by Lydia Pax
Beretta had wanted to use the van as a getaway vehicle in case anything went wrong. That was out of the question, now. They'd either have to find something in the steelworks or hump it out on foot.
Once inside the property, he drove the van up to the back door, the tires slowly sloughing off the wheels.
Moving out quick, staying in tight formation. They wore tight black ski masks and bulletproof vests. The back door was chained shut. A pair of wire cutters, courtesy of Beretta, took care of that. It was still locked, though. Locke knelt down in front of it, working fastidiously to pick it open. It took him close to thirty seconds, but he nailed it.
Beretta was surprised. He'd sort of thought that Locke would choke.
Soon, they were inside. In all, it had taken them less than two minutes to get there. Each of them had a thick black bag draped over their shoulders, empty of everything except air. They all hoped to be able to fill them completely with cash.
The inside of the steelworks was smoky and dim. It hadn’t been used as an actual steelworks for at least a decade. Great rusted cauldrons hung over large pits where molten metal used to be poured out and crafted into ingots and plates. They walked through a great big hanger-like area with lots of low-hanging beams and thick sand kept in large piles for putting out fires if the molten material spilled and caught fire.
He hoped, not for the first time, that Helen would make it out alive. This wasn't the place for someone like her—essentially a civilian. She didn't belong in this world. She'd never been more in danger than she was right then at that very moment, and it made his heart pound.
She didn't understand. Everything he'd done to push her away was to keep her safe. But she refused to listen. All he wanted was for her to make it out of this all right—he didn't want her death on his conscience too.
No, he reflected briefly, seeing her gorgeous form. That wasn't all he wanted. He didn't know if he would ever stop wanting to make her his. But for her sake, he had to try.
“No money here,” said Ace, turning over a small barrel.
“Yeah,” said Beretta. “Like I told you. It's in the loading bay.”
This had been one of the areas Ace picked as possible storage for the cash. It was big enough for it, certainly. But there was nothing, just as Beretta had predicted.
“Would you let it go, Beretta?” snapped Ace. “For fuck's sake. We're checking every spot.”
Beretta waved a hand, clearly still annoyed. He knew when he was right. “Lead on.”
Outside, they began to hear gunfire rattle off and the deep thump-thump-thundering of the M-60.
“I’ve got them on me now,” Tank's voice crackled through their headsets. “There’s a lot of them.”
“We’re inside,” said Beretta. “Hold tight.”
“Copy that.”
They pressed further into the steelworks, entering a long narrow hallway. Beretta checked again to make sure Helen was behind them.
Goddammit, but he was worried about her. Everything she did, everything she decided, only made him worry about her more. All he wanted was for her to be safe and secure, and the best way for that to happen was for her to get as far away from him as possible.
And why the fuck was that so hard to understand? Had he made it a mystery, somehow, of how incredibly dangerous he was to everyone?
For god's sake, she was robbing a gang full of sociopaths because of him. That proved every bad thought he'd ever had about himself.
Two men rolled out into the hallway. Not paying close enough attention. Too far away to sneak up on reliably, though, and they had guns in their hands.
Both Ace and Beretta raised their pistols and shot, dropping the two men. When they stood over the bodies, they let off another few rounds, ensuring they were dead. Couldn’t have anyone sneaking up on them from behind.
Locke checked the room the men came out of and then rushed back into the hall.
“Nothing,” he said.
They kept going, checking room by room. Most of them were just offices, filled with tables, projectors, chairs. Everything was in disarray. Broken pipes busted through the walls. Graffiti covered everything.
In most rooms were mattresses, all of them dirty, some with pictures taped to the walls nearby. It didn't seem like the sewage system worked—everything stank and there were buckets full of dark fecal matter in the corners of some rooms.
Not everyone they came across was a threat. Many were so dilapidated from drug use that it was impossible to tell their gender, shivered and huddled in corners, not aware enough of reality to cry out at the masked people with guns in their hands.
This was a place where a whole lot of people did a whole lot of meth, Beretta remembered, and not everyone was an enemy.
They kept checking the rooms, but none of them had what they required. It rankled at Beretta. They just wasted time by doing this. After clearing out another hallway—exposing themselves to another man with a gun who he and Ace had to shoot down—he spoke up.
“This is stupid,” he said. “We're making noise. They're going to be on to us, soon. We know where the money is going to be. We don't need to check every last goddamn room.”
“We don't know anything,” said Ace. “Not a damn thing. If we start making assumptions—”
“If we don't assume something, they'll be onto us. Tank's machine gun fire can only cover us for so long.”
“Would you two stop fucking sniping at each other?” said Locke. “For fuck's sake. We're on the same team. We just—“
“They’re getting close.” Tank’s voice crackled in their headsets. “I’m holding them back, but they’re trying to flank me. Tearing up a lot of property out here.”
Urgency filled Beretta. They had to hurry. Tank couldn't last forever. The cops would be here soon, paid for or not, and they would only make the situation worse. Not even Stockland police could ignore a giant explosion in the middle of their city forever.
“You okay?” asked Locke.
“Yeah. Just hurry.”
Beretta looked at Ace—you see, asshole? We need to speed it up.
Ace frowned, speaking into the headset. “Coming up on bay number one now.”
They rushed to the door, but it was locked. Kneeling down in front of it, Locke began to work away, rotating his tools this way and that. Seconds passed, and then minutes. The heavy drumming of the M-60 outside grew louder and louder.
“Have you got it or what, Locke?”
“Just...a few more minutes,” said Locke. “Seconds. A few more seconds. I think.”
More gunfire from outside. Beretta didn't like it in this hallway. They were as exposed as all the men they had snuck up on so far, and it had been far too easy to kill them. There was no place to take cover—Helen could be shot down dead in an instant.
“Getting pretty hairy here,” said Tank. “How's it going?”
Locke was sweating, clearly losing his edge. “Guys,” he said, voice shaking. “Maybe I'm not quite as good at this as I remember. Maybe we should—”
Beretta pulled Locke aside and slammed his boot into the door, breaking it in one go. There was no time to dick around like this. He and Ace rushed inside, Helen taking cover by the door.
The bay was tall and wide. Inside the concrete was covered over with thick tar in places where cracks had formed. There was a burnt-out husk of a sedan, small trails of smoke still rising from it. Some druggy experiment of Rattler's, perhaps.
There were two men on the catwalk above. Beretta fired off four shots and got the first. Ace opened up and clipped the other man's leg—he fell and dropped below and they filled him full of bullets again. Another threat down.
The outlaws moved in and began to look for the cash—but as Beretta suspected, there was nothing. Goddammit, but they were running short on time. No time, and no safety for Helen. Their good luck was bound to run out soon, and then she would be shot and it would be his fault. He could already feel it coming, like vomit in a sick throat.
“Find anything?” asked Tank.
There was nothing in this first bay at all. Totally empty—no vehicles, no equipment, and certainly no cash.
“Nothing yet,” said Beretta, coming close to swearing.
“Well.” Tank huffed. “Just hurry it up, yeah? They’re right on top of me. I got two minutes before I’m pulling back.”
Now they rushed down the hallway again. No more guards this time. Tank was doing a hell of a job catching their attention. The last loading bay was just down the hall—when they got there, Locke wasted no time, breaking the door open with his boot instead of trying to pick it.
“There's the old magic,” he said, grinning.
This one was tall and wide like the last one. Concrete floors, steel walls and catwalks above. Empty, though—no one inside. Moving fast, they looked around, looking for stacks and stacks of bags; crates, maybe. Boxes. But there wasn’t any of that. Just a big dump truck next to the loading bay door.
“Nothing again.” Ace kicked the wall. “What the fuck? Goddammit, Beretta. I told you we needed to check everything.”
“I’ve gotta pull out,” said Tank. His voice sounded panicked. They could hear gunfire through the radio. “If I wait any longer, they’ll be right on top of me.”
“Goddammit!” said Ace. “This whole fucking thing, a bust. And it's on you.” He grabbed Beretta, shoving him against the wall. “I fucking told you we had to check everywhere. But your stubborn fucking know-it-all ass—”
Beretta headbutted him, knocking him back. Ace's forehead cut open, a small trail of blood flowing down the side of his nose.
“Get your fucking hands off me.” He pushed Ace. “Maybe if you weren't so concerned about looking in the wrong places, we could have found what we needed—”
“Break it the fuck up!” said Locke, pushing the two of them apart. “This isn't the time or the place to—”
Gunshots filled the room—a guard they had missed. Sneaking up on them from the stairs, firing on them. Helen was directly in front of him, trying to fire the gun wildly, but she was shooting everywhere but his mass.
She couldn't kill anyone. Of course she couldn't. She was thinking she would scare the guard—but there was no scaring someone with that much meth in their system. The guard's skin was sallow and thin, malnourished, his hair torn out in clumps. He had a wicked, crazy smile on his face, lining up his shot, taking his time.
Beretta opened fire, nailing him in the hip and sending him spinning. Then he shot him in the chest, and the guard went to the ground. Beretta continued to shoot him, though, again and again, until his clip was empty.
Close. Too close. My fault it was that close.
Locke sprang up and ran to the dead man, kicking his ribs, letting out a roar of frustration.
“Motherfucker,” he shouted, waving his gun in the air. “Do you see what I fucking mean? We have to get out of here. Tank,” he spoke into his headset. “We're on our way.”
There was only static in response. Beretta felt a low pit form in his belly. He hoped they weren't too late.
“Yeah,” said Ace into his headset. “Meet us at the rendezvous.”
“How are we going to get there without him?” asked Locke. “Without him covering our getaway?”
“I guess we can sneak out how we came in. Circle around through the wilderness. It’ll take awhile, but...” Ace shrugged. “All we've got is time, now.”
Helen climbed up on the back of the dump truck. Beretta, watching her, was about to tell her to come down. They needed to get going and soon.
“Wait,” said Helen. “What’s under the tarp here?”
She lifted it up, gasping as she did. Beretta rushed after her—thinking the worst. Some kind of ambush. More men with guns. He had a sudden, knowingly ironic fear of her being taken hostage.
But it wasn’t anything like that.
Money. A mountain of money, stuffed inside trash bags and gym bags and grocery bags. More money than Beretta had ever seen in his life, waiting under that tarp.
They had found the stash.
“Tank,” said Ace. “If you can hear me, belay that order. We got a new plan. Hang tight for thirty seconds. We’re coming for you, and the money’s coming with us.”
Chapter 31
Helen's adrenal glands had to be close to exhaustion, and yet even so she continued to feel the pump of energy through her system, demanding that she remain alert and cautious. She was stuffed inside the back of the dump truck with Beretta, grateful that she could feel his strength right up until the point that she remembered she was furious with him.
The dump truck rumbled to life. It was large and heavy—weighed down even more with the tonnage of cash they carried. Locke drove, the most experienced hot-wirer of any of them, and also the only one who had any previous time with driving a truck.
“Did this for the city of Lubbock about, oh, four, five years back,” he said over the heavy noise of the truck. “Handles just like I remembered.”
“Fucking go already!” Beretta growled.
Locke hiccuped a little laugh and floored the gas. He powered through the bay door, not bothering to open it. If they opened the door, it would give the men with guns outside too much time to adapt and turn their attention onto them.
With a huge, tumbling crash, Locke broke through the door and skidded out into the concrete in front of the steelworks. For a moment, time stood still and all the gun fire stopped. The Copperheads stopped to turn, jaws hanging slack, dumbfounded at what they saw.
Outside it looked like an actual war zone. The explosion from the van had completely torn open one side of the steelworks, leaving a huge crater in the ground where the van had been. Chunks of it—and chunks of other steel and dirt—were splattered everywhere.
Across the street, she saw the van fender sticking outside the side of a tall brick building. There were men in tatters on the ground, blood following everyone. Bricks set on fire littered the streets. Everyone was hit one way or the other, most covered in dirt and grime from pushing themselves against trashcans and building corners for cover. Bullet holes were in everything. Cars. Lamp posts. Street signs—even the street itself was marred and full of long, jagged marks.
The Copperheads saw them exiting. At first, they did nothing. Eyes wide with shock.
Then Rattler saw them. It must have been Rattler—he fit all of the descriptions that Helen had heard. Bald. Covered with scars and ugly tattoos. Skinny—far too skinny. He had an assault rifle in his hands and he pointed and yelled in their direction.
Helen could not hear what he said over the din of the truck, but she assumed it must have been something close to “get them, shoot them, make them pay.” Thick syrup-like drool splattered out from his lips and landed all over his chest and gun.
And so, shoot the Copperheads did. The assault fire opened up and rattled against the truck, tearing into it.
But the dump truck kept going.
“Son of a bitch armored the truck,” Locke laughed. “He knew he’d have to run out with his money and he armored the truck!”
A bullet cracked against the windshield and splintered into a hundred pieces around it. A big dent was left in the clear surface.
“Whoa!” said Ace. “Hurry it up.”
Locke nodded, pushing hard on the gas. Sirens could be heard in the distance—the cops finally making a move. Or, maybe the fire department. Either way, it was bad news. Beretta was already on the radio.
“Tank, are you ready?” he asked.
“Ready.” His voice sounded pained, tired.
They drove up next to the building where Tank had parked his M-60. The brick and mortar was covered in bullet holes, more and more near the top. Like it had been chipped at with some massive chisel. The Copperheads had done their honest best to clip him. The fire escape had
been dislodged from the building, surgically removed by the constant spray of bullets.
There was a heavy thump as Tank landed in the back, rolling on the pile of money. And then, after a moment, the thumping continued as he opened fire with his handguns over the top of the lip of the truck.
“Holy shit,” said Tank, crackling still in their headsets. “This is a lot of fucking money!”
Locke stepped on the gas, speeding away from the steelworks.
But, the time that it took to pick Tank up allowed the Copperheads to regroup. They followed after the dump truck on their bikes. Sirens and flashing lights closed in on the steelworks behind them, but they were all focused on the fire and destruction that the Wrecking Crew had left behind. As Locke pulled up onto the highway, the bikes crowded around him, trying to veer him off the road.
“They want to funnel me,” he said, his grip shaking on the wheel.
“This thing weighs ten times as much as their bikes,” said Beretta. “Knock 'em off!”
Locke nodded and swerved one direction and then the other. Bikes shattered around them, knocking into the barricades and tumbling and flipping across the concrete into opposing lanes of traffic.
Rattler was outside—Helen could hear him.
“Gut you!” he shouted. His voice like some mutated wolf's. “Burn you! Tear you to bits!”
He held a sledgehammer in one hand, pounding it against the passenger side window. It spun around him like a whirligig. Locke swerved to knock him away, but Rattler was too agile, moving back and to the side, keeping himself alive.
With another huge swing, Rattler broke through the heavy glass of the passenger-side window, shattering it into Ace. Ace turned to cover his face from the shower of broken shards. For a moment, Helen thought of what she could do to help. She had a gun in her hands still, but had no idea if she could really fire it at someone. Then there was the box cutter, still stashed in her jeans...
But she didn't need to move at all. In the chaos of movement and collision, Beretta had dropped his gun and Locke tended to Ace. But Beretta, moving fast, grabbed the hammer as it broke through the window and yanked it forward into the cab, pulling Rattler close—straight off his bike and into the door.