Page 108 of Double Shot
I would feel those hits in the morning. Each time he had put me into the wall or the floor, it had been with the gun against my back.
He stood, brushing plaster dust off of his hands and shirt.
“You fight dirty, ya,” he growled and I could finally see his eyes bloodshot and weeping from the gas, and from the hits he had taken. “But ya peashooter looks broken.”
“You got me there,” I said, slipping the strap off of my shoulder. I tasted blood in my mouth, and his face was brightening with his own sense of victory. I didn’t drop the gun to the ground, even a broken gun could still be used as a weapon.
He blocked in time, but swinging the rifle like a bat was punishing. He moved away from the strike, even as the scope broke free. He swung a punch, and went for a follow up grab, but instead took the stock of the rifle above his eye. Skin yielded to high density plastic and his face was drenched in blood. The second hit glanced off his shoulder and up into his jaw, the entire butt of the rifle, stock and all coming apart.
He threw up a block and caught my left foot in the jaw. Then right foot to the solar plexus. He folded and stumbled back, and caught the remnant of the rifle directly to the crown of his head.
He staggered a final time and crumpled to the ground.
“About fucking time,” Roan said, walking up with the big shotgun barrel smoking. “I thought you were dancing with him. C’mon we’ve got work to do.”
“You could havehelped, mate,” I said, wiping blood off of my mouth, smearing it across my hand.
“Grab a gun, we’re not done.” I staggered away from him and found one of the downed mercenary cowboys and lifted the AK-47 from his dead body. I racked the gun and gave him my best game face.
He pointed the shotgun down at Ajahi, the big man groaned and started pushing himself back up. The doubleBOOM BOOMof the gun was deafening and dropped the South African like an anvil.
“You could have done that anytime,” I said. “C’mon, Sadie’s upstairs.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Roan…
On cue the night was punctuated by stereo explosions. It would take a practiced ear to know the difference between the grenade and the C4, and I could only tell because I knew who was where.
“Power is out,”Grant said in my ear.
“Good job, what does the alarm sitch look like?”
“Alarms are down, and land line phones are down,”he replied.
“Keep an ear on the scanner frequencies, we’ll need to know when police and first responders are activated and an ETA.”
“I’ve got your back, Guild Master,”Grant said.
“What else?” I asked.
“Red Queen is inside the building, and moving to shooting position, Black King has engaged,”Grant said.“Drone in motion, White King you are clear to advance on the Black Rook.”
“The Black Rook?” I asked.
“The guard shack, I’m just getting into this chess theme,”Grant said.
“Well, okay then,” I said, and started up the sheltered side of the driveway. There were several more loud bangs, and I knew those to be the rest of Sadie’s party poppers going off. The commotion at the compound didn’t cross the walkies the guards had down in the shack, and they didn’t show any concern until they were unable to reach anyone. That was intentional, the takedown Grant had done should have knocked everything but their cellphones out.
As I approached the shack, I pulled the pin on a grenade and tossed it in through the open window of the building. There was a moment of silence, then panic, and then the shack blew apart with a loud bang. The air was filled with wood splinters and dust, and then quiet. I stepped closer, aiming my pistol into the ruins. One man, blood running out of his ears looked up at me, dazed. I put him down with the .45 and moved forward.
With the shack down, walking up the drive to the compound was a piece of cake. All the fuss inside had their attention wrapped up. No one was looking outside, and that was their mistake.
I reached the top of the hill, and there were two paths, one went directly to the front doors, and they branched off to where the helipad was. “Thermal?” I asked.
“Thermal positive, engines have residual heat,”Grant said. I paused, juggled the options, explosive or thermite? I picked the latter, pulled the pin on the incendiary grenade, and tossed it toward the helipad. I heard a satisfying metallic clang as it hit the lid of a fuel drum. Sadie had wanted grenades like this forThumper,as she had come to call her grenade launcher. I had these, I thought, pulling a second pin and then throwing the second thermite grenade. There was a brilliant flash, like welding sparks, as the first went up. It only took a second for the device to melt through a fuel drum.
There was a huge suckingwhoosh,and the fuel went up in a pillar of flame. A few seconds passed and then the unruptured drums started lighting off. The wash of heat pushed me back. The rapidly spreading pool of flaming avgas flowed around the helo, and it quickly started burning too.
