NCIS: The New Recruit

Chapter 29

The next week was uneventful but the following Wednesday seemed to be the end of the short period of peace in Washington DC.

There had been talks of the teacher who had been fired and his threats, but nobody thought he would actually do anything. We were caught completely unawares.

He was furious that he had been disgraced and was aware that he would never be employed as a teacher again. He contacted some other disgraced teachers and decided he wanted to prove a point. If anybody had taken him seriously, even taken precautions, they would have seen the messages he sent the other ex-teachers and they would have been able to prevent the events that followed.

It appeared to be a normal school day. Matt, Kirsty, Dougie and I were in the same class third period and that is when all hell broke loose.

The first signs were when we walked into the school and saw some dodgy looking guys at the gates. If I had followed my intuition and called Gibbs, asking him to check them out, maybe I could have stopped it.

We realised something was seriously wrong when we heard the first noise. It sounded like a gunshot but we couldn't be sure.

Then a man burst into the room. He was holding a shotgun and had his face covered by a mask.

"EVERYBODY OUT!" he yelled, brandishing his gun, "EVERYONE INTO THE HALL! DON'T TRY ANYTHING FUNNY!"

Matt gripped my arm tightly and we grouped together with Kirsty and Dougie. We walked quickly and silently down to the hall with the rest of our class, occasionally glancing back at the armed man.

"What the hell is going on?" Matt whispered to me.

"Be quiet," I whispered, "We'll find out. For now, keep your head down."

He nodded and we continued silently towards the hall. The whole school appeared to be there and there were at least ten armed men.

"That's the teacher who was fired," Matt whispered, pointing to the guy who looked like the leader as we sat down on the ground.

"No way..." I gasped.

"The police will be here in around twenty minutes," one guy called to the teacher.

He nodded and looked around at the teachers and students that surrounded him.

"Hello ex-colleagues and students," he gave a nasty grin, "Did you miss me? Probably not. I can only imagine the stories that have been going around since I left! Well, I'm back. As you can imagine, I am not happy about the way I was disgraced by this school. Neither were these guys when they got kicked out! We were treated unfairly, and now we have come to get what we need before we can live out our lives in luxury.

"We need you for that, of course! We need a way to negotiate terms before living out our lives on some tropical island! Don't do anything stupid. If one of you dies, our plan might fall through," he concluded, then returned to watching through the window for cops.

"Don't worry," I whispered to the others who looked terrified, "The police know what they're doing. We'll be out in no time."

I acted confident but I was feeling as terrified as they looked. I wasn't sure we would get out of this, I had heard the horror stories of these situations before. These men were crazy and I knew they would stop at nothing to get what they wanted.

But surely Gibbs would come and help? Him and the team would come immediately and get us out of here.

"We need to take a couple of them with us so they don't shoot us on sight," I overheard one man say.

"Take that girl. She's a cop, that'll be extra leverage," I heard the main guy reply.

Crap.

"Take the boy next to her too," he said, "The smaller one."

I caught Dougie's eye. He realised he was being taken too and he looked terrified.

"Stay calm," I said, "They'll rescue us. It'll be fine."

I felt myself shaking and Matt put his hand on my shoulder.

"You can't go," he said in a quiet voice.

"I have no choice," I said, "Everyone will be safer if we go quietly. We'll be fine, we're leverage. They wouldn't harm us."

I heard the heavy footfall of the men as they walked towards us.

"Stay strong," I whispered to Dougie as we were dragged to our feet.

"You're coming with us," one of the men said and everyone's eyes were on us as they pulled us towards the corner of the room.

Matt looked like he would protest but Kirsty put her hand on his shoulder and whispered something that made him fall back reluctantly.

"The little cop," the teacher from this school snarled at me, "They wouldn't dare do anything if you were at risk. We're going to walk away scot free!"

The men looked gleeful but turned serious at the sound of police sirens.

"COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!" a voice yelled over the tannoy and two men, one of them being the ex-teacher, grabbed us by the scruffs of our necks and dragged us outside.

When we got outside, I saw the school was surrounded by cops. Much to my delight, I saw Gibbs and the others standing near the front. That reassured me everything would be all right.

"Let the kids go, Marston," a cop said.

"Not a chance. You disgraced me, dragged me from the school like a criminal, and now I'm going to get what I've always wanted," the ex-teacher, Mr Marston, replied.

"If you let them go now, we will let you leave. Put your guns down and we will let you walk," the cop said again.

"Why would I do that when we have you right where we want you?!" Marston laughed, "I want to negotiate."

"What do you want?" Gibbs stepped up.

"Two million dollars," Marston said, "A pretty fair price for the promise of these kid's safety."

"You would never harm a child," the cop said, "Even you're not that sick."

"We'll give you two hours," Marston said.

"We know you would never hurt these children," the cop said, "Why would we pay you that much when we know you would never hurt a fly?"

"Maybe he wouldn't," the other man raised his gun and pulled the trigger.