Maxwell Cain- Burrito Avenger

by Adam Smith

  Without needing to be asked, Kate shoved the loaded magazine into his empty hand. Max didn’t even glance at his support partner as he dropped the empty magazine from the butt of his pistol, slammed the new one home, and racked the slide.

  Kate scooped up the empty magazine from the ground and tucked it into her pants pocket, presumably in case it came in handy later. Max’s assessment of the efficient baker jumped up several notches.

  Another lull in the gunfire from inside the room drew Max’s attention back to the fight. He whirled around the edge of the door and bolted into the room. Hunched down with his legs pumping furiously, he launched himself toward a stack of wooden crates on the right side of the room.

  Bullets tore up the ground behind Max as he ran, and the storm of projectiles launched a shower of wooden splinters fountaining into the air. His ears filled with the buzz of lead zipping all around him. With a last push, the ex-cop hurled himself behind the stack of pinewood crates. Instantly, the crates erupted in a pattern of rapid thumps as bullets thudded into his cover.

  The two card players continued firing at Max. He had no visual on the blond man who’d been assembling the automatic rifle. He suspected he knew what that meant, and that his time was probably running short.

  Max popped up from behind the stack of crates and opened fire again. From his new position he could see partway behind the flipped table, and his first shot blew off one of the bottom legs propping up the piece of furniture. The table wobbled sideways and collapsed. The shift exposed the wounded card player, and Max wasted no time in blowing the man away with a double-tap to the center of his chest.

  The unwounded card player huddled down behind the remains of the table and returned fire. His shots blew chunks out of the crates around Max, and sharp splinters rained down on the ex-cop and cut his flesh. Ignoring the cloud of shrapnel, Max squinted his eyes and aimed down the sights of the pistol. His bullet tore through the card player’s right eye and tossed the man over backwards where his limp body thumped on the floorboards.

  As soon as the room fell silent, the blonde man popped up. The automatic rifle rose into view as he braced the weapon on top of the crate he was sheltering behind.

  Max stared down the barrel of the weapon, the open maw of a beast ready to spit death at him.

  Roaring pops filled the air, like the loudest popcorn in the world. Max hurled himself across the floor and rolled between stacks of crates as bullets tracked across the room and shredded every scrap of cover. Automatic gunfire chased him around the room away from the hallway he’d entered and pushed Max toward a closed steel door across the room.

  I could lunge for the door, but that blond guy will blow me away before I get the door open.

  Still, his options were running out. Max rolled from crate to crate as they exploded into clouds of kindling. He ducked behind one last dense stack of crates and caught his breath. The gunfire chewed through the pine boxes behind him, and he could feel the wood vibrating as each crate fell apart. It would only be a matter of moments before the bullets chewed through to Max.

  With no other option, he decided to gamble. Max poked around the side of the crate with his pistol extended, trying to provide the smallest target possible. His eyes focused instantly on the scowling blond man who sprayed lead across the room at Max. A moment later, Max’s eyes caught movement behind the man.

  Max’s dodging had dragged the fight to the far end of the room and left the man with his back to the hallway, so Kate rushed him. The roar of the automatic rifle masked the thumps of her footfalls as she ran at her target.

  Kate gripped her knife in both hands and plunged the long blade into the side of the blond man’s neck. He twisted in agony, tearing open the wound. Crimson blood erupted from the side of his neck and splashed across the piles of crates. In his shock, the wounded guard dragged his rifle out of line. Bullets pounded the cinderblock wall and threw showers of concrete chips across the room before the rifle clicked empty.

  The blond guard was badly injured but still dangerous. He lunged at Kate, but Max blew the already injured guard off his feet and emptied his pistol into the man’s body. At last, the blond guard collapsed to the floor in a pool of blood and was still.

  Max strode across the room to reach Kate. Her chest heaved with gulping breaths as she stared at the dead man.

  “First kill?” Max asked.

  Kate nodded with her blue eyes still locked on the dead guard.

  “Any regrets?”

  “None,” Kate said firmly. “It’s kill or be killed. At the very least, these bastards would sell me across the ocean just like they’ve done to other women.” She forced her eyes away from the corpse and looked at Max. “What’s the next move?”

  “We collect the weapons.” Max bent down and scooped up the pistols the card players had been using. None of the weapons matched his nickel-plated .357, so he tossed the empty gun aside. “Yank out the mags and hold them ready for me as we move on.”

  “Hold your own mags,” Kate retorted. She reached down to the blond guard’s belt and yanked his unused 9mm pistol from its holster. “I’m not just a pair of tits, Max. I’ll be doing my own shooting.” With practiced ease she locked the slide, dropped the magazine, checked the rounds inside, then slammed the magazine home and racked the slide.

  Max’s jaw sagged open. “Oh, baby. You’re my dream girl. Where have you been all my life?”

  The baker looked serious. “I want revenge on Papa Sal for taking my shop. I want him to suffer for trying to sell me, and for all the horrible things he’s done to other women. I want to kill as many of his disgusting henchmen as possible. And,” she raised her pistol and gave Max a wink, “I want to blow off some steam while we go, because I’ve been pressed under Sal’s greasy thumb for too damn long.”

  Kate stepped over to the bald man and took the magazine from his pistol. She checked the caliber of the rounds with a casual glance and tucked the magazine halfway into her pants pocket to be retrieved in a flash. She also pulled out the spare magazine from earlier and tossed it aside, since Max had discarded the .357.

  In the end, Max kept two 9mm pistols and Kate kept one. Each tucked a spare magazine into their pocket.

  Now fully armed, the ex-cop and the detective’s daughter advanced toward the metal door at the end of the room.

  Chapter 12

  Through the Lair

  The steel door clanked as Max shoved it open. He swept his gun ahead of him as he scanned for targets, but no enemies leaped out at them.

  Max and Kate slipped into a long hallway lined on both sides with faded red doors. At the far end of the hall a hundred feet away stood a door covered in flaking green paint. The hallway had no windows, and the only light came from filthy skylights in a vaulted ceiling high overhead.

  Max strode ahead but stopped when Kate called to him.

  “Don’t you think we should check out these rooms?” The blonde woman gestured to the red doors. “We may find something useful.”

  “This ain’t a video game,” Max said. “We can’t stock up on fifty guns for the boss fight on the bottom floor.”

  “I’d settle for some tactical vests and automatic rifles. Could give us a fighting chance. Then again, you probably aren’t worried because your hard head would stop a bullet.”

  “Hmm. I do like the idea of some solid gear instead of piecing together what we pick up from these idiots. Alright, let’s check a few rooms. But we’ve got to be quick in case more goons come to check on our guards.”

  The first red door on the left swung open with a squeak. Dust puffed up with every step. Max flipped the light switch, and the single bare bulb dangling from a cord in the ceiling sputtered to life. In the dim light, Max and Kate examined the contents of the square room: pinewood crates stamped with a large red circle containing the letters S and L.

  “Papa Sal Lombardo’s ship
ping crates,” Max said. “At least that confirms whose turf we’re on. Now if someone asks me who I’ve been killing, I’ll know.”

  Kate shot him a funny look, moved to one of the crates, and lifted the top. “They’re not nailed down, which means they aren’t ready for shipment.”

  “And you know this how? You a mob boss?”

  “No, smart guy. I run a bakery. You don’t seal up the packages until they’re ready to go in case you need to make changes.” Kate glanced inside and whistled. “Come take a look at what we’ve got.”

  Puffs of dust tickled Max’s nose as he strode over and looked in the crate. Plastic-wrapped bricks of white powder filled the inside. Max’s eyebrows jumped off his forehead. “That’s a whole lotta cash sitting there.” He moved to another crate and checked the contents, and his eyebrows jumped again. “Now check this out.”

  Kate poked her head around Max’s broad shoulders to look into the crate and gasped at the stacks of glittering gold bars. “That’s not drugs.”

  “Sure it is,” Max said. “Wealth is the most addictive drug known to man. You don’t even need to experience wealth to be addicted to it, just feeling its absence can get you hooked.” Max dropped the lid of the crate and it clattered back into place. The ex-cop looked around the room at the dozens of pinewood crates. Thick, fragrant dust covered every box. “This much product just begs to be sold, but the room looks like it hasn’t been used in months.”

  “Maybe business is bad?”

  Max snorted. “No shortage of buyers for drugs in this town, and the whole state is starving for instant pleasure. More than likely, this is Papa Sal’s ‘just in case’ emergency stash. We get a competent police chief he can’t turn right away, or some politician with a conscience beats the incumbents and tries to clean up the region, Papa Sal has a stockpile of goods and cash to live on. I’ll bet he rotates the drugs to keep things fresh, but the gold will keep for a good long while.”

  “Great,” Kate grumbled. “I give you helpful tips about running a business and you teach me about corruption. Fun trade.”

  “You’ll thank me if you ever become a drug lord. Course, then I’d have to kill you.”

  The two switched off the light and slipped back into the hallway. Kate looked at Max. “So, the first room gave us information but no tools to use. Next room?”

  Max glanced up the hallway and counted nine more red doors before the green door at the end. “I’d say we check one more room. We don’t want to sit here picking our noses in a warehouse full of dirtbags.”

  “Right.” Kate picked another door in the middle of the hallway and eased it open. The hinges on this door were silent. She flicked on the light switch and walked into the room. Max followed.

  At first glance, the room looked mostly empty. The bare bulb illuminated a couple of white buckets in one corner, but nothing else. The room had an oddly sweet smell which Max couldn’t place. More light filtered in through the only window, which was up high on the wall and covered in metal bars.

  Kate gasped and pointed at the far wall. Max squinted and spotted several sets of chains bolted into the cinderblock walls. His mind was poking at him with some familiar memory, but he couldn’t place the feeling.

  “Women,” Kate whispered, and Max’s memory clicked. The faint smell was old perfume. The chains were to hold captives in place. And the buckets… Max grimaced.

  Kate hugged herself and shivered. “This could have been me.”

  “Yeah,” Max agreed. “Perfume smells old, but they definitely locked girls in here recently. They’ll be long gone by now.”

  In a low voice, Kate muttered, “I really don’t like these guys, Max.”

  “Neither do I. Let’s kill a few dozen on our way out.”

  “Yeah.” Kate looked at the chains for another moment before turning and scurrying out of the room. Max switched off the light and shut the door gently behind them.

  Max drew his second pistol as he and Kate moved to the green door at the end of the hall. “I’ll take right, you cover me on the left,” said Max. “Ready?”

  The baker raised her gun and nodded, her blue eyes hard as steel.

  Max shoved the door. It scraped open and thumped against the wall to the left as he barreled through. His two pistols scanned right to left. Kate rushed after him and dropped into a crouch as she swept her gun from left to right.

  An empty room lay before them. An open hallway at the far end took a hard turn to the right. Max almost lowered his guard, but the murmur of bantering voices drifting down the hall dispelled the temptation.

  Max waved one pistol forward and crept toward the hallway across the room. Kate followed several steps behind.

  The right turn led to a much larger room. Max paused at the corner and surveyed the scene. Twenty feet from where he and Kate hid, the floor turned into a web of catwalks crisscrossing above a cavernous storage area piled with large crates, couches, and lifting machinery. A massive ramp along one side of the room led from the upper floor down to the lower floor. Max couldn’t see a way out of the room, so he guessed the exit door was underneath the ledge overhang out of his sight.

  In the center of the bottom floor, fifteen men in business suits lounged on couches, played cards, and watched a television with the volume cranked up. A commercial blared as a woman’s husky voice purred, “Is your life making you depressed? Try InstaFix, the original alcoholic drink made with real anti-depressants! Also available in anti-anxiety. You’ll be the life of the party, baby. No prescription necessary!”

  Under cover of the blaring television, Max and Kate crouched low and crept to the edge to survey the room. Max took stock of the arrangement of boxes, forklifts, and catwalks.

  “That’s a lot of slime balls,” Kate sighed. “How are we gonna get through these guys, Max?”

  “Working on it.” Max pointed at some piled crates which almost reached the catwalks. “If we jump from there, we should be able to scale down. I want to take a look and see if we can sneak around them from the lower floor.”

  Max scurried along the catwalks with Kate close behind him. With furtive movements, the two crept along in silence as the blaring television covered their footsteps. Each time a commercial ended and the room fell silent, Max held up his hand and they both froze. Finally, they reached the crates.

  “I’m gonna lower you down,” Max told Kate. “You won’t make much noise that way.”

  The blonde baker nodded and eased herself over the side. Max clasped her wrists and laid down flat on the edge of the catwalk. By stretching her toes, Kate was just able to scrape the top of the highest box. Max released his grip, and Kate slid down to perch on top of the crate on all fours like a cat. Max admired the view as her athletic body rippled with tension.

  Wasting no time, Kate slid along the top of the pinewood crate and dropped down to the next box, using the stack like stairs until she reached the floor. Her position was perfectly hidden from the thugs.

  Max slid over the edge and dangled from his hands, then let go. As he fell, the commercial ended and silence filled the cavernous room. Max’s boots hit the crate with a thump which echoed louder than he’d hoped. He dropped flat and froze.

  One of the businessmen on a black leather couch turned from the television and glanced around in Max’s direction. Max held his breath. After a few moments, the gangster shrugged and turned back to the screen. From his new angle Max could see the film playing and recognized Undead Bikini Bimbos 4: Jugs of Justice. A woman in a red bikini with flowing black hair was firing two huge machineguns at a giant robot as bullets ripped through her pale flesh.

  Kate hissed at Max from the ground to get his attention. The ex-cop poked his head over the side of the crate and whispered, “Hold on, I haven’t seen this one yet.”

  Kate frowned and beckoned sharply. With a sigh, Max slid over the edge of the wooden box and dropped do
wn the stack of crates to land beside the baker.

  “Now what?” Kate asked.

  Max peered at the area under the ledge where they’d entered the room and spotted the exit door. The space around the door was well-lit, had no cover, and was perfectly visible from the lounge. There was no way to sneak by without being noticed.

  Max glanced the other way and started calculating from the memorized layout in his head. “You have any experience driving a forklift?”

  “A little. Why?”

  Max pointed to a vehicle with a huge wooden crate held a few feet off the ground on the front lifting tines. “You’re gonna take that yellow forklift there and slam it into that wall of crates.” Max indicated the wall to their right. The crates were stacked high and formed a wall along the back of the lounge area. “Ram that wall at top speed, then get out and take cover. Return fire when you can. I’ll get to the edge of their lounge and pick them off from another angle while they’re panicking.”

  “Got it.” Kate slipped away toward the forklift.

  Max stayed crouched as he moved along the stack of crates. The two pistol grips felt warm and solid in his hands as he swept through the warehouse and halted just at the edge of visibility. Peeking around the edge of his crate showed Max the whole lounge area spread out with all the gangsters relaxing and enjoying themselves. The wall of crates behind them was at least thirty feet high.

  An engine growled from the far corner of the warehouse. The rumbling grew through the rest of the huge room as Kate gunned the throttle.

  One businessman with slicked blond hair tossed his cards down on the table as he turned to a buddy and asked, “What’s that sound?”

  “Probably nothing,” his buddy said. “Frank, you dealing or what?”

  A resounding crash rang out, and the wall of crates behind the men exploded. Five thugs screamed as they were immediately buried under an avalanche of pinewood boxes. Splintered wood shattered into shrapnel and blew through the cavernous room. Two more men fell, skewered by ragged javelins. When the towering pile rumbled to a stop, eight men remained standing. They gaped at the destruction of their lounge and the limbs of dead companions poking out of the rubble.