Once Is Never Enough
Page 33
“¡Apartese del camino!” Mendoza shouted as he locked eyes with Flynn and charged toward him, knocking one of the toddlers off his feet. Flynn stood frozen as Mendoza raised his weapon. At this distance the big man knew he couldn’t miss.
Flynn understood that death had finally come. There was nowhere to hide. Not this time. And in that split second, he decided he was okay with that. That he had lived his life the way he wanted to. As he braced himself for the bullet, a wall of flesh hit Mendoza like a freight train. He heard the .9mm round whistle past his head as every single one of Ty’s two hundred and seventy-five-pounds smacked Mendoza sideways. He splashed into one of the Koi ponds with Ty right on top of him. The splatter was epic and hit everyone in a fifteen-foot radius.
Mendoza wrestled with Ty, pushed him away, and struggled to his feet just in time for Mary Alice to clock him with a cinderblock. Bob jumped on his back, giggling like an idiot. Mendoza made it to the edge of the water as Doris stabbed him in the neck with a giant hairpin. The big man flailed and fell back into the pond. Even Rodney and Zipper got in on the action. Mendoza lay face down in the mud, fighting for his life, throwing elbows and fists and gasping to get his head above water.
Flynn considered joining the fray, but they were doing fine without him. Nickelson and Nurse Durkin just stood there and watched, too nonplussed to know what to do.
Mendoza finally fought off his attackers and managed to crawl out of the pond. Soaked head to toe and covered in mud, he staggered out of the Japanese Garden as his assailants followed. Flynn saw him reach the main path and hesitate as he looked back at his pursuers. He didn’t see the Descanso Gardens tram bearing down on him with Q behind the wheel.
The tram blindsided Mendoza. He tumbled through the air and hit the ground hard, the impact knocking him cold. Flynn took advantage of his lack of consciousness to hogtie him with a roll of garden twine.
Flynn looked up from the muddy and bedraggled Mendoza. He was surrounded on all sides by the patients who came to his rescue. He addressed them proudly. “This was to be a training exercise today, but instead you confronted real danger. Mr. Mendoza wanted me dead and if not for all you, I likely would be.” He patted Ty on the shoulder. “I owe you one, my friend.”
“One what?” asked Ty.
“Whatever you want.”
“Pinkberry.”
“You want Pinkberry.”
“There’s one right up the street.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Mary Alice.
Bob raised his hand. “I want some.”
“Me too,” Doris said.
Rodney made a face. “I hate Pinkberry. It’s too damn tart.”
Mary Alice glared at him. “Who asked you?”
“I think each and every one of us deserves whatever brief pleasure we can find in this dangerous world,” Flynn said. “Unlike most who move through this world blissfully unaware of how precarious life is, we see what others don’t and fight battles most can’t comprehend. We struggle with fear and uncertainty and suffer immeasurable pain, yet each day we rise and join the fight again.”
Flynn looked at Doris and Bob, Q and Mary Alice, Rodney, and Ty and saw in their eyes that each understood exactly what he was telling them.
“I thank you for your bravery. For your friendship. For your strength and fortitude in the—”
Flynn caught sight of Sancho sitting slumped over on a bench a short distance away, his shirt soaked in blood. Flynn ran to him. The bullet meant for him found another target. Sancho’s face grew deathly white.
Flynn ripped back the fabric of Sancho’s City of Roses shirt. A puckered wound on the far-right side of his torso bore testament to his friend’s waning life.
Nickelson arrived and moved him out of the way. “Nurse Jilly, give me a hand here!”
Nurse Jilly helped cradle Sancho as Nickelson carefully leaned him forward and found an exit wound.
“Looks like it went straight through,” Nickelson said. “It’s hard to tell what kind of damage it did until we get you to a hospital.”
“I’ll call an ambulance. Everybody else back on the bus,” Durkin commanded
“Fine,” Ty said. “But first we’re going to Pinkberry.”
~ * ~
If you enjoyed this book, please consider writing a short review and posting it on your favorite review site. Reviews are very helpful to other readers and are greatly appreciated by authors, especially me. When you post a review, drop me an email and let me know and I may feature part of it on my blog/site. Thank you.
~Haris
Message from the Author
Dear Reader,
I was a shy, skinny, bookish, bespectacled, and insecure twelve old living in the suburbs of Chicago when I first realized what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be Alexander Mundy in It Takes a Thief. I wanted to be Illya Kuryakin in The Man from Uncle. I wanted to be part of the Mission Impossible team. I wanted to be Jim West, Derek Flint, and Matt Helm. I wanted to be James Bond.
Those men had no fear. They knew karate and could scuba dive and rock climb and skydive and ski and shoot the eye out of a flea at fifty yards. They were confident in any situation and were comfortable in their own skin. I think that was the biggest wish fulfillment fantasy of all for an awkward pre-teen struggling through puberty and that’s what inspired James Flynn and his adventures.
At twelve I was terrified of girls. I was always picked last in gym class. I lived a life of perpetual embarrassment. In hindsight, that’s probably how most twelve-year olds feel, but at the time, I didn’t know that. So I started lifting weights. I became a gymnast. I boxed. I studied karate. I became a rock climber and learned to ski and scuba dive. I even studied in London for a year and traveled the world.
But I never did become an international super spy. Instead I became a screenwriter and game writer, creating wish fulfillment fantasies for other nerdy twelve-year olds. Thank you for indulging in my fantasies. I hope you enjoyed the journey. I do believe Mr. Flynn is just getting started.
Please connect with me on Twitter and Facebook and feel free to ask me anything. This is a two-way conversation.
~Haris Orkin
About the Author
Haris Orkin is a playwright, screenwriter, game writer, and novelist. His play, Dada was produced at The American Stage and the La Jolla Playhouse. Sex, Impotence, and International Terrorism was chosen as a critic’s choice by the L.A. Weekly and sold as a film script to MGM/UA. Save the Dog was produced as a Disney Sunday Night movie. His original screenplay, A Saintly Switch, was directed by Peter Bogdanovich and starred David Alan Grier and Viveca Fox.
He is a WGA Award and BAFTA Award nominated game writer and narrative designer known for Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, Tom Clancy’s The Division, Mafia 3, and Dying Light, which to date has sold over 7.5 million copies.
Haris has contributed chapters to two books put out by the International Game Developers Association; Writing for Video Game Genres and Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing.
www.harisorkin.com
https://twitter.com/HarisOrkin
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