Chapter 12

To Quinn, the hallways seemed even more exposed than they had before. The only sound was that of two muted sets of footsteps as he and Jack moved stealthily towards the library and the multi-purpose room, eyes scanning their surroundings and weapons at the ready.

As they stepped through the set of double doors and into the long hallway leading to the library, Quinn tapped Jack's arm and pointed to the left. Craning his neck, Jack spotted the large door at the end of the hallway that led to the multi-purpose room. He turned to the left as Quinn went to the right to take his position next to the library.

Quinn dropped to a crouch, keeping low to the ground as he passed the library door. He tested the doorknob on the tiny storage closet, relieved to find it unlocked.

As his eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light in the interior of the room, he saw that the walls were lined with shelves piled high with books and office supplies, and a large book-return box sat directly under the slot in the door. There was just barely enough room for him to navigate around the huge wooden box without bumping it or the wall. Slowly, carefully, he edged around it, trying desperately not to make a sound. Once on the other side of the box, he quickly and quietly closed the door behind him and knelt on the floor to open the fiber-optic camera case. "I'm in."

"Copy," William acknowledged. "Get that camera feed up so we can see what's going on in there."

Keeping his body pressed against the wall, Jack craned his neck to peer into each of the rooms on either side of the multi-purpose room. The lights were out in both, but Jack was able to see that both rooms were empty and silent. "No hostiles here," he whispered. "I'm clear."

"Please be careful," Renee replied.

Nodding, Jack cautiously opened the nearest door and slipped inside.

Immediately, he noticed that the room only had three regular walls. The fourth, adjacent to the multi-purpose room, was an accordion folding partition that could be opened or closed to separate or combine the two rooms. "Damn," he muttered.

"What?" Renee and William demanded in unison.

"There's an accordion wall." Jack kept his voice low, barely moving his lips. "I'll be able to feed the cable in, but it also increases the risk that they'll hear me in here."

William cursed under his breath. "Move carefully," he cautioned.

Jack knelt on the tile floor and opened the camera case. Crouching next to the folding wall, he slowly and carefully eased the thin, flexible fiber-optic cable through the small gap between the wall and floor.

The tiny video monitor displayed a screen full of static for several long seconds before flickering to life with a split-screen of Jack and Quinn's camera feeds.

"Bingo," Quinn said quietly. "Let's see what we've got here."

The tables and chairs in the library had been shoved together off to one side of the room, and small groups of frightened hostages were huddled on the nubby gray carpet. A heap of backpacks and purses were haphazardly piled on two of the tables closest to the door. Most of the nearly one hundred and fifty students' and teachers' eyes were fixed on the four ominous figures hovering over them.

Two were dressed in black military fatigues, their faces concealed beneath black balaclavas. One of them stood unmoving in front of the main library door and the other leaned against the side door leading to the study lab. Both of them gripped AK-47 rifles.

The remaining two moved wordlessly through the room, their rifles casually aimed at the terrified students and teachers. Their blue jeans and neat navy blue FBI jackets contrasted sharply with the AK-47's that they carried and the hostages huddled at their feet.

"There's an ironic picture for you," Renee muttered. "This parking lot is swarming with real agents wearing those exact same jackets and carrying the same badges." William nodded silently in agreement.

Jack's camera feed displayed an identical scene in the multi-purpose room. One hundred and twenty students and teachers sat or knelt on the worn carpet, closely guarded by four armed terrorists. Just like in the library, there were two in fatigues and two in FBI jackets. All four of their rifles were pointed directly at the silent, frightened hostages.

Outside in the parking lot, William and Renee silently watched the video feed.

"Wait," Renee said suddenly. She leaned over William's shoulder to peer closely at the monitor. "The man in front of the library door. What does he have in his hand?"

William paled. "That looks like a detonator cord."

Long wires trailed up the wall, ending at a small black rectangle perched above the door. "That's a duct-taped block of explosives." Quinn's tone was grim. He carefully moved the fiber-optic cable to pan the camera slightly, showing several more blocks positioned in the rafters around the room. "Looks like their wires are connected to that thicker black cable running along the floor, and Mr. FBI by the door is holding the detonator."

"That's not all," Jack said quietly. "This room is wired too. The duct-taped explosives and cables are the same, but the detonator is different in here. Two of the hostiles at opposite ends of the room are standing on mats, and the wires are running to some sort of metal plate underneath them."

"That's a pressure detonator," Renee said grimly. "They have to know that assault teams will come in eventually. They've set it up so that if they get taken down and fall off of the mats, the change in weight will trigger the detonators and set off the explosives."

For several long moments, all of the agents stared at the monitors, stunned into silence.

"Holy shit," Quinn muttered.

William breathed a harsh, mirthless laugh. "That sums it up." He ran a hand wearily over his face. "We've got a major problem."

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