Chapter 27
985 Words
27
I spin, letting the electronic lock-breaking gadget dangle from the snarl of exposed wiring. My tools can grind away at the locked door to Noah’s office without me.
Jacka’s leaning against the plastered wall just before the end of the stubby hall, clutching his right shoulder. The blood is this bright green in my night vision goggles, rapidly darkening as it oozes down his shirt and cools. The coppery stink fills the air and makes me want to gag.
Rob’s back is to me. He has his big .45 raised, head jerking left and right. He’s not wearing night vision goggles. It’s my job to watch out for people, but I can’t see around him or out into the room.
Jacka sags to the floor.
I pull my semiauto. “Jacka down,” I mutter into the throat mike.
“Ack,” Bradley mutters in my earpiece. She doesn’t have a line of sight into this hall so she can’t shoot, but she needs to know.
Rob takes a step back from the end of the hall. All I can see is his back, but I know he’s holding his gun out in front of him. I try to peer around him, to see if anyone’s out there, but the hall’s narrow and I only have this little slice of the room beyond.
The enemy gun barks again, hitting the wall above Jacka.
Rob throws himself to hug the opposite wall. He’s barely there when this big guy throws himself around that same corner.
The last gunfire wasn’t to hit us.
It was to herd us.
Human DNA differs from a gorilla’s by about four percent. This new guy? Two percent, tops. A huge square head. Shoulders broad enough to fill the hallway. Hands like shovel blades. My night vision goggles show him as this giant green specter, with his own night vision goggles forming a darker green mask around his eyes.
One of those massive hands snatches at Rob’s chest.
Rob says he’s getting old. That he’s slowing down.
But a split second before that gorilla can grab his shirt, Rob’s sliding aside and down. The thug’s hand crashes into the wall with a cracking thud, adding arid plaster dust to the copper stink of blood.
Rob’s only starting to come up out of his crouch when I pull the trigger, twice.
The gorilla’s too big to miss. I know I hit his chest.
But there’s no splash of bright green blood.
Bulletproof vest. He barely even rocks back on his feet.
Rob’s knees are still bent. His hand lashes out, slapping the side of the gorilla’s thigh and seizing the pants. Somehow Rob orients himself off of just that grip and snaps his other hand out into the gorilla’s groin.
Rob’s lightning-fast reverse punch cracks against the gorilla’s privates with a hollow thock.
The bastard’s wearing a cup.
The gorilla gives this smile, lips bright green, teeth slabs of moss between them.
Rob lurches back, staying low.
So I shoot again. Twice.
I’m aiming right between his eyes. One bullet shatters the gorilla’s cheekbone, sending him back with a gurgling scream. I don’t know where the second hits, but it kicks his head to the other side. He takes two lurching steps away and topples backwards like the Jolly Green Giant, crashing like a falling office tower into the expensive carpet.
“Hold,” Bradley says in my earpiece.
I freeze.
Half a second later, there’s a distant lone crack of gunfire.
In the darkness beyond our stubby hall, someone gasps and collapses in a cascading clatter of falling furniture.
“One hit in the living room,” Bradley reports.
To shoot someone in the living room, Bradley would have to watch through the pool room and the door we’d come in through, acquire the target the moment they came into view, and shoot before they walked past. Quarter of a second, tops.
Not bad.
Deke could have done better, but not bad at all.
Jacka hisses, “Good.”
“Beaks, watch,” Rob whispers. “Jacka, how bad?”
“Feels like it went through.” Pain seeps through Jacka’s every word, but he doesn’t waste time complaining.
Rob kneels beside Jacka and pulls a medical kit from his bag. On a raid like this you don’t worry about infection or bee stings. Our first aid kits are made to hold someone’s innards inside long enough so you can escape. Rob slaps a thick gauze patch onto Jacka’s shoulder, right over his clothing.
I hold my gun steady, staring into the green-tinted living room.
The sound only is Jacka’s harsh but controlled breath.
Rob covers the gauze with a layer of duct tape. “Forward,” he whispers.
Jacka’s breath gets a sharp wheeze as he shifts to let Rob get to his back. He doesn’t gasp or groan, though.
I’m unwillingly impressed. I was shot, once. It was the worst agony I could imagine, and I’ve eaten at Taco Bell. Jacka makes less noise than I did.
But I don’t have time for those memories. Not now. They lead right to Deke, to the life we’d built, and right now I need to focus on everything around us. Watch the darkness. Listen for extra footsteps, extra breathing, the clack of a magazine into a firearm, the clunk of a shotgun breech. The hammer of an extra heart. The vibration of footsteps, leaking across the floor and into my boots. Even a new flavor in the clotted copper stench of the air might warn us—
Beyond the hall, someone farts.
I jerk the gun before realizing it’s the gorilla’s corpse. His body’s going limp, everywhere. Pretty soon, we’ll get that new aroma in the air.
Rob rises to his feet. “Can you stand?”
Jacka mutters, “I have to.” Jacka’s right arm hangs limp at his side, but he uses his left hand to push himself up the wall. His breath gets sharper and deeper, but in a moment he’s on his feet.
“I’ve got the back,” Rob whispers.
I turn back to the office door.
My lock-breaking gadget still dangles by its alligator clips from the exposed guts of the fingerprint reader. But the digital LED readout has stopped spinning, and instead burns a dim but steady 8888.
I touch the doorknob with a gloved hand, heart in my throat.
Twist.
The knob turns easily.
The heavy mahogany door swings majestically away.
I breathe, “We’re in.”
- Writer
