The second mercenary wasn’t about to take on Payne with his fists. Not when he had a Beretta 92 under his jacket. In a flash, he reached for his weapon.
Sensing what was happening, Payne spun the man in the arm-bar toward his colleague, using him to knock the pistol from his partner’s hand. The weapon fell to the ground, but not before the mercenary had managed to get off a shot.
The bullet tore through the larger man’s hand like a spike at a crucifixion, cutting through the soft flesh and tendons with ease. Blood squirted as he shrieked in agony.
The thunderous blast of the gun snapped the teenager out of his daze. He sat upright as if he had been hit by an electric current. The scene would have terrified most people. The middle-aged man in the second tier was using his body to shield his wife from the gunfight below. She continued to scream at the top of her lungs as shock and terror overwhelmed her. But the teenager’s reaction was different. To him, it was as if he had awoken inside his favorite video game. His eyes lit up, and he actually squealed with delight as the larger mercenary stared through the hole in his bloody hand.
It looked like a scene from a horror movie.
The gaping wound made the large man even more enraged. He charged recklessly toward Payne, who countered the move by jumping on to the bench and delivering a knee to his opponent’s chest. The blow had the dual effect of dropping the larger soldier on top of the smaller one and at the same time dislodging his weapon from his holster. Both fell to the ground, the larger man pinning his partner beneath him.
But the larger man was unrelenting. He couldn’t rise, but he had the presence of mind to grab the nearest pistol. He smiled as he aimed it squarely at Payne’s chest.
Payne had nowhere to run — and he knew it.
The gunman pulled the trigger, but nothing happened.
He tried it a second time, still nothing.
The mercenary glanced at the gun and realized his mistake. Each of the thug’s weapons had been fitted with a palm-print reader on the grip. This biometric safety prevented anyone but the authorized user of the gun from firing it. In his haste, he had reached for the first weapon he saw and had grabbed the wrong one. In his hand, his partner’s gun was basically just a hunk of steel. He threw it at Payne’s face, hoping to do some damage.
Payne ducked just in time.
Unarmed and one-handed, the thug was at Payne’s mercy. Payne grabbed him by his suit collar and slammed him into the far wall. The glass cracked from the impact. A moment later, he swung his elbow into the man’s throat, crushing his windpipe. Suddenly unable to breathe, the thug slumped to the floor as blood poured from his nose and mouth.
The smaller man realized he’d be next if he didn’t act fast. He dove to the ground and grabbed both weapons just as Payne spun to face him. The gunman didn’t know which gun was his, but it didn’t matter. If he squeezed both triggers, he knew one would fire.
Payne saw everything in slow motion.
The guns. The gunman. The triggers.
Ka-boom! A shot thundered in the cable car, but he didn’t see a muzzle flare. Instead, the front window exploded into a thousand shards as a bullet cut through the glass.
Payne instantly recognized the sound of his own gun. He didn’t have to look to know that Sahlberg had pulled the trigger. But the mercenary had no idea who had fired the shot. As he glanced to find the shooter, he took his eyes off Payne for a split second.
It was a reaction he couldn’t control.
An instinct that cost him the fight.
Before the gunman could re-aim, Payne lowered his shoulder and exploded from his stance. Years of American football had taught him how to turn his body into a battering ram. The impact was violent. He lifted the mercenary off the ground and kept his legs churning forward until the man slammed into the wall. He felt ribs breaking in the man’s chest.
The mercenary fell limp against the wall.
As the world sped up to real time, Payne turned toward the upper level of the car. Sahlberg was standing at the edge of the railing, Payne’s gun shaking in his hand.
The room was moving forward but also still.
There was no more violence.
No more gunshots.
The only sound was the wind.
‘Everyone okay?’ Payne asked.
‘We’re all right,’ the husband answered.
Sahlberg nodded. So did the woman.
Only then did the teenager react, leaping to his feet with so much vigor that Sahlberg momentarily pointed the gun his way. He pumped his fist several times and screamed at the top of his lungs, ‘That … was … AWESOME!’
13
Payne checked the fallen gunmen for signs of life. Both were breathing, but the larger one was in bad shape. He would need medical attention to survive the day.
But it wouldn’t come from Payne.
Not with Sahlberg’s life still in jeopardy.
Payne searched their pockets for identification. He found nothing useful. It was further proof that Sahlberg had been telling the truth. Almost everyone in law enforcement — local police, FBI, ATF and so on — carried a badge or some sort of ID. But Payne only found cash. No wallets. No credit cards. No personal items. These guys didn’t want to be identified.
He took a moment to examine their high-tech pistols. The palm-print scanners were almost perfectly integrated. The only thing that gave them away was a slight thickening of the grip and a noticeable change in texture. The scanner was smooth and shimmery; the rest of the grip was pebbled and dull. He had seen biometric locks before, but nothing like this. Even the prototypes he had used in the military were clunky and cumbersome.
But not these.
These were streamlined and sophisticated.
They were damn near perfect.
Payne glanced through the shattered window and saw the lower station getting closer. He had less than a minute before they reached the bottom. He had to work fast.
He looked up at the couple in the second tier. ‘Ma’am, I’m going to need the strap from your purse.’
She nodded nervously and threw the purse to him.
‘Sorry about this.’ He ripped off the strap before he tossed the purse back to her. He shifted his gaze to the teenager. ‘Same with you. Throw me your backpack.’
The teen tossed his bag without hesitation. Payne removed the bungee cord that held the bag closed and used it to tie the larger gunman’s hands to the bench. He did the same to the smaller thug using the strap from the purse. He knew the knots wouldn’t hold for ever, but it was better than nothing.
‘Listen to me,’ he said to the passengers. ‘Everything’s going to be fine, but I need you to stay in here with these two until the police arrive. There are more gunmen in the station, so it’s safer in here than there. Understood?’
‘Yes,’ the husband replied.
‘Good. Do you have a cell phone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Call 911 and tell them there’s been a shooting on the Monongahela Incline. Tell them you need the police and multiple ambulances. You don’t need to explain anything else or identify anyone. Just make sure these two are taken into custody. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ the husband said.
Payne ran through the best-case scenario in his head. The couple would call 911, and the police would arrive inside of ten minutes. That gave him enough time to get Sahlberg clear of the lower station. He knew they would have to speak with the authorities eventually — and he wouldn’t mind being there for the interrogation of the two men tied up in the cable car — but he had questions of his own that had to be answered first.
‘What about me?’ the teenager shouted. ‘What can I do?’