Authors: Richard Parry
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The door slammed shut, Carlisle’s bullets thudding into the frame.
A moment of quiet sat in the air, thin and tentative like morning mist.
“Wait!”
Carlisle coughed in the cordite smoke.
She saw Kendrick stop struggling — no,
Miles
stopped struggling: Kendrick had been dragging him slowly across the lobby before Carlisle’s shout.
Kendrick’s fear had made her reckless and strong, which was a bad combination.
Carlisle had seen too many cops go down in a hail of gunfire because they’d been too careless, thinking they were bulletproof.
Heck, some of them had even had a vest.
Against sustained fire, Carlisle’s experience was it made little difference.
Carlisle wore a vest anyway.
A little difference was better than no difference.
The clip spat out of her sidearm, clattering against the floor of the lobby.
It spun away as she locked another one in place.
The handle was warm against her hand; she’d fired it more times today than she remembered firing in the rest of the time she’d owned it.
The quiet was broken by a couple of answering rounds from the other side of the door.
The handle blew out, metal fragments scattering across the lobby.
Kendrick shoved Miles off her; they were to Carlisle’s right.
His hands were held up, palms out.
“Hey, I’m just —”
“I know.”
Kendrick was watching Carlisle, not paying attention to Miles.
“You don’t need to.”
Carlisle reached the door, putting her back to the wall next to it.
She didn’t look at either of them as she spoke.
“Yeah.
Yeah he did.”
“What?”
They both spoke at the same time.
She glanced at Kendrick, then back at the door.
The handle had been blown clear out.
It was a heavy door, designed to stop fires and God only knew what else.
She tested it with her hand a couple times; it didn’t budge.
Carlisle looked at the sidearm she carried.
Maybe she could shoot the bolt out?
“These soldiers aren’t fooling around.
You guys need to get it in your heads.
This isn’t some movie.
Bullets kill.”
“Hey.”
John was smiling at her.
The man was impossible, of course.
“She was just trying —”
“I know what she was trying to do.”
Carlisle stepped back from the door, then gave it a good kick.
It didn’t even shift in the frame.
Damn.
“Your daughter’s not up there.
Your…”
Kendrick trailed off.
“My friend?”
Carlisle cocked her head to the side.
“Yeah, my friend’s up there too.
And your girl — we’re going to get them both.
I promise.
But you know what?
It’s going to be a shitty rescue if I have to leave you two dead in the lobby.”
Miles laughed.
“I didn’t know you cared, Melissa.”
“I don’t.
It’s the paperwork.”
Kendrick nodded, a tentative grin tugging her face.
“You guys are still using paper, right?
Triplicate?”
“Triplicate.”
Carlisle looked around the lobby.
There was another set of stairs on the opposite side of the elevator.
“Let’s try the other stairwell.”
“That one locked?”
Miles walked over to her, taking in the holes in the lock.
“No, I just don’t think the door’s the right shade of beige.”
John just smiled at her.
“Fair enough.
What about —”
The other stairwell door crashed open, gunfire and the promise of death coming from it.
Carlisle saw Kendrick
move
, duck fast and quick behind a pillar as the bullets tore around her.
Chips of plaster were flying through the air.
Carlisle could see Kendrick’s mouth open in a scream that was drowned out by the hammer of guns.
Her own sidearm was already up.
Carlisle saw the lobby desk that Spencer had been behind; she pushed Miles towards it as she strode towards the other doorway, gun held in front of her as she fired.
The brass shells spun as they ejected from the side of her gun, the sound of it firing lost over the larger automatic weapons firing from the stairwell.
It’d be lucky if she hit anything, but —
A man stepped through, and one of her rounds caught him in the side of the neck.
She followed the body down with her gun, still firing until the weapon clicked empty.
Carlisle ejected the clip, still walking forward, pulling another clip from her belt and slapping it
in
, and she was firing again.
Another man —
this one’s a bit more cautious
— pointed the barrel of his rifle out and fired in her direction.
She didn’t slow her momentum, just changed direction to push herself up against the wall.
The muzzle flash of the soldier’s weapon was bright as a sun, the starburst pattern etching on her retina.
His weapon clicked empty, and she ducked through the door of the stairwell.
Carlisle’s free hand grabbed the fore grip of his weapon, pushing it against the face of another man to her left.
Her sidearm came up under the first soldier’s helmet and fired twice, then she kicked the body away.
Another man —
that’s three
— was crouched on the stairs, a fresh clip almost in his weapon.
Carlisle put her right foot on the man’s knee to her left, using it to boost herself up, her left knee cracking into the man’s helmet.
He fell backwards into the wall, and the man on the stairs fired, but she was already moving past the line of fire, her sidearm swinging through the air over the top of the man’s rifle and clocking him in the helmet.
The man jerked, his rifle firing wild, and she knocked it further clear with her other hand.
Carlisle pulled her own gun back and fired point blank into the man’s helmet three times.
Without pausing, she spun on the man she’d knocked into the wall, and emptied the rest of her clip into him.
Her weapon clicked empty, and she ejected the clip.
Smoke curled from the barrel of her sidearm, a lazy haze rising up into the air of the stairwell.
She stood still for a few moments, listening.
Her hearing was probably shot to hell, but you had to try, right?
Her hand found another clip from her belt, pushing it into her sidearm.
“You good?”
It was Miles from outside the stairwell.
“I’m good.”
Carlisle looked at the men around her.
“It’s clear.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
Miles coughed at the smoke.
“You are your own team, you know that?”
“What?”
“Three on one.
And they had guns.
Big guns!
I’ve heard that size matters.”
He nudged a rifle with his foot, as if it was a snake, then grinned at her.
“Not that that I’ve had any complaints, you know?”
Carlisle sighed.
“Big guns have no class.”
“No class?”
“None.
Also, if you’re fighting house to house, like this?
You can’t swing it around worth a damn.
These guys couldn’t get a bead on me.”
“It’s not because you’re awesome?”
Miles looked around her.
“Not just a little bit?”
That coaxed a grin from her.
“Like I said.
Krav maga
—”
“Yeah, yeah.
Kung fu
.
I get it.”
Miles looked back through the door.
“Danny?
You okay?”
“I —”
Kendrick’s hand came around the edge of the pillar, feeling its way up the cracked edge.
“Yeah.”
She stood up, walking towards them.
Carlisle nodded.
She was lucky — she knew that.
In this situation, a couple of civilians was bad news.
It was the sort of thing likely to get you killed.
These two, though — well, they had it together.
They hadn’t cracked.
No one had even thrown up at the sight of a body, which had to be a first.
Kendrick was kneeling down by one of the bodies, unstrapping the helmet.
It was the one she’d shot under the chin.
“Uh, I wouldn’t do that.”
Carlisle reached down, but Miles’ hand stopped hers.
He shook his head.
The helmet came free.
What came out was messy, but still recognisable.
Kendrick was turning the man’s face this way and that.
She said, “What do you suppose made him want to do this?”
“Do what?”
Miles had taken a step closer, then stopped.
“Try to kill us.
Why are they shooting at us?”
Kendrick was still staring at the man’s face.
“I didn’t know this man.
I didn’t do anything to him.”
“No.”
Carlisle looked up the stairwell.
“But he did something to you, didn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
She stood up, her face grim.
“And I’ll kill them all for it.”
Miles threw a glance sideways at her.
It said,
What the fuck?
Carlisle stood still for moment.
“Why do you say that?”
“Come on.”
Kendrick nodded around her at the bodies.
“You’re in the same boat.
I don’t know any cops who go in firing.
You’re like Chuck Norris or something.”
“No one can be like Chuck Norris.”
Miles shook his head.
“One day Norris was vacationing in Hawaii, right?
Did a light workout.
A couple guys followed him.
It’s now called the Ironman Triathlon.”
“I’m serious.”
Kendrick looked between them both.
“That’s what we’re doing, isn’t it?
We’re here to kill them all.”
Carlisle stared at her, then nodded slowly.
“Yeah.”
Miles looked at Kendrick, then at Carlisle.
“Wait.
What?”
Kendrick touched his elbow.
“You know it’s true, John.
They’ve got your friend up there.
Valentine.”
She paused on the name, swallowing.
“Whatever it takes.”
Carlisle looked at her sidearm.
“I’m pretty sure they’ve killed Vince.
My partner.
He was a…
Well.
He was an adequate cop at best, but he was my partner.
And he was a good man.
He tried his best to speak for the dead.”
“They’ve got Adalia.
And my…”
Kendrick swallowed again.
“My Valentine.”
Miles leaned against the wall.
“Ok.”
He leaned down, snaring a rifle from the floor.
“They’ve got my friend.
But you know what?”
Carlisle shook her head.
“No.
What?”
He checked the weapon, clearing the breach.
“I know they’ll keep coming, until they get what they want.
And that shit’s just got to stop.
So I’m with you guys.”
He held his hand out, palm down.
Carlisle put hers on top of his.
Kendrick put hers on Carlisle’s.
John said, “Hut.”
“What?”
Kendrick looked at him.
“Don’t tell me you don’t watch TV.”
Their hands fell awkwardly apart.
“I watch TV.
I don’t watch bad TV.”
“Oh, it’s like that, is it?”
John shook his head.
“It’s football.
It’s what they say.
You know.
Hut-hut-hut.”
“It’s older than that.”
Carlisle started up the stairs, holding her sidearm pointed up.
“It’s from the Roman legions.
It means, ‘to execute.’”
“You watch the History Channel, don’t you?”
Miles talking from the bottom of the stairs still, checking the dead men for something.
Carlisle looked back and saw Kendrick following close, the crossbow held at the ready.
“No.”
Carlisle fired her weapon twice as a head looked out and over the railing above her.
There was a clatter and a rifle spun past her down to the bottom.