hoped would be a reassuring gesture while urging them to be calm. She promised that all would be fine, that they would be going home soon.
She prayed her promises would not prove to be lies.
“Representative Reimes says that one hour is not enough time.”
Mr. Allen’s voice shook with the impact of the message he had no choice but to relay. Dread twisting into tiny knots in her stomach, Claire waited for a response from the men at the front of the room.
“One hour is all he has,” their captor stated. “That hour started five minutes ago. That is all I have to say.”
Mr. Allen repeated the statement into Claire’s cell phone and the man holding the phone closed it, severing the connection.
Claire worked for several precious moments to maintain her composure as she whispered soothing assurances to the children. Remaining calm was absolutely essential. If there was any hope at all of devising an escape plan, she could not be distracted by panic or fear.
There was no way the authorities were going to release a terrorist, not even to save these children. Claire almost lost hope then and there. The police would try to help. Representative Reimes would call in his every marker, put the pressure on the political chain of command. But she knew all too well what would happen if the powers that be decided to have SWAT converge on the classroom in lieu of releasing the prisoner.
There would be few survivors.
It wasn’t that she didn’t trust the highly trained members of such an elite force to do the best job possible, but the four gunmen holding her class captive had nothing to lose. If they went down they would want to incur as much collateral damage as possible. Even if tear gas were somehow introduced into the room to disable the terrorists, they would go down firing those automatic weapons. The children were lined up in the window like sitting ducks in a carnival shooting gallery.
They would be the first to die.
She glanced at the clock high on the wall above the white board behind her desk. In forty-five minutes, the man in charge had promised, the first child would be sacrificed if his demand was not met.
She had to figure out a way to stop that from happening.
Her gaze landed on Mr. Allen. There was nothing he could do. He was bound securely with a masked guard towering over him. The leader lingered around the desk as well. Waiting for the call back, she supposed.
The other two men were covering the door and the classroom at large, including her and the children.
Four armed men and all these children.
She had no weapon, no actual training in how to fight off an attacker. Sure she’d taken a self-defense course once. But that course had focused mainly on preventing the possibility of sexual assault. She had no idea how to fend off terrorists.
One thing she did know, however, was how to fire a weapon. She was no expert by any means. She wasn’t even a particularly good shot. But she knew how a rifle worked. All she needed was to get her hands on one and then she’d just shoot until they didn’t move anymore, as her father had always put it.
If he were still alive, her father would be proud of her for attempting to assess her options under the circumstances, but even he would have to admit that her chances of accomplishing anything were sorely limited. Still, she had to try. Giving up was not her style.
She considered the items she had seen in the children’s backpacks when she’d gone through them. The phones had all been turned over as requested. There really hadn’t been anything else she could use as a weapon. Getting into her desk was out of the question.
What could she use as a weapon? Her gaze skimmed the array of projects the children had turned in last week. A miniature volcano. A papier-mâché dinosaur. A Pterosaur complete with nest and hand-painted eggs. The model of the prehistoric bird was fairly large with pointy metal claws about the size of ink pens attached to its feet. The bird was mounted on a stand as if flying over its nest. If she could pretend to knock it off the desk, she could pull one of the claws free as she picked up the mess. Then use it as a weapon, if she got the opportunity. It wouldn’t be much, but it was better than nothing.
Claire checked on her students. They were getting restless. She moved from one to the other and urged them to keep their eyes on the police cars no matter what happened and to stay quiet. When she’d again reached the row of desks where the Pterosaur sat she backed up a couple of steps and started to turn. Just as she’d planned, she bumped into the bird’s widespread wings and knocked it off balance.
The bird and stand crashed to the floor.
The aim of four weapons fell on her.
“I’m sorry.”
For three or four seconds, she couldn’t catch her breath. She was sure one of the men would shoot her where she stood.
As if God had been watching out for her, her cell phone vibrated against her desktop, drawing all attention there.
Relief flooded her and somehow her heart started to beat once more. She took a deep breath.
While the men focused on the call, she crouched down and started to gather parts of the damaged bird. She pulled loose one of the pointy claws and slid it into the right pocket of her slacks while keeping an eye on the terrorists. When she’d placed the broken bird back atop the desk, she stood.
Mr. Allen’s face had gone utterly white.
Even from across the room she could see the sweat dampening his forehead.
The phone was crushed against his ear so that he could listen to what the caller had to say.
He looked up at the terrorist in charge. “Representative Reimes has tried everything he knows to do but the federal authorities will not release Mr. Kaibar. But he would like to offer the four of you a chance at freedom in return for the lives of the children.”
“Tell him,” their captor said, his voice cold, “that we will not bother to wait the final fifteen minutes. His son dies now.”
Mr. Allen repeated the information, his face now going a sickly gray color.
Claire stood, unable to move, and watched this moment play out. Her mind kept recapping the same words over and over.
They were going to kill the children, starting with Peter.
Mr. Allen abruptly gagged, then gasped for air.
“Mr. Allen!” She moved toward him before her mind registered what she was doing.
Weapons took aim at her, but she couldn’t stop.
“Stay with the children,” the man in charge ordered.
She hesitated long enough to glare at him. “He has a bad heart. He could be having a heart attack! I have to help him!”
The leader nodded to his cohort, the one who’d handled the phone.
Before Claire could reach her desk, the man had shoved her chair, Mr. Allen still bound to it, into the corner. He leveled his weapon and fired.
The
