I was about to make a dash for the door when one of Gordon’s men came around the corner of the building to my left. He fired a burst at me. The bullets impacted the rocks, sending dust and debris flying. I let myself fall to the ground and scrambled behind cover. A second burst narrowly missed me, and a third one peppered the rocks I was now hiding behind.
I moved to my right and came up firing. My rounds hit the ground and the wall near the government guy just as he disappeared back around the corner. I held my fire but kept my sights on where he was. He’d either come back out or circle back around the building. Hawk was covering my right flank, so I wasn’t worried about that. Sure enough, he did a quick peek, broadcasting to me where he was. As soon as he stepped around the corner, I opened up on him. At least three of my rounds tore through him.
I ducked back behind the boulder. “How are you doing?” I asked Reaper as I removed the nearly spent magazine from my rifle. He just nodded at me as I pulled another one from my vest and locked it into position. “Okay,” I said, “head for the door.”
I dashed from behind the rocks with Reaper right behind me, running so fast that we smacked into the wall. I pointed down the wall of the building, indicating to Reaper that he needed to watch that corner. Reaching down, I tried the handle. The old door wasn’t locked, but it was stuck.
Subtlety was never my strong point. I nodded at Reaper and kicked the door in.
LORENZO
I threw open the door, taking in the scene in an instant. There was Eduard Montalban standing in the filthy abandoned garage. Next to him was the hulking Fat Man, who looked like Moby Dick in his white suit. Eddie was wearing a silk shirt, Flock of Seagulls hair combed high, little yippy white poodle-dog under one arm, the smirk on his face turning to disbelief as he saw me. Gordon and one of his men had their backs to me and were just beginning to turn as they saw Eddie’s shock. Both sides had several goons arrayed across the room, but none of them would be fast enough to stop me.
The grenade left my hand, spoon popping off in mid-flight. “Hey, Eddie,” I stated as the grenade struck the concrete floor, bounced, and spun between Gordon’s legs.
“Bloody hell!” Eddie shrieked. The poodle started barking.
Chaos. The Fat Man was far faster than he looked. He spun about, one massive arm sweeping Eddie up, lifting his employer and shielding him as they dove away. Gordon acted in pure instinctive self-preservation, one hand coming up, grabbing the government man next to him by the necktie, and yanking hard. The man, taken by surprise, toppled over on top of the grenade as Gordon hurled himself into the old oil pit.
I ducked back around the corner.
THUMP.
I felt the pressure in my teeth. Gordon’s guard absorbed most of the blast and saved the others. The walls were sprayed like a red Jackson Pollock. Decades of dust and cobwebs were dislodged from the ceiling, obscuring everything.
Jill pulled her fingers out of her ears and actually smiled at me. I motioned for her to stay put before taking a quick peek through the doorway. The windows had all been shattered. Dust whirled. One of the goons was screaming. There was gunfire coming from outside.
Something moved in a pile of dust. The Fat Man. The back of his white suit coat was shredded and burned. Small spatters and trickles of blood covered his back. He pushed himself up with one arm, Eddie still held protectively beneath him. I raised my AR, taking the safety off, finger moving onto the trigger, red dot settling on the Fat Man’s back.
The wall next to me exploded in a shower of cinder fragments, and I jerked the trigger as I cringed, missing my target entirely. Something sliced hot across my cheek and I fell into the back room, bullets screaming through the doorway overhead. I scrambled to the side as the floor erupted into dust.
“Lorenzo!” Jill shouted as I rolled toward her. She raised the MP5 and fired out the doorway. A man cried out in pain.
Still prone, I leaned around the doorway and spotted a government man moving through the dust, firing his M4 at us. Jill shot again, and the man stumbled. “They’ve got vests on!” I shouted as I put the Aimpoint on him and cranked off several quick shots. Soft armor would stop her 9mm, but not my 5.56. He fell to his knees and Jill’s third shot hit him in the bridge of the nose. I scrambled farther out, searching for Eddie.
The spot where the Fat Man had fallen was empty.
“Shit!” I shouted. More shapes were appearing in the dust. I fired at anything that moved. That damn poodle was still barking. Bullets impacted our wall, digging fierce pits into the cinder-blocks, or skipped across the concrete and smashed our room into debris.
Flipping the selector to auto, I emptied the rest of my magazine into the confusion, then rolled inside, fumbling at my vest for a reload. There were a lot more bad guys than I had expected, but they were being hit from multiple directions. Jill was crouched behind me. I made eye contact and gestured violently toward the window. We had to get out of here. “I’ll cover you,” I said as I slammed the magazine home and slapped the bolt release.
“Quit shooting! Stop it!” Eddie was screeching. The random gunfire tapered off and died. “I need him alive!”
“Go!” I shouted to Jill, leaned out, and fired in the direction of Eddie’s voice. There was a rusted truck parked near the main door, and it sounded like he had come from behind it. I stitched a line of impacts across the truck body, the clang of hot lead on metal louder than my suppressor. Jill sprang up and pushed her way through the window. Within seconds, multiple rifles opened up on my position. I fired until she disappeared, going clear through my second magazine.
“Damn it!” Eddie shrieked. “I said quit shooting! Next one of you wankers shoots at him and I’ll slit your throat myself! Lorenzo!” I pulled back, reloading again. I could feel the heat rising from my rifle. “Listen to me carefully. I just want what’s mine. I don’t care about you.”
Red laser dots flashed on the far wall. Bright flashlights illuminated the doorway. If I tried to move, I was dead. Rather than fire and maneuver, I’d allowed myself to get pinned down. At least Jill had gotten out. “Bob, the hostage just went out the window. Cover her. I’m stuck,” I whispered. There was no response. I grasped my radio. The box had been smashed by a round. Damn.
“I’m listening, Eddie,” I shouted back. The gunfire outside continued. It sounded like the others were busy. “What’re you offering?”
“Give me the scarab, you and all your people walk, and I pay you double.”
“Sounds tempting,” I lied. We were dog food the second he had it. I didn’t dare stick my head around the corner, and I couldn’t try to move across the doorway. There was a large piece of broken mirrored glass on the floor. Grabbing it, I held it up and used it to peer around the corner.
“Yes, it is tempting. We both know you’re stuck, and it won’t take too many bullets to carve through that wall. My associate is setting up a belt-fed as we speak. . . .” There was a sudden burst of much louder gunfire, and the wall above me exploded into shrapnel. The sound was horrendous. The gun fired so fast it was like a buzzsaw. I covered my head and tried to make myself as small as possible as I was pelted with jagged bits. The poodle yelped. “Hush now, Precious, the bad man won’t scare you anymore,” Eddie soothed. “You’ve got ten seconds, Lorenzo.”