CHAPTER 10
About ten seconds after the PA system dies, I receive confirmation that my plan worked. I guess it took that long for people to grasp what I said or wonder whether I was crazy, but they must have decided to believe the shit has hit the fan, because suddenly I hear screaming and shouting coming in muffled waves through the corridor, which remains empty. I hope that’s because the teachers are following my direction and have gone to Red-Level protocol, locking down their classrooms so they can only be opened from the inside. My other hope is that the hacker knows it would be unwise to override the locks the way he took out the PA system, and realizes keeping confused and frantic kids in the classrooms would be in the hostiles’ favor.
I have a moment of woulda-shoulda-coulda when I think of the hacker, who is clearly still in league with Marchuk’s terror cell: if I’d been a more experienced operative, a better hacker, had not been sidetracked by Katie, this would not be happening. I’d have caught the target by now and we’d both be long gone from Carlisle, me at Langley and him in prison. My schoolmates would be trying not to sleep through sixth period like any other Monday.
But I only wallow in that for a minute before I get my ass in gear. I don’t know how the hostiles are reacting to my announcement, but I’m going to assume the two in my chem class are still there. No doubt one of the other two, Andrews or Marchuk, is on their way back to the office for me since I broadcast my exact location. Probably not the smartest move, but it served its purpose. Most of the school should be safe inside their classrooms for now, Dodson has confirmation that her doubts about the “police” and their lockdown plan are legit, and hopefully I’ve shot the hostiles’ Plan B to hell.
Unless they came ready with a Plan C, they’ll be winging it, just like me.
I start my escape from the office a little too fast because I run smack into Jonesy’s desk and jostle everything on it, knocking over his pencil cup and water bottle. Reflexively, I stand both back upright, and that’s when I hear it—a dial tone coming from the phone receiver. So the phreak didn’t kill the landlines in the office. Maybe he thought taking out the office lines too soon would raise suspicion in Dodson or her staff. Now that they know I’m onto them, these lines are probably next to go.
I dial 9-1-1. A few seconds later, a voice connects on the other end.
“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”
I hear a jangling sound in the hallway, growing closer.
“Hello? What is your—”
Much as I hate to do it, I hang up on the 9-1-1 dispatcher and dive under Jonesy’s desk. Without knowing whether they’re hostile or friendly, I can’t give away my location. The jangling grows closer. I hold my breath, waiting for the sound to grow fainter as it continues down the hall, but it doesn’t. It stops right outside the service window.
Please don’t let it be a hostile. And if it is, please let them think that after my stunt on the PA system, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to hang around waiting for them to find me here, even if I actually was. At least I straightened everything on the desk above my head. Hopefully whoever it is won’t notice the water that spilled onto the touchscreen of Jonesy’s sign-in tablet.
“What are you doing here?” asks a man’s voice from outside the window.
I’m looking around the office for anything I could use as a weapon when I hear another voice, this time female and young. Probably a freshman; sophomore, max. A giggly one.
“Looking for Prettyboy. He’s sooo cute, don’t you think?”
I used to think that was an asset until that stalker girl made me an assassin’s target.
“I wouldn’t know. But didn’t you hear what he just said over the PA?”
“Trust me, he is,” the girl explains, gushing, and I’m a little embarrassed. “I was just coming from my locker when I heard his announcement. I was hoping for a picture with him.”
“If what he said is true, do you really think he’d still be hanging around waiting for the bad guys to come for him?”
Yeah, good question.
“So he isn’t here, then?” the girl asks, her voice giving away no fear of the school’s status that I just risked my life announcing, or of the man questioning her, which gives me hope that he’s a friendly.
“Do you see anyone in there? Why aren’t you in your classroom? You should get back there before your teacher goes batshit because you’re missing.”
So he’s clearly not a Carlisle teacher. Even under these conditions, the teacher handbook expressly prohibits use of words like batshit with students. Maybe he’s part of non-teaching staff.
“Not a problem,” the girl says brightly, making me think she doesn’t understand what hit man means. “See? I have a hall pass. And besides, my teacher—”
“Go!” the man barks, clearly reaching his breaking point with my latest fan.
I hear her footsteps moving quickly down the hall, but the man is still standing there. I hear him breathing.
To calm my nerves, I focus on the fact that my call to 9-1-1 went through. The dispatcher asked for my emergency twice. Even though I didn’t respond, she has to send an officer anyway. That’s protocol for all dropped 9-1-1 calls. And since I used a landline, they’ll know my exact location. Help is coming. I just have to stay alive long enough for it to get here.
I wait for what seems like forever, but whoever it is must not have noticed anything amiss on the desk, must have assumed I got out of here the minute the PA system went dead, because instead of coming into the office to check it out, he and his keychain move down the hall, the jangling sound growing fainter.
I stay under the desk, waiting, keeping an eye on the clock on the opposite wall. Boulder is big enough to have a decent-sized police department but small enough that zone coverage is excellent and response times are short, especially on a hang-up call from a school. Three minutes have already passed, which means a unit should be here in another couple. I hold myself together by thinking out what I know so far so I can relay it quickly to the responding officer.
Four hostiles, most likely armed, though I’ve yet to see a weapon. But I must assume they are, and only keeping weapons under wraps to avoid scaring everyone. Of course, Andrews-the-Fake is probably carrying a sidearm because not having one would scare people who think she’s really a cop. The bank robbers’ alleged motive: hiding out in a hostage-rich environment. True motive: Ukrainian arms dealer, here to kill me as revenge for his father’s death.
The clock says we’re just past the four-minute mark. The responding officer should be close now. When he arrives, he’ll see the metal doors over the main entrance, in the middle of the school day, and know something is wrong. He’ll call for backup.
Okay, what else do I know about this incursion? Oh yeah. The hacker.
He’s somehow blocking cell signals all over the building. Taking out the landlines is easy—just get to the building’s network interface device and cut the phone service wire. But unless he disabled the cell tower up the road—and I know he didn’t do that because the cell carrier would know immediately and that isn’t the kind of attention the hostiles want—he has to be doing it from inside the school.
The clock says we’re at the five-minute mark.
Wait. What if the phreak is not just blocking GPS signals but radio frequencies, too? The responding officer won’t be able to call for backup. He’ll have to leave to get help. That could take another eight minutes round-trip. Six if he’s running hot with lights and siren. Even once he gets back here with half the department, with the hacker in control of Carlisle’s security system, how long will it take for them to get inside? They’ll need to bring in some heavy battering equipment or the best hacker in town.