George Lawson died today, not by intent and not by his own hand.
Traffic outside the bank was heavy but controlled. Smart street lights adjusted for the pattern. Anyone monitoring the flow would see nothing untoward. The short-term commercial parking spots in front of the bank filled and emptied in predictable fashion. No one took note of the black Econoline vans as they pulled in an parked.
Inside the bank, dozens of people stood at kiosks and ATMs, completing deposit tickets and withdrawing money. No one noticed the individual men standing in an unrecognized pattern throughout the lobby, two of them talking as if in normal conversation.
No one except George. While he didn’t know exactly what was going on, he felt it prudent to scan the room with his smart phone, recording the action, and pausing at key intervals to take close ups of the men in question.
He never heard the bullets that struck his forehead and heart. The phone falling from his hand recorded only shadows of images running helter-skelter until voices told them to stop. It recorded the orders that followed and the explosion that toppled a work station and sent a flow of paper forms over it.
George died trying to stream photos to the outside world. Whatever else he had done in his 32 years, he would be remembered in print for this, a stand-out among the eleven deceased whose day did not go as planned.
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