Richard Stephenson - Collapse

“You have my word, Randy.” Max was lying to Randy. Roscoe was never on the force. He had worked in the city garage for decades. Randy had already expressed his distaste for taking a police officer hostage. Max hoped that Roscoe would play along and keep his mouth shut. If he did that, Elizabeth would pick up on the plan immediately and make her escape.

“Alright, man, start talking. Got the radio up and I’m in the hallway.”

“This is Chief of Police Maxwell Harris. Officer Roscoe Stern, if you can hear me, I want you to listen very carefully. Randy here found your radio on the desk. He has agreed to let you go as long as you move slowly and do not make any sudden moves. Officer Stern, do you hear me?”

Five seconds passed by, then ten, finally a muffled voice could be heard from the end of the hall. “I hear you, Chief, I’m coming out now. Please don’t shoot me, Mr. Randy. Please.”

“C’mon dude, hurry up! I ain’t gonna hurt you.”

A door towards the end of the hall slowly opened, and Roscoe Stern stepped out into the hallway. He had his hands up as high as they would go, his elbows locked. He kept his head down and stared at the floor. He was trembling with fear. The closer he got to the man with the gun the slower he moved.

“Dude, seriously? I told you I wasn’t gonna hurt you. Get your ass out of here man, c’mon!”

“Th-th-ank you, Mr. Randy.” Roscoe got to the stairs and descended to the first floor. Once he stepped off the stairs he shuffled out the front door and picked up Max in a bear hug.

“Easy, big guy. C’mon, it’s all right. It’s over. Where’s Elizabeth?”

“I’m right here, Boss,” Elizabeth said as she rounded the corner. “Took you long enough to figure out what was going on. I like the promotion you gave Roscoe. Good thinking; Randy had no idea I was up there.”

Max grabbed up Elizabeth in his arms and kissed her on the mouth. She resisted at first, but let out a soft moan and returned the kiss. She ran her fingers up the sides of Max’s face and into his hair. Max let her go and stepped back. His face was red with embarrassment.

“I’m sorry I did that, Sergeant Reed. I’m just really happy that you’re okay. I almost lost it when you didn’t answer the radio; I thought for sure that was you lying in the middle of the yard.”

“You better not be sorry you kissed me. It’s about damned time, been waiting for you to do that. Not sure how many more signals I could throw your way.”

“Signals? How long have you felt like this?”

“Maxwell, you are the smartest person I know, but sometimes you can be so damned clueless. Can we maybe talk about this some other time, like when an armed crazy person isn’t holed up above us?”

“Yeah. Probably should tend to that.”

“Good luck, I’m rooting for you.”

Max keyed up his radio. “Randy, are you ready to come down now? How you doing up there, buddy?”

“Uh, I don’t want to go to jail, man. I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t shoot anyone. You guys killed my brother, man. You’re gonna kill me, too. I just know it.”

“Randy, no one is going to hurt you, I promise. I want you to walk slowly down to the landing and peek around the corner at us. The only person you will see is me, and I will have my hands up; you can see for yourself.”

“OK, man.”

Max put his hands in the air and motioned for Elizabeth to take up position to the left of the staircase. He wanted her there in case things didn’t go as planned. He had no desire to get shot. As long as Randy didn’t have a weapon in his hands, he was going to let the man come downstairs so he could talk with him and sort this whole mess out.

“OK, Randy? You ready? You can peek around the corner at me and see that I’m not holding a weapon. Once you’ve done that, I want you to toss the pistol down the stairs. As long as I can see both of your hands this is going to work out fine. We got a deal?”

“OK, man, here I come.”

Max waited and eventually saw red hair begin to appear along the wall; then he saw a man’s left eye.

“That’s good, Randy. See? This is going to work. Now, toss the pistol down.”

Max could see a hand appear as a pistol was tossed down the last three steps, hitting the floor with a metallic clatter.

“Good, good. Now let me see both of your hands, and you can slowly walk down the stairs so we can talk.”

Max saw Randy’s left arm and left leg appear from behind the wall. Then his entire face appeared.

“Good, Randy, good! See? Everything is just fine. Now, let me see your other hand.”

“How do I know you’re alone? How do I know I’m not gonna get shot as soon as I come down the stairs?”

“Randy, c’mon, think about it. If I wanted to shoot you, don’t you think I would have done it by now? I just want you to come out of this alive and for no one else to get hurt.”

Max saw a look of anger and fear cross Randy’s face as the veins in his forehead began to bulge.

“Randy! Randy! What’s wrong? Take it easy!” Max could tell that Randy was no longer listening to him. Randy was staring intently at something at the bottom of the stairs. What was he looking at? What’s got him so scared?

Oh god. He sees Elizabeth’s reflection in a computer monitor.

“I knew it! Mother fuckers ain’t killin’ me!”

Randy’s right arm came out from behind the wall. He was holding a shotgun. He leapt the three steps to the floor and took aim at Elizabeth.

“NO! WAIT! RANDY! YOU DON’T UND…”

Randy pulled the trigger and fired at Elizabeth. She was knocked off her feet and flew backwards. Before she hit the ground, Max had drawn his sidearm and shot Randy in the ear, blowing his brains onto the stairs. Max screamed and fell to the ground next to Elizabeth. A pool of blood was slowly growing beneath her.

The president’s Chief of Staff, Stacy Reid, was in shock. She had a confused smile on her face and was laughing nervously. Surely this woman was telling a cruel joke. She had to be exaggerating.

Florida Governor Lori Prince had just lied to the president of the United States. She had the nerve to blame the president for a million deaths in Florida. She must be using the term loosely — ‘I haven’t seen you in a million years’ or ‘There must have been a million people at that concert’. That had to be it. Stacy knew that her president and friend would not stand by and do nothing while a million people died. As his chief of staff, she was also his closest and most trusted advisor. He would not keep something like that from her.

Stacy knew that Hurricane Luther had carried a toxic chemical spill up the coast. In response, the Commander-in-Chief had sent an aircraft carrier along with its support vessels to render aid to the Florida coastline.

Everyone in the Clinton Room was silent. No one dared intervene. Governor Prince was staring at President Powers, waiting for his reply. The president shifted in his chair and broke the staring match with the governor. He addressed the room.

“What I am about to say will come as a shock to some of you. I had hoped to breach the subject on my own terms but the governor,” he shot a sharp glare at Governor Prince, “has done that for me. To put it bluntly, there is no chemical spill in Florida. We had to fabricate a cover story to hide the truth from the media. Luther will go down in history as the must destructive force of nature in the history of mankind. He was essentially not one, but four, powerful category five hurricanes. Each time he came ashore he destroyed everything in his path. The hurricane caught us completely off guard. The National Weather Service was certain that Luther would come ashore one time and that would be it. Instead, we are left with the horrible truth that Governor Prince has just revealed. The death toll is closing in on a million.”