Chapter Two

The team races to get to Griffin before law enforcement, mistaking him for an assassin, can kill him.

“Griffin!” The younger female shrieks.

            Cooper continues to stare at the screen, his eyes instantly surveying everything within the chosen frame of Channel 12’s cameraman. The boy on screen has no idea how to hold that gun. Not only that, but the boy is right handed. He knows this from watching him send countless text messages and tweets, among other things. So why is he holding the gun the way a left handed shooter would?

            “We have to help him!” The girl is still in shock as she bolts towards the door.

            “Woah, woah, woah! We can’t go out there!” Monica says as she reaches out to grab the girl on the shoulder.

            “They’re gonna’ kill him! They’re gonna’ kill Griffin!” The girl is on the verge of hyperventilating, her heavy breathing mixed with uncontrollable sobs making her words about as understandable as a foreign language. Ironic seeing as that’s her specialty.

            “Abby, just calm down, okay?” Monica tries to reason with her, but it proves to be no use. The blonde girl breaks her arm away from Monica’s grasp and dashes out of the room towards the elevator.

            “Coop!” Monica’s voice pulls Cooper out of his fixated state, his eyes finally peeling away from the television monitor. “We have to go after them.”

            Cooper gives his head a simple nod as he grabs his coat from the line of hooks next to the break table. “Let’s go.”

            Abby is pressing the down button to call the elevator, but her patience runs thin before she finally surrenders and turns left towards the stairs. She’s shouldering through the door and clumsily making her way down towards the ground floor in no time at all.

            Monica chases after her. Cooper stops for a moment, addressing the remaining three employees in the room. “You guys stay here, keep your eyes on the news. If you see anything that we should be worried about, call me.” That’s all he has to say before he’s joining the chase.

 

            Abby stumbles into the street, amidst a dangerous push and shove scenario involving a terrified crowd that threatens to stampede her at any moment. The barricades have all been toppled over and the motorcade is well out of sight. Her eyes scan the surrounding skyscrapers and high rises, but only one looks like the one she saw on TV moments before.

            Monica is not far behind, shouting to no avail after her younger co-worker who disappears into the building that they saw Griffin in. Monica enters right after her.

           

As Cooper enters the chaos, he immediately feels overwhelmed by the swarms of people. He’d never admit to having agoraphobia, but he can’t lie to himself in this situation. He freezes, the countless people bumping into him not even phasing him as his body is bounced around like a pinball.

            The sudden ringing out of another gunshot is the only thing powerful enough to draw him out. Herds of people become even more panicked, but for Cooper it’s the instigation he needs to move forward. His phone is ringing, but he doesn’t answer it until he’s near the building. “Talk to me!” He shouts, the door shutting and the soundproofing kicking in just in time for the person on the other side of the call to answer.

            “They just fired into Griffin’s building,” a male voice says.

            “Oh my God. Griffin! Where are you?!” Cooper can hear Abby screaming from a few flights above him.

            “Did they hit him?” Cooper asks with a strange calmness as he begins running straight ahead towards the staircase the screams are coming from.

            “I don’t know. He wasn’t in the opening when they fired. I don’t even know who fired!” The chaos is clearly affecting his team as well, their typically levelheadedness replaced by shock and fear. Nothing is consistent.

            “Alright. Let me know if you see anything else!” He ends the call and drops his phone into the pocket of his black pea coat.

            He can hear more screaming from Abby not far ahead. As he rounds the staircase onto the fourth floor, he sees Monica sitting there with a bloodied lip. “What the hell happened?”

            Monica scoffs. “I tripped. Apparently she couldn’t wait for me to get back up.” Monica rolls her eyes as she hears more shrieking.

            “I got her,” Cooper reassures her as he climbs up past her.

            “Don’t worry, I’m fine!” Monica adds sarcastically from behind him.

            Monica rises to her feet and spins on her heels, holding onto the railing as she powers through the stinging pain in her mouth and continues the ascent.

            Right on Cooper’s heels, the two move upward and onward as Abby’s screams get louder and closer. “Abby!” Monica calls out, the sleeve of her white blouse now polka dotted red from her dabbing at her lip.

            “Griffin!” Abby calls out, completely ignoring her older mentor and friend. As they reach the end of the staircase encased in cement, they hear a shriek much worse than any of the previous ones. “Griffin, oh my God! Are you okay?!”

            Monica and Cooper share a sideways glance before rushing across the floor into the room with the large opening. “Oh, s**t,” Cooper says quietly.

            “Griffin!” Now Monica is the one yelling, and given the sight no one can blame her. She moves forward, squatting down next to Abby and Griffin. Griffin is slumped down, his eyes barely open with his back leaning against a pain of glass that’s already been installed to form some kind of office. The glass is now smeared with blood that’s gushing from a hole in his shoulder.

            Abby is sitting with her legs on her heels, her hand pressed firmly to his wound. “I can’t believe they shot you!” Abby cries in disbelief.

            Cooper, always the voice of reason, shakes his head. “Someone shot at the president of the United States, and this moron was standing in a big opening holding a gun. Of course they shot him.”

            Griffin shows his first signs of life, his eyelids rising slightly as he shakes his head. His voice is gravely, but he can still be heard. “I didn’t do it. Someone else was here.”

            Cooper already deduced that much, but with the shock neither he nor Monica actually contemplated what that meant. “Are they still in here?” Monica asks, a hint of worry in her voice.

            The wounded boy just shakes his head. Cooper is ready to ask further questions, but his generic ringtone stops him. He answers it. “Greg, tell me something good.”

            “Sorry, Coop,” the voice says. “SWAT is storming the building. Where are you?”

            Cooper sighs as he rubs at the wrinkles in his forehead. “We’re in the goddamn building.”

            “That’s, that’s not good…”

            “No, Greg. It’s not.” Cooper hangs up, irritated by the younger generation’s need to always state the obvious.

            After years of working together, Monica can read the expressions on the man’s face. “Bad news?”

            “SWAT’s on their way up.”

            “Oh my God!” Abby yells, the terror unintentionally causing her to press increasingly hard on Griffin’s wound. He howls in pain, and she apologizes profusely before letting go entirely. “What do we do?”

            Cooper casts his eyes to the ground as he walks to the other side of the room. The older fellow cringes as he lowers himself down to his knees, his left palm on the ground to steady his aging body. “Well, if you don’t want to get shot,” he says as he places his hands on the back of   his head, interlocking his fingers. “I suggest you get over here and do exactly as I do.”