by Nick Thacker
He put his hand on the parking brake and was ready to rejoin traffic when an idea occurred to him. If he were Ember, where would his next move take him? He had tried to hit her at her Post Office thirty minutes ago. The next move would be a direct retaliation from her.
She was on her way to the Five Points Post Office. Yes. She was exactly as ballsy as that to walk into Five Points, thinking she’d either kill him or expose him.
With a grin, he took out his phone and sent a message to the head of Five Point security.
Two armed intruders from Boulder Branch on their way. Suspect attempted takeover of Branch. Be ready.
As he slipped his phone back into his pocket, he pulled out into traffic, but then a second idea occurred to him. Another way to tip the scales in his direction. He wouldn’t automatically assume Ember would fall to his Five Points security. So he turned around and went in the opposite direction. If Dalton’s adversaries survived the day, Ember would know where to find him.
41
Ben stared at the half-dozen men and women opposite him and Ember. They didn’t at all seem surprised to see these two non-Branch members standing inside the fourth floor of their Post Office. They’d been warned. Dalton must have guessed or known they were coming. He looked over at Ember and saw that she had come to the same realization.
Three of them had baseball bats, all of them men. One of the women was holding some sort of stun baton or cattle prod thing — Ben had seen circus trainers use them on elephants years ago. It was a foot long, with jittery blue light dancing at the end. He wasn’t sure if it was powerful enough to kill a man, but he certainly didn’t want to get anywhere near the business end of it.
The other woman was holding nunchucks. Actual nunchucks. Ben had only seen those in movies before — and in the hands of his favorite Ninja Turtle, one of his favorite childhood television shows. He’d never thought he’d see some in real life, much less be attacked by someone using them. They almost seemed comical, but he had no doubt of the woman’s ability to use them to break every bone in his body.
“We have no quarrel with you,” Ember said, her hands up. “We’re only here for Dalton.”
One of the men, tall and lean with a tattoo on top of his shaved head, took a step forward. “He’s not here, but you have brought guns into a Post Office. This is a violation of Club law. Surrender yourself for immediate discipline by the Review Board. There will not be a second warning. We know who you are, Ember Clarke. Don’t jerk us around.”
Ben realized he was holding the pistol in his hand. He kept it pointed at the floor, waiting for Ember to signal what to do.
“Dalton is planning a coup,” she said, her voice calm and steady. “He’s not being honest with you. We don’t want to fight, but you need to be aware of what he’s doing.”
Without warning, the tattooed man leaped forward, swinging the bat. It flew at Ember's head. She sidestepped it easily then grabbed the bat and jerked it, knocking the man off balance and sending him tumbling forward. She stole it from him and jabbed him with the knob of the handle right in the spine to knock him to the ground. One fluid movement and the guy was on the floor, wincing in pain.
As Ben had feared, the woman with the nunchucks came directly at him. She didn't do any Jackie Chan-like tricks with it. For her, it was all business. She held half in one hand and swung the other half at him. He tried to pull back, out of the way, but was a fraction of a second too slow. The metal shaft first smacked his hand, knocking the gun to the floor, then it beamed him in the forehead. A trickle of blood formed and ran down his forehead as he continued his backpedal. An instant headache formed behind his eyes.
“Ember!” he shouted as he danced away from his attacker. “What do we do?” He lowered to the floor, both to dodge another swing and also to grab his pistol again. Should I use it? Will that make things better or worse?
She was too busy to answer him. A man swung a bat at her midsection and connected with her side. She grunted as she returned the favor, jabbing the bat she’d stolen into his chest. He fell back and knocked over one of the men.
Due to the narrow size of the hallway, they couldn’t all come for her at once. But Ben could see she couldn’t keep fighting them off, especially not with her wounded shoulder.
Ben turned to see an office door to his right. It was open, a room with a few chairs and desks. A classroom. He ducked into it as the nunchucks woman kept coming at him. As he did, he turned to see Ember facing off against the woman with the stun baton. If Ember went down, he had no idea what he would do next. Would he have to go up for the Review Board too? What would they do to an outsider?
“This way,” he shouted, and she nodded without looking at him. She was too busy dodging swipes of the stun baton to look in his direction.
A second later, Ember kicked the nunchucks woman out of the way and joined Ben in the room. She slammed the door shut and grabbed a bookcase next to it. With a grunt, she toppled it in front of the door, blocking it.
“Will that keep them out?” Ben asked, panting and lightheaded.
“For a few seconds.”
He still had the pistol in his hand. They both looked at it, but Ember shook her head.
His eyes darted around the room, looking for something they could use. A way out. There were windows, but he and Ember were on the top floor and too far away from the fire escape on the other side of the building.
“Is there a rope or something we can use to climb down?” Ben asked, eyeing a closet on the far side of the room.
“Don’t bother,” she said. “We won’t get that lucky.”
The people outside the room pushed against the door, making objects on the bookcase rattle and fall to the floor. He knew the barricade would only hold for a few more seconds.
Ben balled his fists, trying to keep them from shaking. “Can you call for help?”
“No. We don’t have time for that. In about two minutes, they’re going to have assassins rappelling down from the rooftop, hovering outside our window. We can’t be in here when that happens. Dalton isn’t here. We have to abort and get away from this building.”
“So what do we do?”
“We have to climb.”
“What?”
She pointed at a chair. “The windows are sealed shut. You have to break it open.”
Ben acted without thinking. He grabbed a chair and hurled it at the nearest window, shattering the glass. Ember approached it and knocked the few remaining shards loose, then she looked over the edge. She frowned. “It’s going to be rough, but I think we can make it. There are little holds in the brick. Imperfections. Plus, the windows have little ledges below. At least an inch. How are you at rock climbing?”
“I’m terrible.”
"Like, you're sort of okay at it, but you're being humble?"
“Like, I’ve done it one whole time, and I didn’t get more than six feet off the ground.”
“Well, Ben, you about to either get good at it, or we’re going to get caught.”
Before he could respond, she whipped off her belt and looped it through one of his belt loops and then one of her own, tethering them together.
"I'll support you if I can," she said, "but you have to try not to fall. I'm working with a bum shoulder, and you're… not very light."
“Thanks for that.”
She shrugged. They walked to the window together, and he looked out the open hold in the building and down the side. "Umm…"
“Just do your best, Ben.”
Ben felt like a prisoner chained at the hip to another prisoner. They climbed out the window together, and he got a better look down. Between each individual brick was a tiny concave mortar joint, with an indentation no more than a half-inch deep. The next window ledge was ten feet down. If he fell, he had at least thirty feet to the ground.
“Stop looking down,” she said. “I know it’s scary. We don’t have a choice.”
“Yeah, okay, I guess I’m ready.”
They turned around so they could back out of the window. Ben tried to feel for a foothold first, and couldn’t dig the toe of his boot into any of the tiny mortar joints. He had to press it against the brick instead, trying to gain traction by force. He held onto the ledge of this window and looked at Ember.
She nodded at him. “Let’s go.”
As they began their descent, Ben reached down for the next handhold. He found a little concave spot in a brick and dug two fingers into it. Ember's hands were clawed, pressing into the spaces between bricks.
Five feet down. Above them, Ben heard the bookcase topple as the assassins from the hallway broke into the room.
“Move,” Ember said.
Ben didn’t have much of a choice. Ember scurried down, digging her hands and feet into impossibly small spaces. Ben tried not to think about it. He kept focusing on reaching the next window ledge, and almost slid down to it.
There, they both took a breath. Then he looked up and saw a woman leaning over the side of the roof, a belt around her waist. She dropped a rope down the side of the building, five feet to Ben’s right.
“They’re coming,” Ben said. “And I thought you said there was no rope up there.”
"They probably had it stored somewhere. Whatever. Grab it; we can ride it down."
Ben shook his head. “Are you sure? What if she cuts it?”
Ember whipped off the belt and wrapped it around Ben’s hand. “Slide down quickly, then. We can’t stay here arguing about it.”
Ben looked up to see the woman above them walking backward over the edge of the roof. No time. He pivoted his feet toward the rope, as much as the little ledge would allow. Then, he jumped.
For a moment, he was in the air, twenty feet above the ground, sailing toward a free-swinging braided rope. He blinked against the sensation of air rushing into his wide-open eyes.
He grabbed the rope. First with the hand wrapped up with Ember’s belt, then with his free hand. He smacked into the side of the building and gripped. The air sailed out of his chest, and his mind went blank.
He sank like a stone, and his unwrapped hand burned as if on fire instantly. He let go and used only his wrapped hand. He could still feel the rope raking across his fingers during his rapid descent, but he waited until the ground was only a few feet below before he let go. As he toppled to the ground, he watched Ember gracefully slide down the rope above him.
She landed and reached out a hand to help him up. Ben could see the burn marks from the rope on her hand. Like the worst sunburn he’d ever seen.
“Your hands,” he said.
“No time. Move.”
She jerked him up as the woman above them was now halfway down the rope and coming fast. For a second, he thought he could smell the burnt flesh of her fingers.
Ember pointed to the side of the street where she had parked her car. Ben took a deep breath and pushed his body with everything he had left in him, thinking only of getting to the car, getting away, and living out the day.
42
Ben had to swallow several times, just to catch his breath. "Where are we going now?"
Ember kept her eyes on the road as she shifted her manual transmission, screaming along the highway. When she gripped the stick shift, she winced. Ben couldn’t see her palms, but he had to imagine those rope burns were agony.
"The weapons depot. That's where he's been, waiting for me. I should have known he would set a trap, hoping to get me to kill a few innocent Five Points members and seal my fate. So, we go to the depot in Commerce City."
“You’re sure?”
She nodded. “It’ll be poetic justice for him to kill me in the place where he was going to begin his grand plan. To prove how smart he is and how dumb I am.”
Ben could see the wreckage piled high as they exited the highway and slowed toward the rubble that had been the weapons depot. Long streams of yellow police tape marked the outer boundaries of the facility, but there were no cops here now.
Only Dalton stood there. Wide stance, arms down, a pistol in one hand. He was out in the open, with nothing to use as cover within ten feet in any direction. A smile on his face. Watching Ember’s car draw near.
“What’s he doing?” Ben asked.
“Waiting for me.”
“He wants to have a shootout like a high noon western?”
She nodded. “Looks like it.”
Ember took one of her pistols from underneath the seat and set it in her lap. Ben held his tongue, but so many thoughts ran through his head. Were they really going to stand fifty paces apart and see who the fastest draw was? Was there some code of conduct about shootouts like this?
“I think you should stay in the car,” Ember said as she parked a hundred yards away in the dirt lot. Detritus from the wreckage everywhere. Truck tires, wooden beams, chunks of concrete.
Ben shook his head. “Shouldn’t I go with you? Is there some Club rule against it?”
"Not that I know of. Quick-draw competitions aren't something you see every day at the Club."
“What if you need help?”
“I need to handle this on my own. Dalton has always wanted me. I dragged you into this, Ben, and it’s my responsibility to make sure you get out safely.”
“I don’t want to argue about the details, but I’m not sure how much I can help from the car. And, if he kills you, I’m not sure how that helps me get out safely.”
She grinned at him, then patted him on the arm. "You've been through a lot today, and you're not thinking clearly. I understand. But, you need to stay here and let me handle this. Don't forget, I have a present for you when this is all over."
He opened his mouth to say more, but Ember took her pistol and left the car. She stood next to it, waiting to see if Dalton would open fire.
He did not. Dalton pointed a hand to a spot in the open field, about thirty yards away. He kept his eyes on her the whole time as she carefully slid over to that spot.
She never turned her back to him. Pistol at her side, her finger on the trigger. At first, neither of them spoke, only staring across the field of scrap and dirt between them.
They faced off.
Ben watched, biting his lower lip as he rolled down his window. What could he do? He knew he had to do something other than sit here and watch. Clearly, this was an honor thing for these two assassins. But Ben couldn’t stand feeling so powerless as a bystander.
“Ember Clarke,” Dalton said, his tone dripping with disdain. “You have been like a lump in my mattress for years now. I’m sick of it. This ends here and now.”
“I’ve always known you were a terrible person. And, I knew you were ambitious, but I never appreciated how much ambition you have. Taking over the entire Club? It’s ballsy, Dalton. Stupid, but ballsy.”
“You know that saying about the tree of liberty needing to be refreshed with the blood of tyrants?”
“Oh, so you’re a patriot?”
Dalton shrugged. "It doesn't matter what I am. Only what I'm going to do. And that after today, you won't be around to cause me problems anymore. You killed Rennie, so you deserve this, no matter what."
“You killed Kenneth. You started it.”
They stared at each other for a few moments in silence. There were no tumbleweeds in the area, but Ben could practically see one rolling along the grass between them, and he could almost hear the whistling melody of an old western.
And then Ben spied something out of the corner of his eye. A hundred yards to his right was a hunk of concrete, like one of those parking barriers construction crews place along the side of a highway to act as a fence.
Behind the concrete boulder was a man, holding a sniper rifle. Crouched, unmoving, the barrel of the long gun pointed directly at Ember. This man, Dalton, and Ember formed a perfect triangle. The man had piled chunks of drywall and other junk around him so he could blend into his surroundings. But Ben had seen him and that gun pointed at Ember's head.
The shootout was a trick. Dalton would
keep Ember talking long enough for this man to line up the perfect shot.
Ben had to do something. He didn’t know if he was close enough to race out and get to this sniper in time.
“Think, Ben,” he whispered to himself.
If he left out of his side of the car, the sniper would see him. So, he had to find another way to intervene.
He leaned over to the driver’s side and pulled the lever to pop the trunk. He raised his head and checked the sniper, but the man hadn’t moved. He took Ember’s other pistol, the heavy dark graphite thing with an eagle etched into the grip and the word ENFORCER imprinted on the side. He didn’t know much about guns, but this thing felt expensive.
Then Ben snuck into the back seat and lowered the right side of the seat to access the trunk. He pressed up to open the trunk wide enough to slip out, then he crouched. A few breaths were supposed to clear his head, but they only made him dizzier.
He leaned around the side of the car. Ember and Dalton were still talking, still holding their pistols pointed at the ground. The sniper was in place, maybe waiting for a specific signal from Dalton to take the shot.
Ben considered calling out to Ember, to warn her about the sniper. But, could she pivot and get the shot off in time? Maybe not. Ben had no reason to think Ember had seen the sniper and would be able to account for him.
Ben had to do this on his own.
He plotted a course through the rubble to get to the sniper. He had to work his way in an arc, keeping a wide berth. Hopefully, the man would keep his eyes focused on the standoff, not on motion in his peripheral.
Ben stayed low, crouched, stepping over bits of metal and concrete and chunks of half-burned paper. He walked in a straight line away from the action, then turned at an angle once he was directly behind the sniper.
He raised the pistol, pointed it at the man’s head. Deep, even breaths in his nose and out his mouth to try to calm him. It didn’t seem to be working.