Last Stand (The Survivalist Book 7) (32 page)

“Toss your sidearm,” directed Carr.

Hood looked down and picked a sticky blob of something green from his uniform.

“Even if you shoot me, you’ll never get out of here alive.”

“Do it!” he said, tightening his grip on the pistol.

Hood slowly pulled his USP45 from its holster and dropped it over the side of the dumpster.

“I always figured you for a bastard, but a traitor? That one caught me by surprise,” said Carr.

“I’ve accepted certain hard truths. You’d be well served to do the same.”

“Hard truths? Is that what you call the murder of innocent people?”

“Don’t play self-righteous with me. We’re all doing what we need to.”

Carr moved closer, pressing the muzzle against Hood’s eye.

“If I could get away with it, I’d put a bullet through your eye right now.”

“Like I said, we’re all doing what we need to.”

Carr stepped back and holstered his pistol.

“Unfortunately, if I did that, your friends would be back here before I could climb out of this…” He looked down at the garbage. “This mash.”

Hood smiled. “I take that to mean that we’re going to settle this like the two old goats that we are.”

Carr nodded. “It’s been coming for some time.”

Hood slipped the jacket off his shoulders. He wasn’t a big man, but he was fit and lean from having lived the life of a professional soldier. Carr was a few inches shorter, but he had a good twenty pounds on him, mostly in his arms and chest.

“I’m going to enjoy this,” Hood said, bringing his hands up into a fighting position.

Carr gritted his teeth. “I seriously doubt that.”

With both men’s feet essentially trapped from the knees down, they had to slog toward one another, as if wading through quicksand. Hood fired the first punch, catching Carr on the left ear. In return, he got a split lip and a bloody nose, thanks to a powerful heel palm driven straight up the middle. Hood’s head rocked back, and he nearly fell, but as he did, he flung a handful of maggot-infested hamburger into Carr’s face. As the general wiped it from his eyes, Hood leaned forward with an uppercut, catching Carr under the chin.

Teeth clacked together, and he tasted blood.

Hood followed up with a short left hook. It caught Carr in the eye, and for a second, he thought he might fall.

He didn’t.

As his vision cleared, he lunged forward and pulled Hood into a deep headlock. The general tried to slide out, but there was so little room in the dumpster that he found himself unable to wriggle free. Carr squatted, driving Hood’s face into a jellied pool of cooking grease.

Hood gagged, releasing a huge spray of vomit into the sludge. But that did little to help his cause. Carr drove him even deeper, burying his face in the gelatinous white slime all the way up to his ears. Panic set in, and Hood thrashed from side to side as he struggled to get air. His mouth filled with the congealed grease, and he inadvertently inhaled some of it into his lungs. He coughed, but that only caused him to pull in another mouthful. Darkness closed in, and General Hood’s last thought was as strange as it was irrelevant.

Cooking grease tasted a lot like french fries.

Mason tried the handle on the old fire station door. Surprisingly, it was unlocked. He and Bowie hurried inside. A bright red fire truck sat front and center, freshly waxed and ready to take the resort’s firefighters to burning buildings, cats trapped in trees, and neighborhood fundraising events. To his left were peg hooks lined with reflective Kevlar turnout jackets and a long row of helmets. Further in sat several giant rolls of faded yellow hoses, and at the very back of the building was a small wooden staircase leading up to a loft. The only things missing from the firehouse were the firemen.

Bowie immediately went over to the coats, sniffing each for clues about their respective owners.

Mason surveyed the fire truck before settling into a deep alcove lined with spigots and gauges. Pressing up against the truck’s control panel wasn’t the perfect defensive position, but it did offer protection from three sides.

He took count of his ammunition—eight rounds in the Supergrade and two spare magazines with seven rounds a piece. Twenty-two rounds in total. Not nearly enough for an extended firefight, but plenty to take someone else’s weapon.

Mason settled back into the recess and waited. He thought about calling Bowie over, but patience had never been one of the dog’s strengths. It was better to let him wander a bit. That way if trouble came through the door, Bowie would be more likely to have the element of surprise.

The fire truck’s driver-side window suddenly exploded, showering Mason with tiny shards of glass. One piece sliced his right forearm, opening a two-inch gash. Bullets pinged the driver’s door, and Mason pressed himself back into the alcove to get out of the line of fire. Based on the angle, the shooter must be positioned at one of the firehouse’s front windows. While he didn’t have a direct bead on Mason, he was also too far away to engage effectively with a pistol.

With little to do but wait for the enemy to come closer, Mason holstered his firearm and turned his attention to the wound. It wasn’t terribly deep, but a steady stream of blood seeped out. Worst of all, the cut was on his gun arm, making it more likely that he might fumble a draw. He slipped out his knife and sliced a strip of cloth from the cuff of his trousers to serve as a bandage. It probably wouldn’t stop the bleeding, but it should at least help to soak up the blood.

Another string of automatic fire broke out, this time peppering the rear tires. The giant truck began to settle onto its rims with a loud hiss of air. Mason chanced a quick glance around the corner, catching sight of a man walking around the outside of the building. Bowie saw him too, and before Mason could stop him, the dog raced over and leaped through one of the shattered windows.

“Bowie!” he shouted, stepping out from the small niche.

Only then did Mason realize that he was not alone.

Buckey stood fifteen feet away, the Hawk hanging loosely at his side. He had a scarf pulled up over his mouth and looked every bit as tough as Mason had imagined. He seemed calm and confident, as if the coming fight were a mere formality.

Blood trickled down Mason’s forearm, finally making its way to his fingertips before dripping onto the painted concrete floor. He clenched his fist a few times. The wound stung, but his fingers seemed to work well enough.

He had never faced off with someone holding a tomahawk and wasn’t sure what threat the man posed. The way he saw it, Buckey could make one of two plays. He could either charge, swinging the Hawk as he came, or he could throw it, probably with a single upward sweep of his arm. Of the two, the throw was the most worrisome. Even with bloody hands, Mason had no doubt that he could drop Buckey before he could close the distance.

The timing of the throw, however, was much less certain. Buckey had but to swing his arm up, releasing the tomahawk at the right moment. Even if Mason managed to shoot him, the Hawk would still continue to fly forward, and at such a close range, it would almost certainly find its mark. And then there was the issue of Buckey’s tactical vest, requiring that any shot be to his head or an extremity. It was that line of thinking that led Mason to wait for the slightest advantage before reaching for his Supergrade.

“I’m glad we had a chance to meet like this, Marshal,” Buckey said, gently rolling the handle of the tomahawk in his grip. “I had hoped to see the face of the man who shot me.”

Blink.

Mason nodded. “Does seeing my face make it hurt any less?”

Buckey wiggled his injured leg.

“Not really, no. But killing you might.”

“With that thing?” He looked down at the tomahawk and smiled. “If you want to put it away, I’ll give you a moment to take out a real weapon.”

The slight seemed to get under Buckey’s skin.

“Oh, you’re a real comedian. You ever heard of the Gurkhas?”

“I have.”

“Then you know that once they draw their blades, they don’t put them back away until they’ve drawn blood. If there’s not an enemy nearby, a Gurkha soldier will drag the blade across his own back, rather than disgrace the weapon.”

Blink.

“I doubt that’s true. But even if it were, I’d extend the same offer to them.”

Buckey grinned. “Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight, is that it?”

“Something like that.”

“See, the thing is, I’ve never met anyone who could get a gun out of a holster faster than I could stick them with this baby.” He hefted the Hawk lightly. “No one.”

Mason shrugged. “Even if you get that thing off, you’ll never know if it hits me.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because you’ll already be dead.”

He chuckled. “I believe you’re the cockiest sonofabitch I’ve ever met. It must be one of those marshal things, right?”

Blink.

Mason went for the Supergrade, bending his knees and leaning back like an old-fashioned gunfighter. The time it took for Buckey’s eyes to reopen was two hundred milliseconds. It took another hundred milliseconds for his brain to process movement. By then, Mason’s pistol had already cleared the holster. Buckey’s arm began to swing upward, but before he could release the tomahawk, a 235-grain hollow-point slammed into his shoulder. A look of panic came over him as his arm dangled from his side, paralyzed.

Mason immediately shifted his aim and shot Buckey through the bridge of his nose. The bullet rocked his head back, and he toppled over like a fallen tree, his limbs stiff and unmoving. Mason stood absolutely still, replaying the draw, the aim, and the subsequent follow-up shot. Plan it. Execute it. Analyze it. It was the only way to continue to improve.

Once he had dissected every motion, he walked over and picked up the Hawk. It was a beautiful weapon that might come in handy one day. He looked down at fallen man, realizing that he hadn’t yet answered Buckey’s question.

“Yeah,” he said, holstering the Supergrade, “it’s one of those marshal things.”

Mason discovered Bowie crouched next to the body of another of the Black Dogs. The man was big and strong, not an easy fight, even for Bowie. His throat had been torn out, but only after suffering dozens of bites to his arms and face. Like the others, he wore no insignia other than the patch of a snarling dog—an irony that was not lost on Mason, considering the man’s demise.