Dead Men's Dust

The second landing was devoid of movement. I crept forward,

stepping into dim light that leached from the floor above, bringing up my SIG to sweep the space before me. My darkness-adapted eyes sought the next flight of stairs. Below me, Rink mounted the stairs, and you'd assume that it was safe for me to go on. Bad move. You know what they say about assuming anything; it certainly made an ass out of me.

    Maybe I'd grown a little rusty. I should have checked the corridor to my left before proceeding. As I committed myself to the stairs, a door opened behind me and a voice challenged me.

    'The hell are you?'

    Then a second voice shouted, 'Five-O in the house.'

    I've undergone extensive hand-to-hand training in the Fairbairn method of combat. What I neglected to mention is that I've also trained in Fairbairn's armed technique known as Point Shooting. Like the hand-to-hand, it's based on the principle of immediate and reflexive action. Point. Shoot. Simple as that.

    While the two men were stunned at my appearance, I could have spun and put a couple of rounds into their bodies. They would have been on their backs and I'd have been up on the next landing.

    But as I'd so recently agreed with Rink, unless necessary this mission was to be carried out without lethal force. Shooting was out of the question. With that in mind, I'd no option but to turn around slowly, giving them ample opportunity to take stock of me on the stairwell. Not that I was about to give up an advantage. I kept my gun by my side, hidden from view by the angle of my body. If it came to it, I could shoot from the hip and take out both of them in a fraction of a second.

    What is it with criminals? Both men were dressed in windbreakers and denims, both with the obligatory shaved heads that went with hired muscle. They could have been the American cousins of Shank's right-hand man. Perplexed at my appearance, they were caught in a limbo that stayed their hands as effectively as it did their brains. One of them had called out Five-O, street slang for police. That gave me a second advantage over them. Where they probably wouldn't hesitate to take out a rival, it wasn't okay to kill a police officer. Do that, and any agreement Petoskey had with the local police force went right out the window. When it came to avenging one of their own, the police would come down on them like a blue avalanche.

    The disguise didn't fool them, but that was fine. They saw through the shabby clothes, but saw something that wasn't there. So let them think I was a cop. It's what would save their lives.

    'Police,' I said. 'You're both under arrest.'

    A totally lame statement, I know, but something they expected nonetheless. They gaped at me, then at each other, before breaking into stupid grins.

    'You've got to be jokin', man,' said one of them.

    'No,' I answered. 'I'm deadly serious.'

    Tweedledum and Tweedledee, they again exchanged grins.

    'What the hell you on, man?' Tweedledum asked. 'You know you don't come here.'

    'Oh? You mean an officer of the law isn't welcome in your fine establishment?' I said. Any old nonsense was enough to keep their attention on me another second or so.

    'No, you're not welcome,' said Tweedledee.

    'Ah, now that is a shame,' I told him.

    'Yeah, a goddamn cryin' shame,' Rink echoed as he whacked the stock of his shotgun into the nearest man's kidneys. The man buckled to his knees.

    The second Tweedle twin spun to face Rink, backing up against the far wall as he reached to his pocket for a concealed weapon. Rink wasn't a black belt for nothing. He lifted a boot and kicked the man in the pit of his stomach, then held the man with his foot, pressing him up against the rotting plaster of the wall.

    'Go on up,' he said. 'Leave these two punks to me.'

'They're all yours,' I told him.

    I was about midway to the next landing when the shooting started. Not from below, but from above. It's natural to throw yourself down when fired upon. What is equally natural is the way I brought up my hand and fired off a return shot.

    Boom! There goes the neighborhood, you might've said. And you'd have been right. All hope of engaging the enemy without shooting was gone now. Any remorse about killing had to be put behind me, too. When fired upon, there was only one recourse.

    The stairwell echoed with the thump of feet. It could only be Petoskey's men looking for cover. There were four distinct voices as they called out to others in the building. Confusion was the reigning order. Someone was shouting that the police were here, while another shouted that Hendrickson's men were in the building. It didn't matter who the hell they thought they were up against; panic had turned their response deadly.

    To buy a little respite, I unloaded a clip toward the head of the stairs, following my bullets with a headlong charge as I pushed another magazine in place.

    Rink was still below me, snorting like a bull as he finished off the two who'd tried to take me from behind. Undoubtedly eager to finish the fight and come to my assistance. Time to wait for him wasn't a luxury I possessed. I sprinted upward to a point where there was a turn in the stairs. Suicidal I'm not, but that's what I'd have been committing if I'd poked my head around the corner for a look. Unfortunately, I had to get some kind of bead on the men waiting to ambush me. Choice made, I thrust my gun around the bend, firing three rapid shots. Just enough to force my ambushers to dive for cover. I spun into the cordite cloud searching for movement.

    No one in sight, I sprang up the remaining stairs and into a recess on the left. I run regularly, occasionally go to the gym, yet I was still blowing hard. I blame it more on adrenaline dump than lack of condition.

    The wall next to my shoulder was holed by one of my own bullets. I quickly pushed myself deeper into the recess, firing off two more rounds into the quiet corridor. There were doors lining the corridor on both sides, and any one of them could be concealing an enemy shooter.

    'Rink! Are you about done down there or what? I could do with that shotgun up here.'