He was wearing a turtleneck that came high on his throat, but that still left his face wide open, and that was all I needed. I was sitting on the outside seat of my side of the booth. That gave me all of the room I could ask for on my right hand side. Normally I practice with both hands, and I’ve gotten to be fairly accurate with my left, but on a throw, the right side still had more power. I used it all.
He was in mid step when the four inches of pure razor-edged carbon went into his left eye. It happened pretty fast, except to me, so it looked more like he had suddenly sprouted a growth in his eye than taken a hit from a throw.
The last half inch of the handle was all that showed. He was dead before his body knew it, and he just crumpled like a rag doll, slowly, falling slightly forwards, then backwards, his knees hitting the floor first, then the rest of him slowly toppling over backwards, but the first thing to hit the ground was the Uzi he’d been reaching for. That made a racket as it hit the floor. Now time would get tight.
Terry’s eyes were as wide as they could get, and his mouth hung open in a slack jawed daze as he stared at the body hitting the floor. Godsen had pulled her gun out of nowhere. Impressive.
I stood and gave her a clear line of fire on Terry. He was supposed to be on our side now, but I wouldn’t trust him with matches, never mind a gun. Not after the way he’d gone along with these guys.
From the look of it, Godsen’s gun would come in pretty handy just about anywhere a cannon would be useful at short range. It was a snub-nosed revolver, with a barrel so wide it almost scared me. It was chrome plated along the barrel and the revolving chambers, but someone had applied a matte-black rubberized finish on the handle, then re-attached the aged ivory grips. I’d seen that treatment before, and if that wasn’t a .44 Magnum I’d eat my hat. With the ‘shorty’ barrel it wouldn’t have much accuracy beyond about twenty feet, and that was only because of the power of the load. A .38 snubby would start to stray after about ten feet.
I grabbed my Colt and the H&K and reclipped them both, slipping them into place in my harness. I grabbed a gin and tonic from the table, and quickly stepped over to the body and placed it on the floor next to me. As I retrieved my knife it made a small sucking sound pulling free of the eye socket. Then I put the blade in the glass next to the body, and patted him down for the pin mic. I found it on the side of his neck, clipped to the turtleneck. There had been very little blood, just a trickle, but it had gotten onto the white turtleneck. I reached for the knife in the glass, swirling it around a few times before taking it out and cutting the wire to the pin mic. I wiped it clean on the turtleneck. What the hell, it was already bloody, and the knife was fairly clean from the gin bath. Then I slipped it back into the small sheath below my collar in the back of my neck, and started stripping the body. While I did, I gave a string of commands.
“Terry, hand your gun over to the Colonel. Bob! Get up! Start unhooking one of those air conditioners. The one farthest down the wall. Get it ready to rip right out when I give the word. Terry, you help him.” Nobody questioned me, which was good because I was getting the ‘feeling’. It was coming and I could feel it this time. This time I wanted it to come. I wanted to use it. Hell, I needed to use it. If I made this work, it would be the first time anyone had stopped these bastards.
I was making a small pile of grenades as I peeled the armour off the body. The transmitter went directly into my jacket pocket for Evie to ‘ooh and aah’ over, later. The armour was surprisingly light, and it felt different from any other material I could think of right then. Supple, but stiff at the same time. It was strange, but I didn’t stop to analyze it. There would be plenty of time for that later. Or there wouldn’t. Ten minutes from now all the answers to these questions would be important, or moot. As fast as I could get it off the body, I threw it at the Colonel.
“Put all of this on Colonel. Do the best you can and do it fast.” To her credit, she didn’t question me in any way whatsoever. “What you can’t get on, carry with you. Don’t drop anything.”
I stuffed two of the incendiary grenades into my jacket pockets. The deal was more involved than Terry had known. They had obviously intended to burn the pub to the ground with our dead bodies inside. And probably Terry’s and the rest of the patron’s as well.
After I’d taken all of the armour off of him, Eduardo looked rather pathetic, stripped of his clothes and dead and all, but hey, life’s a bitch and then you die, right?
“They know something went wrong already, because they’ve lost communication with Eduardo here. They’ve got to think about it for a few moments, and talk over the revision of plans. I figure we’ve got about…” I looked at the timer I’d set as I got up from the table, noting that three minutes and sixteen seconds had passed. “…two minutes, maybe, before they come through the front door to take us all out and firebomb the place as well.”
Big Bob looked up from his work at the A/C unit.
“They’re going to kill us all and burn the place to the ground? Is that what I just heard you say?” I thought he was going to pass out. There was a look of real terror building on his face, and that wasn’t going to do at all.
“No, Bob. That’s what they think they’re going to do. I don’t intend to let any of that happen. Colonel, I’m going out front. When they come in, they’ll probably just send in the two gunners, maybe even just one.
If it was up to me, I’d send one, and keep one in position outside the pub. If they go that route, it’ll get plenty wild out there. Your job will be to stay alive long enough for me to catch up to you. This wall is around the back of the pub, and it should put you in the alley. You’ll have some element of surprise, because they won’t expect you to walk through stone and brick.
When I fire the first round, that’s when everything goes. Bob and Terry will pull the A/C right out of the wall. Then you move as fast as you can. Terry first, then you, Colonel. Bob, is the back door off the kitchen locked with a bolt from the inside?”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah! Bolted top and bottom. With the junkies around here, you know,” I cut him off quick. We didn’t have time to chat.
“Shut up and listen! After the Colonel is out, you lie down against the wall in this corner up here.” I pointed to the small corner next to our booth with brick wall on two sides. “Keep your head down, and cover your ears and squeeze your eyes shut as tight as you can. You’ll know when it’s safe to move. Keep your face to the wall.”
I pulled out the H&K and dropped the clip into my hand, reaching under my jacket I pulled out the third clip in the right hand side of the harness and switched them. I loaded it, racked the slide to chamber a round, and dropped the clip again, pulling out another clip from the same side of the harness, and thumbed one more round off the top of that one, and added it to the one I was using. Putting back the spare clip, I unlocked the safety on the H&K, then fingered the laser sight to verify it was working, and holstered the gun.
We all looked at each other one last time before the action. Big Bob said it for us all.
“’Carpe Diem’ Jeffry. With both hands.” I had to smile.
Then I turned and walked to the rope and stepped over it as I eyed the door at the other end of the pub. My mind was marking distance, checking firing lines, looking for weak spots. It was about fifty paces from where I stood to the end of the bar. Another five to the front doors. The windows were set high, about five feet from the floor, which meant about seven or eight feet from the sidewalk to the sill, and they were all done in faux stained glass. That meant that it was pretty unlikely they’d come in that way, you couldn’t see anything and you’d need a boost to get to the windows.
There were at least eighty people in the room, making it about half full. That was a lot of innocent people. The clock in my head was running. Maximum setup time left, one minute ten seconds. I had a fair line of sight to the door, but nowhere near what I needed. I pulled out my RCMP/Interpol badge and slipped it into the top breast pocket backwards, with the gol
d shield showing.
I started slowly walking down the length of the bar pushing people away from the polished oak and brass rail. I didn’t even look at them as I walked, I just kept my eye on the doors. At first, they complained at me in Swiss German, French, and even English, but one look seemed to do the trick, and they quieted down and moved in the direction I was pushing them, towards the side wall, and out of my line of fire. More importantly, out of the line of fire that would come mere seconds after the first shooter came through the front doors. I was gambling that they would do what I thought they would do. What I had put in the pot for my bet was the very lives of not only Godsen and Big Bob, but if I was right, all of the people in the pub as well. That was a hell of a high bet.
The people further down the bar were catching on as they saw me moving everyone off to the left, and they started moving before I got to them. That was good, because the timer in my head was closing on zero. I was about ten paces from the end of the bar, fifteen from the doors, when the last guys stepped away from the rail and towards the wall. There were three of them, all dressed in suits, out for a taste of what they couldn’t get in their lives otherwise. They’d taken only a few steps away from the bar and then they sat down at the first available table. About ten feet from the doors, and barely to the right of them. That was all the time I had. My internal timer hit zero, and just like turning a switch, I was in ‘Slow Time’.
At that very same second, the doors started to open. Both of them. Somehow, I knew that they’d sent the two shooters together. That meant they were intending to do in the entire place, and then burn it. These guys were getting way beyond what was considered to be ‘Out of control’. They were starting to believe they could do anything they wanted to, and do it anywhere they wanted to. They thought they were invincible. That, was the weakness.
I became the chosen one. No person is invincible. The closest was Achilles, but look what happened to him in the end. There is always a weakness, even in the midst of unthinkable power, there is always a weakness. They thought they were invincible. That, was the weakness. No, it had to come to everyone, eventually.
There are no limits to that which we can achieve within the laws of the Universe. Physics rule. Man pushes the edge of capability and understanding, searching for Truths, and thereby seeking Perfections. All the while we deceive ourselves with Magic. Tonight, I was the Magician. The room seemed to have come to a halt stopping in its tracks.
I was thinking about these things and more, while I watched the scene from an imaginary external view. I mean, it must have been imaginary, but it was as real to me as the death that stalked this room, waiting for its due. I’d slipped, deep—deep—deep, into my own special dimension. I couldn’t even remember if I’d been here before. This particular here. It had been so long since these changes had controlled me. I had to believe that it was me, and not the rest of the Universe, because then it wouldn’t make any sense.
Tick… Tock…, the seconds had begun to stop. How could I move if time stopped altogether? I was the Magician. That’s how. I was the chosen one, that’s how. Now don’t think anymore. Do.
Dimensions, time, space, mortality, invincibility, visions, conversions, convolutions, purpose, intent, denial. Death.
I was still fifteen paces from the doors. About fifty feet. There were two, not one. All of this and more was running through my mind as I moved. Three strong paces and a dive-jump put me on top of the oak bar, both of my hands stretched straight out in front of me, A Colt .45 in my right hand and an H&K in the left. Landing on my belly with my back arched and my feet lifted to lighten drag, I slid down the polished top of the bar, only a few feet, maybe five or six. Empty wine glasses and beer steins seemed to hang in the air as I forced them by my passing out of the positions they had held peacefully sitting on the bar, patiently awaiting pickup. Then, they suddenly suffer the backlash of the inter-dimensional shifting. I was still coming to rest as I trained both of my weapons at the doors, approximately head high on the right, and knee height on the left. They wouldn’t both take the same target. They were invincible, but I was the Magician. I was chosen.
The doors had opened enough by now that there was a one-inch gap between them. It was enough for me to see that it was indeed the two shooters, because I really doubted that anyone would come to the pub carrying an automatic rifle with a silencer on it. No matter how bad the ‘Bangers & Mash’ had been on their last visit.
The glasses had started to make their inevitable descent towards the floor. Apparently, gravity still worked in this dimension.
I rolled to the right, slipping over the edge of the bar, into the serving area. Crouching while I ran closer to the end of the bar, I kept my head down, for about three paces, then up I popped again, both hands stretched out, still aiming for those spots I saw in my mind.
The doors had almost opened by now, and the two shooters were there, in living colour. Cocky, confident. Almost disdainful of the poor mortals who were here, in this very pub, at this very instant. The back of my mind flashed the central control, ‘minor message, glass beginning to hit the floor, some breakage occurring’, and I could hear it as the first one started breaking, but the sound was so drawn out that it would have been hard to identify without the background mind interpreting these real-world events as they happened, and letting me know.
The shooters would hear it too, but the shooters didn’t inhabit my dimension. They would look for the source of the sound, identify it, track it, and then see me, maybe. Because by then it would already be over. For better or worse. That was a long, long time from now. We would see then. Think then. Why were things so slow? It was like being in a room out of time. No one moved, except the shooters, and they were moving into the arms of death.
A new level of calmness and precision came over me. I had gone further and deeper than I’d ever been. My background connection with reality was urging me to action, the longer this went on, the higher a price I’d pay in the end. The link was tenuous at best, and it was easy to turn it off altogether. Now there was only The Mission, The Chosen, and The Invincible. I felt like a movie, but only the observer. Not the director.
I had my body above the bar only far enough to steady both of my arms. I was on one knee on the raised floor behind the bar, right at the curve, where it turned ninety degrees, and ran another five paces. Right at that curve point, there was a pillar coming out of the bar and rising to the roof beam running the length of the ceiling. The pillar was only one-foot square, covered with oak veneer, and I was steadying myself against it. The nine square inch interior of this pillar was concrete, all the way to the roof beam. I remember the week the work had been done. It had been a great topic of conversation among the ‘steadies’.
The doors had opened all the way now, and both of the shooters were silhouetted against the light of the foyer. They were starting to source down the glass breaker. It was an ‘Unknown’, and therefore, to be dealt with first. They were both going to the same target. I’d been wrong again. Maybe good help is hard to find these days. It made it all that much easier for me.
The outfits were great. Charcoal Grey coveralls, balaclavas, and boots.
As they both followed the trail and looked up again, I could see one of the reasons why nothing used so far could bring these guys down. They had total neck wraps. Independent of the rest of the suit.
The coveralls were long-sleeved, and buttoned down tightly. To the heavy gloves, that together covered them from the chin to the boots. This was still only the main part of the outfit, but not the most crucial.
The balaclava went below the added neck-wrap. There were only three points of entry in the balaclava, therefore, in the entire outfit, and they were small. Two for the eyes, which didn’t even show the eyebrows, or any skin of the eye at all. Just the eye itself, nothing extraneous, and one very small breathing/comms opening at the mouth, which by its very nature was larger than the other two put together. Too perfect.
As they b
egan to raise their nine mm autos, I focused and looked again. This time I saw the tightly woven gauze of this armoured material that covered their mouth openings.
If it had had a vision mask to go with it, it would have been bye-bye birdie, but four entry points. That’s what I had to work with. At a maximum of twenty feet, and more like fifteen. As far as I was concerned at that instant in time and space it was two more than I needed.
They spotted me, finally, and now they started following the script raising their rifles as well as their heads, so they could see what they were shooting, right?
I held my position and waited, as they slowly raised their rifles and their heads.
Let’s say hello. ‘You say Hello, and I say Goodbye’.
John & Paul had it straight when they wrote that one.
I put the laser sight from the H&K in my left on the one a half step back, so the other one wouldn’t see the red targeting dot, and warn him. I kept the dot just to the left of his outside eye, the left one. The Colt was covering the other one. His aim was going to be crossfire to the one I’d targeted first. We were about fifteen to eighteen feet apart now. They didn’t have a chance in hell, but they wouldn’t know that, and they never would have the time to understand it. Only time enough to die.
The first bullet in the chamber of each gun was one of my own concoctions. A lead hollow-point, opened and filled with three drops of liquid cyanide, then of course, resealed. It’s meant to kill no matter where it touches, as long as it touches.
The second two rounds, one in each gun, was one of those equally illegal explosive tip rounds that Evie had given me.
The one a half step behind was just a bit faster than his pal. They’d both got their heads facing me by now, and the rifles were a fraction of a second behind. If I did nothing, this whole section of the bar, and the person kneeling behind it, me, would be covered in nine mm lead.
I thought about that, and rejected it. Back man first. I twitched the dot a half inch to the right and pulled the trigger at the same time. The noise sounded very far away, but I knew that it was like a roar from hell, and the flame from hell came with it. Riding the lead missile almost half way to the target, flaring out on the sides, and turning into smoke. Rolling one turn to the left, I came back up in the same position. Both arms on the bar, my aim on the second one now.
The Diamond Dust on Dragonfly Wings: A Jeffry Claxton Mystery Novel Page 55