Dead Six

by Larry Correia; Mike Kupari

  I did have to speak English into my radio, so I squeezed the transmit button and spoke softly. “Control, Nightcrawler, target building in sight.” Tailor and I studied the warehouse though the crowd, trying to discern the best way in.

  “Control copies,” Sarah replied. Hearing her voice in my ear comforted me in a strange way. “You are cleared to engage. Be careful.”

  LORENZO

  The noise of the market was muted here by the thick walls of the surrounding buildings. The skinny guy was still following discreetly. I had to cross a narrow street, and, glancing both ways, I saw no vehicles other than parked delivery trucks. It was late enough in the afternoon that all the day’s deliveries had been made. It smelled like fish.

  There was a man, wearing a nice suit, waiting for me at the side door of the first warehouse. “Mr. Lorenzo,” he said in rough English. “I need search you before come in.”

  “Tell Hosani to kiss my ass. If he’s got a problem, me and my big bag of money will just go home.”

  The guard nodded. “He said you say something like that. I just want make sure you right man.” He opened the door into darkness.

  The interior of the warehouse was dark and cool. Crates were stacked up in neat rows. The roll-up door at the rear of the building was open, and a few small fishing boats were tied there, as well as one nice fifty-footer.

  I spotted Hosani in the shadows under the catwalk by the glowing ash of his cigarette. There were a couple other men standing toward the back of the warehouse, and, from the sound, at least one pacing the metal catwalk above. If he wanted to take me out, I was well and truly screwed.

  “Hey, Jalal. You didn’t need to bring your whole gang,” I said with forced joviality, mostly so Carl would hear and know that there were a lot of men with guns here.

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” Jalal said. “This is how everyone in my line of work has to travel now, in groups, and in secret. I’m only doing this as a favor, and then I’m getting on that boat”—he waved his cigarette toward the back of the warehouse—“and going someplace safe.”

  “I thought this was good for business.”

  He adjusted his coat as he put his lighter away, exposing the butt of a compact pistol. Hosani sold guns, but I’d never seen him actually use one. He really was nervous. Earlier I had thought Dead Six was unprofessional because of their lack of subtlety, but now I could see the logic behind it. Their targets were terrified of them.

  “These Americans who leave the playing cards, they’re only part of the reason I’m leaving. This Dead Six, as you called it, is part of something bigger. I do not think they even realize who they are really working for.” He trailed off with a wry smile. as they say, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? My appreciation?”

  “Of course.” I tossed him the backpack. He unzipped it and glanced inside, rifling quickly through the stacks of British currency. “You can count it. I won’t be offended.”

  “I don’t feel like sticking around any longer than I have to,” he responded as he zipped the bag back up and put it over his shoulder. “I’ve got to warn you, Lorenzo. I don’t know what Big Eddie’s commissioned you to do, but it isn’t worth going after these people.”

  “That’s not an option.”

  VALENTINE

  We paused for a moment, allowing our eyes to adjust to the darkness. We were in the warehouse. I slid my sunglasses up onto my head and pressed onward. The small side door we’d come through led into the main room of the warehouse, but it was stacked from floor to ceiling with racks and shelves full of boxes. Voices could be heard echoing through the building, but we couldn’t see anyone.

  We crouched down and quietly weaved our way through the maze of racks and crates. The roll-up door at the north end of the warehouse was open to the docks, flooding the center of the floor in brilliant daylight. Above that door was a metal catwalk. There was someone up there. We’d have to take him out before Hudson and Byrne came in, otherwise he’d be above and behind them as they entered from the other side of the building.

  I came to a spot where I could see the main floor through a narrow gap between two crates on the shelf in front of me. Tailor had his 1911 Operator drawn and watched my back as I tried to ID my target.

  There were at least four more men in the building aside from the man on the catwalk. Two of them were standing off to the side, in the shadows, probably more bodyguards. The other two men were more interesting.

  One of them was a fit-looking man wearing a soccer jersey and jeans. He had on sunglasses and had a scruffy, unshaven face, so I couldn’t get a good look at him. A backpack was slung over his shoulder.

  The other man was facing away from me. He wore a dark suit and had a lit cigarette in his hand. I couldn’t quite make out what he was saying over the noises of the city and the harbor, but he was discussing something with the man in the soccer jersey. He paced as he talked, and turned around so I could see his face. There was no doubt about it. It was Jalal Hosani. I looked over at Tailor and nodded. Through hand signals, I told Tailor I was going to shoot Hosani from our current position. Hosani was only about fifty feet away, I could make the shot easily. Tailor told me he’d cover the catwalk.

  I aimed my revolver through the gap in the crates, placing the tritium front sight on Jalal Hosani’s chest. I wasn’t going to attempt a head shot at this range. If he was wearing a vest, the impact of a fat .44 hollow point would still probably break some ribs. Hudson and Byrne would be in the building before he could get away.

  Hosani turned away to face the man in the soccer jersey. I adjusted my sight picture and aimed in between his shoulder blades as Jersey Guy tossed him a backpack. Hosani opened the bag and rifled through it. My finger moved to the trigger. I exhaled.

  LORENZO

  Jalal took a long drag off of his cigarette and shook his head as he exhaled. “Very well, my friend. It’s your funeral, as they say. For my part, I—” Jalal’s white shirt exploded in a spray of red, and a sledgehammer weight collided with my chest.

  Jalal’s blood was on my face, in my eyes, and I could taste it in my mouth. He collapsed into me, clawing at my shirt, but he was already dead and didn’t even know it yet. I stumbled and fell, taking us both to the concrete. The bullet that had torn through his torso was stuck in my vest, and waves of pain radiated out from the bruised tissue underneath.

  There was more shooting. Muzzle flashes back and forth across the warehouse as Hosani’s guards went down, one after the other. There was a scream from above, and the man on the catwalk flipped over the edge and landed a few yards away, bones audibly cracking on impact.

  It was the shooter from Adar’s video, the tall one with the .44. He was moving smoothly down the aisle of crates. He had this calm look on his face, just kind of concentrating, like he was reading an interesting book or something. I shoved the twitching corpse off and jerked my pistol out. I didn’t have a shot. He caught the movement and ducked down as I started cranking off rounds. My bullets flung splinters from the surrounding boxes as I scrambled to my feet. I kept firing, forcing him to keep his head down as I moved.

  I flinched as a bullet impacted a support beam right next to me. There were multiple shooters. Jerking my head in the direction of the shot, I saw the shorter man from the Adar video vaulting over a railing. He disappeared between the crates. Now I had at least two of them hunting me.

  I slid to my knees behind a crate. “Carl! Dead Six is here!” I instantly dropped the mag, stuffed the partially expended one in my pocket, and slammed a new one home. Pain radiated through my chest with every breath, and that was even after the bullet had zipped through Hosani. That wasn’t a pistol, that was a cannon.

  There was movement in the sunlight at the open dock door as someone else swept inside. I have to get out of here. There was a door to the side, offices or something. I leapt to my feet and sprinted through the doorway. It was a hallway, several doors branching off in each direction. Shit. Speeding right to the
last door, I discovered it was locked. I took a step back and kicked it open, flinging it open with a bang. It was just a janitor’s closet. No windows. No exit. The shooters were moving up behind me. I was trapped.

  VALENTINE

  Wooden crates splintered and fragmented above me as I ducked behind a crate and hoped that its contents were substantial enough to stop handgun fire. The man in the soccer jersey had spotted me.

  I reloaded, punching my revolver’s ejector rod and twisting a new speed loader into the cylinder. I then squeezed my radio’s transmit button. “Xbox, I’m pinned down! Get this guy off me!”

  “I’m on it!” Tailor replied. Seconds later more gunshots echoed through the warehouse as Tailor opened up with his .45. “You can move!”

  “Roger! Moving!” I replied, coming to my feet again. I snaked through the maze of crates and shelves, revolver held out in front of me in both hands as I moved.

  “Xbox, Shafter, we’re entering now!” Hudson said over the radio. Tailor acknowledged him, and I wondered what in the hell had taken Hudson so long. I realized then that it had only been a minute since I’d fired the first shot.

  “I’ve lost that shooter!” Tailor snarled, frustration obvious in his voice. In less than a minute we’d wiped out all of Hosani’s guards except one. It kind of pissed me off, too.

  I cleared the maze of crates and found myself in the open area in the middle of the warehouse. Jalal Hosani’s corpse lay splayed out on the floor in a large pool of blood, a ragged hole between his shoulder blades.

  “Careful,” Tailor warned as Hudson and Byrne approached. “We still got one shooter out there, the guy in the jersey.”

  “Which way did he go?” I asked, kicking Hosani’s corpse to make sure he was dead. He was. I dropped an Ace of Spades onto his back.

  “You two,” Tailor said, pointing at Hudson, “cover us. Val, follow me, I think he went through this door.” The four of us split into pairs again. Hudson and Byrne exited the way they’d come in, through the open dock door. Tailor extended his 1911 and led me behind another shelf of crates, through a door that was hidden behind it.

  It led to a short hallway. Our two teammates stayed behind, covering the doorway while Tailor and I made our way down, weapons at the ready. There were two doors on one side and one door on the other, but all three were closed. At the end of the hallway, there was a partially open door. A small sign above the door read Custodian in English and Arabic. It was a janitor’s closet. A backpack with a broken strap lay on the floor, a few feet from the door.

  My eyes caught a flash of movement in the darkened closet. Tailor and I spread out to either side of the hallway and continued to inch forward. We were wide open, and doorways were fatal funnels.

  Shit, I thought bitterly. I wish we had grenades.

  “Hey! Why don’t you come out and die like man?” I shouted. I looked over at Tailor and shrugged. When all else fails, negotiate.

  LORENZO

  Please, don’t let them have any grenades.

  “Hey! Why don’t you come out and die like a man?” one of them yelled. Despite his raised voice, he sounded very calm, almost conversational.

  “Why don’t you come down here and get me then?” I shouted around the corner. The closet was decent cover, the walls were solid, and if they wanted me, they had to come down that fatal funnel of a hallway. The first one to stick his head down here was going to die, and they knew it.

  “Who the fuck are you?” one of them yelled, clearly agitated. Apparently they weren’t used to somebody speaking English. He was obviously a Southerner.

  “Nobody worth dying over,” I responded. “You better hurry. Somebody had to hear all that shooting. You don’t have much time.”

  “We’ll make time,” stated the calm one.

  Carl came over the earpiece. He was out of breath. “Some skinny guy saw me coming in the market and tried to stab me, so I broke his head.” So Jalal’s man had tried to stop my friend. That was a fatal mistake.

  “There are at least three shooters. They’ve got me pinned down.”

  “I’ll circle around,” he said. I could hear the Dead Six men talking back and forth in hushed tones down the hallway. The nearest two were speaking in Spanish, but they shouted at someone else in English that they would take care of me.

  “We’re on the way,” Reaper said. “But I’m stuck behind some trucks.”

  “I’m coming to help.” The female voice over the radio took me a second to process. I could hear the van door open.

  Idiot. “Jill, stay put!”

  BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM

  I jerked away from the doorway as the walls shattered. The giant .44 Magnum slugs tore through the building materials with unbelievable fury. The smell of solvents filled the air from leaking containers. I stuck my gun around the corner and fired several wild rounds in response.

  “Val! Holy shit, look at all this money!” They’d found the backpack.

  “That’s mine!” I shouted. “Assholes!”

  “Not anymore, motherfucker!” shouted the obnoxious one. “Ha!”

  VALENTINE

  “This is taking too long,” I said, dumping a fresh speed loader into my .44. “C’mon, man, we gotta go!” Tailor nodded, slung the backpack full of money, and led the way. I backed down the hallway, keeping my gun trained on the closet at the end of the hall. We’d already told Hudson and Byrne to head back to their vehicle, and the cops would be all over Hasa Market before too long.

  “Control, Xbox,” Tailor said, speaking into his radio. “Target neutralized. Egressing now. Will update as I can.” Sarah acknowledged him on the radio as we reached the door at the other end of the hallway.

  “It’s your lucky day, asshole,” I said to the man in the closet, even though I doubted he could hear me. Tailor and I then turned and bolted back through the warehouse.

  LORENZO

  It was quiet. I risked a peek. I couldn’t see anything, but that didn’t mean they weren’t just waiting quietly to blow my head off.

  “Lorenzo, there are four of them. Two came in the back. They’re heading west toward the street.” Carl said. “Those two fodas from the video just walked out the front. They’re heading south through the market, trying to play it cool.”

  The ones with the box were the ones that mattered. “Tail them. I’m on my way,” I responded, already heading for the exit. I shoved the STI back in its holster as I hopped over the bodies of Jalal and his men. There was no way I was going to let them get away.

  The market was continuing as normal. The walls of the old warehouse and the music must have muffled the gunshots enough not to spook the crowd. I walked quickly, as running would have drawn too much attention. A woman gasped and pointed at me. Glancing down, I realized that I was still splattered with Jalal’s blood. “Shit,” I muttered.

  “They’re moving south,” Carl reported. “I’m on them.”

  “Where?” I hissed. The woman was pointing at me and pulling on her husband’s sleeve. I ducked my head and turned, moving deeper into the throng.

  “By the fountain.”

  “Reaper, move up on the entrance. Be ready to roll. Carl, we need one of them alive.”

  Carl came back. “I’ve been made.”

  Then there was a gunshot.

  VALENTINE

  Guns holstered, Tailor and I pushed our way back through Hasa Market, south, where our vehicle was waiting for us. We nervously eyed the crowd as we walked, checking over our shoulders for the guy in the soccer jersey. I didn’t know who he was, but I knew he wasn’t just another militant asshole.

  There wasn’t time to worry about it. We’d been lucky, so far, in that no one had heard the shots or called the police, but I didn’t want to find out how long that luck would hold. All we had to do was make it back to our truck and we were home free.

  Not necessarily, I thought bitterly, remembering the night Wheeler died. We cleared the tangled mess of the marketplace and came upon the open area that
surrounded the old fountain at the center. Like the rest of the market, it was choked with people, but it wasn’t nearly as claustrophobic as the maze of shops and carts.

  Gun. I noticed it so instinctively that I almost didn’t realize it. Everything slowed down as The Calm kicked in again. On the other side of the fountain there was a man with a gun. He was short and squat, with a dark face and a scraggly beard. He was staring at me intently, and through the bustle of the crowd I could see him trying to bring a pistol to bear. He was dressed in local garb, but, like the man in the soccer jersey, I didn’t believe he was some random Zubaran citizen.

  Before I’d finished processing that, I realized my gun was clear of its holster and that the front sight was aligned on the man with the gun as he brought his own pistol up. His eyes grew wide as a gap appeared in the crowd; I had a shot. I fired.

  I missed. My bullet struck the edge of the fountain, blowing off a small chunk and ricocheting off into the distance. My revolver’s roar echoed through Hasa Market, and all at once everyone froze, heads turning to see what was happening. People around us stared at us wide-eyed, mouths agape.

  “Oh, shit,” Tailor said, his .45 already drawn. More shots rang out as the man with the gun fired at us, using the edge of the heavily constructed fountain as cover. Tailor and I shot back, moving laterally as we fired, trying to hit the gunman without killing anyone in the crowd.

  All at once the marketplace was in chaos. People screamed and began to stampede in every direction. Tailor and I were nearly crushed by a throng of people trying to get away from the shooting. We couldn’t even see the shooter through the morass of panicked shoppers, much less get a bead on him.