled to the far end of the auditorium. The floor was carpeted, which cut down on the noise. He reached the far end. Ahead of him lay about twenty-five steps leading down. He scooted forward, and slowly began to crawl down.

The rifle made it hard work. He had to use the edge of his hands, and his upper body and leg strength to stop himself losing control and tumbling forward.

A short distance away now, he could hear Janet talking. From time to time Gretchen would interrupt her. It seemed to be some kind of enforced
mea culpa
.

He tuned out the words and kept moving. He could hear the periodic crack of single shots from somewhere outside. He figured Krank, or someone else, was still out there wreaking havoc. He wanted to deal with Gretchen and get back out there. Though, from what the LAPD was saying, SWAT teams were close if not already on site, so maybe he’d be able to leave the mopping up to someone else.

The decibel level between Janet and Gretchen began to rise. Lock tuned back in.

‘You really think this will change anything?’ Janet said.

‘You think I’d be doing this if I didn’t?’ Gretchen fired back.

As they argued, Lock was reaching the front row. He stopped climbing down. He twisted his hips so that his body was lying directly across the step. He figured that if he moved fast enough he could have his rifle trained on Gretchen before she got to hers. He took a quick look, peering round the edge of the seating without putting his head over the top where he might be seen. Gretchen’s hands were at her sides. The rifle was lying on the desk.

Moving into a squat, Lock held the rifle, ready to fire if he absolutely had to. He counted down in his head from three. As he counted he flicked the weapon to a three-round burst.

On one, he stood up, swinging the barrel of the Bushmaster fractionally so that it was pointed it at her upper torso and head. Even with body armor, being hit at such close range would dump her on her ass.

‘Don’t move!’ he screamed.

Janet started more than Gretchen did. While Janet let out an involuntary ‘Oh’, Gretchen stared at him, as if she had been expecting this sudden intervention all along.

There was a long moment of silence. It was about to settle between them when Gretchen broke it: ‘What you gonna do if I move?’ she asked Lock.

‘Shoot you,’ he said, his tone completely flat. He wasn’t playing games. It was a statement of fact. ‘Raise your hands.’

Gretchen turned her attention from Lock back to Janet. ‘This is on you, Professor,’ said Gretchen, as she reached down for the rifle.

With the Bushmaster at his shoulder, Lock studied her face through the scope. ‘Don’t do it,’ he shouted at her.

She picked up the rifle. Lock fired.