The Devil's Anvil

by Matt Hilton

  As the barrel rolled, I fired into it. Ricochets whined and sparks blossomed.

  I wanted the PMC to fear immolation. My plan worked. He didn’t pop out of hiding again, but scurried further inside the room. The barrel rolled by the doorway without any detonation, and I gambled everything on the fact that my enemy had found something to hide behind and had anticipated the flash and spill of fiery liquid by covering his head with his arms. Any sane person with a regard for their life would react in a similar fashion. I sprinted past the doorway and didn’t stop. I overtook the rolling drum, then dropped to the floor, swinging round and aiming my rifle at the doorway.

  The man swore loudly when he realised he’d been fooled, and this was followed by a thud as he leaned against an item of furniture to help him stand. I waited for a three-count, and then saw the man’s tentative check of the warehouse. From his hiding place he would likely make out the shape of the drum where it now rocked lazily as the liquid inside sloshed back and forth, and again I hoped that human nature would mean that the movement would draw his attention first. It did, and with it he fired. But I was three feet to the right and returned fire unhindered by his bullets. My rounds punched holes in his guts and groin and his handgun clattered on the floor. The man fell out of the room, sprawling in an ungainly heap on a level with me. Was he dead? Probably. But I shot him again to be sure.

  I was only a few feet from him, and his dropped gun was much closer. I grabbed it up, ejected the magazine and inserted it in my waistband at the front. It was a bulk standard Glock 17, with a seventeen-round capacity, and I’d counted only three shots since he’d reloaded it. I couldn’t tell if he’d had a full load to start with, but any spare ammunition was gratefully received. I dumped the gun, got up and went to the man at the far right corner. I liberated his ammunition too, plus the flashlight. Both could come in handy.

  There was still no sign of the full power coming back on, but by now my eyesight had adjusted to the dimness and I hoped that the facility remained in near darkness. On the other hand, the vision of those hunting me would also have adapted to the dark. They were coming fast, unhindered by the lack of light, and with more familiarity with the layout of the building. I got up and ran for the exit. All sounds of pursuit came from my rear, but I’d be a fool to think that others hadn’t positioned themselves between Billie and me.

  It was difficult estimating the number of people in the facility. Not all of them would be armed, or even engaged in the hunt. But most were potential enemies. Even one of the civilian technicians or lab workers could try to brain me with a blunt object if they felt threatened. I’d killed, wounded, or at least immobilised ten fighters up until now, but the odds remained hugely against me – time and location too. For all I knew, Billie was too precious a hostage for them to allow me to get close to her, and even as I played at the fox in the henhouse, she was being moved elsewhere.

  I wondered what the hell was keeping Cooper and his team. The instructions given to Noah and Adam were to call him at first hint of trouble. My first incursion had been tentative and largely silent, but surely it had grown obvious that the shit had hit the fan the moment the gunfire started in earnest. Cooper’s team should have been on scene by now, but knowing any law enforcement group there was probably a heap of bureaucracy to wade through before they were allowed to mobilise. I could imagine plans and countermeasures being bandied around and was glad that I wasn’t similarly hamstrung by procedure. It was one of the things that used to annoy me back when I was with Arrowsake: plans are all well and good but never last beyond first enemy contact. Hit hard, hit fast and hope for the best was always a credo of mine, though it never went down well with my superiors. In a way I was relieved that nobody was looking over my shoulder. What I had to do to save Billie would never be lawfully endorsed.

  Another corridor stretched ahead of me, differentiated from the others by a lack of doors and adjoining offices, and by the fact that at the far end one emergency light had stayed on and offered dull yellow illumination to the walls and floor. It also showed a set of doors complete with push bars and wired windows. Beyond the semi-opaque glass was more light, but it dimmed and brightened and I guessed that further down the corridor beyond it, hunters moved with flashlights. I considered turning back and attempting to find another route, but instinctively knew that this was the only path to Billie’s cell.

  No one moved this side of the swing doors.

  I rushed along the corridor, noting that it was simply an access passage alongside the laboratories and processing plant. The cinderblock wall to my left exuded coldness; most likely it was an exterior wall, or at least adjoined open loading bays. My location was precarious. There were defenders beyond the door I approached, and more moving in from behind. If I was stalled at the door I’d be wide open to a barrage of gunfire from behind, if I went through the doors I could very well be walking into a trap. Still the first scenario was more probable than the second, so I immediately went to the doors and planned to put them at my back before my hunters caught up.

  The doors served no other purpose than as a necessary fire safety feature, to slow the spread of smoke and flames. They weren’t locked, and a gentle push on one of the bars opened the right-hand door. As I pressed it open I held my breath, waiting for the inevitable storm of bullets. When they didn’t come, I pushed open the door some more and went through quickly. Voices filtered down a corridor equally as long and featureless as the first, and there was a brief flare of light from a right-hand turn at the far end. But I felt confident I wasn’t about to be discovered and paused to check the walls on this side of the fire doors. Hanging on slim chains were triangular wedges of wood. Though fire doors should be kept closed, day-to-day working practices dictated otherwise. The wedges had been left hanging in place to enable the doors to be chocked open while pallets and drums were moved along the corridors to the loading bays. Not that I planned jamming them open. Quite the opposite: I took down the wedges and pressed one under each door and forced them into place with a couple of kicks with my heel. The wood wouldn’t hold back determined enemies for long, but at least I’d get a warning of their approach.

  Satisfied that no immediate pursuit could follow, I padded along the corridor, my M4 up and targeting the far right corner. My rubber-soled boots made soft sucking noises on the linoleum flooring, but otherwise my run was quiet enough that I didn’t alert those round the corner. I reached it and placed myself tight to the wall, then bent at the knees to offer a lower profile. I snuck a look along the next corridor. This one was partially full of stacked pallets, boxes and drums shrink-wrapped and ready for dispatch. A narrow walkway on the right, about two yards wide, was all that remained between the pallets and the wall. To go into such a tight space would be offering myself on a plate. The walkway was of course the fastest route along the corridor, and I weighed it up against a slower but safer way. I chose safer.

  I crossed the corridor and pressed up against a pile of boxes stacked six feet tall. Standing on tiptoe I could see over the top of it, and a number of others, but my view was obscured about twenty yards ahead where another pallet was stacked higher with more steel drums. Checking the walkway again, it remained empty. Good enough. I clambered up on to the first stack, staying low and slow and progressing over it as silently as possible. The ceiling was lower here, barely two feet above my head. It would take an experienced soldier to check overhead, and I was confident that I was all but invisible in the shadows. I continued along, crawling from stack to stack of boxes until I reached the drums. There I’d need to take more care. The gap between the uppermost drums and the ceiling was barely enough to accommodate me, and I was now preparing to move over ringing steel barrels instead of sound-deadening cardboard. I held my carbine out ahead of me, placed it on the drums gently, and slithered snake-like into the gap. I lifted and moved my rifle, squirmed ahead, then repeated the manoeuvre. I’d almost reached the edge of the stack of drums when two figures came round the corner. Th
ey were indistinct behind the flaring beam of a flashlight, but I could tell enough about them that made my heart slump.

  Only one of them was an armed PMC.

  The figure to the right was a woman dressed in coveralls and a plastic cap.

  She was a worker, a non-combatant, and call me old-fashioned but I’d never willingly harm her.

  It made things difficult for taking out the armed guard.

  If I’d had the choice I’d have scrunched down, remained silent and allowed the couple to pass, but that option was taken away from me. From back around the corner came the solid bangs of people attempting to force a way through the wedged fire doors.

  The noise caused the two figures to halt almost directly beneath me. They were alert and nervous, but I saw how the man pressed a hand to the woman’s elbow, urging her to stay put while he went on to investigate. If I allowed him to do so, he’d quickly realise it was his friends at the door and he’d pull out the wedges and allow them to come after me. Knowing I was responsible for locking the doors behind me, they’d come fast.

  Squeezed between the ceiling and the uppermost drums, I wasn’t in a great defensive position, with little manoeuvrability, so there wasn’t room for finesse. I squirmed out and dropped to all fours, feeling the impact of the floor in my knees and elbows. The M4 I had to abandon on top of the stack, so I immediately went for one of the guns in my waistband even as I twisted towards the armed PMC. The woman’s croak of alarm, the rustle of my clothing and subsequent thud on hitting the ground had already ensured he was turning towards me. The problem was, he was on his feet and steadier than my half-twisted-half-crouching posture allowed me to be. He also had a clear target while I was still trying to find mine.

  He fired first.

  35

  He went for dead centre and struck bull’s-eye.

  Thankfully, that was what saved my life. His bullet struck my bulletproof vest, and this time the vest’s integrity wasn’t compromised. Still the impact felt as if my buddy, Rink, had kicked me, and sent a wave of red pain through my previous injuries. I staggered, and the air was pushed up from my lungs and made a high-pitched wheeze in my throat, but I managed to shoot on instinct. My bullet hit him in the side, just beneath his right armpit, and disappeared somewhere inside him. The nine mm round wasn’t powerful enough to find an exit through his back and rattled around, breaking apart and pulping his innards. The PMC fell to his knees, shock shredding his resolve, and his gun hand drooped. I shot him again. There was no room for pity or remorse.

  The woman screamed.

  If she had run, I’d have probably allowed it. But she didn’t. Maybe she was romantically tied to the man, or she simply felt a huge amount of loyalty to her fallen comrade, because she didn’t make her escape. She jumped on my back, her left hand clawing at my face, seeking my eyes. With her right hand she clubbed at my head and shoulders with the flashlight. Light flashed behind my eyelids with each smack of the torch.

  ‘Enough!’

  My snarl wasn’t sufficient to put the woman off.

  I elbowed backwards and got her in the midriff. No shrinking violet, she held on, and if anything my strike infuriated her more.

  ‘He’s here,’ she hollered as she tore at my forehead with her nails. ‘He’s here!’

  From beyond the corner in the passage came the scrape of the fire doors being forced wider. A babble of voices rose, followed by the scuff and thud of a number of people forcing a way through the doors. The woman shouted to her friends one more time. I’d told her enough, and I meant it.

  I ducked out of her grip, coming up alongside her, and with my left arm batted away her questing fingers. I got one look at her face, an oval blob swimming in the shadows beyond the flashlight beam. She was possibly pretty, but not then because her face was contorted with hatred. My gun was poised to shoot, but there was still that thread of caution that tethered me to my moral centre. I didn’t pull the trigger. Instead I thrust my head forward and struck hers: forehead to forehead so that I didn’t smash her face. The woman went down on her backside, stunned, arms and legs splayed, eyes rolling up in their sockets. The flashlight rattled from her numb fingers.

  ‘I said enough, for fuck’s sake!’ I repeated as I rushed away from her, angrier with myself than at the woman.

  I’d promised never to willingly make war on women or children, but there’s something in the old adage that the female’s the deadliest of the species. She’d torn stinging grooves in my forehead, and only luck had saved my vision. God help me if she hadn’t worn her nails cut short. I’d killed women before, a fact I’m not proud of, but always in the heat of battle, and I was happy that this time I was able to neutralise an enemy without fatally wounding her. She’d have a sore head for a day or two, but should recover fully.

  I left her sitting against the stack of pallets, holding her face in her hands as she moaned in shock. Any stealth was wasted now and I rushed along the narrow space between the wall and stacks of drums and boxes. I held the handgun ready, and had made ten or more paces before I remembered I’d left the M4 behind. It was too late to retrieve it. I went round the next corner and found the corridor blocked by a second set of doors. These too had been fitted against the threat of fire, and again came with push bars. The glass in the upper portions of the doors was grimy and I couldn’t see through it. But I’d no other recourse than go through, this time at speed: shock and awe. I booted the doors open and continued into the next corridor, having now negotiated three turns and almost come back to where I’d started. Yet here on the left there was an annexe to the building that could not be accessed by way of my initial entry point via the skywalk. The clamour of my entry had caused those inside the annexe to fall silent, but it was fleeting. Voices called to each other and there was a rumble of activity from within the building. More voices joined the babble as those chasing me came across the dazed woman. She didn’t have to tell them which way I’d gone.

  No one presented themselves at the doorway into the annexe. They could be setting up an ambush inside, but I doubted it. The woman I’d head-butted had been dressed as a worker, and I guessed that it was some of her workmates I could hear scrambling for cover. I bore no ill will towards them, and had no intention of harming them needlessly, but some of Procrylon’s hired mercs could be hiding among them, ready to drop me if I went in. Yet I had to. I pulled the second liberated pistol from my waistband and used it to press open the door. The other gun led the way inside, and I crouched behind it, offering the smallest target possible. No gunfire met me and I moved on, placing myself behind a work counter. From the back right corner of the room came a bleat of alarm.

  ‘I’m armed and will shoot if you try to stop me,’ I called. ‘Come out with your hands up and I’ll allow you to leave.’

  ‘Don’t shoot,’ a male voice answered.

  ‘How many of you are there?’

  ‘There are three of us. Don’t shoot. We’re no threat to you.’

  ‘I’ll be the judge of that. Come out, hands in the air.’

  Frightened whispers echoed through the room. Outside, the slap of boots announced the arrival of my hunters at the fire doors.

  ‘Now! I’m not going to ask again.’

  Through the dimness I caught movement. Three indistinct figures rose up from behind a row of desks. Their hands sought the ceiling.

  ‘Get over here,’ I commanded.

  I covered their approach with one gun; the other was aimed back at the door through which I’d entered.

  ‘You said you’d let us go,’ the elected spokesman pointed out.

  ‘You’re going to help me first. Get a hold of this counter.’

  I arranged the trio of workers – two men and a woman – alongside the counter, then made them shove it up against the door. It was a flimsy barricade and wouldn’t hold my pursuers for long, but the difference between no time and a few seconds could mean a lot for my continued existence.

  ‘OK. Now. Go ahead of me. Lead
the way to that door.’

  ‘You said you’d let us go,’ the spokesman said again, stuck on a loop of hope and fear.

  ‘I will. But you must do as I say first. Now get moving.’

  The talker was middle-aged. Squat build. Comb-over. Not your average hero image. But he was brave, and not to be underestimated. I made him usher his friends to the door at the far end, keeping my gun close to his spine should he decide to exercise some of that backbone.

  He was brave, but he wasn’t stupid. He had nothing to gain in trying to take me on, and to be honest I was glad that he didn’t. I felt no animosity towards him or his co-workers; they were simply taking a wage and likely had no idea what those at the top of the company were involved in. Most likely they regarded me as a nutcase who’d invaded their workplace. The bad guy. I showed them they had the wrong impression of me as soon as we were through the next door.

  ‘Are the offices that way?’ I asked, aiming my gun along a narrow corridor that ended at a set of stairs.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They’re spread over two different floors above.’

  ‘Good. You guys go that way.’ I aimed down a second passage to our left. At the end a doleful gleam of red showed a heavy fire exit door that – by my reckoning – must lead outside. ‘Get clear of here. There’s going to be more fighting and I’d hate for any of you to get caught in the crossfire.’

  Behind us the banging started as my pursuers tried to force a way into the workroom. The counter might not be the heaviest object, but it was causing problems. A few sturdy shoulders against the doors would soon have it pushed aside, though.

  The second man and the woman had both moved gratefully for the exit, but the spokesman paused. He looked me over. Came to some kind of decision. ‘You’re not a cop,’ he said.