Choosing Happiness (13 page)

It took her several tries to get a picture of one of the two remaining men and just as she snapped a good picture, one of the men looked at her.

"Hey! What are you doing?" he yelled, marching up to her. His gun pointed at the floor as he knocked people over to get to her. The other gunmen all looked at her and she tried to look innocent

"Nothing, just shifting a little. This floor's hard."

"Don't lie to me. You were doing something." He spotted the corner of the phone she'd tried to hide under her leg and kicked it out, catching a bit of her leg in the process. "A phone. Were you calling the cops?"

"No." She answered honestly.

He stomped on it several times, sending bits of plastic flying as he destroyed it.

The man who had taken the managers into the vault came back. "What's going on out here?"

"She had a phone, I think she was calling the cops."

"Did you take it away?" he asked.

"Of course," the other man replied.

"Then look at it. See what she was doing."

"Well, I can't." The man who’d kicked her stumbled over his words.

"Why not?"

"I smashed it." He pointed out the shattered remains of the phone on the floor a few feet away.

"You idiot. Now we have no clue who she contacted or what she told them." He yelled at his partner. Swinging his pistol around, he pointed it at Andrea and squeezed the trigger, firing a single round.

The impact knocked Andrea onto her back. She laid there staring at the ceiling tiles for a moment. She thought she’d been shot but since there was no pain, at least not yet, she wasn’t sure. When the face of one of the other customers appeared in her view.

"Can you hear me?" the woman asked, her voice distant.

Andrea nodded and tried to sit up.

"No, don't sit up." The woman put one hand against her chest. "You've been shot."

The numbness started to fade and fire spread through her shoulder letting her know where the wound was. "In the shoulder?" Andrea asked to be sure.

The woman nodded.

"Is it spurting blood or a steady flow?"

The woman looked at the wound and back to Andrea. "It seems to be steady."

"That's good, put something under it and something on top, clean would be best. Put pressure on the wound," Andrea instructed. "Hopefully it didn't hit anything vital. If we can get the bleeding stopped or even slowed and I can keep from going into shock. I should be okay."

"How can you be this calm?" another woman asked, taking off her jacket. She folded it and put under Andrea's shoulder. She turned and looked at the rest of the group sitting around them. Her eyes stopped on one person. "You." She pointed at someone. "I need your sweater."

"I'm an ER nurse." Andrea focused on the woman kneeling beside her. "I'm trained to stay calm during an emergency." She saw a sweatshirt passed over her head to the woman kneeling beside her. The woman folded the sweatshirt and pressed it to Andrea's shoulder. Andrea grit her teeth against the pain for a moment before trying to relax her body. She knew fighting the pain would only drain her strength faster.

"What's your name?" she asked the woman helping her, trying to distract herself from the growing pain in her shoulder. Before the woman could answer, a phone somewhere in the bank began to ring.

~~~

Several minutes passed after Andrea's second picture came through to Jake's phone with nothing new. Jake kept an eye on the phone, waiting for another picture. While he waited, he watched the SWAT Team set up their command center and gave the negotiator what little information they had.

"I counted nineteen cars from here. When we drove by I saw more on the other side, another 4 or 5, I believe. Assuming at least one person per car, that means we have 23 or more people inside. From the pictures Andrea sent we know there are at least two gunmen, possibly more, they probably came in the same vehicle, leaving around twenty-two hostages."

The commander looked at him a moment, his eyes narrowed. "You're familiar with situations like this. What are you doing on patrol?"

"Just got out of the Academy. I have to work my way up." Jake shrugged.

"Where were you before the Academy?"

"Afghanistan."

"That would explain it." The commander said. "You'd be an asset to my crew, put in an application and we'll see what you've got."

"I'm still on probation."

"The Lieutenant says you know someone in that bank?”

“Yes, sir, my girlfriend sent us the two pictures we have.”

“I see. Things serious between you two?”

“Yes, sir.” He didn’t hesitate with the answer. Andrea might be having second thoughts, but he was sure. It was serious for him.

The commander watched him for several minutes. “For you to be as calm and collected as you are right now, I'll take the chance on the probation." The commander turned to the building layout that had been unrolled on a nearby table and asked where they stood on getting eyes in the bank.

The sound of a single gunshot came from inside the bank. Jake’s stomach dropped and he was afraid for a moment that his knees might give out. Instinct told him that Andrea had been discovered trying to get pictures for them. He wanted to rush to her side but he knew rushing in there would do no good, especially in uniform. He had to keep his cool and help the SWAT team do their jobs to get the hostages, including Andrea, out of there alive.

All he could do was follow orders and not give up hope.

~~~

Inside the bank they all looked toward the ringing phone, wondering if someone was going to answer it. The gunman who had shot Andrea pointed his pistol at one of the tellers.

"You, answer that and don't let on anything's wrong." He demanded.

She got up, careful not to move too quickly, and went to the nearest desk where she picked up the receiver and hit a button.

"First Regional Bank, this is Tonya, how may I help you today?" She listened a moment before replying "I'm going to need to check on that, please hold." She hit another button on the phone and turned to the gunman. "It's the police. They want to talk to whoever's in charge."

The man marched over and jerked the receiver from her hand. "Give me that. Now show me how to go back to the call."

She hit a button on the phone and stood quietly, waiting for his next order.

"What do you want?" the leader snarled into the phone. He listened for a moment before saying, "Everyone's alive, for now." He listened a while longer. "We have one wounded, but she should live. Unless she screws up again." He glared at Andrea before falling silent again, then looked at the teller in front of him. "Do you have a first aid kit?"

"Y-Yes."

"Where is it?"

"In that cabinet." She pointed across the room.

He made a motion with the gun in his hand and one of the other three gunmen in the room went to retrieve a kit the size of a tool box.

"Are there any blades, or anything sharp in there?" The leader asked.

"Not that I know of."

"Check it," he told the man carrying the case.

The second man set the case down, opened it and rifled through the contents for a moment before looking up. "Only thing sharp in here is these," he held up a pair of bandage scissors, the kind with short blades, a blunt upper tip and a flattened piece attached to the bottom at ninety degrees from the blade for working under bandages.

"Leave those, they're not anything to worry about. Take the kit over there." The leader motioned to the group waiting by the chairs with his gun.

The second man closed the case before taking over and setting it on the floor near Andrea.

"The cop says at least one of you will know how to use that." He put the phone back to his ear. "They have the kit, now for what I want..."

Andrea tuned him out as she concentrated on the first aid kit and the woman helping her.

"You never told me your name," she prompted, drawing the woman's attention back to her.

"Maryanne. My name's Maryanne" Her voice shook.

"Maryanne, you need to open the first aid kid and see what's inside, but we need to keep pressure on the wound, too. Look around and pick someone to help us."

"Who do I pick?" Maryanne looked desperately at the people around them.

"Just pick one, an adult," Andrea instructed, remembering having seen a couple of children as she walked through the bank earlier.

Maryanne's eyes swept from one side of the group of people to the other, before coming to rest on one person. "You." She pointed with her free hand at one person. "Come, help us."

A young man, probably no more than twenty-one or two, moved closer and Andrea took over again. "I'm Andrea and this is Maryanne, what's your name?" Andrea used some of the same techniques she used at work to keep people calm.

"Rick," he replied quickly.

"All right, Rick, I need you to look through the first-aid kit and tell me what's inside." She did her best to keep her voice calm and even despite the growing pain. He flipped the box open and started laying things out on the lid, trying to make sense of the mess the man had made while rifling through the box.

"I have band aids, bandage pads, bandage tape-" he started listing things

"How big are the pads?" Andrea interrupted,

"Two by two”" He read aloud from one of the envelopes.

"Not big enough, keep going."

"Scissors, ace bandage, Tylenol, cold pack, Wound Seal, Neosporin—"

"Wait, the Wound Seal, how much of that do we have?"

"Three envelopes,"

"Are there any gloves?

"Yeah, a whole box,"

Andrea thought for a moment. "Take out both of those and is there just one ace bandage? Bring that too, the Wound Seal and the tape and scissors."

He brought the items Andrea asked for as he moved closer and knelt on the opposite side of her from Maryanne.

"Does anyone have a mirror on them?" Andrea asked loudly. "Anything, a hair mirror, a compact. I need to be able to look at the wound and see how bad it is."

"I have one,” came a woman's voice, “it's pretty small, but it might work." She handed a small round mirror to Maryanne, who in turn, put it in Andrea's right hand.

"This will work," Andrea said. "Thanks." She looked at Maryanne and Rick again. "This is what we've got to do. First the two of you need to put on gloves, then we’ll try to get a look at the wound. We need to move fairly quickly here, so pay attention. I need you to lift the sweatshirt off. Be prepared, it's going to bleed, but hopefully it will have slowed some." She looked at Maryanne. "You’ll need to use the scissors and cut my shirt. You don’t need to cut it off, just cut a couple slashes so you can peel the fabric back and we can see the wound. I'm going to use the mirror to look at the wound, see if I can tell how much damage there is. When I'm done with that, Rick, I need you to open one of the Wound Seal envelopes and sprinkle it into the wound, use the whole envelope if you need to."

Rick nodded.

"Then we need to put the sweatshirt back over the wound and repeat the whole process on the back, except you’re going to have to tell me what it looks like. Even with a mirror, I won’t be able to see it." She looked at Maryanne who nodded her understanding. "Once you've peeled the shirt out of the way and put the clotting powder on both wounds, then you'll need to use the tape and ace bandage to help hold the cloths in place and continue to apply pressure. You both understand what we're going to do?" She looked back and forth between the two of them, waiting for them to answer.

"Got it," Maryanne said.

"Can do," agreed Rick.

"Then let's get started." Andrea watched them both put on gloves, knowing from the way they fumbled and struggled with them that it was an unfamiliar thing to them both. Then she gritted her teeth, this was going to hurt.

T
he news that someone inside was hurt made Jake’s stomach lurch. When the man on the phone said she would be alright as long as she didn’t screw up again, he had no doubt it was Andrea and that they’d caught her taking pictures. He quietly turned and walked away from the command center, ignoring the lieutenant’s voice calling after him as he moved around the patrol cars blocking traffic. Once clear of the movement and bustle of the enclosed area, he bent at the waist and threw up.

In his mind, Jake knew it wasn’t his fault but he hated not being able to go in there and get her. He hated having to wait while they followed protocol. Knowing she was hurt and there was nothing he could do made him want to hurt someone.

“What’s going on with you, Officer?” the lieutenant’s voice called his attention back to what was going on.

“I’m sorry, sir. I should be okay now.”

“What’s that all about?”

“I told you, Andrea’s in there. I’m pretty sure she’s the one they shot.”

“You have no way of knowing that.”

“But I do. You heard what they said. We know she was sending out pictures, and she hasn’t sent any more. She’s the one they shot.”

“You don’t know that for sure. She’s a nurse, isn’t she? She could be taking care of whoever is injured.”

Jake shook his head. “I don’t think so, sir.”

“You have a choice, you can get your head on straight and get back in there and help us get her out of there or you can stay back here with the civilians. It’s up to you.” The lieutenant turned and walked away as if he didn’t care what Jake chose to do. He probably didn’t. Either way, he had things he had to.

Jake looked at his boots. He didn’t know if he could set aside the fact that Andrea was inside that building and probably hurt, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if she was killed and he hadn’t done everything he could. He went to his patrol car for the bottle of water he kept there and rinsed his mouth before going back to the command center to see how he could help.

~~~

I
nspecting and bandaging her wounds had hurt like hell. The good news was that there didn’t seem to be anything vital hit. They’d bandaged her back up using the ace bandage and tape and now she was leaning against the back of a desk near the rest of the group. Several phone calls came in, but she hurt too badly to pay attention to what was said. She turned to Maryanne.