Chapter Two: Sniper at City Hall
Author note: For those of you reading here on Fanfiction, I really would like your opinion on where I should post my next story. The main Flashpoint archive or the Flashpoint/Harry Potter archive. So far, I've gotten a grand total of zero responses to that question. Unless ya'll are willing to give me your opinion, either on the poll (located on my profile), a review to any of my stories, or in a PM, I'll have to go with my gut instinct, which happens to favor the crossover archive since I'll have Harry Potter canon characters in my next "It's a Magical Flashpoint" story.
I'm willing to change my mind, but that means I need my readers to pipe up and say yea or nay. And now back to our regularly scheduled story...
Less than ten minutes after Ed had vanished to the locker rooms to change and leave on vacation, the alarm went off, whooping and blaring. Greg spotted the looks his nipotes traded and wondered much the same, was it another prank?
"Team One, hot call at Nathan Phillips Square. Repeat: hot call."
Jules, sitting next to Sam in the workout room, the pair of them whispering, called, "That's City Hall, boss." Greg nodded; although he hadn't appreciated being lied to earlier and he'd have to talk with both of them about their conduct, this wasn't the time.
"I hear it…" He strode forward, angling for Kira's desk. "Kira?"
Kira, well aware of what her boss was asking, replied, "Reports of shots fired. Multiple witnesses."
"Not a prank?" Greg pressed, voice rising a bit.
"No, sir," Kira confirmed. "I've got Inspector Stainton on the line."
Eddie, hurrying out from the locker rooms, called, "Let's see what's going on."
Greg took the handset Kira offered, and, lifting it to his ear, asked, "Inspector?"
The tension and well-hidden fear in the Inspector's voice was the last thing Greg needed to settle, in his own mind, that this was no prank. "Sergeant," Stainton said grimly, "we got one serious situation here."
"Tell me," Greg requested, already shifting into negotiator mode.
"One injured: City Hall security guard's been shot in the leg, and we're pinned in here real bad."
Greg's free hand shaped into a gun and he mimed firing it so Eddie would know what they were dealing with. "How many shots fired?"
"Three, four… They're coming every two minutes. Honest to God, we don't know where they're coming from." Some of the panic was leaking through, but with a sniper on the loose, Greg didn't much blame the man for being scared.
"You clear all the civilians, four-block radius?" Best to stick to essentials and give Stainton something else to do or think about.
Frustration rang in the reply. "We're doing the best we can. It's summertime in the city."
Summertime, meaning tourists, families, and all sorts of people outside, enjoying the sunshine and the sights. A containment nightmare. Before Greg could reply, he heard a gunshot through the phone. Screams rang out in the background as the nearby civilians panicked.
"Greg," Stainton half-demanded, half-pleaded.
More gunshots sounded over the line, shooter was active. "Okay, we'll be right there," Greg reassured the Inspector. "Containment is the priority. I'll call you back in three." He hung up, already snapping out orders. "Kira, call Team Four. All hands on deck. Keep an eye on the kids." Kira was already following her orders as Greg moved away, taking the vest Wordy offered. "Eddie?" Ed grabbed his own vest from Wordy and followed.
"Trucks are loaded," Wordy called as he handed over the vests, moving even as he talked.
"Okay, boys, let's keep the peace."
All squabbling aside, the two teens were more than a bit disgruntled at being left behind. After all, hadn't they handled both Alanna's kidnapping and being trapped in the briefing room? Why should they be left behind with a dangerous shooter on the loose? They could help, they could intervene, as they'd done before.
Still rather unhappy, they left the briefing room and dragged two rolling chairs over behind Kira's desk. The blonde smiled at them, but kept her focus on her work. Behind the desk, the siblings could see and hear pretty much everything Kira could. It wasn't the same as really helping, but it would do…for now.
The SRU hurtled toward City Hall, sirens wailing and clearing the way. As they reached the square where several patrol cars were parked, lights flashing, they rounded up the trucks as if they were old time settlers rounding the wagons for a defensive line. The command truck, the largest and most armored of the four trucks, took the central position, the other three trucks acting as the sides in the rough half-moon shape the team formed. The team was careful to get out on the 'inner' side of the trucks, never presenting themselves as targets for the sniper.
"Keep it close to the car," Lou called.
"Let's get some shields," Wordy added.
"Heads down," Sam chipped in, as they opened up the backs of the trucks and retrieved their gear.
Wordy looked through the windows of the truck, observing, "They're pinned behind the car." Perhaps eleven meters away, three figures were hiding behind a patrol car. Two patrolmen were crouched over a third man, who lay on the pavement clutching his leg. The injured security guard. The two patrolmen were doing what they could for the man, but it was clear Team One needed to get the injured victim out as quickly as possible.
Greg made a beeline for Inspector Stainton, asking, "How is the victim doing, Inspector?"
"He's holding on," Stainton replied, relieved that the cavalry had shown up.
Ed raised his voice, barking, "Sam, Lewis, Wordy. Let's give him some cover. Get him inside so the EMT can get to him."
"It's been a nightmare," Stainton told Greg, "we got no idea where these shots are coming from."
"And how are we doing on containment?" Greg queried.
"We've evacuated all civilians into the underground lots, but you got people coming in and out of all these buildings."
Greg concealed his wince. Nightmare was right, especially with all the civilians in the line of fire. This wasn't going to be easy.
As the two men spoke, Sam, Lewis, and Wordy gathered up shields, one for each man, and huddled together, overlapping their shields for maximum coverage. As quickly, but as safely as they could, they made their way from the SRU truck circle to the exposed patrol car. The patrolmen lifted the injured man as their rescuers reached them and the group made its way back to safety.
Just as they reached safety, gunshots erupted again. Inspector Stainton groaned, leaning back against the command truck. "Shooter's active," Ed announced.
"Like clockwork, every two minutes," Stainton added.
Ed raised his voice, yelling, "Lou?"
"I'm on it," Lou yelled back, already hefting an odd device. It was an orb on a pole, with microphones attached to the orb and a cone shaped protrusion on the top. He set it in place on top of one of the trucks, bracing the pole's legs under the truck's luggage rack. "Acoustic locator's gonna nail his position as soon as he shoots again."
The figure on the rooftop watched through the scope of his sniper rifle at the activity below. He was tall, as his father had been, with black hair cut close to his scalp. It wasn't a buzz-cut, but it wasn't much grown from a buzz-cut either. The man's normally friendly expression was now a mask of concentration, grief, stress, and hatred. His eyes narrowed as he spotted his primary target moving behind the trucks, but with the massive black truck in the way, he didn't have enough of a shot to risk taking it and scaring his prey away. The homemade ghillie suit he wore shielded the sniper from discovery, his rifle was shrouded as well. The barrel didn't even glint as it swept back and forth, its master waiting patiently for his prey to come to him.
Grim, Stainton continued to brief Greg. "Beyond the security guard, there's no other injuries. Thank God this guy's not a pro."
Greg kept taking notes, pausing briefly to point his pencil at Wordy, "Wordy, you get a look at the wound?"
"Yeah," Wordy confirmed. "The exit wound's lower than the entry."
"Means he's shooting from up top," Ed observed.
With the initial on scene brief complete, Greg handed out assignments and observations alike. "Okay, it's a target-rich environment that's almost uncontainable. I got no one to talk down."
"Any word from counter-terrorism?" Ed demanded of Stainton.
"No," Stainton shot back. "I'm telling you, no chatter, no warning, no nothing. This guy's come from nowhere."
"Okay, Spike, you stay in the command truck. You run all the maps and intelligence. All information flows through you," Greg ordered.
"Copy," Spike acknowledged from his spot inside the command truck. With a tap of a key, the maps he'd already started accessing came into focus. "Okay, I'm looking at 300-meter radius on the 3-D. Buildings are dense. Lots of places he can be, lots of angles. We got to try to narrow it down. Find out where the shots are coming from. Locators are online, so we got ears. Let's see if we can get any clues." As he spoke, he tapped away at the keyboard, trying to narrow down some possibilities based on the injured guard and where the sheltering cars and trucks were parked.
Outside the truck, Ed had moved onto the next assignment. "Lewis, Wordy."
Lou anticipated by calling, "We'll do witnesses."
"All right," Ed agreed. "You press them for details. I need to know where that shot came from."
"Copy," Wordy replied.
Jules elaborated as she stood next to Sam, the pair of them behind a patrol car right near the SRU circle. "The way the victim fell, did he spin, did he crumple?"
Sam, wielding his rifle and scanning the rooftops, picked up the verbal baton. "Any visible shimmers, muzzle flashes, reflection, movement."
Ed's voice lifted to reach the pair as he yelled, "Sam, Jules, let's break it down. It came from the south. We got a lot of options here. Where would you go?"
"Clock tower," Jules opined, lifting her binoculars to check. "Classic, lots of shadows, good concealment."
Sam's opinion was a bit different. "Building under construction, lots of visual distraction…"
He was cut off as another gunshot rang out. The locator burst apart with a shower of sparks and metal fragments. All that was left was a sad jumble of wires and two sagging microphones atop a metal pole. Sam took one look at the result and ducked down for cover, Jules ducking down as well.
Behind the command truck, Greg sounded impressed as he took in the destroyed device. "Whoa, whoa, buddy must be lucky or he knows what a sniper locator looks like."
Over Greg's shoulder, Ed pointed out, "He's located himself. Ricochet directly through the target to the point of origin."
"The hotel," Jules announced.
"Could be the roof," Sam chipped in.
"Any of those top floors," Jules admitted. "A lot of tinted windows."
"Let's start with the roof," Ed decided. "Active shooter, we go to him."
Greg moved over to the command truck's door, opening it. "Okay. I'm gonna brief the chief. I'll be in the truck."
Ed moved over to the nearby SRU truck, opening up the back door and retrieving his own rifle. He rested the rifle's stock on the roof of the truck, aiming upwards. While it was unlikely he would spot the shooter, he could keep his eyes open and be ready if he got lucky. At the front of the truck, Jules and Sam crouched, waiting for orders and getting their gear together. "All right, use the overhang for cover," Ed ordered. "How many seconds from his last shot?"
"Sixty seconds," Jules called, as she slung her backpack on.
"Sam, grab a shield," Ed barked. "Let's go. Go! Go! I'm going to cover you. If you don't think you can make it, wait till he fires again." The pair darted around the front of the truck, Sam and his shield in front and Jules on his heels.
"Copy that," Sam confirmed over the comm.
"Spike, count us down," Ed called.
"Ten, nine, eight, seven, six," Spike announced as Jules and Sam hurried out from behind the trucks and moved as quickly as they could toward the massive overhang above the hotel's twin driveways. "Five, four, three, two, one."
Silence. No gunshot shattered the air. "Two minutes, right?" Ed asked.
"Copy. Over two minutes now," Spike replied.
"All right, he's breaking his pattern," Ed remarked grimly.
Greg left the command truck, letting the door swing shut behind him as he raced over to Ed. "Maybe we're getting warm."
"Or he's moved," Ed countered.
"Where would you go next, it was you?" Greg queried.
Ed considered a moment. "Clock tower's a no-brainer." He nodded at one building in particular. "Right there. All those vents, visual distractions, clean view of the square, boss."
"Okay, see it," Greg agreed. He moved to Inspector Stainton, stride unhurried. "Inspector?"
"Yeah?" the Inspector asked, turning to Greg.
With a gesture in the direction of the tower, Greg ordered, "Clock tower- lock up the whole southeast quadrant."
From inside the truck, Spike called, "Copy that."
"No one in or out," Greg added. "SRU only."
"Done," Stainton confirmed. "We got a chopper coming in to sweep the rooftops."
Greg shook his head at the idea, inquiring, "You want a long-range, precision weapon against a big noisy target?"
There was a moment as the Inspector absorbed that. "I'll call it off," he said quietly.
"Thanks," Greg replied. He resisted the urge to shake his head again. A helicopter against a sniper? Talk about a one-sided fight.
Sam and Jules moved up the steps to the rooftop, careful to stay behind Sam's shield and in cover. Over the comm, Ed asked, "Sam, Jules?"
"Almost there," Sam called.
Hefting her submachine gun, Jules added, "Somebody opened those doors."
"We're thinking he's moved," Ed informed the pair. As their Team Leader continued to speak, the two Constables advanced onto the rooftop, watching for any sign of movement or for a trap. "But if he hasn't, you're looking at booby traps, ambush, suicide, suicide by cop. Maximum caution. Our friend hit a seven-inch target from 400 meters."
The duo split up, Sam leaving his shield beside the doors. With weapons raised, they checked every area of the roof they could reach. "Roof's clear," Jules announced. "He's not up here."
Sam looked around and spotted brass glinting from the gravel on the roof. "But he was," the blond sniper called, crouching down to examine the casings. His own sniper rifle was slung on his back, ready should the blond need it. Sam picked up one casing, placing it in moments. "It's a .762. Carbon striations. He's got an HK G3. That's nasty. Shields are safe, but that'll crack body armor."
Coming up beside him, Jules observed, "This hotel has forty-three floors."
"Stainton's got uniforms sweeping the interiors," Ed replied. "The rooftops are up to us. Clock tower's next."
"Copy that," Jules acknowledged.
As the two left the rooftop, Ed's attention turned to his other duo. "Wordy, Lewis, any luck with the witnesses?"
"Nothing we don't already know," Lou informed Ed, sounding a trifle discouraged.
"All right, move on," Ed ordered. "Next highest building, City Hall, both rooftops."
He could hear the sound of Wordy and Lou making tracks as Lou called, "Copy that. On our way."
"Spike, get forensics up to the hotel roof," Ed added, as he headed over to his Sergeant.
On his cell, the Boss told the person on the other end, "Right now we're doing everything we can." He paused a moment, "Yes, sir. Every step of the way. Yeah. Bye." As Sarge lowered the phone and ended the call, he turned to Ed. "Hey, what a way to start your vacation."
Ed could only nod.