End Game

by David Baldacci

  each some nails, screws, and other bits of jagged metal that they had found in some of the cabinets.

  When she saw Robie with the weapons and the NV goggles, she said, “How’d you score that?”

  “Just lucky timing. What do we got?” he said, looking at the paint can.

  “I’m taking a page from our ‘friends’ in the Middle East and making a couple of IEDs.”

  He checked on Malloy. Blue Man had dressed her wound as best he could.

  “I can still fight,” she said. “I’m right-handed, so make sure I have something to fight with.”

  Robie nodded and walked over to the table and picked up what had been the barrel of one of the rifles, which had also been removed from its stock. Duct-taped to the muzzle was a very sharp-edged piece of metal.

  Reel called out, “So there are seven of them left?”

  Robie nodded. “But don’t put it past them to add reinforcements. Remember that Dolph and Patti and some of their cronies might still be here.”

  “Let’s focus on getting the seven first,” replied Reel. “Especially Randall.”

  “They’re going to have both doors covered,” said Lamarre.

  “Which means they had to split their force, three and four,” said Robie.

  “But if we open one of those doors they’re going to open fire and we’re dead,” rejoined Lamarre.

  “My, my what an optimist you are,” said Reel.

  “So what are we going to do?” asked Mateo.

  “We need to create a diversion,” answered Robie.

  “With what?” snapped Lamarre. “Using one of us? Well, I’m not sacrificing myself.”

  “Well, that’s a good thing, because we don’t need you to. We have someone else to play that role,” said Robie.

  He walked out of the room and a minute later came back carrying the dead man over his shoulder.

  “Holy shit!” exclaimed Lamarre. “What happened to him?”

  Robie set the body down. “I killed him before he killed me.” He examined Lamarre. “You’re about his height. Switch clothes and put his ball cap on.”

  “What?”

  “Take your clothes off and put his on.”

  “But they’re covered in blood.”

  Reel stepped forward after hefting the piece of glass attached to the metal gun barrel. “Either switch clothes or I gut you right here. And then you’ll be covered in blood. Yours.”

  Lamarre looked at her incredulously. “You can’t be se—”

  Reel placed the glass right against his neck.

  Blue Man said, “Based on experience I can tell you that she is dead serious.”

  Lamarre started quickly stripping off his clothes. While that was happening, Robie and Mateo had found an old push broom. After they had put Lamarre’s clothes on the dead body, they used duct tape to secure the body to the broom and positioned him standing up. Reel used the tape to stick one of the nine-millimeter pistols to the dead man’s hand and then taped it to his side so it looked like he was pointing it.

  They moved the body over to the door they had come through.

  Robie said to Reel, “We’ll do the positioning, you take the rifle and goggles.” He explained the plan to the others and put his hand on the door.

  Lamarre said, “If they’ve got this night-vision shit, won’t they know it’s a dead guy? Their own dead guy?”

  “Night optics aren’t like looking at a high-def TV,” pointed out Robie. “And they’re going to have maybe a split second to decide to fire. But if you have a better idea, I’d be glad to hear it.”

  In response, Lamarre looked down at the floor.

  Robie glanced back at Reel. She had on the optics, and the rifle was pointed toward the door.

  “We can’t tell which way,” he noted.

  “As you know, I can always be flexible,” she replied, swinging the rifle to the left and then the right.

  He looked at Blue Man and Parry, who had hold of the upright corpse.

  “Move him closer to the door,” he said.

  They did so and then Robie glanced at the others. “Get out of the line of fire and stay down.”

  Malloy, Mateo, Camilla, and Lamarre backed away and knelt down.

  “On the count of three,” said Robie. He performed the countdown and then wrenched open the door.

  Blue Man and Parry pushed the corpse forward and out into the corridor and then dropped to the floor.

  Barely a heartbeat of time passed before the shots rang out, hitting the dead man in the head and chest but, of course, failing to kill him a second time.

  Another second passed, then Reel’s rifle fired three times.

  They heard one scream and then two bodies hit the floor down the corridor and to the left. They heard feet running away.

  “Three down, four to go,” said Reel.

  “And now they know we’re armed,” said Blue Man.

  Robie said to Reel, “Let’s go get some more real guns and level the playing field.”

  They sprinted out into the darkened hall, with Reel covering Robie.

  Robie reached the dead men. Neither was Scott Randall.

  Reel noted this and said, “Good. I want to kill him up close and personal.”

  Within thirty seconds they had two rifles, two pistols, a load of spare ammo, and another pair of night optics.

  And something else of immense value that Robie quickly pocketed.

  They ran back to the group and distributed the weaponry.

  Robie put the night optics on and looked through them.

  He noted the bullet hole through the right lens and glanced at Reel.

  “Nice shooting.”

  “Do they still work?” she said.

  “Better than what we had.”

  Reel said to the others, “Okay, now we outnumber them. We’re going to go on the offensive and get the hell out of here.”

  Robie added, “We’ll split up into two groups. Jess will go with one group and I’ll go with the other. The third guy ran away to the right. We’ll go that way. Jess and the others will go to the left.”

  “But how will we communicate, Robie?” asked Blue Man.

  In answer Robie held up the other things of value he had found on the corpses.

  Two communication packs complete with headsets.

  “They’re going to know that we took out two more guys and they’ll have to assume that we got these. They’ll change their radio frequency so we won’t be able to get any intel from that. We’ll change our frequency, too, and communicate that way.”

  They geared up and started to divvy up their forces.

  Malloy stepped toward Robie and said, “I’d like to go with you.”

  Reel glanced at Robie but made no comment.

  “Okay,” he said. Looking at Blue Man he said, “Sir, you go with Jess, Mateo, and Lamarre. Parry and Camilla can come with me.”

  They split up into these groups.

  Robie looked at Reel. “Good hunting.”

  “Same to you.”

  “Feel better about our odds?” he asked.

  “I never doubted them. Even with fake bullets.”

  “You know they’re going to bring reinforcements.”

  “God, I hope they do.”

  She turned and led her ragtag band away into the darkness.

  Chapter

  73

  FUZZY GREEN ON black with constrained depth perception. Like being underwater with one eye closed.

  That was the best way Robie could describe the world he was seeing now through his damaged optics.

  His rifle was pointed out in front of him.

  Behind him were Parry, Malloy, and Camilla. They were each armed, but they were counting on him to see what was coming.

  Parry whispered hoarsely, “Getting hard to breathe.”

  Robie nodded. He had noted that, too. “They’ve probably cut whatever air filtration they have down here.”

  Camilla said fearfully, “So they’
re going to try to what, smother us?”

  “Something like that.”

  It was also getting hot.

  Malloy rubbed the sweat off her face. “Feels like a sauna down here.”

  “Yes, it does,” said Robie.

  She looked at him. “You’re not even perspiring.”

  “I’ve been in dry heat before. I guess you get used to it.”

  “Dry heat? Arizona?”

  “Try Fallujah. But when it’s a hundred and thirty in the shade, it doesn’t really matter whether it’s a dry heat or not. It’s just hot.”

  He paused and held a hand up. He motioned to Parry to kneel on his right and Camilla on his left. He tapped Malloy on the shoulder and indicated for her to follow him.

  Then Robie saw it, but too late to do anything about it. The round zipped right past his waist.

  He heard it impact something. That something grunted and then pitched forward.

  Camilla cried out. “Omigod!”

  Robie said nothing. He calmly aimed right above the muzzle flash he had just seen. His rifle barked twice. Malloy fired rounds from her pistol.

  The shots went where they were supposed to and another man died.

  Robie sprinted forward, keeping his rifle aimed in front of him. Malloy was right behind him, her pistol at the ready.

  “Down!” Robie snapped.

  They both hit the floor on their bellies as a hail of gunfire zipped right above them.

  Robie returned fire, as did Malloy.

  “Give me some cover,” he told her. “Five shots and then stand down.”

  She slipped in a new mag and awaited his signal.

  “Now.”

  She sprayed five shots at the other end of the hall.

  Robie readied the canvas bag that Reel had given him. She had inserted a fuse through the bottom of the bag and run it into the pile of gunpowder inside.

  He lit the fuse and looked at Malloy. “On the count of three, five more shots, direct them down the right side of the hall.”

  She nodded as he got to his knees and looked up ahead to see where his target was.

  “One…two…three.”

  Malloy fired five rounds down the right side as Robie launched himself down the left side.

  Come on, come on.

  When Malloy’s last round fired, he crouched down but kept moving forward.

  Then he saw it. Two men, ten yards away on the left, preparing to fire.

  He lit the fuse, let it burn to the side of the canvas, then swung the bag back and then hurled it forward. He looked like he had just launched a bowling ball. The bag slid along the floor.

  He knew his IED didn’t have a lot of range. He would have to get it close for it to do any good at all.

  The men lined up their shots.

  Robie could see this through the one good eye of his optics. He sprawled on his stomach, his hands over his ears and his eyes closed.

  The canvas bag slid within six inches of the men when the flame hit the nail-and-screw-infused powder. There was a boom and a flash and then heavy smoke.

  When it cleared Robie saw the two men. Or what was left of them.

  Jessica Reel obviously knew how to build an improvised explosive.

  He hustled over to the dead men. Though the bomb had done considerable damage, he could see that neither was Scott Randall. He had already seen through his optics that the man he had gunned down wasn’t Randall, either.

  Okay, five down, three to go.

  Robie felt like he was back in London.

  Malloy looked in the direction of the explosion and said, “Are we good?”

  Robie looked behind him at the body of JC Parry.

  Camilla was standing helplessly over it with tears in her eyes. “He…he must have seen something. He threw himself in front of me. He saved my life. And lost…his.”

  Malloy crossed herself and said quietly, “JC’s a hero.”

  “Yeah, he is,” said Robie. “And it’s our job not to let him die in vain.”

  Malloy drew closer to Robie, rubbing her injured arm. “This is a nightmare.”

  “No, a nightmare is what’s coming for the rest of these assholes.”

  Chapter

  74

  SHARP AND CLEAR.

  The dark passage was bright as day in Jessica Reel’s optic-powered universe.

  She was point with Blue Man behind and on her right.

  Mateo was on her left looking determined.

  Lamarre was bringing up the rear looking terrified.

  “Can you tell where we are?” Reel asked Blue Man.

  He looked around and nodded. “The passage bleeding off the secondary hall to the missile room. Up ahead is a door on the left that will access that space.”

  “And beyond that? How do we get back to the surface?”

  “Through the missile room there are stairs leading up.”

  Reel’s comm crackled.

  It was Robie. “Three down and done,” he reported.

  “Casualties?”

  “Parry.”

  “Randall?”

  “Negative. He must be on your end.”

  Reel smiled grimly. “Give me your nine.”

  He told her his location. She relayed this to Blue Man, who then took the comm and told Robie how to get to the surface before passing the headset back to Reel.

  Reel said into the headset, “I’ll nail the three if they’re still down here. Then we need to hook up at the point Blue Man just relayed to you. From there we can fight our way out.”

  “Roger that. On our way.”