“What are you talking about?” Mozar still sounded more irritated than anything. “Get back in the car, Mr. Black. We’ll be with you shortly...”
“Listen to me... Andrew. Whatever this fucking thing really is, it’s about to go down...”
The lead SWAT guy turned, staring at Black.
For the first time, Black saw his eyes.
They were dark red.
Jesus. How the fuck hadn’t the rest of them noticed that? He could see it from twenty yards away. Were they blind?
The SWAT guy was already raising his rifle.
But not at Black.
“HAWKING!” Black reached for a gun he didn’t wear. “GET DOWN! YOUR SIX! GET DOWN!”
Hawking turned, following Black’s eyes and words.
Given how fast he turned, maybe he even followed some instinctual cue from all his years in the military––the same one that caused Black to revert to that lingo.
Either way, he wasn’t fast enough. The SWAT leader shot Hawking in the chest the second he whirled to face him.
Without a breath between shots, he shot him again in the head.
Hawking crumpled to his knees on the asphalt. Then he fell sideways and didn’t move.
Instinctively, Black dropped like a stone. He pressed his back against the car door in a crouch before his conscious mind even caught up with what just happened.
He hadn’t even made it all the way down when all hell broke loose.
Seven
CONDITION BLACK
A WOMAN SCREAMED. It was blood-curdling, holding enough emotion that Black winced, closing his eyes. Because of the block, he couldn’t feel her pain through his light, but something in that scream stabbed at him anyway.
“EVAN!” The same voice, heartbreakingly full. “Evan! Let go of me, goddamn it! Let go of me! EVAN!”
“Grab her! Pull her back!”
The woman screamed again. Her voice shattered the silence a few more times, calling Hawking’s name.
Then shots exploded all around him.
Not just over by the voices and the SWAT team. They also came from overhead.
Black ducked down further, pressing his back into the car door.
Bullets slammed into the car’s side. Even from where he crouched, his seer-keen nose picked up the smell of cordite filling the air as more automatic rifles went off, including in a third location off to his left and across from where Hawking had been shot.
He heard a commotion by Hawking’s body, more yells from roughly where Mozar and the SWAT team had been standing. He couldn’t make out any of the words now that the echo of rifles and small arms filled the air, ricocheting off the metal walls.
He fought to feel what was happening, but he was still sight-blind. Frustrated, he slid around the metal frame of the car door, trying to keep some portion of the car between himself and the bullets. They seemed to be coming from everywhere at once now.
“BLACK!” Mozar yelled. “BLACK! ARE YOU THERE?”
“I’m here!”
“Stay where you are!”
Letting out a humorless laugh, Black shook his head.
Gaos. Like he was about to go for a fucking stroll.
Then again, staying put wasn’t an option, either.
It would be seconds before the guys in workmen’s uniforms came running back at the sound of gunfire. They’d bring whatever was in those rolling bins back with them.
For all he knew, they were packing RPGs.
Crab-walking forward in a low crouch below the door’s window, he ignored ricocheting bullets and opened the driver’s side door, leaving the one behind him open as well. Immediately, more bullets peppered the outside of the car.
This time, they went after the driver’s door, focusing on the front.
Black slid to the side, but when he saw the bullets being stopped by the outer shell, he moved back behind it. The car door made a better shield than he’d feared. He wondered if the damned thing was bullet resistant.
When the volley died down, he peered over the edge, saw a muzzle flash from above and ducked back down. The bullet slammed into the door, about a foot below where his eyes had been. He was already back behind cover, but he still got his answer.
Whoever it was, they weren’t trying to kill him.
They wanted him to stay out of the car.
Black decided following their advice probably wasn’t in his best interest.
He slid carefully into the front seat. Staying below the dashboard, he looked for the keys, his mind turning over reasons they might want him alive and liking none of them. Luckily, Rodrigo left the keys on the drink holder between the seats. Jamming the longest one into the ignition, he started the engine, gunning it even as more bullets sprayed the car.
That time, they went after the hood.
They’d shot Hawking, an LAPD homicide detective, stone cold dead like it was nothing. Why the fuck weren’t they shooting at him?
Again, his mind had answers to that question, but he liked none of them.
Throwing the car in gear, he peered over the dashboard just long enough to get a snapshot view of the landscape. Normally, he would use his seer sight for that too, but this time he had to rely on his eyes.
They were still better than a human’s. His seer eyes and memory took in the scene in a fraction of a second. Once they had, he ducked his head down again.
Hawking still wasn’t moving, and another body lay by him now. Male. Someone must have tried to go after him. Both bodies were about fifteen yards away at his ten o’clock.
He couldn’t see Mozar.
Gunfire was coming from at least four different locations.
The closest came just up from his nine o’clock, maybe sixty degrees from level, so from a decent height. Those were the jokers who’d been spraying the car. Another team, minimum two with rifles, came from his three o’clock, also from a height. They were clearly covering him on the passenger side, and probably keeping the field contained to the north.
The third group, consisting of at least four or five automatic rifles, came from roughly at his one o’clock, ground level, maybe sixty meters from Hawking. Most of those were clustered around the black-tinted armored truck, the one Black pegged as a SWAT vehicle earlier.
That group was firing the most––but they weren’t firing at Black. Their mostly semi-automatic gunfire aimed at the fourth ground crew Black saw. They’d been out of sight, somewhere right around his eleven o’clock but a good forty meters away.
That had to be Mozar and his people.
It was the only group near where they’d been standing when Hawking got cut down.
They must have wedged themselves into that aisle of crates when the shooting started, and were using that as cover to defend their position. But they might not know about the two elevated groups near Black––much less the guys Black saw earlier.
He still wasn’t convinced that group was in play yet, which meant more guns would be on them soon. Regardless, Mozar’s guys couldn’t maintain that position, even if all of the other SWAT officers ended up being clean.
Muzzle flashes from the mouth of that same aisle told him Mozar’s guys had automatic rifles at least. Two minimum, in the time Black had peered over the dashboard. Firing was intense, so they had probably four shooters in total.
At least two other SWAT guys were already on the ground, in addition to the one by Hawking’s body.
Rodrigo should be with Mozar, too––if he wasn’t with whoever the fuck these guys were––but Black hadn’t heard the shotgun yet. So maybe Rodrigo was dead, too.
Mapping out all the locations he’d seen in his mind over the course of those seconds, he took his foot off the brake and floored the gas. The tires spun and the back end fishtailed right before the car lurched forward like a growling animal.
He aimed it straight for that break in the crates.
He only peered over the dashboard again when he estimated he was nearly there.
He
had only a few seconds more on the gas...
Then he slammed on the brakes, fishtailing the car to a stop.
The front grill slammed into the corner of the far metal crate. He’d timed it, though––as well as he could, anyway––so he didn’t hit hard enough to fuck up the engine. He did hit it solidly enough to form a real wall between the two groups of shooters.
He jerked open the driver’s side door.
“Get in!” he snarled. “Now!”
Rodrigo, Mozar and the three SWAT guys stared at him.
“Get in the fucking car! Now!”
They started to move towards him, when an explosion of bullets rained down all around the unmarked car. That sudden volley involved a lot more guns than Black initially estimated––and definitely a lot more set to three-shot bursts. He ducked down instinctively, getting below the windshield as the ding and thunk and smack of bullets pounded into the unmarked car.
Most of those bullets peppered the hood.
Even as he thought it, he heard a deeper cracking sound... right before something ignited.
There was a dense, heavy whump...
Then black smoke poured out of the hood.
“Fuck.” Black looked up, seeing orange flames crawling out from under the hood, belching more smoke and licking the top of the hood before they blackened it. He kept muttering, mostly in seer, even as his mind turned over the information.
“Jurekil’a kitre-so’h dugre motherfuckers...”
He was still staring at the hood when something smashed into it from high, like it had been lobbed from a distance. It hit hard enough the sound caused him to duck down. Brighter flames shot up, then spread over the top of the car, blocking his view through the windshield.
U’hatre davos... that looked like a damned molotov cocktail.
They clearly were trying to kill the car, though, not him.
They were also trying to drive him out of it.
He gazed back down the narrow aisle of crates.
Mozar stood there, his face illuminated by firelight. He just stared at the car and the smoke and fire pouring out of the hood, his eyes so round Black almost didn’t recognize him.
He knew that look from combat.
The guy’s brain was shutting down, going into pure whack-out shock mode.
A lot of military science guys called it “Condition Black.”
It happened to humans, pretty damned frequently, and it was super fucking annoying when it happened to someone he needed. It was especially annoying back in the days when Black fought alongside regular soldiers in Asia, and his ass was on the line, trying to communicate with humans who’d essentially lost their damned minds and half of their ability to function in combat stress. It especially happened with the new guys, and guys who hadn’t seen a ton of action.
The training had gotten a hell of a lot better since the seventies, thank gaos, but Condition Black was still a part of basic human wiring. Training couldn’t eliminate it totally... but they’d gotten smarter about training around it and for it. Black had his own teams running drills a few times a quarter to make sure they didn’t lose their edge when it came to subconscious patterning under high-stress.
Humans, jesus.
Mozar had probably lost most of his motor skills already. Which meant he likely couldn’t have answered Black, even if he wanted.
The fact that he’d stopped firing his gun with Black right in front of him was a small miracle. Mozar was on pure autopilot most likely, firing at the bad guys without being consciously aware of what he was doing. Luckily, Black crashing the car into those crates seemed to jerk the needle on his broken record––at least enough to keep him from shooting Black in the head out of pure muscle memory.
Realizing the car was well and truly fucked, Black crawled out.
As soon as he was close enough, he grabbed hold of Mozar’s arm, jerking him further down the aisle and then down to a crouch so they could use the car as a shield. Without pausing, he took the gun out of Mozar’s hand when he saw him still aiming it too close in his direction, and flipped on the safety.
“Mozar! Hey! Look at me! Look at me, goddamn it!” He shouted, knowing it was probably the only way Mozar would hear him. Once Mozar turned, Black looked for Rodrigo. He was standing near them, along with a few other members of the SWAT team. All of them were focused more or less on Black now.
Noticing that, he spoke louder, using the clearest words he could.
“You need to follow me! We’re going to find another car. We need to get the fuck out of here! You hearing me?”
Rodrigo nodded. From his expression, Black figured only about one in four words probably got through to his brain.
Mozar’s eyes didn’t exactly clear, but they came back somewhat.
Black shook his arm, and Mozar nodded, too.
“Okay? We’re going. You can’t defend this. You can’t.”
“Hawking...” he began.
“Hawking’s gone,” Black growled. “He’s fucking gone. And you can’t go there right now. Or we’re going to die. Understand?”
Mozar nodded again.
Black glanced at the remnants of the SWAT team, who’d crouched behind the car, too. They looked wide-eyed, but their eyes showed they were still there. Condition Red maybe, but not full-blown Condition Black, like Mozar and Rodrigo. The nearest SWAT officer, a woman with a sharp chin and piercing, dark-brown eyes, nodded to him when he glanced her way.
She looked angry. Murderously angry.
Instead of making her hard to reach, it made her strangely clear, even compared to the other two SWAT guys. It struck him that she’d probably been the one who screamed when Hawking went down. All three of them seemed to get what he was saying, but he couldn’t tell for sure, of course, since he still couldn’t read a goddamned thing with his light.
“Are there more out there?” one of them said.
“At least six you haven’t seen,” Black said, relieved to get a coherent question. “Half the team’s elevated. They were covering the car and me, so they’re likely heading here now.”
Black saw them exchange looks, their eyes sharper.
“I need a gun!” Black held out his hand. “Now!”
There was a silence.
A buffed SWAT guy with hazel eyes and dark skin looked at Black’s hand. He looked at the blue uniform Black wore, his eyes confused, then he nodded, as if deciding none of that mattered right then. Black was clearly in charge. Unsnapping the holster on his sidearm, he removed the Glock-19 he carried and handed it to Black, grip first.
Black would have preferred the rifle, but whatever.
“You got any spare magazines for this?”
The man hesitated more briefly that time, then unsnapped a pocket on his vest, and handed Black three magazines of nine millimeters.
Black checked the Glock, chambered a bullet, and rose to a running crouch position.
“All right. Something else. The first guys I saw were pushing carts that might have bigger weapons. You got flash bombs with you? Anything we could use to slow them down?”
Black looked around at the three SWAT officers, all of whom shook their heads.
“In the van,” the woman said. “We weren’t geared for this.”
Black nodded, hiding a scowl. “Alright. Well... fuck it.” Aiming the gun down, he looked back at the woman, who still seemed the clearest of the three. “So we have to move fast, right? As of now, this is purely a cover and get the fuck out operation. You hearing me? Don’t get heroic. Or my wife will personally murder every goddamned one of you...”
Again, the three of them nodded.
Only then did Black look up and see Rodrigo standing there, gripping the shotgun in both hands. His eyes were surprisingly clear compared to how they’d looked before, but somewhere in all that, he’d stood up. Black saw a pattering of bullets ding and ricochet off the metal container behind him, throwing up sparks.
Grabbing the front of his vest, Black yanked him dow
n.
“Rodrigo! Get your head in this! Now!”
The man blinked, then smoothly bent his knees.
Black fought with the map in his mind of where they were. The SWAT team would be of help, but he had to assume Mozar and Rodrigo might be dead weight.
They’d passed a parking lot on the way in.
They had to get there. Hope like hell it wasn’t being guarded.
“All right,” he said. “Mozar and Rodrigo behind me...” He looked at the SWAT guy who’d given him his sidearm. “You behind them. Keep them moving.” He looked at the biggest of the three SWAT guys, a muscular Latino man who looked maybe the clearest of the other two, and about a decade older. “You take our six.” He looked at the woman. “You’re covering us from the sides. I want your eyes and ears the whole time. Above, around, sideways. Understand? Use military shorthand if you know it.”
She nodded.
“All right. Let’s go. I’ll take point.”
He began to move, jogging fast down the narrow aisle in a low crouch.
He glanced back a few times to make sure they were following him, but mostly kept low and looked for movement. Once they rounded the first corner, he straightened to a regular combat run and moved faster, especially on the straightaways, the SWAT officer’s gun in one hand, and Mozar’s sidearm stuck in the holster of the police uniform utility belt.
From the sounds behind him, he knew they were more or less keeping up.
He tried his seer sight every so often as he ran, but still couldn’t feel a damned thing. He couldn’t even feel Mozar and Rodrigo who followed closely behind him, and normally physical proximity rendered most sight shields useless, even those by highly trained seers.
He didn’t have time to puzzle that out now, though.
He glanced back to see the buffed guy with the thick arms and hazel eyes urging Rodrigo forward. No, he definitely couldn’t think about that now. He’d just put himself in charge of getting all of them out of here.
Thank the gods, none of them made a sound, apart from the scraping of shoes and the creak of uniforms and holsters and body armor.
The gunfire continued behind them for the first few seconds, then slowly grew more sporadic and died down. Even without his sight, Black could tell the other side was on the move. They’d started moving long before the covering fire stopped.
Black And Blue (Quentin Black Mystery #5) Page 9