Alliance of Shadows (Dead Six Series Book 3)

by Larry Correia

  “Reaper.” Deprived of his usual bag of technical tricks, he was our secondary ride out, Samuel’s babysitter, but sadly, not super useful in a gunfight.

  “I’m ready, chief.”

  “Boot your hostage and tell him to start walking.” Samuel had been honest, and leaving him in the countryside hadn’t been part of the deal, but it beat being hogtied inside a car that was probably about to get shot at. “Then be ready to drive in here and save our asses.”

  “You want me to come in guns blazing?”

  Hell no. Reaper was a terrible shot and had the tactical awareness of a potted plant. “Skunky has eyes on the place. He’ll tell you when it’s safe to move up.” What went unsaid was that if me and Shen got shot to death in the next few minutes, then Skunky would also have a good view of when it was time for him and Reaper to run like hell.

  A Land Rover gunned its engine and flew out of the garage. Shen and I stayed low as headlights lit up the guardhouse. It drove past us, through the gate, and down the lane. The glass was tinted, but there had to be at least a driver, somebody riding shotgun, and probably another in back to drag their wounded inside. So that was a few bad guys out of our hair for a minute. Sadly, I didn’t know what we’d started with, but X minus three was better than X.

  Shen tapped me on the shoulder, then pointed back the way we’d come in. We’d hit the house from poolside. Good call. It had been glass double doors there, and most eyes would be on the front toward where Stokes had been hit. Shen moved first while I covered him.

  There was a bunch of angry shouting from the back of the property.

  “This is Skunky. They just found the bodies on the balcony.”

  The SUV was far enough out that they’d be committed to their rescue now. They’d push on to the ambush site rather than try to turn around in the field and rush back to help their buddies. This was as good as it was going to get. “Open fire.”

  While I ran, I shoved the pistol back into the old nylon holster on my vest, and brought up the TMP. The little subgun didn’t have a butt stock, but between the vertical foregrip and keeping tension pushed out against the sling it made for a decently solid shooting platform.

  I didn’t hear the shot. “Winged him. Bad guy is still up,” Skunky exclaimed. “He’s retreated back inside.” Oh well, nobody was perfect.

  Shen had barely reached the poolside before he was spotted. Too soon! There was a flash of movement through a window above, the sudden opening of a curtain, and then a pane of glass was shattered as a muzzle punched it out. The man in the window just opened up, hosing down the area on full auto. Shen dove over a railing and crashed behind a stone bench as bullets zipped past him.

  I crouched behind the base of a statue. They’d not seen me yet, so I extended the TMP and ripped a burst through the window. The little 9mm roared. More glass panes broke. I couldn’t tell if I hit him, but the shooter pulled back inside.

  “Are you okay?” I shouted toward Shen as I covered the window, but that indestructible little bastard had already popped up and was running to the next available piece of cover. The curtain moved, maybe the gunman, maybe just the wind, I didn’t know, but I put another burst through the window anyway.

  “Hostiles moving up on you from the front and rear of the house,” Skunky warned. “Some are holding back. They probably think you two are just a distraction.”

  Sadly, we were the whole damned assault element now.

  Shadows appeared around the front corner of the house. I turned and fired. At nine hundred rounds per minute, it didn’t take long to burn through the rest of the magazine. I ducked back behind the statue as I dropped the mag and pulled another stick from my vest. There was a thwack and a yelp from the rear of the house as Skunky popped somebody coming around that side. We had to count on Skunky to hold that flank, and he was five hundred yards away shooting through wind.

  Someone moved on the other side of the glass doors. Shen fired at them, the suppressed EVO sounding like a series of rapid pops. I couldn’t tell if he hit them through the glass or not, but whoever was in there was smart enough to kill the interior lights so Shen couldn’t see them.

  There was a muzzle flash ahead of me and bullets hit the statue. Bits of hot stone hit me in the forehead, but I was too busy aiming to flinch. He stumbled back and fell on his ass as I put a short controlled burst into him, but he stayed upright, and shot at me again. That round hit the statue so close to my face I had no choice but to drop.

  I must have hit him in the armor, and 9mm wouldn’t do shit to it. More guys were coming up behind the man I’d hit while he kept shooting. I kept the pedestal between us and sprinted back toward the poolhouse. Of course, that’s when the asshole in the upstairs window decided to pop up again. I pushed the TMP upwards and stitched bullets across the top of the house as I ran. We were catching fire from all over. There were too many of them.

  Then a flashbang went off right at my feet.

  Sound punched my ears and light kicked me in the eyeballs. I crashed into the wall, tripped, and landed face first on the gravel. The movement in the upstairs window hadn’t been him popping up to shoot. He’d been tossing a bang out the window.

  At least it hadn’t been a frag.

  Half my vision was swimming purple blobs. When I pointed the TMP at the approaching gunmen and pulled the trigger, I couldn’t hear the gunfire. At first I thought my gun had jammed, but then I realized it was still bouncing around and a stream of hot brass was flying out the ejection port. I was just deaf again. The man I’d shot had rolled over and was trying to crawl back around the front corner. Fuck that guy. I didn’t have a shot at his head, couldn’t see my front sight, but I stuck the muzzle in the general direction of his legs and fired the rest of the magazine at him. He jerked and kicked as bullets ripped into his legs and pelvis. I pulled back to reload again. His buddies were shooting my way, putting a lot of lead in the air, and, I realized too late, a whole lot of holes in the walls around me. So half blind, all deaf, I crawled across the gravel until I hit sidewalk, popped up, found the door—locked—and kicked it in.

  I couldn’t tell you what the inside of the poolhouse looked like, purple blobs and flashing stars mostly. It sounded like ringing. I took cover behind what I think was a couch, blinking and rubbing my eyes.

  My hearing was starting to clear up enough to realize that Skunky was yelling in my ears. Something. Reloading. Incoming. Something.

  I crawled across carpet, bumped into a wall, found the window, and looked up in time to see somebody trying to peek inside, looking for me. We saw each other at the same time. Through the tears and stinging he appeared to be a tall black man wearing body armor, so I was pretty sure it wasn’t Shen, and I shot him. The window between us shattered and he flinched back. I guessed at his direction and speed, and kept firing through the wall, chasing him down with bullets as he stumbled toward the pool.

  “—Land Rover returning. I’m engaging.” I could hear Skunky better now. Stokes’ rescuers were coming back.

  I could see a little better now too. At this rate, I might even be able to aim again. Adrenalin is one hell of a chemical. There was another door on the other side of the pool house. It would put me closer to the main building and where I’d last seen Shen. I ran toward it.

  That doorway was clear. The lights in the narrow path between the pool house and the mansion had been knocked out. I saw Shen—or at least I hoped it was Shen—fifteen feet away, apparently pinned down next to the fountain. There was a chain of splashes as the dude on the second floor hung his gun out the window and rattled off wild shots downward. The TMP’s front sight was really blurry right now, but I stuck it up there anyway, and was rewarded with a bloody red flash as I put a 9mm hollow point through the man’s elbow. He jerked back inside, but lost his gun in the process. The M-4 slid down the shingles before falling on the concrete.

  I rushed over toward Shen. He was busy shooting at the men who’d come from the front. He didn’t see the one co
ming from inside, but I did. He was moving through the darkened living room. This one hadn’t had time to get dressed in anything but a pair of sweatpants, but in one hand he had a pistol and in the other he had a motherfucking hand grenade.

  His arm was moving forward, almost in slow motion, as he went to underhand toss the grenade at my friend. I opened fire. Red holes puckered across his bare chest. He lurched to the side, hit the wall, and slid down in a red smear. But the grenade had still popped out of his hand and was rolling, lopsided, across the hardwood. “Shen!”

  I grabbed Shen by the drag handle on the back of his armor, yanked him away from the doors, and shoved him toward the pool. Shen trusted me enough to throw himself face first into the shallow end. I dove in after him.

  I hit the water, then the concrete bottom of the pool just as the grenade went off above us. Even submerged I could feel the blast as it vibrated the pool. That was close.

  Underwater, holding my breath, I thumped into a body. A hand touched my face, and just from how it touched me, limp and floating, I knew it belonged to a dead man. I rolled over, thinking it was Shen, and that he’d caught a round while we’d been diving for cover, but it was the man I’d shot through the poolhouse window. His eyes were wide and staring at nothing. There was a gaping hole in his neck that was turning the water around us red. He must have fallen in after I’d shot him and the weight of his armor and ammo had taken him right to the bottom.

  I popped my head out of the water and gasped for breath as bits and pieces of debris rained from the sky. The grenade had blown a smoking black hole in the side of the chateau. Shen had already waded to the side, hung his EVO over the edge, and was shooting at the men toward the front, turning the shallow end of the pool into an improvised foxhole. I lifted the TMP, angling it forward for a moment so the water would pour out the barrel, then joined Shen, trying to drive them back.

  The bad guys must have realized the two of us weren’t just a distraction, because there were more of them heading our way. I fired, clipping a runner, who went down behind a railing. Shen was chewing up a statue that someone else had taken cover behind. He saw I was back in it, and shouted, “Moving!”

  Which was smart. If we were in the same spot too long, we’d get flanked and murdered. “Covering.” I shot the railing and the statue as Shen rolled out of the pool and ran to the side, but my 9mm didn’t penetrate for shit. Between their armor and use of the terrain, I was having a hell of a time stopping these guys. I kept firing until my bolt locked back on an empty mag. I needed something bigger, and I needed it before somebody wised up and tossed a grenade into the pool.

  While bullets snapped by, I kept my head down and waded back to the corpse. Somebody got brave enough to stand up enough to get an angle, and bullets smacked into the water around me, sending up geysers of water just as I reached the body. The dead man had landed on his rifle. I kicked him over, and saw that he had a bullpup of some kind. Splashing around, I wrestled him over until I got the sling over his head and pulled it free, only to realize that this fucker had brought a grenade launcher. It was an Israeli Tavor, but even better, there was an M203 mounted. I cracked the launcher open and confirmed it was loaded. There were more giant 40mm shells on his vest.

  Party time.

  The Tavor had a Meprolight reflext sight on top. The glowing dot reticle was super convenient when the light sucked and your eyeballs were fucked up from a flashbang. I popped up, aimed at the top of the statue Shen had a man pinned behind, and pulled the forward trigger. The grenade launcher thumped my shoulder. The 40mm shell flew across the yard to strike the statue. It exploded in a rapidly expanding cloud of white dust and shrapnel, but I didn’t stick around to study my handiwork. I’d already sunk back into the water to fish out more grenades.

  I shoved another big round in, pulled it closed, then rose from the water already pointing toward the rail. That grenade smacked it solid, throwing hot bits of metal and stone in every direction. The men ducking behind it never had a chance. By the time I loaded the third grenade, gray smoke was obscuring most of the front, but I put a grenade into the corner of the chateau just because it looked like a good place for somebody to hide behind.

  It was a good thing they hadn’t just lobbed one of these through the poolhouse window when I’d been hiding inside, but these guys were living here. The thought of blowing up their own place probably hadn’t even crossed their mind. Me? I loved blowing shit up.

  I came up with the last grenade ready, but I didn’t have any more targets. Over the ringing in my ears, I could hear screaming and coughing. I’d managed to wound a bunch of them. Nobody had come around the rear to kill us yet, so apparently Skunky had locked that side down.

  Now was our chance. I began wading up the steps. “Shen! I’m going for Bob. Cover me.”

  Shen stayed in position, searching for targets as I got out of the pool, soaked and dripping. Glass crunched beneath my sodden, now heavy shoes as I moved to the blackened hole in the side of the chateau. My nostrils were filled with the stink of carbon and chlorine. This had been a living room of some kind, but now it was just a blasted mess. The half-naked guy I’d shot had blown himself into hamburger with his own grenade. Once I had a good position, I signaled for Shen to run around the pool and come over.

  “Skunky. Can you hear me?” I thumped my radio a few times, hoping that the Exodus gear was decently waterproof. We’d only gone hot a couple of minutes ago, but the SUV sent to retrieve Stokes was probably on its way back, and I wanted to know if they’d be waiting for us. “Skunky?” But I got nothing. Shen slid in next to me. He jerked his head toward the hallway and where we thought the kitchen was. I nodded. The chateau was so old there were no blueprints or floor plans on file anywhere. Samuel hadn’t spent too much time inside, so his descriptions were crap. But he’d alarm wired the door of the one windowless storage room that was this place’s entire basement, so that was the most likely place they’d be holding Bob. The stairs down were just off the kitchen.

  We started down the hall, moving fast, with me on point and Shen watching our tail.

  The interior of the chateau was as fancy as the outside. Stokes had bought the place fully furnished, so it felt more like a rich grandma’s house than a staging area for mercenaries. I glanced down and saw Shen was leaving bloody footprints on the thick white carpet. I realized there was blood all over his leg. “No time. It’s just a scratch. Go.”

  We’d killed over half a dozen of them for sure and wounded I don’t know how many more, but we didn’t know what they’d started with, so there were an unknown number of threats remaining. We didn’t know their plans for a rescue attempt either. They might have already executed Bob. Or, they might think they were losing, and were saving him to use as a hostage or bargaining chip. Lacking time and manpower, we didn’t slow to clear each room. They could be lurking around any corner, or they could be forming up somewhere out of sight getting ready to converge on us.

  “Come on! Up the stairs. We’ve got to move.” Someone with a British accent was shouting ahead of us. “If you try anything I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

  I took a knee behind a bookshelf. I didn’t have a target, but he hadn’t been yelling at me. The voice was coming from the direction Samuel had told us the kitchen was.

  “Easy . . . I’m cooperating.” The man who responded to the agitated Brit had a deep voice and was playing it cool. I recognized that voice.

  Bob.

  “To the garage, we’re getting out of here! Now, you fuckin—”

  There was a crash, followed by a gunshot, then another and another. A man began to scream, but it turned into a horrible, gurgling, choking noise, which was suddenly cut off by another violent impact and the sound of plates breaking. There was a burst from a submachine gun and the sound of bullets tearing through wood.

  I rushed through the dining room and swept into the kitchen, stolen Tavor at my shoulder. Suddenly, the door to the kitchen flew open as a man with long
blond hair was hurled through it. He crashed hard against the table, a pistol in one hand. Snarling, not losing a beat, he struggled to get up, pointing his piece back toward the kitchen. “Fucking Yank cocksucker!”

  Shen and I both shot him repeatedly, practically riddling him with bullets, before he went down.

  The kitchen was wrecked. Everything was broken. There were bullet holes in the walls. One of Stokes’ men was on the floor, twitching, his neck snapped, probably from the impact that had left an obvious dent in the side of his head.

  And standing in the middle of the kitchen, panting and breathing hard, barefoot, wearing sweats and a t-shirt, and holding a frying pan with some blood and hair stuck to it, was the man I’d come all this way to find, my brother . . . Bob Lorenzo.

  Bob looked up as we swept in, snarling, obviously ready to fight us to the death with a frying pan. Bob was a huge, scary dude when he was just being his friendly, optimistic self. I’d never seen him in berserker mode before. Considering what he’d just done when provided with a distraction demonstrated why Kat had hired a squad of professionals to keep him contained until she needed him.

  “Bob, it’s me!” I shouted before he tried to remove my head. I raised the Tavor so the muzzle was pointing straight up. “We’re here to rescue you.”

  He made it a couple of steps then stopped. I’d blackened my face, and that was probably a running mess from the pool water, so I would’ve been hard to recognize even without the red haze of rage. He tilted his head and asked incredulously, “Hector?”

  There weren’t many people who used my real name. “It’s me. Come on, bro. We’ve got to get you out of here.”

  It was like he couldn’t believe it. He’d been a prisoner for too long to grasp the idea of being able to just walk away. I understood the feeling. “It’s really you. You found me.”

  “We’re not clear yet. There’s more of them.”

  “Fourteen total, as far as I could tell.” Bob said quickly. Good. That accounted for most of them. “Stokes called and told his men to get me out of the cellar and ready for transport. Then the shooting started.” Emotional moment or not, once a professional, always a professional. “We’ve got to get out of here. You got a ride? Otherwise the one I tossed through the door had car keys.”