She and Jesse made their way up the first stairway. When she made it to the top landing, she came to a jerking halt. Anna, one of the women she had helped save and keep safe, was coming the other direction. A round, pregnancy bump showed through her blue dress. She was six months along.
“What is it?” Andrea asked, already knowing the answer was going to be bad.
“She’s…she’s…”
“What?”
“It’s coming.”
Andrea knew what that meant. More trouble. Two of the women were near their due date. One of them had gone into labor. Dear God, not now. She’d delivered three babies in the past year, one stillborn. She knew the particulars of delivery, but it was not something she was well versed in, so she had partway blamed herself for the newborn’s death. If only she knew more, she thought. No matter how much she absorbed from books, there was always something new to learn. Usually, it took some tragedy for her to find the right answer. And sometimes she learned something truly important only to have her memory fail her when it was most needed.
“Who?” she asked.
“Carrie,” Anna replied instantly.
Carrie? No. Oh, no, that couldn’t be. Carrie wasn’t one of the two she had been thinking was due. Carrie wasn’t expected to go into labor for at least another month.
Shit, shit, shit, shit. She had to think fast.
“Jesse,” she said, “I need you to...you have to go back and warn the others. Kate. Eve. Cory. Warn them. You can do that? Kate will know where to find me. Tell her about this. Just mention it is Carrie who is giving birth.”
Jesse said nothing.
Andrea recognized there was something else Anna was anxious to say. “What is it, child?”
“She’s bleeding really bad, ma’am.”
Andrea’s feet suddenly wouldn’t move. She needed that goddamned drink, stat.
“Please hurry,” the girl said.
-6-
FIGHT FIRE WITH FIRE
JESSE HAD TO keep moving. He wanted to get back to Cyrus’s quarters and gather the others before it was too late. But he remained frozen in place, right where Andrea had left him, listening to her footfalls recede in the distance. He was confronting two equally unpleasant choices, continue ahead and risk blindly stumbling into Tommy and his crew, or return to the conference room as a bringer of death.
While considering his options, he heard muffled shouting coming from the conference room. He briefly considered returning and doing what he could, but a familiar voice whispered a warning in his ear. It was Hannah’s voice. He looked around as if expecting to see her but saw no one, heard nothing more. She was just an echo from the past. Shaking his head to clear it, he looked back toward the conference room. No. He couldn’t go back there. He just couldn’t do it. The two he’d killed had been a snap decision. If he killed anyone else, he might lose himself for good.
The dilemma rattled around in his head as he climbed the stairway, going up it one tread at a time, sliding a hand along the railing. By the time he reached the top, he was taking the stairs two at a time, knowing what to do next. Andrea had mentioned there was safety somewhere inside the mountain, but she hadn’t explained where, only that Kate knew the location. Slowing, he reconsidered whether he should return to help David. And for the second time, his mind quickly swept that thought away.
After a long series of lefts and rights, climbing three staircases, and trying to remember his way, he came to a spot where the corridor narrowed. This was the place, a row of doorways tucked deep inside the complex. Of the four doors, the last one on the right was where Cyrus had once lived. Now, Eve, Kate, and Cory were still inside, or so he hoped. He paused at the last door. What would he say when he saw them? Would they believe him? Would they be able to leave and get outside the mountain?
From behind, came the faint sounds of gunfire, a series of pops reverberating off hard surfaces. He fell back against the wall, suddenly alert, and listened to the echoes. The fire rate was familiar, sounding much like a sewing machine. He knew what sort of gun made that particular sound: an Uzi. His father, Big John, had owned a pair of them. Compact machine pistols with extremely high cyclic rates. Pull the trigger and a steady stream of lead came out the barrel, emptying a forty-round clip in about four seconds. Judging by the short, staccato bursts, it was a single Uzi firing at several different targets.
Jesse knew exactly what that meant. There was no going back.
Scratching at his empty palm with his fingernails, he bounced the M9 in his other hand up and down, testing the weight of it. The gunfire was distant enough not to present an immediate danger, but he was sure Tommy was behind the shooting.
Then the bursts ceased.
He strained to hear more, expecting the gunfire to pick up again, but it did not. Instead, only the background whirl of the ventilation system could be heard.
“Guess they couldn’t work it out peacefully,” he whispered.
Pushing the morbid image of what must have happened in the conference room from his mind, he made his way back to Cyrus’s quarters. The door was unlocked. Inside, they were all where he expected them to be. Eve nodded and approached. Cory tried to stand, but fell back in his chair.
“What’s going on?” Eve asked.
“Stay here,” Jesse said in a commanding tone. “And lock the damn door this time and don’t open it no matter what you hear out there. It’s not safe yet. Just wait for my knock.” He demonstrated it on the wall next to the door. “If you don’t hear that, then you’re going to have to find a way to kill whoever comes through.”
Kate tried to push past him, taking him by surprise. “No,” he said, blocking her. “I’m better off on my own. Stay here, please.” She backpedaled two steps with her head cocked to one side.
“It’s for the best,” he said as he slid the M9 out of his waistband. Running his fingers through his hair to sweep it out of his eyes, he took a final look at those in the room and pulled the steel door closed behind him, and made sure it latched. Then he jogged down the corridor on the balls of his feet. At the first set of stairs leading down, he stopped.
He’d heard footsteps and they were growing louder. Multiple footsteps. Three people, at least. Pressing himself into an alcove above the stairs, he settled into immobility and peered down the stairwell. It was just wide enough for two men to climb side by side while holding onto the tubular railings. The hallway below was dimly lit, as was the one he was in. That left the entire stairwell shaded in a pool of darkness.
The footsteps grew louder, and a cluster of shadows appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Heads and shoulders. Three men. The one in the middle was the largest of the three.
Tommy.
Seeing the shadows caused Jesse’s uncertainty to shift to certainty. Everyone back in the conference room was dead, and Tommy was now in charge. More chaos would surely come, and the only thing he had to stop it came in the form of the reassuring weight of his scuffed-up M9 Beretta. In it, he had four shots remaining.
Thumbing the safety, he raised the gun, and aimed at the approaching shadows, waiting for them to resolve into targets. But they didn’t. Instead, the shadows halted below in the corridor. There was an intersection there that Jesse had not yet explored. He figured they were considering taking it instead of climbing the stairs. Good. He could swing in behind them. But, he realized he’d hit another snag. Could he shoot them in the back? Could he sneak up behind them and just shoot them dead, execution style? He pictured the moment, unsure whether he could actually pull the trigger, not knowing either way.
Staying in the alcove, he kept the barrel of the gun up and ready, waiting to see what they would do, feeling a bit ashamed of himself. His father never would have succumbed to such weakness. But he wasn’t his father.
Taking a breath to steady the shake in his hands, he pictured a series of differing scenarios in his mind, seeing how each played out. None of them ended well.
“Up there,” a voice called. It
wasn’t Tommy’s.
Jesse froze. Had they spotted him? A long shiver went down his spine as he reaffirmed his grip on the Beretta.
Tommy spoke next. “Check it. Be quick, the ladies are waiting.”
Jesse heard laughter, and then a voice he recognized. Were they splitting up? If so, he’d have to make adjustments, maybe even rush them. His heart pounded harder and throat continued to tighten. If he could shift positions, find a new angle, he might get a glimpse of what he faced.
“Save some for us,” someone said, laughing.
The shadows changed. From his vantage point, he saw the tip of a wooden bat spiked with nails appear at the bottom of the stairs. Half the nails were bent and coated in red. Following the bat came the man wielding it.
Jesse flinched away from the approaching danger. The M9 shifted in his grip.
The man with the bat was that flat-nosed asshole, Dmitri. He must have been with them all along. Had the guy been lying earlier? Had it all been a delaying tactic? Jesse didn’t have time to finish his line of thought before a second man emerged. This guy had a sharpened spear and a hastily wrapped bandage around his hand.
Neither of the two men had guns.
That meant all the gunfire had come from—
“Hey! Up there!” the man with the spear shouted. He’d spotted Jesse. Raising his weapon, the man charged the stairs. Before he could climb them, Dmitri ran past the guy, rushing up with his bat readied to take a swing.
In a split second, all fear and indecision left Jesse like a sinner washed clean. He made the necessary calculations in his head, lined up a shot on the stationary man at the foot of the stairway, and fired at his chest.
The shot crashed into the guy, pounding him like a fist. The man with the spear stumbled backward in surprise, sinking down to one knee. But, incredibly, the guy rose to his feet again, shaking his head in disbelief.
Dmitri was still coming fast, taking the stairs three at a time, bat raised to strike. Jesse swung the barrel of his M9 on target and jerked the trigger. But Dmitri was moving too fast and the shot caught him high on the left shoulder. He kept charging. With the next shot, Jesse aimed for a tiger tattoo on the man’s neck and squeezed the trigger.
The gun snapped in his hand.
Dmitri’s head lopped forward like a rag doll suddenly jerked backward. Blood sprayed from a newly opened gash. He dropped the bat and slapped a hand against his ravaged neck. Swiveling, stumbling, he fell against the railing, tripped on the step, legs folding uselessly under him, rolling along the railing, until coming to rest at the foot of the staircase.
Jesse knew it wasn’t over. Not yet. He kept the two dying men covered with the business end of the M9. The first man he’d shot was huffing and not quite dead. The guy’s face was an ashen mask of fury as he tried to pull himself up, making it to the first tread then the second, before collapsing next to Dmitri.
Both men twitched as they settled into stillness.
As the after-echoes of the gunfire faded from his mind, Jesse heard a new set of footsteps, saw movement.
“You!” Tommy said from the hallway below. He was crouched low against the wall, looking up. He had a gun in his hands, an Ingram Mac-10, but he hadn’t yet fired.
Jesse realized he’d been wrong about the gun, thinking it was an Uzi. But on the other hand, maybe he’d just gotten lucky. Mac-10s were notoriously inaccurate at any kind of distance.
“Come on out. Show yourself, cowboy.”
Jesse kept quiet and dropped into a crouch, breathing deeply but calmly. He had only a single bullet and no clean shot on the guy. The guy was still too far away.
“We can make a deal,” Tommy said.
Jesse stayed silent. He backed away from the top landing and popped the magazine out of the Beretta to reassure himself just how many rounds remained. The magazine was empty, and the slide closed and locked, which meant he had one bullet left. One? he thought, realizing how frequently he’d been left with a single bullet.
“I don’t want to kill you,” Tommy said. “You have been too…lucky for that. You were a soldier, yes? A cop? We could help each other, you and I.”
Jesse said nothing.
“Come with me and I’ll give you whatever you wish. A choice of women. Of food. Or…we’ll see. What do you say?”
Jesse considered bouncing his final shot off the concrete below and ricocheting it into the guy. But that was a risky shot. Too risky to bet his life on. Too risky to bet his friend’s lives on.
“No harm done,” Tommy repeated. “I do not wish to provoke you, friend. Come out. Please. I won’t shoot. You have my word.”
Jesse considered for a moment, then said, “How can I possibly trust you not to shoot? You haven’t given me much to go on.”
“You do not understand,” Tommy said. “You and I can be friends. Good friends. We can help each other. Yes?”
Jesse remained silent.
“I will even forgive you for shooting Dmitri and Luka. They were good men. But you, my friend, I think men would follow you. I saw you in the arena. You were good. Or lucky. I haven’t decided which. And if you join me, we can find out together.”
Jesse moved closer to the top of the stairs. “Set your gun down and back away,” he said.
“Set yours down first,” Tommy replied as he stepped closer to the stairs. He pointed the barrel of the Mac-10 at Jesse. “See, I could shoot you now, but I won’t.”
Tommy lowered his weapon, letting it drop to his side and hang from a strap.
“Okay,” Jesse said, keeping him covered. “I’m coming down. Don’t shoot.”
“Good,” Tommy said, smiling broadly. “We can work this out. This is good.”
Jesse knew he was taking a big risk, but he also had the upper hand. If Tommy had wanted him dead, then the guy could have just as easily raised the Mac-10 and fired. So, perhaps he was being sincere.
Since Jesse only had one shot left, he wanted to get as close as he possibly could before attempting it. As he descended the stairs, he raised the Beretta and pointed it at the ceiling. Tommy backed up into the hallway, keeping his own weapon at his side. When Jesse reached the middle of the stairway, Tommy came into full view.
The large man smiled. “I like you, Jesse. You shot them without hesitation. Not a thought. Two shots, two dead.” He paused, smiled, eyeing the gun in Jesse’s hand. “Or was it three? Yes, I am certain we can work together. You, me, the other guy from the arena. Da?”
Jesse nodded once and kept his arms slightly raised. “To be honest with you, I’m tired of all this shit. I’ve been jerked around ever since I got here. I don’t want to be jerked around anymore.”
“Good,” Tommy said. “See? I knew you wanted to help me. No lies between us. You even remind me of my papa. The beard. The eyes.”
“What happened to David?” Jesse asked.
Tommy grinned. “There was a disagreement between us. He didn’t want me in charge. Imagine that?”
Jesse said nothing.
Tommy continued, “Now they are all dead, and here we are, not dead. Good?”
Jesse let himself relax. He rolled his neck, keeping the gun pointed upward. “Now what?”
“Now, I take control. You help me. Simple.”
Jesse twisted the M9 in his hand, keeping it pointed at the ceiling. “I can keep my gun?”
Tommy hesitated, frowning. “Yes, but you need to give it to me first. Show that you trust me as I trust you. I don’t want to worry about you.”
“No,” Jesse said, “not ready to do that just yet.”
“Then we have a problem, you and I.” Tommy slowly raised the barrel of his Mac-10, moving his finger over the trigger.
“We don’t have a problem,” Jesse said, keeping his arms raised. “No need to be afraid of me. We can work together. I want this too.”
“You will let me have your weapon then? Show me your trust?”
“No,” Jesse answered. “But it’s not me that you have to worry about.�
��
Casually, Jesse indicated with the tip of his nose that someone was approaching Tommy from behind. Amusement glinted in the guy’s shark-like eyes for only a split-second before vanishing. He squinted as if his mind were weighing options. Jesse could almost read the man’s thoughts as if they were his own. Was this a trick? A lie? A slight twitch in the muscle of Tommy’s right cheek told Jesse the guy was worried about being wrong either way.
Then the man’s eyes narrowed further. He grinned. “You think I’m stupid? You think I would fall for such an obvious trick? What are we, little children playing games?”
But Tommy’s next move was barely perceptible: a slight bend to the knees, a tiny rotation of the shoulders. He was preparing to turn just to be certain. His bottom lip fluttered, and he threw a quick glance over his shoulder while yanking up the Mac-10, preparing to fire.
Jesse’s gun snapped on target first. He squeezed the trigger.
Tommy, already displaying awareness of his fatal mistake, took the bullet to the left of the nose. The nine-millimeter copper-jacketed slug crushed its way into his head, collapsing the man like a cow bolted at a slaughterhouse. The Mac-10 dropped away, collapsing with its former wielder. As they both slumped to the painted concrete floor, the cheap, stamped steel frame of the gun clattered as it bounced first off the barrel, then off the handle.
The report of Jesse’s shot echoed into silence. He let his arms drop to his sides, astonished his ruse had actually worked.
The guy must have overthought it.
He stepped closer to Tommy’s limp, lifeless form and stared down at it. Blood dribbled from a new hole on the man’s face, forming a widening puddle. The bullet appeared to have made an entrance wound, but as Jesse shifted the head with his boot to check, he could not find an exit wound on the back of the man’s skull.
He must have had a thick head.
Jesse let out a long stream of breath and flipped the catch to release the slide on the M9, letting it clank forward. He stuck the gun in the small of his back and straightened his shirttail over the bulge.
Righteous Apostate: Raptor Apocalypse Book 3 Page 5