chained to the chair in front of the table the homunculus had disappeared under. She was so terrified that she quivered. She couldn’t hold his gaze for long. She quickly returned to sewing with the clack-clack-clack of the needle.
He found himself entranced by the way the needle pierced the gray material. It was made from something thick and pliable. The way she held the edge with her other hand made it look stiff as well. Almost as if it were …
“Skin!” he muttered.
Ruiz got back to his feet a second before Fratty went down. His finger must have been on the trigger, because as his back hit the floor, he let loose a 12-gauge shotgun round that chewed an angry hole through the ceiling.
Everyone on the team automatically turned toward the shot, which meant that they weren’t looking down.
Walker felt his feet ripped out from under him.
Holmes went down hard beside him; then the homunculus leaped atop him and hammered him three times to his face. The leader brought his MP5 around to brush the creature off, but it caught the weapon as it came around and stopped the movement of Holmes’s arms.
Walker brought his 9mm around in a wild sweeping arc and caught the homunculus in the back of the head. It flew hard against the wall and sank into a pile of offal, its long arms trailing like the tails of a dying kite.
He and Holmes got to their feet the same time that Laws opened fire with his MP5. A pair of tight three- round bursts were followed by shots from a larger-caliber weapon, somewhere deeper in the room.
“Triad. Saw them for a second down a set of stairs at the end of the room firing upwards. We’ve got the higher ground and are in defilade but stay low.”
Pistol fire returned. Nine-mil and .45 rounds struck the wall and ceiling above them. Walker kept his head down and helped Holmes to his feet. He glanced at the offal and realized that the homunculus had disappeared.
“
Fratty suddenly moaned and sank to his knees. A hand went to his crotch. “Uggh. I hate those things.” Then he pitched forward onto his face. “Will someone”—his head slammed against the floor—“please kill”—his head slammed down again—“this thing!”
Walker finally saw the long orange arms of the homunculus as they held Fratty’s MBITR with both hands, using it to slam the SEAL’s head into the ground. Walker snapped his 9mm up and took a shot, catching the homunculus in the shoulder and sending it tumbling.
Hoover skidded over and tried to grab it, but just missed as the homunculus used its arm to pole-vault over the downed SEAL. It scurried beneath the chairs and tables in the sweatshop. Women whimpered as it passed, unable to scream through their stitched mouths.
Walker noted that these were the first sounds he’d heard them make and it made him realize how terrible their existence must truly be. Suddenly he felt anger pour through him. He’d felt helpless once and had vowed never to be in such a position ever again. An orphan at nine, he’d been placed in a series of orphanages, starting with St. Francis’s School for Boys in Manila. They tried to insist he speak Tagalog, withholding anything other than old rice and water for weeks until he was able to learn enough rudimentary words to please the Filipino monks who ran the place. He could still picture himself hammering his little fists against the stout wooden door of his closet-sized room, begging for food, milk, his brother, television, comic books … anything to sustain him and keep him from facing the reality that his parents were dead and his life was irrevocably changed.
Yeah, he hated helplessness and he hated whoever it was that had chained these women to their machines.
Hoover upended a woman in her chair as she scrambled to follow the two-foot-tall orange humanoid. The homunculus was fast like a cat on speed, where the Malinois was the canine equivalent of a linebacker.
Gunfire continued from forward of their position, both from the Triad members and Laws.
The homunculus launched itself into the air and began to transit the threads that crisscrossed near the ceiling. Like an Escher tightrope maze, as the creature pulled one thread, another tightened. Along the walls, the chests and stomachs of the eviscerated animals opened and closed with each tug and pull, making it seem as if they were coming to life.
Walker had been tracking the creature with his 9mm and got a clear shot. He fired and struck the thing through its leg. The momentum of the bullet sheared the limb free from the homunculus. As the leg went flying, the creature fell heavily to the floor.
But it wouldn’t be stopped.
Like a punch-drunk fighter, it pulled itself to one foot and locked its gaze on Walker. A tiny mouth with dozens of piranha-like teeth hissed at him. It staggered forward with outstretched arms, recognizing Walker as its tormentor. Then Hoover came flying through the air, grabbing it by the back of its neck. The dog shook the homunculus until it stopped moving.
Meanwhile, Holmes edged forward and joined Laws. They stacked on either side of a doorway, descending to what had to be a basement. Ruiz helped Fratty to his feet, while Walker crept forward.
Holmes fired.
Another cry went up from one of the Triad members.
Walker charged down the stairs. One large Triad member stood, reloading his 9mm. He looked up at the same time Walker put two in his chest and one in his head.
Walker paused at the bottom of the stairs and glanced left and right. A single room with a couch, a table and some chairs, several cots with wadded blankets, and a television with slippery vertical hold. Three cigarettes still burned in an ashtray. Beside these sat Styrofoam cups filled with warm tea. Box lunches lay decimated at one end of the table.
If this was a place for the enforcers to wait, then there had to be two more things that he wasn’t seeing. One was a bathroom, and the other was a method of communicating with the outside. There could also be another exit. He took a step forward, then was roughly grabbed from behind.
“What the hell are you doing, SEAL?” Holmes wasn’t asking a question. “You wanna be a cowboy, go buy a horse. You wanna be a SEAL, follow my lead.”
Walker jerked his arm free. “He was reloading. I saw it and made my move.”
“You don’t have the right to make a move. We operate as a team. No individuals here.” Holmes glanced around. “Stay right here. Ruiz, you got our six?”
“Got it. Hoover took a bite out of the homunculus. I set wires across the stairs.”
“Good. Keep the dog away from the creature, please. Last time she ate one, she shit orange for a week.”
“Skipper? What about the women?” Fratty asked.
“What about them?”
Laws bent down to check the two Triad enforcers without holes in their heads. “We got a live one.”
“Fratty, leave the women for now. We’ll make sure a cleanup team comes and takes care of them.”
8
CHINESE SWEATSHOP.
Walker stayed where he was told, but he was fuming over Holmes’s treatment. He could feel the tickling of his cheeks as they burned red with embarrassment. But now he heard something that took his mind off of his own plight. What was it they were going to do with the women?
Before he had a chance to get an answer to his question, Laws had the live Triad enforcer by the back of the neck. He tossed the man into one of the chairs. Yanking his arms behind his back, Laws took flex-cuffs from his utility pocket and ratcheted the man’s hands together.
