Back Blast

26

Court drew the Ruger from his front pocket as he entered the restaurant. There were only a half dozen or so tables occupied, and everyone looked up as the man clad head to toe in black raised a small pistol over his head.

He shouted in his most commanding voice. “Everybody out!” and for additional emphasis he fired one round into the ceiling.

Screams and squeals erupted from both the dining room and the three employees behind the counter. The customers all jumped up from their tables and raced to the back door of the dining room, pushing one another to get out the door. Some ran straight to their cars, others to the safety of the all-night pharmacy next door.

Court rushed to the counter now, yelling at the employees, ordering them to leave. A panicked young man in a mustard-colored uniform held one hand up in surrender and, with the other, pushed a button on his register, opening the till, just as Court stepped behind the counter.

Gentry slammed the drawer closed and grabbed the young man. “I said go, kid!” He shoved him towards the exit.

The teen followed his coworkers to the front door.

Court raced into the kitchen now, just as he saw the last cook run through the back door of the building and out onto the raised concrete loading dock in the back alley. Court charged to the back door himself, ready to make for the back fence.

He managed two steps out the rear door before the Navigator screeched into the alley on his left. Its headlights illuminated everything, and there was no way in hell Court would make it over the fence and into the cover of the neighborhood on the other side without being seen and engaged.

The cooks ran around the corner in the direction of the front parking lot, but the driver of the Navigator obviously saw Court, because he slammed on his brakes in the center of the alley.

Court stopped, turned around, and retreated back into the McDonald’s, but as he passed through the door he fired a round into the exterior light over the door, blowing it out with a shower of sparks.

A man in the front passenger’s seat of the SUV reached out with a handgun and raised it at Gentry, only twenty-five feet away.

Court dove for the hard floor of the kitchen as the pistol cracked loud in the alleyway behind him. The round hit the door three feet above his back.

He kicked the door shut, then looked around the kitchen, weighing his options. He knew going back out front wouldn’t work; there would be at least two men there armed with submachine guns, possibly already inside the restaurant.

Court thought it possible the Townsend men would just cordon him off here and wait for the cops to arrive, but he also knew they would all be ex-military and sure of their martial skills. They would take it personally that, in their understanding of events anyway, the man in the McDonald’s kitchen just murdered their employer on their watch, and that would piss them off to no end.

Court darted back through the kitchen, in the direction of the front counter, and as he did so he noticed a metal ladder fixed to the wall on his right, just next to a walk-in freezer. Looking up, he saw the ladder led to a roof access hatch.

Court liked having the option of escape from the kitchen, even if he wasn’t quite sure what good this ladder would do him. If he made it onto the roof he’d be even more stuck than he was here, since at least here at ground level he had access to multiple exits.

Court stopped in the middle of the kitchen, trying to decide his next move. He had exactly five rounds of .380 ammo in his mouse gun. Whether it was the cops or the Townsend boys who eventually kicked in the doors of this Mickey D’s, Court knew he was in serious trouble.

He looked at the back door again just as it began to open. Court ran around a stainless steel prep table in the middle of the room and slid on his butt along the greasy tile floor next to a row of griddles and three large fry vats, then he crawled forward, out of the line of sight of anyone at the open back door, which was only ten feet from where he knelt. He looked between a low open shelf of metal pots and pans below the prep table, and he saw one of the Townsend men enter, his submachine gun up at his shoulder, scanning for threats.

Court fired twice between the pots and pans, hitting the operator at the door once in each calf. The man dropped flat on his back, inside the door, screaming in agony.

Court fired three more times towards the dark opening of the back door, sure another man would be entering just behind his mate, because he couldn’t imagine any scenario that had one guy hitting the building on his own.

He heard his second shot clang off of metal, and he thought he might have hit the MP5 in the operator’s hand. He knew this would slow the man but not stop him, because the man would simply transition to his pistol and come through the door to the aid of his partner.

Court’s handgun was empty now.

Quickly he rolled up to his knees, reached over to the stainless steel counter next to him, grabbed a fist-sized aluminum can, and threw it out onto the darkened loading dock.

As he did so he shouted, “Frag out!”

The can banged against the doorjamb, then bounced onto the concrete dock and clanged against a metal garbage can there. If the Townsend operator had military experience, which Court suspected he did, then he would naturally think someone had just tossed a fragmentation grenade just feet away from where he stood.

Court heard the sound of a man covered in metal and other gear clambering over an iron railing, and then dropping onto the asphalt of the alleyway four feet below with a loud crash.

On his hands and knees Court crawled to the back door and kicked it shut again, then he crawled over to the injured operator on the floor. The man had rolled up onto his knees, and he reached out for his weapon on the tile, but he sensed movement and he turned, looked up, and saw a man in black flying through the air at him.

Court tackled the wounded man back to the ground.

Straddling the security officer now, Court held his empty little pistol against the man’s sweat-covered forehead, and the wounded man went still, his eyes crossed looking at the gun. Court didn’t say a word. Instead he just pulled the Smith and Wesson pistol out of the man’s drop leg holster, flicked off the safety, and fired four rounds into the front wall of the kitchen, hoping to discourage anyone with ideas about rushing into the kitchen.

Now Court tossed his empty Ruger to the side and shoved the hot Smith into his waistband, along with another handgun magazine pulled from the Townsend man’s load bearing vest. He also removed the three long HK submachine gun magazines from the vest.

He waved the three mags back and forth over the face of the man lying on his back and bleeding from the calves.

Court said, “Listen up. I know you’re hurting, but if I were you… I’d figure out a way to move.”

Court stood, turned to his right, and tossed all three magazines, each loaded with thirty rounds of nine-millimeter ammunition, across the room.

All three plopped into one of the big vats of molten hot fry grease positioned against the wall.

“No!” the injured man shouted, his eyes wide with disbelief, and then he rolled over on his stomach and began crawling, using only his arms to drag himself across the floor towards the back door.

Court scrambled across the room to the walk-in freezer, entered, and yanked the door shut behind him.

It was silent in the kitchen, save for the grunting and groaning of the man on the floor, struggling to pull himself as fast as he could. He had just reached the back door, pulled it open with his arm, and rolled out onto the concrete loading dock when two Townsend operators, moving in a small tactical train, spun into the kitchen from the front counter area.

Both men covered a different section of the kitchen with their submachine guns. The man on the left traced the front sight of his weapon over the walk-in freezer, the cooler, and the dry storage pantry. The man on the right saw in his sector his wounded comrade rolling out the back door, the wash area for the mops by the door, and the main kitchen prep area with the stainless steel table, the grills, the ovens, and the three big fry vats.

Left called, “Clear!”

Right hesitated, then he shouted, “Get down!”