Flash Point by Colby Marshall Read Free Book Online

knives, the desire to scare people, and memory retention from high school English.
    Goriness to make a statement. A statement to people who lived.
    Again, attention-seeking redwood flashed in.
    The other thing they knew: the killers must have an allergy to media, because any terror group hell-bent on achieving statement-making scary like this bank job
had
to want the public to hear about what they’d done. This hit was designed to have psychological ramifications on people who
didn’t
die inside these walls that morning. You can’t scare people if no one knows about it.
    â€˜I don’t get it,’ Jenna muttered.
    â€˜The blood, the literature, the note, the live witness, the body parts, or something else?’ Porter asked.
    â€˜Well, all those, too, but the media. Terrorists exploit the media. Manipulate it. Lure it to their little ‘projects’ like setting the dogs out for fresh game. But not a peep from the press,’ Jenna said.
    â€˜That just changed,’ Saleda said, returning from where she’d been talking in hushed tones on her cell phone. ‘That was the press liaison’s office at Quantico. They just patched a call from a CNC investigative journalist all the way through to Kate Balthazar herself.’
    â€˜Must be big,’ Porter remarked, eyes wide in genuine surprise.
    The curiosity mixed with shock in his voice was universal amongst the group. For a call to be sent from the gatekeepers through to the press liaison’s office itself meant it had teeth, but to make it to the director …
    Saleda’s jaw set in a firm line. ‘Big. Bad. Maybe unprecedented on our soil?’ She started walking toward the door, and her voice had been so grave, the rest followed without question, though she didn’t keep them in suspense.
    â€˜They weren’t
not
alerting the media. Turns out they were just giving them the exclusive.’

Seven
    Inside the bulletproof trailer set up outside the bank as FBI on-site headquarters, Jenna rested her elbows on the Formica countertop built into the side wall of the trailer as she stared up in horror at the footage playing on the forty-inch flat screen mounted on the rear wall.
    The black and white figures darted in and out of the frame, trying to survive … or kill. The knowledge that the chaos she was watching had been the last few minutes of life for the people now lying inside the bank a few feet away made it the most frightening spectacle Jenna had ever viewed on a television monitor.
    Spectacle.
    Russian violet returned. The color of theatrics had confused her when she’d seen it earlier, but now it made sense. The perps hadn’t left a witness, a message, and taken the tapes without involving the media; they’d just given the media an engraved invitation. With the mystery of the missing media solved, the live witness and the written message troubled Jenna even more. She was sure she was right in thinking the attackers wanted the general public to fear them, for the brutal attack to root itself so deeply into every mind that when their agenda came out, its success would, to some degree, already be won. Giving the tape to the media played to that strategy.
    But if you want the media to show the public how it all went down frame by frame, why the other two messages?
    Jenna’s gaze followed the black figure with the machete-style blade. First inside the bank doors, he rushed toward the glassed-in privacy room. He entered, and with a swipe, chopped the stocky woman cowering inside almost cleanly in half. Jenna winced.
    The Machete UNSUB exited the privacy room, dodging people now. From the moment he’d entered, he’d been the aggressor any time he crossed paths with someone, but suddenly, he was falling back. Letting the others do the dirty work.
Why?
    Jenna squinted. Machete UNSUB moved in a definite direction, not lost or dazed. No. He had a clear intention. She just had no clue in hell