Free Denver Overrun (Denver Burning Book 4) by Algor X. Dennison Page B

everybody armed and ready for anything, and until we get radios working everyone meets back here every half hour for reports and assignments.”
    She spent the next several minutes giving orders, sending runners out to reconnoiter the last known locations of her patrol officers and the site of the downed airliner. She also sent a man to the nearest district office to their own, and an officer with EMT experience to the crash site.
    By the time she had gotten all of that organized and looked up again, she noticed a growing crowd in front of the station. They didn’t look happy at being rebuffed by her officers, and one man was shouting threats. “We want answers! Tell us the truth or we'll come in there and find it ourselves!”
    Alicia frowned, unsure what the man meant and why the crowd was being so hostile at such a time. Officer Andrews went to quiet the crowd, trying to explain that they were working as quickly as they could to understand and respond to the situation, and that they had no more information than the people assembled. Alicia looked down at her clipboard and tried to concentrate on planning what needed to happen next in order to keep a lid on the chaos that was unfolding in her district.
    She was interrupted again by a noise that had been common enough an hour earlier, but now made everyone stop and look: the rumble of an engine. A pick-up truck roared past, careening down the street and screeching to a stop near a block or two farther on where there appeared to be a scuffle between some thugs and a young woman.
    “At least somebody’s car works,” Alicia muttered. She opened her mouth to send someone to talk to the guy in the truck-- the thought briefly crossed her mind that she could confiscate the working vehicle and get what she needed in a fraction of the time it would take her officers to walk around the city. But she never got the chance.
    Shots rang out, high-powered ones, coming from just across the street. People began running for cover, ducking behind bushes and fences, anything that could provide a moment’s protection. The police officers all drew their guns, and Andrews shielded Alicia with his tall body, aiming his weapon at the crowd. But the crowd was rapidly dispersing and there were no shooters to be identified there.  
    Another rifle cracked, and young Winstone fell to the ground.
    “Officer down!” Andrews yelled, whirling to the sound of the gunshots. Finally he located the shooter, and Alicia tracked along his gun arm to see who it was. Someone was standing at the corner of a building across the street, aiming a long gun at the station. Alicia noticed another shooter, dressed in dark clothing and wielding a sawed-off shotgun, running across the street with a lit Molotov cocktail in one hand.
    “Stop them!” she yelled, drawing her own pistol. Leveling it at the runner, she took off the safety and checked that no one was running across her field of fire. Just as she drew a bead, her target ducked out of sight, approaching the station from the far side where he could do his damage without being shot at.
    Andrews was blasting away at the first shooter across the street, an arc of nine millimeter shell casings flying out to the side. He clicked on empty, but his accurate fire had kept the shooter down for vital seconds during which people scrambled to safety and some of the other officers got into position to return fire.
    Alicia’s ears rang from all the close-proximity shooting. She yelled loud enough that she could hear her own words, and hoped the others would be able to as well. “Dannor, Simmins, get across the street and take that shooter down! Everybody else hunker down and provide cover, you have a weapon." Her unarmed staffers were cowering on the ground with arms over their heads. Officer Simmins sprinted to his patrol car, parked in the lot next to the building, and took shelter behind it as he rummaged in its trunk for his AR-15. "Andrews, reload and come with