If one belonged to the shooter, that left at least nine innocents.
The back lot was empty of people, which meant everyone was either in the front lot, where the shooting was happening, or inside the building. He hoped it was the latter, but if that were the case, Scott knew he probably wouldn’t be hearing gunshots right now.
Sweat gathered at his temples, but his heart rate stayed steady. This was the job. It never got routine, but HRT practiced with live fire and he’d taken a lot of calls in the past six months. He’d discovered his tendency was to stay calm until it was all over. Then his adrenaline rush would fade and the reality of what had happened would sink in.
Right now, he needed to assess. His gut instinct was that the single shooter theory was right, but he wasn’t going to take that as a given until he’d confirmed it with his own eyes.
Scott yanked his Remington rifle, complete with a custom scope, out of his tactical bag. Keeping low, he raced for the corner of the building where he could peek around to the front and evaluate. Being first on scene, he was Sierra One: sniper position one, closest to the action.
It was exactly where he liked to be, although usually he found the high ground and set up with a lot more care, with the time to scout out exactly the right angles for all his teammates. Right now, with an active shooter, every second could cost lives.
Crouching down, Scott grabbed his tactical mirror and stretched it past the edge of the building, scanning.
He held in a curse as he realized the recruitment booth had been set up in the front parking lot. He spotted four men down beside the table, clearly dead, and three others sprawled near the door, likely hit as they’d made a run for the entrance. Two more were lying behind the community-center sign in pools of blood. If the shooter had hit them there, it meant he had high ground, that he’d found a perch with an angle sharp enough to see the men over the top of the sign.
He couldn’t be positive until he checked pulses, but he was pretty sure he was too late to help any of them. Scott reined in his anger and helplessness and thought strategically, the way HRT had taught him.
It was likely the tenth car in the lot belonged to the shooter. But where was he? Scott rotated the mirror again, searching, when it was ripped out of his fingers, the sound of a rifle booming.
Scott shook out his hand, which burned from the force of the mirror being shot out of it, and sunk low. He no longer had a visual and no way was he sticking his head around that corner. In the distance, over the ringing in his ears from the rifle shots, he heard the clang of metal.
The bleachers. On the other side of the community center there had once been a high school. It had been torn down years ago and was now mostly overgrown, but kids played baseball in the field occasionally. The bleachers were still there, the perfect spot for a skilled shooter to lie down and wait.
Scott raced back the way he’d come, taking out his FBI BlackBerry. But as he rounded the back of the building, he discovered he didn’t need it. The rest of his team had arrived.
Another sniper and six operators, including Froggy. The operators were fast, strapping on gear from their tactical bags, choosing only the most crucial of the sixty-five pounds of equipment they usually carried.
“What’s the situation?” Scott’s partner, Andre Diaz, was already scanning the area with his scope, his normally laid-back expression tense.
“We’ve got nine down in the front parking lot. Shooter was on the bleachers at the park, about two hundred yards from the front parking lot, but I’m pretty sure he took off. Be careful. This guy shot the tactical mirror right out of my hand.”
Grim faces swung toward him.
“You get a vehicle?” Andre asked.
When Scott shook his head, Andre ran for the other side of the building for a different vantage point. Scott started to follow when a sedan swung into the lot, sirens screaming.
Glaring at the newcomer—the CNU negotiator had finally arrived—Scott sliced a hand in front of his neck and the siren went silent.
Martin Jennings, who’d been a negotiator for the Bureau for nearly two decades, hopped out of his car. “Where’s Russell?”
Scott froze in the process of chasing after Andre, but it didn’t matter, because his partner was already coming back their way.
“What have you got?” Froggy asked.
“Black Taurus. I got a plate,” Andre said. “We’ll need to call the locals and have roadblocks set up. He’s gone.”
“Russell?” Scott asked, his attention fully, anxiously on Martin.
“Chelsie Russell,” Martin said. “Brand-new negotiator. I called her to have her meet me here and she was already nearby. She should have beaten me.”
Scott glanced at the non-Bureau cars in the lot. Ten cars. And the shooter had been parked over by the bleachers, not here. Was the tenth car Chelsie’s? He scanned them, and realized the one way at the back was a small, nondescript white compact. Just like the one Chelsie had driven last night.
Sucking in a hard breath, Scott spun for the front lot again. Behind him, he heard Martin calling for ambulances and Froggy calling the locals to get roadblocks set up. He sensed without glancing back that Andre was following him, that his partner knew something was up.
But all he could think of was Chelsie. He’d seen nine bodies. Was there a tenth?
* * *
CHELSIE RUSSELL HUNCHED outside the front door of the community center, shielded on either side by the brick walls of the building that jutted forward, forming a protective U around her. The bullhorn she’d been shouting into less than ten minutes ago hung limply at her side. Above her, the sky was a brilliant, mocking blue.
She was too terrified to move.
A minute ago, the shooter had taken another shot, although at what she had no idea. All his targets were dead. All except her.
He’d been shooting from somewhere off to her right. Was he maneuvering around now, trying to get a bead on her?
She stared at the army officers who’d ducked down behind the community-center sign, thinking they were safe. He’d picked them off, then shot the three who’d run toward her, ignoring her gestures for them to stay where they were. Nausea rolled through her and she forced herself to look away from the men, their arms splayed wide as if they were still entreating her to help.
They’d been alive a minute ago. Alive and afraid, like her. When she’d crept out the door, she’d seen a sudden burst of hope in their eyes. They’d started to run even though she’d frantically gestured for them to stay put. So she’d put that bullhorn to her lips and done exactly what the FBI had trained her to do.
Connect with the perpetrator. Identify what he wanted. Then convince him through communication tactics that he could achieve it another way.
But he’d ignored every attempt she’d made to talk him down. Resisted every single tactic she’d been taught by the Crisis Negotiation Unit.
She’d gotten here in time. She should have been able to save five of them. But she hadn’t made a bit of difference.
