Broken Wings (John Hardesty Z04 Book 3)

by Clay Moore

  "Okay, I am off."

  John walked out of station S's building. he was as good as his word meandering his way to the Dragon mega-casino. When he came to the broad stairs that led into the casino, he paused for a moment to go over his simple rules of engagement. The uniformed security guards were not to be messed with unless they pick up their weapons. Anybody who squared up with him was also going to get shot. They stood up straight and adjusted the fit of his jacket on his shoulders. Then he walked up the middle of the stairs.

  When he reached the top of the stairs, he stopped spread his legs slightly in his best range stance. There was some distance between him and the opening of the casino. That did not allow him to see everywhere in the casino. He did not know any gang members, but the uniformed security guards were all along the partition walls in the main room. The security guards had no blaster weapons on them. All they had were cuffs and Billy clubs.

  John sauntered into the main room of the casino. He stopped a few meters in front of the large chandelier. John needed something spectacular to draw the gang members down here while John made his way up to the CEO's office. There was a phrase that his Sergeant always said when he was first in the Marines. John said, "if you don't have much of a plan always try bringing down the house. He looked up and made his decision.

  He drew his blaster from his left arm shoulder holster. He got down on one knee and discharge the weapon. There was the usual loud explosion that accompanied a discharge of a blaster weapon. This was the Radamite going through its ultra-rapid burning. The blaster bolt leaped from the gun and struck the chandelier at its base.

  The 11.5 mm blaster bolt cut through the base like a hot knife through butter. The station lost all structural integrity in the chandelier fell to the floor in an earsplitting jingle of crystal and broken glass.

  "Anyone who rains in this room and five seconds will be considered to be an enemy. Get out!"

  It always amazed John just how much like sheep people are. John came in demonstrated that he was the dog. The sheep acceded to the command of the dog. He stood back up shaking his head at this thought.

  No one came near him as they ran for the front entrance. The security guards dithered as to what they were supposed to do. They had no weapon that can answer John's. John waved his blaster at them indicating the front door. Suddenly the dam broke on their courage, and they ran. When it came down to being paid or living, people will always choose to live.

  John continued his way into the mega casino. He did not holster his blaster pistol. The extra few seconds that it might take to get the blaster pistol out of the holster could determine whether he lived or died. It was a long way to the elevator bank and sets of grand staircases.

  John was always cautious. He noticed something as he walked through the mega-casino and that was the word will spread that someone was in the casino with a large bore hand plaster. When John came to the first set of grand staircases, he decided that he would climb up these. He wanted to make it easy for the gang to find him.

  The first gang member showed up with a hand blaster. This was as for as expected. The first responders would have what they would typically have, and for gang members that meant hand blasters. The gang members stopped suddenly in his brand-new leather soled shoes failed him. He fell onto his rear on the richly appointed carpet.

  John wasted no time. He pointed his hand blaster and shot. The gang member was hit in the chest. The carpet around him ignited burning his corpse. The rug had those chemicals in it that prevented fire spread. In this case, it worked. Shortly after the fire ignited, it was out.

  The first one was always the easy one. The enemy soldiers still came in dumb like this one did. Usually, when John needed information he went through the pockets of the fresh corpse. In this case, any information that he would find would be hopelessly destroyed by fire.

  He walked a few paces until he was in the middle of the crossroads of this floor. He looked to his right, and all he saw were civilians slamming their door shut. He looked to his left and saw a similar site. He looked ahead of him and saw an opening into another gambling room.

  John carefully approached this room. When he got to the doorway, he stepped to the left side of the door from his perspective. What he saw sickened him. Everyone here was more wrapped in the cards in his hand than the sounds of blaster fire in the hallways. He saw no gang members in this room. To the south with the stairways that he took up.

  There was another stairway alongside the approach to the gambling room. John walked back to the crossroads and started to climb the stairway up to the third floor. He began to reflect this training in how to clear a building. John knew nothing of the design of this building. He was hoping that they were following him and that they would meet him at the point of this attack. They could always come around by using one of the emergency staircases. This would have the events for them of flanking him.

  John reached into his right pants pocket and pulled out an earpiece. This was a one frequency earpiece. It was tuned at the Secret Service armory for the most use Secret Service radiofrequency. This was standard kit for any agent that leaves the Secret Service headquarters on a mission. He turned on the earpiece and put it in his right ear.

  The earpiece did double duty for him. He was used to having things in his ears when he was in a Battlesuit. The Battlesuit augmented the sound outside of the Battlesuit. The Secret Service armory took that concept and put it into a single earpiece. It was immensely popular with the agents. You didn't have to get so close to a meeting to hear what was being said. You could pair this earpiece with your slate. Automatically this light would record everything that came from the earpiece.

  John stood at the bottom of the staircase and looked up. The earpiece was somewhat directional. By looking up, he was aiming the most sensitive part of the earpieces microphone in front of him. For a few moments only heard was his own internal heartbeat. As he calms down the sounds of the earpiece could override the softer tones of his heart.

  He was glad that he stopped at the base of the staircase. What he heard was the clip-clop of a pair of expensive leather shoes. Then he heard the unmistakable sound of the submachine blaster's boat being pulled back chambering a round.

  John was a little sanguine about submachine blasters. The gang members all wanted what they perceived as the most dangerous weapon. Even the civilians thought that a submachine blaster was better than a pistol. John was of a different mind. If you train with the submachine blaster as much as you qualify with the gun, then you would be ultra-deadly with the submachine blaster. Most of these gang members had never shot the blaster before. John hopes that this gang member was one of those who hadn't picked up the submachine blaster to get at least familiar with it.

  John crouched on the stairs and climbed up them. He tried to make no noise at all. His right hand was doing two things, holding his blaster and helping him climb up the stairs. While he was still invisible to the gang member, he paused and ran his earpiece around in a circle. So far, there was only one gang member.

  He advanced one stair. He lifted his head until he could see everything at foot level. He also swept the room with his earpiece and found where the gang member was hiding. What gave that gang member away was his heavy breathing after the exertion of running however long it took him to get to the second floor. He heard the gang member rolling along the carpeted floor. One of the gang members suits coat pockets contained paper that was very new. It crinkled as he moved.

  John isolated the position, but there was still no clear shot. John did not want to damage any of the furniture so that it would not be used by customers. His plan called for him to take this mega-casino intact. Not only would it make a sound revenue stream for the Secret Service, but it would build a very good stationhouse.

  John decided to crawl up to the next stair. This would put him in sight of the gang member waiting for him. He could feel his own breathing increasing. He felt his heart pumping a little bit faster. He suddenly r
ealized that he needed to do more exercises. John was alerted to the sudden movement of the gang member by the earpiece. As quickly as he could, he went down one stair. Behind him, the gang member sprayed blaster fire in the general direction of where John was.

  Submachine blasters were usually 7.5 mm weapons. There was not much splash damage from the blaster bolts. John popped up and fired a single round at the gang member, who dropped limply to the floor.

  John scanned the area on the staircase flight. He heard no other gang members. John ran to the gang member took cover behind some sofas. He jumped over the couch with his blaster pointing before him. The gang member was indeed dead.

  With no fire on the body, John was able to search through the man's pockets. The man had a submachine blaster and four 30 round magazines. He slung the submachine blaster crossed his neck. He put the four additional magazines in his right suit coat pocket.

  If his luck ran true to form you might get one person per floor. That would put them about one-quarter of the way up the make a casino building. He made his way to the staircase leading up. He kept to the same routine as sweeping ahead of them with the earpiece checking for any approaching enemies. Then he would move forward.

  It was apparent to John that the people he was fighting against, were not professional soldiers. No one thought to slip off of their formal shoes and into some old sneakers. The hard leather sole of their formal shoes made various exciting noises as they ran through carpeted and un-carpeted areas. Case in point where the two men that were running down the stairs onto this third floor.

  The third floor looks like it consisted mostly of card tables. These tables look like circles cut in half. The green felt was marked out for players. They were not marked up for a specific game. That meant that this was the poker room. Since no casino would offer poker for free, the dealer would take out the vigorish of the pot for each resolution. The players in this place must've heard the commotion below. There is no mistaking the explosion of Radamite in a blaster for anything else. Once they listened to the gun battle, they must have left. The left all of their chips on the table.

  John heard the feet of the two gang members coming down the stairs. He hid in the space under the stairs going up to the fourth floor. He put his hand on the tread portion of the stair. John wanted to know when they arrived at a particular position on the stair. When they got to his stare, he felt their presence on the tread. In fact, he was lucky enough that they stopped on that trade to scan the poker room.

  John burst from underneath this stair. He fired a single blaster bolt that penetrated the gang member nearest him. That gang member was small and skinny. He must've been because the blaster bolt passed completely through him and into the second gang member. John had seen this phenomenon before. Bless you, both had a tendency to move through the body if you fired close enough to it. The first gang member that he killed had that happen to them when he slipped and fell. The blaster bolt must've passed through his body and into the carpet. No fires were started here on the fourth floor. The second man absorbed the entire blaster bolt there was no exit wound.

  John felt like he had to contact his backup. He reached up and touched the small button that puts his earpiece into radio mode. "Man in gray to monkey's uncle."

  "Monkey's uncle, responds."

  "You may enter the Dragon and stop at the base of the fourth-floor staircase."

  "Will back you up at the base of the fourth-floor stairs."

  John would've liked to have those men at his back. However, they were not trained as combat agents. John had no worry that they would shoot him accidentally. They just didn't understand combat tactics and maneuver. Neither did these gang members

  .

  John did the math in his head. He had four gang members left from the total of eight gang members. John started his climb of the fourth-floor staircase. He had a maneuver carefully over the two dead bodies on the stairs. Then John kept walking up the stairs crouching down and sweeping his earpiece around him. Again when he got near the top of the fourth-floor staircase, he approached on his hands and knees near the top. John stopped and put his head up scanning with the earpiece once more. This time he heard the nervous breathing of three gang members.

  Again John did not want to do much damage to the casino, so he did not want to use a grenade here. On the plus side for the gang members, they were all not bunched up in a single area. They all sound like they were in the same arc in front of John, but he couldn't hit a piece of furniture and put it on fire and get them all.

  Just as if he was an old submarine using sonar to group their way through the ocean, John did not know where they exactly were. He knew how much he had to turn his head to clear the sound of one gang member. He needed a distraction. The carpet on this floor was weaved finer and from her thread. That made this rug extremely thin. There also wasn't any padding underneath this rug. John went back down to the third floor and retrieved the stack of chips from the nearest table. The pile of chips that John grabbed happened to be the gold ones representing 5000 credits. That must have been a high-stakes table.

  With the stack of chips in his left hand and is own hand blaster in the other hand he reclined the stairs up to the fourth floor. When he reached his previous position, he stopped and left the stack of chips on the tread in front of him. John took one of the disks and tossed it far enough behind what he thought was the gang members cover. That gang member did what every new combatant that owes when a noise startles them. He stood straight up and aimed his submachine blaster. John was able to pop up and give him a blaster bolt through his back. Then while everyone was still recovering from the sudden noise, he managed to make it to the cover of a hallway and the intervening walls.

  John was rewarded by hearing to submachine blasters firing a three-round burst in his general direction. Four of the bolts hit the wall that formed a perpendicular surface to the wall that he was up against. The other two screws struck the wall opposite him. John leaned forward a little and saw that both of the gang members were still standing. He extended his blaster pistol and tried this somewhat awkward shot. John aimed for the nearest gang member. He fired his blaster pistol. The awkwardness of the shot interfered enough with John's expertise to cause a miss. He flattened himself against the wall for the expected outburst.

  John ejected the empty magazine. He reached into his left coat pocket and pull out one of the magazines from theirs. John slapped it into the pistol's grip. He pulled back the slide mechanism and released it to clamber around. He leaned forward again to see what they were doing.

  He caught them both out in the open. Apparently, they were trying to rush him. This was his opportunity. He dropped to a knee and fired at the closest gang member. He did not check to see if the killed the man. He swiveled and fired at the farthest gang member.

  He waited there on his knee to see if anyone else was still alive. After the space of a few heartbeats and no movement from the chest area of anybody, John considered himself the victor of this encounter.

  John touched the earpiece once more and gave an order. "Okay, Oliver bring your men up. I'll be at the top of the fourth-floor stairs. Please announce yourself before you are visible."

  John went to the head of the staircase and waited for the station S crew to arrive. Even now they were running up the stairs making a horrible racket. That was all right, because John had cleared the other floors.

  When Oliver got to the third staircase, he could see John standing on the head of the stairs. He had on his gray suit as it always seems to do. He had crossed his arms, but his right hand still held the blaster pistol. Across his neck and dangling from its straps was a submachine plaster. This one seemed not to have been fired. Oliver walked up the steps and was matched by his team. When he could see on the fourth floor, what he saw was a battlefield, maybe not a full-scale battlefield, but a battlefield nevertheless. Around the walls, he saw several blasters hits with the black blaster center radiating out into a gray ash color.

/>   "Okay, I know that there is nothing else in here that belongs the game, except the gang leader himself. This gentleman is a coward. He hides behind his men. He also needs the comfort of those men to do any kind of battle by himself. He hasn't come down from the penthouse. That means he is up there and barricaded. I had hoped not to damage this casino as much as I have. Can you recover the casino before the morning?"

  "As little damage as there is," said Oliver, "I'd say that we could have this place ship shape. If necessary, we can call on our cleaning staff to come give us a little help."