John O'Brien - Taken

Finishing with the fuses, I peer into the corridor through the window. Not only does the unlit building give me the creeps because of the experiences with night runners, but my proximity with people apparently causes them to have to go to the bathroom. I’ll be loaded down to a degree with the claymores which will slow any reaction time. I won’t have the time to place a set, go back out, grab more, and place them. Thirty minutes may seem like a long time but it passes by quickly when you are trying to be stealthy.

I edge along the lockers to the farthest door housing the guards. The stillness of the interior belies the beating of my heart. This is just something that, although one may get used to it, it never reaches the totally comfortable zone. Discovery can happen at any moment. And it’s sudden. A door opening just in front; a chance encounter that you can’t prepare for. If we’re discovered, the whole scenario will change and we’ll be on the defensive. Plus the fact that it will be hard to get out of this building in one piece.

Crouching near the door, I want to take a quick peek with the fiberscope. Time is not standing still so I can’t afford to take long with each room. The view is the same as the night previous; guards lying in their cots asleep. No one is moving. McCafferty is keeping watch in the long corridor. I remove one of the mines and extend the legs. They are capable of being set on solid ground and I want to place them up high to give an angle of coverage. Placing them on the ground will just take out the nearest guards. Granted, the others will be in a state of shock but they will recover from the deafening explosion.

I ease the door open hoping the maintenance people who prowled these halls at one point were liberal in their use of oil on the hinges. I step silently inside ever mindful of the guards sleeping just a couple of feet away. I gingerly place the mine, angling it slightly downward, on a bookshelf close to the door. I step back out hearing a few snores change patterns. A rustling of blankets. I stop and look about the room anticipating one of the guards rising; waiting for the shout of discovery. I’m ready to drop the other mines and begin a delivery of rounds into their midst.

I see one of the guards roll over and pull the blankets up closer to his chin. He hasn’t quite reached the realm of the awake. He stops moving and is soon joining the chorus of snores about the room. I ease out of the room and gently close the door. Time presses on and I’ll have to hurry the process. The last thing I’d want is to be given notice that the thirty minutes is up while I’m only partially finished. That would be a hell of an alarm clock - the remaining mines I’m carrying going off almost simultaneously. I’d just be a vaporous red mist and a memory. One minute creeping down the hall and the next a spray pattern on the walls, ceiling, and floor.

I hand McCafferty several of the claymores and indicate for her to take one side and I’ll take the other. She shoulders her M-4 and crosses the hall. We finally reach the last doors having placed the mines in similar locations within each room. No one enters the hall on a midnight bathroom run. Our alarm clock doesn’t trigger. We made it in time. McCafferty and I unshoulder our carbines, lie on the cold, hard floor facing down the hall, and wait. I ease the entrance door open a touch with the soles of my boots and ready myself for the concussive explosions about to occur.

Even though I’m ready for it, the massive explosions that fill the hall and surrounding area startle me. That many claymores going off close to the same time creates one continuous, rolling boom. The building shakes and the floor beneath me vibrates as if the linoleum is made of water. Glass blows outward into the corridor from the window panes. If anyone was caught in the hall, they would have been chopped to pieces. The intensity and noise of the explosions can’t be adequately expressed. It’s deafening. Smoke rolls out of the rooms and fills the hall. The back blast jars several of the doors open causing them to slam against the lockers with a metallic clang. At least that would have been the sound if I could hear. All that’s left of said hearing is a deep ringing.

The last tinkle of the glass, hitting the opposite walls, lockers, and doors, ends as it falls to the floor. Well, we just rang the doorbell , I think as I look for anything emerging from the rooms into the smoke-filled hall. I don’t see how anything could leave the rooms after that. After all, seven hundred ball bearings, propelled by a pound and a half of composite C-4, just erupted in each room. Anything left in the room will be leaving in a bucket.

“Time to go,” I say loudly to McCafferty. Anything below a shout wouldn’t be heard and there’s not really a need to keep quiet now. She nods and rises along with me.

We head across the lawn in the middle making directly for the office. Several flashes of light strobe above the roof of the classroom buildings; evidence of Black and Echo Teams, along with Henderson and Denton, dealing with the guards in the towers. I watch for any guards that might have been roaming through the camp but there is only the sight of spotlights in the towers either falling or pointing skyward. The ringing in my ears diminishes to a degree but is by no means gone. I look in the corner of one of the office windows. The main desk and area is lit by a single desk lamp. No one is in view.

This could mean several things, they could be hiding or out checking on the noise. I don’t have time to figure out which as I observe the last of the tower spotlights tumble over the side sending its beam of light twisting and spinning before hitting the ground. This is followed immediately by an increase in shrieks emanating from the woods surrounding the school. I see several night runners flash in the perimeter lights as they cross the street. The fence isn’t going to keep them out for long.

“We’ve got company coming. Everyone back into the gym pronto. Henderson, Denton, beat cheeks. Echo, keep them covered. Lynn, get inside and start wrapping the chains around the inside door handles,” I say rising.

With McCafferty on my heels, I dart around the office and toward the gym. Looking to the fence where I spotted the night runners, I see they are scaling the fence with some landing inside. The race is on. I’m just glad I have a head start but it’s even odds whether we’ll get the doors secured in time. More night runners enter the lights around the perimeter and race toward the fence.

They seem to spring out of nowhere , I think crossing the street. Night runners are pounding down the entrance road and across the parking lot; their pale faces glowing in my goggles and an occasional sheen from their eyes. They look like a horde of demons pouring from the bowels of the earth. Yep, I’ve been seen and am seemingly their entire focus like I’m the finish line they’re in a hurry to cross. I look to the gym nearby seeing faces in the windows and a flurry of movement as they hurry to seal the doors. Hopefully with me on the other side of them though.

I race through the doors and almost trip over lengths of chain lying on the floor just inside. Black Team has just finished wrapping chains around two of the four sets of double entrance doors and locking the chains with C-clamps. There’s no way in hell we’re going to get all of them sealed in time. Looking out of the windows, the first of the night runners are crossing the street just in front of the gym.

“Are Henderson, Denton, and Echo Team in?” I shout at Lynn.

“I don’t know,” she yells back answering. Adrenaline is peaking.

I grab a length of chain and start wrapping it around the push levers of the fourth set of double doors. Black Team crosses to the third set and drapes the first links through the push bar as the first of the night runners slams into the doors. The doors in front of Black Team begin to open.