Wrong Room

Jodi was jolted awake by the phone. Bleary-eyed, she reached to the night-table, grabbed her cell, and mumbled into it. The ringing continued. Cursing, she sat up, picked up the land-line, and said, “Yeah?”

“Ms. Cinto?” a voice asked.

“Speaking,” she replied as she glanced at the clock. 9:04. She hadn’t gotten to bed until almost 6:30.

“This is Mr. Rosten, the principal of your children’s school. I have… disturbing news.”

What the hell? she thought. Mendez said he’d get the kids off to school. Did he forget one? Is one of them sick? Aloud she asked, “Are they alright?”

“As far as we know they are,” Rosten replied.

“As far as you know?” Jodi repeated, now completely alert. “What the f… What does that mean?”

Rosten hesitated before saying, “An armed intruder has taken over your son Martin’s classroom. Police are on the scene. An FBI hostage negotiator…”

Jodi slammed the phone down. She threw on clothes, opened her gun-safe, grabbed her windbreaker, and dashed to her car. She broke multiple traffic laws on the way. The street in front of the school was blocked by several police cars. She pulled in next to a patrol-car, jumped out, and hurried toward the front, ignoring a policeman who called after her.

“My son is in the class the pervert took over!” she screamed as two cops barred her way.

“I know how upsetting this is Ma’am,” one of the cops said. He took her arm and pointed toward a group of, crying, worried looking adults. “Other parents are over there. Why don’t you wait with them?”

Jodi pulled away and ran down the left side of the building. Having been to numerous events she knew the school well. It was a large, sprawling, two-story structure with a one-story gymnasium at the rear. Jodi knew Marty’s classroom was on the second floor about two-thirds of the way toward the gym. There were glass shards on the ground underneath what Jodi knew was the target room. She looked up and saw several of the windows were broken, but blinds obscured the view inside.

Jodi continued to the end of the building. A custodian was outside placing a trash-bag into a dumpster. A door to the gym was open. The man tried to stop her, but she pushed by him, raced to a supply closet, and dragged out a large step-ladder. She placed it underneath the roof hatch. She went back to the closet, took a coiled length of rope, and draped it over her shoulder.

“Whaddya think you’re doing?” the janitor bellowed as he stormed over to her.

“Hold the ladder steady,” Jodi ordered, ignoring his question. When he hesitated she yelled, “NOW!”

He jumped at her volume, but took hold of the ladder. She ascended to the top. Balancing precariously, she opened the roof hatch and pulled herself onto the gym roof. There was a ladder bolted to the wall leading to the roof of the school. She climbed it and headed toward the area above Marty’s classroom.

A policeman on the ground saw her and raised a bullhorn to his mouth. She made frantic gestures and placed a finger over her mouth. The cop got the message and lowered the bullhorn.

Jodi attached the rope to a ventilation pipe and rappelled down to the level of the classroom. There were gaps in the blinds. She could see some of the classroom, but not Marty. Children were crying and a man was screaming incoherently.

There was a knot at the end of the rope where she could rest a foot and free up one hand. She put on sunglasses and pulled the windbreaker up over her nose. Holding her gun in one hand, she pushed off from the wall. When she returned to the wall she pushed off again. She repeated the process twice more, each time building more and more momentum. On the last try she angled so that she came in on one of the broken windows. Just before she reached it, she released the rope and hit the window feet first.

Jodi crashed into the room in a shower of broken glass. The teacher was lying on the floor with blood coming from underneath her, either unconscious or dead. A large, heavyset man was holding a crying girl and brandishing a handgun. He whirled at the sound of Jodi’s entry and fired wildly. He missed. Jodi didn’t.

The classroom door crashed open. A SWAT team barged in, their entry evidently precipitated by the sound of gunshots. Jodi immediately placed her gun on the floor and held up her hands. Marty ran over from where most of the children were. He jumped in her arms, crying, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!”

The leader of the SWAT team started to say something, stopped, and said, “Oh, it’s you, Jodi.”

Jodi was busy comforting her son, but she heard another cop ask, “Who’s that, Lieutenant?”

“Jodi Cinto,” was the reply. “Used to be on the job. Toughest lady cop I’ve ever known. The lure of money was too much. She went over to the dark side of the force. Accepted a job as chief investigator for a defense attorney. He tripled her salary. The fool who took hostages picked the wrong room. A mama grizzly protecting her cubs has nothing on Jodi.”

“She might’ve hit the kid!”

“Not Jodi.”