Sinclair picked up Buckner’s empty shotgun, loaded the four rounds from the buttstock carrier into the magazine, and racked a round into the chamber. He peeked around the corner. Only the man proned-out with the rifle in the hallway was visible. The other two were probably searching classrooms for children. Sinclair peeked again and pulled his head back just as a bullet zinged past him.
The man securing the hallway was two hundred feet away. Too far for a pistol shot but an easy target for someone with a rifle. To enter the hallway and get to the men searching the classrooms, Sinclair had to take out the rifleman.
He knew the spread of the shotgun’s pellets was about an inch for every yard of distance, so at this range, the nine pellets would spread half the width of the hallway. A short-barreled shotgun with buckshot wasn’t designed for this distance. A man could stand right in the middle of the pattern and remain unscathed as pellets hit all around him. A man lying on the ground offered an even smaller target.
Sinclair stuck the shotgun around the corner with one hand and fired. The recoil nearly ripped the gun from his hand. Two rifle bullets pinged into the wall behind him. The man wasn’t a skilled rifleman, but at this range, he didn’t need to be. Even an amateur could keep his sights on the corner from where Sinclair would next appear and get a round off within two seconds.
Sinclair did another quick peek. The man was still there. Two seconds later, a gunshot rang out. Sinclair’s shot obviously didn’t hit him or frighten him into giving up his position. Sinclair was capable of hitting a man-sized target with his pistol at two hundred feet, but it required careful aiming and three or four misses for every hit. The rifleman would nail him before he got off the first shot. A shotgun with rifled slugs would’ve been a game changer, and although some officers carried them, Buckner didn’t.
Although the man presented a small target by lying in the prone position, he had obviously never learned about ricochet shooting or grazing fire, as they called it in the military. When a bullet is fired at a surface at an acute angle, it has a tendency to skip along the surface, much as a flat rock can be skipped along the surface of a lake. The Army taught machine gunners to keep their fire low when engaging enemy forces. Rounds that don’t hit the personnel directly and miss low will graze along the ground, often bouncing a foot or two high, much like a skipped rock.
It had taken two seconds for the rifleman to get off a shot. If Sinclair appeared at a location different from the corner of the hallway where the man was now aiming, the rifleman would have to shift his aim, thus giving Sinclair another second. If Sinclair could get his first shot directed at the floor halfway down the hallway within that time, one or more pellets, skipping along the floor, might hit the target. Even if he missed, Sinclair might get close enough to upset the rifleman’s aim and give him time to fire the last three rounds. He had a good chance of hitting the rifleman if he could put thirty-six pellets downrange.
Sinclair quick peeked. Two men were disappearing into a classroom near the end of the hall. Lisa Harper’s classroom couldn’t be much further. The rifleman was still in position.
Sinclair checked the shotgun. One round in the chamber, three more in the magazine. He got a running start and dashed into the hallway, immediately dropping to his knees and sliding halfway to the far wall. The shotgun’s stock was already against his shoulder. He twisted his body and fired. Without waiting to see the results, he pumped the action and fired again, and again, and again.
Sinclair dropped the empty shotgun and drew his pistol. The rifleman was motionless. He hadn’t gotten off a shot. Two men in long, black raincoats and ski masks exited a classroom and pointed guns in Sinclair’s direction. One was an SKS rifle, the other a pistol. Sinclair sprinted back around the corner out of their field of fire as a barrage of bullets struck the wall behind where he had been standing.
Although he had taken out one target, Sinclair wasn’t much better off than before. He was pinned down once again. The only way forward was through open ground defended by a man with a rifle.
Sinclair looked in front of him. The dead man’s rifle lay ten feet into the exposed kill zone. Although he had never fired an SKS, he’d handled them as evidence on numerous occasions. Years ago, Oakland was flooded with thousands of Norinco SKS rifles. At two hundred dollars each, the Chinese-made rifles were a favorite drive-by shooting choice of drug gangs for several years. Crudely built, marginally accurate, but utterly reliable, the SKS was a military rifle designed by Russia during World War II. Because it didn’t match the characteristics of an assault rifle, it was legal to purchase even in California.
Sinclair had survived one sprint into the long hallway, and he hoped his luck would hold out again. If the two remaining gunmen were skilled at hitting a moving target, as were many hunters, he was a dead man. He dashed into the corridor and grabbed the SKS. His leather-soled shoes provided little traction on the slick floor, and he nearly fell. Bullets pinged around him as he dove back to safety around the corner.
He pulled the SKS’s bolt to the rear and ejected a live cartridge into his hand. The internal box magazine, which could hold up to ten rounds, was empty. The dead man had fired them during their brief gunfight. Sinclair wished the body wasn’t in the kill zone because the man’s pockets surely contained stripper clips of ammo, but he didn’t dare risk searching the body while exposed to gunfire. He pressed the single cartridge into the magazine, released the bolt, and watched it load into the chamber. He had one shot. If he was lucky, he could take out the man with the rifle, close the distance to the final man, who was armed only with a handgun, and finish the fight.
He quick peeked around the corner. The muscular man had a crowbar in his hand and was trying to pry open a classroom door at the end of the hall—Lisa Harper’s room. His rifle lay at his feet. The other man, tall and thin, stood nearby holding a pistol in his hand. Both wore black backpacks identical to the one Sinclair saw in the parking garage just before it detonated.
Sinclair shouldered the rifle and stepped into the hallway. He pointed it at the thin man and walked forward. If the muscular man went for the rifle, Sinclair would shift to him, put the sights on his chest, and take the shot. He’d then drop the rifle, draw his pistol, and engage the thin man. Sinclair was confident he was a better handgun shooter than his adversary, and even with the time it took to drop the rifle and transition to his pistol, he had a decent chance of prevailing. He was now 150 feet away. The man with the crowbar looked up at him. The other just stood there and watched him advance. An easy rifle shot, but still far for a pistol. Sinclair continued to close the distance, moving slowly to maintain his balance and shooting stance.
The muscular man, who Sinclair suspected was Andrew Pearson, put down the crowbar and began to reach for the rifle. Sinclair shifted to him and prepared to pull the trigger. He thought of yelling, “Police! Freeze!” but it seemed ridiculous under the circumstances.
“I’ve got this handled,” the thin man said to Pearson, and he pulled the ski mask off his head with his gun hand.
Sinclair immediately recognized Travis Whitt from the photos he’d seen. He shifted the rifle back to him, settling the sights on his chest while watching Pearson in his peripheral vision.
“Keep working on the door,” Travis said to Pearson. He then pulled his left hand from his pocket and held a small black box the size of a garage door opener above his head.
“What’re you doing?” Pearson shouted to Travis. “I thought the plan was to hightail it out of here before you pulled that out!”
“Just get the door open,” Travis said.
Pearson shoved the straight end of the crowbar into the gap between the door and the frame and pulled backward. It slipped out and he jammed it in again.
Sinclair took a few steps closer. He pictured all the third and fourth graders huddled together in the back of Mrs. Harper’s classroom, surrounded by teachers hushing them in hopes the gunmen would think the room was empty and move on. He imagined Alyssa in the middle of the huddle, trying to comfort the terrified children while hiding her own fear from them.
“Put the triggering device down, Travis,” Sinclair said. “You know I’m not letting you get in that classroom.”
“Prostitutes destroy families,” Travis said. “You, if anyone, should know that. They deserve to die.”
“Even if that was true, why the innocent kids?”
“That’s the only way the one-percenters take notice.”
It was futile to argue with crazy men armed with guns and explosives. They only understood one thing. He shifted the sights to the imaginary triangle between Travis’s eyes and nose. A bullet there would kill him and short-circuit his brain before he could trigger the explosives.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Travis said. “Kill me and no big boom. But what I’m holding here is a dead man’s switch. I’ve already pressed one button. If my finger comes off it without depressing the other button first, both backpacks explode.”
“Wait a fucking minute,” said Pearson. “I’m not part of any suicide mission.”
“Just open the door,” Travis said. “The cop knows if he shoots us, he’ll die with us. Besides, cops don’t kill unarmed men.” Travis crouched down and set his handgun on the floor.
Travis might have been right about the explosion killing Sinclair as well as them. He was forty yards away, more than twice the distance from the last bomb. But this was an enclosed area, which would contain and direct the explosive force to the areas of least resistance, one of which was down the corridor where Sinclair was standing. He wondered if people inside the classroom would survive an explosion in the hallway, and whether the bombs packed more explosives than the last one, and whether they were filled with nails or other shrapnel that would rip through his flesh like a wall of high-velocity bullets.
His only other option was to back down the hallway. But he couldn’t do that. One bomb inside the enclosed classroom would surely kill everyone inside. Maybe Travis was bluffing about the dead man’s switch. But suicide was often the final step in many school shooters’ plans.
There were too many unknowns with too many possible outcomes, but one thing was for certain: Sinclair had no doubt he could pull the trigger. It didn’t matter if a gun was in Travis’s hand or on the ground. Any uncertainty he had when he faced Garvin in the Mills Café a few days ago had vanished the moment he’d stepped into the school.
“Last chance, Travis,” Sinclair said. “Put down the detonator.”
“You won’t shoot me. You wouldn’t shoot an unarmed man.”
Sinclair squeezed the trigger.
Everything began to move in slow motion. He felt the recoil of the rifle against his shoulder and heard the report of the gunshot. Travis’s head jerked backward. Red mist sprayed from the back of his head. Pearson looked at Travis, an expression of shock and surprise on his face. Sinclair released the rifle and went for his pistol on his right side. His eyes shifted to Pearson—his next target. Sinclair’s hand touched his Sig Sauer. In another second, it would be in his hand and at eye level, pointed at Pearson. In a split second, he’d decide whether to pull the trigger or not.
Since he was still alive and hadn’t been blown to kingdom come, the thought that Travis had been bluffing flashed through Sinclair’s mind as his fingers curled around the butt of his pistol and began to lift it from the holster. Simultaneously, a brilliant flash of white light blinded him, a deafening roar filled his eardrums, and a shock wave smashed into his body.