Dead Six

dust.

One of the others running full tilt toward the building caught a round in the chest and almost did a cartwheel into the dirt. With my hearing protection in I couldn’t hear the distant crack of Bob’s suppressed rifle, but I knew it was him. Another shooter, one of Gordon’s men, had drawn his pistol and was about to open the door to the cinder-block building. Before I could drop the hammer on him his head exploded into a red cloud, and down he went. Bob again. Damn. Dude knows how to shoot!

The others had turned around and were running back toward their vehicles. I fired at one of them and missed, leading him too much. But he froze when he saw the bullet impact the dirt, like a deer in the headlights. I squeezed the trigger again, and down he went. Scanning through my scope for targets, I lined up one of the new guys just in time to see a muzzle flash. Sand and tiny pebbles hit my face as his bullet impacted the dirt a few feet from me. I ducked back down into the ravine and was out of his line of sight, but more and more bullets snapped overhead and hit the rocks around us. Off to the side, Hawk slid into the gulley, calmly rocking a new magazine into his rifle.

Reaper was to my left, trying to become one with the earth. His already pale skin had gone white, and he had a death grip on his little shotgun. I could tell that this really wasn’t his cup of tea. Honestly? I wasn’t exactly having the time of my life, either, but there are worse ways to spend your time.

I got on my radio. “Bob, they got me pinned down. Help me out here.”

“Roger,” was all Bob said in response. A moment later, he spoke up again. “Hey, Nightcrawler . . . I got another one, but the rest are hunkered down pretty good. If you follow that ravine, it works its way down the hill and it’ll get you closer.” I signaled Hawk and used my hands to indicate for him to cover us. “It looks shallow as you get to the bottom, but there are some big rocks down there that’ll give you cover. You’ll come out pretty close to the corner of the building. Just make sure you watch both sides. Guys could come around the building either way. You up for it? I can’t get Lorenzo on the radio.”

“Roger. Moving.” I looked over at Reaper. “You ready?” He looked back at me, eyes wide but full of surprising determination. He nodded. “Alright, then. Follow me.”

Hawk popped back up, firing, trying to keep the bad guy’s heads down as Reaper and I moved. We snaked our way down the ravine, trying to stay out of sight. I could barely hear the occasional snap of a rifle bullet coming from Bob’s position, always followed by sporadic, sometimes automatic, weapons fire in response. They didn’t know where he was, and he was picking them off one by one.

We made it to the rocks at the bottom of the hill. We had to crawl from the end of the ravine, little more than a shallow gulley at this point, to the rocks. Reaper followed close, breathing hard and sweating heavily in his black trench coat. I crawled to the far left edge of the rocks, still in the prone. I was very close to the cinder-block building, and there was only one door on the side that was facing me. I also now had a clear view of the men taking cover behind the SUV, busily shooting at Hawk’s position.

I snapped off a shot, and one of the men fell. The other surprised me by how quickly he reacted and returned fire. I pushed myself back behind the rocks while he popped shot after shot off at us. He suddenly shifted his fire back toward Bob’s position after a near-miss from my sniper overwatch. I rolled out from the side of the boulder and fired twice. “He’s down,” I said into my radio.

I was about to make a dash for the door when one of Gordon’s men came around the corner of the building to my left. He fired a burst at me. The bullets impacted the rocks, sending dust and debris flying. I let myself fall to the ground and scrambled behind cover. A second burst narrowly missed me, and a third one peppered the rocks I was now hiding behind.

I moved to my right and came up firing. My rounds hit the ground and the wall near the government guy just as he disappeared back around the corner. I held my fire but kept my sights on where he was. He’d either come back out or circle back around the building. Hawk was covering my right flank, so I wasn’t worried about that. Sure enough, he did a quick peek, broadcasting to me where he was. As soon as he stepped around the corner, I opened up on him. At least three of my rounds tore through him.

I ducked back behind the boulder. “How are you doing?” I asked Reaper as I removed the nearly spent magazine from my rifle. He just nodded at me as I pulled another one from my vest and locked it into position. “Okay,” I said, “head for the door.”

I dashed from behind the rocks with Reaper right behind me, running so fast that we smacked into the wall. I pointed down the wall of the building, indicating to Reaper that he needed to watch that corner. Reaching down, I tried the handle. The old door wasn’t locked, but it was stuck.

Subtlety was never my strong point. I nodded at Reaper and kicked the door in.

LORENZO

I threw open the door, taking in the scene in an instant. There was Eduard Montalban standing in the filthy abandoned garage. Next to him was the hulking Fat Man, who looked like Moby Dick in his white suit. Eddie was wearing a silk shirt, Flock of Seagulls hair combed high, little yippy white poodle-dog under one arm, the smirk on his face turning to disbelief as he saw me. Gordon and one of his men had their backs to me and were just beginning to turn as they saw Eddie’s shock. Both sides had several goons arrayed across the room, but none of them would be fast enough to stop me.

The grenade left my hand, spoon popping off in mid-flight. “Hey, Eddie,” I stated as the grenade struck the concrete floor, bounced, and spun between Gordon’s legs.

“Bloody hell!” Eddie shrieked. The poodle started barking.

Chaos. The Fat Man was far faster than he looked. He spun about, one massive arm sweeping Eddie up, lifting his employer and shielding him as they dove away. Gordon acted in pure instinctive self-preservation, one hand coming up, grabbing the government man next to him by the necktie, and yanking hard. The man, taken by surprise, toppled over on top of the grenade as Gordon hurled himself into the old oil pit.

I ducked back around the corner.

THUMP.

I felt the pressure in my teeth. Gordon’s guard absorbed most of the blast and saved the others. The walls were sprayed like a red Jackson Pollock. Decades of dust and cobwebs were dislodged from the ceiling, obscuring everything.

Jill pulled her fingers out of her ears and actually smiled at me. I motioned for her to stay put before taking a quick peek through the doorway. The windows had all been shattered. Dust whirled. One of the goons was screaming. There was gunfire coming from outside.

Something moved in a pile of dust. The Fat Man. The back of his white suit coat was shredded and burned. Small spatters and trickles of blood covered his back. He pushed himself up with one arm, Eddie still held protectively beneath him. I raised my AR, taking the safety off, finger moving onto the trigger, red dot settling on the Fat Man’s back.

The wall next to me exploded in a shower of cinder fragments, and I jerked the trigger as I cringed, missing my target entirely. Something sliced hot across my cheek and I fell into the back room, bullets screaming through the doorway overhead. I scrambled to the side as the floor erupted into dust.

“Lorenzo!” Jill shouted as I rolled toward her. She raised the MP5 and fired out the doorway. A man cried out in pain.

Still prone, I leaned around the doorway and spotted a government man moving through the dust, firing his M4 at us. Jill shot again, and the man stumbled. “They’ve got vests on!” I shouted as I put the Aimpoint on him and cranked off several quick shots. Soft armor would stop her 9mm, but not my 5.56. He fell to his knees and Jill’s third shot hit him in the bridge of the nose. I scrambled farther out, searching for Eddie.

The spot where the Fat Man had fallen was empty.

“Shit!” I shouted. More shapes were appearing in the dust. I fired at anything that moved. That damn poodle was still barking. Bullets impacted our wall, digging fierce pits into the cinder-blocks, or skipped across the concrete and smashed our room into debris.

Flipping the selector to auto, I emptied the rest of my magazine into the confusion, then rolled inside,