Red North!

by Mark Lemke

CHAPTER 64

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  As I was going over all this in my head, the door to the room I was standing in opened and an armed responder walked in.? I ducked behind a breaker cubicle before the guy noticed me.? He walked into the room and headed across it, as if to leave the room by a door near where I was standing.? He seemed nervous or pre-occupied and walked quickly as if he was going somewhere or meeting someone. ?Given what was going on, maybe that wasn't all that unusual.? He had a knapsack slung over one shoulder, which struck me as a bit odd for a mobile security officer on duty, especially under these conditions. ?Had to be one of Jansen's men.? This could be the break I needed.? I was worried about what was going on in containment but there was nothing I could do about that right now.? My mission was in front of me.??

  The man moved quickly through the door, glancing nervously from side to side.? Careful not to be noticed, I moved over to the door after it closed behind him and cracked it open so I could watch where he was going.? Sure enough, he headed directly to the end of the admin building, not to the main door where everyone else went in and out.? I saw him stop, look around, then disappear inside the building.? That must be the back door to Rob's office that Dave told me about.

  Pushing open the door, I walked quickly out of the turbine building and followed the man's route, hoping not to draw attention to myself.? It was dark and I was counting on the fact that the security force was busy at the intake or where my guys came through the fence.? As I rounded the corner of the admin building, I saw the door the other man must have gone through. It seemed reasonable that someone unlocked it so others could get in, especially if Jansen was in there.?

  I stood by the door and listened for sounds on the other side, but couldn't hear through the heavy metal door.? As carefully as I could, I tried the doorknob and found it unlocked.? I breathed out, opened it, and moved quickly inside.?I found myself in a short hallway with offices to one side, a fax machine in the hallway, and a shredder with shards of paper on top of the machine and on the floor around it.?

  Getting my bearings, I looked at the first office door on my left and recognized it as Rob's, though I'd come in last time from the opposite direction.? The door was closed, but as I recall, on the other side was the secretary's office, which in turn opened to Rob's office.? Fortunately for me I'd been in there before, or the way the office was setup would've caused me confusion.? This time, I heard voices on the other side, though I couldn't make out what was being said.

  Readying myself, I opened the first door, gun at the ready, found the secretary's office deserted, and saw the next door into Rob's office already open.? The men who were talking immediately went quiet.? It was literally no more than two steps to his office and I moved into it quickly and saw two armed responders jump up and go for their weapons as soon as they saw me. ?There were knapsacks on the floor near their chairs, and one of them was the guy I just followed over there.?The way they were going for their weapons left no doubt in my mind that they intended to use them on me if they got a chance.? I triple tapped the first guy, and then put two, center mass, in the next guy.? Both dropped to the floor dead.??I looked around the small office.? Jansen wasn't there!?

  Just then, I heard a noise a short distance away, outside the office I was standing in.? All my senses were heightened now.? My mind and my consciousness turned first toward the direction of the sound.? I could literally feel the bullet coming my way at subsonic speed.? Maybe it was the shock wave that preceded the bullet.? My world and everything in it slowed down. My mind was processing this new information at an incredible rate, but much faster than my body could respond. ?My instincts were telling me to drop, which I immediately started to do.? But it wasn't nearly soon enough.? The bullet struck me in the fleshy part of my right shoulder, knocking me backward, causing me to drop my weapon.? I stumbled and fell to my knees and saw a man I didn't know standing there, looking down at me, with a pistol pointing at my face.?

  "Well, Sergeant First Class Connor.? How the hell did you get in here?" Stone asked.? He kept his weapon on me as he moved closer.? He assumed an air of complete confidence, assuming that he had the upper hand.?

  For the moment, he might have been right.? I was down, had a hole in my shoulder, had no weapon in my hand, and this guy had a gun on me.? I needed to engage him and get him talking, which would slow him down and give me the minute that I needed to rest and improvise a plan.?

  I looked up at him.? He was dressed in street clothes, not in the black security uniform.? "I don't know who you are, but you have no chance now," I said, with a searing pain in my shoulder.? "You know that, right?"?

  Stone let out a short laugh.? "From my perspective, seems like I'm on top and you aren't."

  He stepped over the two dead men on the floor, moved around so his back was to the window and the door remained in his field of view.? He glanced down at the members of his team.? "I should have been the one to take you out at The Tavern."

  "Those two assholes friends of yours?" I asked sarcastically. "They aren't going to be doing much but limping the rest of their lives."

  "Keep talking, prick.? I'll just enjoy this all the more."

  I wasn't nearly as drained as this guy thought.? Certainly not as drained as I wanted him to think I was.? My shoulder hurt like hell, but the wound was far from life threatening.? He was close now and I worked my way up to my knees, leaning over, pretending to be very weak, trying to get him to close the distance between us.?

  "So what's your plan to get out of here?" I asked.? "The FBI is probably massing in the parking lot you know."

  Stone just smiled.? "The FBI is our ticket out of here.? You didn't think we'd come in here without a way out, did you??

  "I don't know.? I just assumed you were stupid."

  The smile vanished from Stone's face.?

  "Speaking of stupid, where's your boss, Jansen?? I assume he is your boss, right?? Waxman wouldn't let someone as dumb as you run a job like this."

  Stone started to hyperventilate, his pride hurt and his anger building.? I could see his eyes dart rapidly side-to-side, as if contemplating his next move.??He stepped closer to me as if the bullet he intended for me would be more forceful if delivered up close when he pulled the trigger.? At least it would feel better to him.?

  "I'm here to make sure that asshole Jansen did what he was hired to do. Though by the looks of things, I'm not so sure he did.? He wasn't in the parking lot where he was supposed to be.? Now, I come in here and find my boys here dead, and you're not.? That's something I intend to remedy right now."?

  I slowed my breathing and relaxed my muscles.? As Stone extended his arm, pointing the gun at my head, I thrust my left arm straight up, just underneath Stone's arm that was holding the gun.? I quickly rose to my feet, turning my body as I did so, which deflected Stone's aim as he pulled the trigger.? The bullet sailed past me harmlessly.? Again with my left hand, I grabbed Stone's wrist and pulled him forward and off balance, bringing my right knee up into Stone's groin with as much force as I could.?

  Stone let out an agonizing cry as a wave of pain coursed through his stomach area, causing him to drop his gun and fall to one knee. An attack to the groin is almost always immediately disabling, but he was a big guy and I knew it'd take more than that to stop him.? He struggled back to his feet, and as he did so, his left arm backhanded me to the side of the face, knocking me down and once again making Stone think he had the upper hand.? He was furious now, but instead of being smart and looking for a weapon, he looked like he wanted to finish me off by hand, which he no doubt thought he was capable of doing.?

  He didn't see me cock my left leg back, until I thrust it out, connecting with his right knee.? There was a sickening crack and Stone howled in pain as he looked down and saw it bend backward.?

  I did my best to stand up before anything else could happen.? Stone was now a wounded animal and becoming desperate.? He had the drop on me a minute ago and now he was fighting for his life, with rage giving him an adrena
line surge.? I knew that if Stone got hold of me, I might lose the encounter.? Stone was bigger and stronger, and he didn't have a bullet hole in his shoulder.?

  Where before I had wanted to draw him in, it was now to my benefit to keep some distance between us.? But the room was small and cluttered and there was no safe place for me to get to.? Stone reached into a pocket and pulled out a knife, opening it with a flick of his thumb to reveal a three-inch serrated blade.? I could see Stone readying for a lunge at me, when the glass window shattered.? There was a spurt of blood that erupted from Stone's upper body as he fell to the floor in a heap, and stopped moving.? A split second later, I heard the report of a sniper rifle off in the distance.

  I stood there a minute, looking for his gun, found it and shuffled over to pick it up.? I looked down at Stone and the blood that was pooling around him.? I waited a few seconds to see if there were any other threats I needed to address.? Not seeing any of the three men moving, I relaxed a bit.

  My rest was short lived when I heard someone walking into the office behind me.??I turned and, in the same motion, brought my gun up to bear on what I perceived was a new threat.? Unfortunately, I was getting weak now and I didn't have a lot left.? I recognized the man standing in front of me.? Jansen was holding a gun and pointed it directly at me as he moved carefully into the room.? He looked down at Stone and the other men, none of which were moving.? When he saw Stone, he got a surprised look on his face, as if not expecting to see Stone there.? Jansen looked up, stepped over Stone, and approached me.?

  "How the hell did you get in here?" he asked me, incredulous.?

  Just then four armed security responders rushed the office with rifles brought to bear on Jansen and me.? My previous gunshots must have drawn their attention.? These guys looked serious and prepared to do harm to anyone they didn't know-and they didn't know me.? The thought crossed my mind that they may be Jansen's men, in which case I was screwed.

  "Put down your weapon!? Do it now!" one of them commanded me, his rifle aimed at my chest.?

  I slowed my breathing and prepared to attack the nearest guy when Hector came running up.? When he saw me, he shouted, "Hold your fire!? Hold your fire! ?He's a friendly.? Don't shoot!? Don't shoot!"

  The security personnel froze in their positions but didn't appear to be convinced and did not drop their weapons.? To my relief it appeared they were the good guys, though they still had weapons on me.? I lowered my arm to my side and smiled at Hector.?

  "Hi, Hector.? About time you got here."

  Jansen was just standing there, not moving, still holding his weapon.? He looked at me and then at Hector.? He was clearly outnumbered but looked threatening nonetheless.? He was very big and intimidating to Hector and the guys on Hector's staff, despite the fact that Hector's men had semi-automatic weapons.? Hector recognized Jansen from his picture as the guy they were looking for.?

  Keeping one eye on Jansen, Hector circled around and sidled up to me, surveying the carnage all around me.? He just shook his head.? "Man, you're making a hell of a mess out of my power plant.? There're dead guys all over the place.? There's gonna be hell to pay for this.? I hope you're prepared to explain all this, 'cause I can't."

  He looked back at Jansen, and said, "You'd better drop that weapon or I'll blow you to hell and gone!"

  Just then, there was a loud scream from behind me.? We all turned and saw Stone pushing himself up off the floor.? He looked up at me with murderous fury in his eyes.? Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jansen bringing his weapon up and I sensed that everyone was looking at Stone and nobody saw that Jansen was preparing to shoot.? I heard two quick shots and felt the pressure wave as the bullets passed me, and watched as Stone fell to the floor again, truly dead this time.

  The security responders whirled around, on alert, weapons hot.? "Drop the fucking weapon!? Do it NOW!" screamed one of them.? Jansen immediately dropped his 9mm Sig Sauer to the floor and raised his hands over his head, surrendering.? Hector's men were agitated, twitchy, and unclear if they should shoot me, or Jansen, or both of us.? They looked back and forth at us apprehensively, weapons aimed at our faces.??I knew I needed to get everyone to back down a bit.?

  "Calm down fellas," I told them, knowing that they needed someone to tell them what to do, and time to process all of this.? I raised my left hand and gingerly set my weapon down on the desk next to me to help defuse the situation.? "Hector?" I said, trying to get Hector to take charge of his men.?

  Hector broke out of his stunned silence.? "Everyone stay where you are!? Don't move and don't shoot anyone!" Hector commanded.? He was still trying to figure out what just happened himself.

  I moved slowly over to Jansen, put one hand on his shoulder and looked him in the eyes.? We each reached out a hand and gripped one another tightly.? Jansen and I exchanged a look.?

  Then Jansen broke out into a grin and said, "Hey, boss.?Good to see you in one piece."

  I smiled back at him.? "Back at ya!"?

  Then to Hector, who was standing there with his mouth open, I said, "Hector, I'd like you to meet Eric Jansen . . . a member of NeXus."