Sticks and Stones (2 page)

Ty climbed over the edge of the brick and lowered himself slowly until his feet dangled just a couple feet above the metal platform below, Zane following suit. To jump would have made too much noise, and they couldn’t afford to be captured or killed before they laid their charges. One target out of three was unacceptable. Two targets was still a failure, but it was better than nothing. Ty wanted all three targets, even if he had to do the last two himself.

They made their way down the fire escape quickly, causing only the occasional clang or bang as they hurried. When Ty’s booted feet hit the pavement, though, a shout from the corner of the building met them.

“Stop! Federal agents!” the man behind the protective mask warned as he held his gun up.

Ty turned without a moment’s hesitation and fired at him, two quick shots, and red bloomed across the letters on the man’s chest. He fell back, and Ty and Zane ran toward him rather than away, firing at the other agents who rounded the corner. Before the other two men in the patrol could retreat or call for backup, both took shots in the chest and dropped with pained cries.

Zane lowered his gun and pulled off his headgear. His dark hair, longer than it used to be and brushing his collar, was ruffled up now, and a curled wire from the ear bud ran along his scruffy cheek. He turned his chin to look at Ty. “We can still make the objective. This is the right street.” He nodded to the road at the nearby crossing.

“Lead on,” Ty told him as he tossed his protective mask at the agents lying on the ground. He didn’t plan to wear it anymore; if he took one in the face it wouldn’t do him much good anyway, and he couldn’t think with it on.

Zane’s safety gear hit the ground as well as they loped past the fallen men, and at the end of the alley they flattened against the vinyl siding of that building so Zane could look around the corner.

The town’s main street was a long, paved corridor lined with shops. Laundromat, barber shop, diner, movie theater, the deserted pool hall they’d fled just a few moments ago, and several other buildings. Some in use, some not. At the very end of the street was the large brick building that served as the area’s supply storage, its front lined with garage doors for freight trucks to drop off provisions. The munitions dump was several stores over on their side of the street, concealed in a computer repair shop. That was their objective.

Ty knew that the big problem was not the distance they had to travel, but the teams of agents that patrolled the streets. He and Zane had nothing but the charges and receivers, the guns they held in their hands, and their communications gear. And a bottle of hairspray Ty had taken from the drug store down the street when they’d ducked inside to avoid a patrol.

Their biggest ally now was stealth.

They made their way to the corner of the block undetected, swiftly coming up on the ammunition cache.

Shouts came from their right, and then they heard a muffled gunfight. The commotion continued, followed by the pop-pop of the guns and the screams of their team members in their ear buds.

“That’ll be Alpha team,” Ty said flatly as they continued to move.

First Bravo team, and now Alpha team was down as well—
without
completing their mission of blowing up the supply stores at the end of the street. Ty and Zane still had to set their own charges at the munitions dump and blow them, and now they also had to get within range of the storage building to blow Alpha’s charges if they wanted to complete the mission.

“Stupid. They should have blown the charges when they had the chance,” Zane muttered, looking behind them quickly as they made their way to the door of the computer repair shop. He held up three fingers to indicate the number of people Benson’s intel had said would be guarding the ammo dump. Zane stopped beside the door and looked at Ty seriously. “Ready?” he asked almost inaudibly.

Ty nodded as he popped a fresh cartridge into his gun. He looked up at Zane and grinned widely. He fished out the bottle of hairspray he’d pilfered from the drug store up the road as they had dashed through it earlier, shaking it vigorously.

It wouldn’t blow up. Hell, it wouldn’t do anything but roll when he threw it. But it would look enough like a flashbang as it flew through the air to make everyone inside duck. It might give them enough time.

Zane looked at him incredulously and then rolled his eyes. “Christ,” he muttered. He crouched down next to the door, gun ready. “Go.”

Ty stepped up to the door and kicked at it, just below the doorknob where it was weakest. He tossed the hairspray into the room and followed it immediately, firing to his right in a wide spray of bullets.

Still crouched, Zane shifted inside behind him and fired to the left, taking out an agent caught ducking from the fake flashbang. Zane got to his feet just in time to take a step into the room and be hit from the side by a heavy body.

Ty turned and watched as Zane hit the floor under the other man’s momentum. Zane pulled up his knees and kept rolling while the agent scrambled, trying to reach for a gun sitting out on the sales counter nearby. Zane’s boot in his gut stopped him, and the man dropped, gasping for breath.

Rolling his eyes, Ty simply shot the man in the back to stop the oncoming brawl. The agent fell forward without a sound, his eyes still registering shock as he lay on the ground.

Ty shook his head at him and then looked around the room at the mess they’d made. The walls were running with red. He clucked his tongue and shook his head as he looked around at the bodies littering the floor.

“Complacent,” he chastised. He went over to the weapons locker, beginning to stuff extra cartridges into his pockets as he whistled. He realized belatedly that the tune was the chorus of “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” He was having more fun than he probably should have been.

“What are they teaching these idiots?” Zane asked as he picked up the extra gun from the sales counter and slid it into his waistband. “No wonder the Bureau’s going to shit,” he muttered. He joined Ty at the cabinet to pull out cartridges for himself.

Ty nodded as he hummed. He finished loading up with extra ammo and went to the agent he’d shot in the back, kneeling down beside him. He patted him on the head. “Shoot first next time. Tackle later,” he advised, and then he stood and went to the doorway.

“You have a really morbid sense of humor, you know that?” Zane said as he stepped over the body while sliding the new cartridge into his gun. “Let me have those charges,” he demanded, holding out his hand.

Ty gave a careful glance around the door frame, peering down the street. “Set ’em quick,” he ordered as he pulled them out and handed them to Zane. He looked out again, looking at the brick building down the road with its open bays and garages. “You think we’re in range here?” he asked as he fished out the switch that would trigger Alpha Team’s charges and looked at it. He pushed the button, uncaring of the teams of demolitions agents who were swarming the building, trying to defuse the charges. He peered out at the building. Nothing happened. He pushed the button a few more times just in case.

Zane shook his head while setting the charge inside the stack of boxes. He didn’t even look outside. “Still eighty yards out of range. We have to get to the office building on the corner to be close enough.” He glanced over at Ty. “Would you quit pushing the damn button?” he said in exasperation. “What if you break the connection? Then what’re you gonna do? Waltz over there and set it off by hand?” He set the charge frequency and clicked on the receiver.

“Worth a shot,” Ty said defensively. ”Do these things have batteries?” he asked as he shook the receiver near his ear and listened for something to rattle inside it. Zane ignored him, and Ty looked back down the street critically. “Nowhere to hide,” he commented. He glanced back at Zane. “We’ll use this explosion as cover. Maybe buy us enough time to clear out.”

Zane finished programming their detonator and joined him at the window. “I guess it was too much to ask that Benson had his shit together. I knew I should have taken Stanford’s bet that he’d flop against the Feds. I could’ve bought a new Glock.”

“Whatever, man,” Ty grunted, not really paying attention to Zane’s grumbling. “Let’s go blow shit up,” he said with relish as he moved out of the building.

They hugged the storefronts, moving along the street toward the target.

Ty was examining the entrance to the alley coming up when Zane abruptly grabbed his arm and yanked him down just as something hit the brick wall over their heads with a dull thump. The shot had barely missed his head.

Zane already had his gun up, shooting indiscriminately at the two-man team that had appeared out of the door of a nearby building. The two agents retreated back into the barbershop under the hail of bullets Zane sent their way.

“Move!” Zane hissed.

They scuttled along the side of the building, no longer concerned with stealth. The mission now was to blow the ammo dump they’d just left—their assignment as Charlie Team—and then they had to get close enough to fulfill Alpha Team’s failed objective using the coordinated triggers.

Ty skidded to a halt as they reached another narrow alley and peered around the corner. Agents were running along the length of it, and more were coming up behind them. He and Zane put their backs to each other and fired in opposite directions, forcing the encroaching patrols to dive for cover.

“The cars!” Zane said harshly, and they darted across the street toward a row of parked cars, the action getting them closer to the building even as it offered cover. As they ran, Zane pulled the detonator he’d just programmed out of his pocket and flipped it. Behind them, the weapons cache blew, blowing the door open, making a mess of the windows and the street in front of the building.

It bought them just a little more time as the agents in pursuit ducked and covered or turned to look.

But after no more than half a block, they were forced to duck behind a Lincoln land yacht as more shots came at them from across the street. Zane flinched as a shot smacked the bricks ten feet away. They were pretty damn well pinned down; Zane took a glance over the hood and quickly hunched back down as more ammunition skimmed over their heads.

“Ten fucking yards,” he said harshly, turning his chin, his dark eyes meeting Ty’s.

Ty smiled at him, barely resisting the urge to grab him and kiss him. “We could pull a Butch and Sundance,” he suggested.

“I don’t know about you, but I did not come here to die today,” Zane said smartly as he put a fresh clip in his gun. Despite his annoyed tone, he looked amused and his eyes sparkled wickedly. “Don’t have a better idea, though.” After a moment, he gave Ty a half-smile. “It was fun, yeah?”

Ty grinned back at him and nodded, switching out his empty cartridge and pulling out extra guns to set them aside. “Always knew I should have gone the Dark Side route,” he mused.

Zane laughed quietly and was checking his two guns when they heard “Federal agents!” shouted by one of their pursuers.

Looking under the car, Ty could see the feet of the dozen or so agents surrounding them.

“Toss out your weapons and come out with your hands behind your head!” one of them called out.

Ty shook his head. “Did we ever sound that stupid when we said that?” he asked as he consolidated his supply of ammo. With two guns, he had enough for a last stand.

“I don’t know. I was more the ‘drop it or you’re getting it in the head’ kinda guy,” Zane muttered. He winked at Ty and turned so he was facing the car where he crouched.

They had one advantage. The agents who were swiftly surrounding them would have to wait until no other option existed before they fired on their quarry. They would have to give warning, just like the good little Feds they were.

Ty and Zane were no longer constrained by such delicacies.

“On three?” Zane suggested.

Ty glanced over at him and then to his side, toward the building that was just out of range of their receiver. They were so close. Ty narrowed his eyes and looked at Zane again speculatively. Two out of three just didn’t sit well with him. “Ready,” he answered.

“One,” Zane said under his breath. “Two. Th—”

Before Zane could stand, Ty reached out and grabbed him around the neck, yanking him up and to the side, putting Zane between himself and the agents as he dragged him sideways around the car they were using as cover.

“What the
fuck
?” Zane squawked, heels kicking out as he struggled to get hold of Ty’s arm around his throat that was bowing his body back.

“I thought you liked it when I did this, darlin’,” Ty breathed into Zane’s ear with a smirk.

“Goddamnit,” Zane huffed, sounding like he was trying not to laugh.

At least a dozen agents leveled their guns at them. Some knelt in the middle of the street behind large black ballistic shields in pairs. Others used the cars parked along the street as cover.

Several agents were yelling at them, telling them to stop, to drop their guns, to hit the ground. Ty ignored them, moving slowly toward the building, hiding behind Zane and pointing his gun at the agents who followed.

When a couple of the agents looked like they might be getting brave, Ty moved the gun to point the muzzle at Zane’s head, grinning as he shouted, “Stop moving or I shoot him!”

The agents paused, looking at him warily and giving each other confused glances, but then they resumed their advance, following as Ty drew them backward.

Zane turned his head to the side, eyes shifting to look around them as he growled, “If they don’t kill you, I will!” And then with no warning, he stopped struggling in Ty’s arms. ”Now,” he hissed.

Ty pushed the button of the switch he held in his hand, tightening his grip on Zane so he couldn’t get away. The building down the street—Alpha team’s objective—gave off a muffled whump, dust flying off the roof and the bricks as the charges made a mess of the inside. The agents flinched and ducked before continuing to shout at them to drop their weapons.

“Happy trails, Lone Star,” Ty breathed to Zane as he raised his gun under Zane’s arm and fired several times, hitting the shields with dull thumps, just as Zane did the same with his two guns.