CHAPTER 26

.....Behind the sanctuary of the Main Desk, the recruiter held the sobbing receptionist tightly. Over the honk of alarms, Wolfe could feel the thud of rotors approaching the school before he finally heard the angry CHUP CHUP CHUP.
.....The cavalry was on its way.
.....Wolfe wasn't reassured. He realized that they would probably get about setting up perimeters, communication posts and other war game postures before actually attempting to storm the school.
.....His ass was puckered enough as it was, and he wasn't all that eager for the storming part of being rescued. He had an uneasy feeling about how these things tend to work out. And he hadn't exactly been given a reason to think that the Harding police department was all that up to handling something like this without collecting a little collateral damage along the way.
.....Wolfe didn't have a problem with his mortality, even though it seemed more impending than ever before, but when the end came he sure as hell didn't want it to happen because of some fool couldn't tell his black from the white.
.....He glanced over at the recruiter. The man's lips were locked over the receptionist's, and her hand was moving up a sharply creased pants leg towards...
.....“Hey!” Wolfe hissed. The red-nailed claw twitched, stopped. A tongue throbbing in his cheek, the recruiter opened his eyes, balefully considering Wolfe. The tongues kept tangling.
.....Wolfe threw up his hands. Well? “Aren’t you gonna do something?”
.....Hutchins broke the lock, a strand of saliva keeping him and his date connected. “Like what?”
.....The receptionist inhaled sharply, exhaled raggedly. Her hand started to crawl upwards again.
.....Wolfe rolled his eyes in exasperation. “You’re a soldier, right? You’re trained for this kind of shit!”
.....“Right,” the recruiter snarled. “And if I wanted to get shot at, I wouldn’t be a fucking recruiter now, would I?”
.....He gasped. The hand suddenly had his complete attention. He forgot about Wolfe and went back to sucking on the receptionist's face.

.....Outside the high school, the thunder of rotors rattled the glass of the cars parked below. The nose of the chopper reared up as it paused to hover, a burst of feedback shrieking from the squawkbox. A cloud of grit began to churn below, a rising virtual dust storm that obscured everything in the parking lot.
.....Black-suited forms rappelled from the sides of the beast and disappeared into the maelstrom. From the squawkbox of the chopper poured a keening guitar riff, followed by a bass line that throbbed like bad blood.
.....Out of the roiling dust the SWAT team approached the high school in slo-motion, Jerry Bruckheimer blockbuster-style.
.....Their pace was perfect, their poise dead-on...
........ until one of them staggered, grabbed on to the arm of a team member to recover. The formation splintered, and the moment was broken.
.....They looked at each other: they were just a bunch of slobs in expensive gear, with very expensive toys. They glared at the schmuck who shattered the delusion.
.....It was Kyle, of course. Asshole.
.....Kyle blushed. “When’s the National Guard gonna arrive?”
.....Clyde puffed up his chest as he stood tall in the parking lot, considering the front of the high school. It looked quiet enough...
.....He spat and sneered. “We don’t need the fucking National Guard.”
.....Because of his cottonmouth, it wasn’t a very convincing spit. Still, lack of saliva aside, he was feeling particularly badassed at the moment, having managed to put away a couple of rails in Doc’s bathroom before joining back up with his team. Clyde was humming like a tuning fork. He sniffed and wiped his runny nose with the back of his hand.
.....Damned dust.

.....Wolfe was done with sitting around waiting to die.
.....When the final tally came, he didn't want to be marked down as having just sat there and taken it. That, and he didn't want to go out watching other people dry-humping. It hadn't reached that point between the two yet, but he decided not to wait until it did.
.....In the words of Admin, it was time to be proactive. He was taking some comfort in the softball bat he had retrieved from beneath the receptionist's post, but not a whole hell of a lot. Like taking a knife to a gunfight, but sort of less cool, he thought.
.....He eased up to eye the line of sight over the desk. Beneath the wail of approaching sirens and the continued honk of alarms, the popping of his protesting joints was barely audible.
.....They sounded like gunshots to Wolfe.
.....The coast seemed clear. Crouching, he eased one of the batwing doors to the desk open. Well-oiled, it glid through silence...
........ but the silence was sliced open by the metallic rattle of an belt buckle being unclasped, the hiss of a fabric belt impatiently whipped through belt loops.
.....Oh, gawd...
.....Wolfe didn't look back. He eyed the front doors, daylight spilling in bright as a mother's promise. What's it gonna be, boy?
.....He eased around the desk, the bat in hands as he moved in a spiderwalk batting position. Hallway to the left, freedom to the right. Fight or flight?
.....He tried to swallow, but there was nothing left to swallow.
.....Wolfe turned left and stepped around to face the hallway...
........ and found himself staring down the barrel of one nasty-looking monster rifle. The unblinking eyes that looked back at him over the gun looked as deadly as the depthless open bore. Wolfe did what any rational man would do when looking sudden, senseless death in the face.
.....He wet his pants.

.....Mike stares down the barrel of the Mini-14 at the interloper, finger whiteknuckled on the trigger. Despite the bat in the man's hands, he doesn't seem like much of a threat. The bat slides through the man's hands and clatters to the floor.
.....Make that no threat. He smells piss, glances down at the puddle around the soles of the man's Doc Martens.
.....Ew.
.....His finger eases on the trigger.

.....Hands free, Wolfe slowly raised them up, palms out towards the gunman. The kid from the parking lot, gone postal. He felt like sobbing, the warmth of urine soaking his Dockers, burning like a badge of dishonor.
.....He didn't hear the slap of sneakers on linoleum until the kids were almost on him, moving from the opposite hallway in a break towards the front doors.

.....His eyes dart from the shaking old man as two bodies enter his line of sight, two silhouettes with linked hands, suddenly frozen against the daylight blazing through the two glass doors.

.....Too late to warn them, too scared to turn his head, Wolfe took in the two kids from the corner of his eye. It was that Lolita girl and her idiot wigger boyfriend. Behind them, he could see the other two kids playing statues just out of sight of the gunman. Wide, unblinking eyes for everyone.
.....The barrel of the assault weapon eased away from Wolfe and he almost cried with relief, almost cried in shame for feeling relief at someone else about to take his bullet.
.....The wigger wasn't about to take anyone's bullet standing still. He dropped Lolita's hand and spun on his heel, lunging towards the door with adrenaline-fueled grace.
.....The gunshot was a thunderclap. Glass exploding, a young girl's scream.
.....Wolfe took the opportunity to run the other way.

.....The troopers jumped at the gunshot, then crouched. They eyed the school, each other, their fingers tight on the triggers of the M-16A1s. But not too tight: they didn’t need a repeat of Saturday night.
.....A fine mist of dust swirled about the bullet hole that had appeared at just above head level in the front door, the safety glass glazed with cracks. Then Scot T exploded through, arms over his head against the released glass swirling about him.
.....The SWAT team ducked for cover, skittering off behind the student’s vehicles as Scot T hit the landing and launched himself over the stairs. In mid flight, his baggy pants finally dropped south and tangled up around his ankles. He arced forward...
........and hit the pavement with his chin. He lay sprawled on the sidewalk like a soggy towel, unmoving.

.....In through the shattered glass of the front door and frozen where she stood in the center of the high school foyer, Lolita was looking over her shoulder at Scot T’s exit.
.....Debbie and Pierce backpedaled from the branch in the hallway, turned and ran back the other way. Pierce glanced back as Lolita slowly turned and faced the unseen shooter, gunsmoke curling around the corner from his position.

.....The SWAT team looked up from their positions of safety as Clyde screamed into his radio to Dispatch:
.....“Where’s the fucking National Guard?”

.....Back at the Dispatch Desk, Julia checked the logs.
.....“Fullajah again, this week.” She finished off the McMuffin, then keyed the mike again. “They might take awhile to arrive.”
.....She was finally able to get a sense of order to her environment for the first time since setting off the Code Red. It had helped immeasurably when she had disabled the phone bank. It wasn’t as if she could tell anyone calling what the hell was going on in the high school. It wasn’t because she didn’t know, because she did. The monitors were giving her a front row seat in the biggest thing to hit Harding since Primus had played at the 1990 Senior Prom.
.....She just couldn’t tell anyone what was going on.
.....Department regulations.

.....Clyde sighed, considering the high school.
.....“How long?” one of his troopers asked. A distant roar answered for him.
.....The thunder from an approaching battalion of helicopters built to a roar and Clyde smiled, finally. His smile faded as the helicopters grew near enough to read the insignia on the sides.
.....It was the media: CNN, FOX, choppers sporting all sorts of newsworthy initials. Their crews leapt from open doors and secured their perimeters with paramilitary precision.

.....With the shattered glass of the doorway behind her, Lolita remained frozen, a deer in the headlights.

.....She looks like a teenybopper Lara Croft, all boobs-n-legs in that formfitting cheerleader outfit.

.....All Lolita could see was the silhouette of the shooter, a stray ray of afternoon light gleaming off of the school jacket.
.....He lowered the rifle and nodded. Lolita blinked up at him, and he gestured: Scoot!
.....Lolita didn’t need any encouragement. She bolted through the shattered glass, bounded down the stairs.
.....She paused, dropping to a knee by Scot T. With a sob, she touched his shoulder. Without opening his eyes, he snarled from the corner of his mouth.
.....“Keep moving, you stupid bitch.”
.....Her back was to the parking lot, so the SWAT team and the news crews setting up could only see Lolita’s back as she knelt closer to the fallen boy. Cameras zoomed in on the scene, the lucky ones getting the shot that was guaranteed to be the iconic image of this particular event: The Last Kiss.
.....Her back to the onlookers, they didn’t see Lolita spit in Scott T’s face. He winced, but didn’t twitch. Her last kiss was a hiss in his ear:
.....“Fag.”
.....She stood and threw a look back to the school, then kept moving.

.....He follows the sound of the remainder of fleeing teens. Screams echo distant from outer reaches of the school.

.....Pierce backslapped the screaming girl and she shut off like he had hit mute. She fired off a dropkick at his nuts and he brushed her foot aside.
.....“Don't get us killed, you idiot.”
.....She looked back at him silently, eyes cold. If we live through this, you are so dead.
.....Being that it was the only door that wouldn't lock, Pierce and Debbie found themselves back in the dubious shelter of the bathroom again. Pierce hoped that whatever was happening to Scott T and Lolita was going to take some time. At least enough time for him to...
.....Suddenly, the chickenwire-laced window looked like a workable exit. Pierce grabbed the trashcan and began to smash the heavy base of it against the reinforced glass.
.....BANG. BANG. BANG.
.....The glass spiderwebbed, but held firm. Pierce increased his efforts.

.....The smashing echoes down the hall, and he moves to follow...

.....SWAT leader Clyde interviewed Lolita, enjoying his turn in the spotlight as a circle of news cameras swarmed in and fed hungrily on her statement.
.....“I didn’t see his face, but he was wearing a school jacket...” she sniffled, then added: “It was one of ours...”
.....Clyde nodded and stepped back to address his boys, M-16A1 over his shoulder and presenting his best authoritative posture and voice for the benefit of the home viewers.
.....“The perp was observed wearing a Harding school jacket, which doesn’t mean start shooting anyone wearing...”
.....Ignoring the cop and free of his interference, the news jackals jostled each other and tried their best to ruin the others shots as they swept in on Lolita, cameras and microphones shoved into her face to record every reaction, every sob, every tear. Images and sounds to be analyzed back at the editing docks and then restructured for maximum emotional impact.
.....Virtual verité.

.....“Were you scared?”
.....“Will you ever feel safe again?”
.....“How did it feel when you saw your boyfriend shot?”
.....“Laying dead on the sidewalk?”
.....“Did you love him?”
.....“Are you still a virgin?”

.....In the hubbub, no one saw Wolfe steal away from the side exit of the school, a painful duckwalk back towards the motel. It was best that no one saw him, as urine shows dark on gray cotton slacks. But cotton dries out, the stain washes away.
.....It was the indelible stain of his shame that was going to take some getting used to.