The labels told the color, make and model, and Junior was indecisive for a moment until he saw one marked “RESERVED FOR LT WINFREY.” He looked over the label. It was an old brown Ford Explorer, a 2018. Perfect. If the lieutenant was going to steal it for himself, it was probably good to go. He took the keyless remote and put it in his pocket.
Weapon up, he went to the door that led back into the front office and pushed it open gently. Two PSF, pistols out, were screaming at the civilians, who could not seem to respond coherently. Junior took a deep breath and went through the door.
The PSF officers’ eyes went to him before their weapons did, the last tactical error of their lives. Junior put a burst into the farthest one, then pivoted to the second PSF officer as his Beretta came up and squeezed the trigger. The 5.56 mm rounds stitched the blue from navel to neck, and he arced backwards, muscle spasms causing the dead officer’s trigger finger to squeeze off a couple of rounds into the wall before he fell dead on his back.
The half dozen civilians on the floor of the foyer shrieked in terror.
“Get the fuck out! Out!” Junior yelled. After a moment, they rose as one and crowded the front door as they sprinted for the street.
Junior returned to look at the dead officer’s desk. There was a public address microphone, just as they had expected, probably used to page people to the front. Junior keyed it.
“Attention Hollywood station!” – there was a burst of rifle fire somewhere in back – “We are under attack by racist terrorists! They are dressed as uniformed officers! Repeat: They are dressed as uniformed PSF officers! Engage them whenever you see them!”
Junior threw down the mic and hit the buzzer. At the same time, he stretched to reach for the door, just barely grabbing the handle and pulling it open. Gun up, he went inside where Turnbull had been.
That guy squatting behind the desk in the office off the second hallway was actually putting up some resistance, Turnbull admitted to himself as he sat on the dirty linoleum floor pulling a fresh mag out of his vest and inserting it in his M4’s well. Three more shots from a handgun slammed into the closed door across from the open doorway to the office where the gunman lurked. Turnbull could try to leap past the doorway and just bypass the guy, but you don’t want an armed and determined enemy behind you.
“Fuck it,” he said and leveled his carbine at the dirty, light green-painted wall about 18 inches above the floor in the general direction of his nemesis and fired off the entire 30-round magazine. Wafting fingers of smoke and a cloud of pulverized plaster rose in the hallway as he tossed away the empty mag and replaced it with a full one. There was a slight groan from the office, then nothing. Turnbull got to his feet and kept moving toward the arms room.
A few yards ahead, a uniformed PSF officer, clearly wounded, stepped out of an office, firing back into it. There was a moan, then silence from inside. The officer was unsteady and fell. Turnbull noted two chest wounds. Inside, sprawled on the linoleum floor, was another uniformed PSF the officer. The thug with the chest wounds had killed him.
“Nice job, Junior,” Turnbull muttered.
He pressed forward, scanning for targets, until he came to the arms room. Someone had opened it up, because the door was wide and the light was on. A PSF officer stood outside yelling something – it was hard to hear through the ringing and the plugs but it sounded like “Rifle!” Turnbull lit him up and charged into the open door. Another officer was fumbling with keys to unlock a rack of M4s; he dropped the keys to try to draw his pistol, but Turnbull shot him too. Alone, as he reloaded, he looked around the room.
“Fucking A,” he said, delighted.
Turnbull let his M4 fall across his chest, supported by its sling, as he grabbed a canvas bag off the shelf. He ignored the AK ammo and helped himself to some of the loaded M4 mags sitting in a cardboard box on the arms room clerk’s desk.
Then his eyes alighted on something even more interesting.
It was a wooden crate, the top pried open, with the words “Grenade, Fragmentation, M67.” Someone had spray-painted on the top “Tactical Squad Use Only.”
“Oh, hell yes,” he said, stepping forward.
But from behind, a voice, “Come on, man, get me a fucking AK or M4! I need a rifle!” It was a PSF officer, with two tear drop tatts below his left eye, fearfully looking back down the hall.
“Well, the M4 is technically a carbine.”
“What?” replied the blue, incredulous.
“The M4 is a carbine. Ah, whatever.” Turnbull drew his Glock in a smooth motion, double tapped him center mass, then finished him with a round to the forehead. The blue dropped, and Turnbull went back to gathering up hand grenades. After all, in all his adventures, he had never found himself unhappy about being too well-armed.
There were three dead PSF officers in the hallway as Junior moved down it, weapon up. There was much more shooting from the back of the building – pistol shots too. Apparently someone was fighting back. He pressed on, looking for a sign to direct him. There was one at the intersection with another long corridor, which was likewise occupied by several dead thugs. The impound lot was through a door to his right. Gun up, he pushed it open. There was a short corridor ending in a windowed steel door. The windowed door opened to the outside. And by the door was a control box that read “GATE OPEN/CLOSE.”
Hitting the button, Junior went through the door into the night air, standing on a concrete patio from which a few stairs led down to the impound lot. The 12 foot high chain link fence was opening with a low grrrrrrrr. There was the barest hint of a siren in the distance; he could still hear occasional shots from inside, but the brick exterior walls muffled the sound. Outside, on Wilcox, people were gathering. They just stood there, watching, quiet. For now.
He hit the keyless remote button and there was a beep and a flash of lights. The Explorer. He headed down the stairs.
Down the hall from the arms room, Turnbull took one of the grenades out of the bag and pulled the pin, throwing it underhanded back inside. Then he ran and covered his ears. Before leaving the arms room he had made sure to smash every bottle of gun cleaner on the shelves, so the bone-shaking explosion of the Composition B in the grenade was complimented by the flammability of the cleaning fluid. The arms room erupted in flames, with the remaining ammo almost immediately beginning to cook off.
He headed toward the small cellblock where they held short term prisoners before either letting them go with a beating or transferring them downtown for more extensive abuse. In the cell room was an unarmed, dumpy PSF officer cowering behind a counter – no guns in the cellblock.
“You,” Turnbull said, M4 leveled at her head. “They brought in a kid tonight. Where is he?”
She stuttered something incoherent, terrified. She was used to cuffed and cowed prisoners, not this.
“Listen, I will fucking shoot you. Where’s the kid?”
She continued to stutter.
“Shit,” he said. “Okay, we’re going back in there. Open all the cells.”
She stood, her jaw quivering.
“Do it! Three, two.…”
She leaned forward and hit several buttons. Somewhere back behind her, through the door marked “CELLBLOCK” there was clanging and whirring. Turnbull grabbed her by the shoulder and pushed her through.
It smelled like a sewer had shit another sewer back there. There was a row of a dozen cells, and all the doors were wide open. Some of the inhabitants were stepping tentatively outside, looking around. There was not a one that did not look like he or she had been worked over.