To The Bitter End (Dan & Chloe Book 3)

by Nathan L. Flamank

  Chloe flicked the fire-switch to full-auto.

  ‘Don’t come any closer,’ she whispered.

  Dan was almost to her when several shots roared and he was caught in the back. Dan let out a loud grunt of pained surprise as he crashed down between two large granite crosses.

  ‘Motherfuckers!’ Chloe roared and she didn’t hesitate when the next target presented itself.

  Chloe pulled the trigger and her accuracy was true. She saw a marine take three shots to the head and blood and bone washed across the headstone behind him.

  Chloe saw more movement and again she didn’t hesitate and her shots were again on target.

  A policeman cried out as three rounds punctured his chest, he would live but he would never walk again, one of Chloe’s shots had ricocheted through his spinal column.

  Chloe raked the rifle left and right and she sent several men diving for cover and chips of headstones flew in all directions.

  Chloe’s rifle locked empty and within two seconds she had a fresh magazine loaded.

  Chloe emptied the clip in a matter of seconds, headstones flew apart and the angel that she had used for cover lost its left wing.

  ‘Baby!’ Chloe yelled.

  *****

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

  Dan rolled over on to his back.

  The bulletproof vest had done its job but he was still in agony. He could feel one of his rib bones scraping and he knew that at least one was broken.

  The sound of gunfire echoed all around him. He tilted his head back to peer at Chloe, she looked upside down to him as she loaded her rifle and resumed firing.

  ‘Baby!’ he heard her call out.

  ‘I’m okay!’ Dan called back.

  ‘Move your ass then,’ Chloe shouted in reply.

  Dan caught movement.

  On his back he raised his rifle and with the shoulder-rest pressed to his stomach he pulled the trigger. Three shots went wild but one hit its target and a policeman was knocked back off of his feet.

  ‘Ready?’ Chloe asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ Dan called back.

  ‘Wait for the bang,’ Chloe yelled.

  Dan waited and a few seconds later he heard one of the grenades go off. The sound was deafening.

  Dan rolled on to his front and was on his feet in seconds. He reached Chloe and she didn’t give him a moment’s pause.

  ‘You first this time. Go!’

  Dan took off weaving through the headstones. He heard gunfire from behind him and he thought he heard the whistle of rounds buzzing by his left ear but it could have just been that his ears were still ringing from the concussion of the grenade.

  Dan reached a spot that he could defend and he took to his knees and covered Chloe’s retreat.

  He saw Chloe moving rapidly towards him, she was moving in a hunkered zig-zag.

  Dan saw a marine closing in on Chloe.

  Dan didn’t hesitate. He took aim and fired.

  The left hand side of the marine’s head disappeared and then the marine was no longer in Dan’s line of sight.

  Dan’s rifle clicked empty and he rapidly loaded a fresh magazine.

  Dan saw Chloe stagger and he saw a spray of blood.

  Dan was on his feet and he sprayed the area behind Chloe.

  Chunks of gravestone flew and another cop was blown off of his feet as a round caught him in the throat.

  Dan saw Chloe still on her feet.

  ‘Come on!’ Dan yelled as Chloe closed the distance between them.

  Chloe was almost on him when a thunderous roar exploded across the graveyard.

  Dan had a moment to admire the damage done to the oak tree and its surrounding area as some unfortunate triggered the Claymore’s trip-wire and then the resultant concussion wave hit him and he was lifted from his feet.

  He saw Chloe lifted off of her feet as the concussion wave caught her and then she was lost to sight. Dan landed painfully against a concrete cherub and blackness threatened to consume him.

  *****

  Chloe rolled on to her back. She blinked several times to clear her blurred vision and she tried to get to her feet. She cried out at the burning sensation in her right side.

  Chloe lifted her head from the soft grass and she saw that her bulletproof vest was glowing red.

  ‘Hang on,’ Dan said as he crawled over her.

  ‘What?’ Chloe yelled.

  Until then she had been unaware of the constant ringing in her head.

  ‘I can’t hear a fucking thing,’ Chloe grunted.

  ‘It’ll clear,’ Dan said.

  Chloe felt Dan’s hands tearing at the Velcro straps of her vest.

  ‘I don’t think now’s the time to be getting me naked.’

  Dan chuckled as he ripped the vest from Chloe’s shoulders. He held it up and Chloe saw the large chunk of glowing metal protruding from the vest, another part of the vest was burning from a flaming splinter of wood.

  ‘What happened?’ Chloe asked and she pushed herself up on to her elbows.

  The ringing in her head was subsiding and she could now hear Dan’s heavy breathing and in the distance the steady warbling of approaching sirens.

  ‘The landmine happened,’ Dan said.

  Chloe hissed as Dan inspected one of her wounds.

  ‘That hurts like a bitch!’

  Dan was nodding his head.

  ‘You’re okay, you’re okay, the bullet just grazed your hip, it’ll leave one hell of a scar but you’re fine.’

  Chloe groaned.

  ‘I don’t feel fine, I feel like I’ve been fucked by an entire football team.’

  ‘Thanks for that,’ Dan laughed.

  Dan rolled Chloe on to her left side and he inspected the burn wound. The skin was blistered from the heat of the splinter of burning wood and he knew that they would have to treat it soon or risk infection setting in.

  He rolled Chloe back on to her back.

  Dan slapped his hands to his ears as Chloe’s assault rifle spat out a volley of deadly fire. He hadn’t even seen Chloe lifting the rifle.

  Hot spent cartridges pelted him as Chloe continued to fire over Dan’s shoulder.

  Chloe stopped shooting and Dan looked back over his shoulder to see two marines crumpled against a nearby granite cross.

  ‘We gotta move,’ Dan yelled over the sound of returning gunshots.

  Bits of headstone flew but no rounds came directly at them.

  ‘You think?’ Chloe replied with a sarcastic grin.

  Dan leaned forwards and gave her the briefest of kisses.

  Chloe ejected the empty magazine and she quickly slammed a fresh one in to her rifle.

  Dan grabbed his own rifle and he was soon locked and loaded.

  ‘Grenades?’ Dan asked.

  Chloe slipped the string from her shoulder and Dan took them from her.

  Chloe pulled her blouse back up her arms, the buttons were lost and the material had several rips in it. She laughed when she caught Dan’s eyes on the expanse of flesh between the two front panels of the blouse.

  ‘Seriously!’ Chloe chided.

  ‘You’ve never looked sexier than you do at this very moment.’

  Chloe sat up and the blouse fell open to reveal her large breasts. She shook her head as Dan’s eyes lingered on her nipples.

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘Ready, we’ll move together, no plan, anything moves cut it down.’

  Dan pulled two grenades from the loop of string. He pivoted on his heels and sent the grenades sailing through the air.

  ‘When they blow we move!’

  Chloe nodded her head and she pushed herself up on to her knees. She winced at the pain but she pushed it down deep inside her.

  ‘Love you,’ she said.

  ‘Love you too.’

  The grenades exploded several rows away and they heard screams of agony.

  They were up on their feet and moving before the smoke had cleared. Pieces of stone rained down around them as they wea
ved their way through the countless markers to the dead.

  *****

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

  A shotgun blast shattered the head of an angelic cherub and Dan cried out as stone fragments tore in to the meat of his left thigh.

  He spun around and returned fire.

  The policeman with the shotgun returned fire and Dan hissed as he felt buckshot catch him in his hip.

  Chloe cut the policeman in half with a burst of fire and she spun back to cover their retreat.

  Dan saw more movement and he fired.

  A marine was sent toppling in a spray of blood. Dan saw another policeman moving between two headstones and he unloaded a volley of fire that caught the policeman in the throat.

  Dan’s rifle clicked empty and he loaded the last of his magazines.

  Chloe and Dan moved ever closer to the road and their Mustang.

  They moved together, constantly spinning to cover all angles, firing shots when a target was presented to them.

  They moved with balletic grace.

  They moved together, balanced by the other, like a single organism.

  They moved as if they could cheat Death and live to see another dawn.

  Dan threw the last of the grenades and they both crouched as it exploded sending pieces of headstone in all directions. Dan saw blood and bone spraying out from behind a red granite headstone.

  ‘Move, move, move!’ Chloe said and they ran in a hunkered sprint for the next series of headstones.

  Dan’s ears were still ringing from the landmine’s detonation but even through the constant ringing he could hear more sirens approaching.

  Dan felt a punch to his back followed by a second that lifted him off of his feet and sent him crashing down over a headstone. A fierce pain shot through his thigh as another round hit him and then he was mercifully dropping down on to the grass behind the granite marker.

  Dan looked up and he saw Chloe returning fire.

  She looked like an Amazonian goddess, her hair billowing behind her, large breasts wobbling from her exertions, the assault rifle to her shoulder as she raked the rifle left and right.

  He couldn’t hear her over the assault rifle’s thundering but he could see her mouth stretched wide as she yelled her fury.

  Dan pushed his back to the headstone and he readied himself to join in with Chloe’s gunfire.

  Dan was up and spinning and he tore down on their pursuers.

  A policeman, fresh-faced and just out of the academy was cut almost in half as Dan raked a burst of fire across the line of headstones and a second policeman took two rounds direct to the face. A third policeman was caught in a stitching pattern of rounds that separated his genitals from the rest of him and he fell back behind a large headstone – he wouldn’t move again until the paramedics came to fetch him.

  Dan sent another policeman to his death and then his rifle was dry.

  Dan dropped the rifle and pulled his Glock.

  Smoke and dust from shattered headstones permeated the air and the smell of cordite burned his throat as he spun back to Chloe.

  ‘Chloe!’ Dan screamed and he started to raise his Glock.

  Chloe caught Dan’s gaze and she started to turn to her right ready to confront the danger that she assumed Dan had spotted.

  Dan started to pull the trigger but he was a fraction too late.

  A lone marine that had been moving in on their position from their right fired first.

  Chloe felt the round tearing through her right breast and she cried out as two more rounds caught her. One barely grazed her but the next caught her high in her right shoulder and she was sent spinning back over a smaller headstone.

  Dan was screaming like a banshee as he unloaded on the marine. His first three shots went wide but the fourth found its mark. The bullet caught the marine in the chin, the round shattered on impact sending pieces of metal through the marine’s jaw.

  Dan saw the whiteness of the marine’s jawline and the stunned expression in the young marine’s eyes.

  Dan felt a deep sense of self-hatred wash through him at the sight of the innocent marine’s shock but it didn’t stop his finger from pulling the trigger and two more rounds tore in to the marine’s face.

  Dan ran towards the spot where Chloe had fallen and he almost laughed when he saw Chloe slowly trying to get to her feet.

  *****

  Dan picked up Chloe’s rifle, she had one full magazine left and he quickly slammed the magazine in to the assault rifle before readying the rifle to fire.

  ‘You’re gonna make it,’ Dan said.

  ‘Hard…to…breathe,’ Chloe gasped.

  Dan had a moment to wish that he had given her his vest to wear but it had all happened so quickly.

  He figured that from the first exchange of gunfire to right now that maybe three minutes had passed.

  ‘You’re gonna be fine, but we have to move quickly now, we need to get you to a medic.’

  Chloe looked down at the blood flowing from Dan’s thigh.

  ‘You need…to tie that…off…’

  ‘It’s okay, it didn’t hit an artery, looks worse than it is. You ready?’

  Chloe grabbed the front corners of her blouse and she quickly tied a knot of the two halves just below her breasts.

  ‘I can still…shoot,’ Chloe grunted as she pulled her Glock from the shoulder holster she was wearing.

  ‘They’ve stopped shooting,’ Chloe said through clenched teeth.

  ‘Perhaps they’re all dead.’

  ‘We should be…s-so lucky,’ Chloe said with a painful chuckle.

  The sirens were getting closer but so far they all seemed to be coming from the other side of the cemetery. With luck they would reach their car before more law agencies descended on this side of the vast cemetery.

  ‘Still think…I’m sexy?’ Chloe said.

  Dan could hear the raspy grating in Chloe’s speech, her voice sounded like gravel being poured from a bucket.

  Dan nodded his head.

  ‘Never sexier.’

  Chloe chuckled, she coughed and Dan saw her wince at the pain.

  ‘My lung,’ Chloe croaked.

  ‘I know. You’ll be fine baby. Ready?’

  ‘Let’s do this,’ Chloe grunted.

  Dan slipped her left arm around his shoulders. Chloe gritted her teeth. He knew that the pain had to be incredible but she didn’t make a sound of protest as he hauled her to her feet.

  They moved in a series of circles and Dan, the assault rifle gripped in one hand unleashed a torrent of fire. He wasn’t aiming at anything or anyone in particular. He just wanted to keep anyone left in pursuit busy with keeping their heads down.

  The assault rifle ran dry.

  Dan dropped it and pulled his Glock from his jeans.

  Chloe squeezed off three shots and Dan saw a policeman tumbling back between two headstones.

  Dan saw more movement off to his right and he knew then, in that very moment, that they were fucked.

  *****

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

  Moving through the cemetery was a twelve man assault team. Dan could see the black of their body-armour and protective helmets and he recognised their weapons as the highly accurate MP5.

  The team was roughly two hundred yards away but they were covering the ground between them quickly and efficiently.

  Fuck me that was fast, Dan thought bitterly.

  Chloe fired again.

  A uniformed policeman that had taken up position behind a small granite cross slapped a hand to the side of his throat. He tried to stem the spray of arterial blood but within seconds he had bled out.

  Dan cried out as a bullet tore through his right hand and he dropped his Glock.

  Chloe returned fire and Dan saw another marine go down.

  They made it to a larger headstone and Dan moved to get them behind it.

  Dan felt a wash of wetness splash across his face and he heard Chloe cry out.

  ‘What?’ Dan sc
reamed as he lost his hold on Chloe and he felt a stinging sensation slash across the side of his head.

  Dan was spun around by a powerful punch to his right shoulder.

  He saw Chloe take two more hits to her chest before she crashed to the ground.

  ‘No!’ Dan screamed as he dropped to his knees. He snatched up his Glock with his left hand and he started to fire off a series of shots to cover his quick crawl towards Chloe’s slumped body.

  Dan grabbed the collar of Chloe’s blouse at the back of her head with his right hand.

  His shattered hand pulsed with pain as he pulled Chloe backwards across the blood soaked grass.

  Bizarrely, song lyrics washed across Dan’s mind, I dreamed of you last night, in a field of blood and stone…Dan shook his head and struggled on.

  His Glock clicked empty and he discarded it.

  Dan used both hands now, each beneath Chloe’s armpits.

  It was an excruciatingly painful struggle but he finally managed to drag Chloe to safety behind the headstone.

  Dan pressed his back to the headstone and he pulled Chloe up on to his lap.

  Dan’s legs were parted and he managed to get Chloe in close against him.

  Dan was crying now.

  Chloe’s face was hidden by a mask of blood and the front of her blouse was a sodden mess – the expanse of cleavage was pouring with rivers of blood.

  ‘Baby!’ Dan cried as he wiped the hair from Chloe’s face.

  Dan broke out in a grin when Chloe’s eyes flicked open.

  The blue of her eyes danced radiantly amid the red that coated her face.

  ‘I’m…fuc…ked.’

  Dan shook his head.

  ‘No, no, you’re okay, you’re okay.’

  ‘Terrible…liar.’

  Dan sniffed and he reached down. His hands spread her blouse and Chloe’s breasts spilled free.

  ‘Rea-l-ly?’

  Dan chuckled. He wiped his hands across her breasts and Chloe cried out.

  Dan’s hands had wiped away enough blood for him to see the three ragged bullet wounds clustered near her heart.

  ‘Oh no, no, no, no!’ Dan muttered.

  Dan knew that there was nothing he could do, already the ground beneath him was a pool of Chloe’s blood and he could see the flow of blood slowing from her wounds. He knew enough to know that she had almost bled out.