Innocent as Sin

79

Arizona Territorial Gun Club

Sunday

Bertone moved with incredible speed for a man of his bulk. By the time Kayla caught the motion on another screen, he was in the hallway just outside, his heavy gun pointed at the catwalk.

Rand saw him before Kayla did. He threw himself to the side and tried to pull the AK-47 into firing position. Something hung up on the catwalk. Suddenly the gun spun off and fell down into the opening below. He lunged for a narrow steel observation platform as he grabbed his pistol.

The sound of the M-60 deafened him all over again.

The hail of heavy slugs punched and clanged and sang around him as he wriggled on his stomach to the edge of the steel platform. A fragment of metal ricocheted so close that he felt a burning line drawn across one eyebrow. Pistol ready, he leaned over the edge just enough to see Bertone.

Too far for a pistol.

But not too far for the machine gun.

Bullets punched and exploded around Rand. Bertone was chewing the observation platform into ragged steel lace.

Rand rolled over and over. It was suicide for him to stay on the platform and certain death if he went back to the catwalk. Ignoring the blood dripping down his face, he took a new position, leaned over the edge, and fired two times, the shots a bare instant apart.

Bertone jerked and swung the machine gun. Rand kept firing as he watched the muzzle brake of the M-60 turn into a tunnel of death looking for him.

Finding him.

He kept pouring bullets into Bertone. He might as well have been pumping bullets into a tree for all the good it was doing. At this range, the little bedside pistol just wasn’t getting the job done.

Or Bertone was wearing body armor.

Kayla stepped out of the control room and closed in until she couldn’t miss Bertone. Eyes open, jaw clenched, she aimed at the back of his head and held the trigger down. Bullets and fire came in a continuous stream until the magazine was empty and the slide locked back.

With a violent shudder she flung the gun away and turned her back on the twitching Bertone. She had taken all she could, and then she had taken more.

She was done.

Distantly she heard sirens screaming and Rand talking to her. His arms held her.

“Easy, love, easy,” he said. “It’s over.”

She closed her eyes and sagged against him. “You sure?”

He looked at what had once been Andre Bertone. “Yeah, I’m sure. Body armor only protects what it covers.”

Leaning on each other, they walked slowly out of the bloody shooting house, toward the sound of sirens pouring in through the shattered front doors.