by Jack Cuatt
Machine pivots the rifle, the circle of green blurring, and stops on the man seated on the bench. A thinly covered scalp comes into focus. The man’s legs are crossed. He drags deeply on his cigarette and stares thoughtfully into the clear night sky. Machine's finger draws the trigger in and the rifle whispers.
The 5.56mm round snaps the guard’s head forward. He somersaults over his knees and sprawls in the grass on his back. Machine puts another bullet through the guard’s chest, shifts his feet to the right and moves on to the next target. Gun-smoke stings his eyes and wreathes his head. A green blur, and he is panning up the willow the sniper occupies.
Green and darker green shadow. Empty limbs. The sniper is gone. Machine's heart skips a beat. For a moment, the scope wavers on the limb where the sniper had been forty-five seconds ago, then he slowly sweeps to the base of the tree and back up. Nothing. He pans back up, then left and right, anxiety creeping in as seconds tick by, bringing him closer to discovery. Closer to death.
A flash blossoms from the base of the willow and the windowpane above Machine's head shatters into an avalanche of razor-edged splinters. A bullet rips his cheek, splatters the wall and window sill with blood, and embeds itself in the wall behind him. The crack of the unsilenced rifle comes a split second later, reverberating off the face of the house.
Machine doesn't flinch. His eyes stay glued to the scope. He knows he will get only one shot, so he doesn't hurry, though he knows the sniper is lining up for another shot of his own. The glitter of moonlight on glass at the base of the willow has to be the sniper’s scope. Machine locks in and fires.
The mercury-tipped bullet shatters the front glass of the sniper's scope, whips down the aluminum tube and punches through the sniper's right eye just as he pulls the trigger. More glass shatters above Machine and a line of fire burns across his forehead as a shard cuts him to the bone. He squeezes the trigger again, firing into the sniper’s upper body. The rifle bucks and lead leaps from the window. But he needn't have wasted the round; the sniper is already sagging into the grass. In the split second before the second bullet strikes, Machine recognizes the man. It's Sunglasses, the Scarpo soldier who had confronted Machine during his original reconnoiter of the property.
The second slug takes Sunglasses above the collar of his black pullover and spirals down his prone body into his chest cavity, scattering fragments, exploding his lungs and heart. End of business.
Machine drops the rifle and reaches into the chest-pack for the claymore's detonator. Only seven seconds have passed since Sunglasses' first shot. Machine hopes it hasn't been long enough for the card players to react. He depresses the detonator's spring-loaded lever and is rewarded with a distant Karumph! as the claymore detonates. A split second later a howling scream echoes out from behind the mansion. Though Machine can’t be certain, he imagines startled faces, bodies, poker chips and beer bottles disintegrating before a hail of 6mm ball bearings. He has to hope it’s true. If the poker players had moved at the first shot from the sniper, if they had exited the cottage on the run, then his chances of escaping the estate have just spiraled down to single digits.
Machine drops the detonator, retrieves the collapsible rifle, extends it through the broken window, and puts his eye to the scope. The iron gate is an inky outline backed in green. The driveway is empty. The guards posted at the front entrance are gone.
Feet pound the hall stairs and a ragged burst of automatic weapons fire blazes up from the tree line out front, destroying the window, tearing at the mansion’s siding and the ceiling above Machine’s head. Wood splinters and plaster crumble under the heavy rounds. The powdered plaster creates a fog; white chunks and flakes fall like snow from the ceiling. Machine drops the rifle and spins away, reaching for the Škorpion and its firepower.
Scarpo's girlfriend rolls across the bed and thumps to the floor, getting as low as she can. Machine follows suit. He hits the carpet and crawls fast across it to the bed as bullets zip over his head, chewing up the walls and ceiling. He stops when he reaches the edge of the bed, stretches out flat on his stomach and aims the Škorpion around the corner of the mattress at the hall door.
The hallway door bursts open and a maniac in a black suit lunges into the room sweeping a Mac-11 ahead of him. The plaster haze momentarily blinds him. He waves at the fog, crouching in the doorway, backlit by the hall lights, looking for a target. He never finds one. A salvo of bullets from the front lawn rips his white shirt to shreds and knocks him off his feet, back through the doorway. A second goon piles through the door right behind the first, the pistol in his hand already belching flame as he fires wildly in front of him. None of the rounds come anywhere near Machine who calmly squeezes off a burst of three, his aim dead-on.
The Škorpion ratchets efficiently, spewing fire and 7.65mm hollow-points. The goon takes the burst high in the chest. He hits the carpet flat on his face. Machine puts three more through the top of his head to make it certain then pushes himself up and dives for the corner nearest the dressing room door. He hits the shag on his shoulder and rolls to his knees, pressed tight to the wall.
The automatic rifle fire from outside suddenly stops.
Silence.
Machine waits. Through the door, a square of light from the hallway falls across Scarpo's corpse. Just beyond the dead mob boss, the old man’s girlfriend is lying on the carpet, half her head blasted away. Machine regrets that, but there’s nothing he could have done. You swim with sharks and you have to expect to become chum.
The light in the hall is abruptly extinguished, leaving him in darkness. He hears shouts from outside and shoe leather slapping the driveway pavement. The guards are rushing in from the perimeter. He knows it's over. Even if all the card players were on the cutting edge of the claymore, there are at least a half-dozen of Scarpo’s crew left, maybe more. He’s a dead man, just like Scarpo had predicted.
In a normal man the knowledge of imminent death would provoke uncontrollable panic. Not Machine. His teeth clench and his resolution grows. If he has to die, then everybody will die.
Five minutes pass. He waits, hoping vainly that Scarpo's men will come to him. No luck. And that means they're planning something. He can't allow that. It's time to take the fight to them.
He stands and reaches into the chest-pack, his hand closing around one of three fragmentation grenades. They are smooth, round, and cold as murder to the touch. The grenades’ arming levers are wired to the inside of the pack. A stiff tug and he has a live explosive in his hand.
The Škorpion leads the way through the dressing room into the sitting room. He stops beside the closed hall door, standing over the sleeper’s corpse, and listens.
The doorknob begins to turn.
Machine lets the grenade's arming lever fly, drops it on the carpet in front of the door. He silently counts ‘one’ as he turns and sprints back through the dressing room into the bedroom.
‘Two.’ He pushes the interior bedroom door closed, putting as much between himself and the grenade as possible, then steps to the right and closes his eyes to protect his night vision.
‘Three.’
The grenade detonates, the concussion shaking the house to its foundation and blowing the dressing room door off its hinges. Wire shrapnel slices through plaster and flesh. A choked-off scream follows the explosion. The smell of gunpowder and the coppery odor of blood are almost overwhelming. A guttural moan comes from the sitting room, then another. At least two men down, maybe three. Machine reaches into the chest-pack, pulls another grenade free, crosses to the open hall door and presses himself flat beside it.
He hears a whispered argument taking place down the corridor, a babble of excited voices. Probably a half-dozen men. He turns off the wall, into the doorway, pitches the grenade down the dark corridor, and immediately steps back.
“Shit!” Someone screams followed by a brilliant flash. The concussion rattles the walls. Glass shatters, paneling splinters and the large canvases lining the walls crash to
the floor. Someone screams his vocal cords bloody as a burst of automatic fire rockets down the hall in Machine's general direction.
“Quit fucking shooting!” someone bellows and the shooting instantly stops. Only the screamer and the patter of falling plaster break the quiet. A single shot silences the screamer. No hospital for the wounded, no mercy for the damned.
Machine takes a deep breath, steps around the door and dives into the hallway. He hits the carpet on his left shoulder and rolls, the Škorpion cradled against his chest. He rolls to his feet facing the stairs and spreads out flat against the chewed up paneling, his eye centered on the silenced machine-pistol's foresight. Splintered boards, plaster, and destroyed furniture litter the hall, smoke and plaster dust cloud the air. All together six corpses lie in various contorted positions along the passage. At the head of the stairs, two living Scarpo soldiers are running for cover, delaying each other in their struggle to lead the retreat.
Machine squeezes off two three-round bursts that send them tumbling down the stairs, shrieking, then steps away from the wall and heads down the hallway for the stairs, moving fast. The doors along the hall are all off their hinges, shattered by bullets and grenade fragments. As he passes the dark gaps he fires blindly into the rooms, the Škorpion's stuttering flash illuminating men with frightened faces and automatic weapons. Men go down, but there’s too many of them. Return fire churns the wall behind Machine to dust as the Škorpion’s slide locks open on an empty clip.
Machine ejects the clip and reaches for a new one as he ducks and runs for the stairs at top speed. He hits the splintered railing on the run, hooks an arm through the banister and flips over it, twisting his body, dropping feet-first to the steps of the first flight as a swarm of bullets chop the railing into toothpicks. He lands off balance on the steep steps, staggers and falls. He goes end over end down the stairs and sprawls across the landing's cold tile. Bruised and shaken, he is still alert to his perilous situation. He rolls right and scrambles to his feet as a stocky guy with a twelve-gauge appears at the top of the steps.
A stabbing flash from the shotgun lights up the stairwell and a load of double-ought buckshot slams into Machine's midsection. The impact flings him eight feet down the hall and drops him on his shoulders, knocking the wind out of him. Most of the lead-pellets are stopped by the Kevlar vest, but a half-dozen rip into his right thigh. The pain is intense but he barely notices. He aims the Škorpion with both hands and squeezes the trigger, sending a stream of 7.65mm Hydra-Shoks raking up the shooter’s chest.
The man staggers and tumbles forward, but not before the twelve-gauge blasts fire one more time.
Another load of buckshot slams into Machine's left-upper chest and shoulder. The impact is like being hit with a baseball bat. Again, most of the damage is absorbed by the Kevlar, but a handful of lead-shot punches into his left bicep as the shooter, the shotgun hanging from one slack finger, slithers down the stairs head-first.
Two more of Scarpo's crew appear at the top of the steps, right behind the dead man. They both start blasting with handguns.
Machine fires two-three round bursts up at them. One dives around the corner at the top of the stairs unharmed, but the hollow-points chop the other’s shins to splinters. He sprawls on the stairs, screaming.
Machine rolls left and heat and pain pulses through his wounded arm and shoulder. For a second he fades, but the pain is a living thing, a rat chewing into the marrow. It brings him back. ‘At least three more still alive upstairs,’ he thinks as he shoves himself up. He bites his tongue against a wave of unconsciousness sucking at his brain. ’I can still make it out of here,’ he thinks, and almost laughs. He turns and stumbles down the front hall at a trot.
Above him, on the second floor, someone is hoarsely cursing God while the soldier with the ruined legs on the stairs is begging for a doctor. The two wounded men are so loud, Machine doesn't even hear one of Scarpo's remaining soldiers stepping out of one of the doorways lining the ground floor hallway.
The soldier is thin and swarthy. A dazzle of gold circles his neck. He glimpses Machine near the front door and fires without aiming. Bullets shatter the door's etched glass panels and one tugs at Machine's jacket as he dives right and scrambles under an archway into a dim study.
He struggles to his feet, blood loss and pain making his thought process foggy. He spins around, looking for an exit. His eyes stop on a floor-to-ceiling bay window. He swings the Škorpion up and fires a burst through the curtains. The plate glass shatters and a glittering wave of glass collapses onto the porch, dragging the curtains down with it. A rush of cool air gives Machine a burst of energy. He scrambles through the window, half-dragging his left leg, limp-jogs to the porch railing and falls over it, landing hard in the hedges below. Limbs stab into his back, neck and legs as he claws his way through the shrubs to the lawn. When he reaches the grass, he sprawls out flat on his back, steadies the Škorpion on his knees and aims at the shattered window.
The skinny guy is only ten seconds behind Machine. He leaps through the window, crosses the porch in a bound and jumps the rail.
Machine squeezes the trigger and stitches the man from breastbone to bellybutton with a half-dozen rounds. The hollow-points impact the man in mid-flight, mushrooming and spinning like saw blades through his flesh. He makes a lazy, almost graceful, half-flip, eyes rolling white. His face is visible in the split-second before he hits the lawn on his face; it’s Scarpo's nephew, Antony.
Machine drags himself to his feet. His left arm hangs limp, responding only grudgingly to instructions. His leg is numb. He heads for the Mercedes parked at the garage as fast as he can, limping and bleeding into the grass. He shoves the Škorpion under the chest-pack and pulls the silenced Smith. As he reaches the line of trees screening the garage from the main house, he spots two more of Scarpo’s crew cutting across the lawn at a jog, heading toward the garage. They’re too far away for the 9mm to be effective and, at the pace they're traveling, they'll reach the garage before him. Unless he runs.
Using the last of his energy reserves, biting back the pain, Machine trots down the asphalt drive. He bypasses the Mercedes, steps to the front corner of the garage and presses himself flat against the siding, knowing that he is only seconds ahead of the two men. He listens to their whispered conversation as their heels grind the path's white rocks, rapidly coming closer.
“Stay close, jackass. There's a fuckin' army out there. Cover my back,” one says testily. There’s no reply, only the crunch of feet on gravel and the whisper of cloth on cloth. Machine cocks the Smith and holds it at a forty-five degree angle, breathing soft and shallow.
He lets the first man, a fat guy dressed in a dark hunting cap and jacket carrying an assault rifle, pass. The second guy, short and thin, appears a half-second behind the first. Machine lowers the Smith and pulls the trigger, the barrel three inches from the man’s temple. The Smith whispers and the short guy's head lurches sideways. He goes down on his face. Before his chubby companion can react, Machine pivots and puts two shredders through his ribs. He hits the asphalt, blood bubbling from his lips.
Machine limps to the Mercedes. As he steps over the wounded man, he shoots him twice in the forehead.
Machine climbs into the Mercedes, drops the Smith between his thighs, takes the screwdriver from the chest-pack, and rams it into the ignition switch. The lock breaks with a twist and the car roars to life, the radio blaring. He throws the gear shift into reverse. The car jolts over the fat man's thighs and the rear tires drop off the pavement and spin in the short grass. Machine slips the gear shift into low and the car jumps back onto the asphalt. He puts the gear shift into high, presses the gas pedal to the floor and blasts down the driveway.
The Mercedes flashes past Scarpo's bullet-riddled home. Machine barely slows for the bend around the pines then accelerates toward the gate at the bottom of the slope. The speedometer creeps across the dial as the car rushes the iron barricade. Guiding the car with his left knee, he reach
es for the seat belt, pulls it across his chest, and snaps it closed.
One of Scarpo's soldiers springs into the road firing an AR-15 from the hip. Slugs plow a trail up the asphalt, headed for the Mercedes. Machine ducks below the dash and holds the car steady with his left hand as bullets puncture the hood and rip through the windshield. The Mercedes' hood buckles and flies open in a cloud of steam. For a second it covers the windshield, then it rips free from its hinges, crashes over the car, and spins a trail of sparks across the driveway.
The firing suddenly stops. Machine chances a look out the shattered windshield. The gate is twenty short feet away. He braces himself against the dash a split-second before impact.
He's thrown against the seat belt as the car's front end buckles and the air bag erupts, slamming him back in the seat. The gate bulges outward and the Mercedes' rear end fishtails. The scream of shearing metal is deafening as one side of the gate rips free and crashes open, slapping against the outside wall like a jumble of giant coat hangers.
The mangled Mercedes spins through the gap and across the road. It hits the gravel shoulder sideways, stutters on two tires then rolls over. The world spins outside the windows, night sky and brown grass. Machine is jerked around, restrained by the seat belt. At the bottom of the slope the car slams into a tree and comes to rest right-side-up. The air bag sags and the night air hits him like a bucket of ice water. Groggily he looks through the glassless windshield. The Mercedes' engine compartment is crumpled like an accordion. Steam geysers from the ruptured radiator. “Out,” he thinks vaguely. “Get out.” The smell of gasoline is strong. He releases the seat belt, shoves open the crumpled door, climbs out and heads for the tree the Mercedes is resting against.