Chapter Two Thousand Sixty-Four
1st June 1971
Los Angeles, California
They had unexpectedly come under fire in the parking lot.
Crawling out of the car on the passenger side, Ritchie and Mike had found themselves sheltering behind the car as number of bullets had struck the driver’s side and the rest of the windows shattered. It had stopped after a minute, something that had not been a great development because whoever had done the shooting had gone back into the building. Even as Ritchie could hear the sirens of additional police cars approaching and Mike radioing in their situation, he could hear gun fire from inside the building. A detached part of his mind noted that it sounded like a one of the carbines that the U.S. Army had used until a decade ago when they had been replaced. With that he had wrenched open the trunk of the squad car and pulled his Stoner rifle out of its case and started shoving the magazines into the front and side pockets of his vest. Like it or not, they had a job to do.
“So that is why you wear that?” Mike asked.
“Just one reason” Ritchie replied as he started walking towards the front doors of the School. As big as he was, this was a situation where Mike was incredibly vulnerable. The vest that Ritchie was wearing could easily stop a bullet from a carbine. Mike had no such protection. “I need you to hang back, try to keep under cover as much as possible.”
Mike just gave Ritchie a narrow-eyed glare, he wasn’t wired to do that sort of thing but would because that was what he had been trained to do.
Later, when the investigation pieced together the timeline, they made the events in Roosevelt High School seem almost sanitized. All neat and tidy, the scene that greeted Ritchie and Mike was anything but that. It was pure chaos as they had to force their way through a vast crowd of students who were fleeing whatever it was that was going on.
Like every High School that Ritchie had ever been in, the School Administration was the first thing that greeted any visitor when they entered. They found that it had been reduced to charnel pit. The items that one expected to find in any office, strewn about the floor. Papers, pencils, the shards from a coffee mug that had fallen. Ritchie noticed those details first, the things that were supposed to be there. Then there were the people, splattered blood, the brass cartridges thrown about. All mixed together. It was shortly after that, that they had found themselves rushed by students in the hallway. To Ritchie’s astonishment many of them were trying to tell him what was going on and who it was who was doing the shooting. This was even as he could hear shots being fired somewhere ahead and the screams that followed.
“THE DOORS ARE THAT WAY!” Mike bellowed, pointing in the direction of the school entrance. Ritchie knew that most of these students were the sort who might have individually been a pain in the ass to them on any given day as they cut class and got themselves into trouble out in the neighborhood. At the moment though, Mike and Ritchie were adults in positions of authority. They didn’t argue for once, they just headed for the entrance en masse, dragging Ritchie and Mike with them in the wrong direction.
Ritchie was sorely tempted to use the butt of his rifle as he pushed against the crowd. By the wall of lockers, he ran across a girl who had gotten knocked down and was in danger of getting trampled. After helping her to her feet he pushed on, following the sound of gunfire. After a time, the crowds of students thinned out, they saw those who were hiding and a number of bodies of those who were unlucky enough to be caught in the open or hadn’t found a good enough hiding place. They pointed the students they found to the nearest emergency exit. Ritchie figured that anyone setting off the fire alarm was the least of their worries at the moment.
As the minutes dragged on, the initial rush adrenaline wore off and he became aware that someone was calling for him on his radio. It wasn’t dispatch, but the Watch Commander demanding a status update. It wasn’t an easy conversation. He’d followed the sound of shooting down hallways, through classrooms, up and flights of stairs, and even into a few open areas. All he could tell was that this place was huge, and he didn’t have the first clue as to where he was. He wasn’t in the mood for bullshit. He had told the Watch Commander that he didn’t have the first clue as to where he was, but he was close to the shooter and would end it if he got the chance. Mike heard this and smiled.
“Still a Green Beret Valenzuela” Mike said.
“Always” Ritchie replied as they advanced down another hallway.
It was silent here, and Ritchie could hear the sound of footsteps ahead. A middle-aged man wearing a suit and tie stepped out from around a corner and nearly got himself shot by Mike and Ritchie. Ritchie could see that he was carrying a handful of examination papers, a teacher who had been caught up in this mess.
“The building is being evacuated Sir” Ritchie said, “Head for the nearest exit.”
The teacher looked like he was about to say something, but he was hit by three bullets. Mike was cursing as Ritchie stepped ahead. He took quick aim and fired a quick burst in the direction that the fire had come from. A moment later, they found a fresh blood leading trail away from where the shooter had been that led to a stairwell where he had collapsed.
“You got him” Mike said as he kicked the carbine out of the shooter’s hands before flipping him over and handcuffing him. It was at that moment that the shooter started moaning about how he was dying.
“No, you aren’t dying” Ritchie said to him, Ritchie knew full well that he had only clipped him. “You are getting the best of care and after what we’ve seen this afternoon, that will be right up until they strap you into San Quentin’s gas chamber.”
Mike gave Ritchie a look that suggested he might have taken it a little too far. He didn’t care.