Dead Lines [911]

by Grace Hamilton

  He didn’t like it.

  The margin for error was razor thin, the chance of innocent people getting caught in the crossfire too great. He didn’t really have much of a choice at the moment, however. Gliding forward, he strained his ears for the slightest sound. The convicts had done a brutally efficient job of getting the looters out of at least this area.

  Leaving a room where a woman in sedate, business attire lay shot dead next to several still functioning computers, he swung his muzzle up as he got to a back staircase. He heard a rustle. It was all the warning he got. He pivoted towards the sound in an instant, bringing the silenced submachine gun up on reflex.

  A muscular, Hispanic man in an orange jumpsuit appeared in the doorway, MP5 at the ready in his fists. Finding himself suddenly confronted with an armed opponent, his eyes flared in surprise as he caught sight of Parker. The ex-cop centered his gunsight on the man’s chest, his finger taking up the slack on his trigger.

  The man darted back inside the doorway. Parker put his faith in the steel jacketed 9mm rounds of the MP5.

  He fired a tight burst from the hip, clawing a line of impact holes through the drywall paneling of the hallway and sending bullets crashing through into the area beyond. The thwak-thwak-thwak of the suppressed submachine gunfire coughed out against the clink-clink-clink of the bolt cycling back and forth like the piston in an engine. Yellow muzzle flashes lit up the hallway.

  Glittering brass cartridges pumped out of the oversized ejection port in wild arcs and bounced to the floor. The adrenaline-high inducing stink of cordite was a sudden perfume in the cramped quarters of the back hallway.

  And there it was.

  Like a Jack-in-the-box inside his soul, popping up again although he thought he’d left the feeling of it, the Satanic rush of it, behind him. That feeling of doing exactly the right thing when your life depended on it. He felt the involuntary stretch of his lips as they drew back in a fierce, barbaric grin.

  But he didn’t let the rush take him, didn’t plunge into the river of the emotion; still, a little part of him, a part once well tucked away, savored it. This night had unleashed something in him, something he had to admit that he maybe missed. He eased his finger off the trigger when he heard the slump of the body striking the floor, and then the con splayed out on the ground, tumbling into view.

  The high velocity rounds at under ten feet of range had caved in the man’s ribs like kindling, almost chewed the arm off at the elbow, and splattered the man’s insides all over the outside.

  Parker heard a slap of bare feet on tile and was already turning back towards the staircase when the girl screamed. He saw a frenzied Hispanic female—naked, her hair reminiscent of a lion mane, her eyes wild, her face a bloody mass where her nose was.

  She screamed something obscene at him, but his Spanish wasn’t good enough for him to be able to catch it. Then, mid-stream, she switched into English, screaming, “Don’t touch me!” over and over.

  In her grip, she held a big .357 Magnum Colt Python with a four-inch barrel. The size of the handgun was ludicrous in her tiny hand.

  He looked deep into the massive tunnel of its muzzle. “Easy,” he warned.

  The girl slurred a shriek and launched into motion. Startled and almost paralyzed with disbelief, Parker watched her squeeze her eyes tightly shut as she took the titanic revolver up into both of her hands. She dropped straight down into a full crouch and snapped the heavy weapon up.

  Eyes still locked shut, she continued screaming in what Parker assumed was Spanish, though he still found it impossible to tell for sure. The surrealistic fog of the situation felt overblown, like a melodrama scene in a stage production.

  He stepped easily to one side as she began firing blindly. The roar of the hand cannon was deafening and the .357 magnum rounds plunged through the hall, leaving funnels of supersonic air cracking down the length of the corridor.

  Recoil jerked the heavy pistol barrel up like the arm of a puppet on a string. Three shots in, and Parker had managed to reach the side of the staircase. He reached for the pistol, half bemused at the strangeness of the situation, the other part of him worried one of the massive bullets would cut through a wall and hit Finn or some other innocent. Obviously unaccustomed to the kick, the crying girl let the recoil unlock her elbows slightly as she fired a fourth time.

  This time, the pistol recoil drove the frame straight back into her face. The hammer smashed into her lips and split them open to then knock the bottom off her two top teeth. Shocked by the sudden pain and force, her eyes snapped open again and she screamed as her head was knocked back.

  The pistol fell heavily to the floor, struck the bottom step, and hopped like a badly bounced coin. Parker heard a cry behind him and spun, submachine gun up and at the ready. One of the men had appeared in the doorway, H&K MP5 up and ready. The gun went off.

  A red blossom the size of a fifty-cent piece appeared in his chest. The loose .357 came down off the bounce and struck the hallway floor butt-first, as if held by an invisible hand. The hammer reverberated under the impact and the fifth round went off like a stick of dynamite in a laundry chute.

  Parker jumped a foot when the dropped pistol fired, but his eyes never left the gunman as he tried to bring his own weapon to bear. The man was struck again by the second .357 round, and it shattered his jaw and creating an avulsion the size of a paperback novel in the front of his throat.

  Slaughtered, the man twisted and went down. Parker gaped in incredulous shock. The whole thing had been as unlikely as a SyFy Channel movie. On cue, a second thug appeared behind the first.

  18

  Parker and the thug looked up at each other over the improbable corpse of the third. Both men went for their triggers, realizing the other one was doing the same. Both men peeled away for cover as they fired, throwing their aims wild and sending bursts of slugs hammering into the building’s walls. Plaster dust and splinters the size of pencils filled the air as the rounds clawed through the building materials in useless fusillades.

  The girl staggered to her feet, mouth bleeding copious amounts as she spat out shards of teeth. On one knee in the hall, Parker sensed her moving and swung his weapon around like a croquet mallet—smacking the steel barrel into the woman’s shins, using merciless force.

  She cried out and went down face-first into the hallway rug. Blood instantly pooled and began dripping down the steps. Launching himself forward, he put a heavy hand in the small of the woman’s back and pinned her immobile. He thrust the submachine gun forward with one hand on the pistol grip and triggered a long, ragged blast of suppressive fire at the doorway behind them.

  She screamed again in inarticulate shrieks of primal rage and tried to rise.

  “Don’t touch me!”

  Exasperated, Parker did the only thing he could think of and popped the folding wire stock of the submachine gun against her temple like a carpenter tapping home a nail. The woman instantly sagged down on the rug.

  The barrel of a submachine gun levered blindly around the corner and opened fire. Parabellum rounds cut through the air above the ex-cop’s head in a hail of 9mm slugs, forcing him to duck. Sensing an opportunity, Parker drove himself into action.

  He came up in a low lunge and dove over the unconscious woman’s body, landing on one tucked shoulder and rolling across in a tight ball. He came up fast, right at the edge of the door, and shoved the sound suppressor in under the hammering, stuttering MP5.

  His knuckles went white as he pulled the trigger and hosed the area behind the door jamb. The little submachine gun instantly fell silent and tumbled away to land in a lake of the dead man’s blood. The final gunman pirouetted like a ballerina, his chest and stomach a bloody mess, tripped over the feet of the other corpse, and fell heavily to the floor.

  Snatching the submachine gun’s stock tight in against his shoulder, Parker snapped the barrel back and forth in a tight pattern as he looked deeper into the doorway. There was a moment of silence when he realized he
was in a stairwell, a flight of stairs leading down.

  There was a quiet, pregnant pause that seemed to last improbably long after the furious gun battle. Slowly, Parker uncoiled and lifted himself to one knee, his hearing still compromised from the closed-in reports of gunfire. Even with the integrated suppressors, the sound was enough to have caused a ringing in his ears this close. Behind him, however, he easily heard the rattled breath of the unconscious girl as blood bubbled through her nose.

  He felt a moment of despair for her. Something was wrong with her—that much was clear. He could guess at what had happened and realized he was witnessing the aftermath. He’d seen rape victims in the ER attack male physicians in an almost fugue state because of trauma, so he didn’t blame her, but he wasn’t going to let himself be shot, either.

  Parker worked his jaw, weapon at the ready, and his eardrums popped, returning some of his hearing. He heard the sound of heavy feet thundering up concrete stairs and

  Washington came through the door, weapon blazing.

  Finn cried out in pain.

  She tried to pull free from Spencer as the sound of weapon reports rolled back down the stairs, but he was relentless. She struck his face with an open palmed blow while trying to weave her leg between his ankles to trip him, but he casually shifted with the blow and automatically popped his hips back, easily keeping his balance.

  “Knock it off!” he warned.

  He shoved the barrel of his pistol into her stomach. She gasped and sagged against the iron claw-hold he held in her hair. The wind was bludgeoned from her as she folded down in pain, stumbling. He eased up on the pressure for a moment to let her catch her balance. Her hands stretched out to keep from falling as she fought to breathe.

  Her waving hand smacked up against the crosshatch of a CPU blade rack. Instantly, she seized her chance. Her hand wrapped around a notebook-sized processor and she snapped herself straight, yanking it clear. Her arm whipped around and the square device smashed into Spencer’s face.

  He made a heavy, almost squalling sound as his nose broke, and the impact resonated deep into the bones behind his face. He staggered and Finn yanked her head free from his grasp. Taking the processor up in a two-handed grip, she brought it down on top of his head. The device shattered against his head and the bastard hit his knees. Still grasping the broken pieces of the busted processor, Finn drove the heel of her foot into his face and laid him out. It wasn’t a crisp, Karate Kid snap-kick placed with precision. It was an ugly, telegraphed heel-stomp of a strike, but it hit the befuddled man with merciless force and, not in a position to anticipate the blow, he caved in on himself and went limp.

  Colson drove in to get her, but she felt him coming and managed to half-step out of the way. The man struck the table where she’d been bound at a dead-run and went sprawling. The feel of the disgusting man’s hand on her skin, her ass, her sex, flashed through her in a wave of belligerent revulsion so strong that she’d lashed out again before she was fully conscious of taking action.

  He was pushing himself up, cursing and trying to turn, his hands like the talons of a vulture, clawing for her with his nails from out of the dark. The smell of his body this close was nauseating and her terror at the feel of his touch instantly overwhelming.

  A long, wicked icicle of curved plastic from the cracked CPU tower jutted out in a stalagmite from her hand and she plunged it forward once, almost surgically, into the side of Colson’s neck. The plastic sliver slid without resistance into the muscles under the jaw and sliced through the network of arteries and veins there. Hot, sticky blood gushed out over her hand, ink black in the low light.

  A hand like a bear trap clamped over her wrist then. She screamed and tried to pull free. Her bones ground together painfully under the pressure and she was jerked down to her belly. Colson’s breath washed over her face in noxious fumes.

  He said something she didn’t understand and it was more of a gurgle as his own blood bubbled in his throat. Then he sighed wetly, and the grip on her arm released. Instantly, she scrambled backward, feeling her stomach flip-flop.

  She had to get out, get upstairs and find Parker. She began frantically slapping around the cellar floor, trying to find the pistol Colson had wielded moments before.

  Suddenly, a man was screaming from behind her and she heard the unmistakable thudding of a body going down steps the hard way. She turned and felt her heart quicken as she heard more gunfire. Washington somersaulted backward into the room. He shouted in agony as blood flowed from his face, skin torn in bloody ribbons that hung in tatters from his scalp. The big convict staggered to his feet then.

  Parker, submachine gun up and ready, stepped into the doorway. Washington staggered for a moment. Parker lifted the submachine gun and fired and Washington toppled like a tree. He struck the ground hard and rolled out of the light.

  “Parker!” Finn gasped, her voice hoarse.

  He began walking forward, sweeping the blade farm with his muzzle. “Are you okay?”

  Finn struggled to her feet. Parker stepped forward and swept his left arm up. He struck Finn and shoved, tossing her to the side. The submachine came up in his right fist.

  The suppressed weapon flashed in a starburst pattern in the twilight illumination of the blade farm. At the same moment, a handgun discharged and kept on firing. Neither shooter had had real time to aim, and both men fired wildly.

  The corrupt warden rolled in one direction and Parker rolled in the other, both of them firing. Finn scrambled forward on her belly and slid behind the dubious protection of some CPU shelving.

  Parker landed and kicked himself around the corner of a rack, pausing in his burst of fire to reorient his muzzle. The warden stopped firing, as well. Parker had momentarily lost sight of him.

  “Hey, you a cop?” Spencer asked.

  Parker looked to see if Finn was safe. She was slowly crawling away from the sound of the warden’s voice. He thought maybe the question was a ruse, an attempt to locate him, but in doing so, the guy had given up his basic location to a man with superior firepower.

  He heard the unmistakable sound of the pump action on a shotgun being racked. That goddamn shotgun has haunted me all night, he thought. So much for superior firepower.

  “I don’t feel like playing twenty questions with you,” Parker answered. He lay down flat on his back and slowly started scooting backward to create more distance.

  “Shotgun versus sub gun,” Spencer said. “I don’t really want to get into a literal debate about the advantages of each in a close quarter situation like this.”

  Parker craned his neck, trying to find Finn. He saw her stretching her arm around a computer rack to where one of the dead bodies had an exposed weapon at its side. He made a small, soft hiss, met her eyes, and shook his head. She frowned at him, made a face, and gestured toward the weapon.

  “Is this the part where you offer to call a truce, because our lives aren’t worth losing?”

  “It is,” Spencer said. “Because they’re not. Look, I didn’t have anything to do with taking your friend. I didn’t stop it because I couldn’t, but I didn’t hurt her.”

  “I know that, Warden Spencer,” Parker said. “You’re a guy following orders. That does fuck-all to excuse your behavior, however.”

  “You know who I am?” Spencer asked. “You think that gives you some kind of advantage? Like maybe I’m worried about you going to the authorities when all this is over?”

  “I know you’re a part of all this,” Parker shot back. “Whatever exactly this is. I have questions. You were ready for the strike. They used a non-nuclear EMP, and you were ready.”

  “That wasn’t really my end,” Spencer said. “They used an explosively pumped flux compression generator. Or some hush-hush variation on that. It all sounds a little Back to the Future to me.”

  “Those are burned up on use. Why slaughter so many people to get it back?”

  “You a fucking physicist now? What does it matter?”

&nbs
p; “Just answer me,” Parker told him. “I’m not known for my patience.”

  “Not all of the components are burned up. They wanted to make sure the people here held onto them.”

  “Who are ‘they’?”

  “You’re not going to get answers on that. Not from me.”

  Parker maneuvered himself around the corner of a rack and slowly rolled over onto his stomach, where he could shoot more effectively. Finn was slowly pulling a MP5 toward herself by the strap. It left a smeared trail of blood on the floor behind it. He saw she was naked and bruised, and he felt rage flare up inside of him all over again.

  “Then why are we talking, asshole?” Parker demanded.

  “We’re talking because you know as well as I do that you killing me is a possibility, but it’s not a sure thing. I start letting go with this .12 gauge filled with AP rounds in this place, chances are I’ll hit somebody. Hell, I don’t even have to kill you right away. There ain’t no ambulances, or ERs for them to take you to. You get hit, your chances are bad.”

  Parker winced. AP meant anti-personal. It meant each shotgun round was filled with little flechettes, increasing penetration and upping lethality. They weren’t something you bought a box of over the counter in the sporting goods section at Walmart.

  Spencer, taking Parker’s silence for agreement, pressed his point. “I’m not giving you answers. You kill me, you’re still not getting any answers, so get that out of your head. You’ll find out what’s going on like everyone else. Or not at all if I tag you.”

  “What do you want?” Parker shouted.

  Finn had the weapon now. He didn’t think she knew how to use it, though—not even enough to click off the safety if it was engaged. He hissed at her again. She ignored him, again.

  “I want to go,” Spencer said. “I’m on the door side of the room. Let me walk out of here and I’m gone. No tricks, no traps. I just want to go.”