Brain Storm (US Edition) (23 page)

She found herself just sitting in the water going over and over in her mind every single moment of the last day or so. From the operation on the statue at the memorial park through her capture and subsequent escape. She was trying to see if her subconscious would remember something that she had missed the first time around but that could be a clue to
unraveling this mystery. She forced herself to stop. She was supposed to be relaxing.

Sara lay back so that she sank below the surface of the water. The pleasantly warm liquid, just hot enough to make the contrast between water and air excite her skin, covered her fully holding her in a liquid embrace. She came back up, her head breaking the surface of the water so that she could suck in cool air. Her sodden hair, almost brown with the darkening effect of being sodden, clung close around her head and to her upper body. She soaped up her body and hair and rinsed off with water from the jug.

She stepped out of the bath, water started evaporating off her smooth skin as soon as it was in contact with the air. Sara used another green towel from a rail on the wall to dry off the remnants. She was just making a start on getting her hair dried, a difficult task with the rudimentary methods available, when she heard a knocking coming from outside. There was a moment of silence and then the noise came again this time accompanied by a muffled voice or voices that Sara couldn't properly make out.

Carla rushed into the bathroom as Sara gave up on her hair and started pulling her cropped T-shirt over her head.

"Someone's outside and they want in," Carla whispered hurriedly. "Have they found us."

Sara pulled on her jacket and took the pistol out of the pocket. "I don't see how they could have. Come on let's see what they want."

Whoever was at the door continued pounding. "Come on, Carla, open up. We aren't gonna hurt you, we just wanna talk."

Sara gave Carla a look and raised an eyebrow. "You know these people?"

Carla started to shake her head, then she stopped and shrugged her shoulders instead. "I don't think so, but he does sound kind of familiar."

    
              Sara took up a position so that the door was fully covered by her line of fire but she wasn't in a direct line with it. She also made sure she was far enough back that if the door was forced open it wouldn't hit her. "Tell them you're busy."

Carla did as she was instructed but the guy outside wasn't having any of it. "Hey, it won't take a minute."

"I'm sorry, I really don't have the time right now."

"Look we're friends," the voice continued to insist through the closed door. "Karl Grosset
organized it so that we'd keep an eye on you. Keep you under our protection so that no-one would mess with ya. Look, I don't wanna have to get old Joseph to come all the way up here with the keys."

Whoever was out there didn't have to continue as soon as he mentioned Grosset both women were sold. Carla reacted visibly to the name Sara tried to interpret the reaction but it could mean too many things for her to start reading anything into it. Carla looked over to Sara, her eyes were wide begging Sara to say it was all right for her to open the door but still willing to follow whatever instructions
she was given. She looked very relieved when Sara nodded that she could open the door and let them in.

Sara maintained her ready position. "Unlock the door, then step away and tell them to come in, nice and slow."

Again Carla did as she was told unlocking the door and hurrying back so that she was tucked in safely behind Sara. "It's open, come in slowly."

The door was pushed inwards. Two men entered moving faster than Sara would have liked but slow enough that they didn't pose a threat. Both men wore old cracked leathers that had gone brittle with age or use. Neither man had a neck, their tattooed heads rested directly on thick shoulders. Both men were carrying, one a large chrome pistol large enough to deserve the name 'hand-cannon' the other a double
barreled shotgun with most of the barrels chopped off. Neither had their weapon ready to fire. Their hands twitched in the direction of the guns when they saw Sara but both of them were sensible enough not to try and draw the weapons.

"There are two of 'em," hand-cannon said staring directly at Sara with malice in his eyes. "And one of the bitches has a gun."

"That isn't a very friendly way to talk about people you claim to be friends with."

"You're the one pointing a weapon at us. We don't want any trouble." The voice belonged to the man who had been speaking through the door. He entered with his hands spread palm outwards at his sides.

The new arrival wasn't as heavyset as the first two men, he actually had a neck poking out over the top of his leather jacket. A jacket that was in noticeably better condition than the other pairs. His head was similarly shaved and tattooed. Among the various patterns on the men's heads Sara noticed that three letters ordained each skull.

"LOD?"

The new arrival nodded. "The Legion of Doom. We run this building and control a lot of this area. You want to put that gun down so we can talk? We aren't here to cause trouble. Like I said Grosset asked us to look after the little lady there. Now that circumstances have changed we need to discuss  the new arrangements."

Sara didn't want to lower her weapon. It went against everything her training had taught her. You never let yourself be bullied into lowering your
defenses, it only ever ends in trouble. On the other hand if Grosset had indeed got these people to watch out for Carla, and if he hadn't it was awfully coincidental of them to use his name, then they could provide the lead Sara was looking for. So Sara went against her training and put the pistol back in her jacket pocket after flicking the safety back on with her thumb.

Both of the no-necks immediately went back for their weapons.

"No. We're here to talk like I told her." He nodded to Sara who returned the gesture without speaking. She wanted to let him start and see what he would reveal without her directing him. If she could get what she wanted out of him without him realizing her real interest in the information all the better.

The leader then nodded in Carla's direction. "We were worried when you disappeared yesterday. We didn't expect Grosset to be happy with us when we told him what happened. Of course as it turns out he had more immediate things to
worry about at that time. That is pretty much why I'm here."

As he spoke he paced around Carla's modest living room. The other men with him took a couple of steps further inside but their eyes never left the two women. Sara adjusted her position accordingly to ensure that she could see all three men at all times.

The gang leader turned away from examining a piece of furniture to concentrate on Carla. "You didn't know but Grosset was paying us to have you under our protection. That's how you ended up staying here. That's why none of the other gangs or the general riffraff has dared touch you. But with Grosset dead the money stops."

Sara tensed, she hadn't wanted it to come out like this. Carla stepped out from behind her looking
paler than she had after throwing up before. She walked shakily over to a chair and used her hands on the back to support herself.

"Karl's dead?"

The gang leader ignored her grief. "I'm afraid so. Now I don't know what his interest in you was." His eyes walked all over Carla. "Other than the obvious. But with the money stopped the protection stops as well. Unless you can pay for it yourself."

The gang leader crossed over to where Carla was still barely listening holding on to the chair. "A pretty young thing like you could get protection for a week with just a couple of sessions on your back."

His hand came up as though to touch her on the breast. He struggled to get his wrist free of Sara's grip as she forcibly moved his hand away. "She has all the protection she needs."

The gang leader sneered even as he rubbed his wrist with his other hand. He stepped back away from Sara towards the pair of no-necks.

"That's a mistake bitch." He took another step back, this one putting him behind the other men. "Waste the bitches."

Chapter
Nineteen

Sara knocked Carla to the side. "Get down." Again the world seemed to slow as both the no-neck thugs went for their guns. Sara moved forwards towards the men knowing that she wouldn't be able to get her own weapon out of her jacket point and ready to fire before the men opened up on them. Her head was already moving into reaction and survival mode but she had time for one last thought;
never leave yourself defenseless it only ever ends in trouble.

Then she was all business. The guy with the sawn-off shotgun was the most immediate threat. His weapon had been held in a sheath running down the outside of his right thigh. It just slotted down the leather sheath held in place because of the length of the barrels it contained. The guy with the hand-cannon had to unclip a flap that went over the top of his holster before he could draw down on her. Also the shotgun could take out both Sara and Carla in one shot that was just aimed in their general direction. The hand-cannon could only take them one at a time, unless it managed to fire through one of them into the other, and required a certain amount of aiming.

So Sara focused on the guy with the shotgun first. She kept a general idea of where hand-cannon was located but nothing specific. She could only deal with one threat at a time but she still needed to be aware of the other guy’s position.

The twin barrels of the shotgun had just cleared the top of the sheath and its wielder was pushing his left hand under them to get into a more stable firing position. It was obviously loaded and ready to fire. The gang member grinned, displaying a mouth with more gaps than teeth. The grin slipped when he
realized Sara wasn't going to just wait for him to shoot holes in her. He was still trying to get the weapon into a proper firing position when Sara got close enough to strike. She launched out with her fists and the gang member fired in a panic. The shot went wild taking out the back of a wooden chair and spraying a circular impact pattern on the wall behind it. He instinctively prepared the weapon for the second shot in the instant before Sara's fist caught him in the face.

It didn't matter that the guy was physically much larger than Sara. In this kind of fight it didn't really make much difference that her opponent was so much stronger than she was. It was the first blow that mattered. If Sara connected well with her first blow the gang member would never have the opportunity to retaliate. She connected exactly where she intended. The heel of her hand slammed into his face at the base of his nose. The force of the impact shattered the cartilage in his nose and sent shards back up into his brain. He went down in a heap, killed by one blow.

Sara snatched the shotgun up with her right hand even as the first man fell to the ground. She turned a hundred and eighty degrees extending her arm as she did so. She ended up with the end of the barrel less than a half a meter from the second no-neck's face. His eyes went wide. Sara motioned with her eyebrows that it didn't have to be this way. The no-neck continued to try and draw his weapon. Sara waited as long as she could, willing the guy not to be stupid and just to give it up. She waited until the barrel of the pistol was just about clear of the holster before she reluctantly pulled the trigger.

The world moved back into real time for Sara to watch the gang members head explode like an overripe melon being hit by a truck.
Liquidized skull and brain mixed with fountains of blood showered the back wall of the apartment so that it looked like someone had gone crazy with a chain-saw in an abattoir. She dropped the shotgun that was now out of ammunition and put her hand in her jacket pocket to get at the pistol there.

The leader of the group was staring at the carnage having apparently forgotten to try and get away. Sara
leveled her pistol at him. "Now you strike me as having access to at least a little intelligence. So, do you think you can keep yourself from doing something stupid and forcing me to kill you as well?"

The tattooed man couldn't tear his eyes away from the bodies of his heavies.

"Well?" Sara repeated.

Eventually he looked up at her. His eyes burned with an impotent rage. "Do you
realize what you just did?" Sara shrugged nonchalantly keeping the gun on him at all times. "You just made enemies of the Legion, bitch. Your life expectancy is gonna be measured in hours from now on."

Sara gave him her 'couldn't-care-less' look. "Do you know that some people would take idle threats as constituting doing something stupid? Now I'm not a harsh woman so I'll let you off this once, but don't take that as an invitation to maintain this stupidity." The man's eyes flicked to the open doorway. "Thinking you can outrun a bullet is the height of stupidity."

His eyes switched back to her. "What do you want?"

"Plenty, a lot of which scum like you can't give me. What I want from you are answers to a few questions. Why don't you step inside so we can talk more privately?" It wasn't a request and the leader understood that. He moved further inside the apartment as Sara directed him.

"Carla, close the door would you?" Sara looked the leader directly in the eyes. "We wouldn't want to be interrupted by certain people walking past outside would we?"