Hardcase

by Dan Simmons

  What the hell? thought Kurtz. He had expected Malcolm and his men. He had no idea who these clumsy-looking white idiots were. Kurtz knew at once that these weren't Don Farino's bodyguards: the old don would never hire help with such bad haircuts and six-day beards. And, despite their arsenal, they didn't look like cops.

  The three men were all large and overweight, their bulk increased by what looked to be Kevlar vests under army jackets. They were heavily armed with automatic weapons, all three of which were sighted with projecting lasers, the beams quite visible in the dripping water and floating plaster dust. All three men were wearing bulky night-vision goggles.

  A radio squawked. The tallest of the three answered it while the other two kept sweeping the mezzanine with their laser beams. Within seconds, Kurtz had to wonder whether he was being attacked by the Confederate Army.

  "Warren?"

  "Yeah, Andrew, what is it? I told you not to radio unless it was important." Ah tole you nat to radio 'less it was imporant.

  "You all okay up there, Warren?" Y'all okay…

  "Goddamn it, Andrew, we just got here. Now shut the hell up unless we call you or unless you see him. We're going to chase him your way."

  Kurtz slid his .45 into his back holster and took the heavy sap out of his pocket.

  The tallest of the three men clicked off the hand radio and gestured for the other two to split up, one going around the west mezzanine and the other around the east side. Kurtz watched them go, the big men moving in what looked like a parody of military efficiency, stumbling over heaps of construction debris, cursing when they stepped in puddles, all the time fiddling with their night-vision apparatuses.

  Warren stayed behind, head moving, aiming a Colt M4 carbine burdened with a huge suppressor. The big man swiveled constantly, the laser beam flickering left, right, up, down. Warren glanced behind him, made sure that no one was between him and the wall near the elevator, and backed up cautiously.

  The radio squawked again.

  "What?" Warren said angrily.

  "Nothing up here. Me and Douglas are at the stairway at the other end."

  "You look in all the goddamn rooms?"

  "Yeah. They ain't got doors on this level."

  "Okay," said Warren. "Start on down. Sweep the sixth floor."

  "You comin' down, Warren?"

  "I'm staying right here until you got the sixth floor swept. We don't wanna be comin' at each other in the dark, now, do we?"

  "No."

  "So call me when you got the whole floor searched, then I'll come down, then you do the next one down, until we find the sonofabitch or flush him down to where Andrew is waiting. Y'all understand, Darren?"

  "Yeah."

  Another voice. "Darren, Douglas, Warren? Y'all all right?"

  Three voices at once. "Shut up, Andrew."

  While all this chatting was going on, Warren had been backing up until he was almost to the scaffolding. Kurtz silently lifted the cardboard panel and moved out of the elevator shaft.

  The wooden plank creaked under him. Warren started to turn. Kurtz leaned forward and sapped him with the two-pound blackjack.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 26

  « ^ »

  Andrew didn't like being alone on the first floor. It was dark and dank and creepy down here. Looking through his night-vision goggles made everything go all greenish white, so that every doorway or heap of sand looked like a ghost. But when he took the goggles off—which Warren had told him not to do—he couldn't see anything at all. The Israeli Bullpup full-auto assault rifle that he'd chosen was cool, slick, and black and curved as a snake, but he couldn't really see it in the dark. At least it wasn't heavy. Even the laser-sight's red beam, which had seemed so cool at the niggers' warehouse, was just a greenish beam of light through his goggles. Andrew amused himself by playing Star Wars with it, making light-saber noises as he swung the Bullpup and swooshed the beam back and forth down the long hallway.

  Suddenly the radio crackled again. It was Darren.

  "Warren? Warren? We found this Kurtz's guy's hidey-hole on six! He ain't here, but we found a cot and sleeping bag and shit. Warren?"

  Warren did not answer.

  "Warren?" came Douglas's voice.

  "Warren?" said Andrew from his place near the front hall on the first floor.

  "Shut up, Andrew!" said Darren and Douglas together. Then, also together, they said, "Warren? Warren?"

  Warren didn't answer.

  "Y'all better get back up there," said Andrew.

  This time his two older brothers did not tell him to shut up. There was a silence broken only by static-crackle and then Douglas said, "Yeah. You stay where you are, Andrew. If you see somethin' move, don't shoot until you're sure it ain't us comin' down. If it ain't us, kill it."

  "Okay," said Andrew.

  "An' stay the hell off the radio," said Darren.

  "Okay," said Andrew. He could hear the clicks as they turned their radios off.

  Andrew stood silent for what seemed a very long time. He was still turning slowly, trying to get used to the glowing greenish world of the night-vision goggles, but even the light-saber game wasn't any fun anymore. Nothing moved from the east stairwell. The elevator remained silent. Water dripped. Finally Andrew couldn't stand it any longer. He pressed the transmit button on the small sports walkie-talkie. "Warren?"

  Silence.

  "Douglas? Darren?"

  No answer. Andrew repeated the call and then shut his own radio off. He was getting nervous.

  It was lighter in the big middle part of the warehouse—the part that Warren had called the atrium—and Andrew moved into the huge, echoing space, looking up more than seven stories to the glowing skylight almost one hundred feet above him. It was only reflected city light bouncing off clouds coming through the skylight, but it flared up so much in Andrew's goggles that he was blinded for a second. He raised his free hand to wipe the tears from his eyes, but the stupid night-vision goggles were in the way.

  Andrew looked up at the top floor, where floor-to-ceiling plastic reflected the light differently than did the cold brick of the first six floors, but nothing was visible through the thick plastic. He lifted the radio again.

  "Warren, Douglas, Darren? Y'all all right?"

  As if in answer there came seven shots—very rapid, very loud, not silenced at all—and suddenly a terrible ripping and screaming from high up near the skylight.

  Andrew swung the Bullpup assault rifle up.

  There was a hole in the plastic way up there on the seventh floor. Worse than that, something huge and loud was screaming and flapping its way down toward him. Through his goggles, the thing looked like some gigantic, misshapen, greenish white bat-thing with one blazing eye. Its wings must have been twenty feet long, and they were flapping wildly, now streaming behind the body of the bat like rippling ribbons of white fire. The bat was screeching as it fell toward him.

  Andrew emptied the generous clip of the Bullpup at the apparition. He had time to see that the burning eye of the thing was actually the dot of his laser beam and also to see several of his slugs hit home, tearing into the spinning, flapping bat-thing, but the screaming continued—grew worse, if anything.

  Andrew jumped back into the atrium doorway, but kept shooting—phut! phut! phut! phut!—he had never heard a silenced weapon on full-auto before and the ripping sound mixed with the screaming and flapping noises weirded him out.

  The giant bat hit the concrete floor about thirty feet from Andrew. Now it sounded and looked more like a giant Hefty bag full of vegetable soup hitting the ground than any sort of bat that Andrew had ever seen. Green-white liquid spilled and spurted in every direction and it took only a few seconds for Andrew to realize that it was blood and that it would be quite red in real light.

  Andrew ripped off his night-vision goggles, threw them down, and ran for the front door.

  Kurtz had sapped the big man lightly: enough to knock him out, but not hard enough to kill him or
keep him out for long. Kurtz jumped from the scaffold and worked quickly, moving the moaning man's Colt M4 carbine out of reach, patting him down for other weapons—he carried none—confiscating his radio and night-vision goggles, and finally pulling off his filthy army jacket and donning it himself. Kurtz was cold.

  The radio crackled again. Kurtz listened to the one on the first floor talking to the two on the sixth floor who'd found his cot and sleeping bag.

  "Y'all better get back up there," came the braindamaged drawl from the cracker downstairs.

  Kurtz heard either Darren or Douglas say, "Yeah" and then he got busy retrieving the Colt M4, checking that the magazine was full and the safety off, and then lying prone behind the moaning—but still unstirring—facedown figure of Warren. Kurtz did not prefer to use long guns, but he knew how to use them. Lying there, the barrel of the M4 propped on the big man's back, Kurtz felt like a figure in an old cowboy painting—the cavalryman who's had to shoot his horse to use as cover when the Indians are attacking.

  If these particular Indians used the nearest stairway, they'd be coming up the north stairwell next to the elevators just ten yards away. If they came up the south stairwell, they could approach from either the east or west mezzanine, but Kurtz would hear them either way.

  They came up the north stairwell and made enough noise to make the groaning Warren almost wake.

  Kurtz sighed just before the two came into sight. If they paused at the doorway to the stairwell, he might be in trouble lying there behind Warren. But he did not think they would pause and come onto the seventh floor one at a time. Everything they'd done so far had been stupid or stupider. Kurtz sighed because he had no anger toward these idiots, even though they'd obviously come to kill him.

  They exploded onto the landing, rifles seeking a target, laser beams whipping left and right, shouting at each other, both men obviously half-blinded by the glare of the ambient light in their goggles. Kurtz took a breath, sighted on the pale faces above the black Kevlar, and shot twice. He noticed how efficient the titanium silencer was on the M4. Both men went down heavily and did not rise again.

  "Warren?" crackled the radio in Kurtz's army jacket pocket. "Douglas? Darren?"

  Kurtz gave it another minute, made sure that the two men's rifles had fallen far from their hands, and then rose and moved quickly to the fallen figures. Both were dead. He dropped the M4 and walked quickly back to Warren, who was beginning to stir.

  Kurtz set his boot on the big man's neck and jaw and forced the face back down against the concrete. Warren's eyes flickered open and Kurtz pressed the muzzle of the .45 pistol forcefully into his left eye-socket. "Don't move," he whispered.

  Warren groaned but ceased trying to rise to his knees.

  "Names," Kurtz whispered.

  "Huh?"

  Kurtz pressed harder with the pistol. "Do you know my name?"

  "Kurtz." Warren's breath kicked up concrete dust.

  "Who sent you?"

  Warren's breathing slowed. Kurtz was certain that he had not been conscious during the shooting. The big man was obviously thinking things over now and trying to come up with a plan. Kurtz didn't want him to have that luxury. He thumbed the hammer back on the .45 with an audible click and pressed the muzzle deeper into Warren's eye socket. "Who sent you?"

  "Nigger…" said Warren.

  Kurtz pressed harder. "Names."

  Warren tried to shake his head, but the pressure from Kurtz's boot and pistol made that impossible. "Don't know his name. Guy who runs drugs to the Bloods. Has a diamond in his tooth."

  "Where?" said Kurtz. "How'd you contact him? Where do I find him?"

  Warren blew concrete dust. "Seneca Social Club. Nigger place. Sent Darren out to make contact. They have a warehouse full of guns, but they took us there blindfolded. Don't know where the fuck it is. But we knew the Bloods'd knocked over the arsenal and—"

  Kurtz did not give a shit about the history of Malcolm's weapons heist. He moved the muzzle to Warren's temple and pressed harder. "What did—"

  At that instant, the radio squawked in Andrew's voice. "Warren? Douglas? Darren? Y'all all right?" Kurtz turned his head slightly and Warren lunged upward, throwing Kurtz off balance, clambering to his hands and knees.

  Kurtz staggered backward but had enough balance to go to one knee six feet from Warren and to aim the .45.

  The huge man was on his feet, staring over Kurtz's shoulder at the bodies just visible in the rising light.

  "Don't," Kurtz whispered, but Warren opened his hands and came on like a grizzly bear.

  Kurtz could have gone for a head shot, but he had more questions. He aimed at the center of the man's Kevlar-covered chest and pulled the trigger.

  The impact drove the huge man six feet back, staggering, but—amazingly—Warren did not go down. At that range, with this pistol, the impact must have been incredible—the equivalent of Mark McGwire swinging a bat full-force into an unprotected chest—certainly there were broken ribs, but Warren stayed on his feet, arms still swinging. In the brightening light, Kurtz could see the man's eyes wide and enraged. Warren came on again.

  Kurtz fired twice. The big man threw his head back and growled like a bear, but he was driven another seven or eight feet back toward the plastic-covered atrium opening.

  "Stop," said Kurtz.

  Warren came on.

  Kurtz fired. Warren staggered back, then came on again as if leaning into a hurricane-force wind.

  Kurtz fired again. Another several steps back. The giant was five steps from the edge of the mezzanine, his huge form silhouetted against the brighter plastic tarp of a wall. Saliva and blood sprayed from his open mouth. Warren actually roared.

  "Fuck it," said Kurtz and fired twice more, putting both shots high on the Kevlar vest.

  Warren was driven backward like a hammered railroad spike. The huge man hit the plastic, staples ripped out, he teetered, fingernails grabbing the sagging tarp, and then he went back and over the ledge, pulling one hundred and twenty square feet of tarp out of its frame and down with him.

  Kurtz walked to the edge of the mezzanine to watch the shrouded figure hurtle downward into the darkened atrium, but had to step back as the man far below opened fire with an automatic rifle. Kurtz had time to realize that Andrew was shooting at Warren before the big man hit the concrete. Andrew screamed and ran out of the atrium. Kurtz swept up the Colt M4 carbine and jogged down the short access hall to the east wall. He had pried blocks and bricks out of their moorings there, and the result was a sort of gun slit that let him look down on the east entrance to the building and the streets beyond.

  The predawn glimmer gave enough light for Kurtz to see Andrew running heft-bent-for-leather toward the wire fence along the east side of the lot. Sighing again, Kurtz lifted the M4 into the open gap in the wall and used the optic sight to pick up the running figure. He took a breath, but before he could squeeze the trigger, there came the pop and rip of automatic-weapons fire, and Andrew was batted down as if a huge, invisible hand had smashed him away.

  Kurtz swung the sight toward the line of cars across the street. Movement. Several dark figures behind the vehicles there.

  Kurtz could feel his heart pounding. If Malcolm's men came after him now, he was in a bad place. Kurtz never liked Alamo scenarios.

  One of the men jogged forward, crawled through a cut in the wire, and came out onto the lot as far as Andrew's sprawled body. The shooter raised a radio, but it wasn't tuned to the frequency Warren and his pals had been using. The man went back to the line of cars and several men got into the back of an Astro Van parked at the curb.

  Kurtz used the telescopic sight to read the license tag.

  The van pulled away and drove out of sight.

  Kurtz waited at the gun slit for another thirty minutes, until it was light enough to see easily. He listened very carefully, but the icehouse was silent, except for water dripping and the occasional rustle of torn plastic on the mezzanine.

  Finally Kurtz
dropped the M4, stepped over the bodies of Douglas and Darren on his way to the stairwell, and went down to the sixth floor. He'd left nothing in his little cubby except an old cot—found in a Dumpster—and an untraceable sleeping bag. But he'd been in here without gloves, so there was always the risk of fingerprints and DNA sampling if the cops got too earnest about solving this multiple murder.

  Kurtz had been keeping a five-gallon jerrican of gasoline in a closet. Now he poured gas over his sleeping area and the bathroom, dropped the Kimber .45 onto the cot, and lit a match. He hated to give up the .45—he trusted that Doc was telling the truth in saying the weapons were absolutely cold—but there were at least seven depleted slugs in or around Warren's Kevlar vest that Kurtz did not have the time to retrieve.

  The heat and flames were intense, but he had little worry that the whole icehouse would burn down. Too much concrete and brick for that. Kurtz also doubted that the bodies would be burned.

  Backing away from the flames, Kurtz turned and jogged down the north stairwell to the basement. The tunnel there was closed off by an ancient steel door that was secured by a new chain and Yale padlock. Kurtz had the key.

  He came out in another abandoned warehouse half a block away. Kurtz watched the streets for another ten minutes before stepping out onto the sidewalk and walking away quickly from the icehouse.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 27

  « ^ »

  "Joe, you look terrible."

  Kurtz opened one eye as he lay on the sprung couch in their office. Arlene was hanging her coat and setting a stack of folders on her desk. "Where'd you get that terrible army coat? It's about three sizes too big…" She paused and looked at the bundle of straps and optics on her desk. "What on earth is this?"

  "Night-vision goggles," said Kurtz. "I forgot that I had them in my pocket until I tried to lie down here."

  "And what am I supposed to do with night-vision goggles?"

  "Put them in a drawer for now," said Kurtz. "I need to borrow your car."