I was working for a smaller security organization, we were regularly rotated between 4 stations. A local Food City supermarket was designated Sector Alpha-Niner, the Jiffy Lube was Bravo-Lima-Fiver, the local $1 store was Golf-16 and finally, the most coveted assignment, the local mall being Zebra-1.
Back then, before my corporate sponsorship, my gear was severely limited due to out of pocket expenses. I was armed with a Glock 17 (one of the first, given to me by Gaston Glock personally in honor of my former black-ops experiences) and a Remington 870P 14″ bbl holder loaded with 000 magnums. On this particular fateful day my team was assigned to patrol Sector Zebra-1, the mall.
It was an uneventful Saturday, until the unthinkable happened…
It was about 8:45PM, and the mall was closing and nearly empty. Me and my ’shadow’ were sweeping quadrant 069E, the mall arcade, a known hot-spot for Asian gangs and their assorted thugs. The arcade was located at the far east end of the mall, next to the movie theater and the Orange Julius. I smelled trouble, and couldn’t spot any movement from the arcade, which was unusual due to the presence of a new Mortal Kombat arcade game. Those Asians love Mortal Kombat.
I went to “condition red” and discreetly unholstered my Glock 17 loaded with Black Talons. I motioned to my partner to sweep right to flank the arcade, but he was already in motion sensing the trouble in my facial expression. My partner drew his S&W 1006 and went prone behind a potted palm tree.
We crept towards the arcade, when the power suddenly cut out. It was an ambush!
I could still see relatively well due to the full moon, shining through the building’s skylights, and years in a dark secret Albanian prison had honed my natural night vision to that of a tomcat. A gangster popped up from behind the Orange Julius counter with a full auto Kalashnikov equipped with a 75 round drum , and opened up in the direction of my partner, meanwhile two other perps popped up from behind the skee-ball machine armed with sawed down 12 gauges. Another two perps appeared on the upper level and brought down hell-fire on us from above. One had a Winchester Model 70 in .30-06 with a 10x scope and the other was laying down suppressing fire with a Mac-10 variant. The perps were all sporting cheap Russian night vision goggles.
I dove under a metal bench, and lined my Glock’s sights on the AK bandit. A double-tap to the chest, and a quick follow-up to the head brought him down like a sack of potatoes. My partner had been hit in the leg by some buckshot but he kept fighting like a champ, he took out one of the shotgunners with a well aimed 10mm HP to the temple, while I started unloading into the glass partition that surrounded the upper level.
When the sniper ran for cover I drew a bead on him, adjusted for distance, and dropped two into his abdomen. The Mac-man ran for it, at the sight of the bloody guts pouring out his partner’s stomach. I did a quick tactical reload, dropping the used magazine on the floor, then quickly grabbed the 870P from the harness on my back, and did some tactical combat rolls over to the movie theater, backflipping over the concession counter while simultaneously unloading the 5 rounds of 000 into the skee-ball machine.
My partner was pinned down, I dumped my empty 870, and realized I couldn’t hit the remaining perp due to my the poor angle of attack. I had to act fast or my partner was done for.
I leap over the counter again, and low crawled towards the arcade unseen. I crept behind the Ms. Pac-Man arcade cabinet, and when I heard the perp reloading, jumped up with my trusty K-Bar, and threw it into the perp’s arm, pinning him against the wall behind him.
When the smoke cleared, we had three dead perps, and two very scared prisoners. My partner was wounded but he would live to fight another day. The company goons came in fast by chopper, to cover up the situation. The two remaining perps were supposedly flown to a company-run detention center, and we never found out what happened to them, or why they made such a vicious attack.
My belief is that they were planning to hijack the coveted Mortal Kombat arcade cabinet.
The remaining mall customers and employees were paid off to cover their emotional distress and to keep their mouths shut. Later an unknown shadowy figure in an expensive blue uniform that was emblazoned with the Nanotrasen corporate logo came up to me as I was reloading my Remington 870 (in case of a second wave of gangsters) and offered me the job opportunity of a lifetime…
I don’t know if I made the right decision that day. I will always fondly remember the days of mall security, the expressions on the thankful patrons you saved from certain molestation in the mall bathrooms. The look of pain in the drooling face of the shoplifter you just choke-holded to unconsciousness.
Yes, my new job is more exotic, and the gear is better, but would I trade it all for one more day as a mall security rep? I don’t know the answer to that question.
