He dove for the floor, but that split second of hesitation cost him. He saw the flash of a gun and had time to register that it was held by a Middle Eastern man on the side wall with an eerily calm look in his eyes. Before Alex even heard the noise, he felt the slug explode in his left side and drive him backward, sucking the wind out of his lungs with the most intense pain he had ever experienced. There were more screams, but they seemed distant now as Alex gasped for air and the edge of his vision started going black.***
Hassan had trained his whole life for this. He felt an almost supernatural ability to process all the stimuli at once, slowing the world like a frame-by-frame video. He had hit Taj Deegan and Alex Madison, but the little gymnast had reacted too quickly, tackling her client to the floor and pulling him behind the safety of the solid wood rail that separated the spectators from the counsel area.
Everyone else in the courtroom reacted the way Hassan had predicted for the weak-kneed Americans. Hysteria. People screaming and diving for the floor. There were no heroes in this bunch.
He swung the pistol in a wide arc and started quickly moving toward the front of the courtroom so he could stand over Khalid Mobassar and see the look of fear in his eyes before Khalid met his maker. Just before he got there, the back door burst open, and two deputies rushed in, guns drawn. Fortunately for Hassan, it took them a fraction of a second to locate their target. By the time they realized that Hassan was their man, he had unleashed a flurry of shots, dropping both of them as more screams filled the courtroom.
He was at the rail now and put his left hand on the top to sidestep over when he noticed a blur from just over his shoulder. He whirled quickly enough to see a man in a leather jacket diving into him with a jarring tackle that sent both of them crashing over the wooden rail and sprawling across the floor. Hassan held on to his Glock and whipped it across his assailant’s face, cracking the man’s cheekbone and spraying the area with blood. The man’s eyes rolled up in his head. Hassan scrambled to his feet and into his shooter’s stance.
He now had a point-blank shot at both Shannon Reese and Khalid Mobassar. “Allahu akbar!”
But before he squeezed the trigger, he felt something slam into his chest, driving him back to the floor in an explosion of pain. He struggled to stand, but his movements were sluggish. His thoughts were cloudy; the world seemed to spin as blood poured from his chest wound. As he staggered to his feet, he saw Taj Deegan pointing a gun at him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw more deputies rushing through the back door. He saw a flash of gunpowder and felt more bullets tear into his chest and side.
Blood spattered the wall and carpet. One bullet exploded part of his face.
But Hassan was no longer there. In that last moment of life, he was riding through the infidels again, swinging his sword in a large arc, the arrows of the enemy piercing him from every direction.
His last thought was the grim certainty that he had allowed Khalid Mobassar to live. His last emotion was the fear of an angry Allah, condemning him, telling him that he should have done more.
At first there was calm. Then fire. And faces melting like wax.
The sound of wailing was deafening.
101
Alex felt as if an elephant were stomping on his chest; the courtroom was now at the end of a long tunnel back to reality. The shooting had stopped, but people were still yelling and shouting orders. He watched in a semiconscious state, as if he were stationed above it all, his mind separated from his body.
Shannon crawled to his side and patted his cheek. “Don’t you dare quit on me, Alex Madison!” she said, nearly hyperventilating. “Listen to me… No! Don’t shut your eyes!”
Alex tried to obey, but the debilitating pain in his side was shutting down every shred of consciousness. Taj Deegan pulled off her blazer and stuffed it into his wound, applying pressure that Alex could barely feel. Just before the blackness completely took over, he felt Shannon pinch his nose and tilt his head back.
“Get an ambulance!” she yelled, then blew the first breath into Alex’s lungs.
***
Shannon was numb on the ride to the hospital. Detective Sanderson had the siren on and the lights flashing, and he tried to encourage her. “You did an amazing job with that CPR,” he said. “You probably saved two lives today.”
His words barely registered. Shannon had never seen so much blood. Alex, Kayden Dendy, and two sheriff’s deputies had been whisked to the hospital by the paramedics. Three other deputies and Ahmed Obu Mobassar had been pronounced dead at the scene. Taj Deegan had taken a shot to her back, but a bulletproof vest had saved her life. Khalid Mobassar was in shock but unharmed. Deputies had taken him back into lockup.
When Shannon arrived at the hospital, she followed Sanderson into the ICU like a zombie. A nurse informed them that Alex was already in surgery.
A resident checked Shannon out, cleaned her up, gave her some drugs, and released her to join the others standing vigil in the ICU waiting room. For two hours, Alex’s friends and family stared at the floor and spoke in hushed whispers. Ramona led them all in prayer. Officers came and took statements about the chaos in the courtroom. The television in the corner of the waiting room played nonstop coverage of the day’s carnage until somebody turned it to a game show.
Detective Sanderson left the room periodically to check with the ICU nurses. It was one o’clock in the afternoon when he came back and stopped in the doorway.
Shannon looked up. “Any news?”
Sanderson managed a smile. “Your boy’s a lot tougher than he looks. The bullet entered the left side of Alex’s chest and missed his heart, major arteries, and stomach by a few centimeters. It hit his left lung and did some minimal damage to the liver. The doctor says that Alex will probably have some lung damage, but fortunately for him, the lung didn’t collapse. He says the liver has an amazing way of repairing itself. Basically, he’s going to be all right.”
Relief flooded the room, and Ramona summed up the feelings of pretty much everyone there. “So basically, it’s a miracle.”
102
Alex heard the voices before he opened his eyes. The sounds were familiar and comforting, but he couldn’t understand most of what they said. They were voices from another world, soft tones with an occasional laugh or chuckle.
He felt the wooziness of lingering anesthesia and high doses of painkillers. He couldn’t bring his thoughts into focus; his mind felt mushy and unresponsive. He tried to open his eyes but quickly closed them again. He was aware of an uncomfortable tube in his nose and other tubes hooked up to his arms and something packed against his left side.
The voices stopped for a moment, and there was an excited murmur. “He moved. I think he’s waking up.”
He tried to wake up-he really did-but the voices were still so very far away. He could only make out bits and pieces of what they were saying, as if he were underwater and people were calling to him from the surface. His mouth was dry. So dry. He tried to lick his lips; they felt like sand.
But none of this bothered Alex. Not even a little. He was floating in a wonderland of drugs and semiconsciousness, enjoying the warmth of his hospital bed. There was a nagging sense of something not quite right in the back of his mind, something he should be worried about. For a moment he struggled to place it. But the worries of the world could gain no traction in Alex’s state of narcotic bliss. He closed his eyes and relaxed.
“It’s okay, Alex. Get some more sleep.”
The voice was right. He was tired. Everything else could wait.**
*
Sometime later-he had no idea how long-Alex managed to open his eyes and clear some of the cobwebs from his head. The room was dark except for the glow from a television set. The objects around him were strange and unfamiliar. He still felt detached from his body and struggled to break clear from his mental fog. He turned his head slowly to the left and saw his grandmother sleeping in a reclining chair. On the same side, toward the foot of the bed, Shannon was lying on a cot, her back to the bed, curled up with a thin hospital blanket over her.