“We’re all links in the same chain,” I said. “You think I’m nuts, but there’s no way I would have traded you jobs. I’ve seen what happens on some of those calls you guys take. No thanks.”
We both chuckled as we continued down the stairs, and then began to slow down by unspoken agreement as we neared the bottom. I peered around the corner and could see a group of four men gathered near one of those mesh gates that you can pull down to close off an area, like the security gates at malls that you can pull down and lock. Behind it, I could see several men who were contained behind the gate. That ruled out directly engaging the four guards, especially since there were prisoners behind them in the line of fire.
A plan began to form in my mind. Glancing around quickly, I spotted another fire extinguisher in a glass case. Taking out my knife, I popped the lock and removed the canister. Then with a look at Marko, I smiled and tossed it out of the stairwell. It struck the ground with a loud clang and rolled to a stop in front of what was once a vendor booth that held t-shirts and souvenirs.
“What the fuck was that?” I heard one of the guards say.
“Go check it out,” said another voice.
Then I heard footsteps moving towards the vendor booth. Marko stole a glance and held up three fingers to me, indicating that there were three approaching. I just smiled and nodded as I transitioned over to my suppressed M-4. Crouching down, I took careful aim and waited. Marko gave me a confused look, but shouldered his weapon and prepared to follow my lead.
I gave him a smile and mouthed, “Trust me.”
Marko just shrugged and brought the holo-sight up to his eye. He was ready, but I don’t think he was prepared for what I had in mind. As soon as the three guards got within a few feet of the booth, I fired one silenced round and detonated the fire extinguisher.
Immediately, the boom of the explosion shattered the stillness like a baseball through a glass window and the white powder inside the extinguisher filled the air. The three guards were knocked off of their feet and covered with powder. There was no way that they were going to be able to see to shoot, much less react in any kind of coordinated way. They were effectively removed as a threat, for the moment.
I motioned for Marko to cover them and I spun out into the hallway. The distance between me and the one remaining guard was less than fifty meters. Although that was an easy shot distance for me, I was much more comfortable engaging a single target than a group. Especially since there were prisoners behind him in the line of fire. If I missed, it would be one of them who paid the price. One target that was not firing back, well, I liked those odds. I wasn’t going to miss one non-moving target at this range.
Squeezing the trigger twice, I double tapped him to the chest and knocked him backwards into the mesh gate. He slumped to the ground with a confused look on his face, blinking wildly as blood poured out of his nose. My shots struck him in a tight group right through the center of the chest. He managed to open and close his mouth in disbelief before his head slumped forward onto his chest. The prisoners behind him looked both surprised and worried about our dramatic entrance. I can’t say that I blame them. They had no way of knowing if we were there to rescue them or take them for ourselves. I would’ve been worried, too.
Behind me, I could hear the sounds of weapons sliding across the floor. I glanced back and saw Marko was disarming the guards without taking his weapon off of them. Once the weapons were secure, the cop in him kicked in and he began issuing loud and clear instructions to the still stunned men.
“Get on your bellies and put your hands on the backs of your heads,” he shouted. “One wrong move and you die, got me?”
I moved into position to provide additional cover and they began to comply, slowly rolling over and placing their hands behind their heads. I could see that a couple of them were looking around for any possible escape route or sign of help. I needed to shut that down quickly.
“Eyes on the ground, assholes!” I bellowed in my best CO voice. “Interlace your fingers or I swear the next fucking sound you hear will be the bullet passing through your skull.”
Even Marko seemed surprised at the power of my voice. It’s one thing to learn voice command and control techniques for a patrol officer dealing with one or two suspects. CO’s have to be able to be heard and understood over as many as two hundred inmates. The most I’ve ever had to deal with at one time was around one forty. Believe me though, that’s more than enough when you’re the only officer on the pod floor. I developed the ability to bellow loud enough that I could be heard over a room full of inmates and still hear my own voice bounce off the back wall of the cellblock.
Marko gave me an impressed look and began securing the prone subjects. Since neither of us had handcuffs anymore, we decided to improvise. The souvenir shop’s gate had already been forced open, so I lifted the gate and stepped inside. Quickly glancing around, I found something that would do the trick. Grabbing a handful of red team scarves off of a shelf, I ducked outside and tossed them to Marko. Then I resumed my post providing cover.
Marko wasted no time in securing their hands and feet with the scarves. I could tell that he wasn’t taking any chances and was tying them tight enough that they might actually be cutting off circulation. If I cared I would have said something, but I didn’t. After all that this group had done to the people that they took captive, a little discomfort was getting off lucky. Frankly, I had considered just shooting them all in the head and being done with it.
Once they were all secure, we headed over to the gate where the prisoners were held. They were staring at us with a mixture of curiosity and concern. As I approached the mesh, one man stood up and came towards me. He was a little older than me, but in decent shape. It looked like either he was the group spokesman or just the guy who drew the short straw and had to go talk to the new guys with guns that just killed the old guys with guns.
Either way, he seemed nervous and kept glancing back over his shoulder. He stopped a few feet away from me and rocked nervously on his heels. His eyes roamed quickly over the weapons that I was carrying and then down at the body of the guard that I had shot. I decided to let him off the hook easy and broke the ice myself.
“How’s it going?” I asked, trying to smile reassuringly.
I’m not sure how well it came across from the guy with scars all over his face and a metal eye patch. I’m sure that I looked like some scary psychopath that was hell-bent on killing everything in his way. He tried to smile but his nervousness showed through and the quiver in his voice betrayed him. I think he was convinced that I was about to kill them all.
“Who are you?” he asked hesitantly.
“My name is Wylie Grant,” I said, trying to sound soothing. “Nathanael County Sheriff’s Office.”
He looked surprised and then relieved. I thought I’d try to ease his fears even farther.
“I’m not here to hurt any of you,” I explained. “I’m here to get you out.”
“Really?” he asked, clearly shocked. “We thought you were going to kill us all.”
“No, nothing like that,” I explained, trying to sound reassuring. “I found out that these assholes were holding you and decided to get you all out. Do any of you know how to use weapons?”
I addressed that last question to the entire group. It was a fairly mixed group of individuals. I saw a few men in biker leathers mixed in with men in normal street clothes and a couple of men who were wearing groundskeeper’s uniforms. Ethnically, it was a pretty diverse crowd. At least Westbrook’s people were equal opportunity assholes. They didn’t care who they grabbed.
“We do,” muttered one of the bikers, gesturing at the others in leather.
There were five of them and I recognized the look in their eyes. These were men who were not particularly used to obeying anyone’s rules, much less working with someone who just identified himself as being with the Sheriff’s Office. They were eyeing me speculatively, but not making any sudden gestures. Obviously
, they had learned a lesson about charging the gate. Westbrook’s people had probably shot more than one of them, just to prove a point.
“Alright folks,” I began, “we need to get the women and kids out of confinement before we start arming people. No offense, but I don’t know how much any of you know about weapons or fire discipline. Marko and I will get them out, and then come back for all of you.”
“What if you get killed?” asked one of the bikers. “Then what?”
“Well,” I said, smiling, “Westbrook had something like twenty men when this all started. There are only five left. Two guarding the women and kids, plus three more walking perimeter. We should be able to get them all without too much trouble.
“So it’s just you two?” asked the man at the gate. “I thought you might have reinforcements.”
“No, it’s just us,” I said, shaking my head. “I think that we can handle it, though.”
“Why don’t you let us out first?” asked one of the other men. “Then you can go get the others.”
“Then I have to worry about what you might be dong behind us,” I explained. “Nothing personal, but I don’t know any of you and don’t know if I can trust you or not.”
“You mean you don’t want to give guns to guys like us,” said one of the bigger bikers.
From the way the others seemed to defer to him, I guessed that he was their leader. I also surmised that he was going to be a problem. The way he looked at me was something I had come to recognize while working in the pods as a CO. That was fine, but I would have to deal with him later. If we had any chance at getting the women and kids without a big firefight, we needed to move fast.
“We’ll discuss it when I get back,” I said, frowning.
“What if I say that isn’t good enough, cop,” snarled the big biker.
“Then you can fucking rot in here for all I care,” I replied. “Your call, asshole. I can let you out later, or not at all. Choose wisely, though. Frankly, I’m not in the mood to take any of your shit.”
“Just make sure you do come back,” said the big biker. “We can talk about the rest later.”
“I’m sure we will,” I replied, and turned to head off. “Won’t that be fun?”
Marko grabbed the dead guard and dragged him away from the gate. It was a good idea to keep temptation away from them. I should have thought of it, but I’m glad that he did. No sense in them getting any ideas before we got back. I didn’t want to have to fight the bikers unless they left me no other choice. I had a bad feeling that they weren’t going to.
As we headed towards another part of the stadium, I reloaded all of my weapons. Marko did the same as he continued to point the direction that we needed to go. Soon, we were approaching a corridor and he motioned for me to slow down and to keep quiet. I got close to the wall and stopped just short of the corner. Marko did the same and leaned close to my ear.
“They have the women and kids locked in another one of the luxury boxes,” he whispered. “Up the stairs that are just around the corner. Usually, there’s one guard outside the door and one at the bottom of the stairs.”
“Why is that?” I asked softly.
“Westbrook didn’t let his men have access to the women without his consent,” he replied. “After he let them rape two of the women and then they committed suicide, he decided that they had to preserve their resources. No one was allowed to hurt the women. He worked out a system where they either agreed to have sex with him and his men, or they starved.”
“Fucking asshole,” I hissed. “I should have killed him slower.”
“Yeah, he was a scumbag,” agreed Marko. “He saw people as things for him to use. When they were no longer useful, he got rid of them.”
“Then why did he keep the bikers?” I asked. “I’m sure that they were tough to control.”
“Not as long as they had their women,” he explained. “They kept the men in line by threatening to kill the women and kids. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked.”
“No wonder they were so eager to get out of there,” I replied. “Without the threat to their women, I had no way to control them.”
“Pretty much,” he said, shrugging. “You still might want to watch out for the big one. His name is Damien Fairburn. His street name is Butcher. He’s one dangerous motherfucker.”
“Have you arrested him before?” I asked, grinning.
“Never could prove anything, but he was a suspect in several murders as well as weapons charges. He did time at Jefferson City for Assault.”
“Jay Triple Cee,” I said, shaking my head.
“What?” he said, looking confused.
“Jefferson City Correctional Center,” I explained. “They used to call it the Bloody Forty Seven; the bloodiest forty-seven acres in America. My dad worked there as a CO back in the 50’s.”
“Wow,” he said, shaking his head. “I read about the riot they had in ’54. That was brutal.”
Peering around the corner, I saw two men standing at the bottom of the stairs, smoking. From the hint of the smoke that I was getting, it wasn’t tobacco that they were smoking. It was a sweetish aroma that officers everywhere were familiar with. It was the distinctive odor of marijuana. I could also hear them talking softly.
“What the hell do you think all the gunshots were about?” asked one.
“Who knows,” replied the other. “Kevin is probably getting pissed off, again.”
“You don’t think that guy they took up there got loose, do you?”
“Nah,” was the reply. “I mean, that was just one guy. There were like six or seven guards on him. If he got loose, they would have killed him for sure. Kevin probably shot him in the legs to make him talk.”
“Yeah,” agreed the first guy. “He probably decided we didn’t need that one-eyed asshole, anyway. I mean, he looked like a mean old bastard. It would probably be too much trouble to try to keep him alive.”
I couldn’t help but smile when they said that. They had no idea just how much trouble that I could be, or just how much trouble I had already caused. However, they were about to find out. I took careful note that while both of them carried a pistol and a rifle, the pistols were in their holsters and the rifles were slung over their shoulders. It was clear that they weren’t prepared for what was about to happen. Unfortunately for them they were not ready for a fight, but they were about to get one.
I briefly considered yelling for them to get on the ground and taking their weapons away from them. It would be fairly easy to take them without firing a shot, but the sound of my voice tends to carry. I couldn’t afford to alert anyone in the area, especially if there was a guard at the top of the stairs. I glanced at Marko and shrugged apologetically. He read in my eyes what I was about to do, but didn’t argue. If we wanted to take them silently, my only option was to shoot first.
I had a brief moment where I almost felt bad, until I heard them discussing which of the women that they wanted to have sex with that night. Before they could begin discussing the lurid details, I sighed heavily and spun around the corner. Snapping the M-4 to my shoulder, I brought the reticule of my ACOG right to the middle of the first one’s forehead. I hesitated for the span of a heartbeat as I let it register in their minds just what was about to happen. Both of them went for their weapons
My first round struck moron number one right above the left eye. I registered the hit, but didn’t wait for him to fall before moving to my second target. The second idiot had slightly more sense than the first one. He started to dive for cover as he reached for his pistol, but my reflexes were faster. My second round passed through his throat, from right to left, spraying blood all over the wall behind him. He fell to the ground gurgling and clawing at his wounds. His life’s blood was pumping from the sides of his neck with ever decreasing intensity. He would bleed out in a few more seconds.
“That suppressor must come in handy,” whispered Marko as he came up beside me. “You wouldn’t happen to have another one, would
you?”
“Not for the M-4,” I said shaking my head. “Try this on for size.”
I handed him one of my PMR-30’s. He took it and quickly checked the load like a pro. Once he had finished, he gave me a grim nod and gestured towards the stairwell.
“After you,” he said with a mock bow. “I insist.”
Chuckling softly, I headed up the stairs. I stayed close to the inside railing so I would be harder to see from above. Marko followed my lead and stacked up behind me. We moved slowly and deliberately to minimize the noise of our footfalls. At each landing was a door with a sign indicating which seating section was beyond. When we reached the fifth level, Marko tapped me on the shoulder and pointed towards the door. I nodded and took up position on one side while he took the other.
With only two of us, we wouldn’t be able to enter as tactically as I would have liked. Instead of a tactical entry team, it was just going to be the two of us. That would not be an issue if our information was correct and there was only one guard on this level. By my reckoning, there should only be three remaining anyway. Two of them should be walking perimeter, but discipline didn’t exactly seem to be one of their strong suits.
I readied my weapon as Marko reached for the door handle. He held up three fingers and I nodded acknowledgement. Then he began his countdown by bobbing his hand with one finger extended, then two. On the third bob, he grabbed the door handle and yanked it open. As soon as it cleared the doorframe, I spun through and swept the hallway. Near the other end, I could see one armed man with his back to me. He began turning around as soon as he heard the door opening.
Since his weapon was slung over his shoulder, I thought I’d give him one chance to drop it. Before I could say anything, I heard the soft report of the PMR-30 behind me, followed by the sound of a body hitting the floor. I hadn’t swept that direction yet. Marko had done his job and covered the other direction. It was a good thing he did, too. One of the other perimeter guards must have come to reinforce the guard on this level. Either that or our intelligence was wrong about their numbers. My decision to not shoot this moron was taken out of my hands when he went for his weapon. He was dead before his hand reached his pistol.
Ragnarok Rising Page 28
