"You could give up this gig and be a weatherman."
Archer grunts without mirth. His eyes are locked on mine, the seething hatred in them unmissable.
"How did you get here?" he says.
"Well, it's a bit complicated, but I assume at some point my father met my mother and one thing led to another."
This time Archer laughs out loud, but it’s a grating, humorless laugh. "I assume we have you to thank for the power outage?"
"Of course. And by the way, keep your hands where I can see them." Archer's hands had been inching from the top of his desk towards his lap. They freeze, his smile fades into a scowl, and he lets out a long, slow breath. I'm not sure, but I think he growls.
"Are you here to kill me?"
This time my smile fades. "Yes."
“Just like that? In cold blood?” He says.
“What, like you and Eckert? You're one to talk.”
“Touché,” he says.
“Not to mention you tried to kill me and Mira.”
“So she did survive,” he says. “I didn’t know if she’d make it, but then, she’s very special isn’t she?” The way he says “special” implies he thinks no such thing and that confuses me. “The way she tossed Eckert’s body across the room, she may as well have been throwing a football. It seems you aren’t the only one with gifts.”
I curse him under my breath, but keep my face impassive. I refuse to show him any emotion. No matter what he says, I refuse to give him the pleasure of rattling me.
“So why haven’t you pulled that trigger yet?” he says.
“Curiosity. You always knew Damian Harbin was my father. Why did you never tell me?”
“That kind of information can be dangerous. Might get you prying into things you had no business prying into.”
“Like what? Things about you? Were you protecting you own butt?”
But he doesn’t answer the question.
“You know,” he says, “I really did care for you, kid. It wasn’t all a show. But when Jonathan came along, I had the means to an end, and I only had one shot at it. Once you learned the truth, you had outlived your usefulness. I’m sorry it had to be that way; I really am. Oh, I would have let the charade play on for a while if you had helped me find the cure, but you were doomed the second Jonathan spilled the beans.”
“You can shove your apology.” Despite my best efforts, my anger is rising. He’s doing it on purpose, a distraction. I can’t allow that. I need to end this soon.
“You know, at first I really didn't want to do it, but the last several months have taught me to hate you. Frankly, I think it's what you deserve. I should have done it the night you tried to blast us into oblivion.”
“I told you that's what you should have done. I told you I’d hunt you down and make you regret it.”
I want to slap him across the face. “Sorry Arch, you're never going to get that chance.”
“Can you really do it?” he says. “Just blow me away?”
“What was it you always taught me? He who fights fair, dies first.”
That elicits a smile from him, and I know it’s time.
Now that the moment is here, there’s no longer any fear or doubt. There’s a deep-set certainty. I know it, and it’s surprisingly comforting. I will pull the trigger. I’m going to pull the trigger. I feel no guilt. Archer is anything but a good man, and he's done terrible things that he deserves to pay for. If it keeps Mira alive, I'm more than willing to be his judge, jury, and executioner. I still don't know why Damian wants this, but I really don't even care. This is personal.
“Well, I've really enjoyed our little chat,” I say, “but I'm afraid I'm in kind of a hurry, so if you don't mind, I'm going to shoot you now.”
Archer tenses just a little, almost imperceptibly, the only show of any fear since he entered the room.
“Before you do that,” Archer says, “I want you to know I don't hate you. I understand how you feel, Cray. You've always been like a son to me. I've made hard choices, and I don't regret them. I hope one day you'll be able to understand why I did what I did.”
“You can spare me the rhetoric,” I say back. “You're not my father. As far as I'm concerned, I've never had a father.”
I grip the gun in my hand tighter and point it directly between Archer's eyes. He stares back at me icily. I squeeze the trigger ever so lightly and feel it budge a millimeter and prepare myself for the coming spit of the silencer, but before I fully depress the trigger, the lights go dark plunging us into complete blackness.
I'm startled. This isn't right. I haven't given Ming the signal. I freeze for half a second before pulling the trigger, but I already know it's too late. Archer is a step ahead of me, and I sense in the darkness that he's already moved, even as the thunk of the bullet rips through the wall behind where he was just sitting. I try to raise my awareness to a level that I'll be able to sense him in the darkness, but before I get a chance, the door crashes open, filling the room with a glaring beam of light, and something small, metallic, and sharp pings into my side. I don't even have time to react before the taser's voltage is unleashed, locking my muscles in a painful spasm. I struggle to remain conscious as the pain sears through me. At last, it subsides, only to be replaced by a powerful boot to the head that plunges me mercifully into unconsciousness.
I get random flashes of lucidity: Archer barking orders to armed men, the feeling of two guys yanking me up by my arms and dragging me from the office, a cold corridor lined with doors, and a glimpse of Ming, blood trickling from her mouth as two more men drag her likewise semi-conscious form along beside me before separating us again.
I don't know where they take her, but I end up in a large, windowless room. They drop me onto a tiled floor and someone else enters the room behind us. My clarity wavers, and for a while, there's blackness again. When I come to, my hands are secured above my head by chains leading into the ceiling above. Conversely, my feet are shackled to bolts in the floor.
A smiling, hulking mass of a man moves towards me, and I take a deep breath and hold it. This is really going to suck.
Chapter 15
I'm not sure how long I've been lying on the cot, or for that matter, how long I've even been awake. What I do know is that I'm hurting. A lot. Archer's crony worked on me for fifteen minutes before I lost consciousness, but he did his job well.
He concentrated his blows on soft tissue areas, stomach, lower back, the meat of my thighs. No place where bones could be easily broken. He also didn't use enough force to rupture internal organs.
This tells me several things. Archer doesn't want me dead or crippled – yet. That most likely means we're just getting started. I like to think I'm a tough guy, but only a fool wouldn't feel the nauseating dread churning inside me at the thought of what's to come, but I bite back the fear, determined to do what it takes not to be around for round two.
My mouth is dry, my tongue sticking to the roof of it. I try to sit up in hopes of finding some water in the room, but collapse again as a fresh wave of torture ripples through my midsection. My insides feel warm and mushy, a sure sign of internal bleeding.
I think of Ming and wonder what brutality she's being subjected to. It's all my fault. And after she's suffered so much already at Archer's hands. I hope she's not dead, but a part of me knows that would be more merciful.
The man on the train. That must be it. He must have recognized me and alerted the authorities. Archer was ready for me. How could I have been so stupid?
I turn my head to the side. The cell is tiny. The walls are unpainted concrete blocks, no toilet, no sink, no chairs. The only things in here are me and the cot. The door is thick-looking steel. There are no windows.
A picture of Mira lying in stasis in a tube flashes through my mind, and I groan. I close my eyes and take stock of my situation. I'm in pain, but functional. I'm not sure where in the complex I am. It could be one of a number of storage rooms on the schematics. There were no prison cells bef
ore.
I hear a rustling sound outside my door followed by the jangling of keys.
Crap. I’m too late. I guess they’re back for more. The door opens with a creak and I don’t even bother to open my eyes.
“You’re friendly neighborhood piñata reporting for duty,” I say.
“Sheesh, you’re pathetic,” a female voice says. “Get up you pansy. Do you want out of here or not?”
My eyes flash open to see Ming standing in the doorway, the limp form of a guard crumpled on the floor behind her, the guard's gun in her hand. A small trail of dried blood runs from her mouth to her chin, but otherwise, she looks okay. A lot better than me. I sit up quickly, painfully, and she comes over to help me up.
“How did you get away?” I say.
“Girl power,” she says. “And what the heck were you doing, trying to daydream your way out?”
She pulls me quickly to the doorway, scanning both sides of the hall as she moves us down and into the stairwell.
“For your information, I’ve had a rough day,” I say.
She laughs quietly. “You’re a Sweeper. We eat rough days for breakfast.” She reaches behind her back and produces another gun from her waistband. “Here, I brought you a gift.”
I take it. “Now you're just showing off.”
We move up two flights of stairs and peek through the small window in the door to make sure no one’s on the other side. So far, we’ve been lucky. I recognize now that we’re in part of the training barracks, and I’m hoping all the recruits are otherwise occupied at this time of day, not that I know what time of day it actually is. Ming moves through the door and turns right. I know where she’s headed. There’s a parking garage directly in front of us. It’s a fifty yard straight shot down the hallway and we’re almost to the door when footsteps round the corner behind us.
I see a glimpse of the armed men raising their weapons and Ming hits the door headlong, me right behind her. There's movement ahead, and I immediately know something's wrong. My awareness shifts into hyper mode instinctively and I throw out my left arm, shoving Ming violently to the side a fraction of a second before machine gun fire rips through the space her head just occupied, and into the wall behind us. The soldiers that had been following us in the hallway scramble for cover as the door slams shut. To my left, Ming crawls behind an SUV and I roll behind a support pillar. Just once I'd like to catch a break.
The gunfire dies down after a few seconds.
“You're not getting out of here alive,” a voice shouts. “Give it up. There're four of us and two of you, and we got the tactical advantage.”
Thanks for the info you buffoon. His voice gives me his exact location. I steal a quick peek around the pillar, and a bullet smacks the concrete dangerously close to my face. I pull back, but now I have what I need to know.
My back still pressed to the pillar, I calculate the precise angle without thought and swing my arm backwards and out to the side of the pillar, my gun upside down. One quick shot and I smirk with satisfaction as I hear the large industrial light that was right above the man who shouted at us shatter into a million pieces, raining sparks and shards of glass down on top of him as he swears in irritation. Not lethal, but enough of a distraction that I can steal another glance to place the other three men.
I see fabric visible underneath a car thirty feet away. Fifty feet down to the left, a man’s head peeks over a trunk, his machine gun trained on Ming's position. About halfway to the exit, another gunner crouches in the open. Really? Okay, he's just an idiot. Last but not least, the man I peppered with glass is behind the nearest car, his face distorted by the glass, but visible through the windshield and drivers' side window. This is going to be tricky.
"Ming," I say. She looks over at me, still crouched behind the vehicle. I notice in passing that she at least has the common sense to crouch behind the tire providing additional coverage for her legs. That's what makes us professionals and these other guys amateurs. I mouth the word gun, and imitate a motion of throwing it. She catches on and tosses the gun across the expanse. I catch it and double check it to make sure a round is chambered.
The commanding officer says something low when he sees the gun arcing through the air to me. I look back at Ming, judging the distance between us, and hope it's enough for her to hear and not the others. I whisper harshly in her direction. "On the count of three, poke your head out and back as fast as possible."
"What?! Are you crazy?"
"Just trust me, okay?"
Ming rolls her eyes like I've lost my mind and mouths the word "fine". She also gives me the finger.
I hold up my hand and start the countdown with my fingers. One…Ming sits a little taller, bracing herself. Two…I can see her take a deep breath. Three…She quickly raises her head above the hood of the vehicle as fast as possible and right back down. I move a fraction of a second after her, my senses at full capacity, spinning from behind the pillar into the open, my guns trained, praying the men are still in the positions they were a few moments before.
As I had hoped, all of their eyes are drawn to Ming's quick movement, the man crouching in the open already beginning to squeeze the trigger to unleash a hail of bullets where Ming sprang up. In a flash, I squeeze off a shot with each hand. To my left, a bullet plows through the commanding officer's head through the windows of the car. Straight ahead, my other shot smacks into the eye of the crouching gunman. With no loss of movement, I fire two more rounds simultaneously. One hits the gunman peeking over the hood of the car squarely between the eyes, a cloud of blood puffing out from behind him.
The other shot is the hardest, but my angle is perfect and the bullet ricochets off the concrete under a car and hits the knee of the last soldier behind it. He screams and falls onto his back, cradling his shattered knee in his hands. I squeeze off a last shot that nearly follows the path of the first, only this one blasts into his temple, and his body goes limp.
I stand there a moment to make sure no one else has sneaked in. When I feel assured we're in the clear, I look over at Ming who is standing now, gazing with a dumbfounded expression at the bodies littering the parking garage. She gives me an incredulous look, and I shrug.
Without further ado, she kicks out the window of the SUV. I pop off a couple of shots at the door to the hallway just to make sure the others don't come rushing out anytime soon. After several seconds, Ming has successfully hot-wired the SUV and the engine roars to life. I run around to the passenger door, fling it open to jump inside, but I don't quite make it.
My left shoulder is suddenly on fire with pain and I'm thrown violently into the open door, blood flying everywhere and drenching my shirt almost instantly. Ming leans over and grabs me, hauling me bodily into the SUV at the same time she kicks the accelerator and swings the vehicle towards the entrance of the parking garage. I manage to get my door shut and catch a glimpse of armed men piling out of the door behind us, multiple shuts pinging on the body of the SUV.
Ming crashes through the locked gate of the parking garage and we're out into the night, accelerating wildly.
Chapter 16
Slow realization sinks in. My attempt to keep the men behind the door obviously failed, and I have the gaping bullet hole to show for it. It passed cleanly through, but it was a high-powered rifle, and I'm bleeding profusely.
I dumbly reach up with my right hand, try to grip both sides of the wound, and scream at the increase of agony. But I press down as hard as I can, hoping to stanch the bleeding.
Beside me, Ming shouts something, and reaches her free hand over to help me put pressure on the wound. I don't know how long we drive because my consciousness is fuzzy, but it feels like a long time. It doesn't appear than anyone is giving chase, and for that I'm thankful. Back to the matter at hand, I've had more injuries than I care to remember, but we can't get the bleeding to stop on this one, and I'm getting dangerously close to blacking out from blood loss.
Time becomes relative as I struggle to ove
rcome the pain, wavering in and out of consciousness. My head swims and I think of Mira, the fact that I could die. If I die, she's dead, and since I missed the hit on Archer, she may end up being dead anyway. Ming keeps telling me to hang on, and suddenly swings the heavy SUV off the interstate and up an exit ramp.
“Where are we going?” I say groggily.
“I'm following the signs from the interstate for a hospital.”
“That doesn't make sense,” I stammer. At least, I think I say it out loud, but I'm not really sure. “There are no working hospitals out here.”
“I know,” she says, “but that doesn't mean an abandoned hospital might not still have some medical supplies inside that were left behind.”
When I don't respond, she gives my shoulder a hard squeeze, I guess to keep me alert, so I tell her what I think of her ancestors and lack of gentleness, but the pain does help clear my mind, and I shake myself in an effort to keep my awareness high.
We streak through what used to be a medium-sized city, the restaurants and hotels lining the street darkened and dilapidated from disuse. I notice the periodic blue and white “H” signs that Ming follows until we pull up in a semicircular drive that was once the ER entrance of a decent-sized hospital.
Ming jumps out of the door and runs around to my side where I'm slumping against the dashboard. She throws open the door, leans me back, and slaps me in the face.
“Snap out of it, Cray!”
She helps me out of the car, and moving helps clear my head a little more.
We approach the entrance to the emergency department. Chains hold the sliding doors closed from the inside, a massive padlock hanging from them. Ming releases her grip on me and pauses to make sure I don't collapse. I wobble, but stay up, and she turns, walks forward, and kicks the glass panel beside the door. It trembles from her kick, but otherwise does nothing. She looks back at me and I manage to roll my eyes at her.
“It's tempered,” I slur. “You can't break it.”
She just stares at me a moment and turns back to the glass. Her eyes close, and she breathes deeply for a couple of seconds like she's meditating. Then, in a lightning flash, her eyes pop open and she releases another massive kick to the panel. This time, the glass gives with a pop, and shatters inward in large chunks.
The Night Sweeper: Assassin: A Zombie Conspiracy Novel (The Sweeper Chronicles Book 2) Page 11
