Moving the camera back and forth, I scanned the room. There were seven hostiles that I could see, including the leader, which meant that there was one more somewhere. Our Intel confirmed there were eight of them in total.

I pressed my button on my comms unit, calling through to the other team leader. “I see seven hostiles in total; three on the east side, two on the west. There’s one patrolling the hostages on the north side, and the boss is sitting at the manager’s desk at the back. Number eight is not in sight. I repeat, hostile number eight cannot be located. All hostages look fine, no injuries that I can see. Be aware, I saw two children in the group.”

“Okay. I’m moving down to the east to take out the three. The outside team can take out the west side targets. Are you happy to take the leader and manage the hostages?” Jacob asked through the little earpiece I was wearing.

“Affirmative. Moving to positions now,” I confirmed. I turned back to the tech guy. “Stay here, keep watch, any changes you notify Jacob and I immediately.”

“Yes, sir,” he whispered.

I wriggled my way out of the crawlspace and back to my team, telling them the plan. After everyone was clear, we silently made our way downstairs, splitting up into pairs as we got into good positions. Using my mirror to look around the corner, I checked that nothing had changed. Thankfully, they all seemed to be exactly where they were through the camera. I could hear the hostages crying and whimpering. The two kids I had seen were clinging to their mother who looked like she was trying to cover them with her own body.

Easing back against the wall, I pressed the button for my comms unit on channel 2, the officers’ channel outside. “Team one. We’re in position, ready to strike. Are we a go?” I whispered.

There was a couple of seconds of silence, and then Jacob came on. “Team two, ready to go.”

More silence then the team from outside answered. “Team three, prepped. On your command, we’ll blow the doors. Ready to go.”

I nodded to my team, doing a hand gesture, signalling for them to get ready. I checked my handgun; it felt strange to only have a light, small gun. Normally I would be lying on my stomach with a thirty pound piece of metal in my hands.

“Call it, Jacob,” I instructed, bending my knees, readying to step out of the hiding place I had behind the wall. My first target was the one in front of the hostages; he needed to be disabled first.

“On three. One. Two…” Jacob commanded.

On three, the doors on the front of the building blew off their hinges. As dust and debris sprayed everywhere, the screaming started. Hostiles were shouting commands to each other, panicked. I stepped around the corner and aimed at the guy holding a hand gun in front of the hostages. I didn’t bother giving him a warning; he’d lost his right to surrender when he took a position near the group of innocents in the bank.

I shot him in the thigh, making him scream in pain and drop to his knees. His eyes scanned the room, unsure what was going on. Another agent ran into the room, immediately tackling him to the ground and kicking his gun away from him. I turned to my second target – the leader of the group. He was shouting to his men, trying to duck behind the desk that he’d tipped over, his gun pointing over the top, shooting blindly into the room.

I stepped back against the wall; I needed to take him out before he hit someone. I sighted my gun, immediately searching for a good shot. Squeezing the trigger, I fired a round directly into the back of his hand making him scream in pain and drop the gun.

I scanned the room again; other agents were taking care of it all now. Most of the targets were being dealt with. I stepped forward to secure the leader, gun raised readily. As I stepped closer, he made a grab for his gun, raising it at me. My heart sank as I realised that I had to kill him; I hated to kill people, but I was exposed in a room full of innocents and, by all accounts, in this situation it was always ‘shoot first and ask questions later’. As I shot him in the chest he fell to the floor with a gurgling noise coming from his mouth that I could still somehow hear even over all of the screaming and sounds of fighting.

I frowned and turned back to my team. One of them signalled that the targets were all down, so I walked over to the hostages to check for injuries. As I approached the group, I did a quick headcount. There were seventeen in total. I stopped. Hadn’t the reports said that there were initially seventeen hostages, but one was shot? I could see a dead body off to the side, a woman in a bank uniform. So shouldn’t there just be sixteen hostages sitting here?

I counted them again. I had definitely counted right. I turned to the side and pressed my walkie, calling through to Captain Richardson outside.

“How many hostages are there in total?” I asked, eyeing the group again.

“Reports are of seventeen, minus one,” he answered.

I quickly raised my gun, scanning the crowd for anyone that didn’t look as if they belonged. My eyes skimmed the group and came to rest on a guy who was shifting nervously and looking away from me. He definitely looked uncomfortable. He looked like he was trying to blend in, but he was wearing combat pants with overly large, bulky pockets, certainly big enough to hide a gun in. Was he the missing eighth man?

I decided to try and flush the crowd and see any of them didn’t belong. “All of you will be taken into custody for finger printing and background checks. If you could just remain seated here until we call you forward. One by one we will put handcuffs on you and take you to the station,” I lied, watching him closely.

His head jerked up, and his eyes flicked to the exit door. That was definitely not a normal reaction. I pointed my gun at him and stepped closer. “Stand!” I ordered.

“Nate, what are you doing?” Jacob hissed in my ear. I couldn’t explain now though, there was a f**king hostile sitting amongst the hostages trying to pass himself off as an innocent.

“You, combat pants, black T-shirt. Stand now!” I repeated, pointing at him with my free hand so he knew I was talking to him.

The crowd were suddenly staring at me, each person frozen in horror at the realisation their ordeal was not yet over. The guy’s eyes moved from me to the girl sitting next to him. Before I could do anything, he dived behind her and wrapped his arm around her throat, using her for cover as he pressed a gun to her head.

Fuck it!

He jerked her to her feet, moving behind her, using her like a shield.

“Back off! If you don’t put your gun down then I’m killing her!” he screamed, pressing the gun to her head tighter, making her wail and beg for help. “Shut up!” he barked.

“Take it easy there, buddy. It’s all good. Just put your gun down and I won’t have to kill you.”

“Move back! Where’s the damn helicopter?” he screamed, spit flying from his mouth as he jerked the girl backwards, trying to get away from me. The girl’s hands were clamped around his arm as her face slowly turned red where she couldn’t breathe properly. Her eyes were wide and terrified as she begged me silently for help.

“Last chance,” I said, closing one eye, lining up my shot. “Let the girl go. Now!”

He made an angry growl sound as his arm tightened on her neck. She made a strangled gargle and the sound made my finger squeeze the trigger.

The bullet went straight through his eye. Blood splattered across the hostage’s face. The force of the shot threw him backwards, pulling the woman down on top of him. She let out a piercing scream as I ran forward, gun still raised. She was thrashing trying to get his arm off her. I looked down at him; there was no chance he was still alive, that was a classic kill shot.

I reached down and grabbed her arm, yanking her to her feet. She immediately threw her arms around my neck almost choking me, as she sobbed hysterically, mumbling thank you over and over again.

“It’s okay, ma’am. You’re safe now. Everything’s alright,” I soothed, as I stroked her back and pulled her away from the dead body. Her legs gave out, so I slipped my arm around her to hold her up. “Jacob, secure all hostiles while I take her to the medic,” I instructed, pulling her into my arms and carrying her out of the building with her still clinging to me.

“Thank you. Oh God, thank you!” she sobbed.

“It’s okay now, you’re fine. They’ll check you out but you’re fine,” I said softly as I carried her over to the medics, sitting her on a gurney.

“You saved my life,” she gushed, looking at me gratefully. I smiled and went to pull back, but she grabbed my hand. “Don’t leave me!”

I sighed and nodded, sitting on the side of the medic van while they checked her over. After about ten minutes she was given the all clear to sit up. Once at the hospital she would be monitored for shock, as was the usual procedure for up-close hostages like her. She had calmed down now and was no longer crying. She was looking at me like I was some sort of God or something.

“Thank you, Officer…” she trailed off, looking at me expectantly.

“Peters.” I really wanted to go. I just needed five minutes on my own to process what had happened. I’d just killed two people so I needed to take a few deep breaths in private.

She smiled. “I’m Christina.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Christina. I’m really sorry, but I have to go. I have a lot of reports and stuff I have to fill out about the incident,” I excused myself, standing up.

Christina frowned. “Do you think maybe we could meet up and I could buy you a drink or dinner? To, you know, say thanks?” she asked, looking at me hopefully.

Oh shit. How did I not see this coming? Attachment disorder. Latching on to the officer that saves you. Classic.

“You don’t need to thank me, ma’am. It’s my job,” I replied, stepping away.

It was the uniform, definitely the uniform that got the girls!

“Well, how about I just buy you a drink because I want to then?” she offered.

I smiled uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I have a girlfriend, so that can’t happen.”

She frowned, looking extremely disappointed, and I couldn’t help but think about what would have happened if I hadn’t met Rosie. “She’s a lucky girl,” she said quietly.

I shook my head at that statement. “No, she’s not. I’m the lucky one,” I said honestly. “Be safe, ma’am.” I turned before she could flirt with me some more, and headed over to the group of agents that were leading the perpetrators out of the building, and into the waiting reinforced police vehicles, ready to take them to the station.

Captain Elder gripped my shoulder. “Good work there, Peters. That was an excellent save.”

I smiled weakly, pretending like I didn’t feel like a pile of shit inside. He was congratulating me for taking a life; sure, it had been necessary, but it was still two people that were now dead because of me.

“Thanks, sir. Shall I go back and fill out my reports?” I asked, looking at the car hopefully. I really wanted to be away from here; I didn’t want to be here when they carried the two bodies out of the building. I hated to see body bags.

“Yeah, usual thing, Nate. Fill out your reports then you can take the rest of the day off,” he replied, nodding.

I headed to the nearest squad car, hitching a lift back to the station. It took me an hour to go through my statement of events, sign my reports, and turn in my gun for inspection. This was all just formality. I would be back at work tomorrow and would get a pat on the back for a job well done. This was all just bullshit paperwork.

Once all my reports were filed, I headed into the changing rooms. As soon as I was on my own, I started to think about it again. I sat down on the bench and put my head in my hands, playing it over and over in my head.

Did I do the right thing? Was there another shot I could have taken instead of the kill shot? Was there someone in a better position than me? Could I have waited for someone to reposition so that they could take him out without having to kill him?

I watched it play out in slow motion in my head, how the bullet had gone into his eye, how blood had splattered on the hostage’s face as she screamed and cried, how his body had gone limp before he fell to the floor.

I couldn’t see a single thing I did wrong, there was nothing I could have done differently, and there was no way I could have saved either of the lives I took today. It wasn’t my fault.

Even as I thought it, I couldn’t make myself believe it; the guilt of it was eating me up. I needed to stop thinking about it. I needed something to take my mind off it. I desperately needed to speak to Rosie. Usually the first thing I would think about after a kill was either getting drunk or getting laid, or both in either order, but today all I wanted was to hear Rosie’s voice.

Russell walked out of the shower with a towel draped around his waist. He smiled and I forced a fake smile in return, standing and grabbing a towel from the side, heading into the shower. I just stood there, letting the spray jet down across my shoulders while I pictured Rosie’s face, trying to block out the wild expression on the target’s face as he tried to look for an exit. I imagined Rosie’s laugh, trying to block out the screams and pleas of the hostage, begging me to help her.

I have no idea how long I stood there for, but Russell poked his head around the corner, fully dressed so I must have been in here for a little while at least. “Nate, want to come for a beer?”

I shook my head. “No thanks, Rus. What’s the time?” I asked, rinsing my hair under the spray.

“Twenty past two.”

Rosie finished work in an hour and ten minutes.

“Okay, thanks. See you tomorrow,” I called, turning my back on him, not wanting to talk to anyone right now. When I heard the shower room door close, I turned off the water and got out.