Blood Vengeance

CHAPTER SEVEN

Through the ops room they dashed, Karin pulling down a large lever by the side of a junction box, an act that wouldn’t prevent a determined enemy from stealing their hard drives but would at least shut them all down. Komodo dragged her along almost before she could finish, darting through the open door and into the conference room. Behind them the sounds of pursuit intensified.

Romero spun in the doorway, pulling Smyth down with him. “Keep going,” he muttered. “We’ll buy a few extra minutes.”

Hayden sped on, glancing back as she passed them. The leader of the attackers ran into view. Romero opened fire instantly, but the man twisted acrobatically and dived headlong out of sight. Romero’s subsequent bullets took down the second man.

Return fire rattled from within the ops room, straight through the open door of the conference room, and slammed into the far wall. The large oblong front of the table was churned to splinters. Smyth extended his arm and fired blindly around the corner, then looked shocked when his rifle was shot out of his hand.

Romero swore at him, “Dickhead.”

“Always works in the movies.” Smyth made no effort to scramble after the lost weapon. No doubt it had been damaged by the offending bullet and besides, it was far too exposed. Instead, he reached around his back and came out with a handgun. “Ready?”

Romero checked on the progress of his new team mates. The conference room was empty. Hopefully by now they would be approaching the escape route door.

“Ready.”

Romero jammed his trigger finger down hard, splashing bullets in a wide arc. Smyth broke cover and ran across the room. A second later, Smyth laid down covering fire as Romero sprinted toward him. It was a classic shielding move, executed by professionals. Smyth turned into the corridor that led toward the shower rooms and the concealed escape door. There would be no time for any finesse here, no time to hide their exit route; it was simple, run for your life.

Smyth ran. Bullets pounded the walls, the table and even the windows behind them. The sound of hard pursuit spurred them on. Smyth saw the dogleg at the end of the corridor just as Hayden peeked around the corner.

“Hurry!”

Smyth didn’t need to be told twice. Freedom was twelve steps away. A quick glance to the left assured him that Romero kept pace. They were almost at the corner when Smyth felt something warm splash across his face. At the same time, Romero jerked and tripped headlong, sliding across the polished floor and leaving a red trail behind him.

Smyth stared, distraught. The back of Romero’s head had been blown out. Just like that, one of his best friends and colleagues had been killed. Shock turned to anger and Smyth turned quickly, unleashing bullet after bullet, spraying the attacking force with a deadly hail of lead.

Men collapsed groaning. Others fell to their knees or doubled over. Some remained standing, returning fire with a vengeance, their faces hard and battle-crazed behind their black masks.

Smyth would have died then and there if it weren’t for Hayden and Kinimaka. The two agents had lain in wait; not for one minute had they considered leaving comrades behind. As Smyth fired, screamed and roared, Hayden and Kinimaka emerged behind him, guns spitting hotly, and pulled him to safety. At first Smyth fought them, but as his clip ran dry and true grief set in, he allowed them to lead him away.

“I’m okay,” he said after a second, his soldier’s training kicking in. All feelings would be compartmentalized until later. “I’m good.”

Hayden hardened her resolve. She had seen Romero stagger by; seen the way he fell and the spray of blood; and, though she had only known the man for a few days, her heart had lurched. Romero was a good soldier, a good man. He had helped Drake stampede across Europe and destroy a human trafficking ring. He had had a hell of a future.

But the same thing could be said for them all. This was kill or be killed, and they were in no position to make a stand right now. She stared at the exit door. It hadn’t escaped her notice that a cacophony of sirens wasn’t blasting along the street outside. Something big was happening in DC tonight. Something terrible.

Her heart clutched at a vision of Gates, of Drake and Dahl on the other side of town, and of Mai and Alicia — so far away. Her mission, her goal in life now, was to send them a warning as soon as she could. She sprinted for the doorway. Karin and Komodo were on the other side, holding the big door open. She pushed Smyth ahead of her. Kinimaka ran at the other side, firing blindly.

A bullet clanged off the metal door. Another sent splinters of metal into Komodo’s hair. Smyth squeezed through, then Hayden.

She turned swiftly on hearing a shout.

“You will never escape us.” The words were driven at her by the attackers’ albino leader, loaded with hate and a terrifying certainty. He was grinning, with Mano clear in his sights, and pulled the trigger.

Kinimaka staggered, falling hard, but his lurch was an evasive maneuver. Still, the bullet would have ended him if Komodo hadn’t let the door swing shut at the last moment. The albino’s bullet deflected off the closing door and buried itself in the nearest wall.

“Shit.”

Hayden seconded the Hawaiian’s heartfelt sigh and helped him up. “Keep going,” she said. They could not afford to slow down now. Not until they were safe.

“Weapons check,” Komodo said as he pushed through the group to the front. He waved for them to follow and called, “One rifle, one mag.”

Karin spoke next. “Pistol. Three shots left, I think.”

“Check it,” Smyth urged. “I have Romero’s rifle and half a mag.”

Hayden and Kinimaka spoke up too, feeling sick at the thought of their meager supplies. The tunnel stretched ahead of them, slightly inclined, lit every six feet by electric lights built into the walls above their heads. The floor was smooth concrete, as were the sides and roof. It was rough and hastily built, but it served its purpose well.

The mood was subdued. No one spoke as they trotted down the slope. A boom echoed through the tunnel as their enemies smashed something against the door. After a few more seconds an even louder boom signified an explosion, and then the sound of debris clattering off the walls. Hayden made her feet go faster.

The tunnel bottomed out before rising slightly. Unlike the rest of them, Karin had been this way before and explained that the escape route exited into a tiny room. The room was security barred and keypad locked from the outside, but only required a strong push to exit. Komodo ran hard, and the tunnel soon came up against a door. Without stopping, he leaned into it and sent it crashing back against its hinges.

Hayden brought up the rear. The layout of the tunnel resulted in their assailants being just out of sight, but the sound of their pursuit was loud and getting closer. By now she knew the timbre of the albino’s voice, hating the sound of the hard confidence it exuded. Unlike Boudreau, this mercenary was all about efficiency and cunning — the worst kind to come up against.

She pushed into the small cupboard-like room and pulled the door closed behind her, knowing it would only slow the attackers down for a few extra seconds. The others had already exited into the mall, and the sound of their voices echoed around the enormous space.

It didn’t sound right somehow…

Hayden glanced around, stopping in surprise. “The mall is empty?”

“Closed down three or four years ago,” Karin acknowledged. “Everything apart from the food court.”

Hayden took in the light-green shuttered shop fronts, the dimmed lighting, the higher floor windows staring down on this modern crypt as if in judgment, the polished tiled floors and highly reflective surfaces.

“It’s in the middle of Washington,” she said, as if that statement might help switch the lights of commerce back on.

“Ain’t nowhere safe from the bullshit bean counters,” Smyth said, looking at Karin. “Where’s the exit?”

Karin pointed to the right. The team set off at pace, Hayden surrounded by a sense of the surreal as the empty mall echoed to their hollow footsteps. From somewhere above them the sound of cash machines opening and kids’ conversation and laughter drifted like the sounds of old, distressed ghosts. She felt a huge relief knowing the food court was on the next level.

A muted explosion chased the space behind their fleeing heels. Smyth turned in place, still running, and loosed several bullets in the direction they had come. Kinimaka ducked as return fire whickered overhead.

The leader barked a resonating order, signaling the start of a prolonged bombardment. Bullets flashed through the air and impacted against the shiny walls, cracking the hard surfaces. Hayden and her entire team dived headlong, hitting the floor and sliding with solid momentum. Komodo and Smyth rolled as they slid, coming around with guns already blazing.

The battle raged as Karin, Hayden and Kinimaka scrambled behind a round maroon-colored pillar. Chips of plastic showered through the air around them as their enemies concentrated their fire power. Smyth and Komodo rolled the other way, having to lie lengthways behind the short wall of a semi-circular water fountain. Komodo slithered until he could poke his head around the edge, and fired a few rounds.

Then he turned to Hayden. His eyes said it all. They were dangerously low on ammo.

Keep moving, Smyth was mouthing at her. She knew the military man’s mantra by heart. To stop was to die. She sat with her back to the pillar and surveyed the area. Karin pointed out the exit, dangerously exposed at the end of a long, wide corridor.

“How many of those assholes are left?” she asked Kinimaka.

“Best guess? Eight, maybe a few more or less.”

Karin grasped Hayden’s hand. “What is this? What’s going on?”

Hayden weighed the impact of revealing her fears and decided against it. “Not sure. Yet.” Both Karin and Kinimaka had loved ones out there and to start worrying about them now wouldn’t help anyone.

“We need to break for that exit,” she said. “Before we run out of ammo. What we need is a diversion.”

“What about that?” Kinimaka pointed overhead. Hayden took it in and looked speculatively at him. “Can you take ‘em all down?”

The Hawaiian raised an eyebrow. “How long have you known me?”

“Alright.” Hayden signaled Smyth and Komodo. As she peered out she saw the attacking unit creeping forward in perfect formation whilst still firing. It was going to take a miracle to get all of them out of this one alive.

She prayed. “Go.”

Kinimaka rolled onto his back and fired toward the ceiling. All his remaining shots went into breaking the supporting cables that tethered half a dozen swirling plastic displays to the roof. As the displays plummeted down, the SPEAR team rose and ran.

Hayden saw the albino dive sideways as the enormous hard plastic casings shattered against the mall floor, crushing several of his men and making a noise like several RPGs exploding. Three men made it straight through by sliding, but lost their weapons and came up holding knives.

Smyth and Kinimaka were in their faces. Smyth shot the first point-blank, then upended his empty rifle to club the next across the bridge of the nose. Despite the audible crack, the merc didn’t even flinch, just snorted and lashed back at Smyth. The ex-Delta soldier took a swipe across the cheek; blood flew and he hammered the butt of his rifle into the guy’s teeth. The merc lunged a second time. Smyth let the knife pass less than an inch from his body, trapped the arm and broke it. At the same time, he disabled the man with a heavy blow to the temple.

Komodo dispatched his own adversary just as the albino hit them. This man didn’t fight conventionally. He slid in, taking Komodo’s legs, but not just tripping him — the blow almost broke Komodo’s shins. He yelped in agony. Smyth covered for him, stomping toward the albino’s head. When his foot landed it crushed nothing but empty space; the albino was already up, lithely twisting around behind him and encircling his neck with a thick arm.

Hayden saw the albino’s power and the sudden panic in Smyth’s normally sardonic face as he felt his adversary’s strength. She couldn’t fire for fear of hitting her team mate so she bounded over the gap between them. The roof displays had devastated the ranks of their attackers, but several were groaning and already rising to their knees.

Hayden punched the albino in the soft place behind the ear, then put a choke hold around his own neck. She expected him to fall back, but was amazed when he bunched the muscles in his neck and fought her grip. She had never known anything like it. Even as she applied all her strength she couldn’t actually tell if she was making any impression.

Smyth twisted hard. The albino didn’t shift an inch. His lips moved as he whispered something into Smyth’s ear.

“If this were prison, soldier, you would be my boy.”

The three fighters struggled hard, locked into position, as precious seconds flew by. When Komodo approached the tableau, the albino only grinned. “C’mon, boy, I’ll take you too.”

But then Kinimaka broke it all apart by hitting the albino with a waist-high tackle. Hayden was flung aside. Smyth hit the floor hard. The albino cracked his head against a pillar and looked stunned. Kinimaka pushed away.

“We gotta go!”

In an instant they had turned and were sprinting for the exit. The albino shook his head to clear his daze. His men picked their way through the display wreckage, bruised and bleeding, and searching for lost weapons. Hayden pushed the rest before her. She was now the only one with any ammo, and needed to cover the escape. For precious seconds they ran unhindered, seeing the double exit doors loom closer with every step. Blackness pressed hard against the glass and people strolled along the broad expanse of Pennsylvania Avenue outside. More than escape, it offered divine freedom. She couldn’t believe they had all escaped this latest skirmish intact.

Hayden risked a glance back. The albino was drawing a bead on her, one eye closed. She saw his wrist flex, then felt the punch of the bullet as it struck.

She staggered, gasping. Ahead, Kinimaka turned, eyes suddenly wider than she had ever seen and burning with fear. Hayden put a hand to her waist, but felt nothing. Her legs were still working.

“Jesus,” she breathed at him. “Must have ripped right through my jacket.”

Kinimaka breathed deep and reached for the swinging exit doors. Cold air flowed into the mall.

Hayden slowed. The gun cracked again and this time she felt the bullet as it punched through her abdomen, felt the gout of blood explode from her body, felt her nails rip as she grasped desperately for Kinimaka and missed, falling hard to the cold mall floor.