Flashback

it out in the darkness, he heard Coyne ratchet back something on the flechette sprayer—a safety, most probably. The next sound he heard would have to be his last…

“He’s here!” shouted Monk. “The limo’s here.”

“What?” whispered back Coyne. “Too early. Another three minutes…” Their leader had obviously been watching his expensive watch.

“He’s getting out!” shouted Gene D. There was no attempt to stay silent now.

The padlock was unlocked, the chain off, and now six of the boys stumbled over themselves reaching for the four-foot-long pieces of rebar they’d propped against the wall under the sewer opening. These short metal poles were the way they’d practiced swinging the steel panels open in the early hours of the morning, with Monk or Dinjin outside and ready to run forward and push the doors back in place.

“It’s him!” screeched Sully at one of the slits. “Omura!”

“Shut up! Shut up!” whispered Coyne, but it was too late to control things now. Events were creating themselves.

At least the OAO Izhmash wasn’t aimed at his head any longer. Val took a breath and began crawling away, slithering on his back toward the darker areas yards away from the opening.

The boys had practiced pushing the panels open smoothly, working together, but now they were banging and prodding almost at random, rebar against flat steel. The panels screeched, scraped, began to open. Light from streetlamps, car headlights, TV lights, and photography flashes flooded into their tunnel and almost blinded eight pairs of eyes that had adapted themselves to near-total darkness.

“Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!” Cruncher was shouting, fumbling to pull back the hammer on his heavy .357 Magnum.

“No, wait, wait, wait!” shouted Coyne.

What does he have planned? Val wondered dumbly. Whatever it was, he couldn’t wait around to find out. He stumbled to his feet and ran toward the curve in the sewer tunnel.

“Fucker!” screamed Coyne and fired the flechette sweeper at him.

The other boys took that as an order to open fire. The sound of six weapons firing at once was absolutely deafening in the echoing cement and concrete vault. Gene D. didn’t even have the right-side panel fully open yet, and sparks leaped off the steel. The rest of the boys shoved and jostled to fire through the four feet or so of open space between the partially opened shutters.

Val had ducked around the abutment in the turning tunnel just as Coyne had fired and fifty or more barbed flechettes sparked against the walls and continued ricocheting down the long passageway. If Val hadn’t made the turn just when he had, he’d be dead. If he’d continued running, the barbs would have shredded him in full flight and he’d be dead.

Then Coyne was shouting with the others and obviously firing out through the gap in the shutters, pushing other boys in front of him even as he did so. Val knew this because—even though he knew it was the most stupid thing he could do—he had to see what was going on and he’d peeked around the barb- gouged corner.

Someone, probably Omura’s security, was firing back. Val saw Toohey’s shaven head explode in a red and gray mist and the slim boy’s body tumbled against Cruncher and went down. Dinjin screamed something and then he was hit and his body went down like a sack of potatoes. There was none of the dramatic flying backward that Val had seen in a million movies, just a deadly, final, sickening drop when a boy was hit.

“Keep shooting! Keep shooting!” screamed Coyne in a weird falsetto. Even as he backed away from the opening, he was lowering his flechette sweeper toward the huddled backs of his screaming, shooting friends.

Fuck this. Val turned and ran as hard as he could. It took bouncing off a cement wall at the first branching of the tunnel to make him realize that he’d dropped and forgotten his flashlight. He’d been running blind in the darkness. He had to turn left along a narrow side tunnel at the next branching, but he’d never even find the branching in this darkness. He was screwed.

He’d picked himself up and was shaking his head when there came a flash brighter than the sun and then a sound louder and more terrible than anything Val Fox had ever heard. A blast wave picked him up and threw him fifteen feet down the main corridor. He was only vaguely aware of losing skin on his knees and elbows as he hit and slid on cement, his jeans and sweatshirt ripping.

Flame billowed and blossomed around the first turn in the tunnel behind him. Val glimpsed a scarecrow silhouette throwing itself aside right where Val had hidden a few seconds earlier, and then the second shock wave hit him and rolled him another ten feet down the black corridor.

He could see now.

Val pulled the ski mask off and tugged the Beretta from his waistband. The pistol was under the wool as he ran. The storm drain was illuminated red and orange by unseen flames, Val’s shadow leaping ahead of him as he ran for his life, ducking rebar hanging down here and there, listening to the chaos still exploding thirty yards behind.

Somebody from outside must have fired an RPG or something. Or something. There was no way that any of the boys still in that first section of the drain could be alive after that.

Men’s shouts. More shots. Security people or cops or military were inside the drain with him. Their clever idea of keeping them out by leaving the interior grate rebar in place hadn’t worked for thirty seconds. Someone had just blown the shit out of the steel panels, rebar grate, boys’ bodies, everything.

And now they were inside.

Val was running so hard and panting so loudly that he almost tore right past the narrow defile extending to the left of the main drain passage. He skidded, sneaker soles screeching, and doubled back and in.

The flames were receding behind him, and this narrow passage—barely wide enough for his shoulders—was dark.

To get to the higher drain and eventual exit, he had to find the narrow, round opening above him with the metal rungs. But he’d never see it in this blackness.

More shouts. Men were running past his side passage now, shooting ahead of themselves down the tunnel. They had machine guns.

Of course they have machine guns, dipshit.

The best Val could do to find his vertical pipeline was to keep jumping every few paces, dragging his free left hand along the roof. He was still carrying his ski mask and Beretta in his right hand. The odds of missing the small aperture were great, but he was goddamned if he was going to slow down.

Problem was, he’d checked out this sewer drain and it dead-ended about thirty yards beyond the vertical access he needed.

More shouts behind him. Footsteps on cement. Lots of men running. A voice echoed down his passage, although he couldn’t tell what the man was screaming.

They’re all dead. Coyne, Monk, Gene D., Sully, Toohey, Cruncher, Dinjin. All dead.

The fingers of his left hand flicked against nothingness.

Val skidded to a stop, stepped back, jumped and swung his left arm vertically, guessed where the rungs must be, and leaped blindly.

His left hand caught a rung but his weight almost pulled his shoulder out of its socket. He dropped the Beretta and mask, caught both of them against his rising thigh, grabbed them clumsily in the darkness, and used that hand to find the next rung, fighting not to drop the gun again even as three fingers on his right hand gripped the rung.

He was climbing, his feet found rungs, and he was up. Val heaved himself onto the dry concrete of the higher passage that headed east and he could feel his breath puffing dust up against his face.

Bleeding, hurting—although he was fairly sure that none of the barbed flechettes had caught him—Val struggled to his feet and began staggering down the corridor with his left hand sliding against the south wall of the tunnel. Thank God it only went one way from the vertical standpipe he’d come up. If he’d had to choose directions in this total darkness, he would have been lost for sure.

Val was less than a hundred feet down the tunnel when he heard a slipping, sliding noise behind and to his