'Hold it!' The guard aimed his pistol at Kilgore. I seized his moment of distraction to swing my right leg around. I caught the guard's ankle in midstride, cutting his feet out from under him. He careened into the rack, snapping the neck off a wine bottle with the side of his head.
Amid a cascade of other bottles dislodged by his impact, the guard fired a single shot, then hit the floor hard. His shot hit the tile; the slug shattered and seeded the air with shrapnel. An instant later, the glass doors developed a web of spider cracks; to the right of the door, blood appeared on the guard's forehead. His hand went up instantly to explore the wound as the blood trickled down into his eyes.
I wrestled myself up as Kilgore kicked the fallen guard's pistol away.
'Brad!' Rex's voice sounded from beyond the wine racks.
'Rex?'
'Over here!'
Kilgore and I ran toward Rex as well as anyone can run with their hands cuffed at the small of their back. We bypassed the stunned guard on the floor, came around the corner, and nearly tripped over a guard on his knees, swaying back and forth as he screamed and rubbed at his face. The smell of bear repellent surrounded him and brought tears to our eyes. His gun lay on the floor and I kicked it.
At the far end of the long wine rack, Rex and Dan Gabriel manhandled the guard with the wounded forehead to the floor and bound him with his own cuffs. Rex then squatted dawn, using the wine racks as cover, and peered toward the double glass doors. Gabriel picked up the man's pistol and ran toward us.
About halfway between me and Rex, I saw an old man I assumed was Frank Harper holding unsteadily to the sides of a jagged hole in the wall. He looked back and forth, following the action, smiling broadly and making deep approving nods. The head movements made him look like an elderly bobblehead.
'Jack!' Gabriel said as he slapped Kilgore on the shoulder, then me. You must be the Stone guy who started it all. Let's get you out of those cuffs.' Swiftly, he grabbed the cuffs from the bear-sprayed guard and ratcheted them on the man's wrists. Then, without taking his eyes off the end of the long wine rack, he dug through the guard's pockets, retrieved the cuff key, and handed it to me.
'Unlock Jack for me, will you?'
I quickly unlocked Kilgore's cuffs, and he returned the favor.
'Bogey at your end!' Rex yelled. Then we heard him fire his pistol. Bottles exploded beside me. I lunged for the fallen guard's nearby pistol faster than Kilgore and came up with it at the ready. I fired a shot through the rack of wine at a shadow on the other side. More red wine and shattered glass.
I ducked as the man fired back. I was close enough to read the label on a bottle of 1897 Chateau Margaux when it erupted like a grenade. The air hung thick with the pricey aroma of collectible claret laced with the acrid notes of smokeless gunpowder. I'm pretty sure it's not a wine nose ever described by The Wine Speculator.
Then more wine bottles went off like roadside bombs as the man fired wildly at us.
Kilgore moved to the end of the rack nearest the elevators. He pulled a bottle from the rack and pantomimed that he would throw it over the top as a distraction. He motioned me to join Gabriel at the other end. I ran carefully, to avoid slipping on the spilled wine and glass. My running steps drew more shots; more classified first-growth Bordeaux wine turned to glassy slush.
As soon as I joined Gabriel, Kilgore lobbed the bottle over the top.
When it hit the floor, Gabriel and I came around and saw the third guard, his face covered with blood, whirling toward the shattering of the wine bottle.
'Drop it! We don't want to hurt you,' Gabriel shouted.
The guard froze, but did not drop his gun.
'Don't do anything stupid!' Rex yelled from across the cellar, where he had run to get out of our line of fire.
Kilgore motioned me around. I followed his direction and positioned myself so I had a third clean line of sight.
'Come on,' Kilgore said more calmly now. 'You are totally triangulated. Any one of us has a clear shot. Don't do anything foolish you might regret.'
During his indecisive moment of silence, I felt my heart beating and listened to the dripping of wine. Then like lightning from a clear sky, came a voice I had heard many times on television.
'One might say the same of you, Jack!'
Clark Braxton's voice preceded a soft-crepe thunder that filled the cellar with the shuffling of SWAT-clad troops with M16s, soft-rubbersoled boots, and perfectly secured gear that had made no sound at all.
CHAPTER 97
'Let's play our cards,' Jasmine said as she turned away from the laptop screen. Tyrone hesitated, transfixed at the vision of Braxton and his body-armored security guards. Jasmine grabbed his sleeve and dragged him out of the pickup's cab. 'Let's get airborne.'
Tyrone and Jasmine connected the auxiliary wires and quickly got the first small aircraft off the ground. With her eyes on the small plane and her hands on the control joysticks, Jasmine sidled back to the cab of the truck.
'Now get the camera that looks out the window,' Jasmine said. 'The one which almost showed us.' She looked up at the small aircraft. 'Let me know when you see the airplane on the camera, then guide me in.' Tyrone scrambled back into the cab.
'Oh, hell,' Tyrone said when be got back behind the keyboard. 'You are not going to believe what Braxton just did!'
Dressed in a tuxedo and patent-leather shoes that threw off light like a mirror, Clark Braxton's face twisted itself deep and red with a fury rolling off him like a shock wave. His hands trembled at his side as he surveyed the enological carnage.
Braxton's big security chief stood at his side, silhouetted against the last orange hues of the smoke-stained sunset bleeding through the distant window. I had no doubt he and Braxton would use this as the escape attempt they needed as an excuse to kill us.
Braxton's fists and arms trembled as he surveyed the wreckage. His eyes passed through anger and fury, then began to reflect light in a manner that grew truly frightening.
Unaware of his boss's gathering rage, the big security chief barked orders at his men. At the corner of my eye, I saw Rex duck around the corner of the wine rack,
'Stop!' The security chief yelled after Rex and directed two of his men to pursue him. As the other troops fanned out and took our weapons, I heard Rex and Harper.
'Come on!' Rex said 'Quick.'
'No. You go.'
'Move, Doc!'
'I'm too slow. You go.'
'Hell!'
I heard the report of Rex's 9mm pistol followed by a three-round burst from one of the M16s, Then another 9mm shot.
'Damn! I'm hit,' cried a voice. Not Rex's.
The security chief directed another man toward the action. 'It's okay,' called the wounded man. 'My vest caught it.'
Then another voice: 'There's a hole in the wall. Shall I pursue?'
'Negative!' yelled the security chief. 'It leads to the barrel cellar. We've got a man posted there. Stay here; make sure nobody comes out.'
'Sir!'
Braxton knelt on one knee to examine a broken wine bottle as a guard dragged Frank Harper around the corner. Braxton stood slowly, looking at the broken wine bottle like a mother holding her dead child. His entire body
