As soon as he'd tucked Alison away, he crept across the hall to the janitor's closet he'd noticed the first time he arrived. Mason had never been able to shake the habit of soaking up all his surroundings, always looking for hiding spots and exits. Though he never thought he'd need it after the last detour.
The redheaded nurse gasped silently, her eyes wide when he ducked into the closet. "It's okay," he mouthed to her before shutting the door behind them to blindness. There hadn't been anyone in the hallway. The nurse stayed glued to the farthest corner. Her breath was heavy in the blackness.
Mason waited, listening for signs and clues. "Are there any hidden exits?" he whispered to the nurse, keeping his voice low and steady.
"Not with the lockdown," she said quietly. "It's old, from when this was solely a psychiatric ward."
He pulled the Colt out of his ankle holster. "Did you see what kind of weapons they had?"
"Not really," she said. "I think one had a gun, I didn't see anything on the other."
"But you saw two men? What kind of gun?"
"I don't—I don't know ..."
"Was it like a pistol, rifle, or machine gun?"
"Kind of like a pistol, but longer barrel. Not a rifle."
"Okay."
"I'm sorry," she said, her voice trembling. "I don't remember a lot—"
"It's okay. You did good," he said. He pulled up the flashlight app on his phone and surveyed the closet. Two rows were full of nothing but industrial garbage bags. "Get into the bag," he said. "I'll put some supplies around you before I go. Don't move, and don't make sound when the door opens. I'll come back to get you when it's over."
She complied without question, and after she was stowed away with cleaning products and buckets flanking her, there was no way anyone would think a person was in there.
When he slipped back into the eerily quiet hallway, he heard chattering in Arabic towards the front of the hall, near the reception desk. His Arabic was rusty at best, and with the hushed voice he couldn't make anything out. However, he could tell from the voices they were young, and just two males.
Inching towards the front desk, he heard the voices split apart. One pair of footsteps marched away from him, down the far hall. As Mason slid along the wall, he heard a light sobbing in one of the rooms. The door was open, and inside a teenaged girl was curled tight into a ball. She looked at him, at his pistol, and started to open her mouth.
Mason held his finger to his lips. "Get in the closet," he mouthed to her, gesturing to the twin linen closet that was in Alison's room. "Quietly," he added, and she scampered towards the door. He glanced down the hall, but heard nothing. The second gunman must be waiting near the reception desk.
The intercom flickered to life. "We have been patient," the voice said. He could hear it all around him, but the real voice thundered from just one hundred feet away. "Every person come to the reception area immediately. If you want to die quickly. And, believe me, you do."
He continued to make his way forward, the hallway quiet save for the far away stomp of boots in the other hall. Peering around the corner, he saw the back of the boy's head. He couldn't have been more than twenty years old, dressed in faded jeans and a leather jacket. The gun, a Glock 24, was being waved towards the ceiling carelessly while the kid toyed with the intercom handle.
The boy with shaggy black hair picked up an iPhone from the desk. "Aa sha?" he asked into it. Mason slid his pistol into his jeans. It would be easy to disarm and take down the kid. Standing just two steps away, he could smell cologne sprayed too generously.
As he raised his hands, he heard a guttural yowling begin down the hallway. It was animalistic, beastly—too wild to be human.
The boy turned around, eyes wild, and let out a cry when he saw Mason right behind him. He aimed the gun wildly, and Mason knocked the gun from his hand. He kicked it far beneath the reception desk. It wouldn't be long until the other gunman arrived.
On the ground, he straddled the boy who began to bellow like the insane cries down the hall. Mason knelt beside him and got a hooked arm in a counter position. The bellowing was subdued to a low whine. Just a few inches more and the arm could be easily broken. "Does your partner have a gun?" he asked.
"'Ana la 'atakalam al'iinklizia."
"I know you speak English," Mason said, pushing the arm farther. "What weapons does your partner have?"
"Fuck you," the boy said, his voice scared.
Mason pushed the rest of the way, the sickening crunch of breaking bones ringing in his ear. A scream started to pour out of the boy's throat, and Mason flipped him onto his back and squeezed his hands around the slender throat. Just enough to shut up him and put him out. The breath was ragged and the chest pumped dutifully.
Footsteps began to pound down the far hall. Mason fled under the desk and surveyed the Glock. It was warm, but loaded with blanks.
What the hell?
"Azim? Azim?" another voice, this one older, came from the other side of the desk. "What—"
As the other gunman leaned down to check on his partner, he caught sight of Mason. There was no gun in his hands, but he wore a too-big trench coat and knee-high leather boots.
Looking at Mason, he smiled and spread open his coat like wings. Mason saw the flashing lights, the wires and awkward bulges. He knew there was only one safe shot, and it was between the eyes. As far away from the explosives as possible.
The boy was still crouched over his friend. He couldn't have far to fall, and the odds of detonation by mistake were slim.
Mason pulled his Colt as time froze. The screeching down the hall continued, making a harmony with the alarms. The kid with the broken arm had shifted, grown scrawnier. It was Bunny on the floor, already gone. Bunny's dead.
The hulking man standing over the boy sprawled across the floor didn't even have time to wipe away the smile. When the bullet hit him, squarely between the eyebrows, it looked tiny. Like a decoration. And then it blossomed.
Mason carefully peeled the jacket fully open while the blood spread like mad onto the floor. They were crude, homemade devices without timers. He was no expert on disarming explosives, but was fairly confident they wouldn't be going off. He patted down the boy, now buried beneath his friend, but found nothing on him.
The nurse. Mason ran down the hallway and flung the janitor's door open. "It's me," he said. "You can come out."
He pulled the supplies away and wild red hair began to emerge from black plastic. "What happened—"
"Can you disarm the alarms?"
"Yeah, I think so,"
"Be careful at the desk. There's one body, and one knocked out," he said.
Her eyes were huge, but she nodded. "What's that screaming?" she asked.
As he got closer to Alison's room, the wailing got louder. He picked up his pace, various scenarios of what could have happened to her running through his head. When he opened the linen closet, she looked up with petrified eyes. Fred's mouth was stretched open, endless howls tumbling out.
"Mason!" she said, trying to stand.
"Here," he said, lifting her up easily and setting her on the bed. "What the—what's with him?" he asked.
Fred stayed in the closet, body frozen but his eyes followed them. Slowly, the howls slowed down.
"He's scared," she said.
"Yeah, well. I can understand that."
He didn't know who arrived first, the police or the media. Nobody was allowed to leave the ward, and additional medical teams were brought in from various parts of the hospital. "I'm fine," Alison kept insisting to the new team of doctors and nurses, but they didn't listen to her.
Finally, they turned on the television. Nearly every station was covering the terrorist attack at James Madison. "... only one death, one of the attackers, has been reported ..." "... still on lockdown, coming up on six hours ..." "...veteran of the Marine Raiders was visiting a patient, Mason Stephens ..." "...calling Stephens a national hero, today we ..."
"You're a hero," Alison told him with a smile. He was back in the complaining cheap chair while police hovered around him, asking endless questions over and over again.
"You caught me," he told her.
She caught a glimpse of her parents, Mrs. Stephens, Chloe and Noah in the crowd on television. "I still can't make any calls?" she asked the same weary police officer who had told her that a dozen times.
He sighed. "No, not yet. Trust me, it's well reported that there were no injuries or deaths. Besides the one, of course."
Alison rolled her eyes and sat back in bed.
"Mr. Stephens?" The FBI agent who'd grilled Mason the longest poked his head inside. "We're allowing you five minutes of media time down the hall. My team will be escorting you."
"Media time? I don't want to talk to the—"
"It's not a choice," the agent said. "We need them to disperse. Consider it throwing them a bone."
Fred's ears perked up at the B-word.
"Fine," Mason said. "I'll be right back." He bent down and kissed Alison on the cheek.
In a few minutes, he stood before scores of journalists, lights flashing and all of them yelling his name. Simultaneously, his own image appeared on the televisions peppered around the room.
"Only five minutes," one of the officers told the journalists. "I'll be moderating. You, question," he said, pointing to a young brunette with a microphone that seemed too big for her.
"Can you tell us how you disarmed the terrorist?" Mason ran through the same description he'd told countless agents and police officers.
"Next question, you," the officer said.
"What were you doing at James Madison to begin with?"
"Uh, visiting my girlfriend," he said. If announcing it on national television didn't make it real, he didn't know what would.
"Can I get her name?" the journalist asked.
"Alison. Alison Bright."