“C’mon, Sprite,” Alicia complained. “I’m feeling unnecessary back here.”
Mai dragged the second policeman over to the first. “Finally. She gets it.”
Kenzie walked out into the station, foregoing the luxury of a mask. Her words: “I’m already in the system, and it might help maintain the rep, you know?” didn’t exactly reassure Drake, but it certainly wasn’t official that she currently ran with Team SPEAR so maybe her identification would in fact help deflect suspicion.
A rough estimate told Drake there were at least three more policemen to deal with. He saw a corridor to the left and glanced along it — noticed a row of cells. A voice shouted out inquiringly but he ignored it. They found and used a keypad to move further into the building. Beyond a waiting area they found several more rooms with closed doors. Mai slammed through the first. Drake heard an exclamation of annoyance and then a muffled shout. So, that was three to Mai. Not to be outdone, Alicia and Kenzie breached the next two rooms, leaving Drake standing in the corridor.
He hurried to help, saw Kenzie bent over, already tasing her target who had been pouring coffee from his machine. Figuring she was fine he moved on to Alicia and saw her bending a man’s elbow so she could get him in the right position for a gentle tasing.
Now who’s feeling redundant?
“Is that all of them?” Doukas asked.
“Should be. Lead me to the men’s restrooms, quickly.”
Not a sentence he’d ever imagined asking a man.
The old man shoved past, then stopped at the bottom of the corridor. Drake saw no toilet signage, but Doukas was staring at a closed door to the right.
“That’s his office. My bully. Do you think he might be inside and I might borrow a Taser?”
Drake viewed all bullies as cowards and held a memory of a boy from his school days; a boy that stole his lunch money and intimidated him for a year. Somehow, he doubted that boy would try it now.
Ergo: coward.
“Sure,” Drake said. With a quick flick he turned the doorknob and opened the door. The police commissioner was sitting with his legs up on the desk, idly tapping away at a laptop with one hand and holding alcohol in a diamond-cut glass with the other. When Drake rushed at him, he spilt the drink, choked on liquid, and fell off his chair. Drake dragged him around the desk and handed Doukas the Taser.
“One.”
The mask lifted around Doukas’ lips, so happy was he. Drake supervised the tasing and then looked up as the others came into the room.
“Couldn’t handle it alone?” Alicia asked, voice muffled.
“Yeah.” He remembered to be cautious about what he said. “It’s complicated.”
“Oh, I get it,” Alicia said. “I really do.”
Once the police commissioner had been restrained, they made their way to the toilet area. Doukas pointed out the correct stall, upon which Drake climbed to remove the paneled roof and search for the bubble-wrap full of chain links. At first his questing fingertips found nothing, but he knew it couldn’t have gone far. A change of direction and he found it — a medium-heavy package that strained his biceps as he lifted and passed it down to Alicia. Once they were done, they ignored its contents to make haste before any more police officers showed up.
Drake hastened toward the rear doors, passing the men they’d already tied and checking on their welfare. All were fine and, except for the commissioner, they apologized too. As they headed for freedom a nightmarish sound split the air.
Explosion. Drake dropped to the ground. The building shook. Glass shattered somewhere not far away and rubble fell to the floor. Loud voices could be heard as the noise of the detonation faded away.
“In here! Now!”
“I’m not happy breaking in to a cop station, bro. Just the opposite.”
“Quit yer damn whining and move ahead. The tracker’s squealing like a pig in heat.”
“Speaking of pigs, when do I get to blast one o’ dem fuckers?” A new voice.
Drake halted. There was a chance they could slip away unnoticed. “I think the enemy just arrived.”
“Tracked the chain,” Alicia said. “We’ll have to be quick.”
“What are you waiting for?” Kenzie growled. “Go!”
“I don’t—” Mai began.
“We can’t,” Drake said. “They’ll kill those policeman, or at least hurt them. They’re helpless. I can’t let that happen.”
Alicia stopped in mid-stride. “You’re right.”
Kenzie regarded them as if they were insane. “The way out,” she breathed, “is right there.”
“Then use it.” Drake hid behind a corner as footsteps rushed along the bisecting corridor. A hurried estimation put the count at five men. Drake let the first go by and then hit the second, assuming that the first would turn soon anyway. The second rebounded off the far wall and tripped all those pounding behind him. Men sprawled face first, weapons tumbling. Those wearing scarves across their faces lost them. Fingers were broken, curses vented. Drake fell among them.
Kenzie raced past Mai to tackle the first man, grabbing his gun as he sought to level it, and pushing it up toward the ceiling. It became a metal bar between them, rolling back and forth. With a free hand the merc pulled a knife from its sheath but this was exactly what Kenzie wanted.
She smiled. “Thanks, man.”
In mid-thrust he blanched. Kenzie gripped the wrist and let it pass her by, twisted viciously and caught the blade as it fell toward the floor. The merc bellowed as fingers snapped. Kenzie flicked the knife up in the air by the blade, then waited for the handle to fall back into her hand.
The merc’s eyes followed the weapon.
She caught it and rammed it home just under his ribs. All strength fled his body. She stepped away and watched him fall, now holding his gun.
Drake elbowed and kneed and nutted his way through the battle. Every gun he found, he threw back to Mai. Alicia was with him, crawling among the downed men, the narrow corridor giving them little room in which to work. It was more like a hellish death-struggle; a tight, claustrophobic melee with everyone crammed together.
Drake rolled off a body to find a leg wrapped around his neck, which he removed with the touch of his Taser, but he knew the charge was running low. He rolled back, rose with an elbow to a sitting man’s face, then flung his body headlong atop another. Alicia was giving no quarter, tasing everyone in the most easily available parts of the body, using her boots and a knife she had pulled loose from one man’s sheath.
Mai strapped two guns over her shoulders, another across her back, and held a fourth leveled at head height. At the end of the corridor, a shadow shrouded by light, she was a vision — not least because her demure, slim figure belied the fact that it could bristle with such a collection of weapons. But the shadow had bite.
A new merc came through the shattered façade of the police station, his semi-auto Mauser leading the way. Mai didn’t let him fire, just opened up with her own weapons instantly and watched the figure bounce off the rear wall, turned into a lifeless rag-doll without even spotting his killer.
Another crouched down at his side, surveying the scene. Mai shot him too. Drake realized he’d disarmed most of the men, and scrambled back the way he’d come, dragging Alicia along by the elbow.
“Time to leave.”
“But they won’t take long to recover.”
“Long enough.” Drake tapped his ears. “Listen.”
Sirens wailed in the distance.
They reached Mai and Kenzie; the Japanese woman distributing weapons. Drake took a last look at the bound policeman, saw all was okay and almost dashed on. But it was the look in the desk sergeant’s eye that stopped him — the fear, the slight shake of the head, the deliberate widening of the eyes.