CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
TWO DAYS LATER
Grace and Trina were forced to sit in chairs against the wall inside of Starbucks, the so-called command center, as they waited for word from the school.
The chaotic shooting had stopped a few minutes earlier and Chief Browne had been on the phone ever since.
But nobody would give them any information.
It got so bad that Grace and Trina both decided they were leaving to find out for themselves what was going on.
“They can’t make us stay here,” Trina proclaimed.
But they barely made it to the front door before an officer stopped them. “You have to stay inside,” he said.
“Not if we aren’t being arrested,” said Trina. “Which I know we aren’t.”
“Chief?” the officer yelled over to his commander.
Chief Browne was on the phone, but he held his hand over the receiver. “Sit down,” he said. “I’ll tell you what’s going on in a minute.”
“Just tell me if my son is alright,” Grace said. “Please.”
The chief wasn’t supposed to divulge any such information. But he knew Tommy from way back, and he knew how his own wife would feel if it was their kid. “He’s unharmed,” the chief said. “He wasn’t hit at all. Now please have a seat. I’ll let you ladies know what’s happening in just a few minutes.”
Since they had no other option, they both sat back down.
Grace phoned GG, who had been picked up from school by her security detail and her nannies and had been taken home where she remained under tight security.
The name of the shooter had been leaked to some members of the media and the press corps was already gathering outside of Tommy and Grace’s house.
Grace had ordered the nannies to keep GG away from any phones or tablets or TVs or any other devices. Grace wanted to be the one to tell her.
She ended the call and waited. And waited even more. The promise by the chief to tell them what was happening in just a few minutes stretched into nearly an hour as all kinds of police activity picked up, slowed down, and picked up again. And they still wouldn’t tell Grace anything.
But great relief washed over Grace when she saw Tommy and Reno walk through the door of that command center.
She jumped up and ran to Tommy. Like he’s her daddy, Trina usually quipped whenever Grace ran to Tommy so dutifully.
But this time Trina was so overwhelmed with emotions too, that she was running to Reno.
Tommy pulled Grace into his arms and fought back tears. He knew the toll it was taking on him, which meant it was taking double that on his sweet wife. He pulled back to get a look at her. She looked even more devastated than he had feared. “You still don’t know anything more?”
“Nothing. They said he wasn’t hurt, but that’s all I’ve heard. Chief Browne said he was going to tell us more in a minute, but that was like an hour ago.”
Tommy, who used to supervise Ron Browne when Tommy was a police captain with the very Seattle PD Browne now ran.
And the idea that he would treat his wife that way, during a time like this, made him irate.
He hurried over to the chief, but a young cop, who didn’t know Tommy’s long-ago stint with the SPD, got in between them to stop his progression.
Tommy looked at the young officer’s hand on his tailored suit, and then he looked at the young officer. That chilling look in Tommy’s deep-seated eyes caused the officer to remove his hand, but he didn’t remove his body between Tommy and his chief. The chief, seeing none of this, was on the phone.
“Ron?” Tommy, who was known as Mister Cool, remained that way, except he elevated his voice to get the chief’s attention. The chief looked in his direction. “I need to speak with you,” Tommy said firmly.
“Ah, let me call you back,” Chief Browne said over the phone, hung up, and then motioned for Tommy to follow him to a room in the back. He closed the door behind them.
Reno was about to follow them since he was unaccustomed to being out of the loop, but Grace pulled him back. “Let Tommy handle it, Reno. Since he used to be a cop himself, maybe they’ll tell him something if it’s just him.”
Since that made sense to Reno too, he stayed where he was.
Then he shook his head. “I still can’t wrap my brain around this, Grace,” he said.
“Excuse my French, but this batshit crazy to me. They think TJ killed his fellow students and terrorized his school? How could they even think that? This can’t be happening. ”
“I know,” she said as the tears returned. “It can’t be true. It just can’t be.”
Reno pulled her into his arms and Trina hurried over and rubbed her back. All three were just beyond devastation.
But over in that backroom, Chief Browne was telling Tommy all he knew. More than he could ever tell Grace. “He shot nearly a hundred students,” he said.
Tommy was floored. “A hundred? The press said less than twenty had been wounded.”
“That’s what we’re telling them.”
“Lord have mercy!” Tommy said. “Are there any deaths? The media doesn’t seem to know that either.”
The chief nodded his head. “It was eighteen. Now it’s up to at least thirty-eight confirmed deceased.”
“God no!” Tommy began moving around. He was anguished. “And they think my child kill thirty-eight children?”
“That’s what they’re saying, yes.”
“But that kind of precision is professional,” said Tommy. “There’s no way TJ is in that category.”
“You sure about that?”
“Of course I’m sure!” Tommy yelled out. Then he looked at the chief. “What else aren’t you telling me, Ron?”
Ron cleared his throat. “A few of those dead students are from friendly fire unfortunately.”
Tommy, the former police captain, frowned. “Friendly fire? What happened?”
“I gave the order for SWAT to go through the roof of the school to get into the classroom where we could only estimate where the hostages are. The plan was for them to take out the shooter only.”
Tommy’s heart dropped. “To take out my son since that’s who you claim is the shooter? Is that what you mean? But you told my wife he was unharmed.”
“He is.”
“Then what are you talking about? Did you or did you not give the order to kill my son?”
The chief nodded. “Yes, I did. And believe me when I tell you it was the toughest order I’ve ever had to give, Tommy. But what choice did I have? If you were in command you would have ordered it too.”
Tommy exhaled. He felt as if he was going to have a heart attack. “Go on,” he said.
“They fired nearly fifty rounds thinking they were taking out the shooter, but that wasn’t the case.”
“Who did they take out?”
“They had entered the wrong classroom,” the chief said.
Tommy was as relieved as he was horrified. “The wrong classroom? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“They entered through the roof of the wrong classroom and shot the wrong guy and other students who were trying to protect him got shot too. It’s like a horror movie, Tommy. In all, five people were shot and killed.”
“By your men?”
The Chief ran his hand across his dark-brown face and nodded. He knew that incident alone was going to get his ass recalled. “Yes,” he said.
Tommy exhaled. He was sad and horrified for those poor students, but relieved beyond belief that it wasn’t his child. “How many hostages are there?”
“We believe upwards of twenty-three. Could be more, could be less. We haven’t been able to get any eyes in that classroom.”
“So what’s the strategy?”
“He’s already threatened to kill everybody in there if we make any more moves like the one we tried.”
Tommy was aghast. “My son threatened that?”
“Thomas Gabrini, Junior said that, yes,” said the chief.
“Since there’s no way we can have anymore children losing their lives over this, the FBI has been called in to take over and they’re under pressure from their director who’s under pressure from the Attorney General to stop the bloodshed no matter what. ”
“So it’s politics now,” said Tommy.
“Pure politics. They’re recommending we wait it out. We can’t agitate him, but we can tire him out. Once they get here they’ll assess the situation and then come up with a strategy that won’t involve any more loss of life.”
Tommy exhaled, opened his suitcoat, and placed his hands on his hips. “You’ve got to let me go in there, Ron.”
“No can do,” the chief said as he was shaking his head.
“My son is not going to shoot me.”
“Did you ever think he’d shoot his fellow students?”
Tommy still was in a state of disbelief concerning that. He would never believe it. “No.” He wanted to add because he didn’t do it, but he knew those cops had made up their minds. He just wanted his son safe and sound. “But he won’t shoot his father.”
“If, and this is a big if, but if I can convince the FBI to let one of the parents go in, it’ll have to be your wife.”
Tommy frowned. “My wife?”
“Yes, sir, your wife. Boys have anger issues with daddies whether you think yours do or not. But they tend to love their mothers. Especially black boys. If anybody can reach him, it’ll be his mother.”
But Tommy was adamant. “No way.”
“So you’re certain he won’t shoot you, but you’re afraid he’ll shoot his mother?”
“Hell no! I’m afraid one of your trigger-happy cops might shoot his mother. His black mother! And I’m not putting her in that position. It’ll have to be me.”
Chief Browne exhaled. Be it far from him to argue with Tommy Gabrini.
He knew about his mob boss brother Sal and his boss of all mob bosses Uncle Mick.
He knew about Vegas strong man Reno Gabrini and his mob connections too.
Not to mention Tommy’s own salacious background in his family syndicates.
“The agent-in-charge is meeting with the mayor and governor right now at the state Capitol as we speak. Then he’ll make the hour drive and come and physically take over.
I’ll run it by him then, but I make no promises. ”
Tommy nodded. “Thanks.” Then his face looked anguished. “Do you have my son shooting those students on video?”
Another exhale from the chief. “I can’t give out that information.”
Tommy felt bad asking the question as if a small part of him believed it might be true. When he knew it couldn’t be true. It would kill Grace if it was true. Hell, it would kill him! “Understood,” he said, and left the room.
He went back to the side wall where Grace, Reno, and Trina were seated and waiting. He sat beside Grace. Reno and Trina leaned over to hear him.
“What did he say?” Reno asked.
“It’s wait and see for now on the orders of the FBI.”
“FBI,” said Reno with distaste in his mouth. “I’ll bet their asses will stand at attention when Hammer Reese gets here.”
Grace looked at Reno. “Hammer Reese is coming?”
“And Amelia too, yeah,” said Reno.
“That’s good news,” said Trina.
“Uncle Mick said this was above any of our paygrades,” said Reno. “We need Hammer’s political muscle behind us, not to mention his kind of connections, if TJ was ever going to get a fair shake.”
“Hammer is coming,” said Grace, shaking her head. “You know it’s horrific if he’s coming all this way.”
Tommy put his arm around Grace’s waist. He couldn’t hide his anguish the way he usually could.
“What did that chief say about TJ?” asked Reno.
“Same thing he’s been saying all along. He’s unharmed and they don’t want to agitate him.”
“What was all that shooting about?” asked Grace. “They wouldn’t even tell me what was going on.”
“He said they sent a SWAT team on the roof to enter the classroom and take out the shooter that way.”
“But they said TJ is the shooter.” Grace was mortified.
“That’s who they planned to take out,” said Tommy. “But they entered the wrong classroom and instead they took out students that had barricaded themselves in their classroom.”
“Geez,” said Reno. “Could they get any more incompetent?”
“What are you talking?” asked Trina. “Thank God they’re incompetent or TJ would have been dead.”
“Oh right,” said Reno. Then he shook his head. “This is like a nightmare!”
“Those poor students,” said Grace. Then she looked at her husband. “What are we going to do, Tommy?”
Tommy looked into her beautiful eyes and he knew she wanted him to fix it the way he always fixed their problems. But this was beyond even what he could do.
He pulled her closer. “We wait,” he said.
“There’s nothing more we can do.” He didn’t mention his request to go inside. He didn’t want any blowback.
But there was commotion at the entrance door. “Who is it?” Chief Browne called out when he saw his Deputy Chief go to the door.
After the deputy got the information, he looked at the chief. “Kid claiming to be Thomas Gabrini’s best friend. He says he has some information. He says Gabrini didn’t do it.”
When they heard those words, every Gabrini in that room stood up.