True Faith and Allegiance

The lock clicked and Dom looked up at her. “But for now, I’m still cool.”

He opened the door carefully and peered in.

When he saw nothing but black, he used his red light again.

A storeroom full of cases of alcohol was as dark as the hallway behind him. He and Adara moved forward to another door, then cracked it open.

Here they were met by blinding light. It was the kitchen of the Coq d’Or, a famous and venerable restaurant on the ground floor of the hotel, directly below the lobby. Adara followed the plans on her phone and realized the elevators were not far from the exit to the bar, but an additional employee-only staircase was just to the right in the hallway below the lobby.

They moved through the dark and empty restaurant, their weapons in front of them, and they could see evidence people had left in a hurry. Drinks on the bar and on the tables still had ice cubes in them, and chairs and barstools were knocked over. There didn’t seem to be any victims down here, but it was clear how chaotic it must have been for the patrons when the volleys of gunfire and explosions kicked off in the lobby, right above their heads.

Dom moved carefully into the downstairs hallway, looked to his left, and saw the exit to the hotel. Police had moved back away from the door, but he could see two teams of CPD SWAT officers crouched behind ballistic shields across the street, and using the partial cover of armored trucks that had been moved there.

Adara came out behind Dom and spun right, her gun in her hands in front of her. She found the employee stairs and entered, and Dom moved behind her. They controlled the door so no one in the stairwell could hear it close, and they listened for movement above. There was a slight shuffling. They knelt together while Dom held his weapon up on the stairs, and whispered into Adara’s ear. “There could be civilians trapped all over the place, so make sure of your targets.”

She nodded, pushed back over her ear a wisp of hair that had worked its way out of her ponytail, and began leading the way up. Dom took her by the arm and passed in front of her.

On the landing of the main floor, they found three female hotel clerks crouched in hiding. One of the women sobbed loudly when she saw Dom and Adara with their guns coming up the stairs, but she grabbed her own mouth to stifle a scream. Dom moved up to them and knelt back down, while Adara covered up the stairs.

“You guys came from the lobby?”

“Yes, we were at the counter when it started.”

“How many bad guys?”

They looked between each other. Finally one said, “We never saw any bad guys. No one but police and guests. There was shooting and explosions. I saw people die. One of the police officers I had just been talking to dropped in front of the counter, I think he’s dead.”

She began crying.

Dom showed the women Adara’s schematic of the lobby on her phone and asked them to tell him where they were. According to the women, the other side of the door in front of them led to a back office behind the counter, and no one in the lobby would see them if he went in there.

Dom said, “Okay, good. Listen, it’s clear down these stairs out the front door. Does anybody have a cell phone?”

One of the women said, “Our phones are at the counter.”

Dom was worried about the women running out onto East Walton with a hundred police with rifles pointing at the door, but he didn’t have time to call ahead for them to warn Jeffcoat they were coming out. He said, “Go into the kitchen of the bar, through the liquor closet, and down the stairs. The long dark hallway leads next door and you’ll be safe over there.” He pulled a flashlight out of his backpack and handed it to her.

“Are you… are you sure?”

Dom nodded, squeezed Adara on the shoulder, and said, “I need to see what’s going on in the lobby. I want you right here doing what you’re doing, covering this stairwell.”

She nodded. “Be careful.”

Dom slipped into the office, staying low with his pistol in front of him. The door to the lobby was propped open, so he went wide of it and looked out into the large space.

He saw a few bodies on the floor, but looking across into the Palm Court, he could see two men holding Uzis on a group of guests cowering there. Another man was moving several roll-aboard suitcases around the group, and then playing wire out from a backpack. Men and women, mostly over the age of fifty, were seated in chairs and on the floor, and Dom saw panic in many faces, even across the length of the lobby, as the terrorist carefully attached wiring to something inside one of the cases.

Dom was certain the terrorists were prepping a massive bomb, big enough to collapse the higher floors of the building and kill virtually everyone inside.

Looking around, he was surprised he didn’t see anyone else in the lobby. Even the stairs down to the main level and the exit appeared to be unprotected by al-Matari’s cell members.