Ezra’s senses sharpened as he got his breath back. He was relieved to feel better since it was up to him and Butch to defend Haley and her pets. He focused on the two TKM trucks parked about a hundred yards down the edge of the park. Bullets whizzed through the air, possibly inches from his head. The screams from the refugees in the encampment were loud and frantic as they ran away from the sounds of gunfire. But the one item which streamed into his heightened consciousness was also the least useful for his survival: a sheen of god-knows-what coated the pavement next to the dumpster and it reeked like the world’s least-cared-for port-o-potty. A fatal twinge of curiosity made him look inside the eight-foot-wide trash can; he instantly regretted it. Soiled diapers had been rolled up and tossed in there, filling it about halfway to the top.
“Holy crap!” he complained. “This thing is full of…crap.”
“Just aim and fire, E-Z.” Butch didn’t seem the least bit concerned by his surroundings. He fired a few shots, then ducked below the edge of the dumpster and tipped out his backpack. “Reload as needed.” The big guy glanced over to Ezra. “Cover me while I top off.”
Given a task, he went right to it. He peeked over the lip of the blue metal bin and picked his target. A TKM man stood behind the corner of his pickup truck, lining up targets exactly as he was doing. He exhaled, desperate to stop his heaving chest, then squeezed off a round. Without his scope it was a more difficult shot, but he’d trained on iron sights many times.
His first few shots were off target. It broke one of the cardinal rules of gun handling in that he didn’t know where the bullets were going, but he couldn’t second-guess his actions when lives depended on him. He counted as he went, getting to the fifth shot before he put one in the side of the blue truck. The man instantly ducked.
A police car ripped around the corner behind their position at the dumpster. Since they were facing the TKM employees, their backsides were completely exposed from the opposite direction.
“Butch!” he ducked down and pointed to the new arrival. His foot slipped while he shifted, and he put a knee into the soupy mess on the ground. “Oh, God, this is nasty.”
“Embrace the suck, E-Z.” Butch scooted the young woman and her pals around the corner of the dumpster. They weren’t directly between the opposing forces, so there was one small spot which had cover from both directions.
Two police officers swung their doors open. Butch was reloaded, but he held his fire. He squatted close to Haley while talking to Ezra. “Doesn’t look good. We can’t fight the whole city.”
There was nowhere to run. They’d have to cross in the open to get into the park. Once there, if the TKM guys kept firing, it would put entire families at risk.
“Damn. I don’t think those bastards are going to take any prisoners.” Ezra chanced a look above the rim. A bullet plinked off the metal, sending him back.
They watched the police aim a pair of shotguns, but they weren’t pointed in their direction.
“Wait. What?” Butch said, noticing the same thing.
The police used their PA system. “By order of the mayor of St. Charles, you are hereby ordered to cease fire!”
One of the mining company shooters put a bullet through the police car’s windshield.
“Shit!” the officer blurted on the PA.
A TKM security official yelled. “They killed our man at Bass Pro! They killed more in town. They have to pay!” He paused, then added. “And they killed an officer in his own home!”
Ezra’s muscles turned to stone. It was an easy-to-believe lie, and there was nothing he could do to counter it. If the cops changed their minds about who needed to be stopped, it would be a short battle. Of course, maybe they could surrender to the real police, and avoid retribution from the mining people.
The officer on the driver’s side of the car got on the mic again, though he kept his head lower than before. “We have reports from around the city of incidents of gunfire from you, directed at citizens. There are innocent people all around this park right now. You need to stop firing your weapons immediately!” The microphone reverberated with the force of the man’s voice.
“Not a chance!” a TKM shooter replied, before plinking several rounds off the metal dumpster, searching for a hit on their group hiding behind it.
Ezra noticed an older gentleman standing behind a tree trunk about midway between him and the trucks. At first, he thought the guy was hiding so as not to get shot, but he also had a thin, black object at his side. While Ezra watched, the man leaned to the side of the tree, aimed at the blue-shirted men, and squeezed off a round.
“Argh!” a guy gurgled as he fell behind his truck.
The man retreated behind his tree, then gave Ezra a thumbs-up. He then pointed into the field. Many of the women and children had retreated to anywhere but there. Still, a good number of men and women crouched behind trees, trash cans, or anything else of substance. They were armed, too.
A third Tikkanen vehicle pulled up behind the last. It was the same van from the parking lot of Bass Pro. The one they’d used for loading the big guns. Men jumped out the rear swinging doors, but Ezra was unable to get a headcount since the door was faced away from him.
“I think we’re about to be outgunned.”
Butch had most of his focus on the police. “Why do you say that?”
It was quiet for a few seconds, leading him to pray it had been his imagination. As the silence went to about a ten-count, he’d almost believed it was over, when a roaring blast of gunfire came from the TKM operatives. To Ezra, it sounded like a cannon. An object punched through both sides of the dumpster, and whatever was inside, before it lodged into the wall of the nearby restaurant.
It was a horrible escalation, but all he could think about in his moment of introspection was how glad he was none of that diaper juice splashed on him.
Denver, CO
After escaping from Mr. Creighton’s terrorists, including the kid who’d shot his two guards, Petteri had gone through the conference room, ordered his bodyguard to shoot Diedre as payback, then went into the elevator with his protector. On the ride up, he realized he’d been grazed by gunfire. An ugly red gash had been painted on his forehead, right at his graying hairline. Blood ran down the side of his face in front of his ear.
He looked in the mirror inside the lift, noting his eyes seemingly burned with fire in them. How did they plan such a perfect ambush of him and his people? In addition to the two skilled bodyguards, he had to leave Dorothy and Howard to their fates.
His guard quietly stared at the door of the elevator, perhaps anticipating more trouble would arrive when they opened. Of all of them, the guard was the one person who’d done what was asked. He’d kept Diedre from escaping her room, then he immediately shot her as ordered. On any other day he might have thanked the man, but he wasn’t in the mood.
“Sir, the doctor is on floor eight.”
Even there at the temporary TKM location he had his regular staffers. Medical personnel. Chefs. Legal. The best of the best, who would do whatever he asked due to the obscene amount of money he threw at them. The doctor was close, but he didn’t have time to get his wounds tended to. He needed to fight back.
He didn’t look at the man in black. “We’re going to ten. Don’t stop.”
The door opened without incident. The guard stepped out and let him pass. With luck, the guy would blend back into the building and leave him to do his job. Howard was usually the man who assigned offices and acted as a firewall between him and the minutiae of daily operations. He already missed him…and his ability to control a tense situation.
Petteri stormed into his office, slammed the door, and shouted at the top of his lungs. “Damn you, Asher Creighton!”
“Maybe we can help?” a woman said matter-of-factly.
Petteri recoiled in horror. Surprise was one thing, but showing his anger was devastating to his ego. “Who are you?”
A woman stood in the room, but the swinging door
had blocked her from view when he came in. She was dressed in tight black leather pants, black boots, and a black tank top. Her shiny black belt was adorned with silver engravings, which matched her silver hoop earrings. She wore two holstered pistols under her arms, which reminded him of how a police officer might wear them. However, her South American accent assured him she was not with law enforcement.
“Oh,” he went on, finally realizing it was Nerio Torres, one half of his husband-and-wife wrecking crew. “No one told me you were here.” That would have been Howard’s job.
She did a haughty backward head flick to pull her long brown hair to one side. “Flights aren’t what they used to be. There’s civil unrest in Houston. We had to charter a plane from there. My bill is going to be very pricey.” She sounded happy to have incurred the expense, but he had no concern for petty cash.
She went on. “I ran into a friend of yours up on the roof. Howard said we weren’t to kill him, but he didn’t say we shouldn’t capture him.”
Petteri wanted to tell her he wasn’t in the mood for games, but she didn’t give him a chance. She called out to someone. “Bring him in.”
The office joined with the next one through a wooden door. He’d never bothered to open it, since everything was temporary. When two men came through the door, he almost thought he was about to be assassinated. His guard remained in the hallway, unaware of all the activity.
Nerio’s husband, Alejandro, dressed in similar fashion to his wife, including the twin pistols, though he also carried a rifle. He had it pointed at the back of a man with his hands tied.
“Misha Gagarin?” Petteri said with surprise.
“Da. These two moo-docks jumped me and tied me up like common criminal. I came here of my own free will, so bindings are not necessary.” Misha held up his hands. “I told you I would cooperate so you wouldn’t harm my family.”
Petteri’s phone rang. He picked it up, hoping it was Howard. “Hello?”
It was one of his communications team. “Sir, we thought you should know. We have secured a solid half-mile perimeter around the Denver excavation site. The local PD have completely abandoned our part of the city. We’re golden here.”
“That’s good,” he said in a dream-like voice.
“There’s more. The Missouri recovery division reports widespread civil disobedience against our crew as they tried to outfit themselves for the trip to Kansas City. Several stores were looted of all firearms before we could seize them. Field agents are being struck down in their vehicles—”
“Tell them to shoot back!” He was already on the edge.
“Sir, they are. We had full police cooperation, but everything has now changed. Our people are evacuating to the west without all the supplies they need. They—”
He nearly punched the red button on his phone to cut off the man’s bad news. It was one thing he missed from old land-based telephones. He couldn’t slam it on a desk to end a call.
After a long pause, the Venezuelan woman chuckled. “Is there anything I can do to ease your burden? Earlier, I heard lots of target practice down on the streets below. Perhaps there’s some more people you want us to shoot? Or some…one.” She eyed the Russian like he was a side of beef.
Petteri scowled at Misha, transmitting anger with his eyes. “This is all your fault. The war outside. The threat against my ownership of these pieces. This.” He pointed to his still-bleeding head.
Nerio laughed. “I could push him out the window.”
He turned his attention to her. “I was almost shot by a kid down in the lobby. He’s with a young man named Asher Creighton. Take over the security teams down on the streets. Do whatever is necessary to kill him. If he escapes, the man lives here in Denver. My comms people will send you his address.”
Misha laughed like he’d heard a whopper of a tale.
“What is it?” Petteri asked with distaste.
“I have seen and talked to both of those young people. They are no more a threat to you than my babushka.”
He strode up to the much larger man, content he had backup from Nerio and Alejandro. “Are you calling me a liar?”
“No, sir. It is hard for me to believe based on what I saw of them. They can run as fast as kittens, but they could never penetrate your defenses and do you harm.”
Petteri looked up at Misha’s face, which sported a line of bandages down to his neck. He’d been fixed up at the Yellowstone dig site; his people had passed along the information when they cleared him to fly the helicopter. “And how do you explain your burns?”
Misha looked away, a sure sign he’d done damage to the other man’s claim. “I burned myself when my rifle misfired.”
“I’m sure,” he said casually, before turning back to Nerio. “Your only mission is to kill those two. Don’t talk to them. Don’t reason with them. If you see them from ten thousand feet in the air, ram your plane into the ground to snuff them out. I don’t care about the details or the expense. I want them dead before they cost me even more.”
A new voice cut through the tension. “They killed Howard.”
He spun around, surprised and a bit relieved to see Dorothy. Petteri swallowed hard and spoke through a croak in his throat. “Are you sure?”
“Positive,” Dorothy nodded.
Petteri waved Nerio to him. “I need one of your guns.”
She unclipped and handed a big pistol to him.
Petteri slowly turned toward Misha. There were a number of ways he could toss the man out into the chaos and get him killed, but sometimes simple was better. He’d used the bodyguard to off Diedre. He wanted to do the next one himself. “The old saying is true, I guess. If you want something done right, it’s best to do it yourself.”
Nerio clapped. “How exciting!”
Chapter 24
Denver, CO
Grace had no idea what she was doing. She could admit it to herself, but not to the group depending on her. When she pulled a gun on the two TKM contractors there were multiple ways it could have ended, though she didn’t think killing them in cold blood would play well to her friends, or her soul. Instead, after taking their shirts, she locked the pair in a utility closet.
“Now I know what you mean about dressing in a costume,” she said to Asher. He’d made the same complaint when she’d asked him to dress in the park ranger uniform. Now the two of them were pretending to be the bad guys. Her baggy blue TKM polo shirt fit much worse than his, since it was a men’s large.
“You get used to it,” he joked.
She took stock of her people, feeling a bit like she was back at Yellowstone leading a tour group out of the woods. Looking at them, she could imagine they’d been mauled by bears, hacked at by eagles, and chased by angry wolves. It was up to her to lead them back to civilization. “Asher and I will carry the rifles, since we’re dressed like them. Logan, hide your pistol. Let me do the talking if anyone stops us. If they don’t, I’m going straight for the railroad shed.”
Shawn grimaced at her as he handed over his rifle. “Those boys in blue might be at the railroad depot right now. If Logan had been there, he might have still gotten shot. I never should have brought him into this…”
Logan held his father’s arm over his shoulder to help him stay on his feet. “I’m fine, Dad. We’re kicking ass, in case you didn’t notice. Besides, I brought myself along, remember?”
Grace chuckled at Shawn’s loop-de-loop eye roll.
She continued. “We don’t know if the rail yard has even been breached. They might all be upstairs in this building, if the shootings are any indication.” The door to the stairwell reverberated with gunshots. “Let’s move out.”
They’d been in an off-limits section of the first floor located behind the elevators, so they didn’t have far to travel to escape the building. They walked across the ruined reception area, past the security desk, and out through the same blown-out doors they’d used when they arrived. No blue shirts were in sight, suggesting they had a chance. T
he street was clogged with trucks, exactly as it was when they come through the first time. The railway repair yard was within sight.
“Let’s go!” she advised.
They’d gone about ten feet, into the stopped traffic, when she had an epiphany about her wonderful plan. Wearing the blue shirts would get them through any TKM checkpoints, but they were dressed in the distinctive colors of murderers. If any normal people were fighting back, they might shoot her and Asher simply because of their costumes.
Her heart played the part of wild mustang, jumping and kicking much too fast for how slow they moved. Shawn and Diedre required special attention and couldn’t go faster than a brisk walk. When she looked back to encourage more speed, she was dismayed to see all four were at least two vehicles behind her.
Grace hung out for a few seconds while they caught up, praying Shawn could limp a little faster. Logan helped as best he could, but his father was a big man. It took a lot of effort for the kid to support him.
“Got injuries, huh?” a man said from nearby.
“Crap!” she spit out. When she saw the blue shirt, every molecule in her body froze, not sure what to do.
“You okay? Lots of us are injured, but we’re walking it off.” There were two of them crouching behind a concrete planter at the corner of two streets. Their rifles were on top of the hip-high fixture as if they manned a foxhole. Both were young, perhaps late twenties, with brown hair and plain features. One had a bandage wrapped around his elbow.
“Yes,” she said, remembering who she was supposed to be. “We, uh, took fire from some of the miners.” She drew inspiration from her experience with Angela. “Did you know some of them were pretending to be scientists?”
“Yeah, I heard that. Everyone had an excuse. Still, they didn’t have to shoot us, you know?”
She didn’t know how to respond. Everything she’d seen suggested the TKM side went on a shooting rampage to clear out the people they didn’t want at their precious dig site, not the other way around. It was a fact she might be inclined to debate if guns weren’t involved. “I know. Well, good luck. We’re heading that direction.” She pointed toward the railroad depot, which was a few hundred yards away.
Crush: Impact Book 4: (A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller Series) Page 19