No, not voices. A voice. Singular. The man was talking to someone, but whoever that “someone” was, they weren’t answering him.
Allie moved up the hallway, measuring every step, and finally stopped at the edge of the halo of light from the single lightbulb. She was close enough to the opening now, while still staying hidden in the dark patches in the back, to glimpse a man in a suit sitting on a stool next to the counter that separated the living room from the kitchen. He was facing the hallway to her left, the one with the bedrooms, and had a phone pressed against his ear.
“Good men are hard to find,” the man was saying. “I don’t know what happened to the one in the other room, but you’re obviously the last man standing. That counts for something in my book.”
She already knew the tall man wasn’t alone, because she had seen at least one more walking past her less than ten seconds ago. That same man reappeared now, this time in the kitchen behind the one on the phone. Now that she wasn’t in fear of being discovered, she took a second to identify the Uzi, complete with a suppressor, hanging from a sling under the suited man’s right arm.
“So are we doing this, Jack?” the one on the phone said. “We simpatico?”
So there were at least two in the living room, and counting the sentry outside, that was three she could be absolutely certain of. There were probably more, especially since they had brought two SUVs with them. Why bring two big vehicles when there were just three people? That didn’t make any—
A click! in front of her, startling her.
Allie stared, caught between racing back to the basement and holding her ground, and failed to come to a decision when a large figure stepped out of a room further up the hallway. He was a big man, wearing a suit like the other three, with a gun holster along his hip and another suppressed Uzi dangling lazily from a strap over his right shoulder. His head was slightly bent forward, eyes focused on his crotch as he zipped himself up, but it didn’t take very long for him to sense her standing in the shadows behind him.
He looked up, then over, and said, “Hey—”
She shot him twice in the chest before he could finish the sentence. He stumbled back and through the door, one hand trying to grab onto the doorknob to stop his backward fall. She shot him a third time, and he let go of the door and disappeared into the bathroom.
The tall man at the kitchen bolted to his feet and whirled in her direction, the hand not holding the phone already reaching for his sidearm. She took aim at him when the man she had seen walk by earlier rematerialized in front of her like a ghost, the Uzi in his hands swinging up to fire.
Allie mouthed a curse and dropped to the floor just as the man squeezed the trigger on his submachine gun, and for the second time that night, bullets shredded the walls around her at dizzying speeds.
Her face was pressed into the floor when there was a sudden gust of cold air as something (Apollo!) rocketed over and past her head. The dog unleashed a loud, thunderous bark as he rushed headlong into the torrent of gunfire, and all Allie could think was, God, I love this dog.
Chapter 14
Jack didn’t burst out of the guest bedroom to join in on the shooting. No, that would have been stupid, and he wasn’t stupid. He’d always been smarter than the average merc; or at least, he liked to think so. The fact that Jones and Jerry had already bit the dust tonight definitely made his decision a whole lot easier.
Instead, he leaned against the wall next to the door, eyes fixed on the doorknob for signs that Monroe might be using the chaos to pull another stunt. He kept his hands busy by keeping a firm grip on his rifle at all times and his mind occupied by wondering how long it would take whoever was exchanging gunfire out there to kill each other. After all, the less men with guns he had to deal with, the better his chances of surviving this. As long as he stayed inside with the golden goose, he was safe. It was out there that the dangers lay. With Monroe, and now, whoever he was engaged in a gun battle with.
He could hear the dog barking over the back-and-forth gunshots, which meant the stupid mutt was still alive and kicking. An injured dog wouldn’t be making that much noise. Not that Jack was a dog person, but he assumed, anyway.
The gunfire boomed back and forth, sometimes sounding a little too close for comfort and other times as if it were coming from the other side of the house. The boom of handguns and the whirring of suppressed submachine guns firing away was followed by the pek-pek-pek of bullets slamming into various parts of the residence.
One thing was for sure, Walter was going to have to redecorate after this.
It seemed to go on for a long time, but that was probably because he wasn’t directly involved. Jack wasn’t used to being an observer when bullets were flying, but there was something oddly fascinating about knowing a gunfight was going on nearby and being able to detach himself completely from it. He wasn’t entirely sure if he was anxious or confused, or maybe a little of both—
Movement flickered in the corner of his right eye, and Jack turned just as the laptop nearly decapitated him.
Fuck!
He jerked his head back just a split second before the computer smashed against the wall, parts of it digging into the Sheetrock behind the wallpaper, other pieces flying everywhere, before the biggest still-intact chunk tumbled to the floor.
Jack spun, lifting the assault rifle, as a shoulder slammed into his sternum, and he temporarily forgot how to breathe. His attacker wasn’t done and managed to lift him slightly off his feet before driving him back into the wall. Jack squeezed the trigger on the Sig556 involuntarily and fired a shot into the ceiling.
All the while, his mind shouted, What the fuck?
His back and chest were screaming in pain even as a fist struck him in the side of the face. Jack grunted and staggered sideways, but he didn’t get far before another fist glanced off his temple, and he couldn’t help but think, Lucky shot! because those punches weren’t being delivered by a pro. Someone who wasn’t used to throwing haymakers was getting in some lucky shots on him. It probably helped that he was out of breath and off balance, and still trying to recover from the initial blow to his sternum.
Even as he stumbled along the wall, trying to get his feet to obey and stop so he could retaliate, his hands scrambled to aim the rifle at his attacker. He was doing a piss-poor job of it, and before he could fully get the weapon around, a body crashed into him and knocked him — along with his attacker — to the floor.
Jack didn’t know when the rifle flew from his hands, but suddenly it wasn’t there anymore. His attacker got lucky, and while Jack landed on his back, the man ended up on top of him. Jack blinked up, seeing a familiar face staring down, eyes wide and face flushed red. There was a wildness about the man that should have terrified Jack, but it was so out of place that the only thing that occurred to Jack was, Shit, Walter, I didn’t know you had it in you, buddy.
Then Walter was punching him again, and again, and again…
He didn’t know how long or how many times Walter punched him, but by the time Jack opened his eyes he could barely see out of his left, and his right didn’t feel any better. He raised himself up from the floor, gagging on blood that had settled in his throat, and had to spit gobs of it out before he could breathe again. Which only made things worse, because his chest was on fire and he was pretty sure a bone or two was broken.
Walter was leaning against the wall on the other side of the door across from him. The Gorman and Smith executive had the Sig556 slung over his back and Jack’s Sig Sauer dangling nonchalantly at his side.