Даниэла Стил - Turning Point

“We don’t know why he’s in there,” Perliot said with a calm voice and angry eyes. This was exactly the kind of situation they had feared for years, involving a building full of children. They had just learned that there were six hundred and twenty children in the school, and approximately eighty adult staff who worked there.

There were at least a dozen senior police officers on the bus, which served as tactical headquarters for what they were going to do. There were squadrons of riot police and SWAT teams in the street around them, waiting for the order to go in, but no one wanted to sacrifice safety for speed, nor to wait too long. Whatever they did would have a downside. And they had no idea why the shooter was there, if his motives were political or religious, or if he was a random lunatic on a mission of some kind.

“I want to know who this bastard is,” Captain Perliot said through clenched teeth as two policemen in combat gear stepped onto the bus with an older woman. She identified herself as the school librarian. She had climbed out a basement window where she was putting books in a storeroom when the attack began. She had heard the ranting of the gunman on the PA system and before she left, she had looked for some of the children to take with her. She had approached the gym and said that the doors to the gym were locked, and she thought everyone was trapped in there with him. She said some students and teachers might be hiding, but she had escaped without finding any.

“I think I know who he is,” she said, her voice shaking. “He was talking about his wife, and said everyone had to pay for killing her. The administration reduced the staff three years ago, and about twenty teachers were let go. If he is who I think he is, his wife was one of them, Élodie Blanchet. She taught history and Spanish. She was a lovely woman. Six months later, she discovered that she had breast cancer, she had surgery and treatments. I visited her in the hospital when I heard about it. She died about a year ago. She told me when I saw her that her husband was very unstable, and he was convinced that she got cancer from losing her job. They were separated when she died. They had a daughter who is fourteen or fifteen now, and lives with Élodie’s mother. We all went to the funeral. Her husband was there, but he didn’t talk to any of us from the lycée. The whole story is very sad. I think he had a history of mental problems and lost his job because of it. That’s all I know about him.” She was certain it was him from his ranting over the PA, and he had mentioned Élodie by name.

Captain Perliot asked his name and she said it was François Blanchet. The librarian had heard him speaking of his wife on the PA system and then gunshots and people screaming afterward.

Two policemen got on their cellphones immediately, to the intelligence unit, to get everything they could on François Blanchet. Five minutes later, police intelligence called back. He was forty-nine years old, had a psychiatric discharge from the army, so he knew weapons, and was an unemployed engineer by profession. He lived in a rough part of Paris, and was on welfare. The whereabouts of his daughter were unknown. Ten minutes after that, they had a cellphone number, and, holding his hand up for silence, the captain called him. Marie-Laure sent a policeman to find Valérie, and she came back to the bus at a dead run before the call connected, and stood an arm’s length away from the captain. The call was being recorded.

There was no answer at first as the gunfire continued from inside the building, and then it stopped and François Blanchet answered. Bruno Perliot spoke to Blanchet in a calm, even voice and said that they wanted to have a conversation with him, and wanted him to come outside.

“You must think I’m stupid. And then what? You shoot me on the way out? Don’t try to come in here,” he warned him. “If you do, half the children will be dead before you shoot open the doors.”

“Let’s talk about this. I’m sorry about your wife. That was a terrible thing to happen,” Bruno said in the most soothing voice Stephanie had ever heard. They had been invited to join the French team on the bus, and told where to stand so they wouldn’t get in the way.

“They killed her!” François Blanchet exploded into the phone, and then started to sob. “They killed her. She got sick almost immediately after they fired her. She was so beautiful, and so sweet, and a good teacher. They made her sick. She would never have gotten cancer if they didn’t fire her. She was never sick a day in her life. They were too cheap to pay her, so they killed her.”

“I’m sure they’re very sorry now,” Bruno Perliot said smoothly, but the gunman got irritated immediately.

“I will make them sorry for every day she suffered, and every minute she’s been dead. I loved her so much,” he said, sobbing again. “She was such a good person.”

“That’s what I’ve heard.” As Perliot spoke to the shooter, SWAT teams were exploring the building for points of entry, had found two they wanted to use, and were entering through the basement. “François, I don’t think she would want you to hurt the children. She loved them.” The captain was stalling him, trying to buy time, while they frantically planned their entry into the school.

“I know she did. And they fired her anyway, and killed her. Now my daughter has no mother and I have no wife.” He cried audibly for a few minutes, and then a volley of shots rang out again.

News of the school hostage situation had leaked out by then, and the TV news trucks had arrived on the scene, with reporters everywhere being told by police to stand back. The press were waiting for the dramatic scenes at the end, but there was nothing for them to show now. A small cluster of parents was standing in the street, clutching each other and crying, waiting for news of their children. Someone had called them, most of the parents didn’t know yet. A special area had been cordoned off for them, with two policemen in charge. Valérie had gone out to see the parents briefly, and was back on the bus minutes later, in time to listen to the call with the hostage taker. She was standing by with an intent expression, listening to every word he said. The captain was handling it masterfully. Ideally, they would have liked the gunman to give himself up, but the likelihood of that happening was slim to none. He had already gone too far. As they watched, both Stephanie and Bill were thinking of their children, and how they would feel if this happened to them. Their hearts went out to the agonized parents, as one of the riot police handed out police armbands to the four Americans, to identify them as part of the official police operation if things got crazy and rough later on. They slipped them on over their jackets as the drama continued to play out. It had just been on the news that a crazed gunman was shooting children and teachers at the lycée, in retaliation for the death of his wife. The police knew that more frantic parents would begin to arrive.

Five minutes later, one of the policemen approached the captain and whispered that Blanchet’s daughter was calling in on the main police line, or someone who had claimed to be her. She said her name was Solange Blanchet. The captain pointed to Valérie to take the call, which she did, on a phone someone handed her, and she walked away a little distance so as not to interfere with the captain’s conversation with the gunman.

Solange said that the hostage taker was her father, and he was very sick. He had been that way since her mother got cancer. She hadn’t seen him since the funeral and didn’t know where he’d been, but she told Valérie that they had to take him to a hospital and not kill him, just stop him from hurting the children at the lycée . She was crying and sounded desperate.