Hell's Corner

CHAPTER 98

^“Wait a minute, how’d you know to bring that laser thing?” Knox asked Chapman as they crouched in the darkness.

“Like your Boy Scouts, it’s the mission of MI6 to always be prepared.”

“Meaning you didn’t believe Stone?”

“The key?” Chapman scoffed. “Of course I didn’t believe him. Reading his psychological profile was fairly easy. He wasn’t going to endanger us too.”

“He let us go to New York with him,” Finn pointed out.

“I guess he believed the South Bronx was safer than this place,” pointed out Knox.

“Murder Mountain,” said Chapman. “Made for interesting reading.”

Both men looked at her.

“I researched it, of course,” she said. “Didn’t you?”

Knox cleared his throat. “How did you know what to research? Stone didn’t mention the place until we were on the way here.”

“The place where it all began? Remember, that’s what Ming said back in New York. So I did some digging, got my folks back in the UK doing the same. I knew that Stone started out his career in Triple Six. What I didn’t know was that it began with a year’s worth of training right here. Got a file emailed to me two hours before we left. Like I said, interesting reading.”

Finn looked down at the laminated plan of the place Stone had given him. “Looks like multiple spots to be ambushed.”

“That cuts both ways,” said Knox, and Chapman nodded in agreement.

She pointed at the plan and said, “We have two choices. Go through each side together or split up.”

Finn said, “I vote for getting out of the open. If we need to go through these section things, let’s split up. I’ll go to the left and you two to the right.”

Chapman shook her head. “No, you two go right, I’ll go left.”

The men looked at her again. “What?” she said. “A woman can’t go it alone? She needs a precious man to hold her poor, fragile hand?”

“It’s not that,” said Knox uncomfortably.

“Good to hear it,” she said. “I’ll take the one on the left. Now here’s some little tidbits you need to know about the section on the right to traverse it safely.” She filled them in on particulars she’d gained from her research.

“Got it?” she said, looking at them.

“You’ve given this a lot of thought,” said Knox.

“Why wouldn’t I?” shot back Chapman. “It’s my job.”

“Good luck,” said Finn.

“Cheers.”

She left the two men standing there staring after her until she disappeared into the darkness.

Stone was still waiting in the firing range room. He considered his options. It didn’t take long since there weren’t many. He could stay here until he starved to death. Or he could go through the door.

Or…

He got up, grabbed the wire that the targets rode on and pulled it free. He wound one end of it around the door handle and over the existing pulleys. Then he crouched down behind the counter and wound the remainder of the wire around his hand. He counted to five and aimed his pistol at the door opening. He slowly pulled on the wire. The door handle lifted. He tugged harder. The door started to open. As soon as it was open halfway, a barrage of bullets poured through, clanging off metal surfaces in the firing range room.

Okay, probably against orders, the Russians are done playing around with stun darts.

He tugged on the door some more until it opened all the way, then tied off the wire onto a hook to keep the door open. He sidled along the counter and slid down the pair of NVGs he had brought. They were older and had a major drawback if the other side had night-vision equipment too.

He edged closer to the opening, but keeping something solid between him and the doorway at the same time. Then he did something unusual, at least to the untrained eye. He took off his goggles, but still kept them powered. He placed them on top of the counter, facing the doorway. Then he scuttled away, aimed his gun and waited for what he was pretty certain was coming.

The shots came. He counted four of them. Stone couldn’t see the rounds, but he was sure they had passed an inch above the red dot revealed by his goggles to someone looking at them with NV eyewear too. That was the drawback to the old-generation goggles. While on infrared power they painted a red dot basically on your forehead, allowing a sniper to draw a fatal bead.

But by firing the Russians had revealed their position to Stone by their muzzle flashes through the open doorway. He fired rapidly, once, twice and then a third and fourth time, aiming at spots two inches above the twin flashes. Stone could tell by the weapons’ discharge that they were pistols. If they were firing from classic shooting positions, Stone’s target selection would coincide with their heads, bypassing their body armor.

He heard two distinct thumps as the bodies hit the floor.

He got up, snared his NVGs and kept moving.

Three Russians down, three to go. Plus Friedman.