Turning Point(31)
They had just finished touring the surgical floor shortly before noon, and were talking with admiration about the state-of-the-art equipment, when Marie-Laure got a call on her cellphone and moved away from the group to speak to the caller in terse rapid French. Stephanie saw Gabriel react immediately to what he overheard, and walk over to Marie-Laure, frowning. She ended the call and conferred seriously with Gabriel and then they returned to the others, who sensed that something was wrong from the look on their faces.
“We have a situation,” Marie-Laure said quietly, “at a school. It just started twenty minutes ago. I don’t have all the details. We’re not sure yet if there is one shooter or several. There are hostages, and already a number of victims, both children and teachers. The police are there. I have to go immediately. It’s up to you whether or not you want to come.” She looked tense and they could see that her mind was racing. Her cellphone was ringing again as they followed her rapidly to the elevator. All four members of the American team wanted to go with her. This was what they had come to learn about, but they had hoped to study past events, not new ones.
The fact that it was a school made the situation even worse. Marie-Laure didn’t know how many victims there were, but had been told that there were several. There was no metal detector at the entrance to the school, and the shooter had a sack full of weapons, and used a Kalashnikov automatic weapon when he began shooting. Guns weren’t easily obtainable in France, but the bad guys always seemed to have them, and this one was no different. The police hadn’t contacted the hostage taker yet, and their information on-site told them that the hostages, possibly several hundred, some adults but mostly students, were being held in the school gym, and the police were hearing gunfire from the street. Two teachers inside the building had contacted the police and said there was only one shooter that they could see.
Within minutes all eight of them were in the van with Gabriel at the wheel. He stepped on the gas, took backstreets, ran through red lights, went well over the speed limit as Marie-Laure spoke to her police contact on her cellphone. Valérie listened carefully, and translated for the others. They made it to the school in just under ten minutes. It was a lycée, a public school in a good residential neighborhood, with students from five to eighteen years of age. It was in an area where there had never been any trouble, and there wasn’t expected to be. It was the first incident of its kind and precisely what the government had dreaded, an attack on a school or any facility for young children. They had just been told at the hospital they visited that one of the weaknesses in their current systems was inadequate pediatric surgical equipment should an attack occur involving large numbers of young victims. Pediatric surgical instruments were in short supply, and they were planning to correct that soon. Maybe not soon enough now.
They jumped out of the van when Gabriel stopped it and drove onto the sidewalk where the police lines were, half a block from the school. Two men in CRS riot gear, with helmets and bulletproof shields, approached them immediately and Marie-Laure showed them her badge and accounted for the others. Valérie and Paul had their own ID badges, and Gabriel had a high government clearance and a card that showed it, so he didn’t need a badge. Marie-Laure explained the presence of the Americans, who all had their passports on them, and that all four were physicians who specialized in trauma of the nature they were facing at the school.
The riot police allowed them to go behind police lines and they could plainly hear gunfire from the Kalashnikov the hostage taker was using. Two teachers had escaped, with six kindergarten students, moments before, and the terrified children were pale and wide-eyed as they were led away by police. The two teachers told police what they knew as SWAT teams began to arrive and CRS riot police in full armor circled the area.
The teachers explained that the gunman had shot into several classrooms before anyone could warn the teachers, so the rooms weren’t locked according to their emergency procedures. Most of the teachers were women, he was heavily armed, and no one had tried to tackle him or stop him, for fear of being shot. He had ordered everyone into the gym at gunpoint and got on the PA system. It was the time of the daily assembly for the middle and upper school, which he seemed to know, so most of the students and teachers were there, and he demanded that the younger students be brought in so they could watch their classmates and teachers get punished. No one had known then for certain if he was alone or not, but it seemed that way. The police had to assume there might be others. But no one had been seen except the single shooter so far.
One of the teachers estimated that at least thirty people had been shot before he reached the gym, and they had managed to escape with the six kindergarten students through the kitchen, which they said was a viable escape route. The workers from the kitchen were already hiding in a back alley, and police were dispatched to find them as they heard another round of shots from inside. There had been many so far.
Marie-Laure and Gabriel joined the conversation with the teachers and asked additional questions as the other six stood to one side, not wanting to interfere with the tense exchange. Both teachers were women, and shaking from the shocking experience they’d just been through. One of them said that two of her kindergarteners had been shot and were dead when they left the classroom. She cried as she reported it to the police and the other teacher put an arm around her, as Valérie came to stand beside her and speak gently to her. The police allowed Valérie to lead the two teachers away at a short distance, so they would remain available for further information, but for now they had told the police enough to be extremely helpful.