The middle of the front half of the roof came down but the opposite ends held, the reinforced corner beams staying upright and bearing their load. Jack thought the debris had stopped falling but then another heap came cascading down.
The overhead lights stayed on, so the power source hadn’t been cut. That was a break. Jack didn’t fancy playing a deadly game of hide-and-go-kill in the dark.
The engine had stalled out. Jack unfastened his seat belt harness and grabbed the riot shotgun by the stock. His left hand gripped the door handle and pulled. The door opened but only a foot or so before stopping, jammed in place by fallen rubble.
He put his shoulder to the door and his weight behind it and tried again, forcing the door open wide enough so he could get out. He put his foot out preparatory to climbing down from the cab. A piece of plaster the size of a card table top fell from above, shattering against the top of the door.
Jack pulled back but the reflex action would have been too late to save him if he’d tried to dismount a heartbeat sooner. He ducked out the open door, dragging the shotgun across the seat with him. The pump-action weapon had a cut-down muzzle and stock, making it the length of a long baton.
An arm stuck out from under the truck. It was still attached to its dead owner. Jack was careful not to step on it, not out of squeamishness but because the footing was uncertain enough without it.
The floor was an obstacle course of holes in the floorboards and piles of rubble. Plaster dust streamed down from above by the handful, powdering him with white particles and flecks. Clouds of the stuff roiled and swirled in the hall like a fog bank rolling in. Dry fog.
Jack moved in a crouch, shotgun leveled. He tried to step carefully but lost his footing on a broken plank and sat down hard. Someone deeper in the hall squirted a burst of autofire in his direction but it missed and passed over his head. He couldn’t tell where it had come from, not with the streaming, billowing bank of white particles in midair obscuring his view.
He picked up a piece of plaster and scaled it off to one side. The oldest gag in the book, but it stayed in the book because it worked. The phantom shooter opened fire at the sound of the plaster hitting the floor.
Streaking muzzle flares revealed a ghostly outline of a figure off to Jack’s right. Jack loosed a shotgun blast at it, held down the trigger and pumped several more blasts at it. A scream choked off and a body hit the floor, leaving only swirling white dust where the figure had stood.
Jack thought he’d got him but he had to be sure. He advanced slowly, picking his way through the mounds of debris heaped on the floor. He held the shotgun in both hands, leveled at his waist, ready to respond to any sudden threat. The debris lessened as he moved farther away from the front wall. The plaster dust was starting to settle, the white clouds thinning and breaking up.
A dark form lay sprawled on the floor in the area where Jack had fired at his assailant. He approached it cautiously in case the other was shamming, playing possum to take Jack by surprise. He neared the body and saw there was no worry about that. This opponent wasn’t coming back for another round, not with the damage the shotgun had done to him.
Footfalls scuttled through disturbed debris behind him. Jack spun, ready to cut loose. A figure jumped up and ran outside through the open doorway. He was out before Jack had a shot at him.
The fugitive ran into a blast of gunfire. A scream sounded, more gunshots, and then the sound of a body hitting the boardwalk.
Jack had no desire to be shot by his allies so he hung back to one side out of the potential line of fire offered by the doorway. “Griff! Rowdy!”
Griff called back, “That you, dude?”
“Yeah!”
“What’s happening?”
“It looks clear in here but keep your guard up.”
“I always do, man. I’m coming in so don’t shoot.”
“Don’t you shoot, either.”
Griff came through the doorway, a gun in each hand. He circled a tangle of broken beams, sidling close to the passenger side of the truck. He stopped short, looking down at something and muttering a stifled exclamation. Jack couldn’t see what it was from where he was standing.
Griff pointed his gun downward and fired once. Jack said, “Why’d you shoot?”
Griff said, “A guy was crushed under the rear wheel. He was still alive. It was a mercy killing.” He looked up, looked around. “Did we get ’em all?”
Jack said, “The ones in here? I think so, but don’t take any chances. There might be one or two that we missed.”
Griff scanned the scene, taking in the damages. “You really brought down the house, man.”
“I did what I had to do.”
“That’s cool. I’m into overkill myself.”
“Where’s Rowdy? Did he make it?”
“Sure. He’s indestructible, the big bastard.”
Rowdy entered. He gave Jack a dirty look. “You almost ran me over, man!”
Jack said, “Sorry.”
“Sorry don’t cut it. Next time watch where you’re driving.”
Griff said, “Lighten up, bro. Save it for Reb.”
“Where’s Weld? He ain’t here. I know, I checked all the bodies while I was making sure they was dead.”
Jack said, “Were they?”
Rowdy smiled nastily. “When I left ’em, yeah.”
Griff said, “Dude, where’s the Rebel? We got us a score to settle with him.”
“You and me both,” Jack said. “This was his rear guard. They had to be neutralized before we can take him.”
Griff smirked. ‘ “Neutralized.’ That’s a good one. Maybe you really are a secret agent, the way you talk.”
Jack let that one pass. It didn’t matter who or what the bikers thought he was. The way to motivate them was to keep their eyes on the prize.
He said, “Reb and his kill squad have already left, gone to Sky Mount on their mission of destruction. That’s where we’ll find them for the showdown: Sky Mount.”
22. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 12 A.M. AND 1 A.M. MOUNTAIN DAYLIGHT TIME
Rowdy said, “Look at all the goodies!”
The enemy kill squad had used the long house as their headquarters. The long house had been a mess hall back in the days when Winnetou had been a summer camp. Two-thirds of its space made up the dining area and the remainder the kitchen.
The kitchen had been pressed into service as the killers’ command center. Long tables that had once been used for food preparation were now crowded with maps, charts, and diagrams, most of them depicting various aspects of Sky Mount’s mansion and grounds. A wall-mounted pantry cabinet held five silenced machine pistols and ammunition for them, the “goodies” to which Rowdy was referring.
Jack Bauer took down one of the weapons from the cabinet pegs that held it and examined it. It was a modern-day Central European — made knockoff of the classic Ingram MAC–10 and MAC–11 submachine guns. SMGs. The lightweight piece was square, boxy, and fitted with a collapsible metal tube stock. With the stock folded down the weapon wasn’t much larger or heavier than a conventional semi-automatic pistol. It was chambered for.9mm rounds.
The silencer was the size and shape of the internal cardboard roller inside a wad of paper towels, only rendered in metal.
Jack attached it to the short, snouty gun muzzle. He slapped a magazine clip into the receiver, locked and
