The Thousand Dollar Christmas by J. T. Brannan

Author:J. T. Brannan [Brannan, J. T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grey Arrow Publishing
Published: 2018-12-25T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Two

Twenty minutes later, I heard gunfire from the other side of the room; agonized screams followed, and then cries of fear and terror.

The people in my sector started to panic, and I worried that they’d start trying to escape; what the hell would I do then?

Before they got a chance to do anything like that, I let rip with a burst of automatic fire aimed at the ceiling and shouted at them as loud as I could, straining to be heard over the yelling of the crowd. “Get back!” I warned them. “Get the fuck back, now!”

I worried that they’d swarm toward me over the furniture barricades and trample me to death; worried, too, Grant would see them, close off the exits and release the gas, killing them all before they could escape. But fear kept them in check, and they reacted to the bullets I’d fired and crouched low, shocked, scared, defeated.

“Somebody tried to run,” I heard a voice say into my radio earpiece. “Had to shoot some of them, six in total. One was injured badly I put her out of her misery. It’s under control now.”

“This side is secure,” I verified for anyone listening, trying not to reveal through my voice the anger and disgust that I felt, and the other two guys also confirmed that their own areas had been pacified.

“Good work,” Harris said over the net. “Still waiting on news about Congress. Looks like it might be happening, but stand-by to move downstairs in case it doesn’t pan out.”

I noted my receipt of the message, and went back to watching my area, trying to ignore the cries of the children, the pitiful sobs of the crowd. Over on the far side, I knew that there would be dead bodies, and I wondered what kind of impact that would have on the psyches of the people close by. Whatever else might happen, none of them were ever going to forget this day.

I felt a terrible sense of self-loathing come over me then, a sharp guilt that I’d done nothing to help the hostages; had even, in fact, helped the bad guys keep control of the situation. But what else could I have done? The shots had come without warning, and I knew that I couldn’t have stopped them; but what if I’d tried to help the crowd rise up, taken advantage of that momentary surge of energy and led them all in a counter-attack?

But I knew that such action would have been futile, and might have resulted in the deaths of everyone on the ninth floor.

Still, the self-hatred persisted, and there was nothing I could do about it.

I asked myself what would happen in the next fifteen minutes though; if the message came through from the control room to evacuate – Congress hadn’t met, the hostages were all to be killed – then what was I going to do?

What could I do?

One option would be to shoot out the windows – that would at least get some air inside, making the gas dissipate a lot more rapidly.

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