The third man dropped the phone, still screaming, and brought up a second AK-47. But Ross was waiting for him as well, and again the magic lanced from the staff. A burst from the man’s weapon sprayed the ceiling harmlessly as he went down in a heap.
Ross scanned the room swiftly for other kidnappers. There were none. Just the three. The children and their teacher and two other women were still crouched in their seats, weighted down by the magic. Ross lifted it away, setting them free. No one was hurt. Everything was all right . . .
Then he saw the feeders, dozens of them, oozing through cracks in the windows and doors, sliding out of corners and alcoves, dark shadows gathering to feast, sensing something that was hidden from him.
Ross wheeled about in desperation, searching everywhere at once, his heart pounding, his mind racing. . .
And police burst through the doors and windows, shattering wood and glass. Someone was yelling, Throw down your weapons! Now, now, now! The women and children were screaming anew, scrambling out of their seats in terror, and someone was yelling, He’s got a gun! Shoot him, shoot him! Ross was trying to tell them, No, no, it’s all right, it’s okay now! But no one was listening, and everything was chaotic and out of control, and the feeders were leaping about in a frenzy, climbing over everything, and there were weapons firing everywhere, catching the kidnapper who was just coming to his knees in front of the stage, still too stunned to know what was happening, lifting him in a red spatter and dropping him back again in a crumpled heap, and small bodies were being struck by the bullets as well, hammered sideways and sent flying as screams of fear turned to shrieks of pain, and still the voice was yelling, He’s got a gun, he’s got a gun! Even though Ross still couldn’t see any gun, couldn’t understand what the voice was veiling about, the police kept firing, over and over and over into the children . . ,
He read about it in the newspapers in the days that followed. Fourteen children were killed. Two of the kidnappers died. There was considerable debate over who fired the shots, but informed speculation had it that several of the children had been caught in a crossfire.
There was only brief mention of Ross. In the confusion that followed the shooting, Ross had backed away into the shadows and slipped out through the rear of the auditorium into a crowd of parents and bystanders and disappeared before anyone could stop him. The teacher who had been held hostage told of a mysterious man who had helped free them, but the police insisted that the man was one of the kidnappers and that the teacher was mistaken about what she had seen. Descriptions of what he looked like varied dramatically, and after a time the search to find him waned and died.
But John Ross was left devastated. How had this terrible thing happened? What had gone wrong? He had done exactly as he intended to do. The men had been subdued. The danger was past. And still the children had died, the police misreading the situation, hearing screams over the kidnapper’s dropped cell phone, hearing the AK-47 go off, bursting in with weapons ready, firing impulsively, foolishly …
Fourteen children dead. Ross couldn’t accept it. He could tell himself rationally that it wasn’t his fault. He could explain away everything that had happened, could argue persuasively and passionately to himself that he had done everything he could, but it still didn’t help. Fourteen children were dead.
One of them, he discovered, was a blond, blue-eyed little boy named Teddy.
He saw all of their pictures in magazines, and he read their stories in papers for weeks afterward. The horror of what had happened enveloped and consumed him. It haunted his sleep and destroyed his peace of mind. He could not function. He sat paralyzed in motel rooms in small towns far away from San Sobel, trying to regain his sense of purpose. He had experienced failures before, but nothing with consequences that were so dramatic and so personal. He had thought he could handle anything, but he wasn’t prepared for this. Fourteen lives were on his conscience, and he could hardly bear it. He cried often, and he ached deep inside. He replayed the events over and over in his mind, trying to decide what it was he had done wrong.