Hernandez started to straighten, went to swing his MP5 up at Hardin, but a flurry of rounds slammed into the window pillar of the driver’s side, into the back of the driver’s seat. The driver slumped forward and the truck slewed left. Hernandez lost his balance, tipping against the front passenger seat. The dead Skull fell across Hernandez’s lap, knocking the MP5 from his hands.
Hardin saw the truck make the curve. The driver couldn’t shoot, not while he was driving, so Hardin took the guy in the back passenger seat first. Kill shot, the guy’s head exploding. Big guy on the far side of the seat dropped down, might have been hit, might not have been. Might have been Hernandez.
Hardin turned, tracking the car, putting out as many rounds as he could at the driver. Must have hit him. The Explorer swerved radically left, then slowed, drifted.
Hardin looked toward the Honda, Wilson behind the engine block; arms locked, rock steady, squeezing off shots. He heard an automatic weapon rip from the SUV. The left drift gave the guy in the passenger seat a straight shot at Wilson. Hardin saw a line of holes stitch across the Honda’s front passenger side, creeping up, a furrow opening across the top of the hood, Wilson not even blinking at that, just firing. Then the firing from the truck stopped and it rolled into a green BMW across from the elevators, crunching to a halt.
Hardin holstered the pistol in his left hand, ejected the clip from the one in his right, slammed in a spare, pulled the slide. He advanced on the SUV, the single pistol in a two-handed grip and trained just over the sill of the rear passenger window. He still didn’t know about the guy in the right rear, but if he saw even a hint of movement, he was ready to open up. Wilson came out from behind the Honda, reloading her S&W, closing on the truck from the other side.
The guy in the front passenger seat tried to rise up. Wilson put two through his head, changed her angle just a touch, and gave the driver a double tap, too, just to be sure.
Hardin got to the driver’s side of the SUV, looked in the back window. Shooter on his side was done, down across the seat, half his head missing. Hernandez was bent over behind the passenger seat, trying to dig a weapon up off the floor.
“Don’t fucking move,” Hardin said.
Hernandez looked up, froze for a second. “Why not, so you can shoot me?” Then Hernandez made another frantic move for the pinned weapon.
“No,” Hardin said. “So she can.” Hardin stepped to his left, out of Wilson’s line.
From the passenger’s side, Wilson’s S&W barked five times, tearing off the top of Hernandez’s head and shredding his back between his shoulder blades.
Wilson straightened and looked across the top of the SUV at Hardin.
“Thanks for waiting,” she said.
“I figured you had dibs,” Hardin answered.
CHAPTER 89
“You gotta go faster, man.” Paco, one of the Skull shooters Hernandez had up from Mexico. He was riding shotgun in the other SUV, two more Skulls in the back, the black gangbanger driving.
“You want some cop lighting us up? Doing the best I can. And keep that fucking gun down, will you? Some do-gooder sees it and 911s us, we’re gonna have company we don’t need.” The Skull kept holding the submachine gun up across his chest. He lowered it to his lap, below window level.
The driver was pissed. Fucking snakebit damn Honda turning into that garage behind them; hadn’t seen that coming. He taken a quick right onto Wells figuring he’d have to circle the block, shot left around a FedEx truck that was blocking the right lane, and that meant he saw the Wells Street entrance too late to make the turn. Next cross street was Madison, but that was one-way east, went through that intersection, cut up Arcade, more of an alley, really, but it would get him back to Wacker. Except there was a truck blocking it, hazards blinking, some kind of delivery. Reversed back out to Franklin, over to Munroe, up to Wacker, more red lights, the whole thing taking forever.
“Buzz your guys,” the driver said to the Skull while they sat at the light at Wacker and Madison. “See does he still want us in the entrance or what?”
The Skull made the call, loud Spanish voice, sounded worked up; driver couldn’t understand any of that shit, but then gunshots. Lots of gunshots. Didn’t need any translation for those. The Skull yelling into the phone, nobody answering.
The driver punched it. Way they timed the lights on Wacker, if he hauled ass, they’d make the green at Washington, be in the garage damn quick.
Al Din was halfway across the fifth floor when he heard gunfire from six. A lot of gunfire. It was time to pause, assess his situation. He parked at the end of the row. He could hear at least three different weapons, one of them automatic. Then the shooting stopped.
“There is shooting on a floor above me in the garage,” he said into his phone. “Do you have anything on camera?”
“Uh, I got a black SUV crunched in to what looks like a green Beemer, got some windows shot out. OK, I got a guy walking up to it. It’s your guy, Hardin. And here’s Wilson.”
Al Din heard a tightly spaced group of shots. Five of them.
Tokyo spoke. “Um, I don’t know who was in the SUV, but I hope they weren’t friends of yours.”
“Competitors,” al Din answered.
Al Din thought for just a moment. Hardin and the woman had taken out the men in the SUV. It would be just the two of them, alone. They had no reason to suspect he was here. And al Din had been in his share of firefights. When you have won, when you have survived, your system crashes a little, the adrenaline bleeding off. You let your guard down. Right now Hardin and the woman would be sloppy.
He wouldn’t drive up the ramp. A car they would hear and there was still plenty of parking on the floor below them. They would know that. They would be sloppy, not stupid. But the door to the stairs was behind him and to his right. He could be on six in seconds, could enter quietly, with any luck could get at least one of them before they even knew he was there. That would leave one. They were both good, but al Din would take his chances one-on-one with anyone in the world.
He got out of the car and ran for the stairs.
To his right, he heard a car roar up the ramp, heard the tires squeal as it turned hard toward him, heard it screech to a halt, still running. He turned his head, still running toward the door. He saw a black sedan stopped almost even with the stair doors, but in the main traffic row, two rows in from the wall. Both front doors flew open, two men out, weapons coming up.
“Al Din! Police!” The taller man shouting. The man on the driver’s side.
Without slowing, al Din swung his weapon taking the first available shot, the smaller man on the passenger side, firing two shots, the first slightly, high, but adjusting, the second punching through the window of the open door, hitting the smaller man in the chest.
Lynch had just nosed the Crown Vic onto the ramp up to five when he heard shots from above.
“Sounds like we’re late to the party,” Bernstein said.
Lynch put the hammer down, rocketing up the ramp and onto five. Halfway across the floor, he saw a man sprint from the line of cars parked to his left headed right and toward them at an angle. It was al Din.
He slammed on the brakes, him and Bernstein both leaping from the car, bringing their guns up.
“Al Din! Police!” Lynch shouted.
Al Din heard the car behind him, did the geometry in his head, got ready, but kept moving. He was in the open, wanted to be closer to the door if it came to shooting. But when he heard the policeman call out his name, he knew he had to change the equation, put their heads down, buy some time.