by Matt Hilton
Erick was in my sights. The other two PMCs had their backs to me. I could kill them all and be done. Shooting someone in the back is seen as cowardice, but that’s in a rose-tinted fantasy world. In the blood and guts arena of deadly combat you took the opportunities when you could, and to hell with the morality. I prepared to come out shooting.
Suddenly Erick wheeled away. He charged off and after a pause to gather their bearings, his backup detail followed. I mentally cursed, but waited as they raced along the corridor and disappeared deeper inside the building. Erick must have realised the same as me: Billie had gone in search of another way out, and with his superior knowledge of the layout of the building he was trying to cut off her escape route. Shit, I should have shot him the moment he poked his head out that door, but something had held me back. Maybe he deserved a moment of grief because, when all was said and done, Daniel was still his brother, and, despite the fact they were hard-nosed soldiers, uncompromising and tough, they would still share sibling love, and should be allowed at least a single tear of loss. But that was the only allowance I was going to make. I followed on their heels.
Erick moved without fear, good sense overridden by his need for vengeance. Plunging ahead, he neglected to watch his six, and towed along in his wake his friends made the same mistake. I followed within spitting distance and could have killed them in short order. Except it was better that I wait, follow to an appropriate exit and then do what needed doing. We went down a set of stairs, through some deserted workspaces and into a corridor I recognised as one I’d been in earlier. There I’d traded bullets with a PMC and butted his girlfriend who tried to blind me with her nails. The corpse had been dragged away, but there was a wide swathe of blood. Footprints tracked away from us, and small, bare feet had formed them. The heel prints were faint, probably due to the fact the person was running, but I was reminded of the way that Billie bounced on the balls of her feet when she walked. Then again, who else would be running around barefoot except for an escaped prisoner?
I allowed Erick’s party to draw ahead, then went to the stacked drums I’d crawled across earlier, and groped on top. I found the Colt M4 carbine I’d ditched there. The increased firepower was very welcome. Once the gun was back in my hands I followed the bloody footprints, and finally came to a set of exterior doors. They were chained and padlocked shut. The footprints were obliterated by then, but there was only one way Billie could have gone. Up and over the skywalk. I ran for the stairs that led up, even as I heard the repeated cracking of a handgun followed by a harsh shout from one of the PMCs. I powered up the stairs, careless of the racket I made, and charged to the entrance to the skywalk. Midway along it one of Erick’s followers knelt with his back to me, with his pistol extended before him. He gripped his left shoulder with his left hand, and from the way he shivered I thought that he’d been hit. There was no sign of the others, or of Billie, but they had to be hot on her heels. I banged through the doors and into the glass-walled tunnel, the floor shuddering under my feet. The injured PMC looked behind him hopefully, fully expecting one of his buddies coming to his assistance. His wish was short-lived. If the idiot had laid aside his gun and surrendered that would have been it. He saw me, recognised me for an enemy, and his instinct was to twist round and engage. One of the glass panels to my left exploded in glittering chunks. I fired as I advanced, unloading a short burst from the M4 that tore the man’s torso apart, and blasted more glass into the heavens. I didn’t check my handiwork. No way was the PMC coming back from our exchange of rounds. Cold wind blasted through the broken window as I ran past him.
I had to assume that Erick and the remaining contractor heard our short gun battle, but I also trusted that Erick was focused on Billie and would continue to hunt her now he was so close. So I threw caution aside and continued running, retracing my steps from the skywalk, through the twists and turns of the corridor where I’d knocked out the PMC I first saw at Billie’s farm, past the elevators and down the stairs to the ground floor. There was spent brass on the floor. A short exchange of rounds had taken place there, but the lack of bodies confirmed that nobody had died. I hurtled forward, past the numbered offices, and towards the foyer where I’d first entered. Before I reached the door to the foyer gunshots and gruff commands rang out. A woman shouted shrilly in denial. Billie had made it all the way to the exit, only to be cornered at the last second.
I didn’t wait for the inevitable but went through the doors, my M4 ready to wreak havoc. Startled by the thunderclap as I kicked them open, a man turned to confront me, bringing up his gun. I shot him repeatedly, even as I ran past, and the PMC fell dead before I’d reached the podium with the CCTV monitors. I’d no interest in the video screens, only in the two figures that tussled wildly just behind it. Billie screeched like a cat as she clawed at Erick’s face with her nails, knocking his glasses askew, but the bigger man got a hand at her throat and his pistol under her jaw. He spun her so her back was to me and I skidded to a halt, threatening with the carbine, but unable to do a thing. Billie’s weapon lay empty on the floor at their feet.
‘Back off,’ Erick snarled at me. ‘Or I’ll shoot this bitch in the face.’
‘Shoot her and you’ll be dead the next second.’
Billie screamed a curse; throwing her body against Erick, and for a split second I waited for the crack of his gun. Erick knew what would happen if he shot her though, so instead he squeezed her throat tightly and Billie gagged, sinking at the knees, almost passing out. Erick grappled her closer, turning her so he could wrap an arm around her neck and position the muzzle of his gun under her ear. I searched for a clean shot, but wasn’t confident I could get Erick before he killed Billie. He knew it too and offered a grimace of challenge.
‘I don’t know who the hell you are, buddy,’ Erick said, ‘but you’ve done pretty well here. You went through my men like goddamn Rambo. Trust me though: you aren’t good enough. Drop your weapon or Billie dies.’
If I dropped my weapon she’d die anyway. There was no chance I’d relinquish it. ‘You think Billie shot your brother, right?’
‘What do you know about that?’
‘I was there. It wasn’t Billie who killed Danny, it was me.’
‘Bullshit!’
‘Do you really think an injured woman would be able to kill him? He was a fucking veteran, a soldier. I shot him. Then I gave Billie the gun and told her to run while I went to kill the rest of you.’
Under closer scrutiny my lie wouldn’t hold water – if he demanded proof I couldn’t tell him where Danny had been shot, head, body or anywhere else – but momentary doubt crossed Erick’s face. Like most men he probably struggled to accept that a woman could be as deadly as Billie had proved. It made more sense that a soldier like me had killed his brother. Now his hatred for her was wavering and his jaw clenching as he weighed the possibilities that he was wrong. I was hoping that his anger would get the better of him, that he’d release Billie and come for me.
‘I owed Danny,’ I continued, adding layers of plausibility to my lie. ‘He tried to kill me back in the forest. Almost smashed my brains in when I was lying there wounded. I wanted payback.’
Erick took the gun from Billie and aimed it at me. I shook my head, warning him what the outcome would be as I aimed the M4. I was loath to shoot but I wasn’t going to die without getting off a round.
‘Release the woman,’ I said. ‘Then we can go for it. What do you say, Erick? Want your revenge or not?’
‘She’s going nowhere.’ Erick returned the gun to Billie’s neck. But I could tell he was wavering. His eyelids pulsed, pinching in and out as he fought to control himself.
Maybe things would have gone the way I was pushing, except Billie spoiled everything. She again threw herself against Erick, trying to hit him with the back of her head, stamping her feet. ‘I killed Daniel and I’m going to kill you, you bastard!’ she screamed. ‘I’ll kill you the way I killed—’
Billie’s outburst caused time to h
alt.
She’d almost finished her boast when suddenly she caught my eye and the admission caught in her throat. I watched her chest deflate, but it was only for a moment. Something snapped inside her, and she erupted into frenzy, reaching back to claw at Erick’s face, while she screeched like something demented.
Time clicked back on, racing now to make up for the brief hiccup.
Erick twisted his head to avoid Billie’s nails, while still trying to glare his hatred at me. He was going to do it. He would shoot and let the consequences be damned. I ran and threw myself at the podium, and it crashed into them. Erick staggered away and Billie spilled to the floor, still kicking and thrashing in unrestrained rage. The podium was tilted over and I went up it as if it was a ramp, and jammed my M4 under Erick’s gun, just as he fired. The bullet scorched the air alongside my head. I didn’t allow the close call to slow me, I powered into him, using the podium as a springboard, and we both smashed into the wall. I ground his wrist against the wall, but knew he’d never release the pistol so easily. I swung up the stock of the carbine and hit him under the jaw. It would have hurt like a bastard, but not under the circumstances, not in the heat of battle. Erick chopped at my face with his stiffened left hand. It felt as if a metal bar struck me, and blackness edged my vision. But I couldn’t slow down or assess my latest injury: I slammed him with the carbine again and mashed the flesh of his lips against his teeth. It skidded off his jaw and under his throat. Then we were jammed together and slid along the wall, kicking and struggling.
‘Billie! Get out of the fucking door!’ I’d no idea where she was, my vision tunnelling, my hearing closing down to a single whoosh, and could only hope that for once she did I as bloody asked.
Erick finally dropped his sidearm, but only so he could get a grip on the barrel of my gun. I was carrying an injury that weakened me; he was strong. He forced the gun away from his throat, and I was struggling to hold on. I considered releasing my hold on the carbine to draw one of my handguns and give him a bellyful of lead, but if I did he’d yank the carbine away and turn it on me. So I made do with kneeing him in the groin. A waft of hot breath misted the lenses of his spectacles. But he wasn’t done. He wrapped a leg behind mine, and tripped me. We both went down on our sides, still struggling for control of the carbine.
Billie was there. She kicked at Erick, but her foot skipped off his forehead and hit mine. It was good of her to try to help, but not when she proved a hindrance.
‘Outside, Billie! Now!’
While I was otherwise distracted Erick clubbed me in the ribs with his balled fist. The antiballistic vest saved me from any damage, but reminded me why my arms felt so weak. I’d ignored my chest injury throughout most of my running battle, but the sudden warm heat made sure it wouldn’t be off my mind again soon. I couldn’t go strength against strength with Erick, because it was a fight I would lose.
‘They’re coming!’ Billie yelped. At first I didn’t know what she meant – I was too intent on one thing: my enemy.
‘You’re fucked now,’ Erick snarled, knowing too well to whom Billie referred. Reinforcements were on their way, drawn by the gunfire and the subsequent scuffle.
‘Not yet,’ I said, and finally let go of the carbine. I didn’t relinquish my close hold on him though, pushing up against him, trapping him alongside the wall as I wormed my fingers up his face and under his glasses. I gouged at him with my fingernails, forcing him to screw his eyelids tight or be blinded. While he was blinkered like that I again drove a knee into his groin, and this time I got him good. But Erick still proved tougher than most. He kneed at me, banging my thighs painfully, then when he’d won a little room he kicked out, pushing me off him. That suited me; I wanted to disengage anyway. I quickly came up to one knee, going for a gun in my waistband. My hand found empty space, the damn guns having fallen out as we grappled on the floor. Just as Erick twisted the carbine in his grip, I spotted a gun lying yards away, and I dived for it.
As I did so, the doors burst wide and a group of uniformed PMCs charged into the foyer.
I got my hand to the grip of the gun, rolling over on to my butt to get a bead on Erick.
Another gun beat mine to the first shot.
39
I’d never heard a sweeter sound than the boom of Rink’s Mossberg shotgun that turned the exit door to flying debris.
A moment later a fixture in the ceiling detonated in a glittering shower of sparks and chunks of plastic and glass that sent the newly arrived PMCs scuttling for cover. Erick also reacted to Rink’s unexpected arrival by dropping low behind the overturned podium, so he didn’t get to unload the M4 on me. Saying that I couldn’t shoot him either, but I was happy enough with the outcome. I scrambled up and grabbed Billie by an arm and dragged her for the exit doors as Rink fired again, a succession of three blasts of buckshot that ensured our enemies were more concerned for their lives than ours. We were through the destroyed door in seconds, while Rink, leaning out from the door frame, discouraged immediate pursuit with another volley of shot, doling out the noise and thunder he’d promised. I took a quick look at my friend’s face: it must have been hell for him holding his peace all that time, but extraction support had always been his part in our plan. Since I’d entered the complex little more than twenty minutes had passed, but I can guarantee to Rink it had felt an age. Rink shook his head in reproof at my tardiness. But then we were all sprinting together for the limousine that Rink had already got running.
It would be a fatal decision to get inside the car though. Already some of our pursuers were at the ruined doors and aiming their guns. I manhandled Billie around the hood and down behind the front wheel just as bullets began impacting the car. The limo wasn’t the armoured variety favoured by politicians and high-risk business people and was a poor barrier against high-powered weapons, but it was all we had. Rink returned fire, pushing those in the doorway back inside. My handgun was almost out of ammo, but I found one of the spare mags I’d liberated and got it ready. Across the turning circle was the recessed doorway of another building, the same one where I’d first made the chauffeur strip off his uniform jacket. I briefly wondered what had become of the big guy, but it wasn’t important, so concentrated on the next hare-brained move we could make. If Rink covered us, Billie and me could fall back to the building across the courtyard, and maybe find a way inside. I could then cover as Rink retreated and joined us, after which we could barricade ourselves in and wait for the cavalry to arrive. By now Noah or Adam must have alerted the authorities.
There was a cessation of gunfire.
‘None of you are getting out of here alive.’
Erick’s voice had come from within the foyer.
‘Could say the same about you,’ Rink retorted and, for good measure, blasted one of the windows into tinkling shards.
Guns cracked again, but nobody was showing their faces and their bullets didn’t as much threaten us as they did the building across the way. Erick cursed, ordering a ceasefire. He called out again, ‘You made the wrong enemies when you chose to come against us. You can’t win. We’ve got you outgunned and outmanoeuvred. Lay down your guns.’
‘Dream on,’ Rink muttered and offered me a grandiose wink.
‘Let us go, Erick,’ I called. ‘Enough people have died for Procrylon’s greed. You don’t have to join them if you just let us walk away.’
‘You murdered my brother.’
I didn’t say a thing. It wasn’t the time for lies – or even the truth – as goading Erick was no longer a good idea. I looked once at Billie but she’d averted her face, although I didn’t think it was through shame.
From a distance sounded the roar of engines.
‘They’ve reinforcements coming,’ I whispered to Rink. I doubted that the responding vehicles were Cooper’s troops, because the engine sounds came from the side of the building where I’d earlier spotted the PMC fleet of vehicles. ‘We can’t get ourselves cornered here. Erick’s after blood.’
&
nbsp; ‘I’ll show him the colour of his own blood if he pokes his head up for a second.’ Rink’s bluster was partly to reassure Billie. She was crouching down by my side now, her arms wrapped around her knees as she rocked back and forth, mouthing something under her breath.
‘We have to move,’ I said.
‘Agreed.’
Erick shouted another warning, but I ignored the empty words. Instead I knelt in front of Billie, taking her shoulders in my hands. ‘How badly are you hurt?’
‘My hand . . .’ She didn’t elaborate.
She was barefooted, so she couldn’t run far without the risk of seriously cutting herself, but it appeared she was going to have to. No. The other vehicles would run us all down in moments. There was nothing else for it. I reached and eased open the door of the limo. ‘Can you still drive?’
Billie nodded eagerly. ‘Even with a broken hand I could still shoot a gun.’ Her eyes were feverish. ‘I’m sure I can turn a steering wheel.’
‘Good. Get in. When I tell you to, get out of here, but go slow and steady, we’ll be covering you, but we need to get inside once we’re clear of those front doors. Understand?’
Rink also nodded at my idea. He readied the shotgun as I helped Billie slide into the driver’s position. I held her arm, studying her swollen fingers. The limousine was a European import, with a stick shift. There was no way she could handle the gears in that state. ‘Billie, don’t panic, OK. Just do as I said. Pull away, and get ready to move aside, because I’ll take over the driving once we’re moving.’
Erick hollered again, and from his terse delivery he was ready to assault our position if we didn’t comply.
