The Darkness

49

The first volley of gunfire drove them to dive behind the police cars, bullets strafing the metal, punching quartersized holes in every car. Jack O’Donnell felt a pain in his arm as he hit the ground, dirt kicking up around him.

He was surrounded by two dozen of New York’s finest, and now that the level of violence had escalated there was sure to be SWAT and helicopter backup. But for now it was just this ragged old journalist and a bunch of cops who’d walked into a buzz saw.

“Is this normal?” Jack shouted when the gunfire stopped.

Chief of Department Louis Carruthers, his back pressed up against a blue-and-white, shook his head. “Not in the least. It only means one thing, so you’d better keep your head down.”

“What’s that?”

“It means they’re not planning to be arrested.”

Jack slowly picked himself, peeked over the hood of a car, just in time for another round to rip up the car and force him back to the ground.

His heart was beating a million miles a minute, but something besides fear coursed through the old lion.

Neither Henry or Curt knew Jack had followed them all the way from Parker’s apartment, and it gave Jack a slight bit of pride to know he still had a little left in the old oil can. But when he saw the two men force Henry and Curt to follow them at gunpoint, he knew the time for hideand-seek was over.

It was less than ten minutes before the cavalry arrived, and it took less than one to tear open the gated entrance and force themselves inside. Jack didn’t know what to expect, but when he saw the massive warehouse and the sentry guards, the fence barricading the area from both trespassers and onlookers, he had a feeling they’d stumbled onto the very heart of where the Darkness was produced.

“Do we just wait until they run out of bullets then?”

Jack yelled above the storm.

Carruthers looked at him and shook his head.

Then he yelled to the rest of the cops perched outside,

“There are two innocents in there, including one of our own. Let’s get them the hell out of there!”

Then a barrage of gunfire strafed the outside of the warehouse, shattering glass, shredding brick, smoke and dust pouring from everywhere.

Jack covered his ears, felt dirt and gravel raining down around him, stinging his face and neck. And below the pain in his arm, the rapid pace of his heart that scared the hell out of him, Jack had a feeling this was just the beginning.