Dead Six (72 page)

Bob was saying something over the radio, sounding scared, but I couldn’t understand him over the beating pulse in my head. Gordon had to die first; then I could care about everyone else’s business. I reached the doorway. I pulled up against the frame and flashed my weapon light before stepping through.
Clear.

I stepped forward and was immediately cracked across the chest with a 2x4. I lurched back, disoriented, and fell to the ground. The man was on top of me in an instant. I raised my hands to protect my head as began to bludgeon me with the board.

My attacker swung again. The board struck my arm, and shocking pain flooded all the way to my shoulder. My arm went numb. I struggled for my pistol, but he slammed the board down on me again. The man raised the 2x4 over his head, meaning to swing it down on me like a sledgehammer. He left an opening. I planted a size-twelve boot right in his nutsack.

He stumbled back, giving me a moment of respite. Before he could recover, someone jumped over me and dove into my attacker. I was dazed. My head was swimming, and it felt like my skull had been split open. I was too dizzy to rise.

I could barely see what was going on. Two men fought viciously in front of me, moving so fast in the dark I couldn’t tell who was who. I then heard Hawk grunt in pain as the two shapes moved apart. There was sudden flash of steel as a knife darted between them. I raised my gun as one of the shapes tottered forward, went to his knees, and fell face-first to the floor.

“Hawk?” I asked. “You okay?”

It took him a second to respond. “Fine,” he grunted as he emerged from the shadows, holding his old Randall knife in one hand. His other hand was clamped against his side. “He stabbed me. Not too bad, though.” Despite his injury, Hawk helped me to my feet. I wobbled but was able to stand.

Is it Gordon?
My deceased attacker was wearing a suit and was about the right size. I swung my rifle around and thumbed on my flashlight. I don’t know who the man was, but it wasn’t Gordon Willis. Probably one of his flunkies. The side of his neck had been split open from his collarbone to his ear.
Damn.
Hawk spat.

Gunfire echoed from the direction of the garage. Beyond that I could hear the noise of an engine turning over.

Gordon was getting away.

LORENZO

Reaper was in front now as we hurried back toward the garage, trying to stay in the shadows as much as possible. We could see a stream of tracers flying from the side of the garage up into the hillside where we had left Bob. I stumbled along, one arm over Jill’s shoulder as she kept me upright. The mess hall was burning bright, and the flames had spread to the surrounding buildings. The camp was coming down.

I avoided taking a mental inventory of my injuries. Nothing seemed to be bleeding very fast.

We all instinctively ducked as we were suddenly illuminated by car headlights. Somebody had made it back to the vehicles. There was a sudden roar from a powerful engine, and one of the Suburbans sprayed gravel as it turned around and tore away from us.

That’s when I saw Valentine emerge from one of the buildings on the other side of the horseshoe. “
Gordon!”
he screamed, running right into the middle of the road, oblivious to danger. He snapped his FAL to his shoulder and fired at the Suburban. Several holes were punched in the back of the SUV before Valentine’s bolt locked back. He rapidly reloaded, once again flinging the empty magazine away and rocking in a new one, but it was too late. By the time he dropped the bolt on a live round, the Suburban had dipped into a gully and disappeared from view.

Valentine slowly lowered his rifle. He stood there quietly, seething, staring at the horizon as if he could will the Suburban to come back. Hawk appeared behind him, limping badly. His rifle was slung, his .44 dangled from one hand, and his other hand was pressed against a wound on his side.

Hawk caught my look. “Keep moving! I’m fine.” Another burst of machine gun fire tore into the hillside. All of us flinched in that direction.
Bob.
I was running now, the others right behind me. Valentine saw us and followed. My 9mm was at the ready as I moved around the corner of the garage.

The MG3 was braced over the hood of a sedan. A giant white shape was manning the gun, firing short bursts onto a patch of darkened mountain where my brother had gotten pinned down. It was the Fat Man. The back of his white suit was shredded from my grenade. Blood ran from dozens of injuries. Maybe he had on some kind of body armor, or maybe he was just that tough, but somehow the son of a bitch was still alive. I could feel the others behind me, five of us in a row now. I settled my front sight on him and fired, still walking forward.

He grunted, raising the machine gun off the hood of the sedan. I fired again. Valentine’s rifle bucked off to the side. The Fat Man began to turn, surprisingly enough, a strange smile on his face even as our bullets struck home. Jill was shooting her pistol now, cranking off shots as fast as she could pull the trigger. I kept shooting, but impossibly the Fat Man stayed on his feet as bullets puckered into his bloated frame, tearing him apart. Reaper’s buckshot rocked him slightly, sending the MG3’s muzzle into the dirt. I kept firing, front sight tracking back down; now I was shooting for his head. One of Hawk’s .44 slugs erupted through his cheek, and he spit teeth but stayed upright. Still closing, Reaper hit him again, the buckshot in a tighter pattern now, taking the Fat Man’s kneecap off.

His ponderous weight hit the hood, sliding inevitably toward the earth, leaving a trail behind him. He was reaching into his coat, somehow finding the strength to go for his gun. Jill fired her last shots into his neck. He was still smiling a toothless death’s head grin, one eye missing now, as he hit the ground.

“Fucking die already!” Reaper shouted, stepping on the Fat Man’s arm, pinning the gun, extending the stubby 12 gauge toward that nebulous smile.
BOOM BOOM!
Point-blank range. It wasn’t pretty. Reaper stepped back and wiped his arm across his blood-splattered face. “You ain’t coming back now!”

I shoved a fresh magazine into my STI. “Get Bob on the radio.”

“He says he’s okay,” Reaper answered. “And—”

“Down!” Valentine shouted. He was closest to Jill and shoved her aside. I hit the deck as another sedan tore past us, muzzle flashes strobing out the open window, bullets whizzing past. Eddie’s maniacally grinning face was illuminated for a brief instant. He must have gotten into the car while we were distracted by the Fat Man. Hawk fired his .44 one-handed at the speeding car as it bounced down the road. The concussions were deafening, but then the car was around the hillside and out of sight.

“Everybody okay?”

“I think so,” Jill answered from the ground.

“Reaper?”
No answer
. I scrambled over to my friend. He was on his back next to the headless body of the Fat Man. “Reaper? Reaper!”

A bullet had smashed his chest plate. He was bleeding badly from the side of his head. I shook him. He opened his eyes, looked around in confusion, then grimaced. “Ow, shit, that hurts.” He rolled over and put his hands on his skull. “He shot me, and I hit my head on the car. So quit yelling at me! Oh, man, he shot me in the arm too.” Sure enough, there was a wound on his bicep. Jill knelt by his side and put pressure on it. “I hate getting shot!”

“You’ll live,” Jill said.

I could be relieved later. I pulled Reaper’s radio off his vest. “Bob. Can you hear me?”

“
Yeah, bro. I’m good. That was close
.”

Somehow we had all survived. “If you see another car moving down the road, kill the driver.”

“He’s already around the hill. I can’t acquire.”

I swore as I keyed the radio again. “Get down to the road as fast as you can. We’ll pick you up in a minute.”

“
I’m on my way,
” he answered.

I stuffed the radio in my pocket. Valentine had picked up the big MG3 and taken up a defensive position. I started for the closest sedan. The door was unlocked. No keys of course. I whipped out my multitool and cracked open the cover beneath the steering wheel. It took all of thirty seconds to get the car hot-wired, and that was between bouts of violent coughing and blood trickling down my arms and making my hands slippery. The engine turned over as I struck the wires together.

The others were already cramming into the sedan. Valentine had to maneuver the German machine gun to make it fit. The entire prison camp was burning bright now, and we needed to get out of here before the authorities showed up. I slammed the car into gear and floored it as soon as everyone was inside.

The car was dying. Something must have been hit as we were unloading on the Fat Man. All the warning lights were on. The engine was coughing almost as badly as I was. Jill was squished against me, with Bob and his body armor taking up most of the front seat. All of us were filthy, sweating, and half of us were bleeding. Bob’s shocked reaction to seeing me under the car’s interior lights when we had picked him up told me about how horrible I looked.

“We’re almost where we left the vehicles,” Bob stated calmly. He was covered in desert dust. His rifle was between his knees. The fire from the work camp was just a visible glow over the hill behind us.

“Status back there?” I asked. “Hawk? Reaper?”

“It’s a shallow cut.” Hawk had his shirt open and had shoved a pressure bandage on his side. “Nothing bad.”

“The kid’s going to be okay. Bullet grazed his bicep, missed the brachial artery. I’ve got the bleeding under control,” Valentine said from the backseat.

“I suck at this stuff,” Reaper whined. “I keep getting shot.”

“You’ll be fine,” Valentine said flatly.

“Bob, I need you to get these guys out of here before the cops show up. They need medical attention. Think you can handle it?”

“No problem,” my brother answered. I knew that he’d been some sort of medic in the National Guard, an 18 Delta he’d called it. “But I think you need a hospital.”

“It’s better than it looks,” I lied. There were deep lacerations on my face, scalp, and down my arms. My hands were a blood soaked mess. I had first degree burns on much of my body, and from the throbbing nerves down my back and legs I knew that there were some spots that were much worse. I couldn’t stop coughing.

But there was no way in hell Eddie was going to get away.

“
Holy shit!
” Reaper suddenly freaked out. “Look at this! Look at this!”

“Crap. What?”

“I think it’s Eddie’s tablet!” he exclaimed.

“So?”

“He’s
logged
in!” Reaper cackled in glee. I was too out of it to see the significance. Gunshot wound forgotten, Reaper madly started fiddling with the little gizmo. “Oh, now this, I am good at!”

The car died as we rolled into the rest stop. I jumped out and started toward the stolen Explorer. “Where do you think you’re going?” Jill asked.

“After Eddie.” I opened the door. “He told Gordon that he’d flown into a nearby airport.”

Valentine spoke up. “There’s only one around here. It’s not far.”

“You’re injured! You need medical attention!” Jill insisted. She was right, of course. I was running on nothing but adrenaline and anger now.

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “I’ll hook up with you later.” I didn’t want them with me. Gordon had probably notified the authorities, and surely word would reach the cops in Quagmire about the massacre at the old work camp. I grabbed the wheel. My vision was blurred and my head was swimming. Bob was helping Reaper into the back of the G-ride Suburban.

Valentine tossed the keys to his Mustang to Jill. “Follow Bob,” he told her. “And take good care of my car.”

“Lorenzo . . .” Jill trailed off. She was filthy, stupid pink outfit splattered with blood, her hair tangled with dirt, hanging like a dark shadow over half her face, a stolen handgun dangling from one hand.

She was beautiful.

“I know,” I rasped.

Valentine opened the passenger-side door and slid in, maneuvering the big German machine gun to fit between us.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Just
drive
.” He slammed the door.

I pushed the Ford up to a hundred and five. It wouldn’t go any faster. The highway was virtually deserted, and I had the gas pedal floored. I wasn’t worried about being pulled over. God help the stray Highway Patrolman that got between me and Eddie.

Valentine held onto the
oh, shit!
handle as we barreled down the road. I passed a slow-moving semi truck like it was standing still, pulling back into the right-hand lane just in time to avoid hitting another car head on. The Explorer was vibrating like hell.

“We’re almost there,” Valentine said. “This airport has been closed for years. Your guy must’ve had his boys come pick him up. There’s nothing there but a few run-down buildings.”

In the back of my mind, I wondered why Valentine came with me. I doubted he’d tell me if I asked. Just then, my cell phone vibrated, disrupting my thoughts. I pulled it out of my pocket and hit the talk button.

It was Eddie, sounding as shrill and oily as ever. “Ah, Lorenzo. Just checking. I thought that was you I saw standing on the side of the road back there. Did I kill any more of your friends with my little drive-by? It was so invigorating! Like one of your American rap-music videos!” The psychopath giggled.

“No, Eddie, you’re a lousy fucking shot.” The sound of his voice made me push the gas pedal that much harder.

“You certainly are hard to kill.”

“You won’t be,” I promised. “What do you want?”

He laughed, somehow managing to sound girly and sadistic at the same time. “To taunt you, of course. My plane is taking off as we speak. I imagine that you’re trying to catch up with me, but you will be too late. As soon as I hang up, I’m going to ring one of my associates, and then the fun will begin. I’m not just going to have your loved ones killed, I’m going to have them tortured first. I’m going to take your little nieces and nephews, and I’m going to have them raped in front of their parents. I’m going to make them
watch.
I will—”

I ignored Eddie’s ranting. “Where do we turn?”