by Blaze Ward
He heard a cry of surprise, but the man ducked out of sight.
Thankfully, the range itself was shut down right now. Rob just hoped that Mac or Alicia didn’t get the bright idea to start it up, foolishly thinking they could flush the old man from cover. Those guns actually worked, and were likely to track on any movement autonomously.
Rob didn’t feel like getting shot unnecessarily.
He broke from cover and crossed the dark street, unsure what was down the alleyway that Tanaka had taken. It wasn’t the one that he had used to escape the range earlier.
From here, he had a better view though, so he began jogging down the streetway with his eyes and gun on that opening.
Movement. Rob fired but it was a manikin rolling out on wheels.
Dead center mass. It would have turned red.
Rob threw himself forward into a roll as Tanaka fired back. Found a trashcan that was set in concrete to hide behind.
Standoff at this point. Tanaka hiding in what must have been a dead end if he hadn’t kept running.
Maybe he didn’t have keys to open those doors, and the controls were in Mac’s hands.
Rob smiled like a shark smelling blood.
He fired a shot into a nearby wall, just mostly to see what the old man would do.
Tanaka fired back, but didn’t have a target either.
Good enough.
Rob could probably rush the older man right now. Trust that his reflexes were better than Eugen Tanaka.
Bet his life, maybe.
Sounded stupid and wasteful. He was too pretty to die.
Instead, Rob dug out his other stun grenade. Nobody ever appreciated them as party favors.
Well, except Nigel. That crazy redneck had all sorts of fun with them.
Smoker would be good here, too, but take too long. Same with a tear gas grenade.
No, Rob wanted sudden.
He switched hands and moved back to his left around the concrete barrier, firing a shot for no other reason than to make the old man flinch.
Tanaka fired back, equally at nothing.
Rob started to run forward, hurling the grenade like a man on a cricket pitch bowling for the wicket. The grenade bounced low, right at the entryway, and then skipped up, hit the sidewall, and hopped up as it rebounded deeper.
Rob didn’t think he could repeat that perfect throw if his life depended on it.
The stun grenade went off like Joshua sounding his horn.
Rob stopped at the edge of the alley and squatted down. He peeked. Tanaka had apparently caught it just about perfect, because it had blown him sideways into a pile of trash bags that didn’t have any smell whatsoever.
Rob raced closer, but the man was out cold, his pistol clear over there.
HE checked the old man’s pupils and then flipped him over and used a nasty piece of plastic to connect his wrists together in such a way that Tanaka couldn’t get them loose.
Two of the mercs were accounted for, so Rob dragged the man close to a trash dumpster and flipped him onto his back again. Then he hid himself behind the dumpster, after checking that nobody could come out from behind him.
Now, he just had to stop and breathe.
Footsteps approached. Rob faded into the shadows and watched.
Last merc appeared. This one had taken the time to add some armor and heavier weapon.
“Mr. Tanaka?” he called.
The old man wasn’t going to reply for a while, so Rob waited.
The merc approached warily.
“Sir?” the man said quietly.
He slipped the carbine back onto the strap and slung it across his shoulders as he got close to the man and knelt, a finger on his neck feeling for a pulse.
“Don’t move and I won’t have to kill you,” Rob said ominously from the darkness.
The man wisely froze.
“Drop the rifle oh so carefully and step away from it,” Rob commanded.
The man complied, probably aware that Rob could have just shot him in the head instead of talking.
“Is he dead?” the man asked.
“Negative,” Rob answered. “Stun grenade only. One of your buddies got shot, but we can medevac him if you don’t get stupid right now. Mel ate the first stun grenade. Any other men around I need to take down before we settle this?”
“No, sir,” the merc answered. “Just house staff.”
“Have they sounded an alarm off property?” Rob pressed. “Face the wall, arms up, feet apart. You know the drill.”
The merc complied carefully, aware that he could still be a casualty from the way he moved.
“Not that I am aware of,” the man replied as he got against the wall. “What’s going on? Who are you people?”
“The good guys,” Rob called, finally moving from cover.
He drifted over to the man’s left and let himself be seen. The look of surprise was priceless.
Rob kept the pistol on him.
“Left hand out so I can cuff you,” Rob ordered.
The man complied, staring up the barrel of a class four that was probably still glowing a little from the heat.
Rob slipped another piece of plastic onto the wrist without taking his eyes off the merc and pulled it tight.
“Turn around and put both behind you,” Rob continued. “Got no beef with you and your buddies, so you can make it home tonight. You will be unemployed tomorrow, but them’s the breaks.”
The man turned away. He wanted to do something stupid right now, but something in Rob’s eyes held him. The hand came back and Rob put the pistol right at the base of his neck above the armor plate protecting his back.
Zip and the man was immobilized. Rob holstered his pistol now and removed the man’s belt, the one with all the nifty pockets containing gear.
Rob had worn them. He knew what to expect, and tossed it into the fake dumpster now.
“Rob, we’re getting an alarm from the main house,” Mac spoke up now, coming from speakers everywhere. “Police will be responding soon. ETA twenty minutes from what they told whoever just called them. Have to come up from the port and are bringing a team.”
“Understood,” Rob called. “You come get the key to the truck while I sort things out here. Situation is under control.”
“Be right there,” Mac replied.
Rob spun the merc around so he could talk to the man.
“We’re taking Tanaka and Kim with us,” he said. “Your buddy needs medical help, so somebody needs to get him to the hospital. I don’t have a reason to come after you tomorrow, assuming you don’t play stupid here, so make sure your buddies all tell the same story. We wore masks when the police ask and you have no idea who it was that hit the place. Maybe one of the Syndicates got jealous, but you don’t know which one because you don’t know who I work for. You three haven’t done anything to piss me off. Let’s keep it that way. Your bosses are going down hard. Walk away and you live to fight. Mess with me, and I’ll send battle fleets after all of you some night. Am I clear?”
It was almost word for word a speech Jorge had given in one of his better movies. Rob watched them regularly to study the man’s mannerisms and things like this, just so that you give the lines like you were talking to a camera and making them stick. Jorge had actually been nominated for some award for that role, so it was a good one to crib.
The merc swallowed but nodded.
“You sit over there where I can keep track of you and you’ll be fine.” Rob moved the man and put him against a wall. Just to be mean, and to keep the man from getting ideas, he went ahead and used another cuff to hobble his ankles.
He’d cut it off later, but it was mostly psychological warfare now.
Mac approached. He could tell from her footsteps it was her.
“Here,” he called as she stopped at the corner and peeked carefully around.
Just like she was supposed to.
Rob tossed her the fob to the stolen truck and went looking for an elevator and a rolli
ng cart.
Things had to be done just so, and he didn’t have a lot of time.
33
Mac landed the truck right behind the barn, next to those big doors, after flying in high enough to make sure that nobody was outside the main house. Hopefully, they were all cowering in the wine cellar right now and wouldn’t come out until the police arrived.
The clock was ticking, but she’d already known they would be racing failure.
Rob opened the bay doors as she landed and pushed out a cart with two bodies on it.
Mac set the collective neutral and left the generators running as she hopped out.
Tanaka and the first man, Leonard Kim. Both out. Both tied up.
Rob must even stronger than he looked to have lifted the man onto the cart. She grabbed Kim’s feet and helped Rob sling him into the bed while Alicia came outside and got into the passenger side.
A tarp covered both men and got tacked down.
“Now what?” she asked.
Rob just smiled and motioned her to follow, so she did.
Her case, but his firefight. She could work with those rules.
Inside, she found the three mercenaries against a wall. One had a bandage slapped across his stomach. The first one was still out cold. The last one was watching from tired, hooded eyes.
Rob pulled out a knife and cut the awake man’s ankles loose from where they’d been tied.
Rob grabbed him as she watched and pulled the man upright.
“Out the back, but not the truck,” Rob said. “You get clear of everything so I can bring the other two out.”
Amazingly, the man nodded and started walking, his hands still behind his back.
Rob grabbed the other two much more softly than he had Tanaka or Kim and put them onto his cart.
“Where are we taking them?” she asked as she helped.
“Outside where they’re safe from what’s next,” he grinned at her.
Fine, be that way.
She helped and got them on, following Rob as he pushed it across the field to a gate.
Mac opened the gate when he gestured, and Rob and the one walking man got out into the next field.
“Turn around so I can cut you lose,” Rob ordered the man, surprising her, but he complied and Rob freed his hands just like that.
“Your buddy has a pretty good med kit and the cops should be here in about ten minutes from what they told the house staff,” Rob said. “You good?”
“I will be,” the man said, kneeling down to check his comrade. “You should get gone so I don’t see anything.”
“On it,” Rob said, grabbing her hand and pulling her back to the truck. “You get in. I’ll be right back.”
She watched him pull something from his messenger bag as she climbed in next to Alicia and waited.
Rob appeared a moment later from inside the barn, jogging lightly and then getting in. He lit the collective fully back and the engines all the way forward, so it was like being on a carnival ride for a few seconds.
Mac looked back as Rob got just high enough to clear the trees. Just in time to see a fireball erupt out of the barn door.
“What was that?” she called over the noise from open windows.
“Destroying all the evidence,” Rob said with a grin. “By the time the fire department can do anything, the entire interior of the place will be a burning wreck. One of Nigel’s specials.”
“Why?”
“We can’t get all the security footage, but we know it’s not transmitted, so hopefully nobody will know it was us,” Rob said. “I presume you got what you needed?”
“We did,” Alicia spoke up. “Esme warned me that I needed to get everything fast, so I copied the Lonelyman files and left the rest, knowing we had the man himself. What do we do now?"
“There’s a chase vehicle behind us with more information from home,” Mac spoke up. “Hopefully they’ll arrive in the next half day or so, same as news for Tanaka, and we can have some help. We’re taking them both?”
Rob nodded to her.
“Best way to destroy an organization is to remove the top layers suddenly, and then start hunting the rest,” he said. “Thought about sending anonymous copies of some of the data to all the Syndicates, as well as to all the embassies and consulates I can find addresses for, indicating that Lonelyman was really a secret agent for Lincolnshire the whole time, but I’ll let you and Miguel figure that part out later.”
“You don’t care?” Mac asked, a little surprised.
“Not my case,” Rob said, navigating the flying truck like a race car almost, low enough that he had to stick to roads for the most part, but with all the running lights off.
Mac started to say something, but then she remembered that Handsome Rob had to keep some level of isolation from his cases. He’d told her about it when they first met, that conversation on triple lives.
Quadruple, since the two of them had gone far beyond necessary cover on this one, and that would always hang there between them until they dealt with it.
She certainly didn’t want a boyfriend, to say nothing of a boy toy. Rob had been pretty adamant that he normally only slept with women who didn’t have any idea what his real name was or where he worked. And generally dumb ones.
If they really were going to be a team, that was one of the burrs, but she’d find a way.
Assuming he wanted to be on her team, instead of starting his own. But Rob didn’t strike her as another Jorge Royo. No, he was more like Mrs. Jones that way.
Mac wondered if she should convince Jorge to cast her in his next movie in an over-the-hill sex kitten role, just so she could fill that spot Jorge and Roxy did. Public in a way that men and women fantasized about.
It wasn’t like she had any hang-ups about being nude, then or now.
Yes, that might just work.
She lapsed into thought as they raced away.
At one point, Rob suddenly landed in the parking lot of a convenience store in the middle of nowhere, out of sight of the front window, but loud enough that someone probably heard inside.
He pulled out a roll of bills and handed it to Alicia.
“You go in and buy something,” Rob instructed her. “A drink or whatever, so we look like we’re just passing through.”
Mac let her out and watched the woman move tentatively towards the door, growing bolder each step until she turned the corner and vanished.
Rob watched the sky.
“There,” he said, pointing with his face rather than his hands.
Mac watched a flight of vehicles race by in close formation, lights flashing in red and blue as they did.
“Will they fall for it?” she asked.
“Hope so,” Rob shrugged. “Or we’re in a world of trouble.”
“What about those three men back there?”
“Made the one guy a deal,” Rob said. “He behaved, and all three of them survived tonight. He didn’t do anything stupid so all three will probably survive tomorrow, too.”
“He’ll go for that?” Mac asked.
“No reason not to,” Rob turned to her. “You have to be hard in this business, but nothing says you have to be cruel.”
Huh. That was another side of the man she’d never seen. Possibly even imagined.
He was an assassin. Certified and everything, but she supposed that gave him an even better understanding of when to kill.
And when not to.
Alicia returned a few moments later, practically skipping as she walked. Mac slid out of the truck and let her in.
“What did you buy?” Mac asked the woman.
“A local newspaper,” Alicia grinned. “Easy, unmemorable, and I need to watch what I eat in the future so I can get in better shape.”
Mac grinned back.
Yes. Teammates.
34
Rob landed at the star port and backed the truck right up against the side of the courier. He would have to do something with the two men, but they were tied
up for now, and had been stunned pretty hard at the edge of town, so they’d be out for at least another hour.
Then he would have to leave them in the ship while the three of them snuck back to the hotel and checked out. Before they turned right back around and raced back to the starport.
“Hey, I’m getting a signal,” Alicia announced in a surprised voice.
Rob’s hand went back and had the pistol in his lap, down out of sight but ready to start shooting immediately.
“Who?” he asked.
“It’s a call on my handcomm,” she replied, a little confused.
“Put it on speaker,” Mac ordered, so Alicia answered.
“Hello?” she asked tentatively.
“Alicia, it’s Dolf Alcazar,” the man’s burly voice came back.
It always sounded to Rob like Dolf was trying to imitate one of Jorge’s earlier roles, when he was a serious actor, rather than the goofball stuff later that had made him so famous.
“Dolf?” Alicia asked. “I’ve got you on speaker. Handsome and Esme are with me. Where are you?”
“We took the liberty of breaking into your ship,” Dolf replied. “I’m watching you on the scanners right now. Everybody wave.”
“Very funny, Dolf,” Rob cut across the humor. “Get your butt to the airlock right now with whoever else you have aboard. I’ve got cargo that needs moving and babysitting.”
He shut the truck down with an angry grumble and reached across to cut the comm line with a growl.
“Trouble?” Mac asked.
“No,” Rob replied with an exasperated sigh. “Could have used them a few hours ago, and if he’s here, he was probably around then, but we’d gone radio silent until now.”
Rob opened his door and stood by the side of the truck as the airlock beeped open.
Dolf stayed back out of sight, but two other agents emerged, so Rob pulled back the tarp and gestured.
“Take these two aboard and keep them secured,” Rob ordered everyone. “Remain radio silent at your end, except to feed and water my prisoners and deal with whatever medical trauma I induced with stun grenades. Questions?”
