of the room watching his comrades. She stopped dead in her tracks when he turned to survey her and the children.
When he turned back to his friends, she moved right a couple more steps until she stood directly in front of Peter Reimes.
“Find him,” Allen echoed the leader’s words. “Tell him to call this number immediately.” Mr. Allen blinked, looked confused a moment. “She wants to know what number she should call.”
The leader swung his cold gaze toward Claire. “What is the number?”
She called out her cell number without hesitation.
Mr. Allen repeated it.
The man holding her phone closed it, ending the call.
“Very good, Mr. Allen,” the man—no, the terrorist—in charge offered. “Continue to do exactly as I tell you and perhaps you will survive this day.”
Claire felt herself tremble. She tried to suppress the reaction but she couldn’t keep her body still.
This was not the kind of event you survived.
Oh, God.
“Where are the other kids going?”
Claire pivoted to the boy who’d spoken. Several of the other students began to talk all at once and point out the window.
“Quiet, boys and girls.” She strained to see the scene outside. Sure enough, children from the rooms in the rest of this wing were pouring across the quad. They rushed to meet the policemen.
Not just policemen, SWAT team members. Claire recognized the all-black combat gear, including the helmets. The realization that SWAT had been called in confirmed what she had already concluded.
They were going to die.
No. She squared her shoulders and refused to allow another tremble. They were not going to die.
These were children. She scanned the poor kids watching their schoolmates run to safety. She couldn’t bear the thought of even one of them being hurt.
The door to her classroom flew open, drawing her thoughts back to the front.
“The other rooms have been cleared,” a fourth man dressed in black and wearing a ski mask announced. He closed the door and, rather than join his friends at Claire’s desk, remained at the door.
Were there more or was this it? Each man was armed with an automatic rifle. The fourth man spoke with the same smooth English as the others, maybe just the slightest hint of an accent but too vague for her to identify.
“Miss Grant, I’m tired.”
She spun quickly to scrutinize Peter Reimes who looked sickly pale. “Did you take your medicine this morning?” Usually he didn’t have this much trouble keeping his level steady.
He nodded. “But I still don’t feel good.”
All the excitement was having an adverse affect on his blood-sugar level. He would need food or juice.
“I don’t feel good either,” Penny Myers echoed.
Claire had to get this chain reaction under control before every single child started complaining. Antagonizing these men would not be helpful to their situation.
“Settle down, boys and girls. We have to be very quiet,” she said firmly.
She patted Peter’s arm. “I’ll find you something to snack on. That should help.” Then she turned to face the front of the room. “This child,” she said, deliberately not mentioning his name, “is diabetic. He needs a snack. May I look in the backpacks for something edible?”
The man in charge gestured to his cohort, the one standing in the middle of the room keeping an eye on Claire and the kids. The man strode over to where the backpacks hung and started rifling through them.
Claire’s cell phone vibrated, making a grinding sound against the top of her desk.
“Answer it.”
One of the goons picked up the phone, opened it and held it against the principal’s ear. “This is Principal Allen.” He looked up at the man who gave the orders. “It’s State Representative Reimes.”
The other man finished searching the backpack and abruptly thrust a pack of snack crackers at Claire. Her hand shaking, she reached out and took the small package. “Thank you.”
The man didn’t respond. He stalked back to his position. She quickly opened the crackers and passed the package to Peter. Then she moved down the length of the window and made soothing comments to the rest of her students in hopes of keeping them calm. As she did, she took every opportunity to survey the goings-on beyond the drop-off area.
Were they planning a rescue attempt?
How in the world would they be able to do that? There was no access to the room other than the one door and this one long window. The emergency exit was actually an operational section of window at the southeast corner of the room. The rest of the window was sealed shut. Even if someone managed to open that emergency exit, no more than one or two of the children would be able to escape before the man watching them noticed.
Right now, the best thing to do was to stay cool and not to make any moves that could be considered aggressive or uncooperative.
The leader’s demands drew her full attention back to the front of the room.
“You have just one hour. If the authorities do not release Hamid Kaibar by then, your son will die. Another child will die every half hour after that until Kaibar is released.”
Terror wrapped around Claire’s chest and tightened to the point of making breathing near impossible.
Surely it wouldn’t come to that.
Surely the authorities would comply with their demands.
And release a terrorist? Darlene’s words about Hamid Kaibar reignited in her brain. One on the top ten list?
It was at that precise moment that Claire fully understood the ramifications of their predicament.
Her first assessment had been correct.
They were going to die.
“I want my mommy,” Lila Miles whimpered. Her plea set off a cacophony of similar sentiments.
“Let’s settle down, girls and boys,” Claire urged, desperation taking deep root at this point.
“Miss Grant!”
The brutal tone made Claire flinch as she faced the man in charge.
“Control your students or I will do it for you.”
She knew exactly what that meant.
Turning back to the window lined with children, she shouted, “Quiet, now!”
She
