Dead Six

“That’s not an option.”

VALENTINE

We paused for a moment, allowing our eyes to adjust to the darkness. We were in the warehouse. I slid my sunglasses up onto my head and pressed onward. The small side door we’d come through led into the main room of the warehouse, but it was stacked from floor to ceiling with racks and shelves full of boxes. Voices could be heard echoing through the building, but we couldn’t see anyone.

We crouched down and quietly weaved our way through the maze of racks and crates. The roll-up door at the north end of the warehouse was open to the docks, flooding the center of the floor in brilliant daylight. Above that door was a metal catwalk. There was someone up there. We’d have to take him out before Hudson and Byrne came in, otherwise he’d be above and behind them as they entered from the other side of the building.

I came to a spot where I could see the main floor through a narrow gap between two crates on the shelf in front of me. Tailor had his 1911 Operator drawn and watched my back as I tried to ID my target.

There were at least four more men in the building aside from the man on the catwalk. Two of them were standing off to the side, in the shadows, probably more bodyguards. The other two men were more interesting.

One of them was a fit-looking man wearing a soccer jersey and jeans. He had on sunglasses and had a scruffy, unshaven face, so I couldn’t get a good look at him. A backpack was slung over his shoulder.

The other man was facing away from me. He wore a dark suit and had a lit cigarette in his hand. I couldn’t quite make out what he was saying over the noises of the city and the harbor, but he was discussing something with the man in the soccer jersey. He paced as he talked, and turned around so I could see his face. There was no doubt about it. It was Jalal Hosani. I looked over at Tailor and nodded. Through hand signals, I told Tailor I was going to shoot Hosani from our current position. Hosani was only about fifty feet away, I could make the shot easily. Tailor told me he’d cover the catwalk.

I aimed my revolver through the gap in the crates, placing the tritium front sight on Jalal Hosani’s chest. I wasn’t going to attempt a head shot at this range. If he was wearing a vest, the impact of a fat .44 hollow point would still probably break some ribs. Hudson and Byrne would be in the building before he could get away.

Hosani turned away to face the man in the soccer jersey. I adjusted my sight picture and aimed in between his shoulder blades as Jersey Guy tossed him a backpack. Hosani opened the bag and rifled through it. My finger moved to the trigger. I exhaled.

LORENZO

Jalal took a long drag off of his cigarette and shook his head as he exhaled. “Very well, my friend. It’s your funeral, as they say. For my part, I—” Jalal’s white shirt exploded in a spray of red, and a sledgehammer weight collided with my chest.

Jalal’s blood was on my face, in my eyes, and I could taste it in my mouth. He collapsed into me, clawing at my shirt, but he was already dead and didn’t even know it yet. I stumbled and fell, taking us both to the concrete. The bullet that had torn through his torso was stuck in my vest, and waves of pain radiated out from the bruised tissue underneath.

There was more shooting. Muzzle flashes back and forth across the warehouse as Hosani’s guards went down, one after the other. There was a scream from above, and the man on the catwalk flipped over the edge and landed a few yards away, bones audibly cracking on impact.

It was the shooter from Adar’s video, the tall one with the .44. He was moving smoothly down the aisle of crates. He had this calm look on his face, just kind of concentrating, like he was reading an interesting book or something. I shoved the twitching corpse off and jerked my pistol out. I didn’t have a shot. He caught the movement and ducked down as I started cranking off rounds. My bullets flung splinters from the surrounding boxes as I scrambled to my feet. I kept firing, forcing him to keep his head down as I moved.

I flinched as a bullet impacted a support beam right next to me. There were multiple shooters. Jerking my head in the direction of the shot, I saw the shorter man from the Adar video vaulting over a railing. He disappeared between the crates. Now I had at least two of them hunting me.

I slid to my knees behind a crate. “Carl! Dead Six is here!” I instantly dropped the mag, stuffed the partially expended one in my pocket, and slammed a new one home. Pain radiated through my chest with every breath, and that was even after the bullet had zipped through Hosani. That wasn’t a pistol, that was a cannon.

There was movement in the sunlight at the open dock door as someone else swept inside. I have to get out of here. There was a door to the side, offices or something. I leapt to my feet and sprinted through the doorway. It was a hallway, several doors branching off in each direction. Shit. Speeding right to the last door, I discovered it was locked. I took a step back and kicked it open, flinging it open with a bang. It was just a janitor’s closet. No windows. No exit. The shooters were moving up behind me. I was trapped.

VALENTINE

Wooden crates splintered and fragmented above me as I ducked behind a crate and hoped that its contents were substantial enough to stop handgun fire. The man in the soccer jersey had spotted me.

I reloaded, punching my revolver’s ejector rod and twisting a new speed loader into the cylinder. I then squeezed my radio’s transmit button. “Xbox, I’m pinned down! Get this guy off me!”

“I’m on it!” Tailor replied. Seconds later more gunshots echoed through the warehouse as Tailor opened up with his .45. “You can move!”

“Roger! Moving!” I replied, coming to my feet again. I snaked through the maze of crates and shelves, revolver held out in front of me in both hands as I moved.

“Xbox, Shafter, we’re entering now!” Hudson said over the radio. Tailor acknowledged him, and I wondered what in the hell had taken Hudson so long. I realized then that it had only been a minute since I’d fired the first shot.

“I’ve lost that shooter!” Tailor snarled, frustration obvious in his voice. In less than a minute we’d wiped out all of Hosani’s guards except one. It kind of pissed me off, too.

I cleared the maze of crates and found myself in the open area in the middle of the warehouse. Jalal Hosani’s corpse lay splayed out on the floor in a large pool of blood, a ragged hole between his shoulder blades.

“Careful,” Tailor warned as Hudson and Byrne approached. “We still got one shooter out there, the guy in the jersey.”

“Which way did he go?” I asked, kicking Hosani’s corpse to make sure he was dead. He was. I dropped an Ace of Spades onto his back.

“You two,” Tailor said, pointing at Hudson, “cover us. Val, follow me, I think he went through this door.” The four of us split into pairs again. Hudson and Byrne exited the way they’d come in, through the open dock door. Tailor extended his 1911 and led me behind another shelf of crates, through a door that was hidden behind it.

It led to a short hallway. Our two teammates stayed behind, covering the doorway while Tailor and I made our way down, weapons at the ready. There were two doors on one side and one door on the other, but all three were closed. At the end of the hallway, there was a partially open door. A small sign above the door read Custodian in English and Arabic. It was a janitor’s closet. A backpack with a broken strap lay on the floor, a few feet from the door.

My eyes caught a flash of movement in the darkened closet. Tailor and I spread out to either side of the hallway and continued to inch forward. We were wide open, and doorways were fatal funnels.

Shit, I thought bitterly. I wish we had grenades.

“Hey! Why don’t you come out and die like man?” I shouted. I looked over at Tailor and shrugged. When all