Stand Your Ground (14 page)

The high school looked deserted and peaceful, Chuck thought, as Ernie wheeled the pickup into the parking lot and circled the school toward the football stadium and the field house next to it.

Another pickup and a couple of cars were parked at the field house already. Some of the team members lived close by and had gotten here in a hurry.

The streets were empty. Everybody was hunkered down in their homes, scared because of all the gunfire, waiting anxiously to see what was going to happen.

Chuck wished he knew. He figured it wasn't going to be anything good.

Ernie stopped next to one of the pickups and said, “That's Brent's F-150. I think Pete and Spence are here, too.”

“Not everybody on the team will show up,” Chuck said as they got out of the pickup. “Some of them, their parents won't let 'em out of the house, and not all of them will be able to sneak out.”

He felt bad about putting high school kids in danger, but on the other hand, these were West Texas kids. Most of them owned guns and had grown up hunting. They worked on farms and ranches, some because their families owned the places, others for summer jobs. A few of them had probably worked as roughnecks in the oil patch during the summer. Sure, they spent a lot of time on their phones and tablets, like kids anywhere, but they had a core of toughness about them.

And Chuck needed help no matter where it came from.

Lord knows he needed help.

Half a dozen young men came out of the field house to meet Chuck and Ernie. A couple carried shotguns, and the other four had hunting rifles.

Brent Sanger, the starting running back on the varsity team, said, “Man, we're glad to see you guys, Chuck. What's this all about? What's all the shooting?”

“It's a terrorist attack,” Ernie blurted before Chuck could say anything. “They're shooting up the town!”

The boys looked at Chuck, who nodded grimly.

“That's right. The shooters appear to be Middle Eastern, so we're talking about Islamic terrorists.”

“What do they want in Fuego?” Pete Garcia asked. “This is nothing but a wide place in the road!”

Chuck had been thinking about that very thing. He said, “Yeah, a wide place in the road that's just a few miles away from the prison where a bunch of their buddies are locked up now.”

Looks of comprehension appeared on the faces of the football players. Brent said, “You think this attack has something to do with that?”

“It's got to,” Chuck said. “Nothing else makes sense.” He took a deep breath. “I think they intend to take over the town and then attack the prison. But first they'll try to round up everybody they haven't already killed and keep them corralled to use as hostages if need be.”

“We have to stop them.”

Chuck nodded and said, “That's what I had in mind.”

“I wish Andy was here,” Ernie said.

Chuck looked over at him with a puzzled frown and asked, “Andy Frazier? How come?”

“Because he's the quarterback,” Ernie said as if the answer were obvious. “The quarterback always knows what to do.”

 

 

“See if you can find some crutches,” Andy told Jill.

“You know you can't get out of bed,” she argued. “Not with a broken leg.”

“We may have to move around some. I want to be sure I can do it.”

For the past half-hour, they had been listening to the gunfire that came from various locations around town. Out in the corridor, hospital personnel rushed around and talked in loud, frightened voices.

When Jill had stepped out and asked a couple of nurses what was going on, they had ordered her to get back in the room and stay there. They hadn't offered any explanation for the commotion.

Whatever was going on, it had to be pretty bad. Andy and Jill had seen an ambulance leave the hospital with its lights flashing and siren blaring, but it hadn't come back yet.

“I need to go home,” Jill said. “My parents and my little sister . . .”

“The nurses told you to stay in here.”

“I know.” She sighed. “And I don't want to leave you, Andy. I really don't. But I'm afraid something really bad is happening, and I . . . I have to be sure they're all right.”

Andy understood how she felt. His dad was out at the prison today, so Andy was pretty sure he was all right. Hell's Gate had plenty of security.

But his mom was home alone, as far as he knew. He should have been there in case she needed help, he thought. If it hadn't been for this stupid broken leg—

“Find me some crutches,” he said again. “We're gonna get out of here. You've got your car. We'll go by my house and get my mom, then we'll head for your folks' house.”

She gazed at him, clearly wanting to believe what he was saying.

“You really think we can do that?”

“I don't think we've got any choice,” Andy said.

He reached down to the IV attached to the back of his hand and pulled it free, wincing at the sharp pain. That made the equipment start to ding, but he didn't figure anybody would come to check it for a while . . . if ever.

Jill eased the door open, looked up and down the corridor, then glanced at Andy and said, “I'll be back.”

“Just like the guy said in that old movie,” he told her with what he hoped was an encouraging smile.

While she was gone, he sat up better and then swung his legs off the side of the bed. The one in the cast stuck out in front of him. He was going to have a heck of a time getting around, he thought, but if he took it slow and easy he could manage.

Thankfully, the leg didn't hurt all that much. But that might be because he was still pumped full of painkillers, he reminded himself. Once they wore off . . .

He would worry about that when it happened, he decided.

Right now there were more pressing problems.

When he looked out the window he saw smoke rising here and there in town. Fuego was looking and sounding more like a war zone all the time.

His nerves grew tighter as the minutes dragged past. He had hoped that Jill would be able to find a supply closet or something and grab a pair of crutches without having to ask anybody. If she had to talk to the nurses, they would probably argue with her.

A couple of loud reports somewhere in the hospital made Andy jump. He almost slid off the bed and had to dig his fingers into the sheets and hang on to keep from slipping. That could have been bad, he thought.

But it seemed like everything on this Sunday morning was turning bad.

The door swung open. Andy's breath caught in his throat.

It was just Jill. And to his great relief, she had a pair of crutches in her hands.

“I got some,” she said. “Andy, did you just hear—”

“Yeah,” he said as he reached for the crutches. “That sounded like shots.”

“And they were close. Like, here in the hospital.”

Jill's face was pale with fear, despite her healthy tan.

“There's an emergency exit at the end of this hall,” Andy said. “I think it lets out into the parking lot. We'll go that way so we don't have to go past the nurses' station and the lobby.”

She nodded. He positioned the crutches under his arms, then swung his weight onto them as she stood ready to grab him if he started to fall.

He wished he had something other than a stupid hospital gown to wear. At least they had let him keep his underwear on.

It was bad enough having to make a run for it on crutches. He didn't need his bare butt sticking out in the wind, to boot.

Andy had had to use crutches his freshman year when he hyperextended his knee, so he knew how to maneuver on them. As he started toward the door with Jill hovering beside him, he said, “Check the corridor.”

She opened the door, looked, and then nodded to him. She held it open wider so he could get through.

They moved out into the hall, which was deserted at the moment. That struck Andy as odd, but right now he would take any lucky break they could get.

He and Jill had just turned toward the emergency exit marked with a red sign over it, when a harsh, accented voice called, “You two! Stop! Stop there!”

Andy's head jerked around as Jill grabbed his arm in fear. A man had come around the corner where the nurses' station was located and now strode toward them.

Andy had seen enough movies to know that the thing the stranger was pointing at them was an automatic weapon.

Quietly, he said, “Jill, get behind me and make a run for the door.”

“No! I won't leave you—”

A middle-aged man stepped out of one of the patient rooms as the gun-toting stranger stalked past. This man had a straight-backed chair in his hands, and he swung it high as he tried to bring it crashing down on the intruder's head.

The man with the gun must have heard him, though, because he swung around and the weapon belched fire and noise. Bullets thudded into the chair-wielder, who must have been visiting a patient, and knocked him backward. He dropped the chair and collapsed as blood welled from his wounds.

“Run!” Andy told Jill. He moved as fast as he could on the crutches, knowing he had to try to get away, too, since she wouldn't desert him.

They were both going to get shot in the back, he thought.

But when the automatic weapon went off again, the slugs smashed into the wall just above the emergency exit. One of them hit the sign and shattered it.

Andy and Jill froze. They had no choice. All the gunman had to do to chop them to pieces was lower the barrel a little.

“Stop there,” the man said again. “Come with me.”

More men appeared as the two young people made their way slowly toward their captor. More men with guns appeared and began forcing patients and visitors out of the rooms.

They were gathering up everybody in the hospital and taking them somewhere, Andy thought.

Like animals being led to slaughter.

 

 

The glass doors at the hospital's main entrance slid aside for Phillip Hamil as he approached them.

Just like any obstacle moved out of his way sooner or later, he thought. There might be setbacks now and then, but in the end he would emerge triumphant. It was Allah's will.

With his personal bodyguards trailing him, he strode into the hospital, where Raffir met him along with several other men. A machine gun hung on its sling from Raffir's shoulder.

“The hospital is secured, Doctor,” Raffir reported. “All the captives are being held in the cafeteria.”

Hamil nodded in satisfaction.

“Did we suffer any losses?” he asked.

“None,” Raffir replied with a smirk.

“Excellent. How many of the infidels did you have to kill?”

“Only three or four. And none of the medical personnel, as you instructed.”

“Very good. Some of our men have been wounded already. I'll have them brought here.”

Taking over the town's medical facility was an important component of the plan, Hamil knew. Not the most important part, certainly, but still, he was glad to hear that this part of the operation had been successful.

“What about the police station?”

“Also secured, Doctor. But . . . we lost four men.”

Hamil frowned.

“The Americans put up that much of a fight?”

“They were lucky,” Raffir declared. “But in the end our forces took the station.”

“And executed the infidels, I hope.”

When Raffir hesitated, Hamil knew his new lieutenant had something displeasing to report. But after a second, Raffir forged ahead bravely.

“They fled. We found no one inside the building except one of our men . . . dead.”

Hamil's jaw tightened in anger. He asked, “How many of the Americans were there?”

Raffir shook his head and said, “I can't say for sure, Doctor. None of the men who led the initial assault survived, and by the time the others got there, the Americans were gone.”

Anger turned to fury and welled up inside Hamil. In an icy but controlled voice, he said, “You sent only four men?”

“The others were only a few minutes behind them. A whole truck full—”

Raffir stopped short and gulped. Perhaps he read in Hamil's eyes the desire to kill him as an example. That was the first impulse Hamil felt.

But he forced down the urge and said, “All right. At least there will be no more communication between the authorities and the outside world.”

He squared his shoulders. Time to move on.

“Take me to the prisoners.”

Raffir led him to the cafeteria, where approximately eighty people stood in a frightened, huddled mass on one side of the big room. Half a dozen armed men guarded them.

Hamil strode in front of them. He felt hatred emanating from them, along with their terror.

It was good that they hated him, he thought. The more righteous a man was, the more the infidels hated and feared him. He wore their loathing like a badge of honor.

Raising his voice slightly, he said, “I want hospital medical personnel on one side of the room, patients and visitors and other hospital staff on the other. Doctors, nurses, technicians, move over there, please.”

He pointed to the other side of the room.

Nobody moved at first. Then a tall, fair-haired man in scrubs stepped forward. He said, “What are you going to do with us? Why are you doing this?”

Hamil moved closer to him, read the little name tag pinned to the green scrubs.

“Dr. Conley,” he said.

“That's right.”

“You are a doctor here?”

“Of course I am. I was working in the ER this morning.”

“Doctor, you need to take your people and move over to the other side of the room. You need to do that . . . right . . . now.”

Conley looked like he wanted to argue, but instead he turned and gestured vaguely, saying, “Come on, folks. It'll be all right.”