Black Flagged Apex

by Steven Konkoly

  He replaced the P90’s fifty-round magazine and sprinted across the bay to Jessica. Gunfire erupted when he left the doorway, but most of the fire was directed at his previous position. He heard the snap and hiss of several near misses, as less experienced shooters poured rounds behind him. By the time they decided to adjust their fire, he had already cleared the open area between bays. When he reached Jessica, she was lying prone, covering the three men who stood with their hands in the air near the forklift. A massive gunfight erupted deeper within the loading complex.

  **

  Melendez climbed back into the passenger seat of the Cherokee and slammed the door shut. He had just pulled off a headshot with a single, suppressed 5.7X28mm round, at a range of 42 meters using the P90’s unmagnified Ring Sight. Given the fact that he had limited experience with the weapon, he was rightfully proud of the accomplishment. They had parked the SUV just out of sight around the next loading bay complex, in a position that allowed Melendez to open the door and brace the P90 against its outer edge. Munoz had parked the vehicle perfectly. The P90’s reticle barely cleared the corner of the building, but gave him an unobstructed line of fire to the guard. Munoz had stood behind him to make the determination regarding Wilkins’ position. A light tap on the shoulder indicated that Wilkins had entered the building and would not see the man’s head splatter the wall. The 5.7 round performed as advertised.

  The SUV lurched forward before the door closed, slamming Melendez against the headrest. Munoz drove across the wide expanse of crumbling asphalt that separated the two loading complexes. The large space between buildings was designed to accommodate the semi-trailers that would be navigated into position along the multiple loading bays behind the building. He drove diagonally across the asphalt, ignoring the faint markings indicating a proposed traffic flow. They needed to be in position at the corner of the building within seconds in order to effectively support Jessica and Daniel. Melendez could see the cab of the first semi-rig beyond the corner and hoped that the driver was inside the building. They had no idea how far the conspiracy penetrated, but they assumed the drivers would be heavily armed.

  The car reached the corner, and Melendez piled out, following Munoz into position at the corner. They both heard Daniel give the order to move, followed seconds later by the thunder of automatic gunfire. They turned the corner and stared at the first trailer. He could see the next trailer through the space underneath. Their quickest route to the last bay would be underneath the trailers. The gunfire intensified inside the first bay as they approached the trailer. Melendez caught some movement in his left peripheral vision and shifted the P90 to meet the threat. A man jumped down from the driver’s door with an MP-5K in his right hand, but collapsed to the asphalt in a heap. Melendez had fired an extended burst from the P90 at his center mass before sliding under the trailer behind Munoz.

  Glancing up at the bays as they moved through the fleet of trailers, they could tell that it would be a tight fit squeezing through the openings between the trailer sides and loading dock. They ducked under the second to last trailer, coming up on the last bay. A quick movement to their left brought both P90s up to their shoulders. Neither of them fired at the bearded, pot-bellied Grizzly Adams lookalike standing with his hands in the air.

  “Federal agents. How long have you been with True America?” Munoz said, flashing his badge.

  “What? I’ve lived in America all my life. Look. I’m getting paid double for this haul. I don’t ask questions, as long as they’re just loading water in my rig. If Mr. Mills has paranoid friends that want to guard their water shipment, that ain’t none of my business,” the man said.

  The sound of automatic gunfire and individual pistol shots rang out, slightly muffled by the thick rubber seal linking the back of the trailer to the bay.

  “Could you move your rig up a few feet so we can get into the bay? We’ll make sure our people know whose side you’re on. Stay in your cab until we come back for you,” Munoz requested.

  “No problem. I got nothing to do with this shit.” Grizzly Adams ran back to his cab faster than either of them thought possible.

  The diesel rumbled to life and lurched forward a few feet. Munoz and Melendez climbed into the bay undetected and started to clear the complex.

  **

  Jessica couldn’t believe how badly she had fucked up their one chance at grabbing Anne Renee Paulson. She had underestimated the woman on every level. The knee shot to her kidney had come a fraction of a second before she could throw her elbow, stunning her long enough to lose physical contact. Then she had recklessly chosen to pursue her through the doorway into the open bay area. She’d left Daniel with no choice but to kill her. She really hoped her decision didn’t jeopardize their ability to track the shipments.

  An incredible overpressure filled her ears, followed by repeated blasts, which caused her to press both of her palms against the sides of her head. Muzzle flashes extended beyond the wall in front of her, heating her face. Someone had just emptied an entire magazine on full automatic less than a foot from her face. The ringing in her ears continued when the gun fell silent. Daniel signaled for her to go prone, which she immediately acknowledged by diving to the cold concrete floor, facing away from the corner. She never heard the fusillade of bullets puncturing the wall where she once knelt, but she felt the jagged pieces of cinderblock pepper her back and strike her head.

  A black semiautomatic pistol slid in front of her, which she grabbed without wasting the time to acknowledge her generous benefactor. She rose to one knee and aimed at the men near the back of the open trailer in bay one. None of them appeared to be armed. From the looks on their faces, they didn’t appear to have any interest in weapons. Their hands flew skyward. A few seconds later, she saw Daniel burst through the doorway, headed in her direction. He reached her unscathed, despite the maelstrom of bullets that struck the bay wall behind him. She felt his comforting hand on her shoulder and could tell he was trying to tell her something.

  She looked at him and shook her head. “I can’t hear anything,” she said, which came out at full volume.

  Daniel nodded his head and pointed at the three men. She understood.

  **

  Daniel grimaced when Jessica yelled at him. The machine-gun blasts had induced a temporary hearing loss that could last most of the day, producing a ringing or buzzing sound that would gradually diminish. This could become a considerable liability for their team if they decided to raid Mills’ lakeside mansion. Satisfied that Jessica had this group under control, he spun around and faced the corner, determined to draw this battle to a quick end.

  He raised the suppressed P90 and peeked around the corner, drawing fire from a guard hidden behind a forklift parked two bays down. The small-caliber rounds struck the wall in front of Daniel, spraying his face with sharp fragments and causing him to flinch. The gunfire was relatively accurate for fully automatic bursts, but not accurate enough to suppress Daniel. He placed the shooter’s head at the top of the Ring Sight’s T-shaped reticle and pulled the trigger back far enough to fire a short burst of three rounds. The result was immediate, knocking the shooter back through the red cloud that had exploded from his head. He was starting to get the hang of this exotic weapon.

  He detected movement to the left and aimed at a point two feet in, along the inner wall separating bays two and three. He’d seen something low profile peek around the corner. A quick peek from someone being cautious. He depressed the trigger again, holding it down for a second, sending roughly a dozen rounds through the cinderblock wall. A figure stumbled into the open past the corner, holding a standard Heckler and Koch MP-5 in one hand. Daniel couldn’t see the entry wounds, but knew the man was finished. He let the man crumble to the concrete without taking further action to hasten his fall.

  “Bay six clear. M and M clearing bay five,” he heard in his earpiece.

  From the far reaches of the loading complex, he saw two men take position along the furthest opening.
They started cycling their weapons immediately through targets located in the furthest bays. Daniel couldn’t hear their weapons from this distance, but he could tell they were actively clearing the bay. Specifically designed for the P90, the attached Gemtech suppressors reduced the sound produced by the weapon to the gun’s own internal mechanism. Standing several feet away, it would sound like someone rapidly pulling the charging handle. At fifty feet, it would draw little attention from someone not attuned to the sound of suppressed firearms.

  Determining that the opening directly in front of him was clear, he extended his torso around the corner, peering into the bay. Aside from several dozen pallets of bottled water set against the wall, the bay looked clear. He saw some movement deep inside the semi-trailer, behind a stack of secured pallets, but nobody fired at him from that direction. He motioned for them to come out of the trailer and waited.

  “Bay five clear,” he heard in his earpiece.

  “Bay one clear. Clearing bay two. Watch inside the trailers. I found a few hiding,” Daniel replied.

  He saw M and M move cautiously through bay five. When they reached the opening to bay four, automatic gunfire thundered throughout the complex. The long bursts of fire concentrated on the corners hiding the two operatives. Dozens of projectiles tore the cinderblock barrier apart, cracking it in several places and exploding jagged pieces across the concrete floor. He was really glad they were using standard ammunition. The industrial-grade walls separating the bays continued to prove effective cover against 9mm projectiles.

  The men in the trailer walked out with their hands on their heads. Daniel sprinted around the corner and approached them, keeping an eye on bay three. He didn’t see anyone in the brief second he was exposed.

  “Face against the wall, on your knees. Fingers interlaced.”

  He circled behind the men as they quickly moved against the wall. Once they were flush against the wall, he frisked them for weapons, finding a 9mm Beretta pistol on the first man. He tucked this into his belt and completed the search of the other two, yielding nothing but a stainless-steel multi-tool.

  “True America?” Daniel said, slapping the first man’s head.

  The light-haired man nodded, and Daniel went to work with the oversized zip ties stuffed into his front jacket pockets. He secured the man’s wrists and ankles, connecting the two zip ties together with a third, effectively hog-tying the man. He pulled the scruffy-looking guy to the concrete.

  “What about the rest of you?” he hissed.

  “I was offered overtime. Been working since last night. Same with Benny,” he said, nodding at the other guy.

  “Don’t move from this spot or I’ll kill you. Understood?”

  The two men nodded.

  “Bay four clear.”

  One more bay to go. Daniel arrived at the corner in time to see two men take up position behind a stack of empty pallets to fire on Munoz and Melendez. He fired extended bursts at both men, instantly dropping them to the ground behind the blood-sprayed wood. Each of the terrorists’ upper torsos had absorbed roughly half of the P90’s remaining twenty-eight rounds, which tumbled upon entry, fragmenting bone and jellifying their chest cavities. They were dead before their bodies started to fall.

  Daniel detected movement to his left. Something moving fast. His world exploded a millisecond later.

  **

  Melendez hit the corner hard and dropped to a prone position. He didn’t want a repeat of what happened in the last bay. He had been hammered by the repeated impact of cinderblock chunks, as the bullets pulverized the reinforced wall in front of him. The combination of stinging fragments and the prolonged sound of automatic gunfire caused him to instinctually crouch, knowing on some level that the wall wouldn’t resist the 9mm onslaught much longer. He wasn’t sure how many of the bullets had made it through, but a sizable hole remained when the guns fell silent. Large enough for him to use as a firing port to clear his side of the room.

  He heard the mechanical sound of a suppressed P90. Two long bursts. He slid into a firing position at the corner of the wall and leaned his weapon in to take a quick look. Two men immediately filled his view, both carrying drum-fed shotguns. Melendez fired a quick center of mass burst at the man aiming the shotgun in his direction and retracted his head. The first shotgun blast disintegrated a 2x2-foot section three feet above his head. The rest of the 12-gauge 00 buckshot went high as the mortally wounded shooter lost the ability to control the shotgun. Still, he managed to fire the entire thirty-round drum, even as he fell backward. His efforts brought down half of the cinderblock onto Melendez and punched several dozen holes through the roof. Because of the devastating shotgun blasts and hailstorm of concrete, he assumed that both shooters had unloaded on his wall.

  **

  Jessica felt the vibrations and miniature shockwaves produced by the automatic fire deeper inside the loading complex. She could also hear a low thumping sound over the persistent buzzing and ringing. Her sudden deafness left her feeling exposed. She constantly looked around, painfully aware of the fact that she couldn’t hear someone walk up to her. She glanced back and forth between the blasted cinderblock corner and the three men. They looked terrified of the gunfire.

  “Stay right here,” she said, knowing that she had probably yelled this at them.

  Against her better judgment and training, she left the men alone and scrambled for the opening. She reached the corner in time to see the wall next to Daniel explode, knocking him backward. The explosions continued, vaporizing sections of the wall, but sparing Daniel any further concussive damage. He scurried backward along the floor, losing his grip on the P90, as a figure shouldering a Saiga shotgun attempted to round the corner. The man repeatedly discharged the shortened semiautomatic shotgun as he walked, emboldened by the sheer firepower at his disposal. He appeared oblivious to Jessica’s sudden presence.

  She lined up the HK USP Compact’s three-dot sight on the man’s head and fired a single shot that stopped the firing. The man stumbled forward, discharging the weapon into the concrete one last time, before falling onto the clumsy shotgun. Daniel lay on his back, fumbling with an unfamiliar Beretta, which he finally extended toward the fallen shooter. He stared at her in disbelief and winked, which was the extent of the acknowledgement she required for saving his ass. She smirked, shaking her head, and turned to deal with the men she had left unattended. Thankfully, they hadn’t moved a centimeter.

  **

  Daniel’s ears rang, but he had no problem hearing Munoz.

  “All clear in bay three. You okay in there?” Munoz yelled through the opening.

  “I think so. How the fuck did you miss the guy with the Saiga?” Daniel yelled, making no effort to stand up.

  “Two guys with Saigas. The other one fucked up Melendez. They came out of nowhere,” Munoz said, showing his face through one of the holes in the wall.

  Daniel sprang to his feet and retrieved the P90. “Jessica’s deaf. Help her out with the prisoners and get Wilkins back in here. We may need him,” he said, pointing at Anne Renee’s contorted body.

  “Shit. I’m on it,” Munoz said and ran toward bay one. Daniel reloaded while walking toward Melendez. A gray, cement-powder-encrusted form lay still among the rubble.

  “I’m fine,” Melendez said, lifting his head from the pile.

  He spit a few marble-sized chunks from his mouth and shook the debris from his head. Daniel offered him a hand and examined the bay. Four men dead and two huddled inside the back of the semi-trailer with their hands on their heads.

  “Any live ones in bays five and six?”

  “Negative. We cleared anything that moved,” Melendez said.

  “How did you get in?” Daniel said, glancing at the tightly sealed docking connection around the open trailer.

  “The driver pulled forward a few feet to let us in. He must have been one of Wilkins’ regular drivers. The driver of the first truck was definitely True America. He jumped down from his cab with an MP-5K.
”

  “Go back out and get him. We need to talk to a driver,” Daniel said.

  “Got it.”

  Melendez rushed through the bays, trailing concrete dust. Daniel ran to the back of the trailer truck and ordered the two men forward. He hustled them at gunpoint toward bay two after a quick search. When he arrived in bay two, he found all three of the men pressed firmly against the wall. He was slightly surprised to see that the two unsecured men hadn’t fled during the shotgun attack. He pointed at the hog-tied terrorist.

  “Drag him by his legs into the first bay,” he ordered, then turned toward the room and yelled, “I want all of the prisoners assembled against the wall in bay one.”

  Daniel planned to spend one minute determining who would leave with them. He couldn’t imagine they would be able to stay here for much longer. The gun battle inside the warehouse was sure to have attracted attention. He expected to hear from Graves shortly. When he reached bay one, he directed the seven men to stand with their backs to the wall. The True America prisoner was thrown against the cinderblocks by the warehouse loaders, one of whom kicked him in the stomach. He’d start this without Melendez and the driver. They really needed to get out of here.

  “Everyone look up at me. I don’t work for the FBI or any federal agency. I have no rules or restrictions holding me back, so don’t fuck with me. True America is finished. Jackson Greely, Lee Harding and Owen Mills will be dead before the sun goes down. No mercy will be shown. This is how my organization works. The bottled water loaded onto these trucks carries the same weaponized encephalitis that destroyed a city in Russia and led to the president’s national address yesterday morning.”