Active Shooter
Authors: Eduardo Suastegui
Tags: #espionage, #art, #action suspense, #photography, #surveillance, #cyber warfare
Shooter
Published by Eduardo Suastegui at Smashwords
Copyright 2014 Eduardo Suastegui
Copyright © 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this book may
be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means
including information storage and retrieval systems – except in the
case of brief quotations in articles or reviews – without the
permission in writing from its publisher, Eduardo Suastegui.
All brand names and product names used in
this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of
their respective holders. The author is not associated with any
product or vendor in this book.
Published By Eduardo
Suastegui
A
Voice of
the Mute Tales
production
A
brief foreword
Active Shooter
portrays Andre
Esperanza’s life months before
Pink Ballerina
. This might
suggest one should read one story before the other. While that
wouldn’t hurt, the author promises each story stands on its own,
even if the reading of both -- which he would love you to do --
enriches the overall fabric of the
Our Cyber World
series.
Primarily,
Active Shooter
focuses on
an incident that gets scant mention in
Pink Ballerina
, and a
relationship between the protagonist and one character that also
gets rather minor billing in
Pink Ballerina.
The author
initially intended
Active Shooter
as a short story sketch to
work through key character interactions and backgrounds.
Well, we said this would be a brief foreword,
so we’ll keep our word and let you get started with
Active
Shooter
, a novella in the
Our Cyber World
series.
The lights in the studio signaled the
impending start of the interview. I wore a mask of makeup and
everyday man pleasantness, seconds away from ratifying my instant
fame as someone able to execute carnage. Network morning show
anchor, Bridget Suarez, smiled at me with a raised eyebrow, her
green eyes flashing with a relax-we-got-this spark. Her confidence,
her ebullience at having landed an exclusive interview was
infectious, though I seemed inoculated to it. No matter how much I
tried to appropriate it, I felt only apprehension.
“In 3, 2, 1,” someone cried out from the
studio's shadows.
Bridget let one second pass then snapped into
action. “This morning we are talking to Los Angeles photographer
and math teacher, Andre Esperanza, who has become a hero to many
after intervening to thwart a terrorist act.”
I forced an awkward smile, reproaching myself
for agreeing to the interview after a week of self-imposed silence
and refusal to discuss my allegedly heroic deeds with the media. A
week. That's how long I'd lasted. In this age of instant, yet
fleeting fame and unabashed self-exposure, I'd purposed to resist
the enticement to relish the superficial publicity and fleeting
accolades. And I lasted one week.
“You haven't given any interviews until
today,” Bridget Suarez said. “Why the reluctance?”
“It wasn't modesty,” I replied.
“You didn't want the attention.”
“We all want attention. I didn't need
it.”
She paused for an instant, her expression
suggesting this interview's initial trajectory was deviating from
her original plan. “Do you fear prosecution for your actions?”
“That's a question for the authorities, I
guess.”
“But you are cooperating fully,” she
said.
“Sure. I have nothing to hide.” I left it
laconic, per our agreement to skirt potential legal ramifications
of my actions. She got it. Time to move on.
“By now most Americans have seen video clips
capturing what transpired in LAX one week ago today. I'd like for
us to play them while you recount what happened, in your own words.
Is that okay with you, Mr. Esperanza?” she asked as if I controlled
the video that had already started to play in one of the monitors,
the same footage looping incessantly on every news channel for the
past seven days. “Tell us what comes to mind, what you are thinking
moments before the shooting starts.”
I am standing in the Terminal 4 security
line, ready for another interaction with TSA agents, one that will
likely involve a pat-down since as a matter of practice and
principle I avoid the body scanner. I once more curse the indignity
of having to half-disrobe and walk on filthy floors with socked
feet. “Thank you Osama and Mr. shoe-bomber,” I snarl inwardly.
Out of a photographer's habit, I explore my
surroundings. If I had an assignment here, what would draw my eye,
what are the gifts in this scene that would make a compelling
photograph. Not the dreary architecture, maybe the people around
me, though their deadpan expressions seem hardly photogenic.
As I serpentine through the security line I
notice a man just to my left, bending down, setting down a guitar
case, opening it, lifting an instrument of a different kind.
“Gun!” I shout. “Everybody down, gun!” I
manage to get out before a single gunshot rings out.
Then it starts, the first burst from
different guns farther away, as far as I can tell, coming from two
other shooters, firing as they cut past the TSA station. The first
shot found its mark in a LAPD officer whose bulletproof vest didn't
protect him because it is not a hat.
The first shooter will now be looking for me.
I know. That's what I would do, flush out the meddling guy yelling
“gun!” Since I'm hiding behind a mass of cowering humanity, he
doesn't spot me and moves on.
I can't stay here. I need to get to that
downed LAPD officer, not so that I can check his pulse or triage
his wound, but because I need his radio. And his gun. More than
anything I need his gun.
Through a crease in the crowd I see the first
shooter I spotted, now walking into the terminal, trailing the
other two. I make a run for the officer. Outside the terminal I
hear a blast and more gunfire. From this I estimate the shooters'
accomplices are holding the line out there. LAPD officers will not
come to our aid in the near future.
Another explosion sends glass flying into the
terminal by the time I reach my target. I won't have to feel guilty
about not tending to his needs. Not much of his head remains. While
terrified travelers watch me, I grab his gun, half in his hand,
half in its holster. Next I clip his radio to my belt, then turn
him over to rip off his shirt and undo his bulletproof vest's
Velcro straps. Before I can put it on, I see shooter #1 returning
for me.
He's also wearing a vest. I don't have a head
shot from my vantage point.
Through the TSA tables I can see his legs
striding toward me. Just like a photo, I tell myself. Frame, focus,
wait, take the shot. I aim at an opening and when his legs get
there I take one shot. His knee buckles in flash of red and he
screams. I leap over the table, taking another shot at his head. He
collapses, and I keep coming because his vest and his riffle are
now my top priority.
Seconds later I am wearing his bloody vest,
drying off a bloody riffle on the dry parts of his clothing. I
sling his backpack over my shoulders, which from the weight of it I
guess contains more ammunition, and maybe something else.
More bursts of gunfire ring out from beyond
the TSA security point. They're going deeper into the terminal,
like a circular saw through red meat, headed for a plane, whichever
one is loading now, I'm guessing, because they would have timed the
attack to coincide with its boarding time.
Into the police radio I say, “Andre Esperanza
in Terminal 4. Going in after 2, repeat 2 active shooters.”
I run into the terminal, crouching as I go,
passing bodies, discarded luggage and crimson streaks on the floor
from those who have dragged themselves or have been pulled along to
safety. The radio crackles and I ignore it, lower the volume lest
it give away my location to the shooters. It's buzzing now, letting
me know dispatch is trying to contact me, but I have to keep going
to reach the shooters before it's too late.
I see them now, one firing at a pinned down
LAPD officer who won't be able to resist much longer. The other
shooter comes out of a gate's waiting area and spots me. The brief
moment of hesitation during which he tries to convince himself I am
shooter #1 will cost him his life. I drop to one knee and fire one,
two, three riffle rounds. The first and second shots hit him square
in the chest and stun him. The third shot finds his left cheek.
Now shooter #3 will be coming for me, angry
because his plan is seconds away from falling apart. I expect him
to shoot at me, just letting it rip. For a second I point my gun at
him, knowing I don't have a clear shot. Though I cannot see his
eyes at this distance I sense he's making the same calculus. He
lowers his gun, reaches behind him, and with and underhand release
hurls an object my way. I jump and dive to my left seconds before a
boom and a cloud of dust fill the confined space. Lights flicker,
threatening to go dark.
I reach a counter and parapet behind it,
waiting for him to come for me. Will he?
The radio buzzes again and I pick it up,
raising its volume. “Andre Esperanza here. One active shooter
remaining. Repeat, one active shooter remaining.”
“Mr. Esperanza. Are you with the LAPD? If
not, get off this channel.”
“I am a passenger in Terminal 4. I've put
down 2 of 3 shooters. One remains active and at large. I'm going
after him.” I say this and what comes next not anticipating what
play this exchange will get in news reports but knowing I need to
move. He hasn't come for me, but this conversation is giving my
position away.
“Mr. Esperanza, are you a Federal
Marshall?”
“I'm a substitute math teacher at Vermont
High,” I reply, aware how ridiculous that sounds.
“If you're not with law enforcement, you need
to stand down.”
I hear screaming, more gunfire, more
desperate screaming.
I ask, “How soon until officers get in here?”
I get only silence. “They're being held back by gunmen with
explosives, right?” Another pause follows. “By process of
elimination, that leaves me.”
“How were you feeling at this moment, Mr.
Esperanza?” Bridget Suarez was asking me back in the studio where
instead of gun powder and the acrid scent of spent explosives I
smelled her perfume. “Most of us would feel discouraged, despairing
that the police was at best minutes away.”
I considered her question as I stared into
the surveillance video and the white-gray cloud diffusing through
the terminal. “At this point I'm not feeling. I'm just reacting. I
know I need to move.”
“And you do just that. Walk us through what
comes next.”
I rush out onto the main walkway, sliding
across the floor as I aim the rifle down terminal. Through the
subsiding white cloud of smoke and dust I see only a wounded LAPD
officer, holding his position in a blood-drained stupor. Before I
charge up the hallway I deal with short-lived doubt. Should I be
doing this? In active shooter situations, the last thing you need
is a cowboy mucking up the situation. When law enforcement finally
breaks through, they'll be coming for me. In fact, right now they
have no idea I'm not one of the gang. To them, watching me in the
surveillance video, I am just another gunman wearing a bullet-proof
vest and a black backpack, wreaking havoc among the innocent.
More screams and moans pull me into the
terminal. I approach the place where the voices are coming from and
slide along the floor toward an electronics kiosk I hope will
provide me some cover. As I slide, I hear the clinking of spent
casings brushing against my pants. Turning to my right I see
several bodies, contorted, some still moving. Some moaning, some
sobbing softly.
“Help,” someone says weakly.