Brothers in Arms

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Dahl flung his body headlong down the passageway that led to the arms room as armed gunmen burst through the front door. The others were ahead of him. He’d sent them there a few minutes ago and then waited to arm a few “surprises.”

Bullets slammed into the new plaster-coated walls around him. Boot heels pounded the freshly laid floorboards. Doors were smashed in. At this rate, their new HQ was soon going to become their old HQ.

Dahl rolled to his feet. Komodo passed him a prepped weapon. “We have about four seconds,” he said. “Get your damn vests on” His eyes bore into Ben and Karin especially. When his eyes fell on Lauren Fox and Mike Stevens, the truck driver, he sighed. “Wrong place, wrong time, people. Sorry.”

Then he turned, fell to one knee, swiveled and fired as the first of the enemy came to the corner. His bullet sent the man reeling backward. Blood sprayed the walls by his side. He dove forward. The next man tripped right over his sliding body. Komodo finished him off with a headshot, aware that even civilians wore vests these days. Dahl slid his body around on the polished floor, hitting the far wall with his legs and then pushing off hard…

…coming back onto one knee, gun nestled comfortably on his right shoulder, firing with care and precision.

Bullets thumped through walls all around him. One even nicked his vest, but his aim didn’t waver. He was a big man, an expert soldier trying to balance his courage with skill, and set forth making a mess of the approaching enemy team.

The black-clad enemy force collapsed in the narrow hallway, men in front falling and tripping men behind. Some were compelled to clamber over their dying colleagues. But at last, one of the stragglers took a chance and hurled his body straight at the Swede. Both men grappled and smashed through the plaster wall, making a ragged new hole into the interrogation room.

Komodo stepped up. The corridor was littered with Dahl’s victims, but there were still half a dozen men struggling forward. Komodo let them come, destroying the first’s face with a devastating elbow, twisting the second around in a headlock and breaking his neck, at the same time taking a round in the vest that jolted him, but only succeeded in putting extra fire and venom into his actions.

Then, the unexpected happened. The plaster and timber wall that separated the arms room from the main OC was kicked in. A merc crashed through, black armor covered in white powder and wood shavings, and was now behind Komodo, among the civilians.

Ben scrambled back on his hands, face suddenly a mask of terror. The kid was lost, reliving something dreadful. But not this moment. He was back at the third tomb with the blood of the dying soldier on his hands, traumatized and unable to act.

It was Lauren Fox who stepped forward, closely followed by Karin as she saw the merc’s weapon swiveling toward Komodo. Lauren grabbed the arm that held the gun, expecting the man to jerk the weapon toward her. She released her hold when he did, letting his momentum swing the barrel harmlessly past and jabbed at his throat with stiffened fingers.

He gurgled and staggered, but the man was no pushover. Luckily, Lauren didn’t expect him to be. She already had a follow up planned. A swift knee to the groin. But her attack struck something hard and strangely rubbery.

Shit, she thought. If that’s his balls, he’s a freakin’ alien.

“They protect those.” Karin stepped past. “But not from this.” Pressing her body against him, she fired three swift shots with a handgun pulled from the arms cache. The merc went limp, slipping to the floor.

Lauren turned around. “Give me one.”

Komodo twisted, taking the weight of a merc who’d launched himself at the ex-Delta man. With a shrug of his muscled shoulders, he sent that man on his way right into the external wall this time — the one made of bricks and blocks and solid mortar. The crunch was sickening. The man bounced back, still twitching.

Dahl reappeared through the ragged gap into the interrogation room. Hanging shards of plaster collapsed all around him. He peered up the corridor.

“Well. That’s that sorted,” he said matter-of-factly. “Anyone fancy the cinema next? I hear the new Die Hard’s previewing.”

Komodo’s eyes were only for Karin. He pulled her in a tight embrace. It was Lauren who stepped over to Ben.

“Hey, kid. It’s over. It’s done.”

Ben’s eyes took on a little focus. For a second his jaw worked but no sound came out. “He… he died in my arms. I have… his blood on my hands. Right here.” And he held both hands out, palms up, shaking like a man with epilepsy.

Lauren back away. “Kid, I ain’t no shrink. But I’ll tell ya this — you’re in the wrong damn business if you can’t handle a freakin’ gunfight.”

Karin pushed her way past. “He’s been through a lot,” she whispered. “He’ll be okay.”

Dahl fixed Komodo with a stare. “You know what, my friend? They’re still building the escape route out of here. Not finished. There’s only one way out.”

Komodo started picking his way through the tangle of arms and legs and pools of blood. Dahl followed, motioning for the others to follow but at a distance. Karin and Stevens had to drag Ben up from the floor to get his legs moving. The haunted look still sat like frozen death in his eyes.

As he walked, Dahl constantly patted the pockets of his dead enemies. He didn’t expect to find wallets, IDs or any other kind of credentials and wasn’t disappointed. He called Hayden on his cell.

“We’re okay,” he said in answer to her quick question. “You?”

He listened as she related her own experience. “Alright. Well, we need a safe house now, Hay. You got one lying around anywhere?”

Her answer surprised him, but shouldn’t have. Hayden Jaye was among the top half dozen operatives he’d ever worked with.

They passed the OC, checking the space carefully for any snipers or stragglers, but the enemy had either given up or were all dead. Dahl found it difficult to believe they’d seen the last of them. There was only one reason an enemy force would be sent against a new government facility.

Someone with power, money, and a stomach full of guilt was getting scared. The game was now well and truly on. This could only be their endgame.

Outside, the traffic flowed and the day moved past as if nothing had happened. Dahl stopped abruptly when he found Sarah Moxley lying unconscious or dead on the grass. Two other bloody bodies lay next to her along with a shattered camera and discarded rucksack.

Komodo moved ahead to fetch the vehicles. Dahl dropped to his knees. Sirens wailed as they approached the HQ. The woman’s eyes began to flutter.

“You okay, miss?” Dahl patted her gently.

The woman glared up at him. “I missed it, didn’t I? Three weeks!” She sputtered. “Three Goddamn weeks I’ve been camped out here and I friggin’ missed it.”

Dahl held her as she struggled to sit up. “I wouldn’t do that yet—”

But she had already seen them. “No. Are they…? Oh no.”

“I’m sorry.” Dahl pulled her close as the sobs wracked her body. For now, there was only grief, but soon would come the terrible guilt.

But it was all random, all chance. Happened all the time. The merc who dealt with her had simply smashed her head with a rifle butt instead of slitting her throat with a knife. The rhyme and reason of it never even entered the equation.

An ambulance pulled up, followed by a phalanx of cop cars. Komodo sorted the classifications and red tape out whilst Dahl held Sarah Moxley, Karin held Ben, and another day of maneuvering and intrigue began in Washington.