Tom Avitabile: The Hammer of God

He assigned the last SWAT cop to cut the wire on the string of explosives dangling over the audience. He had followed the detonator wire to the house right box where the line was attached. That trooper had to scale the back stage scaffolding and use a cast entrance from the loge. A quick learner, he went against his civil police training and coldly and without provocation strangled one of the terrorists who had been assigned that hallway to guard. He then took his position in the box and investigated the wires to make sure it was a simple two-wire open circuit and no tamper proofing was in play. When he reported that it looked like a simple cut and disarm, Bridge told Bill that it was all on him.

Bill waited until every terrorist he could see was looking the other way and then he scrambled across the lower part of the theater from the stage apron to the first row of seats. He stopped and listened to hear any sounds that would indicate if someone saw him. Over his radio, he heard Bridge.

“Good so far. Go slowly, Bill, I got my gun on the knife guy’s temple. If he moves his hand, I pop him, so don’t rush.”

Bill shimmied to the end of the aisle. There were at least 12 rows that got wider and wider as the theater went back so that the end of each aisle was somewhat visually covered by the one ahead of it when you looked toward the stage from the rear. At the sixth row, a figure appeared at the exit door. At first, the young Jihadi from Jordan did a double take when he saw Bill just looking up at him from the floor. He then started to raise his gun and open his mouth. But from two different directions, muzzle silenced, bullets entered his forehead and he rotated back against the closed door and slumped to a sitting position, blood gushing from the blasted open back of his head. Bill froze again to see if anyone noticed that.

“Okay, you’re clear; keep going.”

One of the bad guys ran up to the guy holding the knife. He had a portable TV. He started talking in Arabic. On the TV was the news of the helicopter crash and the rumor that it had a radiological device of some kind on it.

The one with the knife then said something about Allah and started to say something else when his head exploded. His grip on Janice released. Bill shot up and ran toward her. The disconnected explosives fell harmlessly, like clothes on a broken line. A trooper started to open fire on two of the bad guys across the way. The cameraman went down next. The five at the back of the room all went down in one second. Out of nowhere, a screaming man in a headscarf came running in from the wings towards Bill and Janice. Bill fired from his rifle as he covered Janice and the guy caught two in the legs. He started to fall but kept firing as he fell. His bullets ripped into the seats around the Hiccocks as the stuffing flew. Two more hits entered the shooter’s body as he was falling and he and the gun fell silenced.

Bridge was up and scanning now; he started yelling to the hostages, “Get down, Get down…”

They were already scrambling, flattening themselves out and trying to hide. Then he heard a scream. He wheeled around and one of the bearded henchmen had a woman in his grasp and a.45 automatic at her temple. The jittery Middle-Eastern man started to say something in Arabic, but Bridge fired and hit the gun, which in turn smashed into the guy’s face. Immediately, blood started to come from the man’s cheek and his hostage fell to the right. Bridge then hammered the gun into his head by successive shots sparking and clanging off the side of the pistol.

Bill grabbed Janice and got her to focus on him. “Are you all right? Did they hurt you? Are you okay, baby?” She nodded, shuddering, and then collapsed in his chest.

A scuffle broke out among the hostages. Bridgestone ran to the commotion to see an old guy wrestling with another man. The old guy was detaining him but the younger man socked him in the jaw trying to get free.

The older man yelled, “Shoot him. He’s got a switch under his coat. He’s one of them.”

Bridge didn’t have a clear shot. The old guy was still hanging on to the younger one, grabbing his arm. But then Bridge saw the button flash from under the guy’s coat.

“Shoot ‘em or he’ll kill us all,” the old guy yelled.

Bridgestone crooked his gun to one side and fired back at the two struggling on the ground. From that angle, the bullet went through the old guy’s arm and into the chest of the younger one. Bridgestone knew he got him in the pump because the younger man died in an instant. His fingers never reached the plunger. The old guy grabbing at his wrist rolled out of the way in agony, a bloodstain now also blooming on his shirt by his waist.

“Pop!” Hiccock yelled, rushing to his father’s side.

“We got him, right?” Hank Hiccock said, grimacing through the pain.

“Yeah, Pop. You got him. Don’t move; help will be here soon.”

Bending down to safety the detonator, Bridgestone commented, “Your father? I shot your father?”

“And I thought I liked you,” Bill uttered as he moved to his mother. “You okay, Mom?”

“I’ve never been so scared in all my life.”

He hugged her. “I am so sorry, Ma.”

Hiccock’s mom, unscathed, kissed him on the cheek. “For what, dear? You didn’t start this.” Then she rushed over to comfort her husband. “That was a dang fool thing you pulled, Hank. All these young men here and you had to fight these punks.”

“Don’t scold me in front of the fellas, will ya?” Then he looked up at his pride and joy and grabbed his bleeding arm. “Son, don’t be mad at your friend; it was my lamebrain idea.”

Bridge grabbed Bill’s mother’s scarf and made a tourniquet just above the hole in the septuagenarian’s arm. He looked at Bill and said, “Sorry just don’t seem to cut it, sir.”

“Not so much,” Bill said drily as he took over tightening the usher’s flashlight that they were using as a turnbuckle.

“Except your dad was right. The dead guy could have killed us all with this.” Bridgestone showed Bill the detonator cord, hard-wired to 100 pounds of plastique in a roll-around anvil equipment case.

Hank’s mom grabbed his dad and kissed him square on the lips. “You saved us all. You are, and always were, my hero, Hanky.”

“Icks-Nay on the Hanky-a.”

The instant Bridgestone radioed “Site secured,” the front doors flew off their hinges and were dragged on the end of a chain attached to an NYPD wrecker. Hundreds of SWAT, EMTs, and uniformed cops immediately swarmed in. Most tended to the hostages. Suits and gold braid followed. The suits were the crime scene investigation units, immediately photographing and seizing evidence. The gold braid was there to supervise and prepare reports to the commissioner and the Mayor. Two EMTs came to the elder Hiccock’s aid. He tried to get up on his own but reluctantly accepted Bill’s help as the EMTs joined in and immediately strung an IV and strapped him onto a gurney.

“Pop, you look like who did it and ran. Don’t give these guys any guff, now.”

Hank Hiccock looked at the EMTs. “Fellas, this is my son. He works for the President, telling him all about science. I thought it was a boring, cushy job. But, I’ll tell you what, he damn sure makes it exciting.”

Then Hiccock heard another EMT declare, “We got a pregnant lady here. I need her out of here and on the bus, stat.”

He turned around to see Janice sitting upright, holding her belly. She had a sheepish grin. “My water broke!”

Half-crying, half-laughing, Bill came to her and hugged her until the wheelchair arrived. “When I saw that bastard holding the knife… I went nuts.”

She cried on his shoulder as he held her tight. “You brought the cavalry in the nick of time.” She kissed him as the EMT and Bill helped her into her wheelchair, the Med-tech making a point of Janice not worrying because he’s delivered hundreds of babies in the back of the ambulance… and to keep taking deep breaths.