This Is Just A Test

He walked over to the van and looked inside. No one was about. Taking a breath of the spring air Sam tilted his head back and watched the clouds gently roll along the blue sky. A soft breeze cooled the coffee in his blue coffee mug. A horn honked and the sound of children filled the air. He watched as the yellow school bus pulled away from the front of Norton Elementary. His eyes followed a group of kids with colorful backpacks and lunch bags as they rushed through the front doors and the principal waved them in with a white smile. He sipped his coffee and closed his eyes a moment savoring the smell and taste of the hazelnut coffee. It was a indeed a beautiful day. He reached into the brown paper bag containing his plain doughnut and some other goodies. Rummaging inside his bag a moment and he pulled out what he was looking for. A ball of clay. Clay with wires and a blasting cap. He placed a small receiver on the clay and reached under the janitor trolley sitting behind the van. He stuck the clay under the top surface. After his work was done he pulled out his doughnut and made his way across the street back to the cafe. "Have a banging first day kiddies!" He shouted to some late school children that ran past him.

He entered the cafe and the bell chimed at the door. A young blonde behind the counter smiled at him and said, "Hey Sam! Back so soon?"

Sam smiled at her and winked. "Well, you know. It's just too nice a day to stay inside." He sat down in a window booth. "Figured I could go for another coffee."

"Sure... I'm making a fresh pot right now." The girl bent over and reached into a cupboard. Sam's eyes looked over her body slowly taking in every curve. When she stood back up he turned his gaze out the window at the school. To the left of the school was a fenced in play ground and the kindergardners where darting back and forth playing games. Sam ran his thumb and forefinger along his brown goatee and watched as a man in overalls came up to the van and leaned onto the trolley full of cleaning supplies. It looked like he was counting, tallying his items. The waitress came over and filled Sam's blue mug. Sam caught a hint of her perfume and turned towards her with a smile. "I didn't smell that before."

"Hm?" She looked puzzled.

"New perfume?" He asked bringing his mug to his mouth for a taste.

"Oh, yeah I wanted to try something new." She blushed and gave Sam a wink. "You like it?"

"It's lovely..." He sipped some more of his coffee and turned towards the window. "Definetely a keeper."

Sam heard her high heels tap away back to the kitchen and reached into his pocket and pulled out his smart phone. He flicked his fingers across the touch screen and brought up his calender.

'0800 hours, morning announcements.'

He checked his clock, 0759 hours.

He observed the children were no longer outside.

Sam took another sip of his coffee then opened a program on his phone. He watched the clock change to 0800 and tapped the screen. There was a very loud bang from across the street. He quickly hit the start button on the stop watch on his left wrist. Sam put his phone back in his pocket. He got out from the booth and looked out the front door. The others in the cafe got up to and several ran past Sam outside towards the school. Everyone inside looked panicked.

"What the hell was that?!" Shouted a woman from the other side. Panicked conversation broke all out and Sam stepped out into the sunlight. He watched cooly as people started to pour out of the school in small masses. Everyone he saw looked fine so far. People where shouting and scattering all over the place. As momentary chaos erupted all around the school Sam checked his watch. He sighed and shook his head. "Really? Three minutes?"

Then the sirens started. A police cruiser screamed onto the scene first and slammed on its brakes in front of the school. It was closely followed by several other squad cars. Sam split the times on his stopwatch and pulled out his smartphone and jotted down the time. He repeated this as the first fire engine arrived. Sam observed as the events unfolded in front of him as Incident Command was raised, police and fire personal became organized. All of it he saved on his phone.

Sam also saved when the news van arrived. He then walked over to the Command Center and took in where the police tape covered. He couldn't get to the fire trucks or the ambulances but several police cruisers were outside of the perimeter and along the sidewalk. He went over to them and saw that they were all empty. Several of them had open windows. Sam glanced around and after seeing he was clear he opened the driver side door and reached over to the Mobile Data Terminal in the car. He unlatched the laptop and pulled it out. He heard a tone come from it signalling disconnect and walked down the street to his personal vehicle with laptop in hand. "Spoils of war..." He said to himself with a chuckle. He drove down the street away from the chaos. A SWAT van sped past him.