by I.B. Holder
Chapter 65 Short Cut
Legacy swung into the driver’s seat of his unmarked government car and decided that it looked a little too clean, and that it could use a little character.
He didn’t head for the exit; instead he wove through the buildings to the back of the compound. Then, passing the kennel, his route became a vector – across the clearing and hitting the brush at full speed.
Branches scratched every side of the car as it scraped over a long fallen tree trunk. There was a very tenuous relationship with the footpath, in only nominal contact with all four wheels below. Legacy saw the glint of metal in front of the car and then a sheer drop off. He plunged over the edge, finding steps beneath half of the car and precariously angled tree roots under the other.
It was like half of the car was on a hydraulic lift and the other was in quicksand. If it were physically possible for two sides of a Ford to travel at different speeds, this would be the proving ground. Only the initial velocity gave Legacy any control over the vehicle.
Then, suddenly, the stairs were gone and the front of the car crashed into the soft, level ground like a cigarette being extinguished. He’d lost a tire in the front, or maybe it was just flat, and the engine had crept almost a full inch closer to the cabin. The plastic covers had popped off of the air conditioning vents as the ducts had migrated along the floor. The car slowed, but kept moving along the crude, narrow path.
Legacy’s brights were useless, covered by the ever-thickening underbrush that crowded so close to the car that the side windows began to pop. He pushed the gas pedal closer to hell. Everything else had gone there tonight, he might as well assist.
Legacy realized in the last frantic moments of his car journey that he wasn’t actually thinking of anything. He reacted to the road, pushing fears aside, saving them for a combined grief if he failed. Otherwise, he needed to concentrate on getting down this mountain – suddenly, he broke into the open. His brake lights must have blazed from the force of his foot, but it was too late.
He was part of a sliding sheet of earth, and down was the order of the day. The pitch of the slope was deadly. The car spun and Legacy was now facing up, watching where he’d come from. Legacy slammed the transmission into drive and gunned the engine; it was like swimming against the current. He wondered what an air bag would do to protect him from a sixty mile an hour crash. He doubted if it would do much.
A tree trunk snagged the back wheel and turned the car again. He didn’t know whether to be thankful that it slowed the car or freshly concerned that the next tree trunk would flip the vehicle entirely. He got his answer an instant later when the car hit the small creek bed below. Legacy’s fillings rattled, but a little injury actually added to his efficiency, gave his concentration a purpose and punctuation. In this case, it also gave him a full stop. The air bag exploded from the steering column, a full-force white out slapping him in the face.
He hit the accelerator. The engine still hadn’t given up, but there was no gear that engaged the transmission. No movement wasted, he pushed his way past the air bag and got out of the car. If he’d taken a moment to examine his handiwork, he would have been amazed at how much damage the modern sedan can take before resolving to an inert form.
Legacy was twenty yards down stream before he picked up the path he’d left on the ledge of foliage that stood sentry above him. A few steps and he saw the lights of the bar winking between the trees. He sprinted, long, gliding strides over uneven turf, busting in the back door of the bar. His mind took in the bar, and although the scene was as strange as he could have imagined, it did not alter his course in the least. He broke out a shoulder-height pane of glass from the small squares of clear coke-bottle translucency windows that made him wonder about the kind of glasses one would need in order to be able to focus on something on the other side. He concluded a short argument within his mind by busting another pane of glass at eye level.
He aimed his weapon out into the darkness. He waited for moving targets, three, possibly four, head-on, depending on their velocity. The conditions were extremely difficult for an average, or even better than average shooter. With Legacy on trigger, however, they didn’t stand a chance. Letting Blade have access to Wagner’s mind and body was completely unacceptable, but inevitable if he so much as flinched. It wasn’t confidence that kept his hand steady as a rock waiting those moments; it was the threat of consequence.
Minutes passed, people squawked behind him, his attention was enlisted elsewhere. What was keeping Blade? All of the possibilities that ran through his mind along the topic went from bleak to deadly. Was there another secret trail down the mountain? This was taking too long.
A hand rested on his shoulder, but that wasn’t what made Legacy turn. The crisp clack of a long barrel weapon being loaded, that was worth a look.
Legacy turned to find an almost comical picture. The bartender, a landslide of fat that somehow found some inner balance at his gut line had a shotgun trained on him, threatening him, of all things, not to hurt anyone. The conversation was almost as surreal as the circular sum of the concepts, violence, threats, bullets – “If you pull that trigger there’ll be blood.”
“Yes.” Legacy didn’t move his weapon.
Legacy’s eyes flicked from the weapon to the man, confirming something that the low quiver of his voice had already informed him. This man had the conviction to cripple, perhaps, but to kill, no.
“I won’t let you kill anyone.”
Legacy turned back to the trail. “That’s not your call.” He opened his jacket to show a FBI insignia.
“How do I know you’re really FBI?”
“Pull the trigger, we bleed jet black blood.”
Burly took a moment “Your friend got ambushed by the boys in the corner.”
Somewhere in the back of his mind Legacy already knew that. He’d seen Brent lying across a bench, blanket draped over him, pillow under his head. “I’ll check him once this goes down, I can’t split my attention right now.” Burly hovered, unsatisfied. Legacy glanced over his shoulder and something in the appearance of the place gave him an idea “They’ve got his sister,” He nodded in Brent’s direction. “I can’t let them get away.”
Burly’s face turned to stone, a blunt nod and he backed off. Legacy had recognized that his was a family bar; probably handed down to the fat man and that family connections would be instantly respected. There was something else about the bartender, something about the way he kept his area behind the bar separate from the customers, like he was protecting something back there.
Burly made one more comment, one of those inconsequential statements that Legacy barely registered. Unfortunately, it was one that would become vitally important in the minutes that followed.
No time to investigate the big man’s words, because at that moment, the upper registers of a deep growl could be heard, carried on the wind.
There was a slight rise beyond the parking lot outside the bar. Legacy trained his weapon and waited for the headlights to crest and then fall.
The whine began to transform into a rumble as it came closer. A freight train could have hidden its approach in the sound of the wide-open air-cooled engines. Legacy parsed the moments, like he was slowing the frame rate of a movie that he was watching. He got in between the moments; all it took was a deadly stillness in his own body. Everything was concentrated on his target.
Two riders, with a sled dragging from the bike in the rear. Twenty more yards and they’d be within range.
A wail crested in the air, at first Legacy wondered if it were being broadcast from the bikes, but an instant later, when the flashers came into sight he knew that it was his worst nightmare.
Everything slammed together in his head like the collision of stupidity with insanity. It’s difficult to predict the intersection, but everyone knows when they’re standing on that corner. The big bartender had said that he’d called an ambulance – why one would charge in with fla
shers and sirens in this desolate place was obvious. The driver wanted to make an entrance.
Legacy saw the bikers stop on the ridge, too far, he thought, just barely, to mark. They appeared to be discussing their options over headsets used to block out the rumble of the engines.
The driver of the ambulance tumbled out of the driver’s seat, a bullet found his heart before he could even look impressive leaping to the ground. The result was an awkward flop into the dirt. Legacy hadn’t seen the murder; his world was concentrated on the men on the bikes. He had registered the body dropping, there was a certain sound a body made when it hit the ground and would never get up again. Legacy felt eager to repay the favor. He felt the malice radiating like a ripple on the surface of a murky pond, but it wasn’t just a feeling that drew his finger tight against the trigger.
The rider who’d shot the man lit up in the gun muzzle flash. Even from this distance Legacy could tell that he enjoyed taking the life of an innocent.
Legacy made a quick decision, which reminded him of the reasons that he hated making quick decisions.
The biker pulling the sled was unarmed, but his partner still had his gun raised. It stood to reason that the armed rider was the most dangerous, but Legacy knew that the most dangerous weapon on the field was Blade. He had to take Blade out first, and then the partner would fold. His gaze snapped back and forth between the bikers. Legacy couldn’t imagine that Blade was not pulling the sled. He would want to be close to his prize at all times, there was no way that he would let his hostage be under the control of another, it would be the same thing as letting her loose. He craved the proximity to pain, so the chain from that sled had to be connected to Blade.
Crack, crack, two rounds were discharged in a heartbeat. Between heartbeats, to be more precise. Legacy watched the man fall backwards, both rounds exploded in his chest.
He took no time for celebration, with brisk efficiency he moved the sight of his gun over to the other bike, ready to repeat the process if the mark didn’t drop the gun and – Legacy’s eye twitched, the man was gone. In the split second it took to splinter his attention and focus entirely upon the first target, somewhere in the time after the report of his weapon, the second man had vanished.
He’d killed the one sitting harmlessly on the bike and let the one with killer reflexes and deadly aim live. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but that time had passed. Legacy couldn’t see enough of the field through the square-cut glass, and there was a very small chance that the second biker had gotten his position on that second shot. It would take him a moment to steady himself before he could respond and by that time, Legacy needed to be on the field.
Legacy sprung forward toward the door. The glass checkerboard that had been his blind only moments before exploded in a rain of high velocity rounds and popcorn-sized shards. That answered the question about whether he’d gotten his position. Legacy’s adversary had reflexes. He collected the information, processed it for now, then filed the strength of his opponent in the same way he did a weakness. He viewed any characteristic as something that could be used against his opponent, especially strength. He knew that in a battle of life and death, the person on the other side was much more likely to fall into a trap based upon the assessment of his own strengths than end up the victim of his weakness. The thing about having near-lightning reflexes was that in combat, he doubted that he’d ever had to get a step ahead. He was like a racer who stalked the pace knowing he could always close in an instant. Legacy needed to keep his head down, and his feet moving. He needed to be at least two steps ahead of this guy at every turn.
He burst through the door, low, and heard the wood pop with two more rounds at chest height. Reflexes tend to be built over time and they do not adapt quickly to new tactics. The man who wanted Legacy dead was a born killer, but he was used to killing a certain breed of person– stealth didn’t have much currency within his enforcer world meaning that all of his reflexes would be geared for straightforward, bloody combat. Legacy glanced up long enough to check his position, right where Legacy thought he’d be. Legacy needed to get close.
Legacy realized that somehow he had been wrong about Blade pulling the sled, and he had the fleeting thought as he crouched low and made for the flashing lights of the ambulance; if he had been wrong about Blade before, why should he trust his assessment now? He thought of the alternatives racing past the front bumper and cutting at sharp angle for the dark tree line at the edge of the parking lot. Stop trusting himself, stop thinking, stop moving. The options didn’t seem to be very comforting.
Branches brushed his shoulders and thick, high roots pulled at his feet, forcing him to shorten his stride. Legacy was about fifty yards from the sled and closing fast. Each time the flasher circled, Legacy found cover from the angle of the bikes, and it was a good thing too, because almost every sweep of the red light was punctuated with the snap of a round or two in his general direction. He was almost close enough; he knew that there was no margin of error in his next shot.
Blade knelt behind the sled, behind Wagner. He must have sensed the danger, noticed the kill angle represented by the agent’s approach because he raised his voice and froze the night.
“I’ll kill her agent, kill her while you watch.”
